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Show Me The Magic!!! (part 2) - February 16, 2007

Tripping my brains out, I managed to rip my gaze from the horrified faces of my three also tripping band mates and I looked at the source of their terror... my armpits.

They were the deepest, darkest purple anyone had ever seen. And the purple spread out almost as far as my tit and up onto my shoulder. It was the same on both sides. The purple death virus was spreading!

My stomach dropped. I was sure I didn't have long to live and when my friends saw the look on my face, they realized the severity of the situation and sprung up, plastering themselves on the far wall, as far away from ground zero as possible.

Ebola, bird flu, whatever all those ones are... please, this was way before those. This was the 1977 Vermontian purple underarm flesh eating bacteria virus. God only knew what pain and torment I was in for as this heinous viral death tribe marched it's way towards my brain, stopping for snacks on my heart and throat along the way before devouring my head and face.

"What the fuck is that?!" McCartney said, more frightened than he had ever been.

"I don't know!" I went to touch it.

"NO! DON'T TOUCH IT!!!" Ringo screamed.

"What the fuck, man! I have to inspect it!" I prodded it. Nothing. It didn't seem to have a mouth, this purple patch. It didn't bite.

"Does it hurt?" Harrison asked.

"No. I feel fine. I mean, I'm tripping my cunt off but other than that I feel normal." I pushed it, pulled it, rubbed and squoze it. Nothing.

Slowly, led by the courageous Paul, my three friends, like scared dogs convinced the devil they saw was only a shadow, okay maybe only a little convinced, crept towards the freak with the purple disease.
"You're sure it doesn't hurt?" Harrison asked again.

"Not at all."

"Maybe it's from the acid?" Ringo theorized.

"Could be. Do you guys have it?" Shit. No one had thought of that. With the grace and urgency of an Olympic Synchronized swimming team convinced they must score a perfect 10 to beat the Russians, they all simultaneously ripped off their shirts and checked their underarms. NOTHING! I was still the only freak in the room. They sighed a collective relief from deep inside their drugged out beings. I was happy for my friends that they weren't going to die along with me, but that joy was short lived as suddenly an evil thought burst into my mind.

What if it has spread to my dick and balls?

I immediately ripped off my pants and underwear.

"What the fuck are you..." Harrison asked, figuring it out before the "doing" had made it from his brain to his mouth. Again, like their nose plugged heroes, the boys followed suit and frantically ripped every stitch of clothing off until they joined me, buck naked in the freezing cold living room, tripping our asses off, searching for the purple plague all over our bodies with the microscopic attention to each pour of our skin as if this malady wasn't a large territorial dweller like under my arms, but might also be or start off small as a scabie, which, unfortunately, we had all had the year before.

While scabies are gross, at least they don't move. They're just tiny black dots buried under your skin. One friend gets em, you all get them. They're not as gross as lice, which actually crawl around. Another right of passage for the ninth grade alcoholic drug addict who will fuck anything that moves or doesn't.

I especially liked when, the first time I had my little new girlfriend over to family dinner, my dad asked straight out at the table, "How are your lice doing, Eric? Is the Quell helping?" I fucking shit you not.

Anyway, after a thorough inspection, nobody had any purple death on them anywhere except for me, and it didn't appear to be spreading. Everyone put their clothes back on and we decided smoking a joint would be the best course of action, you know, so we could figure this out. Waking my dad, going to the hospital, trying to cut it off with a knife were all considered, but getting more fucked up was settled on as the winner.

As we smoked the joint, sick Panama Red I had stolen from my dad's not so secret stash, we calmed down a bit and tried to wrap our minds around this conundrum. We traced the events of the entire day ending with the moment I had found the purple on me.

"We set up for the gig. Dropped the acid. Drank the rum. Smoked some joints. I changed into my outfit backstage and it definitely wasn't there then. We played. I made out with Hope Stillwell..."

"You did?!" Ringo apparently hadn't known.

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"In the balcony."

"When?"

"While you guys were putting the gear away."

"How far did you get?"

"She might be my new girlfriend so don't talk like that please."

"Wow." They all nodded their heads in agreement. I had scored. Back to less important things, like sussing out why I had an ailment that very well might kill me at any second.

"Then we came here and started playing that weird Weeble game and then I took off my Dashiki because it was soaked from me performing and then we saw the purple... Where the fuck?! Could it have come from the Dashiki?" I picked up the Dashiki. The Dashiki my step mother had loaned me to wear for the gig because it went really well with my platform boots. The p...u...r...p...l...e mirrored Dashiki that went... really... well. MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Everyone got it at the same time. I had sweat so much that the fucking purple Dashiki had run and stained my underarms. Hey come on, we were fucked up on enough drugs and booze to kill a small town, give us a break.

The next two hours were spent in that endless uproarious pot/acid induced laughing fit that only happens when you're that stoned and would cease to be funny to anyone else after ten seconds.

At least I wasn't going to die. And it did look kinda cool.

Those are the kinds of memories I get when I cross the border into the green mountain state.

So I got to my house in Vermont at around 5. I had stopped at the co-op in town and done a big shop in anticipation of the storm. I rarely leave my house in Vermont under normal circumstance let alone when 3 feet of snow are coming. I opened the front door, waiting to be hit by one of my favorite smells in the world. The combination of old candles, red cedar, and the country. Instead I was hit by a wall of pungent oil fumes.

My eyes started watering and I got a headache before I could but my groceries down on the kitchen table. Fuck! I opened the door to the cellar, home to where the furnace is and the smell intensified. It was 15 degrees outside and a massive storm was on the way in a couple hours. I needed to have heat. I shut the emergency switch off and the system shut down.

I better start a fire ASAP. A little light headed and not thinking straight anyway because I was hungry, I grabbed the box of matches. I figured I should open some windows and doors to fumigate the place but let me first just get the fire going. My caretaker had one all ready to go in the fire place, all I had to do was light it.

Wait. I know you're not supposed to light a match if the gas is leaking. Is it the same for oil fumes? Naaaa. That's just gas I think.
I opened the box of stick matches, took one out, and with the part of me that just can't not touch an electric fence to see if I can take the shock, I swiped the match across the box...

To be Continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 7:00 AM

Show Me The Magic!!! - February 15, 2007

I hit the road Tuesday at one so I could get to my place in Vermont before the snow started at 6. Most of you know I have a funky old farm house I got years ago because I love freezing cold and the nyc winters are too tame for me. I go there to retreat. I have this huge U shaped sectional couch that 6 people can easily sprawl out on. It's in front of a huge fire place that is always ablaze even in the summer, and a decent sized TV. That's the living room. Couch. Fire. TV. That's mainly what I do there. Lie on the couch in front of the fire watching TV and either eating a meal I'm made, recovering from gorging on the meal I've just eaten or planning the next meal I'm going to make.

It's ecstasy.

I'm usually alone. When I was still with Liza years ago she would come and we sometimes had another friend couple join but since she and I broke up, it's generally just me, which is fine. I love the solitude. Like a dog, I just melt into the couch with an old quilted comforter made out of my dead grandfathers suits. He was struck by lightening when I was one. I never knew him.

I know his suits.

I watch the snow fall outside or the rain or the sunshine or the night. All from the couch. The fire. The TV. The spaghetti. The cookies.

I got this couch in a neighboring town, the biggest one near me. It's 20 miles away or so. I went to High School there because my father was teaching college nearby when I was in junior high school and after being extorted by my best friend in 7th grade under threat of death, I moved up here to live with him to get away from that situation after it was resolved.

When I set out for my search to find my winter house 8 years ago, I scoured the North East from Buffalo to Portland Maine. I wanted it cold and snowy but not too far from nyc. I thought it was an amazing coincidence that I settled on this 1847 slanty floor joint only 30 miles from where I spent some of my high school years while living with my dad. Liza didn't think it was all that coincidental.

The first thing I did after buying the house was to go to the town to get a couch. It was the most important furnishing I needed next to the TV, which was already there. Cable comes before I do or I don't come. I had a mattress on the floor and the TV. I needed a couch.

I wanted a huge cheap one so I went to a furniture store on Main Street that seemed aimed at the locals. I went to the basement where the couches where and found this wonderfully ugly massive beige thing that was perfect and like, really inexpensive. A tubby, middle-aged, brown haired permed salesman approached me. "Can I help you?"

"Yes thanks. I want this couch please. I live about thirty miles away, can you guys bring it to me now please?" I said politely but in an over enthused way, knowing people don't normally talk like that and that's why I do. It brings me pleasure to bring the circus to town and hopefully change it up for people who ordinarily get the same thing all the time.

"I don't see why not." He said, unphased by my flatlander speak. Maybe things had changed here. Fucking MTV. The whole world's homogenized now. No more red necks, no more flatlanders. I mean I like the upside, which is less hate, but I miss the differences in people. That's the downside. Everyone has a nose ring. When I was in high school here, although it was only a few hours from nyc, it was a miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillion miles away. Now I was just like everyone else to this guy. Oh well. Or so I thought. Suddenly, he looked at me a little sideways. Hooray! Maybe he's gonna make fun of my blue Elmer Fudd hat and I can disarm him with my charm.

"Are you Al Schaeffer?"

Get the fuck out of here! In high school they called me Al, apparently because the only other nyc kid that had ever moved to that town was called Al so it became my name as well.

"Yeah."

"Bubba. Bubba Bouchet? Brian?" This guy was at least ten years older than me.

"Oh my God! Bubba!" No he wasn't. He had been in my eighth grade class. I still had pencil led in my calf from him from 1978 science class and believe you me, it was not an assigned experiment. That was all Bubba. He had been one of my many nemeses.

"I'm good. I saw you on TV last year and I told my wife. Hey come here! That's Al Schaeffer! I know him. I went to high school with him." He was excited then and he was excited now. I guess in his mind bygones were bygones since I was marginally famous now. I smiled. You dream of these moments in your vindictive, cunty fantasies and they almost never come true.

"That's great. Yeah. I'm doing okay, you know. Can't complain. Life's not too bad. I just made my third million dollars (all that money's gone now btw. Broke but with a bunch of movies for ya'll to watch) and bought this second house up the road for me and my hot girlfriend to hang out in. I mean, when I say 'hang out' of course I mean fuck in every single of the 10 rooms in the place.... You look like you're happy. How's the furniture business?"

Of course I didn't say that. One of the pesky things about a spiritual practice is that, well, it works. So in spite of my baser self I seem to actually have this kind of massive ability to forgive. It fucks up being an asshole pretty good... thank God.

"Oh thanks a lot. It's great to see you. You seem well."

"So you remember me?"

"Dude. I still have pencil led in my leg from when you stabbed me in eighth grade." I said with a water under the bridge smile

"No. Really? Sorry."

"It's good to see you Bubba. I'm glad you remembered me."

And with that, another scar was mended... and I had a rockin' couch. Bubba had them bring it to me that afternoon.

There wasn't any traffic leaving the city, I had beaten the soccer mom rush on the Merritt and was flying through Hartford by two O clock. That's when the Lenyrd Skynard starts playing on the radio and I know I'm nearing New England. Thank God at least that hasn't changed. I used to be the lead singer in a band in high school in Vermont called Distorted Visions. I wanted the name to be Genocide but my father vetoed it, explaining to me what it meant. I had no idea. I thought is sounded cool and scary. Yeah. The scary part. I agreed it would be better to go with Distorted Visions.

Our shining moment was a concert at the Rec Center. I was in knee high brown Jethro Tull leather boots, a purple mirrored Dashiki, had hair half way down my back and was wasted on three hits of mean green blotter and a fifth of rum. I was a fucking golden God. Until I forgot the third verse to Stairway. The collective groan of the audience could be heard as far as Lebanon, New Hampshire I'm sure. I mean American Idol lost it. Just gone. A song I knew better than my middle name, which I couldn't spell until I was 16. Michael. I'm just not book smart okay? Give me a break. "He's very smart but doesn't apply himself." Don't suppose any of you have ever heard that...

In true underdog Schaeffer fashion I was able to win them back with a rousing rendition of Freebird and Hope Stillwell, the Home Ec teacher's daughter, the prettiest girl in school, to me at least, let me get some third base in the balcony after the gig.

Does anything on God's green earth feel better than third base with a girl who you still don't know whether or not your hand's gonna get grabbed signaling the end of the road for that night... but she doesn't and you get the green light when you undo that top button. Fucking sexy! Damn! Anyway, for the most part that only really meant high school. I kinda know the landscape of the ball game these days with anyone who I'm angling for a triple with before we get into it.

That night didn't end as well as it began unfortunately. After Hope went home, me and the rest of my band mates, still whacked on nasty acid went back to my house and started playing some weird game we invented with my little sister's Weebles in the living room. She was sound asleep in her room, as were my dad and step mom down stairs. I took off my shirt to change out of my concert outfit and into another one and all at once, Paul, Ringo and George looked at me aghast and pointed at me.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Look at your underarms?!!!" They were horrified. I looked down and, with my hallucinating eyes, saw what they saw, so it must be real because I didn't think we would all have hallucinated the same terrifying vision.

My underarms had...

To be continued...

P.S. Please remember to always check my MySpace page for updates as to my work and how to reach me. There's a link here now on the menu to the right at the top. Thanks.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:31 AM

Into The Storm or I Love That You Love Asparagus - February 14, 2007

I'm asking all of you who already get it to please indulge me continuing to try to be clear for those who don't. Because it seems a lot of people who profess to hate me read what I write.. They really don't or they wouldn't be so attracted. There's something here for them and I know that that very statement makes them cringe and they would point to it as the quintessential reason why they think they hate me. But I don't care. I was and am sometimes still them and what can I say, I'd don't quit.

But I promise to mix it up a bit more after this writing. I promise. So just hang in for one more day and then I'll feed all of you who have been nodding your heads going, "I know, I know. Come on E, let's get back to it." But this is important and I know you know that.

