Since Last We Matt

 "Did I tell you that I was kidnapped?"

I have many friends who could say these words to me at a party in lower Manhattan and I would be forced to respond, "Which time?" Over the decades I have collected more than my fair share of loose characters and have long suspected that the reason some people stay friends with me is that I am the kind of person who you can call from jail at 3am and will not only answer the phone without judgment but also be able to arrange bail before dawn. 

Matt Kugelman is not one of those people. He is a good person. A nice person! And yet this was his opening salvo at Matty Kelleher's #MattGala birthday party. Kugie is so thoroughly midwestern that the worst thing I have ever heard him say is, "Hmmm... I'm not sure that will work out that way." For Kugelman, as brutal a takedown as there ever is. And yet, inexplicably, he has been punched in the face, doxxed, revenge porned and yes even kidnapped. 

While waiting at the bar, a woman insisted Kugie looked like some movie or TV star, she just couldn't put her finger on which one. "I get that a lot," he insisted even though while genuinely possessing movie star good looks, he literally looks like no specific movie or TV actor I can name. "It must be nice," I assured him coolly, briefly channeling Barry Humphries from the great beyond "to be in Manhattan where you look like a movie star, as opposed to Chicago where you look like literally everyone else in Chicago." Midwestern nice I am not. 

But maybe that is why Matty Kelleher has kept me around all this time too. Like me, he has assembled his own distinctive band of loose characters and many of them descended tonight in a torrent of rain and fabulosity, in near equal measures for a costume party to celebrate a milestone birthday of his which you can guess based on my answer to the persistent party question, "how do you know Matt?"

"I met him when he was working at Barnes & Noble. No. Not at a store. They had a website. BN.com. They sold books." Finally weary of trying to explain what a book used to be, I settled on, "We went to elementary school together. He was my third grade teacher." If only the party hadn't featured projected photos covering decades of adventures that belied my lie. I told Jeremy Blacklow it was the Wall of Incriminating Evidence. The photos were in semi chronological order and at a certain point, my already infrequent appearances ended. "I'm coming up to haunt your pool one day this summer," I told Matty to his patented hand-clapped squeal of delight, "But I won't stay over. Just come up one afternoon, take a lap around the deck and head home." I want to be in some new photos but I don't want to be a nuisance about it. 

"Work's been kinda slow since cartoons went to color."

Seeing so many of the old faces again brought back of a flood of memories. Meeting Blacklow for the first time at Bowery Bar when he oh so casually showed up to see Matty fresh from kickboxing class, his sweaty shirt clinging, his hands taped up, the entire bar transfixed by his hotness. Another B-Bar night,  rescuing Kugie from standing on the metal trapdoor out front. "Samantha fell through one of those on Sex And The City," Jeremy's boyfriend declared. "My number one fear" all New Yorkers responded in unison with Carrie Bradshaw. 

Robbie Hammond regaled us with the time we were in Provincetown, when I was newly ejected from gay Los Angeles and Matty tried unsuccessfully to introduce me into impolite New York society. Despite our happy times balancing cock rings on our noses in PTown that weekend, I am not fun and fabulous and all of top tier gay Manhattan eventually nodded in approval when I was again ejected, this time to the suburbs and I never looked back for fear of turning into a pillar of saltiness. "I've never been to Provincetown, "Mario Palumbo sniffed dismissively as photos of him outside the Crown & Anchor scrolled behind him on the ever-looming Wall of Incriminating Evidence. 

"Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or 

will do over and over and over again... forever"

Brian Babst was there, and we were both in jovial spirits although Babst was not fully remembering the last time we saw each other. But speaking of incriminating evidence, that is what my blog is for! No use crying over spilt wine, or in the case of this blog, voluminous decades of tea. My writing truly serves no other purpose than to tickle Matty relentlessly and infuriate nearly everyone else. Young Bradford was there as an internally youthful vampire swathed in a cummerbund while Lina Bradford (no relation but let's see how the evening goes) worked the DJ booth before an eager and packed dance floor. 

My original costume idea was to come as me circa 2007. I pulled out a Digg.com hoodie, my Fab.com tee shirt, a pair of cargo shorts and some shiny metallic Nikes I owned but knew I could never pull off. I was all set to twist my hair into a faux hawk when Matty's boyfriend Austin sent along a "helpful" Pinterest look book filled with costume suggestions that can best be described as Grace Jones on a horse at Studio 54. End of list. "I was so stressed out!" one partygoer confided. Uh. Me too! 

