Tuesday, November 01, 2005

 

ENTRY 197: RUNNING WITH SCISSORS


Before I proceed, I'd like to give a shout-out to a blog with a truly inspired concept: making fun of the New York Times wedding announcements. If you're not familiar with the site, Veiled Conceit, go here to read a truly hilarious posting. But don't forget to come back to me.


Oh, and thanks to the Tin Man for spreading the word about this parodic blog authored by "Harriet Miers" (it was actually mentioned in the October 24 New Yorker, but I'm still reading the issues from fucking September). The first entry is the funniest, but this one and this one and this one and this one are good, too.


In a related vein, I searched like mad all weekend on Monster and HotJobs for a new "Associate Supreme Court Justice" job listing. I mean, I'm just as qualified as she is. Think about it: I'm also from Texas, and I also love to lick ass. The similarities are astounding.


Alas, the new nomination went to some asshole just because he has extensive experience with constitutional law. Big whoop. I wrote two fucking novels. That and $2.00 gets me a subway ride to my nonexistent workplace.


Can you tell I'm in one of my disgruntled periods? Moving on...!


###


On Saturday an interesting-enough online chat turned into a Starbucks (ick) meeting with one of those stereotypically handsome Israelis. He was quite the character, full of non sequiturs and almost forcefully cavalier. I can banter with the best of them, so it wasn't as though I felt verbally stampeded over or anything, but I did sigh mentally as I added another notch to my strangely-defensive-coffee-date counting stick. Then, as he took a call on his Treo, I whipped out my own cell phone and held it to my ear. He smiled, getting the point, but kept talking. I nonchalantly held my silent phone in place until he hung up.


When guys are as handsome as that, I completely ignore their appearance. They don't get any points from me that they haven't earned by their wits or their character. Fortunately, he turned out to have something above his broad shoulders besides a good haircut, despite the minor ADD. I did get the impression that his interest in me was nothing other than platonic, but I haven't been feeling like much of a Romeo these days, anyway.


"I have to meet my friend for dinner," he said. I nodded nonchalantly. Then he asked me if I wanted to go to a party later on.


"What kind of party?" I asked, shouldering my messenger bag.


"It's a Halloween thing being given by this band called...." He started scrolling on his Treo. "Shore Sisters...Shear Sisters...."


"Scissor Sisters?" I offered.


"I think so," he said.


"No way," I replied. "Really?"


"Have you heard of them?" he asked.


"Um, yeah," I said. "Their first album was quite big. On the charts, MTV videos, all of that. It's a big deal."


Five hours later, I was standing in front of an out-of-the-way theater in a slightly ominous neighborhood. Then I saw my new acquaintance striding down the street, in a blue costume with a red cape and red boots. He was dressed as Superman.


You've got to be kidding, I thought.


Supermensch waved distractedly, adjusting his fluttering cape. He was flanked by a genie and an Air Force guy with a gas mask. Introductions ensued, and we proceeded inside.


This was when I realized that it was actually a costume party, which detail Supermensch had neglected to mention. I had at least dressed up, raiding my closet for the multicolored and iridescent velvet tuxedo jacket that I never have occasion to wear, but the best costume explanation I came up with when anyone asked was "gay pimp."


Someone had to point out to me who Jake Shears was, because he was unrecognizable in a singularly unattractive clown get-up whose makeup made his neck look skeletal, and whose tight tie-dye body suit revealed him to be, if possible, even skinnier than I.


This same person who'd pointed him out said I should go talk to him. About what? About how I'd downloaded some of his songs illegally? About how I dressed up as a clown for Halloween when I was nine?


I was saved from further awkward musings by a "Hello" from stage right. It was a pleasant-seeming man who seemed to be somewhere in the vicinity of 50. He and a couple of much younger friends invited me to sit in a dark corner with them for some contraband smokes. Earlier, at Starbucks, Supermensch had made the random assertion that he could tell I'm not a smoker, and so, purely to be contrary, I'd bought a pack of Marlboro Lights on the way to the party.


When a man of a certain age shows a social interest in a man of a certain younger age, it sometimes means only one thing. But I had decided I would simply operate on the benefit of all my various doubts.


"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked.


I twirled my unopened pack of Marlboros with my right hand, and took a drag on a Newport with my left (he'd offered me the choice of either a regular or a menthol--menthols are for sorority girls), cautiously considering such a loaded question.


"No," I said, choosing the honest and, therefore, more difficult option.


