𝐌𝐄: "A friend actually said, 'I envy your forehead wrinkles! They make you look so smart! I wish I had lines like that.' Like it was flattering! Can you believe it?"

𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃: "That's crazy! And how rude! Some people!"

[PAUSE]

𝐀𝐅 (continued): "So did you always used to be angry or what?"

Repeat Friday

Brian was the one who started it. We were on the roof catching up on gossip when Charlotte's name came up. "It's weird you haven't noticed," he said. "Charlotte is a total homophobe."

I laughed, assuming it had to be a joke. Brian and I were both gay and she adored both of us. Her being homophobic seemed so ridiculous I'd never thought anything of the sort.

"Here's an example," Brian continued. "Name some of Charlotte's gay friends."

I thought for a minute. Charlotte knew a lot of people -- most rich and gorgeous New Yorkers did. To avoid confusion, then, she chose unique descriptive identifiers and permanently stuck them in front of names. If she knew two Alberts, she might refer to one as Crest White Strip Albert and the other as Republican Albert. If she knew two Matts, she might call one Cat Tattoo Matt and the other Staten Island Matt.

I didn't know why she did this, because it got her into trouble. Gay John wasn't too thrilled when Charlotte's mother referred to somebody named Handsome John and he realized it wasn't him.

"Well," I said to Brian, "there's Gay John, Gay Scott, Gay Stuart, Gay Toshi, ...."

"You don't think that's a little weird?" he interrupted. "To specifically single out everyone who's gay? Does she do it with anybody else -- Jews, blacks, Hispanics? If she really, truly accepted gay people, would she make such a big deal out of it?"

I blew it off as inexplicable but it planted the seed in my head. I had actually noticed how often she used the word "gay." As a gay man I hardly used it at all, whereas the straight woman used it constantly. In fact, that morning she'd asked me if I wanted to go with her and her "gay husband" to a gay club for some gay drinking and gay fooling around.

Charlotte had also raised a red flag with me when I was talking with Joe and David, a middle-aged couple who lived on the fourth floor. We were whispering about her upcoming birthday when she showed up out of nowhere. "Ohmigod," she gasped, eyeing us suspiciously. "If you guys are planning a three-way, I don't want to hear about it!"

We all laughed, but after she walked away we exchanged baffled glances. We agreed that her comment wasn't just clueless -- it was patently offensive. If she'd seen a guy talking to a hetero couple she wouldn't have assumed he was going to bang both of them.

I tried to forget about the whole thing during our usual Project Runway-watching night. While I was telling Emma about my trip to Berlin, though, she started acting weird again. "A lot of guys in Berlin have rings tattooed around their forearms," I said. "And I don't know if it's true or not, but somebody told me it's coded information about fistfucking."

"Ew!" Charlotte snapped, dropping a tortilla chip.

I scowled at her. "He said, 'Those rings mark how far they've gotten their arms into another guy's ass."

"That's disgusting," Charlotte sang.

I shot her an irritated look begore turning back to Emma. "I told him I'm from the country. If I got a ring like that it'd be halfway up my pinkie finger."

Charlotte jumped up off the couch. "THAT'S IT!" she yelled, cranking up the TV. "STOP! I'm not going to hear about this!"

"About what?" I asked. "About gay guys having sex?"

"ABOUT ANY GUYS HAVING SEX! CAN YOU PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT IT?"

"FINE!" I shouted as I stomped toward the door. "I WILL! And you can talk about whatever the fuck you want, but you won't be talking to me!"

I slammed the door behind me, and after that Charlotte and I didn't speak for eight days. Before the fight she'd invited me to her birthday party, and when the day came I decided I'd still go. There would be enough people that it wouldn't be awkward, and I could leave a gift as a peace offering. I didn't think I'd done anything wrong but I felt kind of guilty, so when I shopped for her gift I went overboard. I went to a shop down the street that specialized in all the Brooklyn clichés: everything was handmade, sustainable, and organic, from the Peruvian bags woven from hand-twisted yarn to the incense made by Patagonian tribes from fossilized yak poop.

