The Bay of Bengal

Jet setting is the best, especially if it is on the arm of a dashing man or woman who has piles of money to spend on plane tickets and lavish hotel suites. In theory. In the movies, that is.

A flight attendant friend of mine makes a lifestyle out of meeting men in the first class cabin. She's seen most of the globe and has more stories of luxury travel at the top than Hugh Hefner, or Condoleezza Rice.

She was recently invited for a romantic last-minute trip from Barcelona to New York. Unfortunately, when she arrived to the Manhattan hotel room of her gentleman friend, she picked up his cell phone and found that he had sent the same text message invitation to a multitude of women. It was an international chain text message booty call, and she was the unlucky one who responded. This time the Wanker of the Week met a literal Princess in Flight.

Upright Position

While resting my legs after a long day of touring Indian temples, I settled down in the empty hotel bar to savor a non-alcoholic chai nightcap. But before I knew it a very drunk man approached my table with a lascivious glint in his eye. He was a creeper to the core.

He started telling me about how he "comes from the land of the snake charmer, where there are a lot of spices..." and then he kissed my hand and stumbled away. But a few minutes later he was back, offering me "a lot of fun" and his business card. He is a banker. From New York to New Delhi, investment bankers and cocktails make for a dangerous mix ending in a security escort out of the building, or hotel in the case of the 'snake charmer.'

Chintz-Covered

At Kali Temple in Calcutta thousands of Hindu worshippers line up to give offerings to the Brahman priests, creating a scene of pandemonium I can only compare to that of the New York Stock Exchange. Women congregate at the sacred fertility tree nearby and pray for luck in marriage and pregnancy.

When my male friend and I visited the Kali Temple, a jovial Brahman priest gave us an unsolicited tour. He finished by blessing us with 'sacred' red strings and asking us for money. Then he inquired as to whether or not we were married. My friend replied that we were not married. Then the Brahman priest asked if we were friends. I replied that we were not friends. Then the Brahman priest exclaimed, "Not married, not friend, there is nothing else!" In India dating doesn't exist as an institution of ambiguity as it does in The West. Perhaps I should have joined the women praying at the tree of fertility and conjugal bliss.

Pimp of the Week: J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger is the literary pimp who brought us such universally appealing expressions as "crummy," "phony," and "mean bastards." If he had not created Holden Caulfield, adolescents the world over would feel far less justified in escaping high school to wander the streets of Manhattan, to pay for prostitutes (strictly for talking purposes), and to seek alcohol-soaked wisdom from their English teachers.

But after Salinger became the star of literary irony, he receded into the anti-social depths of rural New Hampshire. But one can only remain in total isolation for so long. At age 53 Salinger ended up writing a series of letters to a Yale freshman girl, Joyce Maynard, because her article in The New York Times Magazine.

Maynard gave up the Ivy League to live with Salinger in New Hampshire. The affair ended when she wanted children and he wanted his peace and quiet. At least she got 10 months of boundless literary advice and a lifetime of unmatched dinner table conversation.

Pimp of the Week: Graydon Carter

Over the sea of Botoxed brows and candy-coiffed diners at a posh restaurant, I spotted the billowing plumage of none other than Graydon Carter. The Vanity Fair editor-in-chief exudes laid-back New England suavity, even though he is a political, literary, and cultural king of Manhattan. He also dabbles in restaurateurism and co-owns New York's cozy-clubby celebrity dining spot, the Waverly Inn, along with Midtown's old school Monkey Bar.

As Carter was exiting the restaurant, I dashed up to him like the desperate young pseudo-writer that I am and handed him my email address on a scrap of paper. All I could muster up to say was, "I'm a huge fan -- I'm a starving writer," but then I corrected myself, "Well, clearly I'm not quite starving, but you know..." I told him about the unpublished novel I wrote and let him go on his way. You never know when a humiliating experience will spin into gold. Perhaps Graydon Carter will be my Rumpelstiltskin.

"are you enfianced?"

Nestled underneath the arcades of the Place Des Vosges, I debriefed on my underwhelming impression of Berlin with a couple of true Parisians. The zany stranger seated at the neighboring table overheard my less than complimentary comments about Berlin, and we delved into a discussion of urban gentrification (and the irritating characters who accompany it). There are the bobos in Paris's 17th arrondissement ("Bobo" is a term for Frenchies who are simultaneously "bourgeois" and "bohemian"); there are the yuppies in Manhattan's Murray Hill; there are the hipsters in Brooklyn's Williamsburg.

But nowadays there is something more offensive than yuppies or hipsters: the yipster. Yuppie + Hipster = Yipster. Yipsters tend to reside post-college on the Upper East Side (where they live rent-free in apartments formerly occupied by their grandmothers). But the yipster quickly accumulates enough wealth to move to Williamsburg, where they stock their kitchens with Whole Foods groceries and frequent the gym in their full service river-view buildings.

The yipster drinks Red Stripe beers out of the bottle at the local backyard bar venue on Friday nights. The yipster probably went to Harvard but prefers to hang out on weekends with up-and-coming artists who went to RISD. I suppose I am similar to a yipster, except that yipsters usually have real jobs so that they can eventually buy a house in Westchester County, forget the "grunge" of Brooklyn, and buy the paintings of their former 'artist friends' who gain credibility from Christie's contemporary art auction.

