Return of the King

Days since computer was fixed: 3

My roommate was briefly laboring under the delusion that she was pregnant because she could smell a man’s breath on the subway. “Super smell occurs in the first trimester” she explained. The idea that a man on the 1 train to Harlem had noticeably bad breath only occured to her after her body proved to her that she wasn’t pregnant.

That’s a good introduction to where my life has gone since my computer blew up in August and has since been returned to me as a functioning piece of machinery (for the time being). Since then I began my new job, working on the career path means walking along the unpaved parts, which is a more poetic way to say I’m an assistant. My manager, Hundo, is absolutely unhinged and I think he’s brilliant. Today I walked past his office and he yelled “What’re you doing here this early, Burkeman, ya big pedophile.”

At 9 am I was not equipped with a response to the random name-calling. Clearly, I need to bring my A-game.

Other fun character at work include Racist Nakeema, a girl who used to give me the black power fist every time I ignored a white co-worker… Then there’s Taffy, a man who seems to have been born with shoulders or at least the good sense to buy clothes that provide the illusion of shoulders- he’s also my direct boss and a fantastic mentor, if only I could tell if he liked me or actually hated me. It’s a tough call. There’s also my Office Love, a woman who looks so uncannily like Jenny Lewis and says “fuck” so often that I cannot resist her charms. She’s making me monkey bread on Monday! Monkey break Mondays, hell yes! Also in the mix is Madonna Lover, a masculine guy who seemed heterosexual until a 3 minute speech about how “fucking sweet” everything about Madonna is. He’s from Long Island, everything is swishier on Long Island, even the straight men.

However, the true raison d’etre at work is a fellow assistant I affectionately refer to as Crazy Face. Crazy Face is, well, crazy, and I’m told in the past her nickname was Witchrat, which is meaner but no less accurate than the term Crazy Face. Crazy face is in her 30s, 2 years into a job that I couldn’t take past the age of 23.2 (which is also when it’s no longer appropriate to eat Hot Pockets on a regular basis). During my first week of work Crazy Face brought me not one, not two, not even three bookmarks- but five bookmars for absolutely no reason. I just kept saying thank you and putting them in my fag-bag, I later left all five bookmarks as a tip for a terrible waitress in the East Village. Perhaps it will inspire her to read a book. Or at least the bookmark. Crazy Face also gave me two Williams & Sonoma catalogs that I gave to my non-knocked up roommate, BYOB. BYOB was happy with them, as Williams & Sonoma is the closest thing to porn that women can read at the dentist office. Crazy Face is a hardcore Republican who thinks Palin is a good choice and gets unnecessarily angry if you play a video of Barack Obama within earshot of her… it’s fun! Did I mention her face is crazy looking? It is.

The social life has been picking up, but not really. The hold-overs who stuck around in the city after our fellowship ended now comprise my entire social circle, which I don’t mind because they’re great! This weekend was a mix of gay bars (fun and alcoholic and cheap! minus that three hour line that turned into the worst night out ever), hikes through woods, picnics in Central Park, museums, and scenic walks through floors and along rivers, sky lines, and booze. It is pretty much everything I wanted when I first thought about moving to New York, and it was well done with some friends! But with that comes spending too much money, waiting in long lines for clubs that get closed down by fire fighters (who are NOT strippers and will get angry for suggesting it), and the realization that you can never do enough (I want to go to the US Open, dammit!). The up side- the weekend was brilliant. The down side- I didn’t get to sleep until 8 one morning, and was not drunk the entire day. The promising- Rick & Steve and I have a vendetta against Hiro, a Sunday-only club, which means getting drunk on a school night sometime soon. Oh god, the idea of earning a gay bar hangover one night and facing Crazy Face the next day is almost too good to imagine.

I would never show up to work hungover, though, as this job leads to every professional aspiration that I have the energy to entertain currently. That is, after showing up hungover last Thursday, after 5 assistants all went out to the Black Finn and enjoyed a $20 open bar which ended… I’m not sure how it ended. All I know is that I somehow found a magic bus to Hoboken on an entirely different level of Port Authority and don’t know where I found it, Steen lost her phone and house keys, Kissy blacked out on the subway, and Average Joe left without any of us noticing… no one knows what happened to that other girl. Moral of the story, five hungover assistants couldn’t piece together a full evening. My manager, Hundo, believed that was a good introduction to sales. Mind you, this all occured a day after I swore off alcohol for 3 days. It didn’t go well.

I am enjoying the early benefits of being Hundo’s favorite- he bought me coffee, bought me lunch another day, lets me leave the office to run errands if I want to (or assigns them to others if I don’t want them) and gives me lots of tips. It’s great, but it makes things awkward between Crazy Face and me. However, that was quickly brushed under the rug after a lengthy discussion in which Crazy Face revealed she invented the word “badunk”. It was quite a while before she realized this wasn’t true.

In all, life is treating me well right now. I’ve moved from Hoboken (from the girls I fell in love with) to Harlem, with the Harlem Harem that I’m currently in love with, as we will soon become Brooklynites (moving in 2 weeks!). Perhaps the best sign that my life is exactly as it should be is one simple fact: while picking up my newly repaired computer, I met all 5 members of New Kids on the Block at their release party while a bunch of fans waited in epic lines like suckers. Turns out NKOTB hang out with the Geek Squad before signing autographs. How am I doing? I’m hanging tough.

[boy, you're gonna carry that weight]

Something Borrowed

Days without computer: 14

With my computer on the fritz (Best Buy says another week or so) it has been increasingly difficult to inform strangers of the amusing events in my life. Tragic, right? I know, I’ve had to leave out all the unnecessarily fun details about my blinky-intense boss and the girl who sat next to me in training who wants to start a corporate race riot or the fact that four out of four of those of us living in the apartment are hungover at 3 in the afternoon on a Sunday. My first week of work was pretty calm, but it was just training so it doesn’t count. Apparently I have a reputation that has preceded me and the entirety of the salesmen/women in my sales team expect me to be the best assistant ever, and then become a sales rep in a year… I hope they’re right.

In the meantime, I live on an air mattress in Jersey. It’s posh. I live with three girls who all make more than me, except one who is unemployed and currently asleep on the wood floor of her room after I pumped her full of pepto-absymal. Being unemployed in Jersey, I feel for her. Granted, she spent last week doing temp work in fashion- for an entire day she got paid to help Martha Stewart’s assistant try on wedding dresses. Apparently it will be a very interesting TV special.