Groove is in the heart

I knew I had to step my game up so I was going to wear same said cargo shorts, a Polo shirt (from Matty's stint at Ralph Lauren, after the books and before the search engine thing) and then craft an oversized Polo logo so big I would have a face hole cut into it. Unfortunately for the fleet of Lauren family copyright lawyers looking for billable hours, I am not crafty enough to pull that off either, so I decided to get a Jedi costume to go with my ridiculously expensive lightsaber that was otherwise collecting dust. 

I wasn't sure the Jedi thing would be good enough but as it turned out, it was a generational hit. And whipping out the lightsaber and lighting it up a few times during the party ended up being the kind of crowd pleasing prop comedy I don't usually get to pull off, personally or professionally, much to my chagrin. There was a drag show in the middle of the party and at one point, during a fantastic performance one of the queens came over to dance up on me, I assume because like a third grade teacher, she saw me not paying attention talking to Kugie and decided to make herself known. I lit the lightsaber and she improv'd all over it and that was my gag of the evening. 

"You look like Ewan McGregor. I guess that's the idea, right?" one partygoer said to me. "If I kept my hair natural, I'd look a lot more like Alec Guinness." Thank god even at my advanced age, I still can't grow a goatee. Later in line for the bathroom, a fabulous woman was waiting before me but the fabulousness was starting to get to her. "My back hurts from these heels." she confessed. The hunk of a man behind me squinted at the basket of toiletries across from him and then waved them away. "Without my glasses I can't see a thing." Thank God Matty is still Matty. I can handle anyone in the world getting old but him. 

TWINKle TWINKle forever our little star

Creaking knees aside, the costumes were great, the people were fun and it was an incredible party though I was grateful for the midnight end time. It felt good to be out with the old gang but not feel like when I rushed off to the drunk train at the stroke of twelve like Cinderella past her prime and pressed for time, that the party was just getting started. The Wall of Incriminating Evidence isn't the only thing moving in chronological order and even as we add more photos to it, ain't none of us needs to scroll as hard as we used to. But still, it's fun to play dress up and twirl around once more. It may not yet be the Last Days Of Disco but there is no denying there aren't as many nights left in this Donna Summer as some of us would like.  

Not pictured: Gray Hudkins. 

Guy Society

There is never anything I want to do more on a Friday night after the show than go home. But my world has been shattered since the death of James last week and it has created a certain fever pitch of impetuosity on my part. I thought about the last time I saw him, sweating like a whore in church at XL a few months ago. And maybe it was the magical thinking that if I just went out to every bar in town, eventually I would see his hulking frame lumbering through the space like an elephant moving slowly through the jungle, a catastrophe of casual destruction in his wake.  Like the months after 9/11 when I would gaze down Seventh Avenue at Times Square hoping to catch a glimpse of the twin towers, I think I will forever be looking over my shoulder with a sense of maybe.

In my grief, I sent a flurry of messages to my local friends that I had been remiss in seeing these past few weeks. I guess the arrival of spring had made me anxious to wring every second of delight out of my house that I can and my friendships, long on nightlife support, finally faded away. Ryan White and I planned to get together this week and then never did, but MattKugelman and I shared a delightful late meal at Vinyl on Monday. My friend Erik and I made plans to venture down to The Park on Thursday but fearing the zit on my nose would get worse, I pawned him off to a Friday party in SoHo.

The Light Of Darkness

It has happened of late that I have fallen into the acquaintance of Ben Roussel. I have also been reading the Autobiography of Mark Twain, so if my syntax shifts wildly in tone for no reason you’ll know why. Ben added me on Facebook some time ago and even though I didn’t know him personally, I did add him to my modest friend archive. It was during a period when, for instance, if the editor of a national gay magazine who I heretofore had never met added me, I would accept their friendship. I believed that by doing so I wasn’t just being dumped into some vast repository of their own ego but instead was building the kind of good will that would lead to articles about me that would further my career. None such articles materialized and it has happened of late that I have started to delete all of those people. But not Ben Roussel.

Some months ago when I escaped the glass terrarium I work in and headed to one of Fab.com’s happy hour parties, I was finally introduced to him in person. Naturally, in my warm and welcoming way, I cornered him on the stool where he had been shackled to pass out raffle tickets and demanded to know why he had the audacity to add me, the quintessence of the perfect stranger, on Facebook. Ben told me that he liked my writing and I seemed like the kind of person he would want to know. Never let it be said that I can’t be flattered instantly out of my most deeply held core beliefs no matter how weak the tea is that’s being served.