Wanker of the Week: Apicius Restaurant Encounter

While dining on frogs' legs at Apicius Restaurant, one of the most elegant and hidden-away culinary delights in Paris, a mysterious man caught my eye. He seemed bored at his table of stuffy, well-coiffed, Chanel-dipped elderly relatives. After an hour of exchanging glances, I made an exit for the ladies' room -- he brushed past me in the hallway and I slipped a piece of paper into his hand. It was a perfectly timed encounter between two creepers.

Moments later we were texting, and a few days later we were doing the standard email writing procedure: he is a banker, his family has a house in Paris, he thinks New York is a wonderful city, he is not one of those 'emotionally unavailable men,' he is enamored of my long hair, and OH, one more thing -- casually, at the end of the email he mentioned:

"What else ???? I'm married (no point in hiding that !!)."

So maybe I didn't find true love at Apicius, but I certainly found a Wanker of the Week (no point in hiding that !!), and the chocolate soufflé was delicious.

Restaurant Review: Cookies Cream in Berlin

Berlin is the new European hotspot for starving artists to commune, collaborate, and get crunk. But there is something so American about the post-Communist commercial build-up that makes Berlin look like Denver, Colorado. I searched high and low for its vibrant, seething underbelly of grittiness and avant-garde art.

Even though I was too tired to engage in Berlin's raging underground nightlife, I was able to enjoy its hidden-away culinary delights. One highbrow vegetarian restaurant, Cookies Cream, is concealed down an alleyway, amidst dumpsters and abandoned chandeliers. I had to go through the back door of the popular nightclub, Cookies, walk through the deserted coatroom, and mount the stairs to finally arrive at the oasis of non-carnivorous delights. The experience called to mind Manhattan's chic hot dog and cocktail joint du jour, PDT (Please Don't Tell), which can only be accessed through a phone booth inside the dive hot dog shop next door.

But at Cookies Cream in Berlin I feasted on vegetarian marvels such as "Elder pear barley with cream of pea and fennel salad," "Potato-Leek-Gratin with beetroot and marsalla foam," and I swear it was delicious (even if compared with meat-eaters' food). And dessert was delicious: caramelized sour cream tart with peanut ice cream (divine) and gingerbread mousse with marinated blackberries. Plus, there was a lesbian-gay night at the club downstairs, so the ambiance was filled with the cozy homosexual vibes that give such good energy.

Coquelicot Boulangerie in Montmartre

In my Parisian boulangerie-hopping, I recently went to Coquelicot in Montmartre for a delicious and cozy brunch. It was the first snow this year, so my sister's croque monsieur was a perfect plate of French comfort food, made with ultra-crusty rustic bread, a hint of succulent Béchamel sauce inside, and a covering of earthy gruyere cheese. It was a Parisian's version of the morning-after eggs Benedict in Manhattan. And with our steaming bowls of café au lait, my sister and I could not have asked for more.

Coquelicot is not only my favorite purveyor of neighborhood baguettes but it is also a homey atmosphere where you can escape from the sometimes-brutal unfriendliness prevalent in the more elegant (but less authentic) neighborhoods of Paris.

"goaty look"

When New Yorkers come to Paris, two worlds collide, but the Manhattan dynamic always seems to overpower the effeminate Frenchie ways. I recently went for a night out at Le Montana, an iconic 1960s club in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The New Yorkers in the crowd insisted on taking vodka and tequila shots, which was a very un-French choice. Expensive champagne would have been more contextually appropriate, but once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker, I guess.

The evening devolved into a chaotic game, and before I knew it I put my men expert skills to the test and decided to vacate the premises. Dancing on tabletops and doing jump splits is one thing in the "dirty sexy money" atmosphere of New York City, but it is quite another thing in the semi-pretentious pseudo-refined city of Paris.

Credit Card Security Code

My dear friend from boarding school is stranded in Manhattan working in a soul-sucking PR job. She has been doing some 'email writing' on the topic of emotionally unavailable men. The latest guy in her life is a hunky magazine publishing tycoon and an extraordinary lover. As he is a bit older, he already has a kid and is 'in the process of divorce.'

The romance began as most New York City romances do -- with a series of ambiguous text message exchanges. But before she knew it, my friend was falling in love with him and his adorable son too. The three of them spent a cozy weekend in the Hamptons, but she quickly realized that he was using her as a babysitter. He even asked her to take his son out for a walk, so that he could sleep in late one morning.

In typical Wanker of the Week form, he disappeared from her life as soon as she started displaying her affection toward him. Since the Hamptons weekend, she has not received so much as a courtesy text. He has even hoarded her favorite scarf and book at his house and seems to be too caught up in massaging his own ego and avoiding intimacy to use girls for anything but sex and babysitting.

Settle The Tab

In New York City there is a well-kept secret for young women in need of low-rent accommodations. At The Webster Apartments you can have a single room, two hot meals a day, and maid's service for a mere 250 dollars a week. The only catch: no males allowed.