And for all of you concerned about me, know that I really, really mean what I write and I am grateful for all the weather in my life. I truly thank God for everything that happens regardless of appearances and know that pain is the touchstone to spiritual growth and ultimate happiness.

I often feel most comfortable it seems heading the opposite direction than the many. When I was on the 8th floor of the St. James Hotel in LA on Martin Luther King Day when the earthquake hit and most were heading down the stairs, I went up. My friend Donny was on the 10th floor and I needed to make sure he was okay.

I didn't consider my act. It wasn't a thought process. It was just instinct. It wasn't until we were both safely on the ground and he remarked how odd it was to see me coming up the stairs to find him when everyone else was rushing down that it occurred to me I had done something most hadn't.

I'm sure most of them, had they had a friend above them, would have gone up as well. I don't think I'm very unique in that regard.

I really don't think I'm very unique in any regard. I don't consider myself. I don't consider my actions. I just exist. I just do. I mean I consider what to eat and when to eat. Who to call, who not to call. Obvious necessary life choices I consider. But my writing, my movies. Never. I just behave.

As I've said many times before, I do consider being kind instead of mean. Generous instead of selfish. I have to since my predisposition is to be mean and selfish many times and I don't want to act out on those impulses. So by constantly considering the choice before me, I can chose generous and kind. If I just existed I would be mean and selfish way more of the time.

I really am grateful for this latest storm. It is crystallizing so clearly the absolute truth of the concept of emptiness.

Half the letters I have gotten my whole career but especially these last weeks have been intense love letters. Not in a romantic way but a deeply human way. They all say the same thing. They thank me for being honest and bearing my soul, bearing myself, good and bad, pretty and ugly, successful and failing. They applaud my bravery and selflessness and lack of ego. They say because of me being myself in my work, I inspire them to be more themselves. A lover of people. I'm hot, sexy, cute, real, open, and generous.

The other half of the letters say I am completely disillusioned and blinded as to my true character. A hater. A misogynist. Untalented. A narcissist. The biggest egomaniac on earth. Full of myself and a fraud who uses spiritual dogma as a device to selfishly feed my insatiable hedonistic hunger. Ugly, disgusting, selfish, malicious and dangerous.

So who's right?

It's so clear. It's 2+2 easy.

People see what they want to see. They see themselves in me. And as with me, usually they see parts of both descriptions and that to most people is profoundly untenable to them. They want good or bad. The idea of both and a million colors in-between is much too scary for most. But it's real. At least for me and everyone I know and respect.

How could they not be seeing themselves in me? Why else would anyone get angry at what age I want to have children? Unless at what age they have children is a burning source of discomfort for them and they can't stomach the choices they have made for themselves.

And if the argument is that I am somehow the ringleader of the conspiracy involving other like minded men to continue this awful trend of wanting babies when we're 50 (as if that's a destructive thing) and that's why I incite such rage and it has nothing at all to do with a woman's internal choices about her own life I would say that I only have the power to awaken a person's awareness about themselves, not supplant their beliefs with my own.

If they didn't like cookies, my giving them my cookie recipe would not make them like cookies no matter how good my cookies were.

If you love asparagus. And you tell me you love to eat it morning noon and night. I would have nothing but love for you and your relationship with asparagus. I would love that you love asparagus. As long as you weren't hurting yourself by only eating asparagus or somehow hurting anyone else with your asparagus eating habits I would support you in eating as much asparagus as you enjoyed eating.

I don't care about how much you eat asparagus. Your asparagus intake does not threaten me. You know why? Because I am content with my own relationship with asparagus, therefore your love of eating truck loads of asparagus only fills me with joy for you because I know what happiness it brings you. I revel in your aparagul bliss. I joke, laugh, love and honor you in your asparagusness. I rejoice in every stalk of your asparagosity.

On the other hand, if you made a movie that has been met with wide spread unilateral praise and love and catapulted you from film school to being a your-shit-doesn't-stink-with-anyone three picture deal filmmaker, I can be, not always mind you, but can be prone to envy, jealousy, hatred and vicious condemnation of everything about you from your looks, your tastes, your talent, (lack thereof) your character, you upbringing, your luck, your privilege, you worthiness as a person and though it rarely comes out, in my mind I will character assassinate you in speeches that I invent all night long for days that I plan to write, shout, film, and sneer from the podium when I win my first Oscar.

And why is that? Because I am hurt by not having achieved some of my career goals and scared that I never will.

So instead of sitting with that fear. That hurt. Having a good cry, a batch of brownies, a mediation, a talk with a friend, helping someone in need, making proactive choices that will help me achieve some of the goals I want to achieve, I.e. writing another script, making phone calls to raise money to shoot my next film, etc, because all that is scary, I do the easier thing, the thing I perceive to be the easier thing but of course really isn't in the end, and hate the person who has what I want.

They're just who they are, doing what they do, the best they can.

I'm just me, doing what I do the best I can.

I eat asparagus. I don't eat asparagus. I make a movie. I take a piss. I help an old lady with her bags. I envy like a pig. I succeed. I fail. I try. I have a baby at 50. I have a baby next year.

You want babies tomorrow, you want babies in ten years. Since I'm completely comfortable with my choices around fatherhood, I'm completely comfortable with your choices around motherhood.

You eat a lot of asparagus. I don't. Can you handle that? Is that okay? Can you still love me? Or at least respect me for that choice? Right.

I love snow and cold. You don't. I'm driving into the storm tonight so I can be where 3 feet will fall. Everyone else in driving South. Have fun in the sun. I'm going to have the time of my life is the blizzard.

Next time I promise I'll give it a rest. I just wanted to try one last time for now.

P.S. Please remember to always check my MySpace page for updates as to my work and how to reach me. There's a link here now on the menu to the right at the top. Thanks.

Two Girls and a Guy - Gang Rape - February 12, 2007

Well, it seems both in spite of me and because of me, as has been a part-time occurrence my entire career, people only interested in furthering their own evil agendas at the expense of the truth are at it again.

As you know, most of the time, since their ideas are so innocuous and banal, I don't spend our precious time on them, but when they rise to a really heinous level, a level of social harm, then I find I must address them.

On the surface, these recent offerings appear so ludicrous that they are laughable and easily discounted and you would wonder why I would spend our exquisite time on them instead of just giving them a prayer and moving on to more important matters, but when you look more closely, their insidious nature and cancerous viral appearance is clearly observed and that's why we have to shine the light of truth on them to kill them.

By way of back story for those of you who didn't hear or read the latest salacious, spun piece of not so thinly veiled self hate masquerading as a- it's hard to say with a straight face...journalism?... here's the gist of it. It was written by a writer who,-unfortunately I have to say- surprise, surprise, lied her way into my good graces by telling me she had no pre-conceived agenda or interest in painting anything other than an honest portrayal of who I was, and under those false pretenses got me to agree to an interview with her, then turned around and revealed her true character by attacking me as a man, a human, an artist and what else is there, I don't know, I'm sure there was something.

She hadn't seen any of my films yet she seemed to have a strong opinion about them... maybe one ten years ago when it first came out. I asked her if she wanted to see them, you know, by way of research. Isn't that kind of important to a journalist? I didn't go to J school but I would kinda figure, you know for, what's that word again...? Accuracy? Anyway she said she would love to but wouldn't have time before she wrote the piece on account of a head cold. I sympathized. Head colds are certainly more important than journalistic integrity.

Let me just say that again in case it didn't land.

This journalist, who said how untalented I am, HAD NOT SEEN ANY OF MY FILMS save maybe one ten years ago. Her piece on how untalented, uninteresting and unattractive I am inspired 165 letters, all sent in by its readership. I don't know what the final tally was but by noon, the other front page story on Bush had gotten 29. Hmmmm. I mean, as vastly reported, I'll be the first to tell you how fascinating I am, but even I, someone who boycotts the media, still kinda thinks our political salutation is a tad more important than whether I messed around with my cousin when I was 6. But apparently not to Salon's intellectual readership.

Just so the facts are clear. I've made 6 feature films, and 2 television shows that have been distributed theatrically all over the world for the last 13 years which are still being shown everywhere, all the time, like, I don't know, on Comedy Central yesterday? I wonder why Comedy Central buys and shows movies that people hate? Especially old movies that no one has ever heard off on top of hating? Probably because they are a not for profit network funded privately by people who hate Eric Schaeffer's work and don't need advertising dollars so it doesn't matter that people don't watch their network. Yeah. That must be it. It couldn't be that If Lucy Fell, like my other films has been re-bought by networks and cable stations world wide for the last 10 years and watched over and over again and beloved by millions. Na. It's the perverse work by the privately funded ES haters Comedy Central station that wants to show the film for all the haters to enjoy.

With all the people who have never heard of me like Rebecca pointed out, and hate my films and TV shows, I don't understand how I've continued to make a living all this time. Movie after movie, show after show. In a business where few have ever made one movie let alone 6.

The reason you think this is my 15 minutes Becky, is because of all that tireless journalistic integrity and footwork you did in researching me for your interview... oh wait, I'm sorry, I'm dyslexic so I meant the opposite. Forgive me. Because you lied and actually did have a single, pointed, clandestine agenda you failed to research me enough to find out that I've been working steadily for 13 years. I know you're not so good with numbers.

In her piece, she asked me a question which, again, obviously telegraphed her own ridiculously conservative, naïve, childish and right wing views on the sex industry, about my "Habit" of fucking whores. By the way, I asked a friend of mine who is a wonderfully smart and insightful ex-escort turned writer what the politically correct term was for prostitute and she told me that "whore" was making a come back and was actually totally fine and that "hooker" was frowned upon. I found that fascinating. Anyway, I clarified to Beckster that 8 visits to whores in 40 years of sexual activity was the opposite of "habit" and actually constituted a "rare" behavior pattern. So we'll give Rebecca the benefit of the doubt on the mix up about me having "just" arrived at the party.

I accept and applaud anyone's right not to like my work, just have the balls and brains to admit the accurate truth that there are millions who do and have for years. And if you really want to act like a person with an above 12 year-old intelligence, try giving reasons for not liking my work (It would also help if you saw it) other than one's fueled by not having been asked out to the prom by the boy you liked and taking it out on me. Or, eek, not actually having been asked out by me. Or having been asked out, not asked out for a second date. This isn't aimed at Rebecca, I didn't ask her out. But some of the other haters recently have fallen into this category shockingly enough. The scorned woman? I made up that term didn't I?

Honestly, I'm not being mean. We just weren't right for each other. I love and respect all girls who I go out with even once; sometimes the chemistry just isn't there. It doesn't feel good, I know because sometimes I like them and they don't like me, but I try to take it like an adult and not let it fuel my feelings about them as a whole. You know, as if they were pressing on an unhealed hurt from long ago that I hadn't resolved... sorry, sidetracked again. It's just that I keep thinking if I SAY IT OVER AND OVER ENOUGH TIMES PEOPLE WILL GET THE MESSEGE AND GET INTO THE SOLUTION AND WE CAN ALL BE FRIENDS!!!! THAT WOUILD BE SO MUCH MORE FUN AND USEFULL THAN THIS. TRUST ME.

Rebecca's a good actress. She had me. I thought she was honest and truthful, her laughter and conviviality. Her chattiness about her lack of a boyfriend and how she lamented gaining all that weight from not smoking, which I am really glad she finally did. I certainly identify with wieght issues and dating troubles and thought she was very pretty the way she looked and was proud of her for having the courage to quit smoking and told her so. Anyway, she had me believing she was a woman of substance and her word, like people of substance was her bond.

When I was 6 years old, I and my 3 girl cousins, ages, 4, 5, and 6, would play sexual games. If you use Breck shampoo you get to go in the closet and kiss for three minutes. Don't ask me why, that was the game. Luckily, all of them did use Breck. We played "family" one time. My middle cousin Tina, was mommy, I was daddy. The youngest cousin Heather played one daughter, my oldest cousin Debbie played another daughter in this family. Tina and I went to bed like parents do and like parents do took off our clothes and started kissing.

I should warn my easily offended readers that what follows is very intense so you might want to stop here. I'm sure me and my cousins are the ONLY ONE'S OUT THERE WHO EVER BEHAVED LIKE THIS so you might not identify with us and as a result get frightened and I wouldn't want that.

I took of my pants and went farther, to 4th base, assuming since that's how babies are made and that's what mommies and daddies do, make babies, that that what was supposed to happen next. I WAS SIX YEARS OLD. Neither Tina nor I knew what was supposed to happen in this situation, I was taking my best guess. After two seconds Tina said she didn't want to play anymore. I said fine and stopped playing immediately. She ran off to tell her mother about the game and that she didn't like it. WE WERE SIX AND FIVE YEARS OLD RESPECTIVELY. I don't know if you got that part.

WE WERE SIX AND FIVE YEARS OLD RESPECTIVELY.

My father had a talk with me and explained that that wasn't an appropriate game to play when you were little and we shouldn't play that game again and that was that. My cousins and I, before and since that episode, have been very close and loving and there was never an incident like that again and not as a young man or adult have I ever, even as a drunken college lad slammed on hormones and cocaine so much as kissed a girl who said no to me, let alone done anything more to any woman who asked me to stop when we were involved in a mutual make out.

For the above described incident, Rebecca Traister, editing our interview, of course taking out the bridge dialogue which would have clarified the story more, to incite misogynist propaganda, and prove her theory that I am evil, insinuated that I was guilty of at best abuse and at worst, rape.

An insinuation that other readers then trumpeted.

I maintain that you would be hard pressed to find ANY child psychologist, lawyer, law enforcement officer, good teacher or healthy parent or healthy non-parent for that matter who would verify these sick people's accusation that the above mutually consented to child sexual exploration could be described as rape. It is so far fetched it really boggles the mind. I would feel you could leave it at that, or at worst say people who said that it was rape were joking, which I don't think is off limits IN A CERTAIN CONTEXT, NEVER ONE WHERE REAL PEOPLE WHO WERE RAPED WERE INVOLVED THOUGH, however in this case I submit it is criminal to utter the words they did in accusing me of being a rapist because they were not joking and if they were, did not make that clear. And that's what we have to discuss here.

