Ciao, Bello

Hi! Thanks for stopping by! And thanks for the messages on Twitter!

Starting my new column in two weeks! Been in Italy for nearly a year and getting ready to start MEN I'VE HAD again. In the meantime, hope you catch up on some old columns that were originally published on Gaywired.com

Love you more than cake,

Alex

Anthony Robbins once said, "your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision."

At one point in the not so recent history, I had a series of dates with a guy who worked as a courier. Not the kind that rush around Hollywood on bikes and never bathe. No, Nicholas was an international man of mystery. He would report to the airport with little more than a backpack containing a few changes of clothes and passport and then meet his point person to retrieve a package. His tickets were hugely discounted or in some cases free.

Companies use travel couriers because sometimes it's cheaper for a courier company to have a person check freight through as luggage than it is for them to ship freight as air cargo. Nicholas would hop a plane and travel to far and exotic lands. After delivering the goods, he was free to enjoy his trip.

I always assumed Nicholas was in truth an exotic, high-end drug mule, but apparently his job is very real. You can actually sign up to be a part of a service and as long as your schedule is flexible, you can fly off to any destination a package needs to go to.

Two weeks ago I decided to leave Los Angeles. In two days, I'm moving to Italy on a one way ticket, thanks to the International Association of Air Travel Couriers.

After having lunch with Ryanne, I went home and stared at the walls of my rented home of eight years. Furniture, paintings, photographs, and dishes stared at me, mocking me as if to say, "Oh yeah, Peter Pan? What about us?"

Just as I was about to consider lighting a match or praying for an earthquake, Julie called. She and her girlfriend broke up for good - like for real this time- and she asked, "Do you know of anyone looking for a roommate?"

I asked how she felt about taking over a furnished home and she started weeping. That was taken care of and everybody won.

Later that night, I discovered a website called Couch Surfing which is like a combination of Craigslist and Facebook for international travel. You sign-up, make a profile and then review profiles of people who are willing to loan you their couch during your travels.

You can read reviews of people who have previously stayed with the local and decide if you might be a good fit and if they might be a potential rapist. It also led me to the idea of combining Manhunt and Westside Rentals, where older men can shop for desperate younger men.

I've already made friends with ten people in Rome, Florence and Venice. Now I plan on sleeping my way all over Italy, one futon at a time.

The past few days has been all about bagging clothes, loading my car, and dumping them in those yellow donation bins scattered around the city. Every time I place a bag inside, I feel a pang of sadness, that is equally matched by a rush of exhilaration. Physically purging my life, one bag at a time.

It's like shedding skin. Do I keep the t-shirt that Christopher left after our last time together or give it to the homeless? Do I hold on to the outfit I wore on my first date with Adam the First? Do I dump the socks I wore for the Malibu triathlon?

I'm renting a storage facility in North Hollywood where I moved my bike, journals, old televisions and other crap that I should have just donated to GoodWill but didn't want to just leave in the house for Julie to rifle through. Every day I make a trip and place another small load of my Hollywood life inside, locking it away like a tomb or a pyramid. Call it a rent-a-mausoleum.

I've been so wrapped up in getting things wrapped up that I haven't even had time to tell all my friends and posting, "moving to Italy" as a Facebook update just seems like a really bad idea. I can just imagine an intervention being staged via comments. And I don't want to see all the "like this" thumbs up icons and read "ten of your friends like this."

I have nothing here. Nothing is holding me. I'm not dating anyone. I have no job. No family. I will certainly miss seeing Ryanne, Jen, Kitty, Joe, Autumn, and Julie every day, but I need to find... something. Great love. Great sex. Great travels and adventures.

I'm excited to start a new life in Italy. I'm excited about traveling from town to town until I decide where I will stay put. Maybe I'll sell gelato at a tiny corner in Venice. Or maybe I'll work in a bed and breakfast in Milan. Jobs I wouldn't consider in a million years in West Hollywood suddenly seem romantic and beautiful in Europe.

When I moved to Los Angeles nearly ten years ago, I arrived with big hopes and big dreams. They've changed over the years, sometimes morphing into brilliance I could never have fathomed. And in some cases, they have been heartbreakingly devastating.

Saturday afternoon, I grabbed one of my last cups of coffee from my beloved Java Detour and sat on the patio watching all the young gay kids go by. I watched as the Abbey bartenders came in for their shots of espresso before their shifts in their tight black tank tops. I watched as couples strolled hand in hand and as random passersby would turn to check out the fresh meat that walked passed them. I imagine this must be what it is like to be a ghost. To be invisible and observe.

I've grown tired. Tired of fighting for everything. Tired of fighting for jobs. Fighting for what is rightfully due to me. Fighting for attention. And fighting for the right to marry when I can't even find good date material.

Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled, upholding Prop 8 and that evening I joined thousands of others in West Hollywood to rally and scream.

I honestly felt like a poser. Like I should be there. I watched as couples stood, holding hands and carrying signs. Kissing. Hugging. But I couldn't help but feel like saying, 'We've been here before.'

Once the speeches were over, we took to the streets. When we arrived at Hollywood and Highland, I found Cooper, surrounded by a gaggle of boys. The Borg Queen surrounded by her clones.

Since I came into this column with Cooper, it is fitting that I should go out with him. With the lights of Graumann's Chinese Theater reflecting off his perfect skin, he ran up to me and jumped on me in the middle of the street.

"HOW GREAT IS THIS!?" he screamed like Mel Gibson rallying the troops to their death inBraveheart.

"It's great," I said. As I looked over his shoulder to his gays, I caught the eye of his new boyfriend. The child shot daggers at me. This is not how I wanted to do 'the big goodbye.'

I grabbed Cooper by the head, stared at his face and just said, "I have to go."

"You leaving already? It's just getting good!"

I couldn't hold back the tears, so I just hugged him and screamed into his ear (due to the loud crowd), "You know me. I always leave the party early."

I pushed him away and started walking away from the crowd, stomping my own path down Hollywood Blvd. It felt like I was doing a one man exodus. I stopped and turned around, momentarily struck by the fear that I would turn to a pillar of salt for looking back, but it was a picture perfect moment as thousands of gay men and women stood for what they wanted and what was rightfully theirs.

I watched as Cooper took the new boy's hand and led him into the crowd. It was only then that I was able to say to no one in particular, 'Goodbye.'

This morning I found myself at a coffee shop in Silver Lake. The gentleman in front of me turned around, pulling down his sunglasses (under his baseball cap, natch) and asked, "Where do I know you from?"

I used my go to answer, 'Well I do porn.' He then looked down at my crotch, as if my zipper was going to fall open, my penis slide out and say, 'Remember me in Lord of the Cock Ring? I was the top in the Mordor bukkake scene.'

He looked familiar too and I quickly realized the man in front of me was in fact, a closeted movie star, currently appearing in one of the biggest movies of the year.

We met at a party two years ago but ended up spending the entire night talking about theatre by a fire pit in the back yard of a mutual friend's Echo Park home.

I couldn't believe that I had forgotten that anecdote, even after seeing his movie for the second time recently. "Fire pit," I said.

"You think graham crackers are sad," he said, with a flash of remembrance.

I couldn't believe that he actually remembered that little piece of trivia (and for the record, I said that I thought Teddy Grahams were sad, because the little bears look too happy to eat them).

I reminded him of my name and he reminded me of his, which was cute and strange at the same time.

"So what are you doing now?" he asked.

"Moving to Italy in two days."

He did that thing where he said, "Why?" all disappointed like.

I didn't really have a good answer, other than, "I hate everything." I just shrugged and said, "The light is different in Italy."

We sat there and stared at each other. He took his coffee, smiled and said, "Well I hope you find what you're looking for. Ciao bello."

"That means 'goodbye beautiful,'" I said.

He smiled, nodded and as he walked out, he turned, saying, "We'll always have Teddy Grahams."

As I sit in my home, staring at the walls ( thankful they can ot talk), I'm reminded of all the great moments I've had here. But it's time for a change. It's time to go. Even Lauren Conrad left The Hills.

Sometimes you have to lose everything in order to find yourself.

My favorite spot in the entire world is a small bench in Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. It's the grave of Conrad Aiken. He wanted a bench so that visitors could stop by and enjoy a drink of Madeira at his grave. The bench is inscribed with, "Give my love to the world," and "Cosmos Mariner—Destination Unknown."

Arrivederci!

Undercover Lover

"Your resume is over twenty pages long!" Ryanne shrieked as she sat down to lunch with me at Joey's Café.

I remember in high school and college how my parents used to tell me, "this will be a good experience for you." It wasn't long after graduating from college that I submitted my one-page resume to a public relations company, based on all the freebie jobs I had participated in with a smile on my face and a song in my heart for my first "real" job. I remember in those olden days when the evening news covered stories about how sometimes people have more than one career in their life time. Sometimes they have two! Or even three!

That wasn't so long ago. That was less than 15 years ago and today 12% of California is unemployed. I've watched as my freelance gigs have dried up and the companies that I've loved working for have dissolved.

Ryanne flipped through the small novella that is my resume exclaiming, "It's too long!"

