fourteen hour workday

In which our heroine finds herself at an after party in a swank SoHo hotel, supping on Pinot Grigio and shrimp roulade, only to remember how much she hates parties.

It must have been when the woman at my table said, "It was obviously the glittery leopard!" that I felt the urge.

And, because I'm currently beta-testing an abrupt and ass-kicking change of M.O., I slipped my purse out from under the registration desk, made like I was going to the loo, then snuck down the fire stairs into a gated park enclosure (under construction), hopped over a planter, cleared a chain link fence, and was suddenly free in the ninety degree night.

On the way to the train, I got a text from the Photojournalist. Did I want to meet for a nightcap? Sure, why not . . .

But sitting there on that park bench on Lafayette Street, I remember thinking, Good lord, but this man is a bore. A pretentious, self-inflated douchebag. Proof (as if I needed more) that artists and intellectuals, the men we consider 'interesting' and of a certain ilk, are really just phonies and cronies to lesser degrees of manhood.

So I left him there, legs crossed quizzically, as I practically sprinted to the subway.

I'm done, ladies and gentleman. I'm just done. I've got such better things to do than suffer this tedium of plying and posturing. Somewhere out there, someone's gonna treat me right. And he'll come looking for me. He'll listen to my bad jokes and ambling anecdotes. He'll stay out past his bedtime for the pleasure of my company and go to work exhausted. Because I'll be worth the effort.

For posterity's sake, however, may I just have one last rousing chorus of 'If This Is What's Out There, I'll Take Alone Any Day'?

Thank you, Internet.