Tweener

You'd think that by age 40, I'd have my romantic shit sorted out. That I'd be able to tell the difference between a mirage and reality, that I'd know when it's time to get off the single train and hitch on to one that carries two, that I'd understand what I'm doing. But I don't. I have ideas, sure. I have instincts telling me to do one thing over another, to go in a certain direction. The problem is, I've stopped trusting my instincts because they've led to questionable decisions in the past, decisions I'd rather not repeat, because, well, I'm 40 not 25, and I don't have the time, or frankly, the energy to waste anymore.

I used to be someone who jumped into relationships. All it really took was someone I was attracted to, who, for some inexplicable reason, was attracted to me. Not just on a physical level. It could be a sense of humor or something in the way she conveyed herself, but what I'm saying is all I really needed to jump into a relationship was some form of chemistry. Something that hit me when I was around her. Or, let's face it, the prospect of new and frequent sex. And then in I'd go, like a moth to a flame. And without fail, a few months or years later, there I'd be, Hamlet holding a skull in front of his face. "To be or not to be. To stay or not to stay. To go or not to go. That is the question." For as sure as the sun doth rise, the thoughtless and carefree way I'd entered into the relationship would blow back in my face like a Bush foreign policy. It was only a matter of time. Before long, I'd realize that one thing or the other wasn't working as well as I'd hoped, that the egg was missing its yolk, that the relationship had no soul. What started out as fun, a lark, an adventure, hadn't remained so. There I was alone when I wasn't alone. Torn and angst-ridden about what to do. Wondering how it all had come to pass. Had I been attracted by the wrong things? Had she? What was it? And why had it happened that way? Why hadn't she or I said "No" after date number 3 or 4 when it would have been so easy, all those months or years ago?

Not to say that my relationships have been a waste of time. Quite the opposite. Maybe it sounds like that's what I'm saying, but I'm not at all. Regardless of how long or short my relationships have been, I truly cared for, and learned from, the women with whom I've been involved. I guess what I'm saying is that more often than not, I've kept re-learning the same lesson. Over and over again. Instead of progressing and evolving as a person, I kept making the same mistakes with very similar people, based on the original sin of my decision to enter into a relationship.

I have a theory, one that I've culled from years of experience and conversations with friends, married and single, women and men. It goes like this. Quite often, too often, what we're most attracted to is dictated by the most dysfunctional part of ourselves, the part we keep in a dark room behind a locked door. And, like it or not, it goes back to our childhood and what we became used to as children. Maybe a parent was completely absent, as a result of a divorce, a simple disappearing act, or perhaps an untimely death. Maybe one's mother or father favored a sibling, or you just remember it that way because you were an out-of-control freak of a child who required loads of attention. Or maybe your parents tore each other a new one every night over dinner, trading barbs and criticisms and you're this and you're that, but no... rather than divorce, they decided to stay miserable together and make you miserable in the process. So you became used to fighting and conflict in relationships and now, as an adult, you're perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop. No one can make you happy because you don't even know what the hell happiness looks like. And if it taps you on the shoulder, you don't trust it very much. Or maybe your parents or peers in school made you feel so worthless or unattractive that deep down you don't believe anyone could truly want you. So you either don't date at all, or you date and then sabotage whatever you find with distinctly counterproductive behavior.

There are hundreds of examples. People typically sum all of this up in one word: Baggage. And the funny part is, the people who usually use that word, baggage, are the ones who think they have none. They say "I don't want any baggage in my relationships." "Leave your baggage at the door, pal." "She had so much baggage, I couldn't deal with her." I don't like the word baggage because to me, it's a negative word that always connotes having to lift something heavy and undesirable. To me, baggage is another word for the human condition. Few of us had perfect parents or childhoods. Fewer of us have tried to sort this shit out and become more self-aware and self-actualized before we finally commit to someone. But so MANY people think they have great relationships and they have no baggage at all. That is, until something happens, seemingly out of the blue, an affair, a loss of a job, a mid-life crisis, the death of a loved one. Then it's a watershed and all those repressed emotions and baggage come to the fore. I, for one, think everyone carries something around, even those seemingly perfect people you see who think they have it all, know it all. Most of those people, in my humble opinion, think they have no emotional issues because they're not self-aware or honest enough with themselves to admit that this is the case. Maybe it doesn't affect them on the surface, maybe it does. But the fact that no one is happy 100% of the time in this world, that people are continually impacted and upset by life and circumstances and react accordingly, says something. Just because you're moving up the professional ladder and have achieved success or seem to have a great marriage doesn't mean you don't have something churning under the surface, a sleeping dragon you don't want to wake up. Look at Eliot Spitzer. Look at Bill Clinton. Look at your attractive, happy neighbors. Look at your siblings, your cousins. Unless you're living an exceedingly charmed life, it's impossible to live in this very imperfect world without being pockmarked by a few asteroids. Life is a school and those asteroids are your teachers. To me, it's not a question of whether some people have baggage and others do not. It's a question of whether two people are willing to help each other lift the other's bags, or whether those bags are just too fucking heavy or the wrong color.