I finally settled on a bracelet made of hand-carved beads from Namibia. It was really beautiful -- as it should have been for $320 -- with chunky tourmaline and lapis beads carved with intricate tribal designs. It was totally Charlotte: it had style, it supported indigenous people, and she wouldn't have to worry about running into somebody wearing the exact same thing.

I toted the gift to the birthday party and Charlotte spotted me the second I walked through her door. Our eyes locked. Without a word our eyes exchanged everything we needed to say: that we both felt terrible, that we'd made a horrible mistake, and that we couldn't survive another minute without making amends.

We ran toward each other in seemingly slow motion, shoving the other party guests aside. We met in the middle of the room and hugged each other like we were never going to let go. "I'm sorry," I cried. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever done. I know you're not homophobic. I was just being stupid or I had a stroke or something, and I promise I'll never bring it up again."

"Really?" Charlotte said, wiping away tears. "You promise?"

"I promise. I'll never mention it again."

We hugged once more, and when we separated I noticed that both of our eyes were filled with tears. That's the mark of a great friend, I thought. When one of you does something unbelievably stupid, it just brings you closer together.

Naturally the party was brilliant, since Charlotte's friends were all six-foot-tall Russian models or handsome Norwegian musicians. We drank and laughed until the sun went down, and then a tipsy Charlotte took center stage to unwrap all of her gifts. She gushed over a pair of shoes, a painting, and a crystal vase before she got to my offering. She shot me an excited look and I veritably glowed with pride. She tore the paper open, pulled the lid off the box, and extracted the bracelet from the box.

With fifty people watching breathlessly, she held the beaded string at arm's length, and her expression turned from glee to disgust. "Roman," she snapped, like a third-grade teacher, "I never stick anything up my ass."

A Sixteen-Minute Phone Call With My Friend, The Wonderful Thomas

And highlights of what he had to say, at five-minute intervals.

MINUTE 0: "So how are you? I've missed you. You're always out of town."

MINUTE 5: "So my friend Michael is having his apartment renovated and he needs a place to stay. I thought since you're always gone...."

MINUTE 10: "His husband Ralph would stay there as well. What? Yes, it'd be just the two of them."

MINUTE 15: "That is so nice of you! You know, I wouldn't let them stay at my place because of their enormous dogs, but --"

I said not a fucking chance and hung up at Minute 16. But now I'm thinking I should have pretended to go along with it, just to hear further developments.

MINUTE 20: "They're really great guys. And they've cut way back on the smoking to just eight packs a day!"

MINUTE 25: "That is so sweet of you! You won't regret it. They gave up drugs and haven't burned down a building since 2023."

Part Two

 I told the butter story to a friend the other night & realized there's a Part Two.

As the flight attendant walked away, I sat there wondering what I should do. I could chase after her & explain the whole thing: I'm not crazy. I thought it was candy, not butter. I'm not the kind of person who collects unused butter from airplanes & takes it all home to add to some kind of giant butter pile in our fridge.

And then I look over at my husband, a big, gruff German man who is packing all of his spare globs of butter into his travel bag. Presumably to take home and add to that giant pile of butter in our fridge. I stared in horror as he actually put cold globs of butter on top of a sweater and a scarf.

Had the whole world gone mad? I wondered. Had the plane flown into the Twilight Zone, into some alternative butter-centric world?  As far as questioning him, where would I even start? With the fact that neither of us particularly likes butter? That it's not outrageously expensive, so hoarding it isn't exactly required? Or maybe with the thought that five minutes outside the cool plane the butter would melt & he'd smell like popcorn for the next six months.

I've learned that a good way to avoid conflict with another person is by asking questions instead of stating opinions. "Sweetheart," I said, "why are you collecting all of the butter?"

He shot me a confused look, then sat back and sighed. "You just told the stewardess you wanted to eat it."

How had this spiraled so weirdly out of control? I was delirious but not so out of it that I didn't care. My first impulse was to clear up the confusion in one fell swoop. I wanted to stand up and shout, "I DON'T COLLECT BUTTER! I DON'T EVEN LIKE BUTTER! I THOUGHT IT WAS CANDY!!!" But then it hit me: he was doing this for me. He didn't know why I suddenly started craving butter, but that didn't matter. No questioning, no wondering, just always having my back.

