Turkish Joke

Q: Did you hear about the guy who doesn't like Kurds?

A: No way!

Today's Helpful Turkish Phrase

"Evet, Amerika geliyorum. Hayır, herhangi bir satın almaya gitmiyorum benim sekreter ya da benim at hediye."

Yes, I'm from America. No, I'm not going to buy any presents for my secretary or my horse.

Thanks, guy who wrote the motivational saying, "If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes." Now whenever I see a picturesque line of birds on the horizon, all I can think of is one of them saying to himself, "Christ -- another day, another pigeon's asshole."

As a public service, I'd like to offer some simple dating advice so you don't fall into the same trap I did.

Sometimes people talk theoretically about sex. Like, you'll be on a date, and you'll finish a wonderful dinner, and the guy will lean over close and start to fantasize about the next step in your relationship. Maybe he'll want to paint a mental picture in his head of what sleeping with you would be like.

This is a good opportunity for you to reinforce that yes, you'll be everything he desires and more. It isn't a time to iron out the give-and-take of what's going to happen in the sack.

For instance, if he asks, "When you and I eventually fall into bed, will it be fabulous?" don't answer, "Oh, absolutely. Will you still be wearing those sweet white socks?"

I know everybody loves her
And I enjoy the way she sings
But dude, if you play one more song
I'm going to throw my onion rings.

I've got the C'mon, Guy, It's Been Forty-Six Tunes
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

I am sick and tired of her whining.
Girl should work instead of just cry.
My cousin Pam bought a Pinto
After eighteen months at DeVry.

I've got the Started Out Sad, Now I'm Steaming
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

Billie, maybe you'd find a new man
If you found something cheerful to say.
And maybe you'd find work if
You worked on your résumé.

I've got the Bet She Bought Cheetos With Food Stamps
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

He probably wouldn't have dumped you
If you'd cut back on the booze.
And maybe bought a pretty scarf
Or some high-heeled Jimmy Choos.

I've got the You Can Work Wonders With Makeup
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

I understand things are miserable.
Nobody said life was fair.
Maybe folks would treat you better
If you took that shrubbery out of your hair.

I've got the What Is That, a Hydrangea?
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

Success is in the attitude;
Show people a confident you.
Everybody loves Billy Joel
And he gets to drive drunk too.

I've got the Frowns Don't Fuck Christie Brinkley
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

Laughter is serious medicine,
A lifeboat for a sinking ship.
In fact, I'll bet she'd be alive today
If she'd read that "Family Circus" strip.

I've got the Okay, Dude, I'm Outta Here
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

I've got the That's It, Dude, I'm History
Too Much Billie Holiday Blues.

Search through those travel books all you want, but they never tell you what you really need to know. Where can I get a taco? Check. Where can I rent a car? Yup. Will every freakin' person in Turkey try to sell me stuff? Reply hazy; try again.

You buy your tickets with blithe ignorance, and minutes after you land you discover the truth. Yes, the Bahamas are picturesque. The weather is great, the beaches are pretty. But the residents are all poor and black, and by stark contrast you're pretty much rich and white. The first day you'll feel guilty having an entire race at your beck and call. You'll feel like you've slunk back in time to the slave era. You're friendly; you're apologetic. By the end of your trip, though, you'll be saying stuff like, "Sam, you've done fine work as my manservant, but if you continue to make untoward advances toward the scullery maid you'll soon feel the wrath of my cane."

As a public service, I'll furnish some vital information that guidebooks on Greece just happen to omit. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FLUSH TOILET PAPER DOWN THE TOILET.

Now, I can see the questions forming in your brain. If you can't put it down the toilet, where else can it go? And farther down the line: why can't you put toilet paper in the toilet? Isn't it made for that?

I asked myself these questions, and finally assumed I got it wrong. "Surely they mean tampons," I told myself. "They must mean paper towels." But I found signs in every bathroom, and eventually one spelled it out in graphic detail. DON'T PUT TOILET PAPER IN THE TOILET. It actually offered details of how one managed this.

You use the toilet paper like you normally do. Instead of dropping it when you're finished, though, you take it out, fold it into a little square, and put it in the trash can.

I had two problems with this. One, you know that saying about what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? I feel the same way about anything in the toilet. And two, IN A TRASH CAN? Are you freakin' kidding me? I spend four thousand dollars a year on potpourri. I've got little bamboo wands that diffuse aromatic liquids; I've got oils I dab onto lightbulbs. Isn't a bucket full of poo-dabbed tissues pretty much the opposite of that?

So call me crazy, call me irresponsible, but I refused. I'm very sorry if I ruined Greece's sewage system. Over seven days, I flushed enough tissue to remove Cher's makeup. Every day I expected the hotel maid to accost me and scream, "VERE ARE DA POO TISSUES IN YOUR TRASH CAN?" But she never did. And for that I'm grateful. I'm thankful. I'm eternally indebted to her.

In fact, if she wants to date my manservant, I'll give it some serious thought.

Even if I wasn't vegetarian, I'd be vegetarian in Turkey.

In Turkey, meat comes in two forms. There's big stacks of sliced meat called döner, and there's little blobs of ground meat called kefte.

Döner is Reason #276 why I hate entrepreneurs. At some point, one of them decided they could make a fortune if they could somehow convert a happily-grazing cow into a tubular shape. Because honestly, the way God made them isn't exactly conducive to fast food. Take an electric knife to one and you'll end up with gristle and bone and cowhide, not to mention hoof marks in your hair.

So, this entrepreneur tosses a cow into a wood chipper and stacks up what comes out. He sells it to restaurant owners, who mount it on a vertical rotisserie in front of a heating element, and the outside cooks as it spins. Somebody walks up, says "Hey, gimme a döner!" and the cook slices off the outer layer and tosses it onto a piece of bread. If the outer layer isn't done, he'll say, "Sorry, it's not completely cooked. You'll have to come back later, okay?"

Ha. Well, I'll bet some of you fell for it.

Döner raises a few red flags with me. First, how do you stack up raw meat so it stays in a cohesive shape? When I play Jenga, the game never lasts more than five minutes, and we're not playing with uncooked cow. Plus, there's all kinds of sanitation issues. Where does this döner go at night? (I mean, is it stored in a refrigerator, rather than does it like to drink and dance.) How many days does the center spin around before it ends up in somebody's sandwich?

Kefte are sometimes called meatballs, except usually they're not in a ball shape. Years ago some chef decided that fashioning tiny balls took too long, so he just squished meat in his fist and cooked it the way it came out.

You know, I've always been extra-suspicious about ground meat. I'll eat stuff that's been sprayed with chemicals, or came from more than eight miles away, but I need a little more than the chef's reassurance that what I'm eating isn't something inedible chopped really small.

Besides, this is probably the worst kind of food shape you can imagine, short of tiny meat vulvas. You can make out all sorts of details, like knuckles and wrinkles and such. I don't know why the Turkish people happily devour these things. Broad smiles splashed across their faces, they dig into plates of food shaped like the inside of a dude's fist. I couldn't do it. I don't like knowing forensic scientists could reconstruct parts of a human being using what's going in my mouth.

Needless to say, I stayed firm. I ate beans and rice, rice and beans. I got curious stares from everybody, but I'd avoid their eyes and steadfastly watch the chefs squish the tiny blobs. And eventually I realized that, in this venue at least, some old maxims were definitely true.

Big hands meant big meat. Small hands meant small meat.

And unless you're looking for trouble, avoid dudes wearing wedding rings.

I'm back.

First, thanks to Blue Star Ferries. I booked them to go from Santorini -- a Greek island paradise -- to Kos, an island just off the coast of Turkey.

I asked the owner of my hotel if there was a chance they'd cancel the ferry. "They never do," she said. I asked the local tourist office. Since she wasn't dependent on me for income, she literally laughed in my face. "They never do," she said.

They did.

So, instead of simply taking a cab to a ferry, I got to take a cab to a different ferry to a bus to a plane to another bus. I got to see a lot more scenery, and discovered that yes, I can still stay up 36 hours straight, though I start speaking in gibberish around hour 25.

On the plus side, Turkey was absolutely amazing. So many men, so few independent eyebrows: it's truly the Land that Manscaping Forgot. Here's a popular film star:


Yeah. And I thought Steve Carrell was gross.