How can it be too long? It's not my fault that as a freelancer you find yourself working for dozens of people a year. Tax season sucks for people like me. I can't help that in addition to event planning and freelance writing gigs, I've have worked for producers and talent, have taught yoga and elementary school, and worked in art administration. Not to mention numerous non-profit organizations across the country.

"Wait, homo hold up," she said, stopping around 2002. "You were an undercover operative?!"

Oh. And I was a spy.

I double majored in college with a degree in Criminal Psychology for the simple reason I wanted to be Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs. I wanted my own Hannibal Lector to call me and ask, "Are the lambs still screaming?"

My senior year in college, I started working as a decoy for an undercover private investigator. The ad in the back of my college newspaper said they were looking for "actors for a unique job." That could have described anything from dinner theater to a bukakke gang bang porn movie. That said, I was down for either. I applied and got a phone call asking me if I had a gun permit.

While I'm quite excellent on the firing range, I never wanted an engagement or gig that was so dangerous that it required me shooting my way out or having to kill if the situation should get out of hand. However, I had been trained to kill with bare hands if need be. I may look dainty and sweet, but I can beat a bitch down.

My job mainly consisted of engaging the "target" in conversation, wearing a small recording device and extracting information. Tame stuff. This was not Jennifer Garner in a Dubai power plant trying to defuse a bomb for the CIA.

I always traveled with an investigator or "handler," who observed from a distance. I always had a fake name, fake addresses, fake everything. On occasion, I even had a fake accent. I communicated with my handler, via hand signals, communicating if I was "okay" or needed an "extraction," which was usually a ringing cell phone, which usually went, "Hello? Oh my God! I have to go."

I took assignments from different firms over the years. When I moved to Los Angeles, I found a great firm and I was the only gay "operative" but I didn't get a lot of work. The firm got a lot of suspicious cheating spouses. However, very few were "I think my husband is cheating on me... with a dude."

One of my targets was a man who was stalking his much younger ex-boyfriend. The client was afraid for his safety and I was sent in to gather information. This was a simple fishing expedition to see where his head was at the moment.

The target and the client both lived in San Francisco, but I came on board when the target was on business in Los Angeles and staying at a hotel in West Hollywood. I did a "run-in" with him in the hotel lobby by playing the jilted and dejected boyfriend. He offered to buy me a drink in the hotel bar.

The rules were always the same: if they don't take the bait, do not engage. My handler and I were both surprised how quickly he took the bait. Within five minutes of small talk, he began talking about the client and didn't stop for the next two hours.

He was certifiable.

He never looked at me, instead just stared at his jack and coke and talked non-stop about the client, his current whereabouts and what he was planning on doing to surprise him. I knew that I had everything I needed on him, but I was surprised when he wanted to take me up to his hotel room to show me a hidden camera video of he and the client having sex on his laptop.

Because I knew I could physically handle myself, I signaled to my "handler" that I was fine and I went to his room. As we walked in, I switched off the tiny recording device in my jacket, for fear it would start beeping.

He opened his laptop, went to a folder on his desktop marked "Fun Times" and showed me the footage. It was certainly raw and clearly our client had no idea he was being recorded and flipped around like an order of Waffle House hash browns.

And that's how I met Adam the First. The client.

While the target went to the bathroom, I deleted the file. When he walked back in, I closed his laptop and said, "I can't believe you brought me all the way up here to show me bad porn when you could have just as easily had me. You know, a real boy."

I taunted him. I told him I wanted him to strip for me. He got completely undressed, I laughed and said that I should be going and walked out.

Suddenly it was totally Jennifer Garner in a power plant in Dubai. I raced down to the elevator and kept hitting the down button. I saw the stairs and hit them instead. I raced down ten floors and burst into the lobby, where I found my very unhappy handler.

He was furious that I had turned my cell phone off in the elevator on the way up. We walked outside, I pulled the electronic recorder from my jacket pocket and handed it to him. "You have everything you need," I said and quickly took off down Sunset Boulevard, afraid that the naked target was going to run out, screaming and pointing, "He deleted my files!"

I never took another gig and I never heard another word from the firm. I was completely unnerved from the evening. I've never met someone who was so psychologically off his rocker.

Going into assignments, I would have some information. In this case, I knew the client was a sculptor living in San Francisco. I knew his name. I knew that he had an interest in older, successful men.

I knew the target had a thing for younger men. I knew what he liked to drink. I knew his turn ons. And the irony is not lost on me that I've been able to "seduce" a dozen targets in play, but can't get the time of day off a guy in West Hollywood when I want it for personal reasons.

But this assignment was different. That night as I sat there for two hours while my target told me the deepest, darkest secrets about my client, I couldn't help but feel deeply sorry for Adam. He had a rough childhood and had been taken advantage of in his youth.