I’ve been bouncing around the city in my free time. A glass of wine on the west side, a few too many beers on 14th street, tons of sangria in Hoboken, a high ball in Hell’s Kitchen, and so on. It passes the time perfectly when you’re with friends, which I’m fortunate to have a few of here. The Femme Fellows are housing me, and they’re great, Rick & Steve have provided me with drinking amusement (and one really awkward Olympics viewing experience), an unexpected visitor made yesterday a good drinking night (and we didn’t even accidentally mess around this time!), and the Harlem Harem keeps me very busy and happy.

Speaking of the Harlem Harem, we are the hopeful soon-to-be Brooklyn Brothel, or perhaps the Parallel Parkers (yet to be decided), as we’ve applied for a fantastic place in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It’s gorgeous, but no use in getting excited until all the paper work goes through.

Work is starting, apartments are changing, friends are forming, I’m crashing people’s homes and commandeering their computers, and my bed is still deflating. Wine will help me cope with all these truths.

[and they say this is the job that people die for]

Fight Club

Days back in Michigan: 5

My computer blew up. Ass.

Home is an extremely bizarre place. There are entire fields of grass for absolutely no reason. There are stars at night… STARS?!?! And you can hear crickets when you’re trying to sleep on the couch of your entirely uncomfortable living room couch (not to mention that the house is without air conditioning). It’s kinda nice, though.

Needless to say, I am back in Michigan for a week before heading back out to the city. In a few short days the new job begins. Exciting! Until then, baseball games and Dominicans and ice cream and Project Runway. In that order. It is a far cry from the life I grew to love in New York, which culminated with Burkeman (yay!) and Dude Mathews drunkenly hailing a cab to La Guardia at 5 am. Bars in New York close at 4, so staying up the extra hour at a diner was no problem. Finding my ID in my bags while drunk in line to pass security, that was a bigger problem. When I tripped and fell in the Detroit airport during my layover I realized perhaps I should’ve slept a little before arriving home. Nothing says “you fucked up” quite like eating shit in the middle of a magazine store in an airport. Note to self: drinking on a flight is great. Drinking for six hours and then catching a flight- not so great. On the upside, the crying baby next to me on the flight stood no chance against my binge-drinking coma. I slept like that baby should’ve. However, that only lasted a half hour before arriving home, where my family was mildly horrified that I reaked of Jameson and hadn’t bathed in a few days. New York turns scion into a slob.

There is one large change between home and the city that I’m not adjusting to very well, I admit- my computer. Its on the fritz and cannot be revived until I am back in Manhattan. Only problem, I might not be going back to Manhattan…

While walking home on a Sunday evening Straight Boyfriend (of the Harlem Harem, a group I recently elected to live with) ran into three large men on the street. Well, he didn’t run into them so much as their fists. Multiple times. The attack is believed to have been racially motivated, as Straight Boyfriend is a large white Alaskan dude in the middle of a largely Dominican section of Harlem, but his attackers weren’t Dominican.

Forunately the incident was stopped before it could become to brutal, but he does have some bruising on his face and a severely broken desire to remain in Harlem. Thus the Harlem Harem may soon become the Brooklyn Brigade. It will be a journey.

Oh, and Weather Man will be back in the city when I arrive on Saturday. AND I’m living with the Femme Fellows in Hoboken for the month of August. And work, the first day of the rest of my life, starts on Monday (same day as Drag Queen Bingo).

It’s about to get very interesting.

[we are adventuring, we are adventurers]

The Merchant of Venice

Day 59

There are approximately 13 million Jews worldwide. Most of them currently work in television.

I discovered these facts when walking down the street with my NYC accomplice JAP, a lovely LA girl with family money and challah to spare. 13 million is a staggeringly low number, it seems like there are more than that in New York alone, but she informed me of these statistics the other day as we strolled down 14th street and talked about how we were under-represented minorities in our fellowship. Only two Jews out of 30 students in a New York based media fellowship. Thats pretty surprising, come to think of it. Even more shocking, our fellowship only includes two gays… it’s television in New York! How is that possible? Under represented, certainly.

Now, exactly where all the homosexuals have disappeared to I’m not sure, but I’ve found all my Hebrew friends sitting right under my stubby-little-gentile nose. Of the 6 interns who work on my floor at *B& television network in Manhattan, 5 of them are jewish. FIVE! That’s a disproportionately large number considering there are only five of them left in the entire state of Wyoming. Turns out three of them all earned their internships through family connections with some higher-ups at the network. I’ve heard the Jews run Hollywood, but apparently they also run primetime television as well. The best part, none of them are even practicing Jews. Oye! So that’s why the descendents of David are underrepresented in my fellowship- they’re already working in television through family connections! Lucky schmucks. As an Irish Lutheran, I’ve got culture envy.

Not to worry, as the universe launched me some gay reinforcements in the form of my friend Weather Man, a former media professional who now dapples in internet technology. After a year of “friendship” and more than a few ups and downs, it seems as if the tectonic plates of our relationship have precariously balanced themselves for a brief time, allowing for a quake free weekend of boys’ nights out and the kind of conversation that can only be shared with a true friend. And anxiety. Lots of that.

Once before I was described as emotionally unavailable, which is funny because I’m perhaps the most available person in the world (except for my emotions). So as Weather Man began his torrent of “I love you”s and “I can’t stand being away”, I couldn’t help but think of anything besides being away. His loving grip became like a vice and I envisioned the concept of emotional claustraphobia, feeling your stomach and throat constrict- the more sweet his words were the more dizzy and overwhelmed I felt. What was supposed to be sweet and beautiful became dreaded and nauseating, which pretty much makes him the verbal equivalent of Janice Dickinson (eek!). But I have strong feelings for Weather Man… and I love Janice Dickinson… so what’s causing me to react to this intimacy the same way that guy reacted when he drank from the wrong cup in the old-school Indian Jones movie?

Word vomit.

That’s what makes me so queezy. I’m fine feeling these emotions for someone and perfectly comfortable knowing that he may feel something even stronger for me, but I just don’t need to hear about it constantly, bubbling out his lips like a fountain or raining down like the storm cells he used to forecast. If anything, I just prefer to talk about the warm front. Emotions aren’t scary, it’s the windy words that accompany them that make the thunder storm so noisy and frightening. But how do you tell someone that you cannot tolerate their emotional word vomit (hopefully not through a blog…  super eek)?

Fortunately many events that rescued me from the poems and soliloquies (moderate eek). Most notably the introduction of two of Weather Man’s close friends, who shall be dubbed Rick & Steve. They friendly and have settled in Manhattan as well. Unfortunately, they heard quite a bit about me (again, word vomit) before we met, so my introduction was followed with a knowing smile and a standard “Oh, you’re Burkeman” as if to say “so, you’re the face to the name I’ve been judging for the last year”. Greeeeat.

