Yes, I know this doesn't count as a real return to the blog, but it's a start.

Today's NYC Craigslist Awards:

-best headline: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/m4m/141264649.html

-most venemous concluding line (and almost best photos): http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/cas/142371521.html

-best headline/accompanying photo: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/msr/142238856.html

No one is pissing me off this week...so far. It's a funny feeling.

Rob and I had coffee on Sunday and he said if he was still at VH1 he'd be putting me on-air as a talking head b/c he thinks I'm witty. Tom took me running in Prospect Park yesterday, despite the 18 degree weather. Nancy had me come to her yoga class, and just 15 minutes of hanging with her beforehand brought total emotional fulfillment. Even Eric sent a sweet "no pressure" reminder about his DJ gig on Fri night.

With too much time on my hands and the constant temptation to nosedive into unemployed depression, I've been throwing names up on my shitlist way too easily lately. Perhaps I need to let the love and concern of some of my good peeps sustain me for a while.

Is there some correlation between physical activity and renewed emotional vigor? I dunno, but running and doing yoga (and trying to fit in another visit to the rockclimbing wall) feels a lot better than smoking cigarettes on the futon.

Don't worry though, friends. I won't be investigating Kabbalah, Scientology, or a raw foods diet any time soon.

Sometimes Ryan knows that I’m feeling fragile, and rather than calling me a little bitch, he need only imply it. And for that, I heart him.

Jason: Hey Ryan/Tracie, my friend Kryz had fun meeting you guys. He said he’d like to have sex, conceptually, with both of you.

Ryan: I LOOOOVE conceptual sex... it's on.

Tracie (Ryan’s girlfriend): RY - watch it with the sex talk....conceptual or not!

Ryan: Is innuendo okay?

Tracie: okay...i guess you can have conceptual sex with whoever you wish.

Ryan: I only have eyes for you...

Me: Like i need 15 e-mails of your fucking cutesy banter. Do me the favor of taking your excrutiating "pleased-wth-life" attitude out of my in-box, won't you?

Ryan: Uh-oh, wooks wike sumwon needz a hug!!!!


(to him I dedicate Taylor Dayne's "I'll Always Love You"...the remix)

Taking Tom out to meet girls last night:

I tell Tom to meet me at Half King, a good neighborhood bar with fun people and lots of space, so our choices won’t be limited to 3 or 4 girls. I get there before him and it’s kind of dead, mostly groups of friends eating at tables and not too many single women at the bar or just hanging out. I call him and tell him to meet me on 23rd/8th, and instruct him to call Luke&Leroy to see what’s going on while he walks over to meet me.

Luke & Leroy is having a “guy’s party” so we check out Serena, the bar at the Chelsea Hotel. Turns out they’re having a “women’s party” (see Shescape.com). Veloce is empty-ish and neither of us can think of a good place to check out so early in the evening. We start walking downtown, and after about 2.5 miles of walking in the cold, we finally end up at Pioneer bar. Just before we go in I realize that the last time Tom & I were out (the night we saw Diplo spin at Flavorpill’s First Friday series at the Guggenheim), I tried to take him to Pravda where he’d never been. So we head over there and get a table.

We start talking about all these major life issues and Tom sweetly tells me that he’s perfectly happy to have a chance to hang with me, and despite all our joking about hunting for chicks, it’d be totally cool to head back to Brooklyn after Pravda and just get a drink and hang for a little while longer. Must’ve been something in the 2nd martini I got, maybe a lack of whatever mixer was supposed to be in there (tasted like straight-up vodka to me), cos after using the bathroom upstairs something caught my attention: 3 cute, single-looking girls.

I explain that I’m taking my friend Tom out to meet some women, he’s totally cute and cool, and ask if I may bring him up to hang for a bit. They seem game so I head back downstairs and tell Tom we’ve got to head up for a moment. We sit down and discover they’re Parisian. One works at Bard College and the other two are visiting from France. They’re all about 21 which makes Tom and I feel about 51, but no one’s making “(*yawn*), it’s getting late” face, so game on…

After another 2 rounds (and plenty of smoke from the women accidentally being blown into our faces), we reach the “what now?” point. I ask if they’re up for a fun, gay place as I have no idea where the straights like to go at 1:30am on a Sunday night. We instruct them to head to The Park and Tom thinks when they’re not there right away that they may have flown ze coupe. Sure enough they show up but The Park is closed. Down the block we head to Hiro where we all get right in and the girls seem to think the place is big and fabulous. We get drinks, we dance, we chat more.