There is a night watchwoman who patrols the corridors, making the social scene at The Webster reminiscent of a woman's ward in a mental institute circa 1960. But in all seriousness, I have applied and been accepted to The Webster on two separate occasions in my life. But my rent-free maid's quarters (storage space) on Park Avenue proved a better deal.

But The Webster is populated by more than 20-something unpaid interns and aspiring actresses. A recent article described a middle-aged resident who was living at The Webster after a messy divorce. She went from suburban splendor to urban nunnery. But hopefully she will revenge her wanker-husband and stow away a fetching young guy in her closet to conceal him from The Webster's boy-patrol.

"Is that real snakeskin?"

I recently went to the cinema at noon, because it is cheap at that time of day, and because Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience was only showing once a week in one movie theatre in all of Paris. Sasha Grey, an award-winning 21-year-old porn star, plays Chelsea, a high-class Manhattan call girl who manages to keep a boyfriend while seeing her various clients.

The film has a pseudo-documentary style, outlining stories of Chelsea's life: the brands of her high heels, the types of alcohol her clients offer her, the astrological numbers of her week. And then there are scenes of some rich New York City republican wankers jetting off to Las Vegas for a boys' weekend. They gripe about the economic crisis and the 2008 presidential election, and then one of them proclaims that all women are evil, blood-sucking psychopaths.

The Girlfriend Experience is sort of like a dark, soporific, new millennium version of Pretty Woman, with a porn star instead of Julia Roberts, and an infinite Manhattan bleakness instead of a happy ending.

"Light On His Feet"

Today a semi-sinister man dropped a bundle of business cards on the street in front of me. I picked them up and tried to give them back to him, but he was walking too quickly. And then he dropped an orange Louis Vuitton card case. I picked that up too. And then I realized that he had recently mugged some elegant, unsuspecting Parisian woman and was merely discarding the non-valuables (the Louis Vuitton wallet was scratched and had a small hole in it, so was worthless for re-sale).

I recently heard a story about a French man en route to the airport in New York City to return home. He left a rolled-up poster in the taxi cab, and the cab driver went all the way back to the hotel and asked around for the address of "the French man." The selfless cabbie shipped the poster to France, without leaving his name or address, or asking for any money in return.

For every Wanker of the Week, there is a prince trotting close behind...

Hole-in-the-wall

Moving can be a terrifying thing. But when you are young enough, and have yet to accumulate an obscene amount of knickknacks, furnishings, and miscellaneous kitchen appliances, moving can be exciting. My friend has a little country house just a stone's throw outside of Paris, and, like so many people with country houses, he only goes there 3 days out of every year. So, in spite of the babbling brook, lovely vines creeping up the façade, and exemplary local boucherie, he is selling his pretty house in the countryside.

We made a trip there to salvage whatever useful cooking and bedding items we could from the semi-abandoned overgrown ruin. We returned to Paris, packed into a tiny Smart car brimming with old pillows, crystal champagne flutes, kitchen knives, candlesticks, nutcrackers, and a Persian rug. The French tend to be fonder of acquiring ancient objects at auction—whereas Americans are more inclined toward accumulating shiny new Bentleys ... to each his own form of pimp.

"She seems quite fancy..."

In French the word for friend, "un ami (m.)/une amie (f.)" is used to refer to the people in your life with whom you genuinely want to spend time. But there is another word for friend—"un copain (m.)/une copine (f.)"—used to describe that slew of acquaintances with whom you are 'friendly.' Maybe you'll kiss cheeks with your "copines" at a cocktail party, you'll probably attend the shower for their first baby, and "a copain" will definitely call on you when they are in need of real estate advice (if you are in real estate), or legal advice (if you are a lawyer). Most of us have between 13 and 1,500 "copains" and between 3 and 12 "vrais amis."

A French woman living in New York City was bereft when she realized that there was no English translation for the terms for real and superficial friends. She kept searching for a word to describe the gaggle of New Yorkers with whom she was 'friendly.' The French are experts in the act of being gauche and passing it off as exceedingly decorous (e.g. eating the end of the baguette while walking home from the boulangerie; rarely showering; openly informing each other if they are getting fat or if they have gained weight; rarely arriving on time; accepting obscene sexuality as art; etc.). New Yorkers are less pretentious about their own gaucheness.

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.

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."

Final Cut

A man I know pretends to be a hotel mogul, or at least the child of a hotel mogul, but more often than not, he strikes me as a compulsive liar. He pays exorbitant amounts of money for my friends to flounce about the hot spots of lower Manhattan and at every venue the management gives him the royal treatment. So we listen and nod when he rambles on about buying an island off the coast of Cuba and jetting off to Prague for a mid-week party trip.

This fellow wears his wealth on his sleeve, if that could be considered a viable turn of phrase, and he is no stranger to the Manhattan alpha-male penchant for calling girls repeatedly, even when those girls never answer. Some would deem this approach to be irritatingly idiotic—a classic mimbo move. But, I recently discovered that this mysterious hotelier is actually married ... so the fact that he hammer-calls multiple girls under age 23 on a daily basis makes me think that he is nothing but a wanker—a determined wanker with speed dial numbers in the hundreds.