On Monday afternoon, I took a break on a trans-Manhattan hike for noodles at Kelley & Ping on Greene and Houston. It was horribly busy and everyone in line was scoping the room, waiting for people to free up some tables. The seated people were all eating, except Ralph Fiennes, who was sitting by himself in the back area. For a while, I enjoyed the peculiarly Soho spectacle of mega-international-film-star-avoidance, as everyone was taking his painfully handsome presence for granted, but I got a little peeved when I realized he’d been sitting there for like half an hour after finishing his noodle bowl without freeing up his table. He was just sitting there, writing something with a pencil. Some middle-aged biddies in line sotto voced hints they wanted to say hi to him, which finally spooked him out. I couldn’t decide whether this proves that people who lunch in Soho are nice enough to leave gorgeous film stars alone or whether people who lunch in Soho are all convinced they’re more important than Ralph Fiennes anyway.
oh gott, der ärmste.
er hat es doch wirklich nicht leicht 