When we throw around such a cartoonishly ridiculous accusation of rape, attaching it to an episode such as I described I had with my cousin Tina, we mock and minimize the real and evil and violent crime that is unfortunately visited on so many women every day by sick criminals.

Many of my female friends who have suffered the heinous crime of rape have corroborated this point of view and I feel safe in saying that no woman who has had to go through that outrageously awful crime would think it anything but destructive and ridiculous to categorize two 6 year olds engaged in mutual consented upon sex games that ended when one wanted it to end, as either of them raping each other.

Say you don't like my movies, say you think I'm a bad writer, actor, director, say it even without seeing any of my movies if you want to announce clearly what a kind of person you are. Call me narcissistic, call me self absorbed, call me short, bald, ugly, fat, a bad lover, a queer, small-dicked, creepy crawly. I don't give a shit... but do not call me a criminal. Do not call me a rapist.

If you come with that, come with more than a that I had consensual child sex with my cousin when we were both 6 years old and stopped when she said stop.

And try this on for size. What if the roles were reversed? What if I was messing around with my little girl cousin when we were both 6 years old and I was aroused and she said she was going to sit on me and I said why? And she said, because that's what mommies and daddies do when they sleep and I said okay and then she sat on me and after a couple seconds I felt uncomfortable and said get off and she did and then I told my dad what had happened.

How many of you would have said I was raped?

Huh. Kind of interesting. Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye? More about you and your agendas and how you feel about what's right and wrong in your life and choices around sex and your sexuality and things you've done? No, you probably don't have the courage to admit that. Safer to just say I'm a rapist and think there aren't any ramifications in the world. That you're not part of the problem. But the truth is this.

You are desensitizing people's understanding of what rape is and numbing them to the profoundly wrong and violent crime that it is.

And to the few of you who would call the aforementioned reverse scenario rape, it would be equally as ludicrous an idea as calling the original scene that actually happened rape.

We've all been hurt. We all have deep wounds. I am truly sorry for yours, I really am. I'm sure many of you are very talented. I know Rebecca is, that's why I was so disappointed in her turning out to be a liar. She and all of us are destined to much bigger things. Our world is falling apart, not because of six year-olds messing around with each other but because of six year-olds growing up and not healing their wounds so they can shine in a helpful and loving way. So they can tell the truth and in doing so inspire others to feel safe to tell the truth. The hard truths. The easy ones are easy to tell. We're all good at that. But the hard ones. The under bellies we all have that are hard to admit and confess to having but in doing so, frees us to feel human and allows our fellow humans to feel human too. And not like ogres.

I called Tina today to ask her if she would be hurt if I wrote this. Though we've been friends over the years, all of us, she and my other two cousins and my Uncle and aunt, we haven't been able to see each other as much lately as lives take over. They all have families and we all live in different parts of the country which is sad. I miss the family. She was excited and surprised to hear from me. In talking to her about all this explosion of misdirected hate stemming from our innocent game 40 years ago, tears welled in my eyes when she corroborated my memory of the events and said she was and always had been fine with what happened and treated it like the harmless episode it was. I realized that aside from joking about it over the years when my first film came out where I first talked about it in a public way, we had never had a serious conversation about it and I was glad we were now, and that my suspicions were correct in thinking her okay with it all but it was nice to hear it in the context of a serious talk.

She offered up these thoughts in a letter to me after we got off the phone and said it was fine for me to print them.

"Hey Eric,

What a wonderful surprise to get your call. I literally just got off the phone with you and wanted to write sooner than later.

I want you and everyone who is accusing you to know for sure that what happened between us so many years ago was not rape. I feel as though that was what you were asking me but were unable to say the word.

We were kids exploring the differences between boys and girls, as all children do. "Show me yours I'll show you mine" I think is how that goes. Nothing you did with me was out of line and I was just as much involved as you were. The reason I ran to my Mom was because we went farther than I was able to understand at the time and I got scared of what we were doing. You did nothing wrong as I'm sure you know. It was just a case of kissing cousins.

Please remember Dad at that time was a practicing child psychologist and Mom was a grade school teacher, and they both knew what we did and that it was kid stuff.

I really think all the stink about this is ridiculous and hopefully the people who are looking at this as some lude act will leave it alone.

I love you and am so glad you called.

Please do call when you are up again and hopefully we all can get together and have a big family time. I'd love to see you ice skate!!!

Namaste,

Tina"

And for another perspective, and although we're dating, trust me, she and I have our share of deeply differing views on subjects and she is the furthest thing than a push over, and despite liking me, certainly isn't afraid to speak her mind when we disagree, Melinda had these thoughts she was eager to share.

"When I was little, every summer I went to a great summer camp. I made friends there who lasted me throughout my entire childhood; one of them was Casey. When the conversation in the cabins turned to sex - as it always did - Casey offered with little resistance or shame that she'd had sex with her cousin in a barn when they were about five. "We were just playing," she said with a shrug. She refused to feel guilty about it. Since I was a bit of a naive child, I was horrified at the time to hear it. I shut my mouth, though. I remember later asking my mother about it, and her replying with something along the lines of "They probably were just playing. There's no sense in making her feel dirty or bad if she doesn't."

I went to camp with Casey for years and years, and each year when the topic turned to Who Had and hadn't, she told the same story with the same shrug. Even when our adolescent confessionals turned to darker things, as they tend to do when girls are all together, she never mentioned it as harrowing. In a really peculiar twist of fate, though she grew up in the state of New York, she ended up going to the College of Charleston. I ran into her my freshman year. We interacted briefly, but she seemed like a happy, involved girl.

So when the man I'm seeing told me the same things he told Rebecca Traister in the Salon article - and yes, he told me, he's not trying to trick me - I didn't bat an eye. I worked in a preschool classroom for years and years. If it ever happened that a parent told us that two kids of kindergarten age engaged in sex play, I think that every teacher's response would be "Don't worry. Your child is not a sexual deviant. You need to talk about some issues around bodies and privacy, obviously, so this event is not repeated. But the last thing you need to do is make a child feel deeply ashamed for something he didn't know was 'wrong.'"

Nor am I, by the way, shocked if a man has engaged with prostitutes. I have lots of male friends who are lovely people and who have paid for sex or fantasy. I don't think this sort of thing is inherently pathological. Anything can become pathological, at any rate. What pisses me off is when men engage in sex with prostitutes in countries where women are basically kidnapped as girls and forced into prostitution; when they have sex with minors, or women who have been working without hope of escape since they were minors. I'd much rather a man admit fully to having willfully hired an adult prostitute in America or Europe than mumble about that "one time in Thailand" or the like. To my knowledge, the man I'm with has had no such encounter.

I bristle when people send me emails saying, "Watch out, little girl, he did dirty stuff with a Dominatrix!" I'm sorry that some people, to this day, find others' harmless sexual proclivities disgusting. That mode of thought strikes me as a little too conservative to agree with. I'm surprised, as a southerner - a "yokelette," as one blog called me - that this sort of attitude is trickling down from New York. Contrary to popular opinion, we in the south - especially southern cities - are much more respectful of things like someone's sexual needs and orientation. Perhaps this is because the bulk of us are tired of being defined by the vocal evangelical Bubba minority who always seem to be on camera boycotting France or something inane, and so we're very careful. Perhaps this is because we just have better manners than to call someone gay if he hasn't found a wife yet; the rude insinuation is that gayness is something hidden and to be outed by others at their will, and even ruder, that failure in

the heterosexual world equals homosexuality. Or perhaps it's our respect for the deeply eccentric - something vividly wrought in fine southern literature, if you feel in a Faulkner or Percy mood. Maybe it's our inimitable southern mothers, telling us aphorisms like "every pot has a lid," e.g. that we're all deeply quirky but there's someone for everyone, a relaxed and generous view of humanity. I grew up thinking that New York was the opposite of provincial, but now I'm not quite so sure at all. It's a lovely city, and I love visiting, but I do feel an especially strong affection for my part of the country that refuses to be whipped into hysteria by variations of human nature. I only wish the man I'm seeing were more fond of it, but perhaps he'll come around.

Anyway, we tend to let a lot of complicated stuff just be what it is, down here, if you have a big heart, treat people well, have good manners, and like your mama. The man I'm seeing does. It's just humane, and liberal, and a lot more fun to think that way. "

While I pointed out that Melinda's and many other southern states were red states and that scared me, and I didn't like her saying some New Yorkers were "unsophisticated" but dare I say that the one's that are piling on this hate certainly are being so, I still thought her point of view was important to share on this subject.

So be a true warrior and have the courage to fight the real enemy people. It's not me. I'm a mirror. As you are for me, and I thank you Rebecca and all you others who mirrored back this false, deep seeded fear that I didn't even know I had that I had done something wrong as that little unknowing boy, and that lie has now once and for all been vanquished by the truth that of course I didn't do anything wrong. I might not have ever known that for sure had some of you not had the reaction you had so thank you. I love you.

I thank God for all that happened today, regardless of appearances. Even in the dark, there is grace if I look for it. My enemy is my teacher.

The demon you see in the mirror will melt from the tears of your self acceptance and self forgiveness and be replaced by the pure God that is you. May we all have the courage to say "devil get thee hence from me now," or in whatever language is meaningful for you and get on with the business of love and light. Om Bolo Shri Sat Guru Bhagavan ki. Jai! I bow down to all the teachers who have come before me. Namaste, xo e

P.S. Please remember to always check my MySpace page for updates as to my work and how to reach me. There's a link here now on the menu to the right at the top. Thanks.

P.P.S. As I have previously announced, I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 11:44 AM

Thank You, I Love You - February 9, 2007

Bhagavan Das is this wonderful man. I met him on the beaches of Tulum a couple years ago. It's a place I go often to retreat. Yoga, sun, sand, ocean, stilted Swiss Family Robinson tree hut bungalows dot the 7 mile stretch of funky, wind swept shoreline, the thick tropical forest hiding them right up to waves lapping four steps from your bed.

It's not precious. St. Barts it's not, which I like. It's 40 bucks a night, not 400 or 4000. Those joints can be fun sometimes but generally I like it rougher around the edges. And because of my strange job I either have enough money or not enough, so in the "not enough" times, which are more frequent, I'm glad I can be happy in the 40 buck place. I grew up middle-class, my mom was a social worker, my dad a teacher. I like the rafters and courtside at the Garden. Both are important and fun and valuable perspectives but my people are in the rafters.

So two years ago, I was staying at one of the cheap bungalows and I took a walk on the beach. I looked up from the sea shells and saw this massive mound of man strolling towards me on the beach. He was made even taller than his 6'3' frame by another what seemed like 3 feet of dread locked blonde hair piled up on top of his head. A thousand necklaces and bracelets hung from him and nothing else. Other than that he was buck naked. He was celebrating a friend's birthday by wearing his own birthday suit all day long. Genius.

I knew his friend, the birthday girl he was walking with, an old party girl restaurateur turned yoga teacher named Trixie. I hadn't seen her in 15 years.

"Trixie?"

"Oh my God. Eric. How are you?"

"Perfect. And you?"

"So good."

"Do you know Baba?"

"No. Hi. Eric."

"Hi. Baba." The jolly Santa Clausian love emanating from this colorful naked giant brought tears to my eyes. I knew his music well. I had practiced yoga to it often.

"It's such a pleasure to meet you. I love your music."

"Oh, thank you. I love you." It rolled off his tongue so naturally it was like the hum of the wind. Completely disarming. We chatted for a few minutes and Trixie invited me to come to a party they were throwing to end their yoga retreat up the beach a hundred miles or so in a neighboring village called Morales I think.

"That sounds fun. I'll be there. Thanks for the invite."

"Great. See you tonight," Trixie said.

"Thank you, I love you," Baba said again, and they turned and left.

I quickly understood that the reason he said "Thank you, I love you" the way most of us say, "Thank you," or "Hello," or "Goodbye" or any other number of polite responses, was because, well, why should we say anything else?

If we were to say "Thank you, I love you," instead of hello or good bye wouldn't we all be a lot happier? What about even saying it instead of "Fuck you." Can you imagine? It would be infectious.

The world would change overnight.

Over.... Night.

I got home to New York a couple days later and was dying to try out my new toy. I met my friend Blair and we got on the subway, heading downtown. It was rush hour crowded. A tired, grumpy middle aged black woman somehow was in-between Blair and I, who had been separated in the stampede to find a place in this car. We were all holding the chrome bar above our heads for support. I continued the conversation I was having with Blair as the train left the station. I wasn't shouting but it was a noisy subway train so I had to speak up in order for Blair to hear me. Suddenly, the woman, inches from my face, turned to me and angrily said, "Do you have to talk right past me like that?!"

My first impulse was to say, "Yeah I do. Fuck off." Of course I didn't. I paused, as I have been taught as a spiritual discipline and waited for the grace of God to instruct me. Quickly it did. I smiled at her genuinely and said, "Is it annoying you?"

"Yes it is. Very much." Even though I was smiling, she was ready for a fight. This is New York. We're the friendliest people in the world... it's just sometimes under a few layers of fuck off and die.

"I'm sorry." I said sincerely.

"Uhkay." She grumbled, somehow not satisfied with the outcome even though she had gotten her way.

HERE WAS MY CHANCE!!! I COULDN'T BELIEVE I WAS GOING TO ACTUALLY DO IT!!! FUCK IT. IT'S NOW OR NEVER.

She was still looking at me, hoping I would say anything that might incite a riot. She wanted to take out her day, her life, on me. I looked her dead in the eye...

"Thank you. I love you."