Still, the men couldn't be friendlier. Five minutes after they start talking to you, they hug you and call you their brother. I've got two sisters, and I've got to say the dynamic with brothers is totally different. In eighteen years, my sisters never once chased me down the street screaming that I had to buy their rugs.

Repeat Friday: Surprise

I have to do something. Every morning I wake up and it's like my eyebrows have grown just a little bit bigger, until they threaten to consume my face. It looks like two squirrels are scurrying across my forehead, and very soon there's just going be to one. Years ago, though, after an overzealous afternoon with a razor blade, I learned that shaping and tweezing your facial hair is like trying to remove your own gall bladder. This time around, I decide, I'll let a professional handle it.

I don't exactly keep up with the trends, but I know about threading. I've seen it on the news, where an Asian woman wielding something like dental floss wraps a coil around a stray hair and yanks it out, faster than the blink of an eye. While I run my daily errands I pass eight or nine threading salons, and I slow in front of every one. I feel my eyebrows swelling until I can barely keep my head up. I think, why don't I just go in and get it done?

You hear all these rumors about New York metrosexuals, but I'm the only guy in the salon I finally choose. There's so much estrogen in the building, in fact, I feel like I've accidentally stumbled into Pinkberry. Mercifully, the procedure is quick and painless. Five minutes and fifteen dollars later, the woman passes me a hand mirror. My eyebrows are far apart and half their original size. The delicate arch makes me look ever so slightly surprised.

I look at the woman. She looks at me. "Well, I think they look good," she says.

I race to the bathroom of a nearby Bed Bath & Beyond and survey the damage. They could definitely be worse. They're certainly not that 30s Jean Harlow brow, the thin Sharpie squiggle dancing below the hairline. They could almost pass for natural. Still, the arch is sharp enough to change my default expression. I'm no longer bored. I'm not exhausted. If I keep my face entirely still, I'm somewhere between inquisitive and questioning. Add in even the slightest additional surprise, though, and I look like a man fleeing Godzilla.

I run my remaining errands as I struggle to keeping my face utterly placid. Inquisitive eyebrows aren't such a horrible thing, I discover. They have the attitude that I don't, second-guessing every word I hear.

I stop at a fruit stand for a mango and some strawberries. "That'll be twelve dollars," the man says. I look at him. He looks at me. "Okay, okay," he snaps. "Maybe it's just ten."

I drop in Designer Shoe Warehouse to see what's new. There's a pair of Ecco shoes I almost like but they're clunky, and they only come in brown. "Those are absolutely perfect," a clerk says. I look at her. She looks at me. "If your girlfriend's named Rainbow and you wear fringed vests," she adds.

By the time I head home it's late, and the subway is deserted. Still, a middle-aged man sits down right next to me. His suit is cheap, his hair's thinning, his moustache nearly hides his mouth. "You should be a model," he says, just out of the blue. "I mean, you are absolutely gorgeous. You've got an amazing face, and it looks like you've got a really hot body. You could be, like, in one of those Calvin Klein ads, just wearing underwear. David Beckham's got nothing on you."

I look at him. He looks at me.

"Well, I wouldn't turn off the lights when I fucked you," he says, so imagine my surprise when he did.

Repeat Thursday: Two Mistakes

Every time Richard opens his mouth he makes two mistakes. "I absolutely love Picasso's works from his purple period," he declares at the art museum, staring in admiration at a tiny, colorful work.

These pronouncements always stop me in my tracks, because I never know which mistake to address first. In this case I say, "Actually, Picasso never had a purple period. And that picture in particular is a Mondrian."

"Oh," he says. He nods his head like he's suddenly semi-educated, when in reality he's just moving on to his next mistakes. He doesn't seem to realize how hard it is to talk to him. When somebody makes one mistake, the human brain can easily decipher it. One mistake is glaringly obvious: Ellen Degeneres is married to Portia de Rossi, not Tia Carrera. Narcissus aren't orange, they're white. One can't actually dodge taxes by diverting some of their income to a 10K. The brain decides whether or not the err is worth correcting, and that's the extent of that.

When someone makes two mistakes, though, additional parts of the brain are required, because the conversation receptor is thrown into overload. A dialog starts ping-ponging inside the head. It's like the NYPD caught a naked man holding up a liquor store and then couldn't decide whether the case should go to Violent Crimes or Vice. "Have you seen that movie with Roma Downey Jr.?" Richard asks. "Hawaiian Tropics?"

I have to mentally list all the possible permutations and then rank them by the likeliest. Does he really mean Roma Downey? Probably not. Nobody's meant Roma Downey in quite some time. No, odds are it's Robert Downey Jr. But he never made a movie about tanning lotion, right?

Meanwhile, Richard is standing there blissfully, not a thought in his head.

Now, I kind of like Richard. He's attractive and fun and professional, three qualities I've rarely found before, let alone in the same man. But I can't help but wonder. Making one mistake at a time marks you as an ordinary, fallible human. What does two at a time say?

Still, he's my man for most of December. I bite my lip when he tells me he has a crush on David Beckham, the rugby player who's married to Scary Spice. I sigh sadly when he announces that Oreo cookies are made by leprechauns. I watch in silence as he pours champagne into a martini glass that has colored salt around the rim.

And still, somehow, we make it into bed. The usual way, pretty much: we go out to dinner, drink a bottle of wine, go back to his place and start making out. "I bet you've got a big dick and you know how to use it," he whispers into my ear.

I say, "Oh, just shut up and lie down."

Repeat Wednesday: Greek to Me

It wasn’t easy convincing my landlord that my air conditioner was really broken. He kept saying that the noise and smoke were nothing out of the ordinary, and he stood in the blast of superheated air oohing and aahing like it was a tropical waterfall. When his face took on the color of a medium-rare porterhouse, though, he gave up pretending, and in exchange for a glass of ice water he called a repairman. The next thing I knew somebody was pounding on my door at 7:30 in the morning.

“Open up!” a gravelly voice growled as I glared at my clock in disbelief. “I’m here to fix your air conditioner!” I threw on a towel and opened the door and if I wasn’t fully awake before I certainly was now: the sight of this guy was as bracing as a double espresso. I don’t mind old or out of shape folks provided they wear something to hide it -- like baggy clothes or the Houston Astrodome -- but he had on less than Britney Spears.

I tried to avert my eyes as he lumbered in but I couldn’t help but notice corduroy short-shorts, scuffed brown boots and a tool belt, with lots of blotchy red nakedness in between. He zigzagged through the place until he found the air conditioner, and after the removal of his tool belt sent his shorts plunging to new depths I fled to the shower. When I returned the air conditioner was still grinding like a cement mixer and he was sitting on my bed reading an old copy of Drummer.

Oops. “I’m a musician,” I lied. “I thought that was an instruction manual.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully, “I don’t think so. Though some of the guys look a little like Ringo.” I hadn’t picked up an accent before so I was surprised when he pronounced it “Reengo.” He was from somewhere weird, I thought, but unless he said “Blimey,” “Ah, so” or “Zeig heil!” I wasn’t in a place to guess.

He smiled and showed a jumble of teeth splayed out like shredded wheat. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “I am Greek. My people have been that way for thousands of years. Women are the mothers of our children, but men are for love and companionship. You see, in Greece young men are the tippy-top of beauty. You see that in our art and in our literature. The older men are expected to marry and raise children but also since they hold the knowledge they must share it, along with friendship and love, with impressionable youths. It is their civic duty.”

He tossed the magazine aside, extracted a screwdriver from his toolbelt and pried the front cover off the air conditioner. “Take the philosopher Aristotle, for instance. He was a very wise man. He invented geometry and logic and the VCR. He meets this kid Socrates and he embraces him like a son. He teaches him philosophy, introduces him to politics, and initiates him into sex. But, you know, it’s not just slam bam thank you ma’am sex. It’s a manly thing, like a big friendly hug. Except they were, you know . . . naked.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t know anything about gay sex in the past because I’d been trying to get some in the present. But long ago I’d visited a civilization where men bonded together and paired off and left the women to their own devices. It was called “San Francisco.” And while Castro Street wasn’t the Parthenon and a caftan wasn’t really a toga it was still fun enough.

He pulled the air filter off and a line of dirt sprinkled to the floor. “Me, I’m sad to say I have not found a boy to tutor. Maybe I’m not as smart as Aristotle, but I’ve learned a few things and I want to pass them on.”

