Soundtrack: Richard Wagner, Lohengrin, Prelude to Act 3

According to the calendar in my kitchen, it is August 5, 2005, First Friday, celebrating the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. Santa Maria Maggiore where that slimy worm Bernard Law is the pastor. But I digress. Nowhere on the calendar does it say, Assholes Come Out of the Woodwork Day. Perhaps that holiday won’t become official until Hallmark sells the cards. Still, it is not an Oklahoma! Beautiful Morning at all. Today is apparently the day all kinds of idiots decide that yes, I want to talk to you.

In opera, endings are huge. Revenge is taken. Secrets are revealed. People die after heartfelt solos. The Devil comes out of Hell to take you with him. In Wagner operas, everything goes up in flames and everyone burns to a crisp. There is even a term for that sort of scene, Gotterdammerung, or the gods destroy everything. I say a good Gotterdammerung is in order.

This particular opera started innocuously enough. A guy on MySpace admired me and sent me a message. I responded weeks late(he wrote while I was in Peru) after reading He’s Just Not That Into You. After all, he contacted me and he’s an Asian boy in glasses. We exchanged fun instant messages before his lack of nerve began to wear on me. Never mind the cute e-card. If you’re not asking for my number and asking me out, I have no time. Our heroine feels as free as the breeze(God bless you Greg Behrendt!), a thin little book holding the secrets of life.

Yesterday, I mustered the courage to leave my sickbed and do lunch with two former students, now twentysomething single girls pursuing love and other stuff. I was able to eat solid food again and was feeling great. I threw on my hot pink jacket and those cute flowered flats and headed into the City for my first First Thursday.

What a scene! It was like the Christmas scene in La Boheme. There were hundreds of people: old and young, scruffy skateboarders, aging beatniks and hippies, dime-a-dozen hipsters. All the colors: hot boys in mint shirts, girls in burgundies, beautiful gold glitter pumps, turquoise jewelry, handbags and necklaces. And the art: richly raw photos, bizarre multimedia sculptures, run of the mill geometrics and abstracts. It was a Scene, almost too artsy, too chic, too intellectual. In the club scene, I rule, an indigenous little diva, so cool in old jeans and a $9 Target tee, all the queens telling me they adore me, everyone wanting snapshots or a dance. At First Thursday, I was rendered shy and quiet, a little mouse weaving in and out of the crowds, unable to follow the gorgeous Asian boys who smiled my way, not even able to flirt with the more obvious black yuppies. I left the muchedumbre and clattered down five flights of stairs with aching feet, wishing to God I had some game.

This morning, the opera turns. After the two hour power outage is over, I find my MySpace suitor online, wanting to know if I’m better. I mention First Thursday and he wonders why I didn’t ask him. I let him know I no longer ask men out, once again renewed by my Dating Commandments. He sends me his number. I let him know I no longer call men. He asks for mine and asks when I’m free when the attack begins. No, not Wagner’s Valkyries. The Assholes Come Out of the Woodwork: A Korean lawyer I met online last year, the one who lives with his girlfriend and their dog. A Chicano musician who always asks for my pictures and then doesn’t write again for months when he can’t remember who I am. An old high school friend who wants to be a friend with benefits. They are all clamoring for my attention when I decide enough is enough. Let it all go up in flames!

And so the diva stands alone as the gods hear her plea. The curtain falls.

A Great Book can change your life for the better. I feel great!