Then again, it's possible to overthink things, isn't it? Blink certainly suggests that's the case. Sometimes the instant feeling is the correct one. The tough part is distinguishing between that feeling and the one that's dictated by your bagg--, I mean human condition. Why does that girl make my heart race? Why doesn't the other one? And is heart racing the true yardstick of love and future happiness, or should we be looking for something else? If so, what? I used to pursue the former. As I've gotten older and a bit more wise, it seems to me that most successful relationships are more about friendship, communication, sharing, and being on the same page in life. They're about finding someone who has your back, someone who's uncalculating, who loves you for you, and who isn't going to run off as soon as a prettier and more successful butterfly comes along. But why are we still drawn to the butterflies and the head-over-heels and the zing? Why do we still demand it? Is it from societal conditioning? From Hollywood and Cosmo? Is it innate, a hand-me-down from our Cro-Magnon ancestors? Who knows? From what I can see, that want doesn't ever leave, and people seem to expect it even after years of being with someone. Maybe not from the person they're with, but when they get it from other people, people who are not in the relationship and therefore have nothing to lose, it can be a powerful draw.

What's my point? I have no idea. I think it's in there somewhere.

The Warren Harding Effect

Ohhhh, Valentine's Day is upon us once again! I love it all. The pomp! The circumstance! The frolicking! This year, V-day falls on a Saturday, preceded oh-so-appropriately by Friday the 13th. If you've been reading this blog the past couple of years, you know that Valentine's Day is one of my favorite days of the year. And most likely, you also know that I've been high on Valentine's Day even though I've been single and alone in the nearly three years I've been doing this.

Well, I have news for you: I won't be alone this year. I only mention this on Friday the 13th because I am superstitious as hell and really enjoy sabotaging myself. I'll write more about that subject another time. Today, what I want to talk about is the Warren Harding Effect. What is the Warren Harding Effect, you ask? I'm about to tell you. I didn't know about it myself until I read the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, which I highly recommend if you're into learning about how the mind works and why our snap judgments can be incredibly accurate or mislead us into folly. There's a chapter in the book that's devoted to how we, all of us, give the benefit of the doubt to physically attractive people, which makes us overlook some obvious character flaws. When someone is really good looking or charming, we get blinded. It's primitive and visceral and hard to avoid. Ladies, I'm talking about Mr. Hardbody. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome. The Charmer. The guy with a wink in his eye, even when he's not winking. The smell good man. The dude with the perfect hair and day old stubble who makes panties drop just by walking down the street. That guy. Gentlemen, I'm talking about Ms. Hotstuff, the minx who looks so smoking hot that you feel like crying when you see her because you're never going to get close enough to do her laundry. The girl with the sculpted glutes, the tight hamstrings, the floating boobs, the flawless skin, the combination of which would lead you to commit a felony just to spend 10 minutes alone with her. The girl who doesn't even SEE you, because she's wearing heels and her eyes never wander below her chin. That girl.

When we see Mr. Hardbody and Ms. Hotstuff -- or, more typically, people who are a few rungs below them on the hottie ladder -- we are hypnotized and it affects our judgment. For all you "deep" people out there who claim to be above this, please review your history and tell me that you never got jelly-legged over someone you were attracted to. It happens all the time; it's natural. We see things that aren't there. We fixate on that sexy smile, the one that's seemingly focused on us and only us. We fill in the personality gaps ourselves. We assume they have a sharp sense of humor, wit, intelligence, and compassion for others. They are the ideal and if we could capture them, attract them somehow, we too would be elevated to bask in their carnal powerwattage. We are more compelling, interesting, and attractive just by our association with these glittering jewels.

Of course, it's all a delusion. We're blinded by beauty. For, sometimes -- not all the time of course, but a lot of the time -- these people are not what we think they are. They're just people, genetically gifted, yes, but just people. People with flaws, sometimes serious ones. So why do we attribute great things to them before we even know them?

It's the Warren Harding Effect.

In Blink, Gladwell discusses Warren Harding, our 29th President. Harding is commonly regarded as one of the worst, if not THE worst President in U.S. history, though Bush is going to give him a run for his money one day. He was completely incompetent. So how in the world does a man like that ever become President? (Okay, silly question.) Gladwell provides an answer. He may not look like much to you, nor to me, but in his day, Warren Harding was considered a very handsome man. That old coot you're looking at was yesterday's equivalent of Mitt Romney: charming and attractive. No scratches on the surface. He LOOKED Presidential, it's as simple as that. And no joke, women who'd just earned the right to vote through the 19th Amendment to the Constitution (which Harding supported), thought he was dreamy. Which is ironic, since by many historical accounts, Harding was a poon-hound who had several extramarital affairs.