Now, to say I wasn’t attracted to this guy was an understatement. Though he was butch as Hoss Cartwright’s left testicle he also had a belly domed like a turtle, and his hair was a shade of black found only on newborn mink and Wayne Newton. He had a thick thatch of chest hair that started halfway between his nipples and his navel, and his legs were lumpy and red. But his story made me nostalgic. I looked at the wrinkles encircling his eyes and started to yearn for a time when sex wasn’t just a temporary bond between strangers, something to kill a couple minutes between laundry cycles. When it meant sharing, and forming a bond so tight it could only be expressed by physical affection.

To make a long story short, he showed me how to adjust my thermostat and then we did it. He undressed me slowly and then yanked his shorts down, and with paint-splattered boots still tied to his feet he had his way with me. “We are like Socrates and Aristotle,” he panted. “I share my years of knowledge and then take you from behind.” He wasn’t particularly instructive, as I’d been in that position once or twice before, but knowing it was a time-honored tradition made it special. Before I even straightened up he was gone.

I woke up in a great mood the next morning, despite the fact this was the second day in a row somebody was pounding on my door at dawn. As I wrapped myself in another towel I realized something had changed. No longer was I a shallow gym rat with no connection to the past: now I was a shallow gym rat tied to history. I flung the door open like I was greeting a fresh new life.

“Hey,” my landlord said, grimacing at my pale pink flesh. “Did the guy fix your air conditioner?”

“He sure did,” I said, blushing. “It’s running great now. That Stavros is a terrific guy.”

He looked at me like a dog would if I asked it to mix me a martini. “Stavros? You mean the husky old guy who needs more clothes? That’s my wife’s uncle Patsy. He ain’t Greek -- he’s half Irish and half Italian. Funny you should say that, though, ‘cause once he told a guy he was Greek, and they actually -- “

By the time he saw my mouth drop open it was too late.

“Oh, jeez. You didn’t fall for that ‘mentor’ crap, did you? The Socrates and Aristotle speech?”

I nodded as blotchy red flesh flashed before my eyes.

“I gotta have a talk with that guy. But you can’t really blame him, I guess. That’s the only way he can get laid.” My mood was as limp as my towel now, and he was looking guilty. “Look, if you really want a mentor, I could give it a try. But I ain’t doing any of that butt-pirate stuff.”

I shook my head, smiling in gratitude despite slowly realizing that a seventy-year-old man had just turned me down for sex. “Thanks, Mr. Carmelo. But it’s really not the same without a Greek.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “In the forties I sent away to Japan for a mail-order bride. They sent me a German Jew named Schotzi.”

After he left I stood in the dark, listening to the air conditioner’s calm hum and feeling the cold air swirl around me. Sure, he’d tricked me. He’d used me and thrown me away. But was it as bad as all that? Maybe “Stavros” wasn’t going to be my mentor but he’d taught me something important.

If I was going to get anywhere in this world, I’d need to fake an accent.

Repeat Tuesday: Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part Two

One night there’s a dance at Heather’s school and her parents offer to chaperone. While Heather’s dancing with Danitra she sees from the corner of her eye her mom and dad moving onto the dance floor. She watches in horror as her mom just sort of stands there swaying, her gingham granny dress limply hanging to the floor. She grimaces as her dad starts chopping at the air like Jackie Chan being attacked by locusts.

Occasionally their movements coincide with the beat. Heather runs to the bathroom crying.

“Heather, don’t feel so bad,” Danitra says. “Lots of kids have embarrassing parents.” She starts to lead Heather out of the bathroom, then stops. “Um, maybe we should stay in here a while longer. They just started doing the Bump.”



One day the class projects are due. Heather brings in the model she’s made. It’s a lump of brown Play-Doh with ketchup poured over it and dotted with marshmellows stuck on with toothpicks. She sets it on the table as her teacher comes over to look.

“Why, Heather! That’s . . . nice! Very very nice!”

“What the hell is it?” Tommy asks.

“TOMMY! Heather’s parents had me over for dinner once. This is what they call ‘Salisbury steak.’”

Heather bursts into tears. “NO IT’S NOT! It’s a VOLCANO! That’s lava, and that’s steam coming out.”

Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez comforts Heather. Danitra enters and places her project next to Heather’s on the table.

“Why, Danitra, what’s this?”

Danitra delicately removes the sheet protecting her project.

“Versailles.”

Heather takes one look at the tiny replica of Louis XIV’s summer home, constructed by Danitra and her two dads out of two hundred cubic yards of teak plank, thirty square feet of gold leaf, sixty pounds of Italian travertine marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used, tiny topiary and functional miniature fountains, and cries even harder.

“Why did I have to have a mom and a dad?” Heather sobs. “Why can’t my family be like all the rest?”

Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez pulls Heather close. “Children,” she says,”every family is special, including those conforming to the rigid, stereotypical standard of male domination.” She starts to tell the class about her own family, including her hearing-impaired Hispanic mother, her height-challenged Israeli father, and her Gypsy recovering-substance-abusing brother-in-law and Armenian sex-addict half-sister, but stops, realizing the school year is only 4,074 hours long.

“Just because Heather’s parents are heterosexual doesn’t mean they’re slow-witted philistines, though there are strong correlations you don’t need a PhD in statistics to understand. But Heather is lucky to have a sweet mom and a wonderful dad and a dog named Molly and a hamster named Samson, and they all live together in a lovely house. They’ve got interesting avocado-colored appliances, carpet as long as your hair, and furniture that‘s by-and-large wood that must have taken them hours to assemble. There’s a big plastic sofa that turns into a bed, and a La-Z-Boy -- ”

“A what?” Keanu asks.

“A La-Z-Boy,” Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez repeats. “It’s a big vinyl chair that reclines.”

“Oh, man!” exclaims Keanu, covering his face with his hands. “And I thought our Herman Miller reproductions were embarrassing!”

Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez continues. “But the important thing is, they’re a family. They’re a group united for a common purpose, where each individual is given a sense of empowerment and their shared bonds are formalized in a ritualistic manner.”

“Oh,” the students respond in unison.

Everybody hugs.

THE END


If you enjoyed this story about Heather, ask your local bookseller for these titles:

“Heather’s Mom is Narcoleptic”
“Heather’s Dad Has Epstein-Barr”
“Heather’s Sister’s Problem Still Puzzles Specialists”
and the latest,
“It’s No Picnic Being Related to Heather”

Repeat Monday: Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part One

I don't believe this. Apparently it's so fashionable to be gay, there are support books for children who have heterosexual parents.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy
Deep in the heart of Dullsville, at the end of a cul-de-sac, behind a lawn of scratchy brown grass dotted with giant plastic butterflies, three flaking cement deer, and a philodendron the size of Bob Hoskins though with fewer decorative parts, lives Heather Thompson.

Heather has a mommy and a daddy. Heather’s daddy is an accountant. Her mommy is a homemaker. Before Heather was born they met, fell in love, and got married.

“I love you very much and I’m having your child,” Heather’s mom said.

Danitra is Heather’s best friend. One of Danitra’s dads is an empowerment facilitator. The other is an aura consultant. Danitra doesn’t know what they do at work, except they don’t need briefcases. Before Danitra was born her daddies met and fell in love, and after seventeen years spent discussing caring and support, handling acceptance, and negotiating intimacy, they had a commitment ceremony.

“I love you very much and I’m designing the rings,” Danitra’s Daddy Mike said.

One day in school Heather’s teacher, Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez, tells the class to draw pictures of their families.

Danitra draws two men, Julio draws two women, and Heather draws a man and a woman.

Keanu points at the woman Heather drew, with squiggly yellow hair, a crude red dress and simple brown shoes. “This dad here’s got some ugly drag going on,” he says.



At lunchtime Danitra sits on the bench next to Heather and pulls a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.

“Want to trade?” Danitra asks. “I’ve got grilled eggplant and goat cheese on marjoram foccacia.”

“Um, I didn’t bring lunch,” Heather stammers, kicking her brown paper bag out of sight. “I’m . . . uh . . . on a diet.”

“Diet?” Danitra asks. “Haven’t your dads told you not to buy into that patriarchal looks-based chauvinism? And anyway, what’s this then?” she asks, holding up the bag with “HAVE A SUPER DAY!” written in sparkle marker on it.