She looked like one of those robots in a bad 70s sci-fi movie whose head explodes from a short circuit or something. She wanted to hit me, scream at me. Something. I mean I must have said "Fuck you, lady. I have just as much right to talk as anyone!!!" She couldn't have heard me right, but she had, and she knew she had. And while she wanted to say "Fuck you, too" back to me, like she was sure I had said to her, of course she couldn't and had only one alternative.

Half heartedly, in spite of every cell in her body that was crying out for her to say something else, in spite of a lifetime, a collective unconscious of generations of anger begging her to spit in my face, kill me with hate, instead, she quietly mumbled, "I love you too." And bowed her head. It's as if her mouth was possessed by a mind of its own and was saying words she didn't intend for it to say. She shook her head a little, trying to figure out what had just happened.

But she was calm. That much I could see she knew.

Blair almost broke out laughing. She could not believe what had just happened. Nor could I really. It was beyond my wildest imagination of how it would go, trying out this lovely grace from Baba for the first time.

Blair and I got off at Times Square.

"Have a nice day," I said to the lady.

"You too." That she could handle much more easily. She had said that before. She was just grateful I hadn't said, "Thank you, I love you" again. I didn't want to blow her out of the water. Baby steps.

Whenever I'm used as the object of misguided hate from people who for whatever reason are too afraid to look inside themselves at the real source of their fear and pain and hate, which has absolutely nothing to do with me, as hard as it is because it can set off my own unresolved pain and fear and make me forget that their hate has nothing to do with me really, I just say, "Thank you, I love you." And like a poof of magician's smoke hiding his false slight of hand, their power to take me down with them disappears, and I am free. Free to say and really feel love, which is really all any of us want.

So again, I say, haters, thank you. I love you. Baba, thank you. I love you. Trixie, thank you. I love you. And of course, to all the rest of you, thank you. I love you.

Life is short. We're all going to be dead really really soon. Believe me, I know it's scary to think who you'll be if you drop the self hate, but trust me, the small amount of time I'm able to, it's really not that bad. You don't explode like a robot and the ability to like, even love, feels really nice. Try it some time. What do you have to lose? "Thank you. I love you."

P.S. As I have previously announced, I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 12:07 AM

Page 190 - February 8, 2007

I didn't want to send Melinda to her house in her Benadryl daze. And she was out through the 2 AM SportsCenter anyway so my whole need for privacy after our fun Saturday night date was achieved by the drugs... She woke up at 3.

"I better go to my house," she said half asleep.

"No. Stay here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Go to my bed. I'll be in in a little while." She shuffled off to my bed room; I shuffled the other way, to the kitchen to polish off the rest of the batch of cookies and then joined her.

She woke up early, like 9 o'clock since she had been asleep since 11 the night before. She adhered to the rule of kissing me good bye before she left (I think it's sad when people just leave the bed without a kiss. Kind of like people who don't kiss good night or say, "good night" before falling asleep? I've known women like that.) and split for her house. I assumed she'd come back around 11:30, knowing that's when I usually get up these days.

I stretched out and felt free. As much as I do like feeling the safety and solace that someone I care for's body brings lying next to me, I still always feel a bit cramped until I have the bed to myself.

I was awakened at 11 by the front door and the smell of the perfume I had gotten Melinda. She marched into my room and set a box on the floor.

"I wanted to get you a hair dryer because I told you I would. I'm going to get a cab to the airport now. Good bye."

"What are you talking about? Your plane's not for hours."

"I just wanted to drop off your hair dryer and say good bye in person. I'll go now."

She was clearly upset. She had said she would get me a hair dryer when she went to the drugstore on Saturday and forgotten. It wasn't that big of a deal. Something had happened. Sunday mornings weren't good for us. Maybe on getaway day we were sad so we manufactured fights rather than just feeling sad. Rather than feeling the separation anxiety. I had done it in Charleston; maybe she was doing it here.

"Honey. What's happening? What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. I brought you the hair dryer and now I'm going home."

"But what's wrong? What happened? Why are you acting like this?"

"Nothing." She seemed close to tears.

"Come here. Sit on the bed." She did. She looked beautiful. Like a really pretty Audrey Hepburn. Black turtleneck, diamond studs, red cheeks from the cold, and sparkling blue eyes. Always a little sad, but usually excited and hopeful underneath, now though, frightened.

"I don't want to get hurt." She said softly, like a child.

"What happened?"

"I read page 190 of your book." She had the galley and had been reading it since I knew her. I didn't think there was anything scary in there that would freak her out. I mean, she knew about my sexual proclivities and was into them. She didn't particularly like reading about my exes which I liked. I'm jealous in the same way and make her play a game in which if she ever talks about sex in the past she must refer to it as something she knows about because a "friend" of hers participated. She, of course, was a virgin before meeting me. I feel her pain in this area. But she knows it's in there and deals with it how she deals with it. This was something else. Something much worse. I had forgotten about page 190.

"What's on page 190?"

"You talk abut how whenever you date someone and tell them you want to still see other people before you go steady it always means you're just wishful thinking and really just staving off the inevitable which is that you don't really like them enough."

Melinda had told me she wasn't interested in seeing anyone else. I told her I needed some time to get to know her and trust her and even though there wasn't anyone else in the picture right now except for her, I just wanted more time to see if I liked her enough to want to be exclusive. All fair. All understandable in normal circumstances she agreed... now, understandably upsetting in light of the feelings I expressed on page 190.

"Oh right. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about that before you read it, Melinda."

"Is that how you feel about me?"

"Here's the deal. As with everything in that book, and I think as you know, it's how I feel about everything in my life that I think... I half completely believe it and I half completely challenge it in myself. In the past, what I wrote on page 190 has been true. Do I think that it has to remain true? Absolutely not. Do I believe whole heartedly that I could be entirely wrong about everything I hold to be true? Absolutely. I go forward with the best that I know in the moment, it's well thought out, it's based on my life experience so I get behind it and live it with complete devotion, but at the same time, am completely willing to have it's validity and usefulness and worth challenged by myself or anyone else. Does that make sense?"

"Yes." She was instantly relaxed. It was the answer she was hoping for and believed. And she should have, because it was the truth.

"I do want to get to know you. I don't want to fall in love anymore with someone I don't know. I like the feeling and believe it's okay to have but I don't want it anymore with someone I've decided I'm gonna have it with just because. I want to dial the drama down a couple notches and see if I like you and you like me. As people. As friends, and then if we fall in love, great. But I've fallen in love too many times with people who ended up being people I didn't really like and I just don't have the heart for it anymore. Because once you're a pickle you can't be a cucumber again as they say. And even if I don't end up liking her, if I've fallen in love with her, my heart hurts the same."

She nodded in agreement.

"I mean, this is all stuff you said to me in that first week when we were talking on the phone."

"I know. And I agree with you. I just wanted to hear you say what you said."

"And you believe me right?"

"Yes."

"I really like you and I like you more and more as we get to know each other."

"And I you."

"Okay, so stop reading my book like it's Dianetics. You scared me."

"I'm sorry."

"May I fuck the shit out of you now?"

"Yes, please." She smiled and jumped on the bed. The bright midday sun filled my room and bounced off my white duvet and her alabaster face and we were good again. This Sunday's disaster not nearly as harsh as the previous one's. Maybe we were learning each other a little better.

We had it off. She caught a cab to Newark and I went to buy Super Bowl supplies. As she flew home to the South, I binged old school on home made bacon cheese burgers, French fries, and a pint of Hagen Daz and three Chocolate Nemos. I would be sick on Monday, but not from a Sunday morning fight, which made the smell of Melinda on my pillow all the more sweet.

P.S. I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 3:52 AM

Two Days Old - February 7, 2007

I slept okay with Melinda in the bed, not great, but better than in Charleston. I was slowly getting used to her and she did sleep like a stone so I wasn't as afraid that my tossing and turning was keeping her awake.

And it was nice having her there in the morning.

We had some fun frisky time and then went apartment hunting for her second home... The hotel. I slung my yoga matt on my back as I was going to head off to my usual 3 o'clock Saturday class after checking her into her house. We found a very decent joint just around the corner from my house. They've turned all these old SROs into cheap hotels that are very nice and affordable and since she wasn't really going to be in the room very much and it really was more of a psychological tool than a real place she was going to be, I felt fine about getting her one of these houses. She was totally cool with it. It was above my diner on Broadway and a place where busloads of Swedish tourists always stay. I felt it had good vibes.

I kissed her good bye and went off to yoga, she went off to read and get a mani/pedi from the Koreans, although I had scared her off them a bit by telling her about the marginal cleanliness of some of the joints. I think I had fallen prey to one of those awful local evening news "watch dog" pieces on a particularly nasty establishment that offered staff infections along with their treatments and told Melinda about it. She had brought her own tools to give to the ladies to use on her so she wasn't all that freaked out.

I was going to meet up with her for dinner on 6th Street for Indian and Donny was going to join us. Yes. The first "friend meeting" was going to be that night. That's why I couldn't invite her to what I was doing after yoga before dinner because it would have been intimacy overload at this stage of the game.

My friends Tom and Jenny had just had their second baby on Thursday. He was two days old, just like take two of Melinda and my relationship. Having her come along to meet two of my friends with their newborn baby no less was just way too much, so I went alone.

I've never been that into hospital shows on TV. I never really got the drama. I've never been sickly or accident prone. I've always been healthy and an athlete and in pretty decent shape and so has my family thank God, so I haven't spent much time in hospitals. But going in this one for some reason I was suddenly awestruck with this extra wave of humility. They really are places that make you think abut life and death. I mean, obviously, but it just had never landed for me like it did on Saturday.

I made my way to the 13th floor, the same floor I grew up on, the same floor my mom still lives on in the apartment I grew up in. I found Tom and Jenny's room at the end of the hallway. They were both beaming and happy to see me. They are both in their early 40's and as a result, their two year old son is very calm. All of my friends who had kids in their late 30s or early 40s have calm kids. I think it tends to follow, the more serene the parents, the more serene the kids. Not that age inherently breeds wisdom, obviously it doesn't or our world would look a lot different. Maturity only comes with ceaseless self appraisal and tireless spiritual study and discipline. Having as far to go as I have, having worked as hard as I have to this point, it's easy to see why we're in the predicament we are since most are clueless that there's even anything they need to be looking at. The world's run by 60 year-old 13 year-old boys who never got over getting sand kicked in their faces.

I held this tiny little human in my arms and was blown away. He was a cesarean like I was. My mother had been in labor for 48 hours until they finally had to get me out because I was strangling on my umbilical chord and would die in 60 seconds if I wasn't liberated. I was afraid of this world it seems and wanted to stay in the cozy warmth of my mom. But it all worked out well. It's my theory on why I feel comfortable rushing. I always have. On the rare occasion I get to an airport early, I'll still find a way to have to run to the plane before they shut the door. I just feel more comfortable with some pressure. High stakes. I think that's why.

So I left the hospital and walked downtown on Second Avenue. It had been a tough week with all the hate aimed at me from the scared, sad, people who only know that way to deal with it. And even with all the love from all of you and my friends who are also to some extent sad and scared but like me, have figured out a better way to handle it than misguiding it as hate towards others who have nothing to do with it, I still felt a bit drained.

But having held this two day old boy in my arms... A little me... A little everyone, all that went away and the majesty of this life came slamming gently into me like the strong cold wind pushing me in the chest as I walked. It was 3 below with wind chill. I was in heaven. I've always loved the cold. Like me, the tiny one I had just held, was born Aquarian. He would love the cold too.

I got on a cross town bus at 14th Street to meet Melinda at Union Square so I could walk with her to the restaurant on 6th Street. I stood in the front. It was crowded. A disheveled man wearing only a dirty, stained Tee shirt under a light windbreaker sat to my left, facing me. He had thick glasses, 4 day scruff, matted tossed hair and a medicated gaze. He was holding a DVD off an old, lesser known Bruce Lee movie. Out of nowhere he announced, "I love Bruce Lee. I always have. Ever since I was a kid. He Made movies and then played Kato on the Green Hornet." He was aiming his conversation at an elderly woman, who clearly didn't know him, sitting across the isle from where he was sitting. She ignored him. He was nonplussed and forged ahead. "I like 50 year old women. I'm attracted to them." By elderly, I mean she was 70. He didn't mean her. He was just sayin... "40, 50. I don't care. It's normal. I'm 40." A few people started to look at each other and laugh that laugh that people do when they want to collude against the crazy guy. I never join that group. I have more of the "but for the grace of God go I" point of view. It's a smaaaaaaaaaaaaaall degree, a sliver of luck that separates that guy and me and I never forget it or take it for granted. I'd be his friend if no one else would.

"Women are beautiful at all ages. 50, 60, 70. Amazing creatures."

"Well not 70. I'm 40. But 50 is good." He didn't want to wax poetic with me. He was talking nuts and bolts. I joined his sensibility.

"Absolutely."

"I would like the woman. I would like to meet the nice woman and marry her."

"I think you should. You're clearly a talented man. You like Bruce Lee. I'm sure the perfect woman is out there for you."

"You think?"

"I know."

"Okay. Thanks."

"I have to get off now, but you have a nice night."

"You too." It's amazing to me how many people are hanging on by a thread, me included at times. As long as you don't commit any crimes you're allowed to be out in society, walk, talk, ride busses, go to delis, eat hot dogs from hot dog stands... be a normal person like the rest of the normal people out there. Out here. Yeah.

You're gonna throw the first stone? Hysterical.

I'm gonna throw the first stone? Even more hysterical.

I met Melinda and we met Donny and had a nice dinner at my favorite Indian joint. They got along well though Melinda seemed a little tired which she remarked on as we headed up town in the cab.

"I feel like I wasn't very social. I'm just so tired."