 

So, it's a happy ending -- an unexpected happy ending. Sure, maybe now two people thought I was crazy, but I was okay with that. Because this was the opposite of a red flag. It was a bright green flag. It was another answer to the question, "How did you know he was the guy for you?" Because I knew the next time someone asked, my reply would start with, "Well, once on an airplane he thought I liked to eat butter...."

Part One

Twenty-five hours traveling back to Berlin from Tokyo. Around hour 18 I started suspecting I wasn't going to make it. I kept bumping into things, blanking out, falling asleep on my feet for a second or two. Mental note: never do this again. I was delirious.

After my last meal, the flight attendant tried to take my tray. "Wait," I said, grabbing a little wrapped candy that'd been included. "I want this."

She looked at me & tentatively laughed. "I'll take it," she said, & she grabbed it out of my hand.

"No," I protested, taking it back. "I'll have it a little later."

Now she was flat-out confused. "Okay," she said, before heading back up the aisle. "Enjoy it!"

I will, I thought. I mean, it's not really that crazy. And then I looked closer at the "candy" & decided, okay, yes, it really is.

 

It is literally impossible for an American to get a German driver's license. Oh, they'll let you sign up with a driving school and download the app and buy the book and study for months and take the test, but there's no way in hell you'll pass. The test is thirty questions selected from a pool of one thousand, and while they will happily give you all one thousand questions in advance, even with months of deliberation and conceptualization and rationalization you'll never make sense out of them.

One problem is that the "English translation" of the book you've bought is into Great British. Trailers are "caravans," people have "behaviour," and your car has "tyres" and does "manoeuvres." Sentences actually start, "You must reckon with....", which sounds like something Marshall Dillon would say to Billy the Kid. I want to answer, "Do I, pardner?"

I like this passage because it's so totally true. Is "muzziness" a word? Nowhere in the world. But I like picturing a German motor vehicle official sitting back and imagining, "So, when I take an Ambien, how do I feel? Tired? Relaxed? No.... Muzzy! That's it! Medications can cause muzziness."

Even ignoring the odd comma here doesn't help, since "reeve" means "the chief magistrate of a town or district in Anglo-Saxon England."

Google doesn't even help with words it agrees are real. For weeks I read about the proper behaviour in regards to "walking paths" and "footpaths." Don't park on them. Don't drive across them. I kept picturing Mercedeses zipping through forests when it hit me: they meant those cement walking footpaths we have in America. You know, we call them "sidewalks."

"Sunken kerbstones" also baffled me. I wondered about a country whose driving rules so heavily featured flooding. Don't give priority to cars at sunken kerbstones. Ignore cars at sunken kerbstones. Weeks dragged by before it hit me:

Driveway. Don't stop for cars coming out of driveways.

Every day I'd study more, and fume more about it. In America I'd regarded Germany as Valhalla, where everybody was smart and logical. And then I came here and realized the reason Germany was so highly regarded was because it was being graded on an EU curve. Not a genius? Less than brilliant? No problem. Just go stand next to Slovakia and Greece.

My irritation magnified over months of study, as examples of their idiocy piled up. I spent a few weeks puzzled by something called "dipped headlights." References were everywhere. In a tunnel, you must dip your headlights. When you see a deer by the road, dip your headlights. I started to think, are German headlights controlled by a joystick or something? And I'm a smart guy! An idiot would have assumed there was onion soup mix and sour cream involved.

I still don't understand the reasoning but I can repeat the facts: their "dipped" headlights are what Americans call "headlights," and their "main beams" are our brights. Dipping your headlights bizarrely means just turning them on.

Here's a life-or-death instruction about markings on the road:

I can't even understand who this is talking to. Will British people read this and think, "Righty-O, Guv'nah!"? Because Americans look it and go, "Whaaa?"

Americans might also take exception to the word "recommends." We'd be tempted to stop in the middle of the intersection, and when a policeman pulls up we'll say, "Well, the book RECOMMENDS stopping back there, but I decided against it. You know, it's like ordering the fish after the waiter recommends the veal."

Of course, if getting a driver's license is torture here, I'm pretty sure going to jail is worse.