Julio, who was listening nearby, runs up and grabs Heather’s lunch. “Yeah, what’s this? It’s somebody’s lunch!”

Heather jumps at the bag but Julio holds it out of reach. “You give that back!” Heather yells.

“Try and make me!” Julio chides. He pulls Heather’s sandwich apart and drops it like it was electrified. He wobbles away, holding his stomach.

“Oh my God!” he cries. “There’s like dead stuff in there!”

Danitra looks at the sandwich lying on the cement. “Is that MEAT? Is that like SPAM?”

Claudia, sitting quietly at the other end of the bench, bursts into tears. “Heather’s eating BAMBI!”

“It’s friggin’ Wonder Bread!” Julio scoffs.

Keanu walks toward the bread and peers at it. “And it’s got LUBE all over it!”

“You idiot, that’s MAYONNAISE.”

“What’s mayonnaise?”

“It’s like goat cheese for heterosexuals.”

“Heterosexuals?” Keanu asks. “Heather’s mommy and daddy are heterosexuals?”

Heather starts to yell. “No! I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I’ve got two daddies!”

“Hell-OOOO!” Danitra says, drawing the word out to twelve syllables. “We can see your clothes!”

“Um . . . “ Heather stalls, “then I’ve got two mommies.”

“And we’ve seen you play baseball,” Julio answers.

Heather, unable to think of a response, sits on the bench and starts to cry. Danitra pulls a robin’s egg blue bandana from her pocket and dabs at Heather’s face.

“Maybe your mom’s not really a woman,” Danitra offers.

“Well,” Heather says, sniffing, “she cleans the house, and cooks, and does the laundry.”

Danitra fumes. “We’re trying to establish that she’s female, not that she’s an idiot.”

“Maybe your dad’s not really a man,” Julio suggests.

“Well,” Heather answers, wiping her nose. “He’s big and strong and he’s got a moustache.”

Several of the children wonder what this proves but nobody says anything.

“So let’s say you’ve got a mom and a dad,” Keanu says. “Then where did you come from?”

Heather thinks for a minute. “They went to bed together, and then I was born.” Some of her friends express further interest, but Heather doesn’t have a brochure. “Daddy put his thing in mommy -- “

“Oh, man,” Keanu interjects. “Is that legal?”

“HelLLLLO!” sings Danitra, who gets the word up to eighteen syllables this time. “We’re in CaliFORnia!”

“And nine months later I came out of my mommy’s tummy,” Heather adds.

Several of the children wonder why they didn’t hire a surrogate with a vagina but nobody says anything.

Repeat Friday: Go With the Flow

Last week I went to a cocktail party that positively sparkled with witty repartee and fascinating conversation. Too bad all I wanted was to get laid. I made my excuses, hightailed it to the Eagle, and the first reasonably attractive guy I saw I tailed home. We stripped off our clothes and he leaned in close, grinning like a 12-year-old about to swap his sister's Hershey bar with Ex-Lax.

"You know what would be really cool?" he said, eyes twinkling. "You could tie me to the bed and force me to suck your feet!"

Now, this bothered me in a couple different ways. First, I wasn't falling for his alleged spontaneity. It reminded me of those hetero guys who find themselves on dates with hot, tipsy chicks: "I heard about these things called 'body shots,' " they say, feigning innocence. "You wanna give it a try?" And second, I was supposed to force him to do me? I'm attractive; he should be happy I'm naked and there. I made my excuses and scurried off, adding entry No. 472 to my "Why I Shouldn't Sleep With Strangers" list.

A few days later, though, it happened again. Another guy with a weird request, and another naked scene. "You know what would be great?" this one said like a kid at Christmas. "My neighbor's a submissive pig into hypnotism and electricity. How about we see if he's busy?"

I put my finger to my chin, pretending to think, but mostly I tried to remember where my pants were. I made some vague excuse -- when you flee a pervert's apartment you don't quibble about the details -- and went out and found a replacement. My heart leapt up to my throat when we got naked and he too started to speak: "There's something I've always wanted to try," he said. "How do you feel about Nixon masks and cheese?"

"OK," I thought. "I give up. Everybody's doing that midlife-crisis thing. But can't you all just buy Porsches?"

Now, I've got nothing against crazy stuff: I mean, some people think what I do in bed is crazy, and that's before they hear about the chickens. It's the surprise part I don't like. You wouldn't ask people over for dinner and then surprise them with horse testicles in cat pee, and you shouldn't surprise sex partners with frilly pink corsets or Ovaltine enemas.

For the third time in a row, I put my clothes back on and made my excuses, but halfway down the hall I noticed my wallet was gone. It falls out of my pants a lot so it didn't particularly surprise me -- I just didn't like having to re-greet somebody whose apartment I'd just fled. I walked back to his door and heard him talking on the phone.

"He looked really hot," he was saying. "Nice face, stylish clothes. But then he takes his clothes off, and oh my God! He's so pink and furry I'm afraid the cat's going to run after him. He's got a roll of flab six inches wide around his waist, and it looks like he hasn't been to the gym since gravity was invented. I was like, 'Skipper, better put your shirt back on or Little Buddy's going to be sick!'" I poked my head in and he pasted on the smile I use when opening presents from Grandma. "I'll call you right back," he interjected. "Something's come up."

He hung up and I edged my way in. "I guess you were talking about somebody else," I said, trailed by an awkward chuckle.

"Oh, no," he said, with an insouciant air. "We were talking about you."

"So that stuff about the Nixon mask and the cheese -- that was just to get rid of me?"

He nodded. "It seemed easiest. You weren't quite what I expected."

I sighed. "Well, I'm not a model or a professional bodybuilder. But I work out three times a week, and I've never gotten any complaints."

"Oh, puh-leeze!" he cried like Joan Rivers spotting Cher. "Aside from your massive pinkness there's a zit on your shoulder the size of Vesuvius, and if you stood with your feet together I could still toss a ham between your legs."

I stared at him in disbelief, too stunned to argue. "I forgot my wallet," I said frostily, and I pushed past him to the bedroom where it was lying on the floor. Maybe he'd stripped me of my dignity, I thought, but I'd still have a Discover card with nearly $80 available. With my head held high, I strolled back outside, where the freezing air and his insults hit me like a smack in the face.

The sun was setting as I slowly trudged home and the city darkened around me. Although I hate Los Angeles, I found myself missing it: I mean, having sex there was mindless fun, while here it was like entering a dog show. You take your clothes off and they're inspecting every muscle, every hair, asking you to trot around the bed. "That right delt is slightly saggy," they say, looking up from their clipboard, "and there's a slight curvature to the spine. The chest hair is off-center, and the ears are out of proportion. I'm afraid you'll have to go." But I guess I should have expected it. New Yorkers are cutthroat about everything -- business, sports, even food. Why did I think sex would be different? For the first time in my life I had to confront one of life's biggest questions: Would I ever have sex in this town again?

I got my answer soon enough. On the subway home, a nice-looking guy struck up a conversation with me, then asked me to his place "for coffee," and I went. I stripped naked, he leered at me lustfully, and everything was cool. Then he took off his clothes, and damn. Freak-show time. From chest hair shaped like a bagel to thighs as flat and gray as Flipper to skinny ankles where the hair had been worn away by tight socks.

This would not do.

You know what I'd really like to try?" I said, feigning excitement. "I'd love for you to piss on me while singing 'Send in the Clowns.' "

When he led me into the bathroom and began humming the intro, I nearly freaked. If I'd still been wearing either pants or shoes, in fact, I'd be in Cincinnati right now. But then I thought, Heck, I'm not getting any younger, and to tell you the truth, I'm not in the best shape in the world. How often do opportunities like this come up?

I learned my lesson. By the time he finished, let me tell you, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

Repeat Thursday: What A Dump

I don't understand my dog Snowflake. Three times a day I take him out for a walk, and he always scurries over to the same old tree. To the naked eye it looks like all the other trees, but from the way Snowflake acts you'd think it was Bob Fosse. He sniffs at the bark, paws the fallen leaves, circles endlessly. It makes me wonder if he's stupid. This thing's the botanical equivalent of "The View," except even Barbara Walters rarely reeks of piss.

