A Simple Change of Plans...

“I’m tired of men.” Direct statement, from one very big-eyed, no-nonsense Russian girl living in NYC. “Can you all please for just one second support my endeavor into the realm of the beaver?”

A perfectly normal request, given the city, to a room of perfectly normal New Yorkers. You had the prerequisite meet-cute couple, who met at a real awful party one year prior when one close friend (currently in Russia) was about to room with the male half (Doug) of the relationship. At the time (currently in Russia) was worried that Doug might be a serial killer (given Doug's unexplained accumulation of flat screen tvs and couture furniture in his for-rent loft) so he chose a party of a friend (that has since gone gay for pay) of mine at the time was throwing to question the rest of us about Doug's potential psychotic nature.

***Flashback to last summer interior (and backyard) of spacious gay for pay's Park Slope Apartment

Me: "Holy shit I think some rich kids are snorting lines of Ritalin on the coffee table in there! And there's these two frat guys from work totally going at it"

(Currently in Russia): See, being gay is so trendy, everyone's shaking on it. Soon Americans will only date in virtual realities and reproduce in tubes. So what do you think about Doug?

Me: That guy from Philly? Why, does he like me?

(Currently in Russia): No, i mean -- you think he's cool right?

Me: Yeah, why not -- he's your friend, isn't he?

(Currently in Russia): No, that's my potential roommate, the one I told you guys might be a serial killer.

Me: Really -- that's him? Damn, I mean -- thought we were going to meet him like for coffee or something -- isn't kind of dangerous to bring a potential serial killer to dark crowded party?

(Currently in Russia): Is it?

Me: I'm sure he's fine -- look he's talking to Annabelle.

For three days after Doug (suspected serial killer roommate) escorted Annabelle (the female half of prerequisite meet-cute couple) home we all worried that maybe, in fact, the serial killer suspicion might be true – as she did not return phone calls during their very intense, very sexual, first three days together.

*****

There was also Ira, recently relocated from St. Petersburg, barely making ends meet, teaching Russians English on Coney Island.

“Whatever you want, Sabrina.” Tired words from, Ira, an old friend who seemed all too familiar with her friend's mis-man-ogist statement. “Just please tell me you have some cute shoes for me to wear.”

*********

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!” My roommate’s response, -- let’s not forget he’s from Leesburg, Florida. “That just doesn’t even make any sense. How are you getting there?” He was recently crippled during a soccer accident.

“I think Doug (the once suspected serial killer)’s driving.”

“Okay – well, what the fuck am I supposed to wear? Like can I wear shorts, jeans, button-downs?”

“You do realize we are going to a lesbian bar in Brooklyn?”

“So…”

“Whatever you want – no one will care.”

**********

We arrive in front of the bar (seven dollar cover) after pre-gaming at Sabrina's and of course no one has cash and the three surrounding atms in the area are out of service. So just when we were about to turn around…..

“I can loan you twenty bucks.” My roommate to me.

“I have fifty on me.” Annabelle to Regina.

Turns out, once you are inside, they take credit cards – twenty dollar minimum – and all is fine, actually I run into a lesbian I know from New Years.

“Oh hey, what’s up? What you guys doing here?” She says to me.

“Well, actually, my friend over there in the corner with the big eyes, short skirt, and sexy, but uncomfortable, underwear has decided to give girls a try, again.”

“Really – cause I was wondering – I totally didn’t get gay vibes off of you y’all during New Years.”

That’s right – she threw out a few more ‘y’alls’ and quickly garnered my roommate’s attention. Turns out they grew up less than 20 miles away from each other in Florida. Great small talk had by all!

In the meantime, I admittedly, had been considering my own change of plans and had been all too frequently checking my text message inbox.

Time passed – tequila was poured – next thing I realize I’m getting down with my bad self alongside Sabrina on the dance floor, surrounded of course, by some pretty intense Park Slope Dykes.