"You were perfect. Donny is only ever sort of present anyway, like me. He didn't notice."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

We got back to my house and I of course made my special cookies. By the time I was back from the kitchen Melinda was passed out on the couch. The SNL opening monologue wasn't even over yet and she was out.

"Here's your dessert."

She popped up and started eating it. "I just don't know why I'm so tired.... Ohhhhhhhhhhhh"

"What?"

"I'm so stupid! I just realized."

"What?"

"I took a Benedryl before I met you because of the allergies." She had complained of allergies when she woke up at my house that morning. I told her it was just the dry air from the radiators. A winter in New York thing.

"Honey, that shit'll fuck you up! It's like Tuinalls. Haven't you ever taken them before?"

"No." For such a smart girl, she has a little Alabama Whirley in her. It's what I like about her but the downside is she doesn't know Benidryl will knock you out.

"You have enough energy to give me little half comatose blow job before you pass out again, baby?" She grinned and started crawling over towards me.

"You were thinking about that at dinner weren't you."

"Maybe."

"I think your cookies might just have given me the boost I need," she said as she unzipped my pants.

"What if I get inspired and want you to sit on me?"

"I don't know how long I'll be able to stay awake. You might just have to keep fucking me in my sleep." Her eyes were closing as if she was already starting a dream.

"Well maybe I better just let you blow me then."

"No. I wanna fuck."

"But what if you fall asleep and fall off me and hit your cute little head on the ground."

"I won't." And she was asleep on my lap... which was so sweet and so fine. My pants would need to be open in a few minutes anyway after my third helping of cookies and Rice Dream so it was all good.

I thought of how much I enjoy my life. The little things. How lucky I am to be able to walk and talk and get a doughnut and a cup of coffee in a coffee shop and listen to the bitter wind howl out on Second Avenue.

Wait for a bus.

Watch a TV show.

Have a soft girl asleep on my lap.

Hold a baby boy whose eyes focused on me and wondered what any of it was and would be. That wonder doesn't have to be gone, I thought. I can have it now. I just have to want to have it.

That's the hard part.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 1:35 AM

Blast Frozen - Melinda In New York - February 6, 2007

Melinda was lying next to me in my bed, half clothed, fully red-cheeked, looking up at me from the crook of my right arm. She buried her nose in my arm pit, ripe with both nervous and sex sweat, a uniquely musty man combination, took a big whiff and smiled, "I love how you smell." Only two women my entire life have been that enamored by that particular style of scent. To varying degrees, others have either liked or disliked my smell, both when freshly bathed and squeaky clean, (with Halston Z14 from ages 21-37 or CK1 ages 37 to present, or au natural,) and when a little funky either by choice or because of a recent work out or yoga class, and have let their feeling known in either case, but only Melinda and one other ex lover have ever been so taken with it... which obviously is deeply excellent. You feel seriously accepted if that smell is not only not abhorrent to your lover but in fact a turn on.

It's all about smell. That's why I sent her the perfume. I wanted to set myself up for the best chance to love her. I love how she smells in the perfume and I love all her natural smells as well. Very important.

"I like that you love how I smell. Only one other girl has ever loved my funkiest smell and we had amazing sexual chemistry."

"Better than me?"

I could tell she wanted the truth in this instance. I respected her enough and knew that while it's not always the case that brutal honesty is the best course to take, (sometimes it's just brutality cloaked in the honor of honesty) in this instance, it was important for me to tell her the truth.

"Yes."

"Was she better because you loved her?"

"Yes."

"And you don't love me yet?"

"No. Not yet."

"Do you think if you did I have the potential to be your best lover ever?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay." She cooed, smiling happily, like she knew if she at least had the potential to win, she would and that made her happy. "You like me though, right?"

"Yes, I do."

"What will make you like me more?"

"Trusting that you're deep frozen and not blast frozen."

"What do you mean?"

"You know when you did the big flip-flop after I left Charleston..."

"Yeah..." She had told me she never wanted to talk to me again that last morning when I first visited her but then called me the next day upon my return to NYC and told me she had made a mistake and hoped I felt the same way and wanted to see me again, feeling our fighting could be worked through and not wanting to lose what she felt were a lot of good things we had and might have. I agreed. That's why she flew up to see me for another date.

"Consistency is really really important to me and that flip-flop kind of rocked my fledgling trust and scared me. I need to get to know you now, slowly, in order to believe that when you say you have strong good feelings for me, you know, a day after you said you never want to see me again, that they're real and not just trying to get me back for the sake of just getting me back. That you're deep frozen as opposed to blast frozen."

"I understand what you're saying but I don't get the difference between the two kinds of freezing."

"When I was in college I worked in the Alaskan salmon cold storage plants for two summers. You could make tons of money... I would bring back thousands of dollars and buy coke to deal at college. My strange duality of old fashioned work ethic and drug addict. I started on the slime line which was the worst job. Freezing cold, standing in water for 20 hours a day. You chopped the heads off, pulled the guts, cleaned the blood line from the spine with a spoon shooting water out of it or threw them in a bin. After doing that for a couple weeks I managed to get in good with this guy who was manager of the back room, which was much cushier. Warm, dry. He was a dancer for some strange reason, but since I was too, we bonded. You can always find like minded souls even in the machoest of environments.

He got me a job with him. I just had to lay fish on a big cookie sheet and put the sheets on these big steel things like you see in hotels that hold lots of trays and then wheel them into these blast freezers that would quick freeze the fish over night. Then we'd send them through a conveyer belt that washed them in a sugar glaze and then box them up and they'd get shipped out to restaurants around the world to be eaten within two days. The excess went into these amazing icy catacombs.... The deep freezers, where they would get frozen hard as a rock.

I wonder if your affection for me is blast frozen or deep frozen."

"Deep frozen... but I understand you need time to trust that."

"I do."

I kissed her and asked her to stay the night. It was already 3am.

"You don't want me to go to my house?" The hotel room I was going to put her in was euphemistically referred to as her house. In an effort to try and date as "normally" as we could and not increase the pressure, I didn't want to feel obliged to have her spend the night or to spend all my time with her even though she was in New York to see me. If it was a normal fifth date and we had known each other a couple weeks, we may or may not want to spend the night together or do things on Saturday.... In all likelihood we would go our separate ways at some point. I wanted to create a landscape of normalcy, much like I did by having my own place in Charleston. She was okay with that idea, not thrilled, but understood where I was coming from.

But I was happy having her warmth next to me.

"We'll figure it out tomorrow... I mean if you want to stay over tonight."

"Of course." She kissed me sweetly.

"Don't be a bed hog."

"Just push me if I do... I won't wake up."

"Okay. I'm glad you came."

"Me too." The first lovely, bitter, icy night wind of the winter whipped off the Hudson rattling the windows, the full moon and clanking radiators serenading us to sleep. There was hope. We'd be at least blast frozen by the morning.

That was day 1. Day 2 tomorrow.

P.S. I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 12:03 AM

January - February 2, 2007

Historically, January has always been a month of beginnings for me. While there's the new year that we all celebrate, I also have January 3rd, which is the day I got sober in 1983, and my birthday on January 22nd in 1788. Can I please stop making age jokes on myself? That just started recently. I even lately said, "I've been living on the upper west side for nearly half a century" to make a point to someone. Why the fuck am I claiming, even as weight for the correctness of my opinion, an extra 5 years at this point?! I have to stop that. I'd rather be wrong than 5 years older. Fuck it. You win.

So, January is always a challenging month for me. Introspection, honest self-analysis always is. Also, very celebratory in that whatever I find, whether stuff I want to nurture or discard, having made the journey inward, is the victory in itself.

I'm glad it's February.

This year's survey (and mind you, it's a daily examination I do year-round but it just seems iridescent in January because of the big days that are symbols of radical change that exist in that month) has been particularly revealing. You already know the how and why of it so I don't need to repeat it.

One of my beloved spiritual advisors who is no longer with us, whose birthday also happened to be in January, the 27th, the same day as one of my closest friends, an ex girlfriend from many years ago, Kate, taught me this prayer. "Thank you God for all that happened today, regardless of appearances."

I can't always see the grace right away. Sometimes it takes a little while to incubate, especially if it didn't feel good at the time. But if pain is the touchstone to spiritual progress sometimes, which I believe and have seen evidenced countless times in my life, then our tribulations are, in their very essence, gifts, and knowing that on a meta level, like a whisper from an all mighty protector in the heat of battle, makes those moments not only more bearable, but sneaking suspicions of blessings to come.

So, again, thank you to all who were with me last month. For those of you who don't write me, you must know how amazingly beautiful your co-readers express what I know is in your hearts as well, and how inspired I am from the love from all of you, seen and unseen.

I'm starting February without my Internet dating profiles active. While Melinda and I are not going steady yet, and are just getting to know each other more, I've decided to take them down anyway, just cuz. I don't know what will happen with her. I am open to everything the universe has in store for me, and as hope is the enemy of the now, I am letting my present feelings guide me until and if I want to make more of a commitment, and until and if she wants to make more of one as well. Whether or not she ends up being HER for me and I HIM for her, or someone else becomes that person for us, is in the Great Spirit's hands... and of course whether she'll let me watch football, (both in reality and euphemistically of course and if I continue to smell nice to her) but for today, though I've met many wonderful girls on the dating sites and had many interesting, sexy, excellent experiences, I want to focus the chi a little more, so they're off for now. MySpace and this site are always ways to contact me if you need to. I try to respond as quickly as I can to all who come with love.

The month of romance is here... hearts and cookies for all!! Namaste, e

P.S. One of the funniest, most absurd chapters in the book, which celebrates just how wonderfully crazy I (all of us) can be, is about online dating. Pray for me to have the strength NOT to spoil it for you by telling you about it here. 100 days and counting kids!!!!! That was a little mean... You like it a little though, I know. xo e

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 5:05 PM

Vomit, Cookies, And A Little Surprise - February 1, 2007

In that order.

Vomit: I've always hated vomiting. Even when I was an active drug addict and alcoholic 24 years ago, I never vomited. I can count on one hand the times I puked during my 7 year D and D career. For most people who shoot heroin, vomiting is part of the process, almost the thing that kicks off the high. Shoot, puke, get high. Never once did I vomit after shooting up.

I abhor vomiting.

Most drunks I know had the philosophy that puking would make them feel better and then they could drink more, faster so they ("looked forward to it" might be a stretch) didn't mind it so much.

I would rather lie in paralyzing agony for days, the room spinning a million miles an hour, doing ANYTHING I had to not to vomit, rather than go through it. I don't know. I just fucking hate it.

The only time is food poisoning. Then it's game over. 4am your eyes open and within 6 seconds I'm happily head in toilet bowl. That's the only exception. Everything else, I do anything not to throw up.

Metaphorically, I felt the same way about letting my demons; Self hate, envy, jealousy, insecurity, self centered fear, pride, or ego inform my reactions.

I work exceptionally hard not ever to blow up. Because I can be a mother fucker to end all mother fuckers and it doesn't feel good at all. It feels terrible. And I know it's a cancer that kills. Therefore, I can also count on one hand in the last 24 years, the times I have let the old Eric, who used to thrive and derive endless joy from verbally murdering others, out.

I pride myself on operating with the same spiritual principles that my heroes did, i.e. Gandhi blessing the man that shot him as he was dying. That's the goal. That level of enlightenment. I succeed 99 percent of the time. Not that I don't harbor evil, vicious thoughts way more than I wish I did, but I pray for the well being of my perceived enemies and usually end up having them be my friends, or at least my teachers in that they unearthed something about my character that I was then able to let go of because seeing it in them, I knew it must be in me. I'm very careful who I hate because in my experience they become my friends. And the truly enlightened person, or one on that path, upon being seized with a resentment immediately asks the question, "When do I do the same thing?" It's not even about the other person. So, in that spirit, I had to come to the following realization. I mean I knew it all along but was just too weak to stop myself. Well, I did stop myself three times but then finally went through with it, letting that writing out.

Yesterday I fell prey to my baser instincts. My lower darker side and I'm ashamed I behaved as I did. I am far from perfect, though in this area, as I have said, I have a near perfect record for not reacting against violence perpetrated against me with violence, but instead love. Yesterday I wasn't able to heed my higher calling and sank.

So, I'm sorry to anyone I hurt. Those of you who expected more from me and those who expected what you got.

Violence is easy, and although, like vomiting, there's an initial rush of relief, victory, and comfort, there's still a sick taste left in your mouth and a deep pain in your belly. I don't like that. That's why I usually pray for those who wrong me instead of fighting them. It seems much harder but actually is the easier softer way. The ego tries to trick you into thinking you're weak for taking that tact, but that's a lie. It's the courageous person that loves in the face of hate, not the coward.

So, all those who hate me. Thank you, I love you.

And of course, all those who love me. Thank you, I love you.

I deeply believe all of what I wrote yesterday. It's not that I'm taking it back. I'm asking forgiveness for the mean spirit behind it. For the part of me that felt, thought and puked that into the universe, adding to the hate instead of increasing the love. I wish I had had the courage to just give the pure message without the moments of vitriol.

I didn't read anything from any negative website yesterday nor will I ever as it does nothing but tempt my small self and doesn't enrich my or anyone's life, but a friend did tell me that one publication's response to my mixed- spirited-message was to flip it on me. I'm glad they took the lesson to heart and were able to apply it so quickly, illustrating that it's spirit was grasped because it was true. In part, I was them yesterday, as they were me. In part. As my essay also revealed in depth, I was also very much not them yesterday, at the end, acting out with a loving pure spirit. In spite of my baser self, extending love to my attacker.

And today, thank God, I am back. Completely. Where they are is on them.

But when I was gone, man, it didn't feel good, even for just one day, to revisit the old way I used to act. It really hurts to hurt people. Especially sick people. It really is kicking someone when they're down. And anyone who hates is clearly sick, as I was yesterday. But I'm better now. Because of them. My teachers. Mirroring my own fear and hatred and sickness, so I am eternally thankful to them.