The Big Queasy

I had the whole thing planned out in my head. My LA friend Brian (aka BOC) was in town and just this morning, I had communicated on Facebook with NY-based Brian Babst and it was working out that both of them would be at The Park tonight. This was kismet. I would write about our fabulous evening out on the town. I even had an amazing title: The Life Of Brians. It was all so perfect. Though, as always, my life once again didn’t work out the way I had planned.

BOC and I have known each other for seventeen years, but since I moved to New York in 2001, we have rarely seen each other. The late rise of social networking has made it easy for us to reconnect and talk more which has been great. I have always liked Brian a lot. And over the years we have worked together and played together and experienced life so there was no reason for me not to be excited to see him. We planned a quick bite at Vinyl before heading down to The Park where his friend Rodney was meeting him and my friend Erik was meeting me (and presumably Babst would be waiting).

While at Vinyl enjoying my usual Thai ice tea and Cobb Salad, I bit into something that, in the moment, I thought tasted moldy. In my excitement to catch up with Brian, I ignored the thought and kept going. But ten minutes later, doubled over with cramps in the Elvis bathroom, I realized that my first instinct was correct. But so what?! We haven’t seen each other in years. People are waiting for me. I haven’t updated my blog in two weeks. I need to go. And so down to The Park we went.

All The News That's Fit To Prince

“It’s 1999 all over again!”

Bradford was gleeful when I discovered him holding court in the 2-4-1 room downstairs at The Park with Matty and Andrew. There were other men there at the table and standing around: unassuming gay white men in unassuming gay white v-neck t-shirts. It is all furniture to me now: hot, handsome, muscled furniture. Bradford in his signature tight red was a Fabulis splash of color in more ways than one. The room was hot, stifling. No air but for half price drinks, gay men will put up with almost anything, even each other.

There was a cute young thing standing near us, alone and lonely, in a button down shirt tucked into belted shorts. I know this is what people are wearing these days but to me he looks like the nerds that got teased in the 80s. Bradford is younger than I am so when he parties like it is 1999, he actually means 1999, not 1984, like me. But with the clothes as they are nowadays, it is easy for someone like me to get confused.

The Boiling Point

It was a busy Friday, which is a problem for someone like me who doesn’t especially love to be busy. On the other hand, it is nice to feel wanted. Woke up at the crack of Noon as usual, poured myself a cup of ambition and headed into the city. First stop: Studio 2 to interview self-proclaimed “Hollywood trophy wife” Candy Spelling. Delicious Candy has been in a tasty battle with her daughter Tori for years and now Candy has a book of her own,“sTORIes From Candyland,” which has all the cardboard depth of the board game you loved with none of the plot twists. A loose thread of shallow Hollywood adventures, heart-clogging recipes and mind-boggling home inventories that attempt to bring some ordered understanding to a decidedly disordered mind are wrapped around anecdotes proclaiming the normalcy of her life amid hoarded mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Candy herself was very, for lack of a better word, sweet. It is clear that the key to success for her is gliding as effortlessly through life as an ice skater sailing through the vacuum of space. She looked good too. So many Hollywood wives are pulled overly tight or try to maintain the appearance of a youth that is but a dim memory. But Candy looks respectable, aging if not gracefully, than ever as slowly as her vast wealth will allow. I did manage to illicit a human emotion out of her when, in our anticipated discussion of her daughter, I brought up the Time Magazine piece on Tori during her terrific turn in “The House of Yes” where she was quite believably a haggard donut shop girl out of her element. Time Magazine, in the midst of a flat out frame-it-and-put-it-on-the-wall rave about Tori couldn’t resist tearing her down to a size zero by referring to her as the “shovel-faced” daughter of Aaron Spelling. Candy’s eyes actually welled up when she described what it was like to be a mother when someone says that about their daughter.

The real story worth crying about was waiting for us after the interview down at a diner in Chelsea when we ran off to see the devil on two sticks himself. Our old board op Ben Dover was waiting there for us on crutches. It was very Vanessa Redgrave in Julia and his story was filled with almost as much intrigue. A few weeks ago crossing the street, a car slammed into him, landing him on the hood like an ornament before sliding off into the street, his leg broken. While he told us this terrible story, I methodically made my way through a banana split the size of my own head. Ben told Romaine later that he had never seen anything like it before, but Romaine casually waved him off. “He eats like that all the time,” she deadpanned, failing to mention that restrictive diet I have been on for two months that allowed me to shed fifteen pounds at the drop of a hat by eating nothing that resembled food.

