Last week, I encountered some of the famous New York hostility, doled out by someone who was quite obviously a foreigner. I sense this is symbolic of something else, that the city attracts visitors, who act a certain way, which then gives the natives a bad reputation. Perhaps this is why people think the French are rude and Brazilians are all trannies.

At any rate, I was walking to work, as was my habit, when I felt a sharp shove from behind me. In these types of situations, when something unexpected happens, my first instinct is to assume that something very recognizable has happened. If someone is shoving me, it must be because it's a friend who is messing around with me.

It was no friend.

Instead, it was a pale, blonde, petite, and extremely hostile young French woman. As I turned towards the shove, expecting a smiling face, I was greeted with "Where the hell are you going?! You nearly walked in front of me! Are you trying to walk into me? You are moving too close?" I was nowhere near her. I would say we were separated by two or three feet. So that was odd. Here's something else strange: if someone is perturbing you because of their proximity, you'd think you might express your displeasure with something other than initiating physical contact. She doesn't know who I am. I might be a crazy person. By some diagnostic manuals, I am a crazy person. Still, who knows, maybe I did walk close to her? Maybe? So I just shake it off, and continue on my way.

Big mistake.

As I attempt to cross the street, passing in front of the crazy Frenchie, she again loses her merde. "You are doing it again! Why are you walking in front of me?!" So this is too much, and I shoot back "Lady, what is your problem?" She says something else, and as I walk away, I make some kind of gesture and tell her "Enjoy good mental health," and blow a kiss. She shoots me a stink-eye and moves on.

I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't think of something better to shout at her. Here are some other bon mots I thought of, after the fact, which I was thinking of telling people I said, but didn't actually say:

--"Lady, if you're trying to get my attention to flirt with me, it ain't going to work."
--"It's people like you that give surrender and colonialism a bad name."
--"The jerk store called, and they're running out of you!"
--"Rest assured, madame, if I wanted to bump into you, you would feel it."
--"Zinadan Zidane is a homo."
--"I slept with your wife!"

I didn't think of any of those. Maybe she and I will tangle again someday.

Tonight, I met up with my friend Rudra for a delayed birthday dinner. We met at a fancy steakhouse, which serves fancy steaks. Since it was a special occasion, I ordered... the 40 ounce porterhouse. Well, it was shared with her, too, but still--that's a big steak. Delicious! Tender, but with a delicious crust. Very nice. Accompanying the steak were some hashbrowns (nice), some other potato thing which were delicious (which isn't very specific, but was was tasty as it was vaguely described), and... Brussels sprouts. Which sounds less than delicious, but these little tiny cabbages were also surrounded by... bacon. Wow. There is nothing like bacon to zest up a vegetable! If they put bacon in asparagus I would eat it with a spoon. Or my hands. Or whatever bacon-vector was available.

For dessert? Chocolate and peanut butter mousse with banana ice cream. Outstanding! Peanut butter, you are the wind beneath my wings. And the capper was that they also serves warm chocolate cookies of some kind as a post-dessert dessert, which were also delicious, and much appreciated. I love the cookies at the end of a dessert.

Feeling a big loagie now. I've never eaten a 40 oz. steak, even if I was double-teaming it (which sounds illicit, but was less illicit than you'd think). My previous record was set in Alaska at the Clarion Hotel, where I downed a 16-ounce steak solo, with (coincidentally) a peanut butter dessert at the end of the meal. That occasion also ended with my feeling somewhat cowlike. But an accomplished cow, you know?

I used to date a girl I met via the online dating. Things didn't work out, but we kept in touch. When we started dating, I first detected the potential for trouble when she told me that she was an aspiring writer, perhaps of a memoir about her previous career as a stripper. This concerned me, since I worried that she might have just wanted to date me because I worked in publishing. Still, she never asked me to read anything she wrote, and she never asked if I could provide any help for her down the road, so perhaps she wasn't trying to use me. Then again... why else could she possibly want to date me? That's a big question mark.

So a week ago, she contacted me again. She is now living in the UK with her boyfriend, and she had finally written some portion of her book. The book, she tells me, is part stripper memoir, part dating guide from a stripper's perspective. So part memoir, part how-to. This is like making a dessert that is part sorbet and part cinnamon roll, which is not a good thing. But who knows? So she asked if I could take a look at it, which is polite code for "Can you please give me a million dollars for this?" I said that I would look, but that my company wouldn't be buying it, and she pretended she was fine with it.