However, it’s hard to be the center of attention when you’re at a gay sports bar with a midget. Which I was. The friendly little person was a friend of Rick & Steve’s, and was a charming conversationalist even if he couldn’t see over the bar. The pint-sized pib-squeak of a homosexual may have been my saving grace, as engaging him in conversation kept me from being further judged by Weather Man’s friends (who’re still undecided if they should hate me and chase me with torches or love me and douse me with alcohol). I led them by example and doused myself with alcohol while chatting with the friendly little person, who turned out to be the most conversationally competent guy in the bar. By the end of the night Rick & Steve seemed to warm up to me and we even set a faux-dinner date for August when “life calms down” a bit.

Escaping the world of gay bars (which is uncommon for my time here in New York), I returned to the familiar territory of dive bars and met with my standard crew at McKenna’s for our LAST WEEKEND AS A GROUP. Tragic. McKenna’s low prices and stiff drinks quickly inspired the group to find a dance floor at Flannery’s… which just happened to be playing 80s music all night. By the time I got to Flannery’s the entire mess was on the dance floor and Take On Me was already in queue. Whatser Name was bopping around and on the prowl for boys, Times Square was doing the twist, Georgia Ann was going wild and shouting about calories, Stretch Armstrong was buying shots and the rest of the crew was breaking it down like the media nerds we are.

How could I resist?

Pouring myself into bed at 6 in the morning is always an exhausting experience, but with Weather Man in tow it was both physically and emotionally exhausting. It was hard to tell if the morning was going to bring word vomit or the real thing. That’s the danger of bingeing all weekend.

[there's a gentleman who's not so gentle cuz he's too generous with his chit and his chat]

The Futurist

Day 52

For a few years now I’ve been involved in an abusive relationship, and in the last few months it’s gotten even worse. My boyfriend, Alcohol, let’s me pound on him all night, but in the morning he treats me like shit. It’s a vicious cycle that neither of us are mature enough to escape. I’m guilty of using him, he (literally) makes me sick. But what are we to do?

Fortunately he’s a great date to almost any occasion. Last week a friend’s girlfriend provided a free pass on the VIP list to a MLB All-Star viewing party at Webster Hall, where my new boyfriend was already awaiting me at an open bar. Considering Tuesday had been a Red Letter Day for me (an interview that turned into a tentative job offer) I celebrated with some Red Stripe. And rum and coke. And rum and coke. And rum and coke. And I lost track eventually, but it ended with rum and coke. Regardless, the evening was perfect- I got to watch some baseball (hot), some baseball players (hotter), and had my free reign over an open bar thanks to a shinny little badge (hottest). Plus, a few of my favorites were there, and I wound up chatting with my friend Bad for Your Organs Brooke- perhaps my closest friend in NYC and also the only other individual I know who’s as intimiately acquainted with the world of binge drinking. Anyway, BYOB and I started chatting and the night blurred past quicker than ever. We had a riot laughing about … I don’t even know, everything. I even got to chat with her roommate, the inevitable Straight Boyfriend that I don’t yet have. He’s great, Alaskan, and entirely easy to ply with drinks. BYOB and Straight Boyfriend share an apartment together in Harlem (thus now known as the Harlem Harem) and by the end of the night I escaped Webster Hall with a VIP pass to become the newest member of the Harlem Harem- BYOB and Straight Boyfriend are performing a hostile take-over and removing their third roommate, thus making the way for Burkeman! RIOT.

Within the course of 12 hours I was offered the perfect job and the perfect apartment, for a starter New Yorker. Needless to say, the next few hours were going to have to go down hill from there. And then some.

Vaguely hungover but entirely chipper at work, I got some good advice from Jersey Queen who suggested I play the field. Considering Jersey Queen has played both sides of every field at this point, I’ll take her word on it- at least when it comes to apartments.

In Brooklyn that night I met a nice guy named Borwen, who was less than amusing but incredibly kind. He offered me the apartment on the spot; I was forced to admit that I had actually committed to another place and was just checking this place out to play the field. And honestly, the two meth-heads on the stoop and the myriad of broken fire-hydrants on the 90+ degree hike to his place didn’t tempt me enough to stray from my Harem, even for 50 bucks less a month. Meh, we’re both hopeful we can still be friends….

That weekend I brushed off my apartmental infidelity and let some friends whisk me away to the trashy beach. Literally, garbage everywhere, beach. I lost my Coney Island virginity on a hot day in July with a bunch of girls and a live band that sucked, which probably isn’t too far off from where most people lose their virginity, anyway. The park was fantastic, Coney Island is perhaps the biggest what-the-fuck location of all time; literred with fat chicks, hot dog stands, economically priced french fries, and life guards who blow whistles and wear needlessly enticing swim-suits, it’s as if the park in Pinnochio (where all the boys became donkeys) was recreated in New York as a tourist attraction. PS- the Cyclone is over-priced and hazardous for your health. The Cyclone is disturbingly like anal sex-unnecessarily rought but if you ride it multiple times, it gets better.

My day soaking up the sun on Coney Island passed all too quickly, as has my time as a fellow at *B&, the major network that has been providing me work lately. The acceptance of a job at a major sales orginization has brought an onslaught of *B& employees out of the woodwork to wish me well (aka buy me lunch in attempts to build loyalty for when I’m hire-able in 8 years). It’s been a generous outpouring, and I’ll have no qualms about returning to the network in a few years, especially if I can get a few more free meals out of it. The president of national television sales took me out for lunch, bought me a margarita, and then told me his daughter was troubled. I’m not sure what that means, but I had a free margarita!

As exciting as beaches and guest lists and working-margarita-lunches with executives can be (more lunches in the next week, yay!), it is impossible to overlook how frighteningly straight these last few weeks have been. After nearly two months in (arguably) the gayest city in the nation, I’m still play-less. What’s that about? Not even a kiss. Ouch. I exchanged digits with Cute Clerk a while back, but after ignoring Facebook messages and never calling him, it’s clear I’m not about to redeem that one (oops). However, a friend from DC is traveling to the City this weekend, perhaps with intentions of changing this situation. After a year of being close “friends” it is clear this friend, Weather Man, and I are going nowhere very quickly. As my emotions subside, his begin to swell… typical. Which means while he’s traveling to NYC to drop the L-bomb, I’m bunkering down in my apartment in hopes of surviving the fall out.

Meanwhile, my feelings for our mutual friend, Great Scot, have taken a surprising turn into the “maybe” category. Of course all of this is further complicated by the fact that both of these men are significantly older than I am… extra typical. And the additional fact that Weather Man may have cancer, and that Great Scot is having brain surgeory in a few weeks, makes for a rather decent checklist of reasons I shouldn’t have gotten myself this deep in either of their lives. Crap.