I yank on his leash and drag him farther down the block, past a new apartment house they're building. I've got a love/hate relationship with it. It's an oversized concrete box surrounded by classic old brownstones, but since it brings ten hunky Polish construction workers to the neighborhood it could be the Gates of Hell for all I care. Whenever I pass one of these guys on the street I'm tempted to strike up a conversation. I usually go for flattery as a pick-up line, but I'm not sure "You can sure stack concrete blocks!" will prompt eyelashes to bat.

Snowflake and I are almost to the corner when we find an enormous brown pile in the middle of the sidewalk. It's about enough to make me lose my lunch, but to Snowflake it's like finding vintage Gucci. He tiptoes up to it, circles a few times, sniffs. He can't take his eyes off it. If he had opposable thumbs he'd be snapping pictures.

I'm tugging on his leash when a construction worker appears. He's picked up a Snapple at the deli, I guess, and now he's headed back to work. He's one of my favorites, reminding me of a guy I used to date. We went all hot and heavy until his birthday came up. I still get defensive about it: I mean, if mango shower gel is a crime, color me guilty.

"Hey," he says, in a thick Polish accent, "you gotta clean up after your dog."

I show him my hand, stuck inside a plastic bag, and think about making it talk. I decide not too: I mean, if there's a profession that less sexy than accountants, it's puppeteers. "I do," I say. "He hasn't gone yet."

"Then what's that?" he asks, pointing to the sidewalk. Like an idiot I look. It hasn't changed. "Your dog took a dump."

"It's not his," I say. "It was here when we got here."

"Of course it's his. He's standing right next to it."

"You're standing right next to it and nobody's claiming it's yours."

He starts his next sentence with "Listen, wise guy," which doesn't bode well for our future together. I don't date anybody who reminds me of Dad. "I just went to the store, and it wasn't here when I left. Look around -- you see any other dogs? Who else could have done it?"

I don't see any other dogs, but this doesn't prove anything. "My dog's poo is nothing like this," I maintain. "For one thing, this is bigger than his head. Snowflake ate a whole pizza once and barely crapped a cannoli."

"I'm not even listening," he says. "I'm not buying your excuses, and you're not leaving until you clean that up." He's just dripping with macho swagger. It's only hot when you're sure the guy's not going to kill you.

I come to the conclusion that I can't win this argument by myself. I need backup; I need a character witness. Surely some of the neighborhood folks have seen Snowflake poo before, and can testify that this monstrosity isn't his.

Like the answer to a prayer, the guy who lives upstairs from me is fast approaching on the other side of the street. I've kind of got a crush on him too: he reminds me of a guy I used to date in college, who dropped me when I gave him a ring. It wasn't commitment he was afraid of -- some folks just don't get Cat's Eye. "Hey!" I yell. "Excuse me! Have you ever seen my dog take a crap?"

"No!" he hollers, and he darts across the road like the Clash are playing on our side. He takes one look at the sidewalk and scowls. "Damn," he snaps. "Did I miss it?"

This is such an allegory for my life, I think. Two men I'm interested in, and the topic of discussion is whether or not my dog took a dump. Under other circumstances I'd probably have caved, but the dog that left this muffin was clearly not in good health. Let's just say it'd be easier to pick up apple sauce.

From four different directions bystanders approach. In a quiet Italian neighborhood like this, a giant crap is like Cirque du Soleil. I get the newcomers up to speed, hoping somebody'll back me up, but everybody takes Construction Worker's side. "If I wasn't going to clean up after my dog," I ask, "why did I bring the bag?"

"You were gonna pretend to clean it up," a chubby kid replies. Right, I thought -- now I'm the Sociopathic Urban Mime. He's just mad because I gave out Swiffer refills last Halloween.

"You know," somebody says, "I'll bet he's the one who's been carving graffiti into the trees."

"And setting off the car alarms at four in the morning."

The crowd murmurs like a posse on "Bonanza," accusing me of everything from destroying the ozone layer to reusing postage stamps, and the circle around me starts to close in. By now I'm thinking, hey, maybe Frankenstein didn't have it so bad. Sure, he was chased around by villagers with torches, but it wasn't in a hip neighborhood, and he didn't have to worry about ruining flattering clothes.

Just as I'm deciding on the best direction to run, an old lady in a faded housedress breaks through the circle, wielding a cane like a tire iron. Somebody explains the situation to her in Italian, and I'm guessing they offer her first whack. Instead she takes a look at the dog, the poo, the plastic bag over my hand, and puts it all together like a Sicilian Miss Marple. "So your dog hasn't gone yet?" she asks. I nod. "Then make him go."

A gasp of surprise erupts from the crowd. It's like we're all gathered in the library and she's just picked out the killer. Even I'm impressed -- I mean, I wouldn't have expected anything more than interesting than curse words and tasty gnocchi from her. "Easier said than done," I complain. "I have to massage his lips to get him to eat."

"Convince him."

All eyes turn to the dog, who's shivering like a chilly chicken. "Poor little puppy," somebody says. "He's too nervous to go."

Now this was just flat-out wrong. Snowflake's never cared who was around when he went. In fact, he seemed to be spurred on by attention from attractive guys. It was the bane of my existence: I'd meet somebody, we'd flirt, he'd try to make friends with the dog, and before we could swap numbers we'd be scurrying for gas masks.

A lightbulb goes on over my head. "Hey," I say to Construction Worker, "pet the dog. Pretend you like him."

He stares at me like I'm crazy but follows my instructions. Not two seconds later Snowflake is proudly standing over his own, markedly-smaller creation.

The crowd grumbles and I beam like a new dad. "See?" I say, gesturing like it's a game show prize. "There's a huge difference."

They nod reluctantly. It's a rollerskate next to a Humvee. "Sorry," Construction Worker says. "I guess I jumped to the wrong conclusion."

"No prob," I reply, and then comes our first awkward silence. Pause. "You can sure stack concrete blocks."

He smiles and his brown eyes twinkle. "Thanks. Well, I gotta get back to work. Maybe I'll see you later."

"Yeah, that'd be nice." We all watch as he walks away.

Snowflake and I head back towards home, and he runs to the safety of his tree again, circling like a Spirograph. I still can't claim to understand the little pooch, but he's a chip off the old block in a couple ways:

Great taste in men. Really not so great with gifts.

Repeat Wednesday: Why I don't read the classics

I’ve been reading way too much trash recently -- books with sex or drugs or violence and no redeeming value whatsoever. The last book I finished was about a gay vampire who had other things on his mind than sucking blood. Try checking that out of the library without a fake moustache and dark glasses. After being both embarrassed and bored, I figured I'd read something respectable for a change. I’d seen most of the classics on “Masterpiece Theater” and they didn’t seem all that difficult so I figured I’d get one of them. To speed things up, though, I’d skip over Kenneth Branagh's lines.

I ended up with “Pride and Prejudice.” It’s one of those books you mean to read but never do, and halfway through the book I understand why. Like a PBS miniseries it’s interesting in theory, but after more than a couple minutes in reality it just bugs the pants off you.

For one thing, I expected intrigue, intelligence, and wit, but instead got a Victorian potboiler on the level of “All My Children.” Austen uses plenty of big words in Ye Olde English, but I’m still pretty sure the first printing had Fabio’s great-grandfather in a torn pirate shirt on the cover.

The book concerns several hundred people, all related, who alternately love and hate each other with the skill of Italians. At the center of the story are the Bennets: Mr. Bennet, Mrs. Bennet, and their daughters. Lots of daughters. The number is never specified, and it seems to change by the hour. We start off with Elizabeth and Jane, then page by page discover Lydia, Beth, Kitty, Mary, Lizzy and Eliza, though someone smarter than myself may discern that four of these could refer to the exact same person.

The big romance is between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, a guy who doesn’t even get a first name until page 187. There’s a roadblock flung in their path: we’re supposed to think that Mr. Darcy is unforgiveably rude because he went to a ball and only danced twice. That’s rude? the guys reading will ask. Hell, if he showed up in his underwear, guzzled scotch from a bottle and asked the hostess to pull his finger maybe she’d have a case. Then we learn that a dance lasts fifteen minutes, that you have to book them like appointments with the cable guy, and that dancing with the same woman twice is roughly equivalent to proposing marriage. Under these conditions even Fred Astaire would be hanging around the buffet table stuffing rumaki in his gob. Besides, that’s unforgiveably rude? That’s an obstacle to a relationship? Once I forgave a hubby who had sex with a preoccupied paraplegic.

