When The Boyfriend™'s Away...

A couple weeks back, The Boyfriend™ went out of town for his annual Guys Weekend. It’s just what it sounds like: all his buddies get together for a couple days and escape the castration usually imposed on them by, well, civilization. That means no women around to tell them what to do like, “You can’t cook steak every night because a) it’ll make me fat, and b) your cholesterol is sky high.” Or “Stop drinking because I don’t want you rolling over and vomiting on me in the middle of the night.” You know, the sensible things.

That left me with a free, quiet weekend where I didn’t have to put out for two days. So what did I do? NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES BECAUSE SOMEONE TOOK THE X-BOX WITH HIM TO PALM SPRINGS. That's what.

Instead, I got together with my gal pal, Laura, whose boyfriend was also attending Guys Weekend, and we decided to hit a new bar that opened up a couple miles away. Where I could play darts. I’d heard it was a very interactive game. Right up there with Red Dead Redemption. Yup. Just as thrilling…put a dart in something other than the board, I swear to god…like my own carotid artery…

But before Laura arrived, I needed to ease the pain of my loneliness (The Faxman, we WILL finish that game of Borderlands, I promise). It’s always a good idea to start drinking alone, so I sorted through this crate of wine The Boyfriend™ and I had brought back from a vacation last year. Then I texted him: “Laura’s coming over. Mind if I open the Oregon rosé? I’ll send video if we get it on.”

If you hadn’t noticed, I’m pretty tongue-in-cheek. Or sarcastic. Or a bitch. Whatever you want to call the attribute I possess that makes me say outrageous things I never really mean. You know this. I know this. The Boyfriend™ knows this.

Except possibly when he’s drunk.

His reply: YES!!!!!!! Drink anything u want but the jinny walker blue!

I am Scottish, which means I’m a raucous drunk––but a raucous drunk with standards. I would never drink Johnny Walker Blue in the first place, so he had nothing to fear (oh Macallan, how I love thee). What I had to fear, however, was that The Boyfriend™ was drunk and possibly thought I was serious about, well, you know…videotaping myself with another girl.

Wait, videotaping? Who uses video anymore? Recording? OK but that’s not very specific. Maybe digitally recording?

OK there we go.

What I had to fear was that The Boyfriend™––at that very moment––might actually expect me to produce a digital recording of me participating in girl-on-girl action with one of his best friends’ girlfriend. Because, dude, boyfriend’s a lightweight. In one hour, he’d had “Two tequila shots. One mi tai and one margahrita.”

Blink.

Moving on...

Laura arrived. We had a glass each of the rosé and headed out to dinner. My iPhone chimed: “Naked pictures kiss.”

Uh did he mean me or him? Because one was not going to happen, and I prayed the other would never happen. After all, when you considered the circumstances, I doubted it would just be him in the pictures. Even as I write this, I’m still shivering in horror.

Drunken texts continued. “Boobs. And with Laura. Double boobs.”

And: “Giddity giddity.”

Finally I reply (with some snarkiness from Laura): “We’re gonna have a pillow fight.”

I'm thinking Doris Day. He's thinking Jenna Jameson.

“Naked?”

Laura feeds me another line: “Does liquid latex count?”

“Yes!!!! Double boobs.”

The next morning, there was no mention of anything. He’d still been sober enough to understand that I was purely in jest. I mean, my god, could you imagine the shit storm that would cause? The boys go away for a weekend so the girls hook up? Yes, it’s many a-man’s fantasy, but in reality, wouldn’t you come back horrified to find out that either your girlfriend had cheated on you with another girl, or you had actually––stupidly––chosen bros before hos and missed out on what could’ve been a ménage? But no matter what, I saw it as cheating, through and through. And worse yet, not with some random girl picked up at a bar, but with a friend’s girlfriend. You’d think a man would question himself after something like that: Didn’t I love her enough? Didn’t I give her everything she wanted and needed? Can a strap on really replace my dick? I mean, I’d be a wreck if The Boyfriend™ ran off with another man––but at least then I could stop getting waxed.