For one brief moment, Sabrina easily was attracting the attention of the licky-chicky locals, and for an even briefer moment, I tried to leave her to her own devices on the dance floor – but she quickly darted after me.

“What are you doing?! Don’t leave me here!”

So while everyone else we arrived with was still on the balcony, smoking cigarettes and discussing the day’s affairs, I indulged in one more dance floor song (Beonyce Knowles & Jay-Z), and one more complimentary shot of tequila and for some reason felt more emboldened to begin flinging out text messages to recently created contact list.

Two or three tequila shots later, next thing I know Sabrina was arguing with the only girl that showed the slightest interest in her during the course of the night, and before I can figure out exactly what caused this heated homo debate, Sabrina is pulling me and Ira away from the crowd and we wind up in a taxi headed for Manhattan. During the whole ride, Sabrina is completely beside herself for what she has dragged upon us, but I in the meantime am clueless to her regrets because I am lost in some one-sided texting tomfoolery.

When all was said in done, we winded up in some LES bar where Sabrina ended up denouncing her muff-mounting mania during a two-fold puking extravaganza inside the bathroom of Mehenata – immediately exiting said recently spaculed bathroom, she met a lovely man by the name of Ivan (fake name, Ira and I actually checked his ID after Regina insisted on going home with him) and once again she had decided that in fact, cock was pretty cool.

With Sabrina gone and hopefully accounted for, I sat on the stoop of a nearby apartment and smoked a few cigarettes with Ira. Although Ira was voicing her concerns of Sabrina's all-too-quick-for-comfort-dick hookup, I was somewhat lost to her objections…

Because as it turns out, I was distractedly considering -- Sabrina's ‘simple change of plans’ -- they were not at all what she thought they’d cracked up to be, and in the end, she found herself exactly where she started – on the receiving end of an uncut European dick.

In the meantime the whole evening I myself thought I would consider a simple change myself (evidenced by drunkenly self-assured sent text messages) that I began to wonder that maybe that my sudden reconsideration of things was slightly ill-warranted.

After all, we were all in NYC, a town that is just begging for people to arrive with preconceived notions of how their current life’s misconceptions might be rearranged. But during the course of the past week, when I briefly thought to myself that my current desires needed to be rearranged, Sabrina's blunt conclusion to her week-long pondering brought my own uncertainties into crisp focus.

As I sat alone on the car ride home back to Brooklyn, I reluctantly closed my phone after deleting a few numbers from it. Although I wasn’t ready to admit it, I too, had fallen prey to some sort of ideal ‘about-face’ that seduced me with its mercurial possibilities –

Why exactly was I texting in the first place? Was I just looking for a good time, or was I looking for the start of something more? Was I worried of falling out of a hip social circle, or was I hoping to drag a partner in crime out with me? Was I really ready to move on, or did I simply just like all the attention? Did I really care about who I was texting as much as I cared about just getting texted back? Was I really hoping that a simple realignment of my social sphere to that of something slightly more Lohan and slightly less cerebral would drag me out of the current funk I felt I had been in for the past few weeks?

I guess in the end there are no simple answers to my questions. Just like there are no simple changes to plans.

Fashion (**makes me**) Week

February 10, 2007

– Saturday night -- before I knew it was 1230am -- I had left a friend’s birthday party where there was delicious sangria and killer fair-trade brownies, and suddenly I was in some karaoke bar in Korean Town with my two Russian comrades. They had wanted to leave the party and all its fair-trade goodness to meet up with this Jewish chick that had rented out a private karaoke booth for herself, her very fashionable, very chic, British-Asian model-friends in town for fashion week and their equally fabulous gay groupies.