Much like today, partisan politics predominated back then, and it was party bosses, not voters, who decided Presidential nominations. When the Republican Party -- apropos, yes? -- was looking for someone to nominate, most of the other candidates had too many enemies or were deemed unsuitable for one reason or another. Enter U.S. Senator (R-OH) Warren Harding. Harding looked the part and he was so dim, he'd never pissed anyone off with a loud opinion. The Republicans met in one of those smoke-filled rooms and chose him as a compromise nominee for the 1920 Presidential election. He won in a landslide, the largest in history, served two years, and died of a heart attack in 1923. During those two years, corruption in his administration was rampant. His Secretary of the Interior accepted bribes and illegal loans and ended up in jail. Another cabinet member was convicted of accepting bribes; another skimmed profits and accepted kickbacks from the Veterans Bureau, and directed underground alcohol and drug distribution. He too, went to jail. Two aides of the aforementioned helped them destroy evidence and then promptly committed suicide. All in just two years.

And you thought Bush was bad?

The moral of the Warren Harding Effect is an old one: Beauty is skin deep and we're often blinded by it to our detriment. So, on this Valentine's Day 2009, let us make a pact to FIGHT the Warren Harding Effect. Let's agree not to be blinded by beauty, charm, and a tight ass. Let's look a little deeper. For I see a correlation between the Warren Harding Effect, absurdly unrealistic expectations among today's dating masses, and the loneliness that many people feel on this singular day of romantic love. So, please, for the love of Warren Harding, stop undressing Mr. Hardbody and Ms. Hotstuff with your eyes! Stop picturing them naked! Stop fantasizing about them in the shower! Instead, draw your gaze past these two self-absorbed airheads and take a long, meaningful gander at Mr. Troll and Ms. Witchwart. No, a little lower. Down there. Yes, that's it. And the other normal people standing in Hardbody's and Hotstuff's aura, look at them. Sure, maybe they're not what you thought you were looking for. But that's a GOOD thing, trust me. The genetic medians, most of us, need love too. And maybe you'll be surprised. Maybe, just MAYBE, they'll have what you need because they're far more equipped emotionally than Mr. Hardbody and Ms. Hotstuff to provide it. Or maybe, if you're more open-minded, you'll get lucky and meet someone you're very attracted to, who has all those important qualities that the diamond couple is sorely lacking. Can life get that good? Yes.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

How Much For That Virgin in the Window?

Ladies, how much did you get for YOUR virginity? A six-pack of wine coolers, you say? A night at the Stone Gable Inn? Some People magazines and a pack of Dentyne gum? Nada?? I know the feeling. I got zip for my virginity too. See, I grew up in the days before the Internets, before email even. It wasn't so easy back then to get the word out that my virginity was for sale to the highest bidder. I can only think back and wonder how much money I could have made if only I'd been born twenty years later.

Not so for Natalie Dylan, a twenty-two year-old virgin from San Diego, who has put her virginity up for auction and persuaded 10,000 men to place a bid on her offer of a one-night stand. The winner will get to enjoy a hot, sultry, disease-free night in the amorous, if inexperienced, arms of Ms. Dylan. Think she's crazy? Think this auction of hers is tawdry and demeaning to women? Well, I will have you know that Dylan is a WOMAN STUDIES major who is doing this to make enough money to pay for her Masters degree in FAMILY AND MARRIAGE THERAPY. Still not sold? Geez, tough crowd.

Okay, how about this: Wanna know what the bidding is up to? $3.7 million! That's 3,700,000 dollars. Can you believe it? Over three million bucks to have sex with a 22 year-old virgin in San Diego. This is right out of Memoirs of a Geisha, except she ain't no geisha and this ain't World War II. Where the fuck are we going as a people when random virgins are auctioning their unsullied poonannies on eBay? And am I the only one who's surprised that there are still 22 year-old virgins floating around?

Lest you think I jest when I tell you that I think this is in danger of becoming a global trend, apparently there's some Italian model, Raffella Fico, who plans to sell HER virginity for one million euros, or $1.4 million. Fico appeared on the Italian version of Big Brother earlier this year (an Italian Big Brother with virgins on it? wtf?) and she plans to use the money to buy a house in Rome and pay for acting classes. Nice.

Does she look like a virgin to you?


Me neither. But according to her brother, she's really a virgin and a devout Catholic who prays to Padre Pio every night. Riiiiiight. (The Padre had no comment.)

