Monthly Archives: July 2006

On the Fourth of July, E.S.’s parents came to visit from New Jersey. We did our best to make the house presentable before they got here, but, given that we moved in less than a month ago, there was only so much we could do. They generously ignored the boxes and buckets and papers strewn about every room and expressed only delight with the progress we’d made.

At one point, however, as E.S. was out getting us lunch, his father started toying with a big plastic cup sitting on the coffee table and found that it was full of wrinkled singles. He joked, “oh, it’s your tip jar!” He was, unfortunately, correct; the bills were, in fact, the tips from my most recent engagement dancing naked. Then E.S.’s mother asked, “Have you been tickling the ivories somewhere and making lots of money?”

I stared at them and tried not to strangle. For an instant I considered telling the truth and then laughing, because of course they would take it as a joke, but then I wasn’t sure whether they’d think the joke was in poor taste or not, and besides why tempt fate when it’s so much easier to be deceitful?

I couldn’t think of a decent lie, however, and so I choked out, “Um, I wish!” and had nothing else to say.

Thank God for my dog, A., who at that very moment came running in so cutely she effected an irrevocable change of subject.

Okay, you can stop taking the survey now. Actually, as of one minute ago, 137 people had responded, and the survey site now won’t let me view the responses unless I pay them money. I am curious, yes, but not $19.99 curious.

So the point of this was that, though I am a reasonably smart, well-informed fellow, I first heard of post-exposure prophylaxis only a few months ago. I was trying to figure out whether this was simply a fluke, and everybody knew about this except me, or whether it really is an obscure piece of information even though every health worker who deals with high-risk populations should be trumpeting it from the rooftops.

However, now I will never know.

Out of curiosity, I am conducting a survey. If you were to answer the question here, I would be eternally in your debt.

(The free survey software I used allows only fifty responses, so if you’re number 51 or higher then I can offer you only the impulse to be eternally in your debt. I understand that isn’t worth much, but times, as they say, is hard.)

N.B.: This is today’s second post.

If you live in or around New York and want to know what I look like with a) no clothes on and b) tumescent genitalia, feel free to come to this party in the east village (#1 Chinese Restaurant, 4th Street and Avenue B). Feel free to bring cash to shove into my socks.

I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to continue doing this. The tawdriness and depravity aren’t a problem at all, of course; it’s just that I long ago lost the ability to stay up so late past my bedtime without paying for it.

I once named a plant Desdemona and then wondered why it died.