Life is too short. We have too much to do, you and I. We have too much love and joy and happiness to spread and feel. We don't have time for hate. We're all going to be dead really really soon. There is no time.

There's only one real vocation for us.

There is only one thing that impresses.

Only one question worth asking.

Who did you help today?

Who did I help today?

Please forgive me for my lapse yesterday. I feel certain it won't happen again... at least not for a very very long time, I hope.

Okay. My side of the street is clean. Now, back to the fun and the not fun but the life that matters. That inspires.

Cookies: A few of you have written me (so I suspect there are many more who haven't) asking for the cookie recipe. Here it is my vegan and non vegan friends alike. They are fucking AMAZING and have no dairy, eggs or cane sugar in them. But they are as sweet and as rich as you want them to be.

My famous vegan Chocolate chocolate-chip banana, peanutbutter cookie/brownies.

ALL ORGANIC OF COURSE

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup 1 minute oatmeal

3 over ripe bananas

Two tablespoons vanilla extract

Mash that all together, the bananas and the vanilla extract will eventually make enough liquid to bind the dry stuff together. Don't worry if it's a little dry, we'll fix that later...

I just had to laugh, from strap-ons up my bum to forgiveness to cookie recipes and everything in-between. Isn't life awesome! You guys are the fucking greatest. I love people like you.

Okay, so leave that in a bowl. Get whatever kind of unsweetened baker's chocolate you like. Hershey, Nestles, or this cool new thing in a black box that looks like gold bars, Shrarfen Berger or something like that? It's suddenly everywhere. Whole Foods has it.

Anyway, melt as much as you like depending on how chocolaty you want them, I use like half the box or brick. Slowly melt that down with again, to taste; I like them kind of not too sweet, a couple tablespoons of Maple Syrup. Grade A amber or whatever is fine. Pour that melted chocolate liquid into the batter.

Then add a couple big table spoons of peanut butter (if you like that, if not, just omit) and then a bag (of half if you're not a junkie) of Sunspire Grain Sweetened Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips. Mix it all together and if you want brownies, put them in a brownie pan, if you want cookies, dollop them out in whatever size you like your cookies to be. Put them on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 20 minutes if they're big fuckers like I like. Like cow patties. If they're small and cute, bake em for 10 minutes. The brownie pan would probably be about 35 minutes.

Then I put vanilla rice dream on them hot out of the oven and basically have an orgasm.

Now, lately, the Sunspire Grain Sweetened Chocolate chips haven't been agreeing with my stomach the next day. Nothing dramatic but just feeling a little not so great but maybe it could also be that I scarf the whole batch. But since I'm not a vegan anymore I've been substituting regular Chocolate chips, but for years I did the Sunspire and they're great as long as you don't eat the whole batch I guess.

Now, if you just want regular chocolate chip and not chocolate -chocolate chip, just make them the same except don't add the melted chocolate. That's how I made them for Melinda last night and she liked them better then when I made the chocolate-chocolate chip ones for her in Charleston.

Yeah. She flew up last night. We hung out. She called a couple days ago and we started talking and decided to give it another shot. I'll let you know what happens, but it'll be on a time delay since I don't want to play it out on here until I play it out in real life and there's either traction or we decide we're just not suited for each other. But you'll be the first to know. xo e

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 1:11 PM

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The Cool Kids - January 31, 2007

I thought of some things I wanted to say but I wasn't sure I would feel good about saying them so I tabled the decision of whether or not I would write them until after yoga. I get most of the answers I need to the important questions in my life during meditation so dedicating the practice to the answer was perfect.

We started off with a famous and well used Sanskrit chant:

Lokah Samasta Sukinoh Bhavantu

Loosely translated it means "May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may my thoughts and actions contribute in some small way to that happiness and to that freedom for all."

Now that sentiment is truly one that I hold dear to my heart. I do want to contribute in some small or big way to everyone's happiness and freedom. That's the sole reason I make movies and TV shows and write books.

In this scary, fucked up, fractured world, anything that can make us feel united, part of a whole, I feel is the greatest gift one can give. Based on the large majority of the reaction I have gotten to my work over the last 15 years, I seem to be achieving my goal and for that I am deeply grateful. If by cleaving my heart open, bearing my soul, you identify with me and feel less isolated as a result, we are one, and that feels really good for both of us.

I was concerned that the thoughts I wanted to share with you would fly in the face of this beautiful request to the universe for all people to be happy and free, in part from my actions and thoughts, and that made me sad. But I continued my practice and continued listening to see if there were any more messages and lo and behold, half way through a vigorous sun salutation with some cool music blasting, I heard the answer loud and clear.

"You will be helping them to be happy and free because you'll be talking in a language they understand."

I was thrilled! In the marrow of my bones I knew this to be true. See, these feelings I wanted to share weren't going to be directed at you, my loyal and united fans, they were going to be directed at the vast minority who from time to time yell loudly, begging for my attention. I usually treat them like the terrorists they are and don't respond, but this time somehow I wanted to buck that age old theory of non-negotiation and find some way to help them to be happy and free too. I feel I've failed them and I don't like that. I won't accept that they are lost forever. I realized in yoga that I've been speaking a language they don't speak and therefore my work has been lost on them. And the thing is, I know their language well, I just haven't spoken it in a very long time. But like riding a bike, I feel certain I will remember it right away and they will be able to be, through this new communication method, brought into the fold and enjoy the happiness and freedom that we all feel being brothers and sisters in this crazy world we all love.

To give most of you a little back story on why I felt it necessary to share these particular thoughts that will follow, since I know most of you are oblivious to the Rosemary that spawned this baby, allow me to give you the account of the little demon's birth.

Daily I check to see how many people have read my blog. Whether it's growing, ebbing, flowing... It consistently grows a little every week in its readership, which is great. The other day the number suddenly spiked, like, a bazillion percent. Like many thousands of people above the usual number. I called the friendly people at Rudius who run the site and asked if maybe the counter was broken. They informed me that no, it was working fine and that maybe I had been linked somewhere. I don't even know what "linked" means. I turn on the computer; write my little blog, Google the weather forecast, NFL lines, and the occasional Animal Love porn site and we're done. You know, the minimal.

So then I got a couple emails from friends asking me if I was okay about this "Gawker thing." I really had no clue what a "Gawker thing" was but I deduced from these emails that they were the "link" that had created this 10,000 percent increase in my fans. I was so grateful and excited that these nice folks over at Gawker, whatever that was, had seen fit to write such nice things about me and send so many people my way. I didn't really have time to find them, you know with my life and all, making movies and TV shows and writing books that millions of people world wide love and will love for hundreds of years, long after the small, sad, scared gossip writers who spew hate because they can't get a job either for lack of talent or gumption, have been forgotten; not that these Gawker people were among this crowd, you know, I'm just sayin'... So I just went on about my day enjoying the nice feeling that some stranger had performed this mitzvoth on my behalf.

For a week my website kept climbing and climbing. Amazing letters, like the wonderful ones you guys always write me were pouring in from all these new people. It was amazing. Thousands and thousands and thousands of new people every day. Day after day. And then all these nice writers from Salon and Maxim Radio and the Post and Glamour started asking me if I wanted to be interviewed about this Gawker thing.

Thank you Gawker. I love you. Man, how great. So I did the first interview yesterday with Salon, and she asked me some questions about the "Gawker thing" and I felt a little badly since I hadn't read it and had to wing some of my answers but I knew a little because some friends had told me a little bit about what had been written there. Apparently some of the gals I had met in the past that missed me terribly and felt too hurt to contact me personally had written in to this Gawker thing and shared some of their pain.

The interview was lovely and I went home. I had a few minutes before I had to get back to work so I decided to try to find this Gawker on the internet and read it so I would be more informed for my subsequent interviews.

Guys, I was sooooooooooooo disappointed. Here I thought that whatever this Gawker thing was was going to be interesting, funny, smart, something, but it was none of those things. They were trying their best to be snarky and mean but they were so banal and sophomoric and uncreative about it it made me embarrassed for them. I mean the biggest reviewers in the world writing for the most important papers in the world have taken their best shots at me over the years, and while misguided and like all hate gossip obvious declarations of their own self-hate, at least they were well written. These were just so, seventh grade... but then I realized, it must actually be some kind of seventh grade school paper that a school put up on the internet. So these people writing, and the readers writing in were actually little seventh graders and then I wasn't as disappointed. I mean I still had more hope for fourteen- year-olds but at least they were trying their best and had figured out how to get their little articles up on the internet. That was impressive.

And then it made sense why the girls I had known had written in, deciding it best to express their feelings in that forum, a seventh grade newsletter, rather than express whatever feelings they had directly to me, you know, like an adult. They were girls that I hadn't wanted to date for more than twenty minutes, unfortunately, for many reasons, well, for one, although not fourteen, emotionally, apparently so. They felt more comfortable in their element.

Although I wasn't as disappointed in Gawker now that I realized the people running and reading it were children, it was very troubling, however, that these were homophobic, anti-gay children. That actually concerned me very much.

The spirit behind some of the things they were saying about me made it clear that Gawker is a homophobic and anti-gay publication. That sucked to find out. They seemed to think if I was gay or bisexual that would be an abhorrent thing. Wow. Gawker is anti-gay. Who knew?

What they did make clear, along with their anti-gay message, was that they and their readers are obsessed with me. And since I do want to help them be happy and free, I want to give them the gift of the truth straight from my mouth. I know it will make their day, so kind of like The Make A Wish Foundation granting gifts for emotionally and mentally handicapped kids, I thought I would clear up a few things for all of you Gawkerites who can't get enough of me.

To keep it short and sweet. Ladies, you doth protest too much. Just too fucking much, huh? Like on and on and on and on protesting? Yeah, you really really really think I'm ugly and aren't into me blah bede blah blah. Couldn't be that your feelings were hurt because I didn't like you, could it? Doh! Na. You just want to help the public to an informed opinion about just how much you weren't into me.

I'm sorry I didn't like you. Really I am. I wish you had the grace and dignity and respect not to lie about what happened, which each of you that wrote in, to some extent, know you did.

Yeah, their story was the whole story. You believe that, you're fourteen. Oh wait, right. Seventh graders.

But the most important thing at this juncture is that I forgive you all for all of your transgressions. And as proof, here's my olive branch Gawkerites. Just so you know I'm sincere. I want to give you a really really serious gift in hopes that we can make up and better understand each other and in doing so, I can help make your lives happier and freer.

What I'm about to say is the deepest. It won't ever get any deeper. So take a deep breath. Sit down. Prepare. I didn't make it up. People have been offering it up since the beginning of time in different ways but it's always the same message. And I want to share it with you in a language you can understand.

For those of you who are already down with its premise, or even more so, down with it in your heart, (meaning all my faithful readers) it won't come as any surprise and you'll get chills. It's unavoidable. It's staring into the face of God (whatever that means to you as long as it's a loving and abundant conception. And for you atheists, you're not left out of this party either, not by a long shot, it's the secret to your euphoric experience here in this lifetime even though the earthly experience is the be all and end all for you. The effects are equally as beautiful.)

Those of you who are like I used to be (and still can be in an instant if I'm not constantly vigilant and battling the dark pull to be so) and are desperately afraid of who you are deep inside, and are still, like a puppet, tossed about by your self hate and shame, clueless to the origin of your profound unhappiness and the truth that you are perfect as you are, won't understand it. And if you do, the scared puppet master in charge of you (whose only hope for sustained life is keeping you in the dark, away from this truth because it will set you free and in doing so kill him off) will convince you that it's foolish and pathetic and weak and uncool and cause you to dismiss its absolute, undeniable truth.

But my hope is that one day, like I did; you'll be graced with the courage to embrace it as your divine mother and father. Human mother and father, and you won't continue to kill every moment of this precious oh so short life and actually will find some happiness.

Believing it is really really hard. Living it, ridiculously harder. I fail most of the time but I at least have been blessed with enough courage to know that it's the only thing that has any hopes of delivering me to a happy life. And for that I'm grateful. And in knowing that, I am compelled to, in every single moment that I don't want to, that I want to live counter to it and take the infinitely easier dark way out, heed its council, in spite, and summon the courage to act from its voice.

It's a motherfucker. It's gonna fuck your shit up big time.

Ready? Really ready? Here it is.

I am you.

OH SHIT!!!! THAT'S RIGHT!! NO WAY!!!!

I... am... you.

In every way. All the time. Without fail.

Anything you think, feel, say about me... is how you think, feel and speak about yourself. I know it's a little confusing so let me break it down and make it reeeeeeeeeeeeally simple.

If you were to say, something like, oh I don't know, "Eric Schaeffer is an asshole." What you're really saying is, "I'm an asshole."

If you were to say something like, "Eric Schaeffer is talentless." What you're really saying is "I'm talentless." Getting the hang of it now? No? Still confused? Maybe if I give you an example in the positive, your mind will be able to grasp it. If you were to say something like, "Eric Schaeffer is awesome!" What you're really saying is, "I'm awesome!" If you were to say, "Eric Schaeffer is really talented. I love him." You would really be saying "I'm really talented. I love myself."

Ahhh yes, now you're catching on... I knew you would. Yeah, it's a bitch isn't it. For those of you who (I'm sure none of you do, but hypothetically, if there were someone within ear shot who did) have an unkind thought, feeling or word for me, or if any of you who love me know anyone who seems to misunderstand me and therefore speaks, thinks of feels ill of me, it would be an awwwwwwwwwwwwwfully tough pill to swallow.

It's taken me 24 years of a serious mediation practice. A serious self examination practice. Thousands of hours spent with spiritual teachers and an equal number of hours performing service for others to finally understand this absolute truth. I know it's hard for you to grasp so I'm going to now help you in your language even more than I have already.