I really don't know what to make of this. Half of me is shocked that this is where we're going now, that this is how far we've sunk, virgins giving it up for the almight dollar. The other half of me is seriously impressed with the entrepreneurial spirit of these two virgins and the amount of money that they stand to make just by surrendering the goods one solitary time. Or two times. Or three. Query: for $3.7 million, is a one night stand literally an all night deal, or is it just one and done? For that kind of money, one would hope that it would be the former, but if someone is stupid enough to pay millions of dollars to have bad sex with a virgin (it's commonly known that virgins are fairly lousy in bed), then they might be stupid enough to be convinced to only do it once.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who say, "Shit, I would never do that. I'd never lower myself to that level, sell myself for money. No way." But c'mon. One time? For almost $4 million dollars? You wouldn't do it? C'mon! You wouldn't even consider it? Not for a second? I don't believe you. Think about how much bad sex you've had in your life, that mediocre, lame, half-assed, going-through-the-motions sex that we've all endured from time to time. Think about all those times you thought to yourself afterwards: "Meh, I'll never get those three minutes back again."

Now think about $3.7 million dollars dropping on your bare, naked self right after, hundreds of $1000 stacks, which you giddily count while kicking your uninspiring, passionless partner out of bed, never to be seen again. Still wouldn't do it? Bullshit!

If only I'd thought of this myself when I was still a virgin those many moons ago. With what I had to offer, I would've CLEANED UP! Then I would've taken every dime of that seed money (drumroll), invested it in Microsoft, and watched it grow over time until I sold it at the very peak of the market in March of 2000. You know where I'd be right now? Not sitting here writing a blog, I'll tell you that! No sir. Probably wouldn't be practicing law either. I'm fairly certain of that as well. Nah, I'd be gonzo, off exploring the great blue yonder, seeing the world and writing about it. I'd be living the sweet, carefree life of an independently wealthy ex-virgin, doin' as I please, when I please, and with whom I please. All in exchange for a temporary sell-out, a cheap, demeaning act that was over before I knew it.

But it's too late for me. I can never get my virginity back and no one would spend that kind of money on me now. I'm used goods. Yesterday's news. That's the price I pay for my lack of foresight in 1986, for thinking like a virgin instead of a money-making machine. Ms. Dylan and Ms. Fico don't have that problem. They're in it to win it.

Stalker Insanity

Well, it took 39 years, but it looks like I've finally got me a stalker. Yes, indeedy. I remember whining a few months ago about the fact that no one had been pissed off enough about my opinions on here to get all freaky-deaky on me. It was tongue-in-cheek of course. Now that I have someone who is injecting herself into my daily life in unwanted fashion, it's not nearly as entertaining or flattering as I thought it would be.

Strangely, my new stalker -- I like to call her CrazyBitch -- didn't find me through this blog, which is where I would have expected a stalker to come from. I lean to the left, so I figured maybe there'd come a point where Ann Coulter, or one of her underlings, decided to come after my ass. But that's not how it went down. I found CrazyBitch online, in that cyberspatial forum we call Yahoo. Aptly named, Yahoo is, as it seems to be a breeding ground for nutjobs. You can hide your psychosis a long time behind a profile and a screen name. It all started a couple of weeks ago when some random woman who I'd long ago deleted from my Yahoo buddy list emails me from out of the blue. I don't recognize her email address, so I write back with a "Hi, who is this?" She responds that we'd chatted a long time ago, and her name is "Lisa," as if I don't know any other Lisas and I'm supposed to remember her. We have a few more back and forth emails, and eventually, we get on Yahoo IM, where we talk some more and eventually exchange pictures. When I see her picture, I vaguely recall her from a couple of years ago. She's Asian, young, and attractive, assuming of course, that she sent me a real picture, which is by no means assured. This is Online Pitfall Numero Uno.

We chat on Yahoo IM a couple of more times, and it goes reasonably well, so we agree to meet for a drink after work at some undetermined date in the future (which leaves me wiggle room to change my mind should the need arise). Due to the way she contacted me out of the blue, I'm a little paranoid that she's someone I know who's playing games with me. This has happened to me 2 or 3 times before. Someone I know in real life makes up a fake name and profile and chats me up to get certain information out of me. Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me four or five times, shame on me. So I tell her before I meet her, I'd like a couple more pictures please, and I want to talk on the phone. She agrees, I give her my cell number, and she calls me. This was last Saturday. I answer my cell and hear nothing. This happens like three more times, and I start to get annoyed. Then she emails me and accuses me of not picking up. For you, the viewer, this is the first clue that I'm dealing with someone who is five marbles short of a full bag.

I call her back on my cell and I get her voice mail. "What's wrong with this girl?" I'm thinking. She emails me again and tells me that she got my voice mail, but she has a lot of things going on in her life and isn't sure if she wants to meet, but we can continue chatting. (I'm getting all these Yahoo emails on my Blackberry). I find this funny -- it never ceases to amaze me, the assumptions people make so soon after you meet them -- and I respond that it's totally fine, I wasn't expecting anything from her, whatever. (What I didn't say is that because she was acting like such a loon with her silent phone calls, I wasn't sure I wanted to meet her myself.) Then she says she gets a lot of dropped calls and that's why she's not able to connect on her cell. Then she asks for my home number. Indignant and defensive about her earlier accusations, I stupidly give it to her. So she calls me from her home phone this time, and the same thing happens, I pick it up and hear nothing. Now I'm seriously annoyed, and this is where I fuck up. I call her back on her cell from my home phone, and I forget to block my i.d. Dumb, dumb, dumb. So that's how CrazyBitch got my name.

