Where Do I Start?

The webcast with David Zucker on An America Carol, [link is sound-enabled!] which opens this Friday and is required viewing for everyone?

The productive conference call we had a couple of days ago on energy issues with the folks at API?

The bitchin' car show in Santa Monica on Saturday that featured some really innovative transportation options?

The article I'm working on that discusses discrimination in Hollywood against centrists/right-wingers/people who don't hate the military?

The economy? (That one is easy, though: you know what they say in the Pacific Northwest: "if you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes. It'll change." The same thing applies to the stock market.)

It's going to be a long day, isn't it? Stay tuned; I'm back on the job; I'll be alternating today between catching up here and taking care of a few RL issues that hover around me like mosquitoes in the Indiana woods in the middle of a humid summer.

Suddenly, the Topic Turns to Food and Sex

I shall begin with last night: I had dinner with Professor Purkinje, who is in town giving a lecture at UCLA about . . . neurons or some goddamned thing like that. What did this mean to me? Well, dinner at the Palamino, one of Westwood Village's best restaurants.

Prof P. was full of stories about human physiology, his next book—which touches on the nature of addiction—and whatnot, and I was full of . . . myself, as usual. (No room for anyone else in here; I'm a small person.)

So it was important to fortify ourselves with a bottle of wine. We ordered soup instead of appetizers, since it was butternut squash and it would have been irrational to order anything other than that. (The good doctor ended up finishing mine, with complaints about how I'd "defiled" it with black pepper. That's like suggesting that someone has "defiled" my checking account with money, and I wish to Gosh that they would. Where is that editing check, by the way? I'd better call to verify that it's on its way.)

Neuron-Boy ordered lamb, and I got ravioli made with Kobe beef. They serve two of these fabulous raviolis on each plate: one is covered in cream sauce, and the other is a spicy version in a fresh tomato salsa. Both made me remember that food is just as good as sex, if it's done right.

"Do you want some of my risotto?" he asked.

"No, no," I responded. "I'm having a perfectly nice monogamous relationship with this ravioli. Are those asparagus spears over there on your plate?"

He forked over two of 'em, and I continued to eat my amazing beef ravioli for another few minutes. Professor P. told me he'd figured out the cool thing about a "Palin Administration." (Isn't it cute how everyone's forgotten that she has a running mate?—that legislative dude with white hair, a shockingly decent sense of humor, and a wicked temper?)

"Mmm?" I asked. (By that I meant "this is the best ravioli I've ever had, or am ever likely to have; take your best shot, Buddy: I won't even notice.")

"I hear that she'll have the concentration camp for bisexuals right next to the one for Jews," he responded. "We'll be able to pass notes over the wall."

"Excellent," I replied. "Keep those missives entertaining, and don't discuss molecules unless it's absolutely necessary. See if you can make 'em rhyme. Speaking of Jews, I passed a gallery along Westwood Blvd. on my way here that sells Judaica. I was considering stopping by and getting one to take to the condo complex. We need someone to help around the pool area, and . . . you and the rest of the Tribe as just such good talkers. I really like that. I mean, why hang around with people who aren't good talkers? Life is so short."

I reached my spoon over and snagged some of his risotto. "Oh, my fucking God," I exclaim. "Let's trade plates for a minute. How do they do this? The creaminess of it, yet every grain of rice so discrete?"

"I don't know," he tells me as we swap the plates and he takes over ravioli duty. "I've never conquered it. I have a good friend who makes excellent risotto. He showed me how to do it, but mine still turns into a gluey mess. And, yes: I am using the right kind of rice. I'm not an idiot."

He probably isn't. People wouldn't buy his books if he were an idiot. And they certainly wouldn't fly him across the country to talk about brain functions at other institutions' medical schools.

The waiter stops by to ask if we are discussing medicine. "We touched on it," Prof P. responds, because that sounds better than "we were talking about food, architecture, our favorite writers who've killed themselves, and what constitutes a good blowjob."

So our waiter, whose father is a doctor, briefs us on his convictions about how important continuity of care is—having one doctor in charge of each patient's case, which of course we agree with— and we go on that way for a while after he leaves the table again. This respectable chatter doesn't last very long, of course.

By now we're arguing about (1) whether the distinctive taste of the risotto—which I'm busily finishing on his behalf—has to do with a mushroom stock, as Mr. Neuron supposes, or (2) whether it's because the marrow from the lamb bones has seeped into the broth, to give it a meatier flavor, as I theorize. We conclude that both techniques were used.

We also have a spirited discussion about fellatio, and whether to-the-hilt penetration is as important as pivotal works such as Deep Throat might suggest, or whether it's the "intangibles" that make oral sex good for a man, as Dr. P thinks. I tell him that the main travesty I've seen in my admittedly limited exposure to porn is that women are so busy with the deep throating that they forget to use their hands and tongues, and it seems to me that this is a crime. After all, one's vagina doesn't have a tongue, or at least mine doesn't. One ought to take advantage.

Dr. P looks up at me then. "I have it!" he exclaims.

"What?"

"Your newest journalistic endeavor."

"Well," I respond, "I think I've got a full plate right now. Or I would, if I hadn't just scarfed up the last of your risotto."

"Restaurant reviews. But with plenty of sexual innuendo."

"Oh, no." I tell him. "I'm no good at that."

"Sexual innuendo?"

"Restaurant reviews. Sooner or later, they'll want me to review a seafood place, and you know how I am about that."

"You could just specialize in Everything But Fish. With Plenty of Sexual Metaphor."

The man could be onto something, you know. A whole new career direction for me.

So I walk him back to his hotel. "Tell me some more about brain conditioning," I demand. "But not too much."

Back at his room I collect my laptop and hug him goodbye. "You're going to be so sad when you come out to B-More next winter," he remarks in a tone of Deep Regret. "Two months into an Obama administration. The family and I will have to be really, really nice to you."

"Well," I reply. "One of us will be sad. And the other one will be very, very nice about it. I promise."