Xander. Topher. You Are Maybe One-Fifth As Interesting As You Think You Are. Is what my laminated card says, w/stylized logo of a distracted listener backed by a drop-shadowed spiral. I pass it around to all the enjambments and attach it to emails sent to personal website auteurs and I ignore it when they say No, Dad, what about you. I am King Ignorer. I sort and file with the best of them, applauded by sweater-clad coeds whose cleavage deepens with each clap.

D. Rainey aka Puck taught me how to fling a laminated card down on a flat surface and have it stay put. Just: smack. No humiliating bouncing around or skittering away. You could loudly say, “Here is my card,” and — smack. This skill got a workout at the congregation last night. “For you,” I’d say, “and you!”

I was maybe one-fifth as denigrating as I thought I was, said the girl with the hundred-yard stare, the ankh, the Evelyn Mulwray iris-flaw.

“I have copper wiring running through my wrists,” I said, recycling a pickup line from second-quarter ‘98. “Copper wiring. Somebody’s libel [sic] to tear that outta you and sell it for dollars.

I tucked another card under her bra strap and in the process dropped my red plastic cup of alcohol. The watered-down Desperate Hours ate a hole in the linoleum. I covered it with my foot for the rest of the evening, not wanting to anger the host who is maybe going to pull some strings and get me a walk-on on The Stephen Idi Show, where he’s the production ass’t. Post good vibes on my discussion board.

Afterward I retreated to my clean room, scrubbing myself under the emergency shower but still feeling so dirty. I dreamed I accidentally shaved off all facial hair and was pleased with the results, woke up in the secret passageway behind the Spanish Budweiser poster, cramped and uninteresting.