Anyway, we finally connect on the phone and speak for a few minutes. She sounds normal, but her voice is halting and nervous, and her English sounds a little broken. For some reason, she won't stay on the phone long, and then she directs me back to the computer, which I'm not interested in doing because the phone was working perfectly well. So, I decline and go to watch a movie. She doesn't seem pleased by this, and I get a couple of pissy emails on my Blackberry afterwards and some other weird shit happens that cements my view that this girl is Looney Toons.

Before I go to bed that night, I log on and there are a couple of angry IMs she sent me on Yahoo that pop up. They are threatening, but I can't remember exactly what they said. In speaking with her earlier, we'd discussed some dating experiences we'd both had before (that's when she told me about her engagement crashing and burning). When I told her a couple of dating anecdotes, including a brunch date I'd had that same afternoon, she sounded jealous, which I found strange, but then again, I thought she was kidding, so I didn't take it too seriously. Well, now that her true colors are coming out, I can clearly see that she was NOT kidding. Before bed, I email her in a nice way that I'm not interested in meeting her, and it was nice chatting, and thankyoubye. I thought this would be fine, since, as she said, she has a lot going on in her life right now.

Um, no, it wasn't fine.

In this age of the Internets, once you have a person's name, it's not that hard to get a whole host of other information, including, but not limited to, where they work. CrazyBitch did some quick research (she's quite resourceful) and found my office address. In the ensuing days, she proceeds to threaten me with silly punishments if I refuse to meet her. She knows where I work, she's going to show up at my office, she's going to find my parents and call them, blah, blah, and blah. Given the four layers of security in my office building, I'm not too worried about her coming to see me at work, but it's still annoying to be threatened with an unsolicited visit from a crazy person. If she's unlucky enough to locate my mother and actually talk to her, then she's royally fucked. My mother will verbally rip her throat out. She doesn't know my mother.

Before long, she threatens to send around a picture that I sent her of me in my Boo-Berry t-shirt -- the one that I took in Maui a few months ago. (I had it posted on here until recently.) I actually think I look pretty good in that picture, so I don't much care if she distributes it to the Pope and Santa Claus; it doesn't bother me a bit. But the mindset underlying CrazyBitch's threats do start to get me pee-ossed. Blackmail, no matter how trivial the threat, is a transgression worthy of the most extreme punishment. Not waterboarding -- I would never advocate torture -- but maybe some really hard hair-pulling, and definitely some openhanded, or even backhanded, bitchslapping. Until the time I'm presented with such an opportunity, I figure the best course is to make CrazyBitch feel irrelevant by ignoring her messages.

Sadly, this only worked for a couple of days. Upping the ante, as stalkers are wont to do when you ignore them, she starts doing things right out of Sleeping With the Enemy or Single White Female. Like sending me creepy emails along the lines of "I'll see you when you get home, honey." And calling my office. I hear my secretary answer my phone and then tell me that Lisa is on the line to talk to me. Well now, that's just creepy.

Initially I tell my secretary to take a message, but ten calls and hangups later, I decide I have to out myself about CrazyBitch. So I tell her about my little stalker issue. I work on a small floor where people hear things and everyone pretty much knows everyone else's bidness. So once my secretary learns of this mess, I figure I need to tell a few other people to minimize the gossip damage. Now it's a bit of a running joke, which isn't all bad. If CrazyBitch decides to mass email my entire office with some lie about me -- ah yes, a fucking nightmare that would be -- at least a few people will have early awareness about this insanity, and they can vouch for my ass. After she started calling me at work, I figured it was time to start using words like "lawyers" and "police" and "prosecution." Since then, she's quieted down with the emails (she's apparently not stupid enough to continue to leave a paper trail), but her annoying phone calls have increased.

As you might imagine, apart from the obvious embarrassment, I find all this quite unbelievable. Not that someone would stalk me, of course -- I mean, you've seen me, what's not to stalk? -- but it's CrazyBitch's mentality that has me incredulous. I just can't understand the mindset of someone who refuses to take no for an answer. Where's their fucking pride? I don't like to brag, but in my life, I've had plenty -- P-L-E-N-T-Y -- of women who were not interested in me after I showed some initial interest. If you stay single this long, it's going to happen. Did I pursue them once their apathy was made clear? No. Did I tell them, in a voice tinged with Patrick Berginesque obsession "I can't live without you, so I won't let you live without me!" Um, no.