The results: not good. It was one of those occasions where it seemed that the author did not read a lot of books in the category that she was writing, and as a result she produced a sample that seemed far more like a high school theme about being wild and crazy by getting a job as a stripper, rather than a book telling a story.

After three days, she emails me asking "why haven't you responded on my writing yet?" It's one thing to ask for a favor, but to demand it? That takes balls. And it's not a good idea to strip if you're G-string can barely conceal your huge coconuts. OK, that makes it sound like I dated a tranny, which I didn't, but the point is, that was a bit demanding, I felt.

This is a bit of an occupational hazard of working in publishing. I once worked with a girl who then sent me her novel asking for me to get it published, and when I asked her what the premise was, she said she didn't know what that meant. I explained, and she said it didn't have a premise, but it didn't need one, because it was kind of funny, and people love to laugh. That didn't quite work. This is why I introduce myself at parties as DD, the head roast beef slicer at Arby's.
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Speaking of Arby's, here's an interesting little tidbit for you, in the first part of our 19-part series... "Unlocked Mysteries!" My brother Sol and I were once driving to a mall in Anchorage, and I remarked, upon seeing the sign, that it was odd that they would name a restaurant Arby's. "You just don't meet a lot of guys named Arby anymore," I mused. Sol, barely paying attention, said "You think Arby's is named after the owner? And his name was Arby?" "Of course," I replied. What else could it possibly be? You're a bimbo." Sol, patiently, asked "What do they make at this Arby's?" I thought for a few minutes and then responded "Roast beef sandwiches." This might be correct, even thought the meat is brown/grey, but I don't work for the FDA, so who cares. Sol queried "That's key. Can you think of any possible shorthand for roast beef?" "I don't know--roasties?" I asked? "Or maybe beefies?" Nope. Shorthand for roast beef? For a little RoBe? A little... RB? Ah... RB=Arby. I had kind of hoped that it was the name of the owner, who was also a pirate or something (doesn't Arrrrby sound like a pirate name?), but still, another mystery unlocked!

Obama is officially the man! Love it!

Although, I had to say, I found his speech to be a bit disappointing. I thought it was going to reveal a whole new policy, or thunder at the old guard a bit more directly, or unveil some new programs, or just create some historic passage along the lines of "Ask not what your country can do for you..." but instead, it just came off as competent, but not immortal. Still, good for him.
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And now for an installment of "Great Nitpicks in Pop Culture":

Spike runs a lot of Rocky marathons, and I usually watch them, because I love me some Rocky. Here's an interesting observation: Rocky doesn't actually learn how to box until Rock III. That's right, it takes three movies before he gets a tutorial in boxing. That's the movie where Apollo teaches him some crazy boxing techniques, like how to throw a jab (seriously!), and how to keep his weight on the balls of his feet, rather than on his heels. For the first time, you see Rocky try to learn "footwork." For most people, this is not considered "advanced boxing." Up until that movie, most of his "learning" involved odd, old-timey training BS like hitting meat and chasing chickens. So bravo, Rocky, for learning how to throw a jab only after completing two championship fights.

I saw that 24 has returned to the airwaves. This does not seem like a great show. But more to the point, it is kind of unrealistic. Jack Bauer never has a meal or goes to the bathroom. If I were to have my season at the helm of 24, attempting to make it look more realistic, what would it look like? Perhaps something like this:

7 AM: Jack wakes up. Hits the snooze button.
7:05AM: Jack hits the snooze again.
7:30 AM: Jack eats bran flakes. Reads cereal box.
8:00 AM: Jack arrives at CTU. Spends first 15 minutes going through his emails.
8:30 AM: Jack discusses his March madness pool with a colleague, notable as the only guy in the office Jack hasn't shot with a tranquilizer gun.
9:00 AM: Jack goes to a budget meeting. Lots of smash-cuts to power point displays.
9:45: Jack goes to the bathroom.
9:55: Still in bathroom. Shouldn't have had those bran flakes, I suppose.
10:30: Jack gets on the phone with CitiBank, to dispute a charge on his Visa. "I really don't think I've ever eaten at a restaurant called McSorley's." he says, genuinely confused.
11:15: Jack takes a smoke break. He tries to gab with the other guys smoking, but no one will say what division they work for or what they do.
12:30: Jack in the CTU commissary. His eyes go from the rice bowl station to the sandwich station. You can see the numbers counting down in one corner of the screen. If he doesn't make a decision soon, the deli will run out of pastrami.
1:15: Jack is at a table at lunch, alone, eating his sandwich, reading the latest issue of People.
2:00: Jack has to interview some interns. He asks them what first made them want to work for America. He also asks them if they ever had their nuts put in a vice. They laugh. Jack does not laugh. Jack's testicles have seen the inside of more vices than the average 2x4.
2:45: Jack tries to send a fax. Some of the CTU staffers giggle at him. "You can send that via email now, Jack-o," they tell. "Well, sorry I missed the memo while some crazy mullah was tea-bagging me with a deep-fat fryer."
4:00: Jack closes his office door, looks around furtively, and then starts online shopping. He needs to get his daughter a necklace or a sweater or something for her birthday. What the hell to teenage girls like?
5:30: Jack is in his car, singing along to, of all things, Public Enemy.

I was talking to a friend about what makes for good New York, and last week, when I joined some chums for some musical improv, I had my answer. First, we had some delicious Ethiopian food, which is surprisingly hard to find in Decatur, Georgia, and then we saw the improv, which was funny. Got to dig that.
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Why di they make a sequel to the Steve Martin Pink Panther? Did the first one really wow people?
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Geography question for you: for most states, the state shorthand is just the first two letters of the state like AR (Arkansas), NE (Nebraska), OH (Ohio), etc. But why is Hawaii HI? There are no other H-states. Why is Vermont VT? There are no other V-states, so why not VE? You know why?

Secret states.

That's right. We have to have VT for Vermont, and that's because we reserved VE for the state of Velemont in 1793. And the reason that we have KS for Kansas, when KA would seen more appropriate, is because we used that already in 1842, for the state of Karhtoum. That's right.

Same for Louisiana (LA? Try the original state of Lafayette), or IA (replaced Ianto), and TX (after the state of Teluride was annexed).
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I'm having some rage problems. Just can't seem to wrap my brain around the people who play the online poker. Just make a mockery of the game. Then again, it's just for pennies, so I can't expect them to take it seriously, but it still vexes me. I think I might need to take a break. I can work on making new desserts.

Over the weekend, I went to visit my brother Johan in the hospital. Unfortunately, since I'm an idiot, I confused the beginning of weekend visiting hours with the ending of them. So I showed up just as they were ending visits, and the guard was kind enough to wave me through, telling me to just be quick. Again, that might be a simple directive, but to a self-proclaimed idiot, not so much. I got to chatting with Johan, and one thing led to another, and before you know it, an hour has gone by.

I bid adieu to Johan, and then head out the door. As I'm leaving, I'm told by one of the hospital staff "Have I seen you on TV? You look familiar." I tell her that she has not seen me on TV, unless she means the closed-circuit television inside the bodega where I buy my Eskimo Pies. I press her as to who I might remind her of, and she says "You look like Damian, from the soaps." Awesome! I look like a soap opera star! When I get home, I do a quick search to find my chiseled doppleganger, but there are more "Damians" in soaps than there are Billy Joes in the south. The first I found was the soap opera computer hacker, which is not good. You want to look like the CEO, not the computer expert (Hugh Jackman exception noted). Luckily, I recalled the name of the soap she mentioned, and there was a much more rogueish Damian in that one. Whew!

On the way out, I realized that I couldn't actually get out. The doors were locked, and the desk attendant had put up a sign saying "doors are locked." So there was nobody in the lobby, no open door, and no sign of how to get out. No problem. I went to college. But it was a liberal arts school, so that might not be much help. I wandered around for a while, hoping I would find a person or an exit, and neither was forthcoming. I tried a few doors, kicked a few IVs, but nothing. Needed to change things up.

So I went down a level. I figured that the basement might lead somewhere. It was sort of a Dante-esque adventure, or quest, if you want to be pretentious. And I always like to get pretentious. I wandered around for a while, peeking in and out of nooks and crannies and doors. Nothing. The only exits were the fire doors, which were alarmed. So it looked like I was going to be trapped in the hospital basement... forever!!!

Or, at least until I passed a friendly-looking gentleman who seemed to work in the subterannean kitchen, who kindly pointed me toward the right door. So I was not imprisoned to some kind of Kafka-esque hospital wandering until the end of days. Which is good.