I thought...I felt...that I could save him.

I found Adam on the internet and a month later found myself in San Francisco. I visited the gallery where he had a piece and ran right smack into him.

It was exciting and terrifying. I guess in a way it would be like meeting someone from a reality show. You follow them on their show and you think you know them. But they don't know anything about you. Nor do they know that you know their deepest and darkest secrets and have seen them have sex on-camera and destroyed all evidence in a way to protect them.

He came right up to me as I was standing in front of his sculpture. He introduced himself and I introduced myself.

Adam hired the agency. The agency hired me. I stood there in fear he would recognize my voice from the digital recording. But he didn't.

After some small talk, I mentioned I was from Los Angeles, just in town for a fashion show (which wasn't exactly a lie), and eventually found myself saying "Why yes, I'd love to go out to dinner."

We went out for a great dinner and walk around the city. I asked him if he was dating anyone. He said, "No. Just out of a relationship. It was messy."

Many phone calls, many e-mails, and many SouthWest flights later, we were boyfriends of convenience. He came to Los Angeles. I went to San Francisco and we made many small trips to Vegas and Seattle. It's like I was in a gay Robert James Waller story. 600 miles away I could tell you what he was thinking at any given moment.

We had a connection that I hadn't felt with anyone else before. He trusted me. And that's why it killed me that I couldn't tell him how I really came to know him.

Adam continued to date other much older men. I knew he was dating a few people, but when we were together, we were together. During one visit, his current "daddy," a producer named Don, wanted to take us out for supper. Don looked good for sixty, but I firmly believe that just because you've had several face lifts, does not mean that you should still wear Abercrombie t-shirts and low-rise Diesel jeans.

It was an odd meal, kind of like when Princess Leia walks in to find Darth Vader at the dining room table in Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back. I don't know if Don thought we were going to go back to his palatial pad in Twin Peaks and have a threesome, but I don't do antiques.

Intellectually, Don couldn't match me. Sure he was rich and connected, but I was younger, smarter and again, I can kill with my bare hands.

Adam broke up with the old man the next morning. Years later, I would see Don at Here Lounge and he would punch me in the face for causing the break-up. I would be too drunk at the time to feel it.

Adam and I continued to see each other for a few more months and then he suddenly went completely off the reservation. He stopped returning phone calls and e-mails.

A short time later, I learned from a mutual friend he was moving in with a new (much older) boyfriend, who was involved in the fashion industry. They were serious.

When I called him to verify my new intel, he had a tone in his voice that was angry as he said, "Look, I'm sorry, but..." I hung up.

A year later I found myself in New York at fashion show which he and his now partner were attending. We made pleasantries, but something had crossed over in him. There was a darkness. I thought I could pull it out of him and I asked him to meet me for coffee later that night.

He met me and as he sat down and removed his leather gloves he said, "Look, I don't know what you want from me."

I considered telling him I was the decoy. I considered telling him how I came to know him, but I realized that telling him that wasn't going to change anything. I also knew that I couldn't give him what he wanted, which was a daddy. I couldn't give him wealth and a weekend home in the Hamptons. I couldn't give him fabulous weekend soirees with socialites on yachts in the Mediterranean.

When we were together, we were on. But when we were apart, we were the very definition of "out of sight, out of mind."

I loved him. Over the years, we may have been boyfriends of convenience, but I loved him. But as I sat there, staring at his sighing frustration for being summoned to a Starbucks in Chelsea in the middle of the night, I realized this was goodbye.

I didn't say anything. I took my coffee, stood up and said, "I thought I knew you. Goodbye, Adam." I got to the door and I turned around. All I could say was, "I loved you once." That's all I had.

He just stared at me, blankly. That was the last time I ever saw him.

There have been many men through the years. I'm not sure what hold Adam the First had over me. We had passion. This small column doesn't begin to do our time together justice. But I wonder if I'll ever find that again.

Ryanne started crossing off huge sections of my resume, deleting parts of my past. "No one cares about that," she muttered under her breath looking at a portion of my life.

It was at that moment, watching her take a thick black sharpie to pages of my life that it hit me: I have to leave Los Angeles.

Tears started pouring. It wasn't the boo-hoo kind of tears with snot. More like a silent rainfall.

She looked up and saw me crying. "I have to move," I choked out.

"Is this about Davis?" she asked.

"No, it's not about..." I sat there, feeling like every nerve in my body had snapped.

A flood of faces hit me all at once: Cooper, Adams Two Through Eleven, Ben the Mortician, Morgan the Gossip Columnist, the "other" Alex, Sean the Flake, Chris the Bisexual, the Vegan Lawyer with nice arms, strippers, go go boys, actors... and yes, Davis the Australian.