The characters hook up and break off straight out of daytime drama. Miss Bingley likes Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy likes Elizabeth, Mr. Bingley likes Jane but seems destined to marry Countess De Burgh’s daughter (his cousin) to unite their estates. Elizabeth ought to marry Mr. Collins, her cousin, but since she hates him she pawns him off on Charlotte Lucas, the only character who’s not a relative. There are like eight sets of cousins who consider each other for marriage, yet for some reason they’re more concerned with estates and property than bearing children who have bat ears and duckbills.

Adding to the overall confusion is the language barrier. Shew, sallad, chuse -- maybe these words used to be English, but now they sound like parts of a snail. When they play “Vingt Un” I’m not sure they need playing cards or a plastic mat with colored circles on it. I have no clue what a “quadrille” is, and in the book it seems to alternate between being a dance and a board game. A major plot point hinges on how the Bennet estate is “entailed.” I’m guessing it’s not the opposite of what a butcher does to a bunny.

Here are some of the convoluted phrases Austen uses, and what I determined they meant through hours of research:

“It is more than I engage for, I assure you.”	“Huh-uh."
“Dare I say my eye might have misjudged the possibility?”	“Really?”
“I see no occasion for that.”	“Whaaa?”
“That is not an unnatural surmise.”	“Maybe.”
“Upon my honour I have not the smallest of objections.”	“Oh. Okay.”

Now, I don’t mind a little wordiness as long as the author keeps it all straight. Austen, though, turns the whole exercise into a word problem. There are forty countesses in the book, yet rather than referring to them by name she gives the name of their house. “’I visited your relations at Lancashire,’ the Countess of Marscapone exclaimed while her own thoughts dwelt on her sister at Longhorn.” Everyone has three or four cousins with the same name (Colonel Fitzwilliam and Fitzwilliam Darcy meet on page 252, much to my astonishment). And everybody’s got more aliases than Puffy.

Austen loves to throw all sorts of folks into a room and not tell you who she’s talking about. Pronouns, adjectives, past participles -- I‘ve never seen so many things dangling, and I spent one Christmas at a nude beach. Here’s a typical scene among the Bennet sisters (remember there are somewhere between five and forty of them). See if you can tell who’s talking, and who they’re speaking of:

“Tell me, dear Lizzie,” enquired the younger Miss Bennet of her sister, “who is it that you are fondest of?”

“Methinks she shall chuse herself!” a flaxen-haired lass cried, and her two elder sisters tittered.

Elizabeth looked at her older sister with fine eyes mingling incredulity and agitation. “Why am I thus subjected to this undisguised air of discivility? Whilst my desires burn brightly within my bower they are of no small importance to yourselves, and I fear you shall render them like insects ‘neath a hasty hobbled boot.”

Silence hung in the air, then the girl leaning against the mantle-piece spake. “Beth, you are over scrupulous, I assure you; her intent was not so bold.” She turned to the woman nearest the bird. “What say you, Kitty?”

The tallest sister who isn’t Lydia froze with mortification. “Indeed, madam, I am not Kitty,” she observed. “Kitty stands indifferently by the balustrade, nearest the girl who’s allergic to cheese.”

The woman with the bean-shaped mole and crinoline knickers pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “I foresaw the return of this confusion within a fortnight,” she cried, and with the girl who’d recently returned from the dentist fled the room, fatigued.

And so, kind reader, to cut a long story short, I’m giving up. At page 274 I’m bidding a final “fare thee well” to the Bennets and the Bingleys and their fourteen hundred cousins and returning the book to the library, where it can be admired from a great distance. Tonight I’ll enjoy a respite from such obfuscation in my bed-sit chamber, neither playing nor dancing a quadrille with the one I hold in fondest regard who isn’t me.

Repeat Tuesday: Small Wonder

Tall guys have to be careful who they go out with. Wander around with another tall guy and the world will cower at your feet. Hang out with an average-sized guy and you'll still get admiring glances. Venture into public with somebody short, though, and you may as well glue a "Kick me!" sign to your ass.

I'm not talking about all the problems due to the height difference. Sure, the short guy will amble along just slightly slower than a disabled dachshund, while snails and Frankenstein scamper past. Then there's the impossibility of having a conversation: his mouth is roughly ten feet from your ear, which means you'll hear more audible words out of a seashell. Either you pretend to understand what he's saying and just randomly nod your head, or you actually make the effort and say "What?" every time he speaks. You're going to end up a frustrated hunchback, and he'll burn out his throat yelling like Grandpa. Both of you will be spitting nails, but it'll get worse when he gives you an ear trumpet for Christmas.

Now, all this is irritating -- I mean, I'd prefer a sweater -- but the real horror is how everybody else treats the two of you like a Ripley's exhibit sprung to life. The rudest folks whip out cameras to get proof to show their friends. You're not just interesting: you're one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and they'll snap away like you're the Virgin Mary floating over the Topeka Wal-Mart. They won't just stand across the street and worship from afar: they'll want to twist the pair of you into all sorts of insulting poses. "We wanna play up the height difference," drawls Wilbur from Bag ‘o Pretzels, Idaho, like a redneck Orson Welles. "Whyncha pretend yer stuffin' Tiny in yer pocket?"

"No, no, no," his wife Durlene protests. "Have Tiny sit on Lurch's lap, like a ventriloquist's dummy."

I hate taking part in these scenarios, though I can talk without moving my lips. I leave the house feeling like an average guy, and then these folks go and spoil it. I want to run screaming for a land where people are compassionate and considerate, but somebody's got to pry Tiny out of that teacup.

Worse than hanging out with somebody short is hanging out with someone heavy. Here's a weird phenomenon: Now the pair of you won't just look strange-- you'll transform into a number. The number 10.

Oddly, this is the only time I've heard of people turning alphanumeric. If Pamela Anderson kicked a skier nobody'd see RL. If Marlon Brando screwed Wally Cox nobody'd see Qr. When a pregnant lady frisks a midget, nobody sees BY.

But pause for a second near an overweight guy and suddenly everybody's an accountant.

Most embarrassing by far, though, is hanging out with a short female, because now everyone will assume you're having some kind of freakish relations. Now they won't just casually glance at the pair of you, or stare as you walk by. They'll chase you down the street, screaming in disbelief. They'll follow you home, pluck out their eyes, and roll them under your door to get a better look. And then the inquisition begins, always with the same idiotic question:

"Gawrsh, you're like ten dang feet tall, and she's eentsy as a mouse. How in the name of Our Good Lord Jesus do the two of you manage to have SAYYY-ex?"

Now, I get so confused by this I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Height doesn't have anything to do with any of my bedroom activities, yet these folks give me the feeling I shouldn't let anyone under five foot eight take a ride. I mean, it's not like my partner and I aren't flexible. It's not like furniture doesn't exist. C'mon -- half the stepstools you see are like twelve inches high. They're not exactly made for changing lightbulbs.

I thought about this long and hard, and I narrowed it down to two possibilities. One, they're concerned that while our genitals are busy, our faces are too far apart to express affection. Sure, I'm not thrilled that my mouth is closer to the Australian outback than my current companion, but as long as our middles meet I'm fine. Or two, they're worried that our genitals don't match up when we're standing. Yup, it's true: I have to do a lot of crouching. It's good exercise, though. My arms may look like chopsticks, but my thighs rub together when I walk.

Still, I refuse to dignify this stupidity with an intelligent response. I shake my head. I wonder why I have to put up with this. I wonder why these idiots think that's a question you can ask a stranger.

And then I tell them, "I do it the same way you do it, except my relatives are in a different room."

Repeat Monday: Bothered and Bewildered

Every member of every minority group has a specific life goal to fulfill. Jews have to visit Israel, Muslims have to go to Mecca, and gays have to persuade a straight guy to have drunken sex with them.

Scott lived a few doors away in my college dorm, and I fell head over heels for him. He was a farmboy straight out of Nebraska, with the stocky, broad-shouldered body that came from hard work, fresh air and twenty years of eating nothing but beef. But it wasn't just physical attraction that drew me to Scott: his personality drew me in too. He was quiet and confident and an all-American boy, Jimmy Stewart with eighteen-inch arms. He was butch as Hoss Cartright, straight as a rail, and owned a Harley Davidson, which was two virtues more than I required to pledge my undying troth.