I ditched Romaine and Hop Along Cassidy and walked up to the world headquarters of Fabulis.com, aka a very nice apartment in Chelsea with a view of the Statue of Liberty, so you were instantly aware you were in the nosebleed section of wealth. Walking in, I knew I could only stay for a half an hour and still get back to the studio in time to do the night’s show and I stuck to my schedule. I amused Young Bradford and the few assembled guests who arrived early by announcing myself as “Number Five,” my local NYC ranking that day on the preview site (or as I like to call it Friendster 2010). I sipped my way through a quick cocktail while chatting with Richard Socarides, lately quite the busy TV pundit. It was nice to dish Obama Administration policy and performance with someone who had actually worked in a White House before. I also spent some time coveting the Capresso machine, so very sad that our Krups fancy coffee machine at home crapped out on us after less than six months. You’d think they won the war!

After the show, I headed downtown, way downtown, for Chris’s birthday party. Chris wanted to celebrate at The Boiler Room, which I hadn’t been to since the last birthday party I attended there. I suppose it was just last summer but it feels like a whole lifetime ago. And it was. The bar was jam packed but that didn’t stop two of the fattest men I have ever seen in a gay bar attempt a round of pool, waving their cues menacingly at all the skinny East Village gays who in their minds had no doubt shunned them one too many times. Passive aggressive is my least favorite gay flavor.

The short-lived pool game was obnoxious but the friends were lovely. I met lots of new guys in the group but I remember none of their names. Why bother? So-and-so was the boyfriend of this one and this guy was the college roommate of that one. I was too busy in my own head making one of those wall maps with string and newspaper clippings that crazy people are always doing in TV shows and movies to show you that they are insane. Guilty as charged, crazy!

My roommate was there and even though grungy east side boys are right in his wheelhouse, he didn’t have a very good time. He didn’t know anyone there and even I only really knew the birthday boy and his boyfriend Cub, so I was no help in introducing him around. Although he did have an amusing obnoxious encounter at the bar while waiting to get a drink. One of the skinny grunge gays turned to another skinny grunge gay and threw his arm up in the air. “Brooklyn?!” came the haughty squeal, “They are so pretentious there!” Takes one to know one.

Charlie showed up and Mike brightened considerably. He had a question about the way Tribal Council is run on Survivor and Charlie, being a former contestant was able to answer. Not only did he know, but he was very anxious to delve into about the nerdiest conversation you ever heard about how Tribal Council works. Mike was happy to get the scoop but Charlie was in heaven. “If you ever want to know more, call me! I love talking about this stuff!” Charlie assured him as we were leaving and I know he meant it.

I ran into Martin on the way out and hadn’t seen him in a while, so that was nice. In fact the whole evening was nice. Of course, then we got to the subway which was closed going the way we wanted and as usual that was a whole ordeal so we just hopped into a cab. “I always say I should come downtown more often,” my roommate opined, “But then I get here and I remember why I never come down here. It’s a pain in the ass.” And so pretentious! The cab whisked us off to Grand Central Station with an ease that no doubt would have made Candy Spelling feel right at home.

Maybe it was the four cups of coffee or the cocktails or the banana split talking, but I was in a good mood. I was so upbeat and loving with Ben Harvey at the bar, it might have scared him, but I don’t care. Who cares? It was a good day. And while I may not have a 56,000 square foot house with two wrapping rooms in it, I am not rambling around in a giant mansion wondering why my daughter never calls and telling my butlers how down to earth and normal I am. My personality is no asset but at least I am not on crutches. So while I can normally be counted on to meltdown in a major way, I won’t be reaching my boiling point tonight. I’m happy for a change and I don’t care who knows it.

In One Year And Out The Other

I have spent a lot of time at The Park lately, now that it is Matty’s new haunt. He hosts a monthly party which is a nice excuse for me to get out of the house every once in a while and update my semi-annual blog. I feel a lot of pressure to go out just so I can have something to write about, especially as I see a particularly empty month sitting lonely and forlorn in the blog archives. That is the funny thing about the passing of time. You don’t really notice it until it’s already done.

So it’s been another year since Matty’s last birthday. As I recall, I haven’t been around for many of them. Thanks to timing I am usually off at some pride event somewhere on the same weekend that he chooses to celebrate. For the last five years it has been the same routine. Matty gets excited telling me that his party is coming up and I dash his hopes by not being around. It’s not that he doesn’t have a zillion other friends, after all he was able to launch a popular club night right out of his iPhone contacts. That’s all fine for any run of the mill Thursday but when it is a special occasion you want all of your favorite people around.