When he returned Sunday, we went to dinner. “So no naked pillow fights?” he asked.

“Naw, you know me,” I laughed.

He looked a bit sad. “I’m disappointed.”

“Honey, I’d never cheat on you!”

The Boyfriend™ looked at me incredulously. “That’s not cheating as long as you have video. Or pictures. Or at least really, really specific details.”

I’m quite skeptical. “So I can go pick up a girl at a bar and do her and you’re cool with it.”

“No! I'm not!” he gasps. “I meant Laura. Laura’s not cheating.”

Johnny, Don't Lead Me On!

Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I don't look the poster girl for gay culture. If I’m going to be really honest about this, let me start here: I often look like an East Coast Republican (except with blond hair because I live in California). In fact, I resemble the villainous Harvard girls in Legally Blonde with my J. Crew and Ann Taylor suiting.

So based merely on appearances, we could say the following: you’d expect me to be one of the folks funneling money to the Mormons last election, while wearing a headband and a Jackie O coat. Then I probably went home and watched “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” or “Alley McBeal” with plans to enjoy “quality time” with my vibrator named Mitt Romney before falling into a sleep full of very conservative dreams.

That means I’d be one of the last people you’d ever expect to be shrieking with joy when U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir hit the ice for his short program last night. And you’d be completely wrong, because nothing gets my heart pumping like Drama On The Ice™ (trademarked because I’ve totally got a screenplay in the works). Hot pink! Black vinyl! Tassels! Stylized male corset! I once dated a guy who dressed like that (you know who you are, and I still hope your lack of an ability to “salute” properly still haunts you to this day).

I held my breath as my sweet Johnny Angel (thank you, Miss Shelley Fabares) posed, waiting for the music to start. Would it be My Chemical Romance? Oh god, please let it be MCR, because this would be the most perfect moment in all of the Olympics, to hear some crazy mash-up between “Teenagers” and Lady Gaga’s “Boys Boys Boys.” At this gloriously elaborate thought, I also imagined myself twirling through the streets of West Hollywood, throwing streamers while covered in rubber glow bracelets and passing out Pucker-based shots, all with muscular men in thin, tight shirts following me, dancing in unison and performed complex, Cirque du Soleil acrobatics. Tears blurred my eyes as I held my breath in anticipation.

Well, that vision evaporated faster than spilled Everclear when the classical music kicked in.

At least my darling Johnny Angel showed some sass with his hand movements. Sadly though, the costume promised so much, while his routine and music delivered so little. Don’t get me wrong: he was a graceful, technical wonder, a beautiful addition to the sport. But where was the gayness???? Johnny, you wore an Emo Suit! You’re coy! You’re sassy! Bring that special gay artistry to the ice––and melt it, turning that stadium into a searing, sweaty sauna of Canadian rave-ery! Be daring and don't be afraid to gay up the Olympics! Be the one that shows men all over the world that it's OK to wear hot pink-laced black vinyl corsets! Bring that equality like you did in Japan, skating to "Poker Face!"

And to get The Boyfriend™ to sit on the couch and actually watch men’s figure skating with me, it required the following:

• Lots o’ manly, chest-hair-growing beer
• Manly drunkenness
• Constantly saying, “No. No. Just––no. That dude’s not straight, I don’t care what you say. You will never, ever convince me, no matter how much you try and don’t even start, because I don’t want to hear it where’s my beer I need more beer I should Facebook this.”
• Constant reaffirming that he will get a blow job when it’s over (from a girl)

So you can see my disappointment, when this very gay man, in this outrageously awesome skating outfit that is straight out of a West Hollywood gay club, did not follow through and bring about complete gay domination of the sport.

