November 7th, 2006

Existential Job
I remember the time I walked outside and found Charisma Carpenter lying in the back seat of a Jeep Cherokee. The seats where folded down to make more lounging room, and she was completely naked, except for a pair of thigh-high white nylons and a few strategically placed Chinese take-out menus. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that she had gotten bored with the whole Hollywood actress think, and that she had decided to go into investment banking, and this was her way of seducing new clients. I latched on to that word "seducing," of course, though I should have known better; she is married, afterall, and has a small son.

She suggested we move to the bedroom, which gave my eyebrows a real workout, but she was just cold and wanted to warm up. I have to admit that though she was very good with the menus, I did catch a quick glimpse of her sweater puppies, but I was immediately distracted by the thought that there was not a sweater in sight, anywhere, and the sobriquet was entirely inappropriate. I fetched her a lemonade and seltzer water, then she crawled into my bed and I sat on the floor with my back to the wall, as she gave me a lecture on portfolios and money markets and bull markets.

Eventually I fell asleep, as my room is not very well lit, and I always keep some aromatherapy diffusers about to help me relax. Also, I had been up late the night previous playing free downloaded demos on the Xbox 360. When I awoke, I assumed I must have dreamed everything about Charisma, but no, she was still there, just her head visible above the blanket and her toes peeking out the other end: she's actually quite tall. I noticed through the white nylon fabric that her toenails where painted red, as I came fully awake; they say that right before death one tends to notice very small, insignificant details, though I don’t think I was in any kind of real danger. Charisma remarked that I "sleep funny," though I don’t know what she meant by that. She said "so, anyway, I want you to think about what I said. T-Bills, Jason. T-bills." Then we heard a horn honking, and she jumped up, taking my sheets with her, and was gone.

I got to my feet, still a bit groggy. I went to the front door, where she had left the sheet, neatly folded, with the Chinese take-out menus, her name and number written on one in red ink, and also a reminder: "Check out Veronica Mars Season 2 now available on DVD." I had actually already watched it, thanks to Netflix. It's a pretty good show. But here's the thing: the Jeep Cherokee was still there. Who did it belong to?

John 11:35
It was a rainy day in Seattle. It rains a lot here, but even this was one heck of a heavy rain. Normally the rain just sort of hangs around, sipping mochas and wearing flannel shirts and listening to old Pearl Jam records. But this was a fierce mid-western rain, a big lummoxy rain, like the kind of rain that rain would be if rain was that guy from the Goonies who they kept chained up and later swung out on a rope over the pirate ship yellng "Hey you guys!" It was the day I heard the Doogie Howser was gay.

So I called him (of course). Doogie, I just heard on the radio that you're gay. He asked me if I have a problem with that. If I have a problem with gays. I told him he was being very defensive. He told me I was, like, the 50th person to call him. I apologized. But then I asked him again, what's the deal? How long had he been gay?

He told me about how you're born gay, and so he'd been gay all of his life, and then I asked him politely to stop playing games, how long had he known he was gay? And he said he had gone on a few dates with a few girls, and slept with a few girls, and wondered why it wasn't the driving perverted obsession that he saw in his friends, when they bought pornos and wore mirror on their shoes and stole ladies underwear. But then one day he was in the showers after some squash and some hot guys came in and that's when he realized he did have a perverted driving obsession, and finally he felt normal.

I asked him if it was because he took too many proctology classes in med school, and he said shut up. Then I asked him if it was because he took too many gynecology courses, because some of those specimens can be pretty awful, and he said shut up. Then I asked him what Neal thought about it, and he said who? I said Neal Patrick Harris, the guy who plays you on TV? And he said who? And he meant it. And then he said TV? What's TV? And I started to cry.

Then the doorbell rang, so I had to go. It was the mailman with my package from Amazon, delivering Kevin Federline's CD "Playing with Fire." The rain had stopped, but I cried even harder.

(More excerpts as the week progresseth.)