Before I do, I must say to my established readership, I want you to understand that this language I'm about to speak to the Gawkerites is a language I eschewed long ago. It might take you aback a bit, so I warn you now that you might want to skip the next section and jump to the end when I'm back speaking a language that you understand. The one I usually use with you and that I use in my life now 99 percent of the time. I'm sort of channeling an old dead way of speaking and relating just to try and help our new friends to come around to a better life. Forgive me for this tactic but I feel it's our only hope of helping them. So here it goes.

Gawkerites. In the past, when I was like you, (you know, how you are now, because then I was you as you are me) if I was trying to help you swallow a pill as hard to swallow as I know "I am you" is for you to swallow, I might have said something like the following;

"Don't worry, I'll help this terribly hard to swallow pill down by putting it right there on the tip of the head of my cock so when you impale your face on it, it will slide easily and effortlessly down the back of your throat in the river of cum I'm saving up for each and every one of you. As your dream come true. As your wet dream realized. Yes, that's how generous I am. I will give you that gift.

Now for you straight boys, I know many of you have only fantasized about sucking my cock, any cock, and have never done it, so you might want to practice a bit with a banana or something because even though I have an average sized cock both in length and girth, it still is going to shock you a bit when it hits the back of your throat and your gag reflex is gonna cause you to choke (I know this from the strap-ons I've sucked, which when you grow up, if you're man enough to admit you might like to experiment in your sexuality, you'll realize not only doesn't make you gay but in fact liberates you and makes you more of a real man regardless of your sexual orientation and proclivities) but just relax, I'll stop thrusting and let you get your bearings again before I slam my dick into your envious little faces, my big balls both slapping up against your sad, scared little cowardly, spineless chins and massaging the throats you only use as vehicles for your tired, pedestrian ideas to flow through and of course as my cum receptacle.

And for you girls who have had more experience, my cock might not be so hard going down because you know what it is to have a cock in your mouth, but the pill will have the same effect when it hits your stomach as it will for the boys when it mixes with all that unavoidable profound anguish you have about not having had the courage to follow your dreams but instead having hid in the cesspool of your own inability to summon the strength to overcome that first humiliation of reading your story in front of class in third grade and having everyone, especially the boy or girl you liked laugh at you.

Remember how excited you were? How proud you were of your story, or song, or poem or thought or feeling? And how you hoped your mom or dad or best friend or crush would smile and say, "that was SO GREAT! You're the best! I love you!" And how blown away you felt when they rejected you, cuckolded you, scorned and embarrassed you in front of everyone? Yeah, that sucked so bad that you said to yourself that you will NEVER EVER try again. You'll just spend the rest of your life on earth trying to get even and hurt them like you were hurt. So, you, champions that you are, courageous men and women that you are, (well tiny children with malformed, stunted child psyches that you are in men and women's bodies,) continue to spend your time desperately trying to gain a smidgen of self esteem by attempting to pull down those people who, like you, suffered the same heartbreak, but unlike you suffered it over and over and over and over and over and over again and still had the balls to continue pursuing their dreams because they knew for every one of you out there that would spend their life trying to kill them for having the courage you would never have, could never have, there are a thousand others like themselves who do have the courage of their convictions and the strength of heart and will to follow their dreams, and that the joy of uniting with even one of those thousand like minded warriors would be sublime to the millionth degree compared to the lonely obvious pathetic pin prick of your attempt to bring them down, which screams the truth of what it and you really are;

A sad, lonely person, who wishes with every ounce of your being that you could be, if only for one second of your life, like those people who have enough courage to actually live their life without the care of what others think, feel, and say about them."

But, since I'm not that person anymore, of course I wouldn't say anything like that now. I would instead echo Mother Theresa and Dr. Kent M. Keith's point of view on the matter and use their eloquent discourse as an offering of how to change your lives for the better. You know, as my gift. And of course, this part is for my alumni as well.

1. This version was found written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta: "Do It Anyway."

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

-this version is credited to Mother Teresa

---

2. The Original Version:

The Paradoxical Commandmentsby Dr. Kent M. Keith

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
   Love them anyway.

2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
   Do good anyway.

3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
   Succeed anyway.

4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
   Do good anyway.

5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
   Be honest and frank anyway.

6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
   Think big anyway.

7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
   Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
   Build anyway.

9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
   Help people anyway.

10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
    Give the world the best you have anyway.
    
    

To the millions of you who join me on this really really amazing and really really hard journey, I love you. All of you. The haters and the lovers. Because you are empty. The beauty I see in you is my beauty and the hate I see in you is my hate, so regardless of what you mirror back to me, you are my teachers and I am eternally grateful to you.

And Gawkerites, if you see me in yoga, or on the street or in a restaurant, come over and say hi. I'm not one of the cool kids. I'll be your friend. Remember, everyone is as scared of you as you are of them. The big secret. Namaste, e

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 11:17 AM

Charleston (Part 4) - January 30, 2007

"Oh my God! You got a Silverado!" She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me like she had won a game show trip to Bermuda. She had told me that she was a sucker for a man in a pick up truck but it had to be a Chevy, definitely not a Ford and she hadn't weighed in on any other makes. I told her I was renting a Kia but instead called every company until I finally found a Chevy truck. It was the biggest she had smiled since I had been there, which didn't upset me. I was glad I nailed it.

"And greeeeeeeeeeey. Nice." She jumped in.

"See. Just don't sass me anymore and things will all work out for you. Trust me."

"Okay."

I squealed out of the parking lot and headed right on Market and left on King. Then I hit a beautiful bridge and took the first exit. Like all baby cities, everything was close even though the people that live there say it's far. Whole Foods was like 7 minutes away, not 20. We made it with plenty of time to spare.

We flew to the baking isle. I love Whole Foods. It's my shrine. I could just roam around in there for hours, but we had to move with some alacrity since they were closing in a few minutes. I grabbed the whole wheat pastry flour, the oatmeal, and the alcohol free vanilla extract.

"Sunspire Chocolate chips, bananas and we're done." I announced.

"That was really fun in the bed."

"Yes it was." I stopped shopping and kissed her tenderly.

"I love fucking in the afternoon," she said, still flushed from the fucking.

"I know, right?"

"Why is that I wonder?"

"Because when we first were messing around and becoming sexual as kids, it was always after school. In the auditorium.... Riverside Park... Her room before her mother got home from work. That's a deeply grooved neuro pathway. The first time?! That's seared in the subconscious deep. It's not gonna go away anytime soon. That's why after school is always the time I get randy. Like clockwork. Since I was seven. At least that's my theory."

"Makes sense."

"And after the after school sex.... The Yodells, Ring Dings and Devil Dogs!"

"Ahhh. So you always binge on sweets now after sex too?"

"Pretty much, yeah. But we like to refer to it as a 'celebration' not a 'binge."

"Chocolate chips. Come on. Bananas. Oh, and peanut butter. And maple syrup. Fuck. We have to hurry. And Vanilla Rice Dream for on top."

We raced around getting the last of the ingredients I needed for my cookies and then made our way back to her house where I cooked a decent, not amazing, but perfectly good batch of my usually better vegan-maple syrup-sweetened-banana-chocolate chip-peanut butter-cookie/brownies with Rice Dream on top.

"You wanna come back to my hotel and sleep over?"

"Are you sure? I know you don't like to have sleep-overs often."

"No. I would like you to. If you want to."

"Sure."

We went back to my place and spent the night. Even though I felt very comfortable with her, I still didn't sleep well. I'm just a bad sleeper, even in my own bed in the best of circumstances, alone. Let alone with a new girl in a new bed. I'm just afraid that my tossing and turning will keep her awake and then I get nervous and can't sleep and I like a lot of space in the bed and it was a double, not even a Queen. I want, like, a double California King. Like a room of bed. Like you could drop and roll and still not bump into anyone.

The next three days, I spent the afternoons proof reading the absolute last draft of my book, which was really cool because they were type set pages with the actual font they're going to use in the book so it seemed like an official book, not just a manuscript and it made it read even better than I hoped it would. I am dying for you to read it. I think you're gonna like it a lot.

The evenings were spent eating, making love, fucking, talking, fucking rough, sleeping, not sleeping, SNL, and then came Sunday.

In a nut shell. Sunday was the blow up. Long story short, she woke up early and bolted with a kiss saying she had errands to run and would call me later. She knew that I would be watching both playoff games alone and that we could hang for dinner after. I got my feelings hurt because she didn't want to cuddle (have sex) pre-game on my last morning there. I over reacted and said some dumb things like "obviously your 'errands' are more important than me." She responded by saying dumb things like, "You can't expect people to rearrange their schedules for you" and we were in a stand off for the 7 hours of football on my last day there. I, thinking she was being unyielding and selfish by accusing me of wanting her to "change her schedule" to cuddle (have sex) when I had fucking flown down there to see her and the errands could wait... she thinking I was being bossy and selfish in not allowing her to have a life while I watched football, which was obviously more important than spending time with her.

After the games I went over to her house and we argued for two hours while I cooked and ate scrambled eggs with melted Mozzarella and spelt seed toast with Earth Balance.

We were having our first deep sigh-what are we even arguing about at this point-talk.

I was frightened by the way she argued more than what was even at issue and she was frightened by my pit bull grip on the argument itself, feeling I couldn't let it go and move on. I left without a hug and went back to the hotel. It was 50/50 that we would ever see each other again.

I think we both felt that if it was this hard this fast, though we really liked each other and had a lot in common and a lot of wonderful chemistry, we might just not be right for each other.

The next morning, I thought fuck it; let me get out of this fucking city. I hated it. Charleston had a decidedly racist deep south vibe that repulsed me. They could smell the north on me and hated me for it. Young black people were angry which scared me and older black people were subservient which made me really sad. The white people seemed superior and fake and mean.

I started to drive to the airport but then at the last minute felt I should give Melinda another chance. Give myself another chance. It's so rare I meet a girl who I like. Who I think is unique and not just at worst a PC-MTV-immediate gratification-superficial-cookie cut out-mindless-ADD-automaton and at best boring or just not blowing up my skirt for whatever reason. And one I'm attracted to as well. Melinda was that. Wildly original, smart as a shark, had heart for days and was sexy as fuck. I made a left towards her house.

It was pouring rain and I decided to call her from my cell phone and sit out front in the truck to start the conversation. There was something poetic about it. Based on how it went I would go in or not. My plane didn't leave for four hours.

Twenty minutes into what quickly became take two of the same argument we had had the night before, I honked the horn and said, "Hear that? That's me saying good bye. You can come out and wave but you probably don't want to."

"Are we done?" She asked bitterly.

"I guess so. I'm really sorry it didn't work out Melinda. I had a lot of hope." I meant that.

"Yeah, whatever. Bye." So did she.

We just couldn't seem to conflict resolve well. And without that skill, every relationship is doomed.

I got off the tiny plane at LaGuardia and it was frigid, for the first time all winter. I love the cold, I always have. It eased the sadness of another slain hope. I waited in the taxi line. A cute girl with a tan and long blonde hair came up behind me.

"Where are you going in the city?" she asked.

"Upper West. You?"

"Village."

"Sorry," I said. "Where'd you get the tan?"

"Sundance."

"Cool." That cemented it. For the time being I was over trying to make a girl like me and trying to like a girl... certainly one who had just been at Sundance. I went home alone in the cab and made it to the restaurant in time to meet my mom and a couple friends for my birthday dinner... oh yeah. It was my 45th birthday that day. Happy Fucking Birthday.

"How was Charleston, honey?" my sweet mom, always optimistic asked with her kooky and hopeful smile.

"Not great."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie." My friends, mom, chocolate cake and the cold my comfort. Who's luckier than me.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 12:17 AM

Charleston (Part 3) - January 28, 2007

"I don't want to yet." She said, looking up from under me on the bed, my hand about to unbutton her pants.

"I thought you said you thought it was dumb to wait and you wanted to fuck me right away?"

"I do. But you said you wanted to wait and that you only fuck girls in the bathroom of the restaurant on the first date if you don't like them."

"Yeah, but baby, we're on our 6th emotional date, 1st in person one, which basically counts as 3rd overall date."

"Oh that's the math?"

"Yes sweetheart. You knew that..." I said with puppy dog eyes and an innocent little smile... She wasn't buying it.

"Melinda. If I didn't think there was a serious possibility of something happening with you there's no way I would have talked with you for ten minutes let alone all day long for five days and I certainly wouldn't have gotten on a plane and flown down here, for what, just to fuck you?"

"Well..."

"Baby. You're fucking hot as shit and gorgeous. I'm still not getting on any plane just to fuck someone." That was the truth and she knew it. She took her hand away from mine. I had the green light to unbutton her jeans.

"And just to prove that, now you're back on my previous time line and not getting fucked for days."

"Nooooooooooooo," she whined like a little girl.

"Absolutely. So what do you want to do now?"

I popped up off of her like I was ready to chat or go bowling or sight see.

"I want to fuck," she said again in a coquettish voice.

"No. I don't want you thinking I'm not honorable."

"Come on." She grabbed me around my neck and pulled me towards her. I resisted... a little.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded yes.

"I want you to be sure."

She nodded again.

"You want me to take your pants off and fuck you?"

"Yes, please."

I stopped the game and in a gentle tone said completely frankly, "I want to get naked with you under the covers."

"Okay." She said excitedly, not understanding that that was a big deal to me. How could she, I hadn't yet confessed how rarely I do that with someone and therefore how significant it was to me.

"I don't do that often."

"Really?"

"No. I've had three third dates in seven years. One girl has spent the night in my bed in that time. It's a really intimate thing to get naked with a girl for me... and especially under the covers. Day, night, whatever."

"But you've fucked more than three girls in the last seven years..."

"Yeah, but usually at least some clothes stay on and it's never under the covers. When I have been completely naked with a girl, both of us, it's always on top of the bed."

"Why is that?"