The stakes get higher when buses are involved, so it's important to memorize this:

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? And then you come to this:

I was pretty sure I was missing something here. "Don't ever pass a bus flashing their hazards while approaching a bus stop. Wait until it's parked and children are exiting before you do." But then I noticed they use two distinct words: "overtaking" and "passing." According to people online, Americans think they're the same thing but Australians think they're different. I couldn't imagine defending that to a traffic policeman:

ME: "Officer, I'm from Cincinnati. I didn't dangerously overtake that bus, but actually carefully passed it."

OFFICER: "Oh, then that's cool. Have a great day!"

Similarly confusing is where you can park your car:

You can't stop "up to 10 meters" of a St. Andrew's Cross. Now turn the page.

Yes, you got it. In a "built-up area" -- you know, what humans call a "city" -- you can park five meters in front of a diagonal cross. But don't even think about stopping there.

The book also declares, "Parking is not allowed on a priority road outside built-up areas." In human-speak, this means "Don't park on the road in the country." I memorized this, and then I took a sample test which asked, "Are you allowed to park at the side of a priority road outside built-up areas?" My answer: absolutely not! The correct answer: of course!

It sent me running back to the text. Apparently when they say "Don't park on the road in the country" they mean "Don't park IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD in the country." What, did you assume they meant on the side?

I sat there staring at the book, struggling to process what I was reading. I'd spent six months deciphering their pronouncements only to discover they were facts any idiot knows. It's weird: everybody in Berlin speaks perfect English. I get two German words out of my mouth and they say, "Look, buddy, let's make this easy. Let's go for English, okay?" But then I decide I want to get a driver's license and suddenly they're all, "You want go putt-putt in motorcar?"

Whether they're incompetent and don't care or they're actively trying to keep Americans off their roads, the end result is that it's impossible for us to pass the driving test. It's a Catch-22: if you're stupid, you'll never figure out what they're talking about. But if you're smart, you could waste months trying to unravel things that are obvious to idiots.

One last example bolsters the incompetence explanation. Let's start with a paragraph from the official book.

And here's a question from the official quiz.

As you can see, I got it wrong. Apparently you need to "reckon" with taxis and beware of taxis and watch out for taxis and keep away from taxis but you don't need to show them "particular care." Like don't send them flowers or chocolate? Think twice about that shoulder massage?

Anyway, I hope you learned something. You can pass someone without overtaking them, you can park in some locations without stopping, and you can totally ignore people that you need to pay very serious attention to. It makes me think of relativity, and that Einstein himself would probably fail this test.

I'd like to say that frustration makes me more determined, but in truth I gave up. I stop trying to understand it and instead just memorized the one thousand mostly-useless questions and their corresponding nonsensical answers. And I passed the test. Now I just have to pass the driving test and I get to drive all over Europe.

I've got to say, I'm feeling seriously muzzy now.

I didn't have parents, and in my earliest years developed a combination of anger and cluelessness that would follow me throughout life.

When I was five, someone at my school suspected I was smart, so one day I was dragged out of class and told I had to take an intelligence test. I sat at a desk and some old guy showed me a drawing of a tree on a sunny day. I noticed the tree's shadow pointed toward the sun rather than away from it and thought, wow, what the hell is going on here?

"What's wrong with this picture?" the guy asked.

I shrugged. "Nothing," I said.

"Nothing?" the teacher asked.

I glanced at it again. "Nothing."

Obviously disappointed, the guy said we were done and started to write in my folder. I picked up my jacket and walked to the door before adding, "Buddy, if you don't know, then you're on the wrong side of that desk."

My neighbor has prostate cancer. I ran into him in the elevator the day he was discharged from the hospital after a four-night stay.

He doesn't speak English & my German stinks. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to say, "I hope you are feeling better. I hope the treatment you received was sufficient & the hospital staff caring. That sounds like an absolute nightmare but fingers crossed they can keep you in good health. We sincerely care about you."

Except I know the German for maybe three of those words, so I just said, "This is not good. Not good. Very very very not good."

He actually got mad at me. The words "Of course it's not good, you absolute moron!" might have been said. I wanted to explain that my German isn't good enough to discuss sensitive topics but that sentence alone would take me twelve elevator rides to translate & would probably end up as, "Best I no talk. Bye bye." I thought, wow, even when I mean well I'm screwed.

