Excerpts From A Thinly Veiled Journal Entry:

Scene: Cut to a bedroom at 6 am on a Sunday morning. A man and a woman are engaged in desperate, passionate, prolonged foreplay. Heavy-duty heavy petting... Lots of deep, penetrating eye-gazing occurring. The one glitch -- the woman is not who you think it is.

(sounds of needle being dragged across a record as video starts rolling horizontally)...

Narrator: So, you may be asking, “What’s so wrong about this picture?” What ISN’T wrong with this picture? When we left our now-Lotharioesque protagonist, he was agonizing over what had just happened after finally kissing the woman he had tried unsuccessfully to woo last summer. This was a mere two days earlier.

After a few kisses of the closed-mouth variety, and just when phase two -- open mouth, no tongue -- was to begin, she pulled away, looked at him with crazy eyes and a Mona Lisa smile -- well, it was wider than that, definitely more smile than smirk, but just as mysterious. A little less toothy than the grin of a Cheshire cat, but seemingly a combination of the two. That was it.

In another breath, without another remembered word uttered between them, she drove off into the night while he stood there scratching his head, literally. What just happened? What did this turn of events mean? Was she smiling because she was happy? After all, isn’t this what she wanted? Why else was she thinking about him when he called, while she was on the road, heading in his direction? Why else would she answer the phone “Holy shit!” when his number came up? Not “Hey, I was just thinking about you!” but “Holy shit!” Certainly, there is a subtle difference in these two approaches. Why else did she stop by that night? She KNEW this would happen. She WANTED this, right?

How come this never happened before? After the mix CD with the collage cover art in the DVD case, with the 80-line poem written especially for her, perhaps... but why now? Months had passed since he felt but more than a sigh at the sight of her. He had moved on, gotten another crush, been rejected yet again and gotten over her, too, by this point. He had promised himself never again to play the role of smitten schoolboy. Too much pain endured for too little personal gain. The only thing that didn’t suffer was his art. He had by now gathered enough stories to write a book based solely on his misadventures in the realm of romance. Every mistake chronicled, footnoted, revised, reworked and refined after several million recitations to friends of varied interest over the years.

In fact, he had secretly been pursuing someone else. he had decided to play it safe by not letting himself get all worked up about it. If something happened, that would be that. No more hapless romantic making a mix CD a week for someone who wasn’t looking for the same thing. After all, he had his books and his poetry to protect him. Shielded in his armor -- which consisted of many of the saddest songs in the Modern Age of the Western World. Something DID happen. She made out with his brother on a trampoline at a Fourth of July party. “Well,” he thought, “that’s pretty fucking weird, but at least I hadn’t gotten all retarded for her first.” Clearly he was making progress.

It was right around the time of his decision not to get anymore schoolboy crushes that she started IMing him regularly. Some of the conversations were interesting, indeed. They started discussing the act of making out and how things didn’t have to be awkward afterwards if it didn’t lead to coupling. She then suggested they meet up and go out dancing in a couple of weeks. As with most plans they’d made in the past, the dancing didn’t happen. But that was okay, he figured, because she had at least WANTED to get together -- perhaps even make out. It would be soon.

Time passed. She accepted a job as a live-in housekeeper at a mansion closer to home. She needed some help moving and a place to crash on a Saturday night. He had an extra ticket to a rock and roll show. It was kismet. fate. He had a couch, he had a bed. She needed someplace to rest her weary head. They loaded up their cars with her worldly possessions and then went out to get some Indian food. Then it was off to the subway, Manhattan-bound.

The subway was all farkuckt and they ended up on the wrong line in disguise. So they walked from the West Village to the Lower East Side, enjoying each other’s company very much. She laughed maniacally at his jokes and they were both making random weird noises -- all in all, this was typically what occurred when they got together. The first time they had really hung out, they both started humming the same imaginary tune while looking for the car in the parking lot. But this night seemed different somehow. Things really seemed to click. He knew they were both changed from last year at this time; more complete in themselves than before.

She half-jokingly suggests they walk across the Williamsburg Bridge after the show. He greets the idea with much enthusiasm. All during the show, they are pumping each other up for this. It is one of the best nights of his life, just being with her and being close; the two of them talking and listening intently. Why can’t life be like this more often? The only thing that brought him back to Earth was when he awoke the next morning and realized that he had missed not one, but two opportunities (at least) to kiss her. Dumb ass.

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“Here it is, one year later, and this rush of feelings for her came back like a ton of bricks. What the fuck is that about? I honestly figured that it was so over. But when we got together, I was so giddy. I’ve never been happier helping a person schlep their stuff anywhere. And we had a crazy adventure in the city. we crossed the Williamsburg Bridge on foot and walked all the way back to her apartment in Brooklyn. It was amazing. It was such a beautiful night out, too. Why did I not stop her in the middle of the bridge and kiss her, as the passing Hassidim gawked? Because I am an ineffectual loser. The only way to fix this is to kiss her somehow. I came so close last night, while tucking her in as she went to sleep on the couch (I offered her the bed, just for the record). Our cheeks were pressed against one another, but I was bent over awkwardly, so I pulled away too quickly, retreating to my bedroom with my tail between my legs, so to speak.”
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That was exactly two weeks ago tonight. The long-anticipated kiss was two nights ago. He still had no clue as to what exactly happened Thursday night, or what it meant. Is it always so cryptic?” he thought.

“So what’s all this, then?” you may ask. I couldn’t tell you. Even if I wanted to. All I know, is that he was at a party, drinking heavily, flirting with this girl, sticking his nose into everyone else’s business; which was followed by a viewing of “Playmate of the Apes.” They were each drinking a beer to help sober up during the course of this fine feature film, while leaning on each other and holding hands.

Back on the deck afterwards, she picked up his book and started flipping through it. She was actually engrossed by it, reading intently in the dimly lit environment while he sat next to her and made asides, giving insights into the stories like a color commentator for the televised broadcast of his own life. She read a good amount of the book, considering the hour and the occasion.

Later, she admitted to having asked about him, that she had been curious, and that the book sealed the deal. “Well,” he thought, “it’s not everyday I meet a good-looking woman who is drunk enough to tell me that I’m hot.” He walked her to her car and they said goodbye while kissing each other slowly. Note how this kiss actually lasted more than thirty seconds. It seems as if this first kiss between two people who were practically strangers was the very essence of what
he had been hoping for all this time...

Scene: Fast forward to a bedroom at 6 am on a Sunday morning. A man and a woman are engaged in desperate, passionate, prolonged foreplay. Heavy-duty heavy petting... Lots of deep, penetrating eye-gazing occurring. She has to be at work in three hours and hasn’t even slept at all...