What I do in such situations is leave skidmarks on the driveway. I believe in myself, who I am, and what I have to offer someone. I believe I'll eventually find someone who I click with on many levels, and vice-versa. And if I don't, I'm actually pretty fine by myself. I'll just travel more, take more pictures, and write more stories. The bottom line is, I have zero interest in pursuing, much less obsessing over, someone who isn't interested in me. Why would I? You can't force someone to want to be with you. Getting together with someone is a mutual choice. That's "mutual," as in TWO people have to want it. If one of them doesn't, well, it's a big world out there, with lots of people in it. Somewhere out there is someone who is more compatible, who will see you for the great person you are. Or in CrazyBitch's case, someone who will appreciate you for your "quirky passion." So get over yourself. There's no need to fixate on one person for anything. Ever.

The other thing I've learned from all this insanity is maybe I need to cut down on my online interactions. Just a tad. I think it's time to turn more of my focus to ladies in real life 3-D. Maybe I'll start asking women out on the subway, or if I can't get up the nerve, I'll create a website dedicated to them to get their attention. Hey, it worked for this guy. Then again, that does sound a bit.... stalkerish.

Hmmm, I'll figure it out. In the meantime, friends, Romans, countrymen (and women), please watch my back.

Party Crasher

I had a unique experience last Saturday night. At least, it was unique for me. The night started off innocently enough. Katie, Sharon, and Katie's friend, Frank, met me for dinner at Planet Thailand in the 'Burg, then the three of us (Frank left) ventured to a pub on Bedford for an apres dinner beer. Sharon got all froo froo and ordered Scotch.

Connected to the pub by an open door was a separate room with a stage, where a guy in pointy shoes and a maroon v-neck played the acoustic guitar. A few feet away, his middle-aged partner banged the drums with a fur-tipped stick in his left hand and what looked like a container of Advil in his right hand. Weird, but somehow it worked. We enjoyed the music, but there was no air conditioning in this part of the bar, so after ten sweaty minutes we couldn't take it anymore and decided to call it a night.

I trudged back to my building, and once there, found my favorite doorman, Ayodele, holding the elevator for me with three people waiting inside. When I walked in, I thanked them all for waiting, and quickly noticed a scantily clad dark-haired woman standing to the right of the door. She wore a white miniskirt that barely reached below her bummy bum, coupled with a tight black t-shirt that accentuated her, uh, substantial front features. How to put this? She looked like an off-duty stripper. A smiling, friendly, approachable, so-you're-saying-there's-a-chance stripper. When I saw her, I was positively giddy. Given that I typically share my elevator rides with fifty year-old couples and their leg humping poodles, this was a significant improvement. The doors closed and Ayo, myself, Sexy Hot, Sexy Hot's friend (whose cuteness was, sadly, eclipsed by Sexy Hot's aura), and another doorman, who wasn't working that night, rode up the elevator together.

"Where are you going," I asked Ayo, who usually doesn't take elevator rides when he's supposed to be working.

"Ohh mon, dare's a partee on da terd flor."

"Really? Wow. And you're all going?"

"Oh yeah, yeah," he said, as the rest of them concurred.

"Well, I guess my invitation must still be in the mail. I never got it."

(Raucous laughter ensued at this witty quip from yours truly. Okay, it wasn't raucous, but everybody laughed, including, most notably, Sexy Hot.)

"Man, you should come. There's a lot of fun people there." This from the off-duty doorman. I don't remember his name but he was wearing a blue Mets cap with the bill flipped up, so let's call him "Mets Guy."

"Oh, I don't know.... I wasn't invited, and I won't know anyone," I responded to Mets Guy. Sometimes I am Eeyore incarnate, folks. Thing is, I can be a little self-conscious in crowds, so I'm not really one to wade into social gatherings where I don't know anyone at all. Not unless it's absolutely necessary. Much like Rain Man, I need a social buffer. Accordingly, I rarely crash parties, and on those few occasions where I have, I've never gone solo. It's always been with two or three friends. But when we got to the third floor, and Sexy Hot said "C'mon you should come," beckoning me with a wave of the hand and a come hither look that I won't soon forget, Eeyore ran off to play with Tigger, and I forgot all about his sorry ass.

"Alright," said I, my grin as wide as a billboard. Really, how could I say no?

My spontaneity reaped instant rewards as we exited the elevator and I watched Sexy Hot turn and slink down the hallway, all bare legs and high heels. Then, looking up, I saw this gaping, oval hole in the back of her shirt. She was so exposed, I could count every one of her perfect little vertebrae, which, I noted, snaked down oh-so-nicely to the top half of a tattoo on her lower back. Sigh. Shake head. Rinse well. Repeat.

We arrived at Party Central, and I could hear the music pumping hard through the closed door. Sexy Hot pushed it open and, resisting the urge to do the "What Is Love" Chris Kattan dance, I followed her and the rest of the crew inside, where I saw bout 20 people in various stages of drink and dance. They were a mix of young, silicone club chicks and dudes in the proverbial untucked shirts and jeans, though, remarkably, I only saw one set of stripes on this night. Solid navy blue was the preferred color for those gents who weren't wearing ironic t-shirts. On the whole, it seemed like a friendly crowd. Even though I didn't know a soul there except the doormen, I didn't get the "What the fuck are you doing here?" vibe you sometimes get with strangers. So that was nice.

