Today’s soundtrack: not who I used to be

Today at 4:02pm: In Chinatown, shopping in vain for unscented dryer sheets. Apparently most 212 Chinese hang-dry their laundry.


Fruitless scheming.


I need to share a bed with a woman in a bad and major way. For at least one night I need to forget the rest of my life and lie in bed wrapped around a pretty woman. I need to feel like I understand her, she understands me and our bodies understand each other, even if it’s just for that one night.

Then again mindless sex minus any modicum of understanding might not be the most terrible thing in the world either. Must investigate.

So The Corporation is sending me on a “spy mission.” Industrial espionage--sounds exciting, right? Well it ain’t, not even remotely.

Here’s the deal: I’ve been freelancing at this particular corporation on-and-off since ’94, doing a particular kind of product design. Bottom line, I know the business pretty well but am not technically an employee of The Corporation, though I’ve been there longer than half my department.

One of the competitors of The Corporation is having a big two-day conference down in Arizona. Independent contractors are allowed to attend so The Corporation registered me for the event (which costed 950 clams, for fuck’s sake).

They’re putting me up for three nights in a posh resort outside Phoenix. Best part is the conference only runs 9am - 3pm, so the rest of the time I can fuck around.

I called the resort to see what kinda place it is, and rooms run $350 to 5 bills a night. All my meals are covered and I get a rental car. Then I get to thinking shit, why don’t I know any single females in Phoenix?

A-ha! Sunny lives in L.A.!

Sunny is a girl who used to live in New York and as far as I’m concerned, she and I were supposed to happen. Partially because we’re both Asian and our first names are symmetrical but mostly because we hit it off famously.

We met at a party on West 14th. Exchanged numbers and saw each other once or twice but the timing was wrong, I made a bad decision or two and the cruel job market offered her a salary in L.A.

At our parting we said we’d keep in touch, you never know what will happen in the future, etc. and I got a fleeting kiss on the lips (probably because she was drunk). It was at some bar on 1st Avenue. I’d met her on the west side and said goodbye to her on the east side. The next day at work I smoked a cigarette in front of The Corporation and scanned the sky, foolishly hoping I’d catch a glimpse of her plane.

So my plan is this: I’ll give Sunny a ring, see if she can’t wrangle a day or two off work and come down to Phoenix. Our chemistry would be worth a short flight, right? With three nights in a resort that’s paid for? And I’ve got a room with two double beds, leaving plenty of room for her to go Platonic if I make an ass of myself during dinner.

I couldn’t find Sunny’s contact info in my laptop--I lost some data when I switched to the new machine--so I called a mutual friend.

“Sunny?” he said. “Yeah, I got her e-mail, let me dig it up here...man that girl is so cute...she’s really got something....”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Ah, here it is,” he said...

...before adding, suddenly: “Dude, you know she got engaged, right?”

Oh hell.