"This city hates me. Everyone hates me, Ryanne. I try to stand up for myself and I get kicked in the teeth. And I've been kicked in the teeth for so long. Nothing is real here. Nothing is real. I feel like I'm living on the backlot of a studio with millions of psychotic extras." I couldn't decide if I was having a nervous breakdown or a case of divine intervention.

All I could say was "nothing is real." I decided in that moment, that while I may have twenty five pages of life experience, my life is clearly over here. I want a single job that I love. I want a home. I want a husband. I want a family. I want love. And none of that exists for me here. I've tried looking for it. I've looked up one side of this town and down the other.

But it's time for me to say goodbye.

e to say goodbye.

You Had Me at Hell

I was sitting at Java Detour on Santa Monica Blvd. when Brett walked in.

Brett and I met three or four years ago at the after party for a runway show I was helping to produce. Brett was one of the models. I gave him a ride home and then I gave him a ride home.

The next morning, he made breakfast and told me he had a great time, but his girlfriend was coming back from New York later that evening, so our rendezvous was a one time deal. "I'm sure you understand," he said.

I wasn't angry or even that upset because he was so nice about the whole thing. It's probably because he's Canadian. Brett was one of those touchy-feely, 'I don't wear labels,' 'sexuality is fluid,' 'I'm not gay, I'm not bisexual, I'm just sexual' guys that we sleep with once and end up becoming friends with, if for no other reason than, because they're enigmas.

Brett and I remained close friends for a year and then drifted apart. I guess in the whole scheme of 'friends for a reason, season or lifetime,' he was Mr. Winter 2005.

I looked up to see Brett's smiling face and the wave of his left hand as he walked in from the street. As he rounded the corner, I saw his right hand was clutching the hand of a small child.

"This is Matty," he said beaming. Matty was his three-year-old son and miniaturized version of himself.

I choked. I suddenly felt like I was the guy in that Heart song All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to Youand he was Ann Wilson.

Seeing the panic in my eyes, he quickly said, "He's not yours."

Truer words have never been spoken.

"I knew you'd be here," he said. Hottest, stalker, ever.

We made quick small-talk. The weather. I'm looking good. He's looking better. The girlfriend is now the wife. He's no longer modeling. He's now working in landscaping.

After a few minutes, he leaned across the table and said, "He said, 'no,' didn't he?"

I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. "The guy in the column."

Ah, yes. Him. Davis the Australian.

"What makes you think he said 'no,'" I asked.

"Because if he really liked you, you wouldn't have had to ask."

I sat there in silence for a good, long minute, feeling stupid. "Well, his answer wasn't 'no.' It was much worse than that."

The day my column went up, Kitty, Bill, our friend Sharon and I went to Disneyland. I was in line at the Indiana Jones Ride when he called. All I heard after a long pause was, "I'm afraid to say anything for fear it will be used against me in your column" and then, "I'm sorry, but..."

"I'm sorry, but" is always my cue to hang up. Nothing good can come from "I'm sorry, but." It's Pavlovian to me. It goes back to when Adam the First broke up with me over the phone. Since I couldn't hear what Davis was saying from all the screaming around us on the ride, I said, "No worries, we'll talk later" and hung up.

Shot down at the happiest place on earth. Awesome.

A few days later, after I rebuilt some of my obliterated ego, I called him back. I thought we could still be friends. I got his voice mail and left a message. I saw him on Facebook later that night and sent an instant message. He logged off. I texted him, "I hope you're okay."

I had a hard time believing that me asking a boy out had actually rendered him speechless. I sent an e-mail to Davis saying, "Hope we're cool and hope you're not the kind of guy who shuts down when a boy tells you he likes you."

His response was not what I was expecting.

He felt betrayed that I had used his life and things that he had said in my column. He felt that he couldn't trust me. He said that he realized that writers take from the world around them, but that he felt it was too close to home.

I didn't feel that I revealed to the world anything personal about him. It's not like I announced he had a small penis. There's obviously much more to the story. Out of respect for his feelings, I won't go further.

It hurt. I was shocked, more than anything. I was nervous that he was going to say 'no' because he didn't feel the same way. I had no idea that I would set off a shitstorm.

Brett just smiled and said, "Ally, you deserve better. He wasn't worth it."

I had to cut him off with, "I deserved the truth, but I can't say he's not worth it."

I wouldn't have invested anything in him if I thought he wasn't worth it. Maybe I just didn't see what was clearly right in my face. But I thought he genuinely liked me.

He's smart. Funny. Sweet. Talented. I don't know what I saw in him and I don't mean that in the angry sense. I mean whatever I saw or felt wasn't something I can verbalize. When we first met, it was like we had known each other for years and that kind of connection is hard to come by. Like the Fox says to the Little Prince, "What is essential is invisible to the eye."