"Then that means I can ask you out on a date," he said.


"So what is it that you do?" I asked.


He told me about the club events that he ran, a couple of which I had attended.


"I've seen you before," he said.


"I hear that all the time," I said, which was actually true. "Probably I just have one of those familiar faces."


He started taking pictures of me with his camera, and this made me uncomfortable, so I said I had to find Supermensch and crew. I ended up talking to the genie for a little while. He was nice, and told me he's a "recording artist" with an album coming out soon.


Supermensch was being touchy-feely with a circle of two or three guys. It was fucking unbelievable how they were fawning over a lame store-bought costume. Then an Elton John said hi to me. He was from London, and so were the Cleopatra and the dapper bandstand guy standing with him.


At last I made my way outside for some air, a smoke, and a cell-phone conversation with Peter. He was impressed that I'd stumbled into a Scissor Sisters shindig. I described everything else to him as I stared at a woman dressed as Tippi Hedren from The Birds, her '60s-era suit sprouting wires attached to shivering stuffed sparrows.


"Superman?" he said. "The guy dressed up in a Superman costume? Could anything be cheesier?"


"Not really," I said. "Especially since the right pectoral is freakishly larger than the left one. It's like Clark Kent had a mastectomy. But there are actually some really interesting costumes here." I described the genie and my conversation with him.


"Tell me he didn't really call himself a 'recording artist,'" said Peter.


"I wish I could," I replied. Peter sighed.


"He was nice, though," I said. "At least he didn't invite me to a party and then kind of ditch me. But, you know, I met a few people."


After I hung up with Peter, I went back inside and found the fiftyish guy again. He took another picture of me, insisting that I pretend just to be looking in another direction. I hate that sort of thing. The conversation grew increasingly strained. He seemed to be tweaking on something, and made statements such as "I love music. Don't you?" I had to stop myself from replying, "Music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel."


After he A) showed me photos of Sound of Music shooting locations from his recent trip to Salzburg, and B) invited me to join him in Buenos Aires in January, I remembered another phone call I had to make.


I ran into Supermensch and his gang donning their coats to leave. We took a cab to Therapy in Midtown, where the posse promptly scattered again. Supermensch was trying to negotiate a threeway; the Air Force guy had put on his gas mask and was, therefore, incommunicado.


I turned from Colonel Vader and went to look for the genie, who was upstairs getting a drink. We hung out for a bit, soon exhausting what little conversational potential had existed between us. Fortunately, he was a social butterfly, so I sipped my pint silently and as quickly as possible.


Just as I finished, the whole group reunited. I had resolved to go home, even though they had talked about heading on to another bar in Chelsea. I knew I was the odd man out; only one of the three of them had bothered to meet me halfway that evening, and I was tired of the typical New York ostracism shit.


Supermensch hailed a cab, and I stepped forward to tell him that I wouldn't be going with them; I had already tried to say this to him in the bar, but he'd totally ignored me. Before I could quite blink they were all in the cab, the door had slammed, and the taxi had vanished down the street. Faster than a speeding bullet.


I did the first thing I thought of--I laughed genuinely and without any real exasperation at the sheer absurdity of such disregard--and then did the second thing I thought of, which was to step into a doorway out of the wind and light another Marlboro.


I had a flash of a memory from when I was twelve or thirteen years old. Marc and Dad and I were getting into the car after church one Sunday morning. When Dad pressed the unlock button, I had just been trying the rear door handle, and so it remained locked. I rapped lightly on the window, but Marc and Dad were chatting intently. Dad started up the car as I banged loudly on the window, but he failed to notice. The car lurched quickly down the street, and I started to run down the block after them. Finally, when they reached the stop sign at the end of the street, Dad noticed my absence and backed up. When I asked him why he hadn't heard me knocking, he said that he had thought I was just making noise to be a nuisance.


###


By the time I made it to the subway, I had bestowed cigarettes upon a lovely little black-lace witch and her sailor-suit boyfriend. They thanked me profusely. I guess sometimes the littlest gestures make the biggest impressions.


As I headed downstairs to wait for the train, I honestly wished Supermensch success in his search for sex more powerful than a locomotive, and hoped that the Air Force guy would breathe easily that night, and that the genie would get his wishes. As for me, I knew better than to rely on capes, or magic lamps, or the consideration of strangers. It is kinder to oneself, and more realistic, simply to be surprised.

11:46 PM

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