Last night at The Park, there were so many gay men that I knew there that it would probably be easier to just list the four gay men I know that weren’t there. I invited Matt Kugelman to join me, speaking of people who have plenty of other friends, and we cabbed it down after the show. I have been trying to keep my strongest yenta urges under wraps and play it cool on my feverish desire to marry him off to someone. However, as primer, I casually dropped subtle questions like “so, is there anything wrong with you?” to see if I could get a better idea of what kind of guy to eventually lock him in a small closet with to see what develops. The problem with someone like Kugie is that he is something of a universal donor. He would be the perfect boyfriend for almost anyone, which makes it hard to distinguish who he would actually be good for. You can’t tell if you are reacting to genuine chemistry with him, or feeling the effects of the same magnetism that draws everyone else to him too.

We walked into the upstairs lounge and headed off to get drinks, though I was instantly way laid by the crowd. Everyone I knew was there! Kugelman gentled chided me about my fame and popularity but it is really Matty’s popularity and my proximity. Big difference. John Saldivar had joined up with Roommate for dinner first (aka margaritas) and they were already there, drinks in hand, when we walked in. Young Bradford was the night’s DJ, working twice as hard as usual, assaying both Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan, all while perching frantically in front of a large aquarium. Ben Harvey and Dennis Hensley were talking while Gray walked behind them like Hamlet’s ghost. Every time I turned my head someone else was right there. My former boss’s old assistant from 2001! Corey Johnson! That guy I accidentally slept with last year and his resentful boyfriend! Then suddenly I realized I had lost Matt in the deep end of the gay ocean!

I ventured further into the lounge, shoving through the crush of bodies with my usual mantra “lady with a baby!” Sometimes if I am really in a hurry, I yell “Is that Madonna?” which might have incited a fire in a crowded theater style riot in the early 90s but these days hardly warrants the energy it takes to lift a heavy eye lid. Along the way I found the birthday boy and Hanno, visiting once again from Austria. Also standing with them was long distance runner Andrew, him of the crisp button down plaid shirts and zero body fat. I hugged them all profusely but left just as quickly as I arrived to find Kugie and my coke. Finally he texted me wondering where I was, worried perhaps that I had invited him to a bar just to ditch him the moment someone better came along. I sent him a message back to meet me at the aquarium, and reveled in how much better life is now that we can so easily rendezvous in crowded public places thanks to our modern conveniences. It was a God-send later at the bar when I needed to get Roommate a beer and his favorite wasn’t on the list. A short txt message later and a substitute “Heiny” was on its way.

At the aquarium, we chatted up Bradford, who snapped a photo of us while we stood on what felt like a very rickety futon. Apparently deprived as a child of furniture to jump on, Matt seemed to delight in bouncing on the couch that I was certain might give way underneath us at any moment. Brian Babst was there and I grilled him quickly about the terrible Star Magazine photo swirling around Facebook that morning of his real estate client Rupert Everett. “Just make-up” he sighed of the photo on the set of Martha Stewart’s show that a plastic surgeon “expert” insisted looked like $25,000 of work done badly. I noted that Brian’s shoulders were a solid mass of muscle when I hugged him and put my head lovingly on his neck like I always do. Memorial Day weekend must be nearer than I thought. I suppose it is time to get ourselves into order.

More and more people kept pouring in. Kenneth In The (212) blogger Ken wandered by on his way to meet up with Misadventures In The (213) author Dennis. Chuck finally arrived after a series of frantic “are you sure you are going to be there” text messages. Ben Harvey and ADD Jeff and on and on. My head was spinning from all the familiar faces. A guy I didn’t know and I don’t remember meeting before came up to me and grilled me about my blog. I think he was hoping for a spontaneous mention, but I didn’t even get his name and now he would be impossible to find. Sorry you. Apparently I also met a hot guy named Andrew but didn’t remember it when he tried to add me later on Facebook. After I sent him my standard form letter denying FB friendship and directing him to my fan page he turned belligerent. “We met on Thursday… you’re a douche.” Both grammatically and factually accurate. I can’t argue with logic like that.

