Steve from 'Sex and the City'

Eigenberg and I were having what felt like 50 conversations at once, because he turned out to be a madman who talked at warp speed, in one long run-on sentence.`

Two years ago, not long after I returned to work post-maternity leave, I found myself at a Planned Parenthood gala in D.C. I felt like a tourist. Having just spent five months in my sweatpants, speaking in baby-rhyme with an infant hanging from my boob, I might as well have been an alien among these well-dressed people, with their wineglasses and their witty repartee.

So as I sat down at my table, I was relieved to recognize the man seated next to me. Semitic, bespectacled, handsome in a nebbishy way—I couldn’t place him, but a wash of warmth told me this was an old friend.

“Do we know each other?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said, playing along. “You look familiar, too.” A couple of rounds of Jewish Geography got us nowhere. He smiled an impish smile—so familiar!—and threw up his hands in defeat, but I persisted: “Are you with Planned Parenthood?” That’s when his face changed to an expression that said, "Oh wow, she really _doesn’t_ know."

In that instant, my brain woke up. It was Steve from _Sex and the City._

My mind reeled. How could I not have recognized David Eigenberg? For months, I’d been seeing his face nearly every day while catching up on _Sex and the City_ during my daughter’s marathon nursing sessions. It had become my escape: I’d switch on the DVD player and forget for the moment all the ways in which I resembled a dairy cow, and all the terrifyingly powerful ways motherhood was changing me.

Naturally, I’d latched onto the story line of the only characters with a baby—Miranda and her sometime boyfriend Steve. The further I’d gotten into the series, the more fervently I’d hoped these newly minted parents would get their acts together.

Eigenberg and I were having what felt like 50 conversations at once, because he turned out to be a madman who talked at warp speed, in one long run-on sentence: “I gotta tell ya, I hate coming to Washington, it’s such a slap in the face, the Bushies running this country are _such_ idiots, hey, are those _nuts_ on our salads—are nuts even supposed to _be_ on salads...”

“Do you and Miranda get married at the end?” I asked.

Eigenberg actually shut up for a moment. “Do you want me to tell you?” he asked, cocking his head.

I thought better of it. I’d find out for myself, in my own time.