There seemed to be some sort of theme to the karaoke room – dress up as a dead singer or something… All I knew was that there was tons of toilet paper being thrown around, a girl with very pointed features and facial hair glued on in a bid to channel The King; a gay guy in nothing more then cow boy boots, a jungle print thong, and a curly blond wig slamming his junk around to the beat of, what else, Holiday; and a tall, waif-like, pale-skinned girl in stilettos waving her her black satin bra over her head. Of course, all the Asian models were super-thin, were clustered together in a corner chain-smoking cigarettes, and had on over-sized glasses to hide their coked out pupils.

There was enough Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Silvers littering the room to get an entire cheer leading squad naked and muff-hungry, and enough cocaine sprawled out to make even Kate Moss blush, so even just while singing the evening’s price-tag was elevating exponentially! Clearly this wouldn't be a problem if I myself was a famous fashionista, but, unfortunately I was just along for the ride on a friend's invite, as my lowly salary lacks the six plus digits necessary to support such fortune-fueled karaoke hi-jinks. Clearly something had to be done that would allow me to escape the tab of this escalating coke-a-oke -- I noticed the Asian girls ogling at me from across the room. One was enticing me to sing a song, so I glanced briefly through the songbook before grabbing a mic.

Afterwards, we ended up in some over-priced, over-hyped LES bar that was over-crowded with people feeling overly fabulous, and I was way over the coke I had done earlier in the evening, that I overtly insisted that myself and the Russians quickly bolt down the street to embrace a Halal restaurant, where I think I single handily wolfed down a 16-inch mixed kebab platter in about 5 minutes, salad, rice and all!

Ahh, the joys of Mideast meat!

That, my friends, was my Saturday night in Manhattan. And all that fun, including cab-ride home, only ended up setting me back $45 when all was said and done. Why the sudden Rachel Ray priced tag? Let's just say that I would be Big Trouble in Little China if all Asian women continued to shove twenty dollar bills in my underwear band every time I sang a few verses from an Usher song.

guilty pleasure....

I had been coming off of a messy breakup – you know the type where it's just so bad but the sex is oh so good, and the person in question is so f'ing hot – that letting go, although the best thing for you, remains the last possible solution you're willing to pursue because it entails the end of the kind of super hot celebrity sex/paparazzi lifestyle that most people (except for celebrities) rarely get to experience in their lifetime. Despite the lies, the escalating drug use, and the unpaid gas bills (big problem in Chicago during the winter), you try to focus on the quality fragments of the relationship (the sex, the parties, the free drugs, the warm body beside you at night) until you realize that the 'best parts' of the relationship are just the mirror image of the worst, and your perception (tolerance?) of the person all depends on whether or not you're looking in the mirror at a given moment or at the person directly.

In any case, like any early 20-something, drama=love, and I didn't know any better, and I was hurting, and driving in my car for no particular reason other than to clear my head, and then a friend of mine called – I picked up the cell phone -- blew right through a red light -- because the friend was calling to inform me of a party that night which would contain, amongst things like Xboxes 360s and Turbo (Flippee) Cups, my Ex, fashionably fresh and flourishing once again in my hometown.

I pulled down a side street, parked my car, and sparked a bowl. The obvious question being: was I going to go to this party – and if I did, was it going to result in something destructive, again? More importantly, wasn't I over all this Jr. High nonsense? Hadn't I already rubbed enough salt into my wounds?

Lately I had been driving without the radio because the noise it emitted would only augment my lovesick headache, but right now I needed some auditory distraction.

And that's when my guilty pleasure found me! Since my Paris Hilton wannabe cousin had changed all my radio presets to dance stations when she borrowed my car the previous week, Chicago's Killer Bee hijacked my speakers when I turned the radio on, right at the start of a yearning Janet Jackson from the early 90s singing, 'Again.'

And everything about the song -- from images of a youthful Janet, to the gentle melody and sing-song nature of the words, to the apropos scenario of the song-- washed over my exhausted body and adulterated mind like a saccharine tsunami. The next thing I realized -- probably ten minutes had passed and Janet had given way to Avril --and I was bawling like a seven-year old school girl who had skinned her knee on the playground.