Eventually they need to get going but tell me I’m a good NY tour guide, and take my number to hang again. Tom gets one of their numbers in a much less platonic gesture, and she explains that he can call her in France from a landline with ze ease. (Some couple chatted me up, giving me that “you might be just the thing to spice up our relationship tonight” look…but I digress, this is a story about Tom. Mostly.).

Tom and I need some food at this point so we go to Diner 24 which, at 4am, is hopping (except for the guy who’s fallen asleep at his table…perfectly still with his chin on his palm). Tom and I get burgers, we head back to Brooklyn, I get home at 5:30am. Mission accomplished: we met girls, we did our male-bonding.
I spent 46x what I should have but it was definitely a night worth a week of pb&j and spaghetti dinners.

Let me sing the praises of my dentist, Dr.M, just for a moment. After neglecting my teeth for way too long, I got tired of using my tongue to shift food to the side of my mouth that didn't cause excruciating pain. I went to Dr.M when I had a cavity the size of James Frey's dishonesty and he healed me right quick. He also discovered a few other things that needed attending to before I was again orally crippled, so we've been sharing Saturday mornings together for about 4 weeks now. Today I asked about gas (N20) as opposed to the novocain I've been getting. He said novocain does a better job of numbing whereas nitrous oxide doesn’t mask pain as well, but allows you to care a lot less. "What about both?" I asked, channeling Mr. Frey's propensity toward narcotics use, I suppose. And both it was. Mmmmm....

The gas was going up my nose, the novocain was taking effect, and suddenly I was hoping he had the new Sigor Ros CD to throw on. It was not to be, I realized, as "What's Love Got to Do With It?" came on Lite FM. No matter, I was cruising. Dr.M finished telling me about his daughter's friend who recently came out while attending Vassar (*shocker*), and starting drilling, or scraping, or filling. I'm not sure what it was, but for all I cared he could’ve been implanting surveillance equipment in there for the KKK or Hamas. I haven’t felt that chill on a Saturday morning since we waked & baked for a special a.m. screening of “Akira” in college.

This week’s story from his hygienist, who never fails to tell me about her woes with men, was about the 16-year-old boy she was sleeping with, back when she was 30. He’d come during school breaks and after their trysts, she’d send him off with a packed lunch. They still keep in touch, she said, though “not like that." Lovely.

Tonight it’s off to the gay blogger Christopher Street bar crawl. I’ll be psyched if I end up half as buzzed as I was at the doc’s. (In my best Homer Simpson voice:) mmmm, nitrous.

Too much beer last night. Didn't I quit smoking so I wouldn't wake up feeling like a midget was sledgehammering my insides in an effort to escape? Must take a night off. Which'll be good, financially speaking. And my liver probably won't mind either. Tom's also threatening to take me up on my offer to go running tomorrow (with my new New Balance sneakers that don't have the same waking-on-strips-of-cardboard feel as my Adidas). Must be physically and emotionally prepared.

It's one of those unemployed mornings. I've sent a couple resumes out, followed up with people via e-mail about leads, rewritten my Emmy speech to include those I've met and bonded with since the last version. Now what?

I'll probably run a couple errands, take a walk around the hood, make a sandwich, and watch "In Her Shoes." I know, it's beyond reasonable on the chick-flick scale, but Curtis Hanson directed it and I love "L.A. Confidential," and find "8 Mile" inexplicably watchable (and re-watchable), so I'm curious to see his latest. I can take a little saccharine without being traumatized.

Things My Younger Sister Did Not Say to My Older Sister and I While Waiting at the Gynecologist's to Hear About Her Malignant Cancer Cells:

1) Guys, I'm so glad we finally did this!
2) This place is really cute!
3) I hope you guys are having fun...
4) Isn't this heaven?
5) Jay, you've been here before, right?
6) This is so what I needed today.
7) Everthing here looks great!
8) Oh my god, my friends are gonna be jealous!

Turns out everything is ok. Last night she got test results from a doctor she had visited once, and was told they found malignant cancer cells. Much of her evening was spent deciding which cliff she would jump off of when the pain was too much, and planning her funeral. Don't ask Stacy to think positive when there's a negative outcome that's even remotely possible.

My older sister Frann and I took her to the gyno today and it turns out everything's fine. No cancer. No death sentence. After a little playtime with our nieces and some Baskin-Robbins, Stacy was back to her Daria-meets-Carrie Bradshaw peppiness. Looks like this wasn't a very special episode of "The 26" after all. Praise Jesus, Allah, Kanye, whoever.