I fumed for a couple of days before I settled on a solution: a multipurpose preemptive German apology. "Hallo. Ich bin ein 68-jähriger New Yorker und mein Deutsch ist nicht gut. Für nette Worte telefonieren meinen Mann. Wenn du eine Pizza brauchst, bin ich dein Mann." ("Hello. I am a 68-year-old New Yorker and my German is not good. If you need kind words, call my husband. If you need a pizza, I'm your man.")

It is winter and in every German tree are clumps of mistletoe. I guess it's there all year round, but you can only see it after the leaves drop in winter. It grows in giant balls that are thickest at the tops of the trees.

In New York you pay five bucks for a couple of twigs, so of course I couldn't resist greenery that was more valuable than my education. One day while we were driving to a local farm stand I spotted a low-hanging ball, and I told hubby to pull over so we could get it. He jumped a small creek, crawled through a hole in a rickety fence, and waded through a muddy pasture to the tree. That night I attached a string of miniature Christmas lights and hung it on the balcony.

The next day our friend Evelyn came over to make gingerbread houses, and she said in Germany it's illegal to cut down mistletoe. I said it's a parasite that hurts its tree host, but she said it's protected like all wild plants.

"Do you know why there's more mistletoe at the tops of the trees?" she asked. "Birds eat the berries, which means there are seeds in their poop. Since they're always flying, that's where their poop usually lands."

She doesn't say why you're supposed to kiss under it. And despite her decidedly cold explanation, I still find it romantic. The next time we're walking through a forest and I see some hanging high above I still can't resist. "Hey, a bird pooped up there," I say to my husband. "Give me your face."

One night on our cruise my friend Mike got really excited about the evening's entertainment: a mentalist. He had to sit in the front row, and for some reason he'd put on a suit, which stood out among all the muumuus and flip flops. I asked him why and he said, "I had a really, really good friend, Rick, who died twenty years ago. He promised me if there was any way he could contact me, he would. And I've been waiting ever since."

I just about cried. Mike is a really sweet Southern man so this didn't surprise me, though his naivete did. "You want a medium," I said, "not a mentalist. A medium talks to the dead. A mentalist asks you to think of a number between one and a hundred, and two minutes later a chicken walks in with the number painted on its ass."

Mike was stunned. "Oh," he said. "So this guy can't talk to the dead?"

I shook my head. Mike's face fell as the realization slowly crushed him. He seriously thought he'd hear from his long-lost friend again.

There wasn't much I could, but I had to do something. "You should definitely talk to the guy, though," I said. "The skills don't seem that far apart. If he asks you to think of a number between one and a hundred, tell him, 'I will, but first do you see an older man near me whose name starts with an R or an L?"

Conversation with my fictional American husband.

FAH: "Hey, it looks like a beautiful day. Let's go have some fun!"

ME: "Great idea. What do you want to do?"

FAH: "We could stop by the flea market at City Hall and then have Aperol Spritzes by the park."

ME: "Oh, that sounds perfect. Will I need a jacket?"

FAH: "You'll be fine. If it gets too chilly, I'll keep you warm."

ME: "Aren't you wonderful? Okay, let's go!"

Conversation with my real German husband.

RGH: "Get up. At your age you need to move around or you will die."

ME: "Great idea. What do you want to do?"

RGH: "First you will use the toilet, then I will use the toilet. Then we will go out. When we come back, I will use the toilet, and then you will use the toilet."

ME: "Oh, that sounds perfect. Will I need a jacket?"

RGH: "Yes. It is not cold but you need something to absorb all of your sweat."

ME: "Aren't you wonderful? Okay, let's go!"

(Naturally I'm crazy about him.)

Opens today in France. I'm not going to see it but I'm curious how much sugar they needed for the top.

STRANGER: "Is that a Moose Knuckle?"

ME: "No, I wear thick underwear. [PAUSE] Oh, you mean the JACKET."

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 loop 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 down in front of every one. I feel my giant eyebrows weighing me down until I can hardly hold up my head. 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 a frozen yogurt shop. 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 just 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 eight."

I drop in Macy's to see what's new. There's a red knit cap I almost like. I'm not sure if it works with my beige skin and ridiculous height. "You look great!" a clerk says. "You look fabulous!" I look at her. She looks at me. "You look like a lit match," she admits.