I wiped my eyes as best as I could and immediately drove home and downloaded all versions of the song from Rhapsody. I had the speakers on full blast, just lying on my bed, thinking in my head You tell' em, Janet! You know better – don't fall for that poison again, indulging in pure, emotional cathartic release, when my roommate who most people would think was gay unless they knew him, entered my room, professed his affection for this song as well, then informed me of a little film called Poetic Justice, and we must have watched the film at least twice that night while drinking whiskey and hitting bongs. Even though I must have cried myself through a box of Kleenex, I avoided my ex, and the party.

In spite of my best intentions, because of that phone call, ‘the memories came back to me in my mind’ full force, so thankfully my wounded heart and jaded soul managed to find recluse in the amniotic comfort of booze, drugs, the arms of my roommate, and a Jackson.

Although I fell asleep listening to that song on repeat that night on the couch, the next morning I woke up feeling refreshed. To avoid checking my cell phone for missed calls from my ex, I focused on cleaning my room, at which point I found my Beck: Sea Change, album, and despite its pinkish decor, I popped it into my CD player and finally parted ways with Miss Janet and Mr. Beam in favor of the manly break-up album I should have been listening to weeks ago.

My Phone, My Camera, My Pimp

Like my new tits? Exclaimed a text message, accompanied by a digital image of said tits, as I checked the inbox of my Motorola camera phone. Many friends have mocked me because of my 4 year+ allegiance to the camera phone format, but they aren't banning these things from public locker rooms for no reason.

When the hell are you ever going to need a camera on your phone? Who cares if you spot a celebrity, the image is so grainy anyways? Justified objections, to be sure, but the grainy images sent and received by my phone only added a requisite seediness to its pimping pastime.

Anyways, this serendipitous, titty-text message from an ex made its appearance during a friend's graduation party. I quickly excused myself from the party hubbub in order to lock myself inside a bathroom to send an equally titillating response. Let me just say that these cameras' wide angle lenses make it quite simple to produce images which have large amounts of one's body in them even though they were shot at relatively close distances. A few additional seedier picture messages are exchanged before I receive the money shot – one greasy gash rearing to go. I zipped myself up, exited the bathroom, and subsequently left the party.

Through further text messaging, we agreed to meet up at a parking lot near an expressway. She was in town from Indiana on business and had recently purchased a Nissan Murano. I hadn't been fucked recently, lest alone in a Murano, so I figured what the hell.

Under a starry night, we met in the parking lot and I quickly hopped aboard her Murano. A few pleasantries were exchanged – she recently became an RN, was actually on-call for her hospital, was considering going to med school, had just bought a new condo – I briefly discussed the party I had just left. Then came the obvious awkward silence before I finally told her I could just go (more polite than just whipping my wang out).

No! No! Stay! Stay! She insisted. After all, I hadn't seen her new assets yet. So we drove a few blocks to a dimly lit side street and got done what we came for. Afterwards, she dropped me back by my car and I told her I'd call her and of course I didn't. We were a fairly text book example of two people just slightly hot enough to never really connect much above the belt.

Which got me thinking – I could now use my cell phone to blatantly entice ex-lovers with my erect member without ever having to build up any false pretenses; they'd take the bait or they wouldn't. My camera phone even cut-out the seemingly pathetic and random, I was just thinking of you (subtext let's fuck) phone call that I'd have to resort to just a mere 4 years ago. And hot people would much rather fuck than talk anyways, so my camera phone now paved a silent, yet direct pathway to pent up pussy!

Seven out of ten times, a salacious picture message sent out to my circle of fuck buddies has produced fun, slippery, (sometimes even slimey) results, causing me to think about my phone in quite a different light. My pocket-sized pimp has infused sexuality and technology in a creepy, albeit effective and affordable fashion, that could potentially retard my relationship skills more than I ever thought possible.