Sexy Hot grabbed my wrist and led me behind the bar to share a shot of Patron. After pouring our shots, she sprinkled some cinnamon on my hand. I don't do tequila shots too often, but I told Sexy Hot that I thought the proper accessory was salt, not cinnamon. "No, trust me, this is good," she said. So I trusted. (Seriously, I would have snorted the cinnamon if she asked me to.) We clinked, we drank, and I felt the hot burn slide down my throat, hit bottom, and mix with the two beers I'd had earlier in the evening. Two checks on the Saturday night drink trifecta: hard liquor and beer.

Having shared a shot with me, Sexy Hot asked for my name, which I gave her. I then asked for hers and she told me it was "Aphrodite." Immediately, my stripper/pro index shot up two clicks, right through orange and well into red. But I nodded politely, as though "Aphrodite" were a name that I hear every day. To my credit, I resisted the temptation to say something inane like "Well, heh heh, you definitely look like an Aphrodite, heh heh." Then Sexy Hot walked me over to the sangria bowl and poured us two plastic cups full. It was pretty good sangria, so I stuck with it the rest of the night. Drink trifecta complete: wine, hard liquor, beer. Cue in Sunday's train wreck hangover, seven hours and counting.

After a few sips of sangria together, Sexy Hot must have felt she was done making New Guy feel welcome, so she left to mingle with her friends. We didn't cross paths for the rest of the evening, but hey, it was fun while it lasted. When she left, my stripper/pro index clicked back to an innocent green.

With Sexy Hot gone, along with 75% of my interest in the party, I strolled around the apartment looking for some chat. I saw hints of a Mexican theme, hanging ruffled streamers and disco balls colored an optimistic yellow, blue, green, and pink; the words "F I E S T A" stuck above the bathroom door; and the final touch: a multicolored donkey pinata hung from the ceiling in the back of the room. Donkey swayed back and forth to the music, doing a last, lonely death waltz, as he awaited his inevitable fate. To the left of Donkey were a set of stairs, which led up to an overhead loft. Underneath the stairs, Hector, a professional DJ and the owner of the apartment, studiously manipulated an array of complicated equipment that looked like it came straight from a studio. There were sliders and keys and mixers and speakers and synthesizers and turntables and other DJ shit that I can't even describe. In the middle of it all stood this color computer screen the size of a small plasma t.v., where Hector stored his playlists and arranged the music. Above his equipment, there were framed gold and platinum records of certain artists he'd helped in some capacity, including Toni Braxton and some rapper whose name I didn't recognize. Hector was totally cool and a very gracious host.

I asked one of the doormen about the Mexican theme and learned that I had crashed a birthday party for Hector's girlfriend, who was not Mexican. At about 1:30, Hector turned the music down, and they brought out a large cake with lit candles for Hector's girlfriend who's name escapes me. (I'm pretty bad with names.) I think it was something like "Naisturn." Anyway, we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Naisturn, and then we cheered and clapped at the end. It was a bit surreal applauding for a stranger who I'd just met an hour ago and whose name I didn't know. At that moment, I remember thinking "This is bizarre. What the hell am I doing here?"

A few minutes later, they blindfolded Naisturn and put a small wooden bat in her hand. She took a few half-hearted swings at the pinata but couldn't hit it square. I personally think she subconsciously didn't want to hurt the donkey. That's what happens when it's there for you. Frustrated, she handed the bat to one of her girlfriends, a butchy-looking hardass in a white tanktop, who, earlier in the evening, I'd seen drinking Patron straight from the bottle. Classy broad. Butchy took one hard swing at the pinata and decapitated it. As the stash of candy fell to the floor, Butchy patted herself on the back for an assassination job well done. To be fair to Naisturn, Butchy wasn't wearing a blindfold when she took her vicious swing at pobrecito asino.

By 2:30 a.m., I'd had my fill of watching Sexy Hot and her silicone friends dance and strut around the room in their minis and heels. With the unfortunate recognition that I had to work the next day, I thanked Hector for his hospitality and took my leave upstairs. I can't tell you how sweet it was not to have to ride the subway, flag a cab, or walk a mile to get home. All I had to do was walk down the hall, push a button for my floor, and there I was, mi casa, within seconds. Building parties are fun!

One of the doormen told me that Hector likes to throw a sweet bash during Halloween. I told him to tell me when it happens, so I can crash that one too. I just have to see Sexy Hot in her debaucherous costume.

Oh Sarah, Look What You Made Me Do!

On the whole, I think actors get far too much credit for what they do. (Models too.) They're worshipped for essentially pretending to be something they're not. And for being genetically preferable to the rest of us billy goats.