To my eternal surprise, Scott wasn't totally horrified by me. He was either curious or envious of the fact that I was relatively hip. That had taken no work whatsoever on my part: my roommate was one of the dorm's major drug dealers so I got some of that cachet, plus being gay in San Francisco earned me bonus points. Every Friday night I'd head to Castro Street and paint the town red, sometimes not returning home until just before classes on Monday. The first time I did this the Resident Advisor called the police to report me missing. He started to give them my description and the officer cut him off. "Oh, that guy," the officer said. "We've been looking for him for years."

Needless to say, by the time I returned, word had gotten around. The police wanted me. Just by being a cheap tramp I became the Lindsay Lohan of my dorm.

Scott didn't protest, then, when I followed him around like a puppy, content to bask in his presence and occasionally try to peek up his little red shorts. I hung out in the TV room when he was there, joined his table at the cafeteria, dropped by every party he attended. I knew from Day One that nothing would ever happen between us, because he was completely and totally straight. Even if he was curious, I was hardly the type who could talk fence-sitters to jump over to our side. Besides, I liked Scott. I respected Scott. I wouldn't have fallen for him in the first place if he listened to anything I said.

The first time he mentioned his motorcycle I gushed with admiration. "I'll take you for a ride sometime," he offered, fueling my sexual fantasies for a year. I pictured him commandeering a massive hog, muscles bulging beneath his denim shirt, and me wedged like a biker bitch behind him. I'd hang on tight, my groin to his ass, and grind against him as all of San Francisco gaily zipped by. He could drive us straight to hell and with my hands wrapped around him I'd have paid all the tolls.

One night I saw him in the TV room, so naturally I went in. He was reclining in one club chair, with his legs propped up by another, his muscles making both look understuffed. As usual he wore his little red shorts, and the vast expanse of his hairy legs was covered with homework assignments. "Hey," he announced suddenly, "I promised you a motorcycle ride. You wanna go drive around?"

I was so startled I could hardly believe my ears. I'd long since given up hope. I'd decided the odds of this happening were just short of Jesus dropping by and asking if I wanted to go meet Dad. "That would be . . . absolutely . . . fantastic," I gushed, almost too excited to speak. Five minutes later he had his hands on the handlebars, and I had my hands on him.

We bounced and zipped and swerved all over San Francisco, for the better part of the night. We stopped by Coit Tower, varoomed past Fisherman's Wharf, and circled the Cannery, him looking cool and confident and me with an shiteating grin on my face. I was the picture of discretion, keeping my hands where safety required rather than pushing my luck. I was happy making any kind of contact at all, and he seemed oddly comfortable too.

After we'd been down every street in the South Bay, the neighborhood turned familiar, and my heart sank when I spotted the college parking lot. "Hey," I said, after took our helmets off, "you wanna come up and smoke some dope?"

We lit up joint after joint while perched on the edge of my bed. Clearly this was a new bond of intimacy between us. I was content to bask in the afterglow, but some small part of me wondered how far it would go. No matter how stoned I got, my hands still trembled with excitement. I snuck a fresh glimpse of him whenever I got the chance, picturing us intertwined in an erotic embrace while ignoring the fact that very few attractive people have longings for stick-thin, bearded teens. I absent-mindedly chatted about how great the ride was, and how great motorcycles were, and how much I liked San Francisco, and when the conversation dried up we just sat there. Passing the joint I let my eyes linger on him a minute, and this time he looked back. Then he flipped on the TV -- nervously, it seemed -- and spun the channel until it landed on "Bewitched."

I never really liked the program, but here totally killed my buzz. Scott, on the other hand, became visibly excited, the red slits he had for eyes opening saucer-wide. Slowly he slid back onto the bed, and you could almost watch his crotch expand. His eyes stayed fixed on the TV as his hands sat poised astride his groin, like a gunslinger getting ready to draw.

"That Samantha is completely, totally hot," he announced before taking a hit off the roach.

"Yeah," I said, almost honestly. "But I'm not all that fixated on appearance. Personality is more important to me: it's what really makes people attractive. Whether they're fat or skinny or young or old, it doesn't matter. You touch, you hold, you connect. Sex is a physical manifestation of affection that shouldn't be weighed down by looks."

"So you'd do an ugly chick?" he asked from deep inside a cloud of dope smoke.

"I don't select my partners based on looks," I corrected. I gestured toward the television: "So that's who you're holding out for?"

"Well, not necessarily," he said cryptically. "I can fantasize. I can pretend. Besides, everybody looks the same in the dark."

He looked at me and I looked at him, and then it happened. I could actually seen the green light flash in his eyes. He went for the lamp and I went for his pants, and in a nanosecond both were off. Rather than meeting in a mutual embrace, though, it was more like a wrestling hold. Two enormous, cornfed arms pulled me to my feet and bent me over the coffee table. Without so much as a hug or a kiss he plugged right in and started banging away. "Ohmigod," came a groan from somewhere in the dark, "this is so freakin' hot."

Me, I wasn't so sure. It had all happened way too fast. Was this it? I wondered as he slammed me back and forth like a ragdoll. My head cleared the table like a battering ram, clanging my knickknacks together like windchimes. Was I actually having sex with my soulmate and it was nothing but a pain in the ass?

"IS THIS IT FOR POSITIONS?" I yelled as I head-butted the lamp to the ground.

Scott kept pounding away, oblivious. "Oh, Samantha," he groaned, fraught with passion. "Oh Sam, oh Sam, oh Sam!"

His speed increased, and realizing I was in a distant second place, I took matters into my own hands. Futilely I tried to coax my genitals into something approaching interest, but before they could respond Scott made a sprint for the finish. "OH SAM!" he yelped. "OH SAM! OH SAM!"

"Oh LARRY!" I groaned. "OH, LARRY! OH, LARRY, LARRY, LARRY!"

The thrusts came to an abrupt halt, and his iron grasp loosened on my hips. "I'm DARREN," he declared testily, "not LARRY."

"I know," I croaked, mentally shredding my unwritten love letters. "But if you're that lousy in the sack, I'm pretty sure she's thinking about somebody else."

Repeat Friday: Lying in the Sun

It seems like every time I go on vacation I have to explain my sexuality to somebody, and it’s starting to piss me off. It starts when I make hotel reservations. “We don’t have a fitness center,” the clerk says, “but we have a lovely garden. I’m sure your wife will appreciate that.”

A friend and I want to go to one of those debauched, all-inclusive resorts, to lie in the sun and have sex with total strangers. “Sandals is a great couples resort,” the travel agent chirps, “but it’s not much fun for single men!”

I’m in Boston and need to see leather, so I tell a cabdriver to take me to the Eagle. “You don’t you wanna go there, bub,” he advises, in a seemingly-helpful tone. “That bar’s for gay guys.”

By far the worst was at a hotel in the south of France. A paramour and I were celebrating our two-month anniversary, so I’d booked us a suite at a converted convent. Behind the desk was a tiny old woman in a threadbare black robe who looked like she’d been abandoned by the last inhabitants. She pulled up our reservation, her hands shaking like a chilly chihuahua. “But someone has made une erreur,” she said. “You are two men, but you have zee room with one bed only! I will change for you at once.”

Mark and I froze like snowmen as tension crackled in the air. Now, call me crazy, but I’d happily have gone with separate beds. They’d probably be big enough for two, and we could always push them together. I’d rather sleep in the bathtub, in fact, than explain homosexuality to some dried apple of a woman who’d given her life to Jesus. Mark, however, wasn’t going to let it slide. He’d bore her to death discussing everything from prepubescent gender identification to courtship rituals among the Chippewa before he’d cave in. In three and a half hours, I predicted, she’d be swinging from the rafters by her rosary.

He stepped up to the counter like a speaker headed for a podium. “We asked for one bed when we made the reservation,” he said, “and it wasn’t a mistake. You see, the common assumption that everyone is heterosexual is a political rather than a biological tenet, and the truth is -- “

His words veered into a yelp as my foot thwacked the back of his knee. I pulled him into a huddle where I mimed “tiny” and “nun” and, well, everything short of “I’m trapped in a box!” He exhaled hard and backed away and I approached the desk. “See, I was in the Army,” I said, “stationed in Korea. There was a shortage of beds, so everybody had to share. For nine years I slept in tight quarters with other men, and I got so used to it that now I can’t sleep alone.”