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 mustache 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 cheekbones for days, and it looks like you've got a smokin' hot body too. You could be, like, in one of those Calvin Klein ads, just wearing underwear. David Beckham's got absolutely 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.

Halloween in New York

This year, like every other year, I didn't make plans for Halloween. I figured I'd maintain the distance I kept from the real world and just watch it from the comfort of my apartment. The first knock on my door, though, wasn't a trick-or-treater: it was Emma and Charlotte, who weren't quite as content with staying inside. Though it came as news to me, apparently Having Nothing To Do On Halloween is a humiliating predicament for Brooklyners, and after a few minutes of frantic texting suddenly the three of us had a party to attend.

Emma and Charlotte disappeared for ten minutes and came back wearing wigs, revealing dresses, and dramatic makeup. I'm pretty sure these were Halloween costumes, though it was also what single New York females wore to the grocery store. I had no clue what they were supposed to be, but I figured if I asked they'd laugh and say, "Oh Roman, you are so out of touch."

So, let's go with Internationally-Renowned TikTokers.

Halloween has changed dramatically since I was a kid. Back then, you had a reason for your costume, and since we were young and dumb it was usually just a stupid joke. Every neighborhood would have a Cereal Killer, a Taco Belle, and a Black-Eyed Pea. These days, though, it doesn't matter how you're dressed but only that you're hot. Highlight your boobs and your ass and nobody says a word. Nobody ever says,

"Excuse me, but since they lived millions of years apart, slutty cave women couldn't have worn dinosaur-skin bras."

Or "If Little Red Riding Hood had actually worn something like that, her grandmother would have dropped dead years ago."

Or, "Judging by the toga, I'm guessing you're a Trojan woman. Did the war start because you used up all the hair spray?"

Or, "Oh, I see. You're a Sexy Scarecrow. Because enormous tits make birds go, 'AIEEEEE!'"

Or, "Sorry to nitpick, but even Sexy Football Players restrict the padding to the general shoulder area."

Or, "If Tinkerbelle's boobs had been pushed up that far, she'd never have gotten through the window."

Or, "Why would a Sexy Bee have such enormous cleavage? Do they want to pollinate flowers, or Charlie Sheen?"

When I was a kid, Halloween was fun. Now, it's a kitschy excuse to get laid, and as long as you look sexy nobody really cares if you're Ruth Bader Ginsburg or a Slutty Manatee.

Emma and Charlotte gave substantially less thought to my costume. Charlotte grabbed a few wigs she had lying around and slapped them one at a time on my head. I don't know what she was looking for, but her final decision was a wild, straggly blonde mop. Although it went against everything I stood for, she clearly didn't give a damn if the carpet matched the drapes.

Never in my life had I worn a wig, and I knew absolutely nothing about them. I couldn't imagine why she had this one, unless she spent part of her day breaking in wild horses on the Scottish moors. I assumed with styling she'd magically transform it into something attractive, but instead she just tousled the front of it and pronounced it done.

For my clothes, she rummaged through her closet and then tossed me a Led Zeppelin t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. "Be careful with that," she warned.

"I didn't know you liked Led Zeppelin," I said.

"Never heard of them," she replied. "I paid four hundred bucks for it at a vintage shop."

I put the shirt on. I'd never had the nerve to wear a sleeveless t-shirt in public, but Charlotte was the stylist and I was the mannequin so I didn't complain. I also didn't know who I was supposed to be: I gave off major notes of grungy, dissolute, and creepy with undertones of kinky sex and weed. Aging porn star? Bisexual surf instructor? The answer to "What would Sean Penn's character in Fast Times at Ridgement High look like all grown up"? Emma agreed that I looked good and then we hit the road.

Before we even got to the subway, it was obvious something had changed. I'd always been ignored when I ventured out of doors, and I'd assumed that was true for everybody. New Yorkers were famously cold, and too self-absorbed to care about anyone except themselves. Now, suddenly, everybody was looking. They were interested in me. I was getting double takes.

One of the heads that turned was a stocky bearish type with a beard."Hey," he said, flashing dark green eyes. "How are you doing tonight?"