But c'mon. The masses follow celebrities like pathetic drones, behaving as if these actors -- who are made of flesh and blood just like everybody else -- have descended from heaven and are here to teach us the meaning of life. Please. They're fucking actors! They act. They're not seeking a cure for cancer. They're not doling out food to the lowest caste members in Calcutta. No, what they do is they get up on a stage or movie set, put on some fancy duds that most of us could never afford, and for a few weeks, they roleplay a character that someone else created. That a writer created. Okay, so if they're John Travolta and Nick Cage in Face-Off, they're playing two characters. Then they go home to enjoy the assload of money they've made doing something that virtually every child does for the first six years of his or her life: Play Pretend. They stroll through their mansions, drive their Lambos, party at the coolest clubs (I would have inserted a specific reference to a cool club here, but I'm so uncool, I can't even think of one and was afraid to give the name of a club that was out six months ago), and vacation in Cannes. They live large. Then they go to their self-masturbatory awards ceremonies -- the Golden Globes, Emmys, and Oscars -- where they all stroke each other until a winner is declared in each tedious category.

Not a bad life. Which is why every time I hear some celebrity bitch about their "lack of privacy" because one looney fan too many asked them for an autograph at Caesar's Palace, I want to say: Take your wads of cash and move to Idaho if you don't like it. You left your privacy at the door a long time ago, you friggin' whiner! Quid pro quo, Clarice. Quid pro quo. It's the cost of doing business, so quit yer bitchin' or retire already.

I can't decide who is more pathetic, actors who complain about a lack of privacy, or the soulless, need-a-life losers who think a lousy, handscrawled autograph is the Holy Grail. For the life of me, I could never understand the appeal of autographs and why people act like utter fools to get them. It's a signature on a piece of paper! WHO CARES? Paparazzi, of course, are vermin. But they're just making a buck, doing the capitalist dance.

The closest most of us will ever come to this life is watching a fictional depiction of it on Entourage, reading about it in rags like People Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, or by suffering through bottom-of-the-barrel t.v. dreck like Entertainment Tonight where obnoxious wannabes tell us all the celebrity gossip in EXTRA LOUD VOICES THAT MAKE EVERY SINGLE VAPID WORD SOUND INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT!

Now don't get me wrong, I love movies. Looove them. And good t.v. shows too, like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Lost, 24, blah, blah, and blah. And I honestly appreciate good acting. It's the cult of celebrity that I hate. Perhaps my hostility to the industry has more to do with the proletariat's reaction to actors than it does to the actors themselves. That and extreme jealousy.

Now.... with that rant out of the way, I'm about to contradict myself. Of course, there is an exception to every rule (cough). Notwithstanding my views expressed supra, once in awhile, I say, once in awhile, some actress comes out of nowhere to stir me up. Suddenly, I'm a freak without warning. She appears on my screen -- movie or television -- and I'm all Who the heck is that??? I'm totally mesmerized. Not by the acting, mind you, but rather, by the flawless skin, sultry lips, piercing eyes, and shooty bo-booty I'm seeing on my screen. Sometimes, sometimes, I gets a little smitten.

And so it was with Ms. Sarah Shahi on the Sopranos last Sunday night. She, the stripper who Tony goes to visit in Vegas after he assisted Christopher with his departure to the next world. When Tony walked into her apartment and she was walking around in those cut-off shorts and bare feet and hoppin' on that sofa and looking at him with a nice camera closeup, I'll admit it, I got a little gaga. A little sillyface. Then the bed scene. Then the high-on-peyote scene, where they're walking through the casino ten sheets to the wind. Goodness me she looked druggeriffic. It's funny because at those moments, my sentiments always take the form of vocalized incredulity: "Are you kidding me? Holy-ssh-- C'mon. Unnn-believable." Followed by repeated shakes of the head, like someone just cut me off in traffic. It's Wednesday, and I've watched the episode four times. Can't get enough.

That's body chemicals talkin' boys and girls. "Hormones" to you and me. Make a man forget who he is. What he wants. What he believes in. Make him do funny things. Like blog about an actress he's never met and never WILL meet. Like sprinkle his blog entry with pictures of the same said actress, in a positively adolescent display of misplaced affection.


Like order Showtime so he can watch old re-runs of Sleeper Cell, where a certain someone has a role. And oh yes, so he can also tune in to The L Word, a show about lesbians, so he can watch Ms. Shahi play a Latina uhhhh, lesbian. A man can't be proud at moments like this. When he stares into the abyss of his heart, confronts the lustful, mewling monster inside, and inexorably succumbs to its svengali-like power. A man has to be honest with himself. Admit his weaknesses.

I swear this to you though, dear Reader. If my humble path should ever cross that of the compelling, so-hot-it-makes-me-want-to-cry Ms. Shahi, I will never, EVER ask for her fucking autograph.

(Bow. Bow. Sashay. Exit stage right.)