Lunar Man

While attempting to recover from jet-lag, I went out dancing in one of those little Parisian "boîtes" where scruffy-looking "art" and film people drink strawberry champagne cocktails in red glasses. I met a typical French boy who was 27 and still living at home with his parents. It seems he is making a career out of getting drunk. When asked what he "does for work," he replied, "I play golf, but I'm injured right now." He was definitely mimbo material.

I told him about the differences between mimbos, wankers, and pimps, and he asked me what I thought of him. I replied, "You are too young to be a pimp. Since you are French, you are automatically part-mimbo." He was determined to become a pimp, but it turns out that after I left the club, he scoffed to his friends about my dance moves and friendly personality: "She is so American."

So in the end he is my first French Wanker of the Week. And I reported to my friend, "If I had been in Manhattan and met a 27-year-old golf-playing gimp who lives with his Mummy, I would have crossed the room immediately to go dance alone "like an American," whatever that means.

Die, Yuppie Scum

A model was caught running nude through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York while posing for an "art" photographer, Zach Hyman (whose name oddly puns the female anatomy). Hyman claimed that because there are so many "nudes" already in the museum, the model's nudity was immaterial. It was pretty decent performance art if you ask me. The model was arrested for "pubic lewdness." I mean, "public lewdness."

Anyway, my sister's ex-boyfriend, former Wanker of the Week Superstar, called her in the middle of the night, drunk. That was gauche too.

Hold Tight

I met a South African boy on the subway, while I was wearing my dark sunglasses and listening to my iPod. He was asking for directions, so I answered his question and instinctively put my earphones back in my ears. Then he said, "People here don't talk to each other much—do they?"

It turns out that he is a linguist on assignment in the states for six months. He speaks 12 languages fluently and has lived all over the world. He mentioned simply to me, "People here seem so angry." In comparison to the general mood in his neighborhood in South Africa, the citizens of the North East seem to suffer from "chronic dissatisfaction."

He followed me out of the subway car and onto the platform, where he confessed to me that it was his birthday and that he hoped we could keep in touch. But he didn't strike me as a creeper at all—just a lonely boy in search of a birthday kiss.

Erotic Novels ... For Children

While wandering through Soho searching for the perfect 1970s bling to add to my collection, I noticed a smattering suspicious men taking photographs of my sister and me. Then the salesgirl at the jewelry stand finally commented: "Lindsay Lohan is always so much shorter in person." Lindsay Lohan, the child-star-turned-lesbian-rehab-frequenter-extraordinaire was hovering a mere two feet away from me and I didn't even notice her.

So I did what any former teeny-bopper would do: I broke into a sprint and followed her three blocks down the street and into a vintage shop. Lindsay Loho was so fierce in person—menacing black leather sandals that snaked up her legs, black cape, no pants or shorts to speak of, freakishly long bleach-blonde hair—that my usual celebrity solicitation skills melted away. I remained a pathetic voyeur for the duration of the shopping trip. Lindsay kept commenting on the retro-chic dresses in the store with a typically '90s exclamation of Long Island fondness: "That's sick ... that's sick."

Bananas The Video

When things go sour in a relationship, some find it necessary to express themselves in a carefully crafted email of veiled hatred. If they are men, they are generally of the Wanker of the Week variety.

Gauche things to write to your lover/ex-lover in an email:

1. Alluding to them as a baby, especially as a baby suffering from urinary incontinence.

2. Wishing them the best of luck in "finding new friends."

3. Asking for your CDs back from their bookshelf.

4. Asking for your store of condoms back from their nightstand.

Bacchic Dances

In Argentina, as in most foreign countries, children often live with their parents until well into their 20s. This situation is very cost-effective, but when it comes to dating, it can present more than a few problems to young lovers. After a sultry evening at the clubs, it is less than seductive to bring your date back home to share a spot on the couch with your parents, who are inevitably watching Love Actually or some other foppish British love fest.