Elsewhere, I’ve found myself debating crazy things with a few of my friends. Tonight at a brewery, Dude Mathews and I were discussing marriage and my belief that forever simply doesn’t exist. Only today exists, and a promise to try again tomorrow. However, my beliefs are about to be tested… if Great Scot fairs well through brain surgeory he hopes to stay in the US, which means finding his green card one way or another.

Turns out Massachusetts opened a whole new chapter on man-on-man immigration, and as a born-n-bred American, all of the sudden I have post-brain surgeory marriage to consider.

First things first- Weather Man has invited me to a dinner party with his friends. And it’s my last weekend with my fellow fellows here in NYC. Which means two things- drinking with gay men and drinking with straight friends. Fortunately my abusive relationship boyfriend will stay by my side all weekend, otherwise I’d have to take responsibility for the mistakes I’m about to make…

[danger! danger! high voltage]

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Day 46

I have long suspected that “cougars” are having the best year ever. It’s self evident- Desperate Housewives is still a hit show, Kim Cattrall is still getting acting work, and I received a very special birthday card wishing a “happy birthday to a very special cougar”. While I am not a cougar by the standard definition (or any other definition), I use this card as further proof that cougars are more en vogue this year than rehab. And rehab has had one helluva year.

My birthday itself was very enjoyable, a special thanks to all those who wished me well. My first spirit journey formation anniversary here in NYC, and it was brought in with some new friends at a new bar. Just a few blocks from my current apartment is a lovely little place called Wicked Willy’s, which is normally populated by 9 to 5 preppy douchebags who like to play beerpong and pretend it’s 2002 and they’re still in college. However, one any given weeknight Willy’s also hosts karaoke, which means my birthday was spent drunkenly soliciting dedications. I even indulged by celebrating myself with a rousing rendition of “You’ve Lost that Lovin Feelin”, because you can’t beat the Righteous Brothers when drunk. The night quickly escalted into my fifth (yes, 5!) blackout in less than 7 days. Birthday was great, but having a birthday on the same week as the 4th of July is rough on the body.

Blackout aside, I can recall enough foggy details to truly recognize the enjoyable party that The Mess threw for me, and most of my fellows showed up to wish me well, which was awesome. The night took an unexpected turn when our friend, Times Square, won a Broadway karaoke contest (think “Hakuna Matada” with a conga line of drunken strangers) and was rewarded with a 50 dollar bar tab that had to be spent that night. At 1:30 in the morning.

I spent the next day napping instead of eating lunch, and forcing down only a banana for the daily meal. Large billion dollar television networks frown upon visible hangover. Fortunately I look good in a tie. Unfortunately, there was one physical flaw that my boss couldn’t help but notice.

My eyebrow is shaved.

Not completely, but still, enough that she noticed. In honesty, it has nothing to do with birthday festivities at the bar (or the diner we headed to afterwards). Before the birthday evening began I ran a few errands and popped in for a hair cut at a low end hair-cuttery place. I’m not too picky when it comes to buzzing off a layer of curls. However, this bitch isn’t too picky when it comes to buzzing off layers of anything, and nicked half my face and took part of my eyebrow off in the process while attempting to buzz the side of my head. The worst part was when I looked in the mirror and said “Oh, this is awkward… you cut off part of my eyebrow”. The woman looked at me intently, as if waiting for a “magic eye” image to appear in my pores, turned me around in the swivel chair, and said “No I didn’t.”

Now, I’m not always the most observant person, but I’m pretty sure I can tell when my eyebrows are too different lengths. Mainly because I have vision and a mirror. Sparing unnecesary details, calling your stylist a “dumb bitch” will get you kicked out of a hair salon quite quickly, but it may also save my face from unwanted trimming. I want my eyebrow back. Dumb bitch.

However, all of this was far out of my hungover mind when my boss, Jersey Queen (the one who cannot possibly be a drag queen because she lives in the garden state) approached me and said “Hey, Burkeman, you got buzzed last night”. I was stunned. Granted, my wrinkled clothes and the fact that I wore glasses to work might signal a hangover, along with showing up half an hour later than usual, but I thought I looked inconspicuous. I scanned myself over quickly to be sure there was no glarring bar stamp on my hand when my boss interjected “I meant your hair cut, but apparently you had a few drinks, too.”

It was too late to bother stammering an obvious denial.

Waking up the day after your birthday with half an eyebrow and a visible hangover isn’t always the worse. I could be waking up to all of this in a sketchy ass apartment in Brooklyn. I’m actually quite fond of Brooklyn, I just have been to a few too many sketchy ass apartments there- mainly the one I visited directly after my birthday. I was excited by the multi-national roommate line up, but when one “come here to study acting” and another is a professional framer at an art gallery, it became clear that none of us were planning on living in luxury. The apartment was painted pink and purple on the inside, but the room was really quite spacious, I was a fan…. until I shut the door, and the doorknob literally fell off. Half an eyebrow, admittedly hungover in front of the boss at work, and considering paying hundreds of dollars to live in a shady neighborhood, I saw my life slowly swirling to a stop along with that brass doorknob. At least it was sad funny.

I’m still considering taking it. Who needs a doornob when you’ve got a doorknob sized hole in your door?

Other apartments have been better, which is a good sign thus far. Certain parts of Brooklyn are looking quite nice, I must say. Same with Jersey, Queens, and even WAY uptown parts of Manhattan. I’ve even begin to weigh the merits of Staten Island, which isn’t such a bad place if you don’t mind a ferry ride (which includes a daily dose of the Statue of Liberty). I even consulted my boss, who’s lived in New York forever, but something about mentioning Staten Island made her oddly blurry eyed and I immediately escaped the awkward situation. I mentioned it to a person who knows our boss well and she played it off by simply saying “Well, you know, she’s a bit off sometimes.” I said sure, who isn’t. She casually replied, “She’s having rough family times. You know she’s actually a man, right?”

Suddenly the phrase “the doorknob fell off” is extra sad funny. And though I had a birthday, I’ve just met the most special cougar yet.

[no one back in traffic school had told us- there're signs that can't be learned]

Bright Lights, Big City

Day 31

Peru is a hot tranny mess. In fact, South America as a whole is chock-full of transexuals, all waiting to get to the United States to surgically reassign their gender and then become extra fabulous members of the gay pride parade, which took place this last weekend in NYC. The entire affair was everything a gay man could hope for- long, in public, and coming for hours and hours. However, a rather long (yellow brick) road led up to all that was Pride 2008.