“Oh, le pauvre!” the woman gasped, looking like Macaulay Culkin at age one hundred ninety. “I am so sorry!”

“It’s not that bad,” I said defensively. “I mean, we do that ‘Those aren’t pillows!’ routine at least once a night.”

We got the room we wanted but even before we left the lobby Mark was yelling at me. “Coward! Why did you always have to lie? How are things ever going to change if everyone keeps dodging the truth?”

“I’m on vacation,” I protested. “I didn’t drag us here just so we could explain to Sister Bertrille that we like to touch each others’ willies.”

He smacked the button for the elevator. “So what was your excuse yesterday?”

He had a point there. I told my landlord it was fine to drop by unexpectedly, told my mom I had to hang up because a football game was on TV, and told Mark I thought it really was room odorizer when I bought it.

It took an hour or two for the argument to dissipate, but like all lies it kept coming back to haunt us, always in that Tiny Nun form. We ventured to the fitness center for a quick workout, and there she was cleaning the equipment. “Messieurs,” she twinkled, admiring our physiques, “how zee ladies must sigh over you!”

Mark glared at her. “As Alfred Kinsey discovered in the 1950s, approximately ten percent of the male population would similarly sigh over -- “

I was afraid Tiny Nun was going to grab a dumbbell and pound herself out of her misery so I jumped in. “Next to saving the whales,” I barked, “that’s our goal in life!”

We’d gone eight hours without speaking when I suggested marking our anniversary with champagne. Mark cracked a smile, but it vanished when the skinny figure appeared at our door. “Do we celebrate?” she sang, Dom Perignon in her bony claw.

“We most certainly do,” Mark snapped in his frostiest tone. “We celebrate that despite the patriarchal intolerance of same-sex, transgendered, and bi relationships -- “

Tiny Nun glanced frantically at our open windows but sensed they weren’t high enough to do any real damage. I hollered over him. “We celebrate a wonderful city, a wonderful hotel, and a WONDERFUL FRIENDSHIP!” I screamed.

The little woman vanished like fog, leaving lukewarm champagne and the shards of our relationship behind. “You know what?” Mark said after swigging his glass in one gulp. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

“I know,” I said, “I know. I’m a great guy, but you’re not ready for a relationship.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m ready for a relationship. Just not with a liar like you.”

I thought about protesting but he just might have nailed me. The more I thought about it, though, the madder I got. Sure, I lied occasionally -- but always for a good cause. I tried to make people feel better. I tried to spare their feelings, so they didn’t have to dwell on how stupid they were. Did that make me evil? Did that damn me to an eternity of singlehood? By the time our bottle ran dry I’d convinced myself: I wasn’t the James Gandolfini in this relationship.

After two more days passed without a word we wandered out to the hotel terrace for coffee before the flight home. We nearly jumped out of our seats when the Catholic Freddy Krueger materialized with a basket of pastries. “Still eet eez only zee two of you?” she quizzed, eyebrows springing up like McDonalds’ arches. I watched as she scanned the grounds expectantly, as if at any moment Catherine Deneuve and Jacqueline Bisset were going to burst in wearing big floppy hats and give both of us wet French kisses. And I decided I’d had enough.

Mark fired up again, using words like “ontology” and “taxonomy” and “fin-de-siecle,” but Tiny Nun had a butter knife and she looked like she could use it. I picked up a breadstick in my right hand, a bagel in my left, and pointed the former at the latter. “Babe,” I said, “I’m only going to explain this once.”

Repeat Thursday: Big Feet: Big Stuff or Big Bluff?

In the history of the universe, ever since Nothing turned into Something, since planets formed from cosmic dust and little green salamanders evolved into Homo Erectus, there have been exactly four studies to determine whether Big Feet mean Big Meat.

Scientists have examined virtually everything: why the sky is blue, why birds sing, why toast always lands butter side down (Svenska Joornal der Breakfaast, 1997, pp. 162-217). Why the penis ennui? When I'm hanging around some bar, trying to choose between the reasonably-attractive tall guy and the drop-dead gorgeous short guy, the last thing on my mind is dirty bread.

Gay people blame homophobia for all kinds of stuff, but I'm thinking it's involved here as well. This is the most frequently asked question of all time, surpassing even "Who killed JFK?" and "Why is Audrina Partridge famous?" A million times a day somebody asks if there's a connection, and that's just the folks who catch me in clothes.

Scientists, I'm guessing, don't want to be tarred by that "gay" feather. It's okay to grow a spare ear on the back of a mouse, or genetically merge chickens with Miracle Whip so they'll start laying egg salad. But get another man excited? That's just plain weird. What are the other scientists going to think? "That Günther, he likes the penis a little too much," they'd tell their assistants. "Now go sew these lips on that dog." And how's his wife going to feel when he comes home and recounts his day? "Honey!" he calls, setting his briefcase on the hall table, "I saw a real whopper this morning!" She might feign enthusiasm to his face, but you know she's going to tell her family he's unemployed.

Even these four studies seem a little skittish, since they all have serious flaws. The first declares there's no significant correlation between penis length and shoe size, though somehow they've avoided handling erect penises. They "gently stretch" them, like they're tight socks, and measure them that way. Because, you know, who's got the energy to get a guy hard?

I want to tell these researchers that nobody cares how stretchy penises are. I have friends who have sex with rubber plants, and friends who have sex with balloons, but I don't know anybody who wants to get screwed by taffy. Then I notice their disclaimer: they don't need to measure erections, because an earlier study showed a strong correlation between stretched length and erect length.

This sounds a little farfetched to me, so I check it out. I'll just say two things about that study: one, math is boring even with big dicks involved; and two, while the correlation between stretched and hard length was 0.793, the correlation between soft and hard length was 0.678.

Translated into English, it means guessing how much bigger a stretched penis will get is just slightly more reliable than guessing how much bigger a soft, dangly penis will get. And if that were even remotely possible, I wouldn't have cried myself to sleep three times last week.

A few months later a second group of scientists comes along, and they decide they can do better. "To hell with stretching dicks!" they proclaim. "We'll have guys measure their own!"

I'll pause here as we all laugh. Mature men with advanced degrees, wearing white coats and stethoscopes, based a study on the assumption that men wouldn't lie about their endowments. Maybe they phoned the guys and asked how long their dicks were, or maybe they shoved them into little cubicles while they waited squeamishly outside. Either way seems pretty silly to me, and I buy my cologne from Rite Aid. Doctors can remove your spleen or transplant your gallbladder or even smear a woman's pap, but getting a guy visibly excited, well . . . that's not somewhere anyone wants to go.

Anybody who's ever answered a personal ad knows how that study turned out. They didn't find any correlation between shoe size and penis length -- maybe because regardless of shoe size, everybody reported nineteen inches. Guys lie about everything, even when they know they'll get caught. "That's in dog years," they admit when you question their age. "That's on the moon," they say when you doubt their weight. As for endowment, cold weather is a popular excuse. Except I lived with one of these guys for nearly a year, and two weeks in Death Valley wouldn't have nudged him up to small.

Eventually a third research group steps into the breach. "That second study was nonsense," they decree, "so we're going to reenact the first." They stretch, they measure, and there's no correlation.

The veil is lifted slightly by our fourth and final group, though they're stretchers as well. "We think we found something in index fingers," they announce, "but we just didn't see enough penises." You can criticize these guys if you want -- they should get better funding, or try to sign up volunteers -- but I just want to buy them a beer and say, buddy, you and me both.

And so here I sit, a ridiculously tall man who gets asked three hundred times a day if big feet mean big meat. I don't like sharing my own personal data, at least until somebody's bought me a drink, so I've always said nobody knows. Now I can add a well-informed postscript: that nobody's done a study comparing erect penis length to shoe size, or finger length, or height. That the geniuses in our prestigious research institutes have more pressing things to do, like calculating the force required to shoot a sheep to the moon (Applied Ovine Ergonomics, Nov. 2002, pp. 523-81). That maybe it's time gay scientists stepped up to the plate.

Heck, I'll volunteer, if that'll help. Because when my time comes, I'd be pretty damned proud to have this on my tombstone:

Here lies RomanHans.

He wasn't a doctor, or a scientist, or even particularly smart.

But he sure wasn't afraid to get a guy hard.