Author Archives: Joel Derfner

From a lunch conversation the other day:

FAUSTUS: I don’t understand how people with anxiety disorders survived before Law & Order was syndicated and there was Tivo.
FRIEND: Watching Tivoed episodes of Law & Order calms you down?
FAUSTUS: No, but it gives me something to do that takes less energy than sticking my head in the oven.

Everybody must go to sorryeverybody.com at once, especially those of you who live in countries other than the newly rechristened United States of Jesus.

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with my father, who was in town for the weekend. I told him about the fantasy I had in August that a giant sinkhole would open up under Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Convention and swallow the entire party whole.

My father replied, “See, Faustus, that’s your problem. You refuse to believe that it actually happened.”

“I refuse to believe that the Republicans won?”

“No, you refuse to believe that the sinkhole did open up and swallow them all whole. There are no Republicans anymore.”

“But what about the election?”

“What election?”

Even in childhood I was a fairly good practitioner of denial. But my father–he is a true artist.

Today, while spending the afternoon with a childhood friend who was in town doing research, I got a manicure.

This is only the third time in my life this has happened; the second time was in Beverly Hills, while everybody in Manhattan was dealing with the blackout. I cannot for the life of me remember the first time (a statement I wish I could make about any number of activities in which I habitually engage).

The problem with today’s manicure is that my friend and I were so wrapped up in discussing the porn scandal that rocked my high school last year that I accidentally told the manicurist to put clear nail polish on my nails.

Now I have nails with which I could land an airplane.

How do I fix this?

Governor James McGreevey of New Jersey retired yesterday (you may remember the brouhaha over his coming out back in August).

In the speech he gave before stepping down, he said (according to the New York Times), “I am not apologizing for being a gay American, but rather, for having let personal feelings impact my decision-making and for not having had the courage to be open about whom I was.”

Whom I was?

I have no problem with his being a gay American. I just can’t accept his grotesque hypercorrective use of the direct object personal pronoun.

At least, I couldn’t until I spoke with my friend L.N., who said, “Well, it’s obvious the Times just left out ‘fucking’ at the end.”

Here is a conversation E.S. and I had while we were in the mountains (before he made me touch moss).

E.S.: So when we have kids, should we adopt from China or Guatemala?
Faustus: You mean in the alternate reality in which I don’t hate and fear children?
E.S.: We won’t get them too little. We’ll just go to the adoption agency and tell them we wanted some hot teen or pre-teen boys.
Faustus: No. Absolutely not.
E.S.: Why not?
Faustus: Because by that time their minds will have been ruined by TV and video games. We’re getting them at birth and starting them immediately on Dostoevsky and Austen.
E.S.: I thought you said we weren’t getting them at all.
Faustus: We’re not. I was just enabling your delusion.

So here is the question that has been plaguing me all day: in the concentration camps to which all of us who aren’t white, rich, straight, and male will be carted off in the next four years to suffer the consequences of our president’s having bankrupted our country both financially and morally, will there be low-carb dining options?

‘Cause if not, I’m going to Canada.

Here’s hoping enough Americans are as smart as this fellow.

(Thanks to him for the picture.)

E.S. and I got back to Manhattan yesterday just in time for me to run to the drugstore to buy candy for all the trick-or-treaters who would be coming to my door.

Then, once I got back to my apartment with a grocery bag full of candy, I remembered that I’d forgotten to put my apartment down on the building list of people who wanted to be visited. This meant I was stuck with bags and bags of chocolate and no trick-or-treaters.

I put a pathetic “Trick-or-Treaters WELCOME!!!!!” sign on my door but apparently no one was convinced. And the chocolate called more and more loudly as the evening passed. I tried pretending it was moss but to no avail.

It’s a good thing the step class I’m teaching at Columbia starts next Monday rather than today. Because it’s difficult for an aerobics instructor to maintain credibility when he is A SPHERE.

Well, E.S. and I have returned from our trip safe and, by all outward appearances, sound.

This is where we went:

It was really all fine until we were walking in the woods and E.S. made me touch moss.