Maybe this blog is more trouble than it’s worth. The more people I meet, the harder it is to remember all of their names and keep them all straight. Who did I miss from this blog entry? Who will be upset? Who will be relieved? It’s exhausting. And after nine years of FantasyMan Island and several years of this chronicle, I have to ask when will the remembrance of things past end? Matty is the one a year older but I am the one feeling the miles trying to keep all these cocktail glasses in the air. I was never a party animal and though we have all been dumped into the same gay aquarium, swimming around feverishly gets exhausting after a while. A few laps around the bar and I was ready to go back to my ceramic castle. At what point do you surrender and just float belly up to the surface of the water, waiting for someone to scoop you up and take you away from it all? The big flush is coming! Enjoy the bubbles while you can.

Bad Manners

"I should have told you at the beginning of this conversation that I have no people skills."

I am aware when I write about my encounters out on the town, it gives people a thrill to see me say things like this. I promise you that the person hearing it first hand is not thrilled. Case in point: Thursday night at The Park, Matty's monthly soiree of boys, booze and bouncing around. Happening at the tail end of March, this particular event took on all the trappings of a Fire Island pre-party, right down to the hunky gemologist, stunned by his misfortune to be in conversation with me.

Wonderful Brian Babst introduced me to Seth and for a moment, I did my best to engage him in small talk about his favorite subject: himself. Unfortunately, my lack of knowledge about or interest in diamonds, jewelry, abs and the Ascension party on Fire Island turned me rapidly into a pumpkin before his very non-believing eyes. Suddenly, his head was swiveling around like an office chair in an earthquake, desperate to find someone (anyone!) else that he knew so that he could return to his safety zone, waxing poetic about his lock necklace and who accidentally O.D.ed last summer swigging on a sports bottle full of GHB.

All this was later in the evening, when most of the men in suits had faded away and what was left was cruisy, drunk and ready to rekindle old flames from Pines past. Already the muscles are bulging from beneath strained t-shirts like snow crocuses making their first budding ventures out of the frost. Spring is here I hear, and a Summer of thongs and regrets (and regretting seeing some in thongs) is just around the corner. And tonight, in between the Wall Streeters and the hunky casual, a sea of plaid shirts that caught the attention first of Dave Rubin ("Is that what we are doing now?") and then moments later Brian himself ("Brother, can you spare some gingham?"). It's Depression Chic, I assured them, happy to for once be, if not ahead of the curve, at least balancing precariously on it.

I didn't need to meet anyone new, and at this point really, new men are just cannon fodder for my blog anyway. Sorry Seth. I am sure your well-formed shoulders can handle the burden of it all. However, I did bring someone new this time. Delicious Matt Kugelman delighted me by coming along with his friend Chip and the three of us had a gay old time. Matt knows his way around a hot Manhattan gay party so I think he was surprised by how few people he knew there. Fortunately, his winning smile and equally bulging t-shirt signaled that he would fit right in and it wouldn't take him long to meet anyone he wanted to meet.

Having them there with me was a little like taking a date to your high school reunion. I knew so many people, and far more than I actually know in real life. Charlie found us first, while we were still downstairs, drawn over by the siren song of my unmistakable laugh. Gray and Greg were upstairs, looking sharp as always. Chris Stadler was there, though I didn't even get to say hi, it was so crowded. Ben Harvey was a thin slice of blond heaven, a drunk Patsy to Dave Rubin's smashed Edina. Matty was running around taking a hundred and one photos and he positively melted like chocolate on your tongue when I asked him about Austria. Matty took a couple of good snaps of me with Young Bradford who was sad I was spending this weekend in Florida working instead of helping to keep Matty entertained out in the country with them. He introduced me to another guy also named Bradford. "How dare you!" I said to this new interloping Bradford, to which our Bradford whole-heartedly agreed, chiming in himself with a "Yes! How dare you!"Once again, I did everything I could to win over a stranger.

Matt and Chip didn't stay long, having to run off to Bianca's show further uptown. I hope they had fun. Matt sure seemed to enjoy dancing around to the music, although not as much as Corey Johnson, who twirled like a Drag Race contestant lipsyncing for his life. Needing to escape before I did any real damage, I looked for Joe and his cute friend Adam to say good-bye. Adam showered me with flirty attention the last time I saw him, but this time, he was chasing someone else. Naturally, being a self-centered monster, this hurt my feelings. So, I tugged on his suspenders a while, lifted him up a bit to kiss him on the neck and ran my fingers along the back of his ear until he asked me for my number. "Ask Joe for it!" I said as I kissed him good night, knowing full well that Joe doesn't have my number either.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to you because unlike Seth, I told you at the beginning of this conversation that I don't have any people skills. And I still don't.