While that transition would be perfect to explain the historical significance of Stonewall, or even a chance to explain the penny versus thong incident at the Yankees game (my bad), I will instead focus on the historical significance of an underground band known as the Janice Dickinsons- who began my personal long road to pride. As a founding member of the JDs I was thrilled when 2/3 of the other JD veterans schlupted their lazy asses all the way to NYC via piss-stained buss. The Janice Dickinsons are known for a lot of things- liquor, projectile vomit, lying, amazing live shows- but we’re not well known for traveling without incident. Fiftydollarbill and Gretchiepoo both made it to NYC without causing a raucus, so it was left up to me to drop the ball. Thus rookie NYC mistake #26: Broadway does not become East Broadway… ever. East Broadway is in Chinatown, with the noodles and delicious coffee and the 2 JDs who waited patiently in the rain for me to arrive.

Myself angry and soaked, Fiftydollarbill and Gretchiepoo both happy and a bit tipsy, we headed immediately to McKenna’s once I collected them from a seedy Chinatown hotel. At McKenna’s we drowned our problems and bludgeoned our braincells with the world’s strongest rum and coke and I was well on my way to becoming a Blackout Betty until she appeared…. or maybe he…

The week of the Hot Tranny Mess officially began when Sheman introduced her/his self to us (always with the female pronoun in front, as I learned from the legos). Not quite a drag queen so much as a hideously pock-marked woman who likely had a penis, Sheman was very drunk and very eager to make our acquaintance, though we were quitely partaking in not-so-barely-legal drinks in a tiny booth. No booth is too large or small for Sheman, though. With her powerful badunk and ugly mug she was able to clear a swath right through the bar and stumble over to our booth, where she chatted with us, grabbed Gretchiepoo’s ass, and planted an extremely wet one on me.

My first kiss in New York and it’s from a (supposed) woman. Fantastic.

I’m not positive what happened the rest of the night, but I awoke with two friends asleep on my living room floor and pizza in the refrigerator… which leads me to believe I was healthy enough to walk home on my own power that night! Well done.

After such a trashy perfect evening with the world’s best band mates, we decided to spent an evening on the other side of class and got dressed up (except for Gretchiepoo, she doesn’t dress up, she instead wore shorts and accessorized with a blow-dryer burn mark) and headed to see Phantom of the Opera. Broadway, not the East Broadway bitch street, but the real Broadway. 42nd street. Phantom, the longest running musical in Broadway history. And three liquor soaked midwest kids sitting in the nose bleeds. Needless to say, it was perfect.

An evening atop the Empire State Building, an afternoon at the Met, and a day spent drinking 5 HOUR ENERGY DRINKS on the equally classy Staten Island provided for quite a bit of amusement. For the first time in this city I had friends to play in my ball pit o’success.

And then they left.

No worries, though, as KGB came to the rescue in less than a day. Korea Going Blonde arrived in Manhattan immediately after I got out of work (a television network that is still being vague about full time employment opportunities) and we whisked around the city for quite a few days. Which is to say, we went to see a Broadway play, visited McKenna’s quite frequently, and left quite a few people confused about what to expect. One highlight would include her visiting friend, who met the same fate that everyone of my friends meets at McKenna’s… only this tag-team black out lead both KGB and her friend to train to Jersey for the night. You know it’s a rough night when you wake up confused in Jersey the next morning. Even more rough when you wake up alongside a brand new 50 dollar vibrator that you can’t recall purchasing. That little dolphin will make itself memorable in no time.

Another moment which explains my relationship with KGB quite well (aside from the meaningful conversations and actions we participate in, because those don’t count) is the night I took her out to Little Italy for a dinner with the other media fellows that I’m in NYC with for these few months. Most of them are incredibly smart and excel in media (aside from Mormonzo and Preacher Man, that is), which means they are well behaved. Thus why I keep a safe distance.

Somewhere between laughs about scary transexuals and the hilarious homeless man who sang “Ain’t too proud to Beg” on the metro- one of my fellow fellows leaned in to listen to our chat and was forced to ask “Why are you guys discussing circumcision at dinner?” Aside from the obvious answer, Italian restaurant, we had to nonchallantly explain that this was standard conversation, this particular topic is one often on our lips. The rest of the group was not as interested in fleshing out the details of preference on this one, but it’s no surprise that KGB is quite comfortable with either variety- she’s had a slew of foreign boyfriends. I explained that it was an area I wasn’t familiar with yet.

And then Nelly Furtaco came to visit. Nearly a year after having been told “I love you” by Nelly at the MOST inappropriate time in history, our relationship has recovered and we seem to have agreed that it’s best we forget he said it and that I didn’t react so well when he did… Awkward. Anyway, nearly a year has passed and Nelly looks better than ever, which was a large motivator to come to NYC for pride weekend. I was excited for him to meet KGB so that she could put a face with the story, and as soon as I introduced them I remembered our conversation in Little Italy. I have had that experience.

A lovely night spent gawking, dancing, and sipping at a Middle Eastern club (Pride Habibi!) tuckered us out on Friday night and after getting massively lost for a bit of the day on Saturday (5th ave and 1st street don’t intersect… ever… rookie mistake #27) we arrived at a small Indian restaurant named Milon. Milon is on the second floor of a building and directly across the porch is a competing restaurant that offers the exact same menu, two men calmly wait for you to approach the restaurant and then forcefully convince you to come to their side of the porch to enjoy their restaurant’s entirely unoriginal food. These two men will split up your dinner party if you are not prepared.

Siding with the cuter of the two pushy Indian restauranteurs, KGB, Nelly and myself entered Milon, which looks less like the similarly pronounced Italian city and instead much like you would imagine a dollhouse decorated by a tranny who wanted to give her/his dolls epilepsy. It even makes that much sense. Peppers hanging everywhere, inexplicable blinking lights, wrapping paper, and a few inflatible dinosaurs in the canopy. At 7 dollars a plate, this is perhaps the most underwhelming food and overwhelming visual stimulus that you can get in the city without eating left overs in a crack den. The place is fantastic, and I will be frequenting often. The food isn’t too remarkable, but good home cooked Indian food served with delicious garlic naan and a decor that would give your retinas A.D.D.

After MIlon and a bout of Rick & Steve (rent it, be violated by it, love it) the three of us headed out to a birthday party for a friend that I’ve made in the city… the whole one friend I’ve made here in the city, actually. Half of the Harlam Harem (a kind group of media kids who now live in the city), Fozzy is a cute girl who knows how to throw a party… a party that was attended by the woman who used to be the head of the program that is footing my rent and living expenses while I work with the network… a party in which I blacked out with this woman who used to be the head of my program, and apparently a party where I started talking- A LOT.

