Sorry, I haven’t posted much in recent days but I’ve had a rough week emotionally and physically - amazing how those two adverbs are so tied together. It all started two Saturdays ago now - I’m posting this on Sunday 2/25 - when I realized I was spending another weekend completely alone - going to dinner by myself, going to movies by myself - Factory Girl, which is a bad movie with an interesting lead performance and which reminded me only slightly of my own days at Warhol’s Factory when I was the executive editor of Interview, and Breach, which I liked for its storytelling acumen. I decided to force myself to go out to a bar on that Saturday night since I don’t go out much anymore. In the old days I hated going out because I’d come home reeking of cigarette smoke. Now that I’m older and cigarette smoke is no longer a problem in a bar, I just hate standing around and dealing with a drunken crowd. But instead of sitting home and feeling sorry for myself, I headed out to the Eagle. I met an attractive guy who sat in the corner with me for an hour or two. We actually held hands and talked about lots of interesting things. At one point he even allowed me to kiss him. But when the time came to either hook up or make a date for some other night, I told him that I was HIV positive and that’s when the hand holding ceased and he told me he had “concerns” and could never have sex with me. I left angry - at myself for being HIV postive, at him for being afraid of me because of my honesty. But when I walked through the door of my apartment at 2:37 a.m. I just sat down on the bed and … well … wept. Maybe it’s from all the low-grade stress I’ve been experiencing about this book coming out, but I’ve been feeling extremely vulnerable lately. I guess I needed the emotional release so perhaps I should thank the beautiful stranger at the Eagle for pushing a button that needed to be pushed. I cuddled up with my dog, Archie, and fell fast asleep.

The next day I awoke and thought - fuck it - I’ll sign onto Manhunt. I’ve been off that site for a long time. It always leads to drug use or some sort of STD, if I’m not careful. But I was past feeling lonely when I woke up. I was feeling a bit desperate. A beautiful kid began to contact me from the site. He dances at different clubs in the city while getting his graduate degree in social work in Jersey. He likes older men. He was okay with my HIV status. And, when he arrived at my doorstep, he had one of the most beautiful butts I’d ever seen in my life. He also had a pocket full of Xtasy and, I admit, I let him convince me to take half a tab, which always just leads to conversation more than sex where I’m concerned, though there was a sweetness to the latter. We had a good time but the next morning I awoke with massive lower back pain - either from the X or from a few of the positions in which we ended up.

In fact, the pain was so bad I was unable to sleep for a couple of nights - it especially hurt when I lay down - but I sucked it up and made my road test appointment that Wednesday to get my driver’s license since it had been cancelled the Wednesday before because of a snowstorm. I made it, sleep deprived and in immense pain, to the driving school where I was to meet one of its instructors who would then drive me up to Yonkers in order for me to take my test in one of the school’s cars. It took 90 minutes in awful traffic - while the instructor ate smelly Chinese food - to get there. Once in Yonkers, we had to queue up in a line of cars that took another hour and a half. When we did make it to the front of the queue, the person who was there to give me my road test from the DMV told the instructor that she had told him before that he had to get that car fixed - the inside door handle on the driver’s side had been snapped off - so that she said the car was “defective” and I would not be able to take my test. I would have to reschedule yet again. Suffice to say, I was ready to kill. I had to ride back to Manhattan for another two hours stuck in traffic inside a car reeking of empty Chinese food containers and my back was increasingly in pain with every literal bump we took in the road.

When I got home I called St. Martins and told them I had gone the extra mile and tried to get this license for my book tour but that I was now finished. They would have to hire me a car and driver, which they agreed to do.

My back continued to be in pain and I had a big weekend trip planned out to LA for Oscar weekend, where, in fact, I am now typing this blog entry. Each time a niece or nephew graduates from high school I bring them out here to LA during Oscar weekend as a graduation present and escort them around to some fabulous parties filled with famous people. But this time Auntie Mame was feeling like Rosalind Russell had been dug up from her grave. More than the gray hair on my chest was making me feel old. The lower back pain, after my six hour flight out here, was almost making me long for my own grave. Almost. But I sucked it up and have stories to tell about Price, my nephew, who has met many different stars who could not have been nicer to him - Oprah Winfrey, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Penelope Cruise, Jerry Seinfeld, Tom Hanks, etc. etc. etc. Even Maria Shriver, the state’s First Lady, facetiously - at least I think so - tried to matchmake him with one of her beautiful teenage daughters who were with her at one of the swell soirees we attended. And this morning my back was actually feeling better. We went to Bryan Lourd’s house on Friday night to his private party. Bryan is the CAA honcho and one of the sweetest guys in Hollywood. Yesterday we went to the picnic that Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller give at their Bevery Hills house for Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair. We’re going to watch the Oscars tonight at Max Mutchnick’s house - Max was one of the creators of Will and Grace. And then we’ll head back to our hotel to get dressed for the Vanity Fair Oscar party at Mortons. Maybe I’ll have more specific stories - Maria Shriver was the exception but she’s always been exceptional - to tell from that party. I don’t feel right posting the things that happened at Bryan’s and Barry’s and DVF’s since those were private affairs. Let’s just say there are not many stars left in Hollywood that 18-year-old Price hasn’t now schmoozed, a new word in his own Mississippi vocabulary.

Price and I will wake up tomorrow on Monday morning and head back to the airport - the carriage will have then turned into a pumpkin during my nephew’s glimpse into my Cinderella existence, other than these kinds of weekends from time to time my life is full of solitary dinners and movies alone and curling up with my dog after crying myself to sleep - but we’ll have some great memories to share with each other, Price and I, as we grow older. I’ll also maybe know what the review says in the upcoming New York Times Book Review before I board my plane back to New York tomorrow morning since the upcoming Sunday’s book review is usually made available the Monday before. That’s right. I found out that the Times is running its review of Mississippi Sissy on March 4th, two days before the book’s pub date. So at least attention is being paid in the Holy Grail of book reviews. I just pray it’s the right kind of attention and the review is a good one. If not, my back just might go out again. But I promise not to weep.

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