The only thing that saved me from a massive bout of depression was, after the short program finished, the Sundance Channel ran an ad for the reality show, “Be Good, Johnny Weir” (you can see it below). This prompted me to plead to the screen "Be bad, Johnny, be ever so bad, you luscious creature!"

Then The Boyfriend™ said, “I’ve already set up a TiVo season pass for you. It’s cool. My TiVo already thinks I’m gay. Now get your mouth down here.”

Oh, appearances. You are deceiving, aren’t you?

Where I've Been

I got a master’s degree, OK? So for all you people out there constantly asking me “When’s your next blog?” and “Have you quit writing your blog?,” the answer is “No, bitches. Now shut your pie holes and read on.”

To get said master’s degree, I had to write a novel. Not a very good novel, but I had to at least write one. So I spent over a year freaking out about it. Nightmares, anxiety meds, hookers who somehow caught on fire. It was just a bad time in my life, but I really needed to finish grad school. I was exhausted by the fucked up relationship I’d chosen with the dominatrix named Academia.

So this past fall, I resolved to finish. And I’ll be the first person to admit that, while I should have finished in the spring, I stayed through the fall so I wouldn’t somehow end up in Boston, starting on a Ph.D. in Victorian literature when that was the last thing I really wanted to do. Terrible economies, misguided dreams and fucked up expectations can lead you to do very bad things. Just look at Heidi Montag.

I only had one class, which was independent study: write your damned thesis. This made it possible for me to write for dailyfill.com and moviefill.com. One day in November, about two weeks before my final thesis was due, and I had 14 more chapters to write, The Boyfriend™ was kind enough to drive me to the office and pick me up. It really was very sweet (except for the swerving in and out of morning L.A. traffic and cutting off semis in a rage fueled by hatred for stop-and-go freeways). I actually got there quite early. I spent the day mocking celebrities, updating Twitter, and freaking the fuck out about my thesis. And then The Boyfriend™ returned to fetch me. As I walk down the stairs, my fingers ache from all the typing, and I dread going home to type even more, though I need to finish at least three thesis chapters tonight. I also need a shot of whiskey to bookend each chapter.

And we were off, back home for an evening of The Boyfriend™ playing video games while I forlornly look on from the dining room table, watching him own shit in Gears of War 2 while I’m forming sentences like “Her lace petticoat dragged along the worn cobblestone, snagging in places like the fingers of the dead reaching up to catch it. If only she had a hammerburst assault rifle to fuck their shit up, then Alixandra would feel much safer beneath the stark canopy of a starless night, amongst this city of ghosts and corpsers”––gah!

But the evening stop-and-go traffic threatened to keep us sitting on the 405 and me from an evening of torture. “You want to go to dinner?” The Boyfriend™ asks.

We’re like two blocks from the freeway, and I’m feeling guilt build inside of me before I even know how I’ll answ––“Definitely.”

He swerves away from the freeway, and let me take this moment to point out something: on our second date, he picked me up at my place. Yes, not only had I just met him three days prior, I let some strange man know where I live and I got into his car without giving any of his information to my three best friends (what? I was running late and I had to get my eye shadow finished, so I had no time to call any of them). But that’s beside the point. My point is that as he drove us on that second date, I noticed how slow he drove. Slow and careful and methodical. I recall thinking, “Wow, he really stays within the lines. And when he changes lanes, he makes sure there’s equal distance between the car before us and the car behind us. And also when we change lanes, I never feel the bump of the tires hitting the reflectors. Is it possible I’ve met the man of my dreams? The only other OCD driver in L.A.?”

No. No, I hadn’t.

While The Boyfriend™ is still that careful driver, he is no longer slow or methodical. He’s actually very clean and confident in that “I was a cop on a TV show in a former life” kind of way. When The Boyfriend™ drives, it probably looks very slick on camera (but I’ve been told that’s “all in the editing” so now I don’t know what the hell I’m saying).

“There’s this place I’ve been wanting to try, up on Bundy,” he’s saying as I run some numbers in my head.