Glossing over the blurry night (and the fact that I told a story and then immediately unknowingly retold it until a friend cut me off), life began to come back into focus when KGB, Nelly and myself all wandered out of a diner at 6 am and noticed that it was light out. As we poured ourselves into bed KGB revealed another surprise, we would soon be pouring caffeinated vodka into our gullets, as the former head of my program had unknowningly gifted us a bottle of PINK. KGB may have woken up in Jersey with a vibrator that wasn’t there the morning before, but I went to bed with a 5th of go-go vodka that wasn’t there the night before… I win. A buzz beats a buzzer for any guy in town.

Raising myself from the living room floor a mere 5 hours later was rough, but the ebbing headache demanded early morning Jamba Juice… and who am I to resist the headache throb that demands juice? No one. So I trekked my swollen brain to the nearby faux-health store and purchased myself some vitamin boosted brain freeze before heading out to the main event- pride parade!

As a midwest transplant, there was really no way to prepare for the over-the-top gala that took place, drag queens still scare me and crowded places are distinctly unlike the cornfields of my undergraduate days. However, the spectacle was everything I could’ve imagined it was, only with more glitter. It had all the colors of a dinner at Milon, all the boisterous celebration of a Janice Dickinsons concert and none of the morning after apologies, and it was spent with friends. For the first time I’m beginning to understand what a gay community is- more than the shallow sex we’re all warned about and instead a network of people who really just care about loving eachother. Not just physically, but as friends and neighbors, as gay soccer teams and color guards (self-proclaimed Flaggots, no less) and churches and parents and teachers and motorcycle enthusiasts (naturally) and politicians and foreign immigrants and stray straight folks and even a few st-st-stutterers… and just about everything else. And the event is not just for the gays, even my former academic adviser came to the event from Ohio and invited me to dinner afterwards. Pride is for the family… except the exhibisionist leather people, they’re not for the family. The parade lasts for hours and is a giant party.

But then it rained… It rained for quite a while and everyone was soaked. People responded by cheering everytime there was a thunder clap and parade floats responded by blasting “Its Raining Men” and taking off more clothes. PFLAG kept marching and old women kept passing out condoms, just to people who were wet. And it was encouraging, with a straight friend and gay friend, a friend from home and a friend from city life, and with New York, that I felt content for once. No striving for the ball pit o’ success, no more hangover, no more choosing words carefully, no more running around the city nonstop, just lots of good friends and supportive folks.

Except the Peruvians. They were busy applying waterproof mascara. All of them.

[so the day Noah's ark floats down Park my eyes will be simply glazed over]

The Things They Carried

Day 23

A deluge of duffel bagged visitors has side tracked me from my duty of informing strangers about my move to New York. Quelle triste. However, like the gay black buddhist vegetarian male Carrie Bradshaw that I strive to be (just kidding), I will be back to blah-blah-blog about the Yankees, thongs, Staten Island, visitors, Phantom of the Opera, black outs, and more in two shakes of a lambs tail.

The Beautiful Room is Empty

Day 16

 There is a business man in Brooklyn who is walking down the street who is touching himself, hands down the pants, elbow deep. And he’s not just readjusting, he is going at it full throttle, and no one else is phased by this. I know this because I went to Brooklyn yesterday, unintentionally, when I became absorbed in a book I was reading and accidentally took the 1 train much much past my street. I’m pretty sure the universe is pulling me towards Brooklyn, each day there is a more clear sign, and the idea of centering myself here in New York is an appealing one. Over the weekend at the Nu Yorican poetry slam, which was awesome, the dominant part of the crowd was from Brooklyn, and none of them seemed to be touching themselves. Hmm. However, the cafe did help re-establish my purposes for coming here, or at least re-affirm them. With all the people and traffic and freedom to get away with anything (including public urination, read on) it is easy to forget why you’re here. After a delicious dinner and a French Toast Ale (soooo good) or two at a local brewery, a friend and I rushed off to catch the opening round of the poetry slam. While hailing a cab my friend could not stop freaking out, about being late for the slam and missing a poem and disappointing our friends who would already be there and about if we left a big enough tip at the brewery and if we had enough cash for the taxi and everything in between. Finally, as we sat in the back of the surprisingly clean taxi, I was able to calm him down. He just hailed his first taxi in Manhattan, polished off some top-drawer fish ‘n chips, washed it down with a local draft, and is now comfortably whisking through traffic to watch a friend win a poetry contest at a well known cafe… It doesn’t get any more real than that. From Bummblefuck, Kentucky, he’s made it here. Everyone needs a little reality check sometimes.

Then again, I lie. A lot. Life is like a poker game, and I’ve been called on a bluff or two in my time. Not that it won’t keep me from doing it again, but I’m more conservative about it, and I’m getting rid of most of my tells. My friend PokerJew, however, is not quite at good at the life skill of bluffing. He met a girl over the weekend and (mindlessly) decided to introduce himself as a 23 year old graduate who works for Spark, instead of a 20 year old who interns for Spark. Mind you, he goes to a great school and has a prestigious internship, so lying was probably a bad choice. Regardless, this girl threw in her chips and they got to chatting- she’s 25 and working at her dad’s company. …Or at least that was her bluff. After the flop, it appears that both of them are about to call… that is, without the poker metaphore, she’s about to realize he is actually 20 and he’s already discovered that she is a fairly wealthy Greek shipping heiress. …My, how we play our hands close to our chest before the reveal. He’s looked her up on Forbes, and is now trying to take her out on a classy date. She thinks he’s 23, but when his ID doesn’t get him into a swanky joint (or bluff-friendly dive bar), he’s going to have a little ’splaining to do.

See, poker is a spectator sport. People watching on Broadway is practically as good as seeing a play. Only with more gratifying tears.

 As if all of these little episodes haven’t convinced me that (one) Brooklyn is pretty ok, afterall, and (two) that I should keep my focus while in Manhattan, a day spent enjoying a street fair followed by a night trip to Chinatown helped reinforce the ideas. I polished off some sesame noodles and began talking with a friend who’s done a lot of bizarre video work (like shooting under-water births and scoring them to original music). It seems my friend who’s spent time professionally capturing life (in aquatics) has had the same problem I have of keeping focused with all these damn tasty distractions. Steve Zizzou and I walked through Little Italy and gorged on gelato as we discussed on honest passion for media, for success, for moving to a city and really making something of ourselves. We made jokes about where we would be in 10 years, her having been deported and making documentaries from Columbia, me drinking and pill-popping my days away, a la Valley of the Dolls, under the roof of a much wealthier and older man. But it was in jest, as we both knew we were digging our heels into this island, or at least our dreams for it. But achievement and debauchary don’t have to be mutually exclusive, success can come along with spoonfulls of gelato and poetry on Saturday nights, it can be balanced with trains in Brooklyn and noodles in Chinatown, but it does depend on personal resolution. I think I’ve already reached the point in my summer where I can say I’ve become resolute. I’ll be staying in New York, dating and eating and drinking and working and job searching and drinking and apartment hunting and talking and watching and drinking- whether I have everything else in place or not. I will be here.

