East End Boys and West End Girls

I may be a West Coast girl through and through, but there is just something about the East Coast that calls my names every now and then. Patrick, my cute, sweet and darling friend from Chicago, is completely convinced I need to pack up and move from L.A. to New York. In fact, immediately after exchanging names with him and his oh-so-handsome friend Sylvester during our initial meeting, Patrick spent a good half hour persuading me I was made for the East Coast. Just because I'm a huge fan of men from the right coast and because I read up -- daily -- on everything imaginable about NYC (I might as well be wearing an I Love NY tee right now) doesn't necessarily mean I'm ready to brave frost bite weather, public transportation 24-7, and concrete jungle.

But, Patrick definitely got me thinking: can this Western girl be an Eastern one?

Okay. So I confess to know a whole lot about the Big Apple for someone who doesn't live there.

Let me count 21 reasons why Haute Hippie's a pseudo-New Yorker:

1. Olympus Fashion Week.

2. Carrie Bradshaw. Sex and the City. Cosmopolitans. Manolos. Mister Big.

3. New York is a city made for walking and the citygoers walk in four-inch heels. Every day.

4. Birthplace of Kirna Zabate, Scoop, Jeffrey's, Intermix, and other such fabulous boutiques.

5. Doorstoop block parties.

6. Rooftop pool parties.

7. Stomping grounds for the young designer wunkerkind brigade: Doo.Ri Chung, Richard Chai, Zac Posen, Behnaz Sarafpour, Petra Von Vaughn...the list goes on and on (but their latest concoctions are no doubt featured in this month's Vogue).

8. A gazillion eatery choices in a span of two blocks.

9. Muse for informative websites and some damn good fun ones. The New York Times. New York Social Diary. New York Magazine. Fashion Week Daily. Overheard in New York. Hollaback NYC.

10. Gawker Stalker. Regular folk dishing about their recent celeb sightings around the Big Apple -- very, very sarcastically. It'll be worth your New York minute to check out the entire Gawker site. Love ya, Jess Cohen.

11. The Conde Nast Empire Strikes Back. Scary how it's taking over the entire fashion publishing industry, but I still buy all their magazines anyway. And I would absolutely die for a job there. Fairchild, who?

12. It's a city where Christmas actually feels like Christmas. Literally -- as in zero degrees celsius literally.

13. A hop and a skip on the subway will transport you into a whole different world -- better known as a borough or if you want to talk in smaller terms, a district. The West Village, Chelsea, gentrified Harlem, Brooklyn, the Meatpacking District, the Upper East Side, Central Park, midtown Manhattan. How the heck does all this fit on such a tiny little island?

14. The only place in North America (maybe besides Dallas) where socialites legitimately exist and trump celebrities. PYTs -- shorthand for Pretty Young Things -- live and breathe to get photographed in borrowed couture at the evening's biggest soiree. Current PYT fave: Tinsley Mortimer. Classic PYT fave: Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer (Santa, can I pretty please have her husband under my tree for Christmas?). Classic of all classic socialites: the late and great Nan Kempner.

15. A city that actually has four seasons. California basically has one, with the odd rainy day here and there.

16. Anna Wintour. Glenda Bailey. Kate Betts. Leslie Jane Seymour. Kate White. Cindy Leive.

17. The Donald and his Apprentices. You go, Rebecca! (I know she was the runner-up this season, but still)

18. Those little vendors selling wicked costume jewelry. But beware of the knock-offs, unless you either want a huge fine or the knowledge that you've just supported child labor and contributed to terrorist funding through buying that fake Louis.

19. It's a city where most people keep it real, at least in my opinion. Maybe New Yorkers are harder, but they seem to know what they want and how they need to get there. I also like how New Yorkers -- male and female -- aren't afraid to strike up a conversation, wherever they happen to be.

20. There is so much culture in one small place. Broadway, museums, a multicultural population, ethnic restaurants galore. It's a beautiful thing.

21. New York is the fashion capital of North America. Enough said.

I'm Lovin' it: MySpace. R-Shizz was persuing it the other night, looking for people she knew in New York and for kicks, decided to search for an ex-boyfriend of mine that she met once when he visited here. Sure enough, there he was -- with a list of interests, a pseudo name (his real one spelled backwards, nonetheless), and a couple pictures. Interesting how many people (45 million members) are Myspacing these days. I looked up a guy I dated briefly awhile ago and found him. Needless to say, he still looks extremely good, is a Libra (okay, okay, I knew this already!), loves "baynards and beers", still works in fashion (he won a huge contest to design a men's collection for Le Chateau), is still athletic, is still close knit with his gorgeous boy posse, and is currently single. Think I need to start myself a buddy list soon, starting with Octobersam!

I'm Over it: Supermodels getting all the good men. Jacquetta Wheeler and hot fashion photographer Alexi Lubomirski. Natalia Vodianova and British royalty Justin Portman. Gisele Bundchen and pro surfer Kelly Slater (see ya, Leo). May Andersen and human guinea pig Steve-O. Okay, maybe not Steve-O, but that still leaves no hope for us normal people.

Track Classic of the Day: "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra. Ol' Blue Eyes is completely appropriate for today's pick, n'est pas?