Had he confused me with somebody else? I wondered. Was his Cousin Sid a traveling carnival worker? Had his Uncle Mark grown up in an abandoned condom factory?

"Uh, I'm doing good, I guess. Just on my way to a party."

"Cool. Yup, it's Halloween." Something clicked in his head and once again he looked me up and down. "That's a costume? It's a costume! Ah, that's cool. Have a great night!"

Emma and Charlotte and I exchanged confused looks and headed for the subway again. This was literally the first time in New York that a stranger had spontaneously talked to me. Well, I'd never been outside for Halloween, I thought, so maybe it was always like this.

The L train was crowded, with maybe half the riders in costume. The three of us temporarily went our separate ways, with Emma finding a seat and Charlotte and I leaning in opposite doorways. Standing next to me was a DILF in t-shirt and sweatpants. I'd have noticed him even if he didn't keep looking my way.

"Hey," he finally said the next time I looked over. "What's goin' on?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Nothing," I said. "Getting ready for a fun night out."

"You're looking pretty casual. You looking for somewhere to go?"

This sounded like an invitation from an actual living male so I immediately carpet-bombed our previous plans. "Well," I said, "I had been thinking about going to a Halloween party."

"No costume?" he asked. The look I gave him must have run through a few different emotions: maybe confusion, followed by curiosity, then disbelief, and finally incredulity. "Ah, man! You fooled me. Okay, I'll leave you alone, but you really are looking great." The doors opened for 1st Avenue, and with a thumbs-up he was gone.

I closed my eyes after he left and tried to make sense of it. Did New Yorkers really think people looked like this? And, worse, did they like it better than my regular look?

It didn't seem possible. I checked out my reflection in the window. It was clear: I was the guy who sold photos of his feet online to put his girlfriend through tattoo school. My fall-back occupation was a cardboard sign that read, "Why lie? I need a beer." When God raptured everybody back up to heaven, I'd be behind the door smoking weed.

I was a totally new person, low maintenance and low expectation. The guy who ignored the rat race and listened to the beat of his own drum. But strip away all the judgements and I looked relaxed. In control. Possibly ... fun.

Thinking about it this way, my newfound popularity actually made sense, especially if opposites attract. Everybody in New York was fighting for a job, or a healthy relationship, or even just recognition, so it made sense that they were turned on by a dude who'd dropped out entirely. Who didn't give a fuck. Who wasn't fighting. Who was just happy to have a beer and a couch to sleep on.

I'd taken particular note of these guys through the years because they always mystified me. Worse, they made me jealous. Because I'd followed the rules and floundered, while they'd blazed their own trails and ended up happier than me. I'd remained largely single while they always seemed to have somebody by their side.

My parents impressed upon me what's required of a modern male: good grooming, good manners, clean clothes. I'd spent a big chunk of time and money trying to maintain those goals, and didn't even notice they'd aged as badly as a Fear Factor VHS. Nobody wanted that junk any more. Maybe it was predictable, maybe it was boring, maybe now that the earth had like seventeen years left nobody worried about retirement plans.

We reached the Sixth Avenue stop where Charlotte, Emma, and I reunited. I quickly got them up to speed. "So, all my life I've tried to stay interesting and look good, and all my life I've been completely ignored. Tonight, though, two men have already hit on me, because I look like I have a head full of Nordic Death Metal under a disheveled rat's nest for hair."

"Excuse me?" Charlotte snapped.

Emma shrugged. "I was going to tell you," she confessed. "Maybe this is something you should explore in the future. You really do look hot."

I didn't want to argue so I ignored her implication that "hot" was a new look for me. Besides, even before the words were out of my mouth I was already starting to reject this new theory. New Yorkers also had a modicum of common sense. Was I seriously thinking that the real me, at least faintly stylish with a competent haircut and borderline hunky in shirts with sleeves, was less desirable than an unemployed stoner whose t-shirt screamed, "Get a load of these guns!"?

Impossible. Absolutely not.