Inspired by our gelato and resolution that we bought in Little Italy, we decided to further indulge our international appetites and make the night a little Irish. And Russian. And Mexican. And whatever rum is… Pirate. It was a multicultural buffet. As we wander-stumbled back to our apartment the feeling of our earlier conversation combined with our current drinks converged, and we couldn’t have been more full of life. At least it felt like life… it was actually pee, though. I’m told those get confused a lot. Next thing I know I am so full of life that I think I’m about to die, so I find a conveniently dark street and pretend I’m camping. Only then I realize, this is not that dark of a street. Suddenly there are people walking towards me, as I’m one handedly attempting to desaturate my body, and enough sobriety kicks in to provide shame. At this point it’s too late to cut off the stream (it stings, bitches) and I’m too embarassed to just stand in front of on-coming foot traffic, so I walk behind a car and continue to walk behind it as people come closer. However, walking around the car quickly means being in the street, and next thing I know I’m draining life all over on-coming taxis. I zipped so fast I nearly hung myself.

After all of that time spent being appauled about the nonchallance everyone had about the Brooklyn stroker, I find the shoe is now on the other foot. Or that the hand is on the other… yeah. The point being, perhaps settling into New York means learning to (one) focus, (two) suspend some judgement, and (three) go to the bathroom before walking 20 some blocks.

Still, after giving a pep talk in the taxi on Friday on the way to poetry, and a prolonged drink-fueled pep talk on Saturday night, I was pumped about everything New York had to offer. On Monday I made more advances at work (already discussing possible long term employment) and got a great set of interviews lined up at various media firms in the city. Hooray! On the way home I was able to talk with Dr Mario, my longtime friend and roommate who is still residing in Bummblefuck, Ohio, to finish up a vary impressive pharmacy degree and play video games. Considering we’ve been close friends for just short of a decade (even though he consistently makes better decisions than I do), his seperation anxiety has been lower than I expected it to be. Upon returning from Europe he waited almost a day before calling me. I walked home from work and chatted with him for quite some time before I had to (unfortunately) cut our conversation short. Promising to call back one of my favorite friends, I hung up to field a text from Mary Jane (one of my new favorites), who wanted to have dinner and a bottle of white at a nearby Indian restaurant. The food was overpriced, but light, and the sub-par coffee kept me from having too many glasses before settling down for the night. But if we didn’t get our moneys-worth in tastiness, we definitely did in atmosphere; it’s hard to be upset with spacious seating on an open verandana on a highly trafficked street. I’m glad she suggested the place.

I was even more pleased to discover Mary Jane hadn’t suggested the place at all. Instead, Cute Clerk had mentioned to her that she visit this location to avoid getting rained on (which we did, fortunately). Upon returning to our place I was suprised to see Cute Clerk working on a Monday (he only works Sundays, as I’ve dutifully noticed), but thanked him for his Monday dinner recommendation. It turns out Cute Clerk has a name of his own. He also has a phone number. Both are currently saved in my phone (just saving one of them wouldn’t be useful). Considering the gay learning curve isn’t always kind to those of us who didn’t date for four years (I lived in Bummblefuck, after all), I’m surprised how quickly the learning curve can be conquered. I suppose conquering a curve is easier if you’re bent.

Another strong day at work and it seems like everything is falling into place for a little while. Nothing is settled, but it is falling. Work is going well, interviews are lined up, phone numbers are saved, friends are being made, and I already had dinner plans for the night- dinner and casual conversations with a few sales people at a major computer company that’s expanding into television… I’m not feeling creative so we’ll just call them Goodle. At any rate, the conversation at Boogel couldn’t've been more interesting, and when they loaded us with free Clif bars and walked us past they’re ball pit (yes, the employee break room has a ball pit), I was pretty convinced that my re-found sense of purpose and resolution in the city could lead to my own personal ball pit o’ success someday (or at least the money to afford my own Clif bars). Building a professional life and a social life here can’t be that hard.

Walking past the ball pit I decided to check my phone. Last call- Cute Clerk, which means I didn’t miss any during dinner. But the call before that- Dr Mario. I never called him back! I was so busy with my over-priced Indian ambiance dinners and Goodle visits and Cute Clerks that I couldn’t even remember we had talked …My first pangs of New York guilt. Worse, Goodle guilt. I should’ve called. A reluctant wunderkind can apply himself at work and achieve wildly, but keeping friends to play with in the ball pit of success isn’t so easy.

[in chinatown, hungover, you showed me just what i could do]

The Master and Margarita

Day 13

Richie Rich lost his brown-rimmed Gucci sunglasses, which is pretty much the worst tragedy to occur in the history of man. Just so you know. Fortunately, his former co-chair of the croquet club from his prep school days bought him some passable Ray Bans. …I’m not kidding! This is exactly what’s taking place in my apartment. He also refuses to leave the apartment while it’s hot out because “New York will still be there when it’s cool” and has Whole Foods delivering food here later today. This kid is lucky I’ve just had multiple mimosas, otherwise my disgust would be visible.

The stories begin to get richer and the characters deeper as we settle into the summer. For example- objects in NYC are older than they appear. Sure, the subway system functions very well for it’s age and a few ultra-modern buildings exist, but most everything here is way older than you think. Never has this been more true as when the entire group went out to celebrate a birthday at a nearby Mexican restaurant. The food didn’t look appealing so I passed it up and instead obtained my daily calories through some viciously strong margaritas. Don’t judge. After everyone catches their buzz (or pretends to) it is decided that everyone will reveal an embarassing story about themselves as an ice breaker. The game is funny but benign for quite some time until Mormonzo (of course) stands up and starts telling a story about getting beaten up that was only mildly funny. Then, just to provide a reference date for the story he says, “yeah, that was when I was in 8th grade, about 14 years ago.”

Wait. What? Yeah, it turns out Mormonzo is in this program (mostly populated by graduates or grad school students) and is actually 28. That stalled the embarassing story game as everyone needed time to push through the margarita buzz to do a little bit of math. 28 years old and still ridiculously awkward. That’s tragic.