I felt like the column was creative way of asking someone out.

"He used you," Brett started before I cut him off by saying, "No, he didn't."

"Then he's an asshole. Stop trying to defend him. You took out the friend while he was working. You took them hiking. You gave him flowers. There wasn't a single thing in that column of yours that was personal. What, you mentioned he returned your phone calls and that he got an e-mail from some guy while you were sitting there. He's a pussy! He used you. He got caught. And rather than say, 'I'm sorry I don't have feelings for you,' he's going the pussy way out by saying, 'I thought I could trust you.' He had to invent a way to make himself look like the victim, because he got caught."

Maybe Brett was right.

The thing that stung the most for me was the fact he said "I guess that's what writers do, take from the life around them," because I was helping him write a novel that was based on his life. Hello, Kettle? This is Pot. You're black.

While we continued to post-mortem the Davis situation, two guys at the table next to me started scrutinizing all the guys passing by on Santa Monica Blvd. "Gay men in LA are a bunch of 10s looking for an 11."

I groaned. I hate it when people steal movie dialogue for their own attempts at clever diatribes. Can't anyone be original in this town?

However, I guess being witty, unique and bold in an attempt to get someone's attention only works in the movies.

"You always seek out the ones you think you can save and help. You have to stop that," Brett said.

"You knew he wasn't interested when he mentioned that he had friends that were going to set him up with movie stars. You knew when he mentioned that guy and the e-mail. It's your own fault, Ally. You've got to stop leading yourself on. You're only breaking your own heart."

Brett and I hugged goodbye and then he kissed me on the lips. He smiled and said, "The next time one of these guys kisses you, he better mean it." I watched as Brett picked up Matty and slung him over his shoulders as they pushed through the crowd on their way to the Yogurt Stop for dinner. Brett will always be that person who swoops into my life and bequeath a brilliant font of information, knock me senseless and take off in search of cake batter ice cream.

"You can do better," he screamed as they crossed the street.

Later that night, Ryanne and I went to see Wolverine at the Arclight. Ryanne had gone nearly two weeks without processed sugar or carbs. When I mentioned of the word 'popcorn,' her eyes narrowed, turned red and twin cyclones kicked up in the lobby.

"First off, he don't look a damn thing like Hugh Jackman," she said about Davis as we took our seats. "Besides, aren't Australians uncircumcised? You told me you weren't going down on anything wearing a hood after you hooked up with that poor little Mexican you met Miami."

Ryanne was referring to a young Cuban waiter I met in Miami fifteen years ago. I somehow missed the day in orientation when it was explained how to manipulate foreskin of an uncut partner without causing bodily injury. Diego kept screaming, "You're hurting me!" and I refused to go near anything Latin, British or European ever again.

When I asked Ryanne if my column was a bad idea, she said, "No. It was creative and sweet. Ain't your fault you're a hopeless romantic."

"No, I'm just hope-less."

Call me crazy, but I want someone who is going to do something exciting and fun to get my attention. Like in the movies. That's my problem. I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to beart.

Like how Tom Cruise bursts into Renee Zellweger's house in Jerry Maguire, and tells her that she "completes" him and Renee tells him to shut up because he "had her at hello." Or how Leotook Kate to the front of the Titanic to make her feel like she was flying. Or how Patrick Swayzecomes back for Jennifer Grey, because "nobody puts Baby in a corner."

Ryanne's eyes flew open and piped up with "Oh my God, you're totally Julia Roberts! You're 'I want the fairy tale.' You're 'I'd rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.' You're 'I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy.' You're 'I just went out there and performed sexual favors. Six hundred and thirty-four blow jobs in five days and I'm really quite tired-'

"I GET IT! I'm Julia Roberts!" I interrupted.

I don't regret writing the column. And I don't regret the subsequent response that I e-mailed to him. Maybe Brett was right. Davis just got caught. It's easier to say, 'You upset me' than it is to say, 'I'm sorry, I don't feel the same way.'

I miss my friend. I miss hanging out with him. However, I've been through some rather explosive and huge life changing experiences in my life recently and I'm not going to allow someone to deflect their insecurities on me. I can't allow that to happen. I won't allow that to happen.

I want someone like in Love, Actually who will stand outside my door and flip cards, just to tell me they like me. I want someone who will ask me to meet them on a baseball mound for nothing more than a kiss. And I want someone who will stand under my window, holding a boom box and blast In Your Eyes. Maybe that makes me stupid or childish or delusional.