Every day, my brother Johan is getting healthier in the hospital, and hopefully, will soon be healthy enough to get out of there. But it's clear that it's very difficult for him to be there. Hospitals are boring and cold and it's not an ideal place to be. He makes me want to be a doctor, so I'd have a better idea of what he needs and what I should do. And I'd like to be able to contribute something more than just bringing the news.
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I saw a little musical improv tonight, and these guys impress the hell out of me. They improvise an entire musical! Do the whole thing in an hour! With songs and dances! This one was based on the suggestion: You're Trying to Seduce Me, Mrs. Claus. Sadly, only half the troupe, the veterans, understood the reference to The Graduate, and the only woman, who was Mrs. Claus, thought it was hilarious to just sing songs like "I'm a Whore!" Still impressive, but a bit obvious.
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I love seeing New York characters. The other day, on the subway, I saw a 50-ish man sitting across from me, who was displaying a pencil-thin, Vincent Price mustache, a swooped back pompadour, and a total of five rings, three on his left hand, two on his right, both equally shiny. On his left hand, he wore a huge, shiny watch, matched in illumination by his three-inch-thick link bracelet. Around his neck: a double-looped metalic necklace with huge metalic crucifix. Awesome!

Not a good week for publishing, or the people in it. Most of the major houses had major housecleanings, cutting staff bigtime. So far, none of my friends have lost their jobs, but it is a scary time to be in the industry. It's depressing. Every day, another layoff. It's hard enough being in an industry with no money, but to get fired from a job that doesn't pay adds insult to injury. And you better avoid those injuries, because now you got no insurance.
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My brother Johan is still improving at the hospital. Today, he was eating on his own, and managed to get his nurse to chuckle a couple of times. I can see what she might find funny: Johan's dinner was pureed catfish. Yum! That ought to get him motivated to leave the hospital.
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I've got to get back into the dating game. But I haven't really met anyone I want to date. A problem. Still, crazy stories of dating are usually more interesting than crazy stories of manuscripts read, so we'll see. Right now, I think a friend of mine from my high school days is flirting with me. And she is married. So that's a free ticket to hell.

Hello, loyal reader(s). I've been away for a bit, due in large part to family emergency. My brother, Johan, had a seizure, and was out of commission for a week and a half. Everyone was quite worried, the doctors were extremely concerned, and nobody knew what caused it or when Johan might be coming back. The medical team performed many tests, but repeatedly came back to "The biggest test is going to be when he wakes up and what he does then, so don't put much stock in our tests." Can do, doctor. We would watch him like hawks!

And my family has quite a few little hatchlings.

They came from all over. From New Hampshire. From Oregon. From Washington. From Arizona. From Alaska. And from the Upper East Side. My family OWNED that waiting room! There was one other family, who also had quite a few members, but at our peak, I think we could take them (and that's what family is all about). If Johan was going to need a familiar voice to home in on, he was going to have more than he could stand. Or, if he needed someone bellowing at him, Drill-Sergeant-from-Full-Metal-Jacket-style, to get up, then he'd have that, too. If he needed someone to squeeze his IV tubing, to give that saline some velocity, he had his choice.

The doctors said they really wanted to see some progress inside of a week. After a week, no progress. But then after a week and a half, Johan started to come back! First he opened his eyes. Then he offered up a hand squeeze. Outstanding!!! He nodded his head. He seemed to be on top of his game! But he was still pretty sick. He was still on a ventilator, and was still suffering from some kind of fever. There were lots of systems to get back on line: neurological, pulmonary, dancing, etc.

The next day: progress! Johan was responding, and seemed to be getting stronger. Then they took him off the vent! He was able to talk! It wasn't above a whisper, and he didn't have strength to put more that a couple of words together at a time, but he was speaking! Not only that, but he showed that he knew who everyone was, he knew who he was, and he was getting back into the game. With every day, he seemed to be getting stronger and sharper. He was even cracking jokes!

Today, Johan seemed to again be gaining strength. He described how the experience of waking up in the hospital and recovering was "unreal," that it just didn't seem possible. He still has a way to go. He's still unable to get a lot of use out of his arms and legs, and he still tires easily, but he's 1000% better than he was just a few days ago, so we're hoping that will continue. A great way to celebrate Thanksgiving!