The group recouperated a few days later with a blurry game of “I Never” (or “Never Have I Ever” for Jersey kids) over at McKenna’s Pub, which has the best happy hour of all time. The game definitely peeled off the innocent veneer so many people had laquered on, revealing that pretty much everyone involved in the broadcast/media community has given or received oral sex in a public place. Classy. I definitively came out the loser, sipping to such top-drawer phrases as “I never messed around with a TA” which provoked more than a few questions.  But please, Burkeman does not mess around and tell. It’s tacky. Despite the group proving my lack of good judgement, I have been saintly since arriving to New York. I’d like to think of myself as a reformed drinking drugging hedonistic (solely because of boredom) gay man. Of mixed race…. who’s vegetarian… and Buddhist. Ok, so I don’t fit into a demographic easily, but the point to focus on is the “reformed” part of the drinking and drugs here. I have a running bet about how long it’ll take before I become unreformed. It’s me versus New York City, and thus far I happen to be winning (minus the drinking, but that doesn’t count in New York!). I’ve also revaluated my relationships with a few people in the group, solely based upon drinking experience (which is the true way to gauge friendship) and have slowly begun to fall in love with a beer swilling girl who enjoys cheap pubs and happy hours just as much as I do. I cannot be positive, but I believe Hard Coors may be a good drinking buddy for the weeknights when sobriety is just too much effort.

Life at work is fairly good, I’ve conquered the first few tasks and at this point I’m legally not allowed to talk about the work I do… Yeah. I can say that the software I learned during my first week costs 42k a month to keep… wow. I’m in the “information business” more than anything, according to my boss. Honestly, the interviews I have set up with other industry figures are also very promising, so my professional life is in a good place (for now). I suspected my boss of being a drag queen for a brief time, but I put those thoughts aside when she told me about her love of Jersey and yogurt. Drag queens don’t do Jersey. I’ve also weaseled in with a few other people in the department who’ve become fond of me during this first week, largely because they all enjoyed my story about waking up covered in blood. BTW, that mystery was solved! I sleep right next to the air conditioner, which frequently wakes me up because it is freezing but I don’t dare turn it off lest Richie Rich have a tantrum and throw one of his Keds (he has a low heat tolerance and I high tantrum potential). At any rate, apparently I sometimes turn the air conditioner off while in-between the waking and sleeping state, which I can never account for in the morning. The other day I casually turned the air conditioner onto fan (because the Republicunt can’t distinguish the sound difference if you just turn the fan on) and immediately hurt my finger. Upon inspection I discovered three very large shards of glass next to the regular controls. That’s how I cut my finger open. All that blood and hoopla was just because my roommate cannot tolerate a room above 65 degrees. I think he owes me something to make it even. A quarter pint of blood would make us just about square.

I could waste time mentioning all the great places we’ve been and the great things we’ve done, but those were all sober moments, so I’ll avoid it. Regardless, there’s a sweet international candy store, a badass poetry cafe with a slam poetry contest that one of my friends rocked last night, french toast beer (just one), Vietnamese dinners, Ukranian mimosas (just two!), Dumpling Man, Red Mango, and a homeless man named Meth Mouth who’re all part of the Burkeman New York Tour. But why talk about all that when I can talk about the world’s least favorite blond kid…

Mormonzo’s insatiable appetite for making people look at the ground and say “anyway…” did not end there.  A few days later the entire group of media kids was invited to the headquarters of a major news / political entity for a mixer with industry bigwigs and a chance to nab a few more worthwhile business cards (and free drinks to fend off this heat wave!). Everyone calmly introduced themselves to a group, but Mormonzo had to be the stand out. The memorable kid. Or… that guy. Now, you must imagine a deceptively old religious fanatic holding a microphone, but I think just writing his script is sufficiently uncomfortable. – Taps microphone – “Aloha!” The crowd does not react. “Alooooooha!” The unamused crowd responds with an “aloha” that is so unenthused you would think that Hawaii had the cultural appeal of a potato. “Yes, aloha! I’m having a great time enjoying all the heat here in Hawaii.” Smattering of socially kind laughter. “Yes, it’s great in Hawaii. Of course I haven’t gotten leid yet, but I look forward to it.”

Silence. Shock. I may’ve blushed a little.

Our group director was, again, mortified. There’s no fixing that one. I think he’s been banned from introducing himself at this point.

Mormonzo shouldn’t be the only one with tragic decisions while in New York, though, and quickly a few of us followed up with ridiculously awkward moments of our own. A fine one arrived when Preacher Man revealed that he was actually 25, and then asked me if I could get him a job at the network I was working with, as he didn’t like his network. Um, no. I can’t, and I don’t want to. We’re too different to work in the same area- you’re a biggoted faux baptist, and the only thing I discriminate against is half-proof drinks. However, this entire conversation was taking place in front of Preacher Man’s boss, the man who happens to be the national president of sales for a major television network (I’ll give a hint, the middle initial is B). Attempting to distance myself from Preacher Man, I go speak with his boss, who I’m hoping to arrange an interview with despite our rocky start- I spoke with him a week ago at a cable network’s brunch, where a slip of the tongue led me to swearing at him.

I make my way over to the intimidating and vaguely weird salesman and put my beer down on the table to avoid nervously sipping it the entire time. He does the same, which lets me know I made a wise decision. Good for me. He asks me about my first day at a rival network, which is encouraging because he remembers where I’m working. All things that are good. Until I gesture just a little too emphatically, because I was finishing my second beer in about 30 minutes and having skipped dinner (again) because apparently the media mega-mogul throwing our cocktail party didn’t believe in vegetarian food. I blame this on him, it’s always the media’s fault! Regardless, my large gesture sends my beer clear across the tiny table and directly into the lap of the network executive. And not just a little bit, the whole thing. Down the suit jacket, on the shirt, across the tie, and on the pants. I immediately lung not for a napkin, but for my beer, which I grab and sip before retreating to another table to grab napkins.

The whole series of events happened so quickly that few people observed the blunder, but when waitresses converged on the pres sales extraordinare the entire room stopped to see what was causing a stir. There I was, next to a major network executive, patting his suit jacket dry with a wadded napkin in one hand and half a beer in the other. At this point the soggy salesman looks at me and says “you need to learn how to hold onto a cocktail even if bumped into, that’s when you’ve made it in the sales business.” With that he grabs his beer and walks away, leaving me the awkward center of attention. I suppose there’s no use crying over spilt beer.

Yeah, Mormonzo might be 28, but he didn’t test the Scotch guard on a prospective employer’s suit. Richie Rich lost his sunglasses, I lost my dignity. Well, shit.

[you're so cute when you're slurring your speech, but they're closing the bar and they want us to leave]