Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Part 25

What? I have a cold. Don't get a look of terror on your face. The worst that could happen is that you'll get a cold, too. You don't have to theatrically Purell a thousand times a day and look all panicky every time I come into the room.

Also, in the unlikely event that you do get sick, you do not have to give everyone a play-by-play, as though none of us has ever been sick before, or as though there were some suspense in the story of your cold, with twists and turns. ("I woke up this morning feeling pretty good, only to take a terrible turn for the worse after lunch!") I know this story. You get better. It works out.

BUT WHAT IF IT'S MORE THAN A COLD?

It's not. It's just a cold.

HIRING SOMEONE TO HANG UP A PICTURE ON YOUR WALL

Is it as bad as hiring a guy to have s.e.x with your wife? No, it's not as bad as that. But you get my point. I'm sorry I said that. Fine, hire a guy to hang up a picture on your wall. Fine, fine, fine. I don't know how to get it exactly straight, either.

THANKS FOR BEING SO INTO INDIAN FOOD

In college all the non-Jewish guys would treat Indian food as though it were an exotic anomaly to be greeted with "ooohs" and "aaahs." I like that when we go to an Indian restaurant you don't look over the menu pleadingly and ask if I will "just order for both of us?"

LARRY DAVID

I get mad about your perceived special connection with him. Like when you give that knowing chuckle and say, "Oh, Larry," like he's some incorrigible friend of your dad's from temple. We both know him from watching him on his show, which we watched together, at the same time.

ISRAEL

Israel is interesting, but every time we talk about it, it has to be for, like, two hours. I want to talk about it, but it can't be for two hours!

I HAVE A MOM TOO

Hey, look. I know you talk to your mom twice a day on the phone, and I talk to my mom only once a day. That doesn't mean your mom beats my mom. Also, I know your mom is an amazing cook. I feel like you think my mom cooked us Hamburger Helper growing up.

When you talk to me about your mom and how great she is, I listen respectfully and say, "Wow, she really does sound great." But when I talk about my mom, you kind of glaze over, like I'm some delusional kid talking about how I'm going to be president someday. You can't muster up even the slightest bit of acknowledgment that anybody else's mom could come close to being as funny, artsy, nurturing, and irreverent as your mom.

EXCEPT EZEKIEL, RAHM, AND ARI EMANUEL'S MOM

We both agree. She's incredible. She can do whatever she wants.

NATALIE PORTMAN

I know a small part of you thinks you could've ended up with Natalie Portman if you had played things a little differently. That's nice. You can have that. That's not hurting anybody.

Men and Boys

SOMETIMES I bring a script I'm working on to a restaurant and sit near people and eavesdrop on them. I could rationalize it-Oh, this is good anthropological research for characters I'm writing-but it's basically just nosiness. I especially like eavesdropping on women my age. Besides being t.i.tillating, it also helps me gauge where I'm at in comparison. Am I normal? Am I doing the correct trendy cardio exercises? Am I reading the right books? Is gluten still lame? Is soap cool again, or is body wash still the way to go? It was through eavesdropping that I learned that you could buy fresh peanut b.u.t.ter at Whole Foods from a machine that grinds it in front of you. I had wasted so much of my life eating stupid old, already-ground peanut b.u.t.ter. So, yeah, I highly recommend a little nosiness once in a while.

Once, at BLD, a restaurant where I was writing, I saw two attractive thirty-ish women talking over brunch. They had finished eating and were getting seconds on coffee, so I knew it was going to be good.

I heard the following:

GIRL #1 (pretty Jewish girl, Lululemon yoga pants, great body): Jeremy just finished his Creative Writing program at Columbia. But now he wants to maybe apply to law school.

GIRL #2 (tiny Asian girl, sheet of black hair, strangely huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s [for an Asian girl]): Oh G.o.d.

LULULEMON: What?

32D: How many grad schools is he going to go to?

LULULEMON: I know. But it's not his fault. No publishers are buying short stories from unfamous people. Basically you have to be Paris Hilton to sell books these days.