My parents also told me that crossing your arms in front of your chest was terrible body language, so it's exactly how I stood when we finally got to the club. I was fed up enough for one night, so I stood there in the dark, totally closed off, with a "stay back" scowl on my face. Despite all that, a middle-aged woman in a tight, sparkly dress was homing in on me like a heat-seeking missile from half a room away. She wasn't intimidated. She didn't care. She eyed me like a tiger spotting a bowl of tuna salad. "Yo, baby," she purred. "How's about you and me get some parts bumpin' on the dance fl-- "

"It's a Halloween costume," I snapped.

"Oh," she said. "I'm very sorry to bother you, sir."

I'm not making friends here in South Africa. I walked by a mini-golf course and was snapping photos when an employee approached.

ME: "So when you get a hole in one, does Jesus clap his hands?"

EMPLOYEE:

ME:

EMPLOYEE: "They're SCARECROWS."

I am learning German while my friend Peter is learning English. I complain to him about long, ridiculously-specific words like “nebelfeucht” (“damp as fog”) and “kreidebleich” (“pale as chalk”).

I’m going to Munich on Thursday and sent him a note. He replied, “Why are you ‘looking forward’ to seeing me? What does looking have to do with your visit? Why are you looking anywhere at all?”

He has a point. He also said he’d get some bratwurst and kartoffelsalat so things are looking up.

Welcome to Hour 127 of Prince Philip’s funeral. Just like Hour 126, the female commentator will say “The duchess of Sussex can’t be here because she’s patiently awaiting the joyful arrival of Baby Sussex” thirty times, the male commentator will say “William and Harry are actually speaking to each other, which is the miracle we’ve all tuned in to see” twenty times, and your husband will say, for the four thousandth time, “Well, now it’s REALLY almost over.”

I love the German people for a lot of reasons: they're practical, logical, and exceedingly helpful. They never hesitate to give strangers helpful advice. If you walked around with a shoe untied, for example, several thousand Germans would point this out to you. And that's before you left your house.

One thing I don't love, though, is German bread. It's solid and hard and heavy and healthy. You can get it dense or denser, from forty different wholesome grains, with or without dried seeds on top.

Which is great -- if the first item on your To Do list is "Scrub my colon until it's shiny and pink."

The bread I like, though, is a rough and primal thing. It's hand-kneaded and hand-shaped and baked in a wood-fired oven. It's pretty much the opposite of German bread, so I was ecstatic when I finally found some in Germany. I actually smelled it before I saw it, in a bakery in Braunschweig, where the fire scented the air for miles around. In the window were huge, misshapen, crusty loaves, and inside the fragrance was pretty much the opposite of toast and closer to incineration.

This stuff wasn't served with a smear of marmalade. It was eaten around a campfire while dinosaurs watched.

On the counter, one mammoth slab had been cut in half. While the crust was scorched and solid, the inside was all fluffiness and air, with barely enough substance to support butter.

"One of those, please," I said. And I smiled all the way home.

I couldn't wait to tear it apart, but first I had to make plans. Should I slice it up, or just pull off chunks and stuff them into my mouth? Should I eat it plain or make a prehistoric sandwich? Would a wedge of cheese be too much? Would a slice of prosciutto be enough? Before I'd come up with a real strategy, my husband jumped in to help.

"That is too much bread," he declared. "There is no way we can eat that much bread. We must do something with it or it will go to waste." He was quiet for a second as his German brain weighed the possibilities. "Here is what we will do. We will freeze some, we will make croutons with some, and we will crumble some into bread crumbs."

It made sense to me, so I didn't complain. Besides, I love German practicality, and would never be so rude as to turn down their help. Ten minutes later, though, when I decided I'd start with a slab smothered in unsalted butter, I returned to the kitchen.

I looked for the bread. And looked. And looked. "Honey," I called shakily, "do we have any bread?"

There was a pause for a second, and then "No" was all he said.

My German teacher had a very strange idea: that people who have zero experience with the German language will be able to differentiate between right and wrong by the way it sounds.

"'I like you,'" the teacher said. "'I' is nominative. What about 'you'?"

"Dative," I replied. "Ich mag dir."

"Not accusative? 'Ich mag DICH'? Which sounds better to you?"

Which sounds better? That seemed like the wrong road to take. You could propose marriage in German and it'd still sound like you were thinking about hitting somebody with a brick. I didn't say it but I definitely thought it: "Lady, if we cared about what sounded better, you'd be teaching us French right now."