And to this end, the outskirts of Buenos Aires are teeming with little motels like "Hotel Kiss Me!" and "Deseos Hotel," rings of neon fire encircling their signs. As I gawked at them on the highway, my friend explained: "Those are hotels where you can go for 2 hours and ... " he trailed off, and then continued: "because many young people in Buenos Aires still live at home with their families." Sounds like a time when a name like "Creeper Cabana!" and "Pimp Palace!" would be fitting.

"What A Dame."

In a dinner at the home of a rarefied 95-year-old British woman in the elegant Recoleta section of Buenos Aires, I was delighted by the sweet hobbling hostess' sense of festivity. Every Wednesday evening she whips together a four-course affair for a handful of guests.

As I guided her from sherry in the parlor to soup in the dining room, she exclaimed, "You'll have to help me walk—not because I am tight, but because I can barely see!" Then, over dessert she surveyed her guests: "I don't know about you, but my wine is a bit nasty!"

Dinner conversation rambled from mattress shopping, to cattle selling, to breathalyzer tests. In summertime in Argentina the police routinely stop drivers to test their blood alochol levels. But now that it is cold outside, this phenomenon peters out and all returns to semi-drunken normalcy.

Dote On Me

Last week a Russian woman was so frustrated with the French government for refusing to grant her citizenship that she stormed into the Louvre Museum and hurled a coffee mug straight at the Mona Lisa. Talk about gauche. But decent performance art on her part, I must admit.

I am similarly on the verge of throwing a piece of crockery at the oversized head of one of the officials working at the French consulate. Their general ... how shall I say this nicely? "Frenchness" ... is getting on my last nerve. I have been attempting to procure a long-stay visa and struggling with the bureaucracy of their convoluted website. The receptionist became so familiar with the sound of my voice that he deemed it appropriate to hang up the phone on me.

I have been instructed to obtain "proof of repatriation insurance" so that in case I die, the flight for my corpse to be sent home will be covered. Finding an excuse to drink red wine and eat baguette everyday for a year is more overwhelming than I had hoped.

High Floor Corner King

There is something about horse races that just seems to bring together dapper, semi-elderly men on Sunday afternoons. At the Hipodromo de San Isidro outside of Buenos Aires I experienced my first horse race. It was a great deal like many male-dominated sporting events the world over—long, slightly boring, anti-climactic, and, since it is winter in South America, cold. It made me think of the Harvard-Yale football games that I get duped into attending every Thanksgiving.

At least at a horse race there is the added element of fun afforded by placing bets on the horses, or "studs" as they are called. They have the most inventive names, since there can't be any repetitions in the official stud book. "Free Saucy," Sensual Plus," and "Honorable Lady" were my personal favorite stud names.

Plus, it is always amusing to be the only woman at a mostly-male event. And to be the only American just intensifies that intriguing feeling of foreignness.

Dulce de leche

The annual polo ball in Newport, Rhode Island was a spectacle to behold. It was in honor of the match between the US and India, so the ball's theme was appropriately "The Taj Ma Ball." Held at the Rosecliff Mansion, the evening was a wine-soaked swirl of middle-aged Newport-ites hob-knobbing, while devolving into various states of reverie upon the dance floor of the ballroom made famous by Robert Redford in the role of Gatsby, the ultimate pimp. Though I have my reservations about the botched 1970s-interpretation of an iconic piece of American literature, very few male actors could pull off wearing that much white.

The Newport polo ball was a raging success. The gauche "ethnic/India" theme even added to the guests' ability to let loose—with men donning various forms of silk kurtas (reminiscent of Hugh Hefner's standard uniform) and the women sporting festive bindis, the crowd seemed free and easy for such a preppy occasion.

An attractive older couple approached me on the dance floor, wanting to know my name and where I was from...they were shocked to discover that I am from Boston—apparently my dance moves seemed more Italian than Puritan in descent.