February 15, 2003
I have spent the entire day alternating between despair and shock.
Despair because the actor who was my houseguest for a week and whose mere physical presence rendered me almost incapable of spelling flew back to Los Angeles this morning, where he lives.
Shock because someone has actually responded to my Drip personal ad. (For the story behind the ad, click here; for the text of the ad itself, hieroglyphs and all, click here.) I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that, for whatever reason, my attempts to write a witty, charming, and insouciant ad had produced a document that caused gay men to flee me as they might flee a pair of plaid golf pants or Anita Bryant. And yet someone had read my ad and found it intriguing enough to respond to.
So I went down to Drip and looked at his ad, which was totally charming and funny. His grammar was impeccable, as was his spelling (though he did write "theatre" instead of "theater," but I'm not prepared to write him off yet, since that is his only evident flaw, at least so far). The first word in his self-description section was "zany" and among his biggest turn-offs was "braying pretention." Plus he listed Marshmallow Peeps among his interests.
At the moment, however, Mr. Zany is an unknown quantity and the actor is thousands of miles away.
Thank God I have a dog or I would be so fucking lonely I would die.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:32 PM
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Comments
1) Jon said (on 02/16/03 at 03:34 AM):
I spell it theatre, too.
Here's a great link if you like Peeps:
Peep Info.
2) angelo said (on 02/16/03 at 04:23 AM):
I have no dog. Nor do I have a date this Saturday night, so I might as well just shrivel up like a raisin in the sun and die.
3) Faustus, MD said (on 02/16/03 at 08:38 AM):
Jon, after visiting that link, I love Peeps too. Angelo, you know exactly what you need to do to get a date this Saturday night.
4) Todd said (on 02/16/03 at 11:01 AM):
Don't write him off for 'theatre'. That's how we spell it in Canada (and the U.K.) using the 'Queen's English'.
5) PatCH said (on 02/16/03 at 05:06 PM):
I sometimes spell "theatre" too, just as I'll sometimes spell "centre" or "colour" or "potatoe" (ok, not the last one). But a lot of times I forget my background in a fromer British colonial island and think I am American and spell them "theater," "center," "color" and "potatoe" (well, all except the last one)...
I agree with Todd: don't write him off just yet.
6) marquito said (on 02/16/03 at 09:54 PM):
omg! peeps are amazing... finally, a place where others feel the same way. :D
7) D.R. said (on 02/16/03 at 10:51 PM):
While I agree that he should not be written off for this transgression, "theatre" and "colour," used in America by Americans, is unforgivably pretentious. "Potatoe" is unforgiveable ignorance.
8) PatCH said (on 02/17/03 at 01:33 PM):
It's a double-edged sword, D.R.: when I write home to friends and family with the occasional American spelling, it comes across as being pretentious. But when I slip in the occasional Queen's English version in my writing, it comes across also as pretentious.
It's the same with speaking: when I go back home, it takes a while for the American inflections to recede, and I am looked at funny. "What, you think you're American?" people would say.
And I agree, "potatoe" is absolutely unacceptable. But hilariously funny nonetheless.
:-)
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