And yes, I want the motherf*#king fairy tale. I want the once upon a time and the happily ever after. I thought I had found a prince a few times but it turns out they were all frogs. Your loss, bub.

I'm not going to change. If you think you can tame me, come and get me.

I dare you.

Confusion Down Under

So, back in December, my friend Jen attempted to set me up with a hot Australian who she described as "a smaller Hugh Jackman." He's an aspiring writer working on a novel. In addition to thinking I might be able to help him, Jen also thought we "would look cute together." For four months the Australian and I kept missing each other, but we finally met on April 1st for coffee at the Abbey.

Whenever I go to the Abbey in the middle of the afternoon, I feel likeJulia Roberts in The Pelican Brief. Remember that scene where she goes to meet a man with a red hat who she thinks is her dead boyfriend's buddy? Only it turns out that the man in the red hat is actually the assassin who, though out to kill her, instead gets killed by the CIA amidst a swarm gawking tourists?

Well the Australian arrived for our 'date' at the Abbey wearing a red hat. We had coffee. He had cake.

It didn't take me long to realizt that I wasn't dealing with just any West Hollywood homosexual. Here was a man who ingested chocolate and sugar in broad daylight and didn't burst into flames. Further study was required.

Over the course of the next few days, I read the Aussie's short novel and we got together to do notes. I admit I'm blunt. I'm not shy and I don't tiptoe around people when critiquing their work. Surprisingly my Australian anomaly took in everything I said and didn't take a word of it personally. He was rarer than I had previously believed. It was like I had found a unicorn.

In his teen years, Mr. Australia was on a Kids Incorporated type show where he sang and danced. Since that time he has also dated a lot of well known people including several former reality stars (but again, I will remind you, you can't swing a bat in West Hollywood without hitting a reality star. God knows I have tried).

From the very start, the Australian did things that confused me. I would call and leave a message... and he would call back. If I sent him a text message... he replied. And I know you're going to find this one hard to believe, but sometimes I called and he actually answered the phone! This was like some Dian Fossey,Gorillas in the Mist kind of shit. I was afraid to make any sudden moves for fear of scaring him off.

Since Mr. Australia works in the evenings, we got together in the afternoons to work on his book. It was almost, kind of like we were... almost kind of dating. But we weren't dating. Aside from a hug and quick kiss on the lips a time or two, there was nothing intimate of note. I couldn't get a vibe off him. He once mentioned that he hadn't dated in a while and that he had things in his life he wanted to deal with, but this was right after making plans with me for the evening.

We hadn't had a "date-date." We went hiking. We had gone to lunch at Tart. We went to Obar and Fubar one evening. We ran errands together and, on occasion, picked up food and cooked it back at his place. But was this all about me helping him and his book? At one point while in a grocery store, he even said, "You know, I've been really happy the past five days."

Was I in the dreaded, 'friend zone?' I wondered.

I had no idea where this was going. It was like being in the writers' room for Lost.

A week after all of this started, the Australian's adorable friend Mallory arrived from Sydney and stayed for the next eight days.

He invited me over to watch a movie with them one evening. This had to be good, right? I mean, if you're not interested in someone, you don't invite him over to watch a movie with your visiting friend from home, right?

Again, since Mr. Australia works at night, I offered to take Mallory out and show her around. I wasn't doing this to score points or pump her for information. I was doing it to be nice.

One night, I took Mallory to a screening of 17 Again. I would rather swallow glass than be 17 again, but somehow during the film, I couldn't help but realize that I had regressed back to a bumbling teenager, calling Jen for daily updates and insight on the day's events. "Do you think he likes me?" I would ask. And Jen would respond, "You and I don't even spend this much time together. It has to mean something. That or he thinks of you as a friend only."

After the 17 Again screening, I dropped Mallory off at the Australian's place and he arrived from his evening at work a moment later. He opened a bottle of wine.

That's when he checked his iPhone, made a disappointed sigh and grunted, "damn."

Call it intuition, but I knew what that 'damn' meant. I've seen that look before. 'What's wrong?' I asked. He muttered something about a "Ken."

It was either, "I want to be the Barbie to his Ken" or "I was hoping Ken would write me back." Regardless I asked (with the feeling of a dagger in my heart), "Who's Ken?" and he replied, "Just someone I met on FaceBook. Whatevs."

Whatevs, indeed. I guess that was meant to be "I'm not interested in you." However, subtlety is lost on me, so he was going to have to do better than that to get rid of me.

I knocked back my glass of wine and two minutes later, made my escape. Mallory didn't get off the couch (I imagined she was too stunned by the mention of "Ken" in front of me to move). I walked to the door and left with no hug or kiss goodbye from either Australian.

