The following are totals from my recent trip to NYC:
Days spent: 8
Visits to Virgin MegaStore: 2
Visits to Tower Records: 2
Visits to random independent Village CD stores: 7
CDs purchased: 9 (Could have been soooooooo much worse)
Pairs of Camper shoes purchased: 1 (Hey, last time it was 3!)
NY pizza slices consumed: 5
Art purchased from street artists: 2 (one painting, one photograph—and not a tacky B&W tourist-trap scene, either.)
Digital photos taken: 107
TV shows visited: 1 (Regis & Kelly to see Tori on Thursday)
Gay bars visited: 11
Half-naked go-go boys viewed: 6
Boys I wanted to kiss: 4
Boys actually kissed: 1 (For the record, he kissed me, and I stopped it. I have Patrick, and I’m a good boy.)
Drunken evenings: 0 (Did hell just hit 31 degrees Fahrenheit?)
Times I was asked for subway help from confused tourists: 6
Times I led them in the correct direction: 5 (Oops.)
Times I was called “whitey” while in the lower east side: 1

You can see I had a great trip. Tori was awesome live on Regis. Kalina and I were on the front row, less than 8 feet away from her. I thought Kalina was going to have a seizure. Very ugly-funny. I can’t tell you the strings I had to pull at ABC to get tickets for a show in five days. I usually call like a month in advance. Susan Lucci was filling in for Kelly, and Eric McCormick from W&G was supposed to be on, but canceled. I was so disappointed. Lucci was tiny tiny tiny. Except for one area. Let me just paraphrase NY shock-jock Wendy Williams when I say, “You looked like two baseballs on a stick.”
Anyway, Ana Gasteyer from SNL came on instead of Eric, and she was cool enough I guess.

On this trip I also discovered the joys of white pizza. For anyone who, like me, is not a New Yorker and doesn’t know what the hell that is, white pizza is your standard pizza with ricotta cheese on top as well. Stunningly yummy.

The lower east side was also the last neighborhood of Manhattan I had yet to explore in depth, and I poked around there one afternoon. It was very interesting, if a little out of my comfort zone. At least the residents I talked to were… vocal.

I love my street-vendor art, even if no one else does, and buying 9 CDs was an example of me exhibiting shocking financial self-control. Be aware, however, that all CDs except for 1 were used and less than $3. I am a good bargain shopper dammit!

And then came the Campers.
*sigh*
Oh, the Campers. How I love them. Incredibly comfortable, trend-setting and stylish, and very long-lasting. I cannot sing the praises of Camper enough. You can pick up your own slightly-overpriced-but-really-very-reasonable-for-a-New-York-shoe pair at 125 Prince St. (corner of Wooster) in SoHo. Unfortunately you cannot purchase online outside of the European Union, and I know of no place else that sells them. It’s worth the plane ticket to Manhattan if you’re not already there. Trust me on this one.

So, onto the part ya’ll really care about. That kissed-boy thing. Too bad it’s not juicy. He struck up a conversation with me at SBNY’s Stud Search (I was less than impressed with the bar, by the way) on Tuesday night. He was nice and I thought I might as well make small talk so I didn’t seem like such a lonely loser in this club where everyone seemed to know everyone else. He was also in town this week only, from Boston College. He was studying finance (Zzzzzz), a gymnast on the side (ding! ding! ding!), and incredibly cute. After three rum & cokes for him, and two bottles of water for me, we were out of chit-chat and I was ready to head to the next haunt. We were leaning against a wall off to the side of the stage, and I had just leaned in to his ear (as the music was loud) and opened my mouth to say goodbye when, next thing I knew, I’d said, “Well, I’d better be-” and his tongue was down my throat. Surprise!

In a very, very short time I had the following thoughts, in order:
Cute? Yes.
Buff bod? Yes.
Smart? No.
Personality? No.
Shameful one-night fun with gorgeous stud I never see again because he’s dumb? Hmmmm…
Good kisser? NO.
Likely to be good in bed? Doubtful.

It’s shameful to admit the order of my thoughts, because it wasn’t until then (approximately 3.2 milliseconds) that my little brain said to me:
“HE’S NOT PATRICK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
It’s important you know it was that thought that made me push him away. So maybe there is some saving grace. It may not have been my first thought, but at least it was the one that mattered.

Sorry it wasn’t any naughtier than that. At least I’m sorry for you, regular reader. I’m proud of me.

I have at least one more fun story to share, an incident with a tourist, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow because I’m exhausted.

Tomorrow at work I should finally finish sorting through the 512 emails I received last week while I was gone. And I’m really, truly not exaggerating at all about that number. At least I only had 30-some voice messages and I took care of those today.

As always, props to Deb for bumping up my stats a notch with a brief, but kind and undeserving, mention on her blog. While I was in her city, she also kept me informed of the brie sale at Zabar’s and several other local must-eats. She knows that great food is the key to a successful vacation.

Isn’t great food the key to a successful everything?