Around 7 PM last night I met up with Will at the Beauty Bar where we drank quickly and efficiently and smoked a great deal of cigarettes. We've both been sinking slightly into existentialist territory lately, and I it feels nice to have a comrade in self-indulgent arms. He also made fun of my $130 shoes, which I absolutely deserved (even though I still love them a lot.)

Later Cinde (who was not feeling existential, which was good) joined us for some more cocktails, and then we headed out. We dropped Will off at Bar 81, where we saw Eric Gillin, Gaffen, and some guy with the last name of Kansas who apparently is the editor (or something like that) of thestreet.com. He was wielding a pool cue and looking a little dangerous, or at least as dangerous as any white boy who writes about financial matters can look.

Cinde and I didn't stay long for there was a party to attend! Tammy's brother Lee was having a birthday party in his tiny, funky little apartment (is there any other kind?) on the Lower East Side. It's a strange little space, with many rooms to make you feel like you're going somewhere, but really, I don't think it's too much bigger than my own place. Still it's fun to feel like you might have some options.

Lee was wearing a green Izod shirt and white pants, and he was pretty much ready to back his thing up all night long. One of the gay male guests (and there were many of them) commented that Lee is one of the few straight men he knows who can wear white pants and get away with it. And in fact, there are many things Lee does that most straight men can't get away with. He's an artiste, for sure.

Lee and I chatted about "Survivor" and who we thought was going to win, and who we thought should go down. Lee said there's no one left for him to root for after Mike, the singer of that new band The Flaming Hands, and Jeff, The Internet Projects Manager (And I think any of us in the industry know what that means. He makes six figures to take people out to lunch, but he doesn't actually know how to build a web page himself.), left the show. I'm excited to see Amber and Jerri start to hate each other. That will be one great hour of television.

We also watched the drag racing video playing in the living room. "It's my birthday, and I want drag racing," said Lee. I told him I was only interested in seeing Drag Queen Racing.

"Ooh," said Lee. "Like on 14th Street?"

"Yea, in the meat-packing district."

We both decided it would have to happen at 3 AM, when the contestants' pimps were pissed, they had a heel broken, and their dick wasn't tucked in appropriately.

"And...go!"

Now that's entertainment!

I met another guest, a beautiful young actress who grew up in the Nazarene community. Although her father was a preacher, she had found her way out of that world, triggered first in a Footloose-style moment when she was cited for dancing at her Nazarene college. In graduate school she broke free completely, and here she was at a style-y little party in NYC bitching about her sex life with the rest of us. Is it better to know or not know what you're missing?

I was excited to discover that she knew one of the actors I had worked with on one of the video shoots for my site. He had actually been a really nice guy that I had chatted with for a while. When I heard his regret that only his voice was in the video but not his face, I quietly recommended a way to my co-producer and the director that he be able to have his moment on film. Although I had met so many people, I remembered this guy well because he seemed sincere and I had enjoyed our conversation. She reinforced that he was indeed one of the good ones, so I felt like validated.

When I told her what I had done on the project - something I have difficulty describing at times since it was all so new to me - and some of my past experiences, she recommended that I get a lawyer or perhaps an agent, because I needed to start getting more credit for my work. This is something I've agonized over lately, as I start to see all of the articles about the site coming out, with nary a reference to my name. I said I didn't care a while back, but guess what? I do. I'll have to figure out an appropriate action eventually.

And then, as it usually happens at least once at a party, I met the jerk-off who made me want to go sit right back down in the corner where I tend to nest most of the night. He was a tall black man, with hair just beginning to nap. His accent was vaguely European, or did it have an island flavor? (I'm horrible when it comes to determining that sort of thing.) He had approached me earlier in the night and introduced himself, and then I ran into him later as I was feebly attempting to mingle. He was wearing a cravat. I don't know if there's anything inherently wrong with wearing a cravat, but I think it bears mentioning.

We began to chat, and he made some noises about noticing me, wanting to talk to me, but being shy, which I'm pretty sure he's not. He offered me a drag off of his Cuban cigar. "I only smoke Cubans," he said, as if I would judge him otherwise. I took it. It tasted all right. We then spoke of life in Manhattan and summer plans and I said I was thinking of maybe spending some time in the south.

"Oh, I'll be in Georgia this summer for work. If you're there, you must give me your number." he said.

"And what will you be doing there?" I said.

"I do design work for computers."

"Web design?"

He sniffed. "No, I don't do any of that web stuff." He made "web stuff" sound like "dog crap."

I laid back for a minute. I wanted to see where it would go.

"So what do you design? Do you actually design computers?"

"No. What I do is I go to a client, they present me with a problem, and then I make a design to solve it."

"So like, what, you're an applications designer? Or a systems architect?"

"No. I'm a designer."

"Right, well, what do you do with the designs after you make them?"

"They go to a programmer who then programs the solution."

"So you're an applications designer?"

"No."

I'm not going to bore you with the rest of this conversation, because it's boring me just typing it, but basically we spent the next ten minutes with him giving me a detailed job description that I'm pretty damn sure meant he was an applications designer of some sort (although in his world there might have been some fancy title involved, like "Solutions Consultant," or some crap like that), and him insisting that he was some sort of an artist, though not, of course, a web designer, because the web was for people who don't, oh, I don't know, feel comfortable smoking Cubans and wearing cravats. In public, anyway.

And the worst part is, I tried to walk away, but he wouldn't let me. I knew the conversation was going nowhere, I knew he thought I was some dumb girl, and I knew he was going to feel uncomfortable once I told him what I did for a living.

But no...he had to blow that cigar smoke in my face for ten minutes, didn't he?

Anyway, he finally got around to asking me what I did for a living, and then he got that look on his face like, "Man, I've been bullshitting the wrong girl, and I've been insulting her job, too." I guess some girls are scared of big nasty computers. His friends approached, insisting they go to the Slipper Room. I walked away and he yelled, "Wait, I want to talk to you some more."

I shook my head and sat on the couch, resigning myself to limited conversation for the rest of the evening. It's like if someone tells you you're wearing a blue outfit, and you're wearing a red outfit. They insist that you're color blind, when you're not. They know better than you.

"But I'm not color blind," you insist.

"But you are. And that outfit is all blue," they say. "And I still want to sleep with you anyway, even though you're color blind."

And so forth.

Even later than that I fell deeply in love with a boy named Enrique, a hot little Cuban (apparently the night was all about Cubans) number who was so gorgeous I was absolutely intimidated and could not talk to him. I tried, and I failed, and from what I observed, he was actually pretty nice and approachable. He was too much for me, though. Too beautiful for you, as it were. I don't like 'em prettier than I am. It's far too much pressure for me, but damn he was cute. I spent most of the night trying out "Southern hemisphere" pickup lines to Cinde, e.g. "I hear it's quite humid in my Southern hemisphere, Enrique." Pathetic. I was like a 16 year old girl. Or boy. Whatever it was, I was speechless around him.

Regardless I had the following compliments bestowed upon me by two very enthusiastic gay men:

"You are working that holier-than-thou disdain, girl."

and

"You look amazing. You've got this whole thing going on. I love it!" This was accompanied by swirly hand motions around my whole body and head.

I love it too!

archives | w-w home | mail