yeow, what a hangover

last night was the museum's annual gala, where semi-rich and semi-famous people pay $1000 a head to go to the waldorf and tribute a very rich and very famous celebrity. this time it was tom brokaw, and dan rather and peter jennings (who is a womanizer--who knew?) gave heartwarming and noncontroversially funny speeches. conan o'brien hosted. the idea is that well fed, emotionally primed people in a room with charming celebrities, lots of booze, and swelling music accompanied by nostalgic tv images will start to feel like they are part of something important and larger than themselves and, because they have nowhere in particular to spend their money because they are not famous and don't know it's all a load of crap anyway, they siphon it into the museum.

most museum employees go, and we check the rich people in, give them table cards, etc, but then we sit down too and see the whole thing. not really worth $1000, but i filled up on steak and wine, both of which were very red. the special events chicks had a room to stay the night, so we grabbed as many of the leftover wine bottles as we could carry and went up there in our fancy clothes and smoked in the bathroom. it was so very prom, except for the hours of gossip and dramatizations of catty situations at work, which are pretty threadbare to begin with. and, of course, there was the loud, drunken conversation about who at the museum you'd fuck if you had to pick someone, and frankly people's answers were very revealing. i was surprised--no one picked anybody our age, not even the chuck-taylors-and-a-tie kid, and instead it was a pretty even split between the tall white-haired vp (firm handshake) and the tall black maintenance guy who smiles at everyone.

if you want a sexy occupation, try copyediting

one of our upcoming screening series is the history of gays and lesbians on tv. it can make for some unintentionally racy emails, even in our rote officespeak. like the one i just sent, "how long is the young and restless gay teen package?"

also last week i saved museum face (perhaps regrettably) by turning a line in a brochure meant to attract socialites and make $$$. before i got to it, the first line of this brochure was,

These remarkable, invitation-only gatherings begin with cock-

really they mean to say cocktails, so i turned cock to the next line. but i'm beginning to regret it; i think they're better off beginning with cock. then we'll see about the cocktails.

so the other day i went for a second opinion on whether i should have surgery on my ankle, and it was the worst doctor experience i've ever had. i was there for three hours, most of it waiting. i think the little kids who sob in doctor's offices are onto something. no wonder there are lollipops. i've come to realize there's just no way to get around it--my ability to run five miles a day for the rest of my life is contingent on some other person's idiosyncratic way of gathering information and synthesizing concepts. maybe orthopedists are a slightly slower breed of doctor--the golden retriever of the medical world, if you will--but i wish they wouldn't let it all hang out so much. this one wanted to take an x-ray with my foot turned in sharply, which admittedly was a new way for me, and a good idea, i think (tho he took all these other x-rays and didn't look at my MRIs, and if i had known he would do that, i would have brought my x-rays instead), and this x-ray involved putting my leg in a vice-grip-type thing, but not before studying the diagram on the back of the grip's assembly manual for a good five minutes while i was standing there watching him, and then turning a handle so that my foot would turn in and turn in until my ankle hurt. except he put the pushy part of the grip in the middle of my shin, so of course when you go to turn the knob, my shin will be the limiting factor for the turning, not my ankle. and i was like, you don't understand, my shin already hurts; my ankle does not. you must move the grip. so he moved it UP my leg, and my ankle turned even less because my shin was even more in the way. i was like, sir, if you please, move this grip thing close to my ankle, and you will see how very far it turns. i have a hard time with spatial relationships sometimes, so i understand how easy it is to completely flip spaces around like in a mirror and proceed confidently in precisely the wrong way, but my god, if you are a surgeon!! this alone (never mind the cruel assistant, the hours of waiting, and the lack of lollipops) exempted me from listening to anything he said thereafter. i was so mad by the time i got home that i went for a run in the dark on an uneven surface.