I have precisely 13 more days until my thesis is due. I have 14 more chapters to write. This means I have to write how many…pages per …day… to… finished…? Oh god, we really shouldn’t go to dinner unless there’s room for a third wheel: my laptop.

“They apparently have a brownie strawberry shortcake.”

Wait. I hadn’t calculated in time for editing 250 pages of novel. Oh fuck oh fuck.

“Are you OK? Are you hungry?”

“Definitely, let’s try it.” Skipping one more night isn’t going to do much damage at this point. No matter what I do, I’m going to be staying up for six days straight writing until my fingers cramp, and when I realize I don’t have Reese Witherspoon’s needle chin to type with, I’ll have to stick a pencil between my teeth and use it to keep pressing down the keys.

I had a horrible vision of me suddenly falling unconscious from exhaustion and the pencil slipping up into my nose and giving me a fake lead lobotomy. The last thing I wanted to think about was my thesis, my novel and my “craft” of writing. What pretentious bullshit it all was.

“Keep an eye out for it, OK? It’s called Latari,” The Boyfriend™ tells me. “So you work on your thesis at lunch?”

“No, I’m scrubbing my thesis from my mind for the entire evening. I don’t want to think about it. I need a break before I try to commit hari kari with your rear view mirror.”

He nods absently. “That’s cool.”

We pull into the parking lot and the valet takes the car. I barely remember to take my purse with me because suddenly, I’m exhausted. The Boyfriend™ opens the door to the restaurant and I enter––and nearly scream. The hostess looks just as horrified as I do, except I’m sure her horror is merely a response to my twisted expressions and convulsions.

“Oh, I got the name wrong,” The Boyfriend™ says. “It’s Literati.”

This place is a monument to my failure, my inability to finish a graduate degree, my anxiety of actually finishing a novel. Good job, baby. Way to make me feel better.

Books are the decorations. Reviews of books decorate the walls. Norman Mailer’s narrow eyes follow me as the hostess seats us. I cringe as I settle into my seat and take the menu. Books everywhere. Every-fucking-where. And when I dare to look up from the menu and smile at The Boyfriend™, directly over his shoulder is a framed picture of a fountain pen, dripping bright red blood from its nip. Written beneath the pen? The word “HELL.”

I whimper. I realize that this could be Hell.

The Boyfriend™ raises an eyebrow. “What?”

I rub my forehead. “I left my school bag in the car.

“Okaaaay…”

“My laptop’s sticking out of it.”

“Okaaaaaaay…”

“In the front seat.”

The Boyfriend™ reaches for his keys.

“No, no,” I insist quickly. “It’s fine. Really, I’m just being paranoid. We’re like the only car in the valet lot.”

I look back down at the menu and use my hand to shield my eyes. The bloody pen looms. I think there was beef tartar on the menu. I look back up at The Boyfriend™ and the blood seems brighter.

“What looks good?” he asks me.

“My thesis is a Word file.”

He puts his menu down.

“That’s all.”

He reaches into his pocket.

“No flash drive. No Google Doc copy.”

He hands me the car keys. I receive them as if they’re the tools of Holy Communion and dash out to grab my bag. For the rest of the evening, it rests beside my feet. And just in case anything absurd were to happen—like the waitress snatching it and running, or I somehow forget it’s there—I have the straps wound tightly around my ankle.

The Boyfriend™ quietly eats his dinner. I think he’s realized that I’m precariously trembling on the verge of insanity and possibly even the words, “I’m enjoying my sea bass” could send me screaming out the back door, limping as I drag my laptop bag with me. I’m also pretty sure if that happened, The Boyfriend™ would have calmly paid the bill, left Literati, and retrieved his car from the valet without ever considering he should drive up and down Bundy looking for his insane girlfriend, who would’ve been lighting matches and looking in bushes and around bus stops, quietly calling, “Here, hooker hooker hooker…Here, hooker…”

Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed him.