I called Jen and recounted the evening. She told me to drop him. This was not up for debate. "Drop and do not call," she said.

But the next morning he called me and said he and Mallory were going to hike to the Hollywood sign. Still steaming from the night before and knowing that he had no idea how to get to his desired destination, I offered to accompany them.

On our way up to the Hollywood sign, the Aussie mentioned he had a friend who was going to introduce him to a certain hero in the new Star Trek movie, so "he can be my boyfriend."

I snapped. "So basically, you need to be on a television show in order to date you. That's what you're saying."

In response, he claimed to have dated people who were not television personalities (though his list of examples was comprised exclusively of guys he dated before they were television personalities). I immediately regretted turning down Big Brother and realized I was going to have to get on a show before I could ask this one out.

We made it to the summit and I took pictures of the Aussie and Mallory. While there, two cute gay guys visiting from Florida walked up and asked if I would take their picture and I obliged. Photo taken, one of the guys then asked, "Do you want me to take a picture of the three of you?" I said 'No' three times before nodding at the Aussie and jokingly saying, "I don't like him very much."

Mr. Australia heard my diss and wandered off, taking in the view of Burbank. I thought, 'I've pissed him off. ' So I walked up behind him, put my arm around him and asked, "Are you ready to go?"

I wanted to shake him. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to grab him by his really great hair and pull it and scream, 'Do you like me or not?!' But I refrained.

That night, I texted him to say that I was helping Jen at a video shoot the next day, but wondered if Mallory might want to visit the Griffith Park Observatory with me the following night. I also asked him to call me when he got off work.

He never called.

For the entire eight hour shoot the following day, I sat there with my Blackberry surgically attached to my hand waiting for a text, email or a phone call.

Nothing.

After we wrapped, I went to Java Detour (my "office") to write and it was there that I looked down and saw his incoming call. At this point, I was pissed because it was the first time in seventeen days that it took him 24 hours to respond to me.

But I wasn't angry at him. I was angry at me. What had I turned into? Who was this person breathlessly awaiting a communiqué from a guy? I was angry that I had become this person and yet... frankly, so happy that I had found this person again. Because it had been years since a name on my Caller ID made me happy.

For the first time in years, I had butterflies.

Long story, short, Mr. Australia had called to tell me that he was leaving for work and that Mallory was packing for her flight the next day and just wanted to watch television.

He ended the conversation by saying he would call me over the weekend. I said, "Good. You call me this weekend."

I hung up the phone and turned around to see Kevin, a regular at the coffee house. We usually sit four feet away from each other and occasionally say "Hello" or "Let me plug in my extension cord" or "God bless you" to a sneeze. Seeing me squeezing my phone, he asked me what was wrong, and I said, 'Nothing. Boy problems. Or lack thereof.'

"Good. Then tomorrow night you and me are going out," Kevin said.

I didn't know what to say. I was stunned. It was out of the blue. So I said, 'Yes. Absolutely.' I was angry. I was bitter. I was over this crap. Kevin and I exchanged numbers and made plans.

I went home that night and began texting the mortician. We had cooled off considerably and hadn't seen each other in over two weeks. He had been to a conference for funeral home directors in El Paso and I wanted angry/ revenge sex. He was out to dinner with a friend and was going to bed early. "But maybe tomorrow," he said.

And thus ended the love story between Alex and Ben, the mortician.

I felt bad. Really bad. I mean, I wasn't in a relationship with the Australian, so I was well within my right to have sexy time with whomever I chose. But now that I was making plans to go out with other people and texting booty calls to a Long Beach mortician, I felt like I was cheating on him.

Saturday morning, I canceled plans with Kevin, claiming to be under the weather and went to seeLymelife at the Sunset 5 by myself.

There's a scene in the movie when Jill Hennessy's character is at a bar and she's dancing with her husband. She's happy and doesn't have a care in the world. Then another woman walks up and starts dancing with her husband and Hennessy slowly realizes that everyone is aware that this whore and her husband are having an affair.

Embarrassed and humiliated, Hennessy's character slinks off, head down, trying to be brave and cool. It's so heartbreaking and I thought, 'My God. That's me! I'm so clueless!'

I've gone over all the scenarios in my head. Maybe he just sees me as a friend.

Or... maybe he 'likes me' likes me.

Or maybe I should take my hint from the fact that he never called.

So, Davis the Australian, this is me, asking you out. This is me, writing a note that reads, "Would you like to go out on a real date with me, with some dinner, wine, maybe handholding at a movie and the possibility of an awkward goodnight kiss - Check YES or NO".

I'll be waiting for your response. And while I wait, I'll just keep hitting refresh on Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream."

I hope the answer is 'yes', but if the answer is 'no', whatevs.