Recently I was on a couple of planes. On my way back from
Christmas with my family I flew from JFK to Burbank, which is a decently long
flight. I picked up a couple of magazines at the airport because buying
magazines at the airport is one of my guilty pleasures. Well I guess I was
feeling like feeling sophisticated because I picked up a copies of The New
Yorker and Vogue. I do stuff like that sometimes because I’m very fancy.
On the plane I ended up seated in between two relatively
young women. The one at the window seat was an attractive but not very friendly
looking Armenian girl with black jeans tucked into tan leather boots, which I
guess is okay. If you have to, I guess. The woman on the aisle was very polite
and made a little bit of small talk before takeoff. She had black black hair
that I thought was interesting because it didn’t seem to be dyed or cut or
really even thought about or anything. Like if this woman mugged you and later
the cop asked what she looked like, all you would think to say was, “She had
black hair.”
Anyway, after takeoff I sat there reading my Vogue and
listening to whatever the hell was on the TV (I was on Jet Blue which I LOVE
because you get your own little TV with basic cable on it). The movie “Meet Joe
Black” was on and I figured that was a good movie to watch on a long flight
because it is very long and kinda boring, but also beautifully shot and – I think
– an interesting enough movie. And it has Claire Folani in it and I had the
biggest crush on her back around the time that she was in movies.
So I’m reading along about “Style Across America” in the
Special Edition 2012 “Best Dressed” issue and I look up at the TV and there is
young and blonde Bratt Pitt sucking peanut butter off a spoon and I realized
suddenly that I am kinda well-dressed just then (as per usual, what?) and
watching a Brad Pitt movie and reading a copy of Vogue that cost me ten bucks
and – well obviously – these two attractive young women both think that I am
gay. Gay like Will, not gay like Jack, but still very gay.
Now, obviously, I have no problem with anyone being gay. I’m
an advocate. I give money. I have not one, but TWO pro-gay rights, anti-hate
buttons on my backpack. And I’m fine with the fact that I own more scarves than
most straight men. And I actually enjoy clothes shopping with women and I, you
know, buy Vogue (and sometimes Cosmo), but at just that moment I was not
terribly okay with these two women quietly thinking that I was gay. And so I
got a little fidgety in my little airplane seat, but there was nowhere for me
to go, so I didn’t go anywhere.
I wasn’t bothered by
people thinking I was gay. People have made that mistake before and I have
generally taken it as a compliment. I was bothered by the fact that these two
attractive women with whom I was spending six long hours in very close quarters
clearly did not feel any sexual tension with me whatsoever. Nothing. They were
BOTH – by the way – watching “Meet Joe Black” by that point too, because Brad
Pit is so dreamy and there weren’t any DUDES around to make fun of them. Nope,
just that short gay guy with the Elvis Costello glasses.
I wished and wished just then that I had also bought a
Playboy and a copy of Penthouse Letter (they still sell Penthouse Letters at
airports and I think that is weird because you never really see it anywhere
else). At the very least I should have had a Maxim to read or something. But
alas, no. It was just me and these women and Vogue and Brad Pitt (whose
performance in that movie – I now realize – was designed to mock me. That was
really forward thinking on his part considering that “Meet Joe Black” came out
in 1998).
So I did what I thought was best; I gave up completely and
dinged the flight attendant to bring me a stiff drink and some free cookies (You
get free cookies and chips on Jet Blue. It is pretty fucking cool. And yeah, I
am bragging a little.)
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