I sent my imaginary assistant Amanda out in the cold today, and in return I had to buy her dinner and spend time with her. You'd think it wouldn't matter, that it's a fair trade-off to send someone to do your bidding, but it's not. She's unbearable.

Around 2 this afternoon I said, "Amanda, I need you to run something over to Chelsea Market."

"Ooh, shopping. I love shopping."

"No, not shopping. Business."

"Oh." She pouted her sparkly pink lips. "Well that doesn't sound like very much fun."

"Life," I said, "Is not fun."

"It's fun if you're me."

"Well just pretend you're me for a second."

"Do I have to?" She looked disgusted.

"How about you just pretend you're useful?"

She looked up, thought for a moment, and then replied, "Sure, I can pretend I'm useful. As long as I don't have to pretend I'm you. Gross."

I ignored her.

"First you have to go print something out at Kinko's on a color printer, and then you have to go drop this animation series pitch off at content company in the market."

"That sounds like a lot of work."

I wanted to smack her.

"Thus the word 'useful'," I said.

She bundled herself up in her puffy Fubu coat, pulled her black headwarmer around her head, and fluffed up her blonde ponytail. And then she held out her hand.

"What's this?" I said.

"I need money. For the cab."

"Uh, you're walking, sister."

"You want me to walk all the way to the meatpacking district?"

"Yes. We're low-budget 'round these parts. And might I remind you that since you're imaginary you can probably just blink twice and you'll be there."

"Nope, I have to walk. It's in the rule book."

"Well get to stepping, because it's going to take you a little while."

She looked appalled. Simply appalled.

She came back a few hours later. The cold air had put a high pink glow on her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled. And still, she looked pissed.

"You owe me."

"I don't owe you squat."

"That sucked. New York during the day sucks. All those people bumping me around. This is why I never go out until like, 11, every night. And it was cold. And those people in the office were rude to me. They treated me like I was a messenger, and just sent me to some mailroom, and didn't even care I was there at all. I want dinner," she whined. "You have to buy me dinner."

"I didn't know you ate," I laughed.

"I do, and I want Thai. And you have to be nice to me."

Well...she had been helpful. And I did make her walk pretty far.

"Fine," I said. "Let me get some menus."

"Oh not now. I've got to go catch the end of a sample sale, and then I've got cocktails at the B-Bar with some old friends from Choate. I'll come back at 9. We can watch Ally McBeal. I want to see what they're wearing."

And so it was that Amanda and I spent quality time together, even though I'd rather have done anything else but that. We aren't supposed to be friends. We would never be friends. She is just not my type.

She showed up, drunk on cosmos, and laid on the floor, her head resting on pillows she had stolen from my bed. She squealed at the outfits while shovelling Pad Thai into her mouth. I sat there, trying to ignore her, trying not to study the perfection of her frame. The final indignity?

"You know, I think Calista Flockhart is too skinny," she said. "I think the producers of the show should really make her eat."

"Hey skinny girl!" I yelled.

She looked up.

"Yea, you, twiggy, on the floor. There's only one person that gets to bitch about Calista Flockhart's weight in this apartment, and that's me. Why don't you finish your food there so you can get that heart rate up? I'll worry about who needs to eat and who doesn't."

She started to say something, and then I held a fork full of noodles up, ready to fly at her cashmere sweater, and she thought better of it.

"Can I talk about the black chick's breasts at least?"

"Oh yea, anyone can talk about that. That's open territory," I said.

"Can you believe they're real?"

"I know," I said. "They're huge."

With that, we had at last found common ground, at least for an hour. And then I kicked her skinny ass out of my house as soon as the show ended.

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