"I don't know. Waking up with a girl is way more intimate to me than having sex with her. And being naked under the covers is kind of equal to that even if she doesn't stay over."

She smiled and kissed me softly. Then we both jumped off the bed on opposite sides and like a Chinese fire drill, stripped off our clothes, giddy, and jumped into the bed and pulled the covers over us. It was magic light outside. My all time horniest time of the day: 4:30-ish. After school.

I loved her body. She was fit but not hard. Soft and healthy. I love all shapes and sizes of women. I always have. I can find something sexy about every woman. I found a lot sexy about Melinda. Mostly because I liked her.

"Do you think I'm fat?" I asked.

"Oh no. I love a little belly on a man. My girlfriends think I'm crazy but I hate washboard abs on a guy. Men should have a little belly. And women should have hips and an ass. That's how God made us." That wasn't the first time I had heard that from a woman so I believed her. She had hips and an ass and they were lovely.

"You're sure?" I was a little insecure.

"Baby. I love your body.

"Thanks." We were naked, under the covers in the middle of the day and we were talking about our fears. You want to talk about real? You wanna talk about guts? You wanna talk about being an adult? If you've ever tried it, you know, it's fucking intense, that's what it's all about.

This is the part of the story, the part of all of my stories when the cowards run for the hills. And this is the part of all of my stories when the heart people sing. When it gets really real.

She suddenly got scared. "You're not gonna fall for me, are you?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Just a feeling. We're going to fuck and then I won't ever see you again."

"I thought we were off that. I'll put my clothes on right now and take a fucking guided tour bus with you"

"No. Don't joke. Just tell me if that's how you feel."

"No. It's not. We've talked so much on the phone and shared a level of intimacy that it's a little weird in person until we catch up, that's what you're getting from me. That's all" It was the truth. "Seriously. I'm fine not to do this yet."

"No. I'm fine. I'm sorry. I just really like you."

"And I really like you." I kissed her.

We spent three hours in the bed and we both seemed to do exactly what the other person really really liked so that was great. I knew from the first no chemistry kiss with my ex-girlfriend Liza that we were doomed but hoped against hope that what I knew to be true wouldn't be, but was. Melinda and I had amazing chemistry so that boded extremely well for our chances.

"I'm starving," I said. Only making-movies hunger is like three-hour-sex hunger. It's sublime.

"What do you want? This is Charleston. Things close early."

"Where's the Whole Foods? I need to get the cookie supplies."

"You're making your famous cookies for me tonight?!"

"I just realized it has to happen."

"It closes at 9."

"What time is it now?"

"Twenty till."

"Put your clothes on."

"We'll never make it. It's far away."

"Baby, I drove a cab in New York for ten years. We'll make it."

"Okay but I'm driving."

"Of course you're not."

"I'm serious. I'm driving."

"Please don't continue talking. You're wasting time. It's not a discussion. I'm serious. When food, especially cookies, are involved, I can't joke. I'm driving." We argued all the way to the parking lot, dressing as we went. I had a surprise for her. I mean I would have driven anyway but I had a surprise for her so we had to go in my car.

"Just shut up and trust me."

She was really complaining about it.

"Where's your car?"

"I don't know... maybe it's this one." I said, setting her up.

She stopped in her tracks as a hug smile spread over her beautiful face. She looked at my car and said...

To be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 10:34 PM

Charleston (Part 2) - January 26, 2007

I opened the hotel room door and there was Melinda. She had her short, light-brown hair piled up in bobby pins and wore a long white coat. Jeans rode her womanly hips and dark blue leather boots covered the cute feet I had made her take pictures of.

"Hi" she said in her childlike high voice.

"Hey." I said, a little more nervous than I thought I'd be. She came in. I shut the door behind her. I hugged her. She hugged back gently.

"Give me a real hug." I said quietly.

"You said you like gentle hugs."

"I know. But now I want to feel you up against me."

She hugged me again. Hard. It was an excellent sign that she had remembered that I generally prefer soft hugs. The story of why was very important and I was glad she had remembered it. Once, one of my dear friends, Amanda, had asked me for a hug, which I gave her. A nice, light gentle hug. The kind I like.

"No. Give me a real hug," she said.

"That's a real hug."

"No. A strong hug. A bear hug."

"I'm happy to give you a bear hug if that's what a 'real' hug is to you. But mine is no less 'real' cause it's gentle."

That story is real love, real relationship in action. As simple as it is, it holds the secret to the success of all relationships and if more people understood that and executed its simple steps, infinitely more couples would stay together and friendships would be closer.

Teaching each other how to love. How you feel most loved. It doesn't mean it's not "true love" if your partner can't intuit how you feel most loved. Most desired. Most appreciated. It's nice if you luck out and are on the same page but a simple announcement is all that's required and generally the other person is all too grateful for the map to your heart. Hard hug. Soft hug. Flowers. A note left on the fridge in the morning. A kiss on the back of the neck. A pat on the head as you walk by and I watch the game. Everyone gets it differently. I dated a girl who waited until the tenth date to tell me that she hated being called "sweet." Her father used to call her that and it made her blood boil. It's one of my favorite terms of endearment. She wondered why I didn't like her and I wondered how she possibly couldn't know how much I liked her. I was calling her sweet all the time and she was hating it. She said if I called her "beautiful" she would feel I liked her. Done. Easy. But I never would have known had she not told me.

My hotel room was charmingly appointed but small. There were two chairs and a canopy bed. Those were the only places to sit. I hung Melinda's coat over one of the chairs but it just seemed too awkward to sit facing each other in these tall backed chairs so I suggested we jump on the bed. I wanted to be able to feel her whole body next to mine. I didn't want any distance between us. She smiled and jumped on the bed. I followed.

We were laying nose to nose, which I had told her I couldn't wait to do. The only problem was I'm ancient and couldn't fucking see her that close so I had to move back, like, two feet.

"So, do I look like me?" I asked.

"Completely. Do I look like me?"

"Yeah, except you looked so different in so many pictures it's taking me a minute to take you in... but yeah."

We were both nervous and giddy.

"Let's sit up but stay on the bed."

"Okay."

We did. I pulled her close and threw my legs up over her so we could get closer, my legs sticking out behind her back and her legs sticking out behind my back, bent at the knee, like that great position to fuck in that always seems like it's not gonna work but always does really well. It was even hotter because we had jeans on so it was like High School. I moved in and smelled her neck. I whispered, "Is that the perfume I sent you?"

"Uh-huh." She said through her smile. She was making it really fucking hard not to kiss her but I had told her I wouldn't even kiss her on the first real date, let alone do anything else. She had told me she'd want to fuck me when she walked in the door and thought waiting was stupid. I liked her gumption but was trying to wait. Though a Southern lady she liked being dirty in the face of protocol. That's how I am too. I like being a gentleman, unless the set up is different and then I like being a dog. If we're there to fuck then it's game on, if we're there to fall in love, then I like to wait... and then be a dog. Sometimes. Loving and gentle others.

"You smell so fucking good." I loved the sent. It was from L'Occitane. A rip off of Chanel Number 19 which I always had loved. I randomly sampled some Puerto Rican chicks that work the front desk of my gym as to whether or not it would be okay to Fed Ex the perfume as a gift to a girl I hadn't met yet if we had been talking on the phone for 5 days and had exchanged pictures. I wanted to make sure from a female perspective it didn't seem like I was trying to make her into someone she wasn't before I had even smelled her perfume. They all agreed it was sweet and I should do it which was comforting because I had been a tad unnerved by the 25 year old yuppie in the locker room who thought I must be gay or crazy to query him out of the blue even though we both were fully dressed.

"So what do you think? If you had been talking to a girl on the internet for 5 days, would you send her perfume as a gift before you flew to Charleston to see her for the first time?"

"Excuse me?" He was flustered. I should have stopped there but I thought I'd give him a chance to learn what it means to enjoy life and other humans. There apparently wasn't a show about it on MTV so he was lost.

"I met this girl on the internet and I'm flying down to meet her. Do you think it'd be weird for any reason to send her perfume as a gift before I go?"

"I don't know" he said with a nervous laugh. I better make it easier for him.

"Would you do it?"

"I can't say." Now I was just torturing the poor guy but not wanting to give up on him; I gave him one more chance.

"Well, would you or wouldn't you do it?"

"Maybe you should just ask her to lunch." And he got the fuck away from me. I laughed to myself.

"Maybe... I ...should.... just... ask...her...to...lunch." I repeated to myself, suddenly wanting to slit my wrists realizing that he was our future and our present. He was why the world is like it is today.

Thank God for the Puerto Rican girls upstairs. There's hope.

"How long do you think I can go without kissing you?" My lips were behind her left ear, very close to the spot she had told me was her favorite place to be kissed. We talked about a lot on the phone.

"Six minutes." She whispered back in the slightest drawl revealing a small lisp for the first time that I had ever noticed. She was so adorable I couldn't take it.

"You're not getting kissed until tomorrow." I whispered leaving her ear quietly and now putting my lips an inch from hers."

"You'll never make it."

"Yes I will." And I grabbed her and threw her onto her back as evidence of my resolve... and then I got my legs out from under her and got up to my knees over her, in between her legs.

"You have no chance." She said.

"You just watch." And I fell onto her and kissed her. I had been hard all week from the first time she had told me she came really easily and liked best to ride on top. And being in my "saving the chi" mode, I hadn't jerked off in weeks. I had warned her that I was like a 17 year old and might cum during the dry humping make out. She thought that was hot. But I assured her that also like a 17 year old, I would get hard again fast and be able to then act like the man I was and go forever. That was also hot to her. We started kissing fast and hard. It was, after all, really our 6th date in emotional time and she was the one who wanted to fuck straight away anyway so, what the hell, I would sacrifice my needs for hers. I'm giving like that. After teasing her for a while over hers clothes with my hands and lips and breath, I jammed my hand down the back of her jeans and grabbed a handful of her. She had said in her profile that any man that didn't enjoy that should pass her by. I wanted her to know I had been listening to what she thought was important too. She groaned. I went for her button in the front and she grabbed my hand and said...

To be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 10:09 AM

Charleston - January 24, 2007

I had been talking to Melinda for five days. I met her on Nerve the night of the married-chick-without-a-ring- in-yoga day. She was really smart, very funny, a brilliant writer, had a cute southern accent, a dirty mind and was 25 years old. She seemed close to perfect. Now I'm going to dispel a big myth right now for all of the bitter women out there whose self hatred blinds their senses and has them angry at me instead of God, who made life like he did. So listen loud and clear please, once and for all. Read the following sentence a few times. Meditate on it. Let it resonate. It will help you get over your misplaced rage and move on with your life and help you to stop fighting the wrong enemy and start forgiving whatever you haven't forgiven in yourself which has you so self hating in the first place.

I don't want babies for 5 years at least. Maybe 7 or 8 or 10 years from now.

I've known my entire life that my 50s would be about children and that hasn't changed. So, it was nothing to do with body type or mid life crisis. It simply is

I DON'T WANT BABIES FOR AT LEAST 5 YEARS!

It's nothing personal. I LOVE everything about women as they get older. Women over 45 are divine. They've dropped all their shit and really sink into their bodies and beings but.... BUT unfortunately, babies are done.

Therefore, 36 is my cut off. Maybe 37ish but I simply know deep in my soul that I want my own children at least first before I think about adopting and I don't want them for at least 5 years.

I don't get mad when women like black guys, or young guys or buff guys, it's their preference. God bless them. STOP GETTING MAD AT ME AND THE REST OF US 45 YEAR OLD MEN WHOSE CUT OFF IS 36 OKAY?!!! FOR WHATEVER REASON, YOU DECIDED NOT TO HAVE KIDS YET AND THAT'S FINE, BUT WE DON'T HAVE TO HAVE THEM YET, OKAY?! WE LOVE YOU BUT IT'S AN ISSUE!!!

Look in the mirror and question yourself and your motives and choices and intentions. It will yield a far more healthy and productive harvest then the superficial obvious misdirected anger you hurl at us.

So anyway, she was 25 and an old soul which was great.

Also, while we're on the subject, I want to get to know the woman I'm going to marry, live the rest of my life and have babies with and that's going to take more than a couple of years. I want at least three or four Christmases together. I want to have the kind of fun and freedom that you can only have without kids for a while and to make damn sure, as sure as you can ever know, that the union is going to last.

So anyway, she was 25. Perfect. We could hang and get to know each other, have fun and relax and have kids in 6 years. That puts her at 31, 33 and 35 and we bang out 3. Adopt a couple more a few years later and all's good.

So I was very hopeful. We had exchanged pictures. She said she didn't have a camera so I Fed-exed her a couple of my films which she wanted to see, and a disposable Kodak camera and told her to fill it up and Fed-ex it back to me in the SAS FED EX LETTER I enclosed. I had seen a couple pics on Nerve and could tell she was really pretty but I'm visual and like to see as much as I can. All clean of course, but many angles and expressions. I told her to burn half the roll on her and half on things that were important to her.

She was excited about the mission but her busy day got in the way and she still hadn't sent the camera back and it had been two days... so I called Best Buy in Charleston, bought her a digital Camera, sweet talked the manager, Tara, into letting Melinda pick it up even though I had used my CC to buy it and store policy was that whoever picked up the item must have the CC with them, and Melinda was taking pics within the hour and emailing them to me.

She was lovely. Completely my type. I was begging to fly down there basically after the first night on the phone but she had a shooting party to attend (gotta love a hot chick who shoots guns) and wanted me to wait 10 days. 10 FUCKING DAYS?!!! I split the difference and agreed to 6. I booked the only plane that flies into Charleston, a 50 seater, for Wednesday. The little planes scare me even more than the big planes but I had no choice unless I wanted to drive for 15 hours.

I got my lucky rock, my rosary, and my crystal and went to the airport. I was really really excited. I had a feeling Melinda could really be game over. My only concern was she played her emotions closer to the vest than I did but she said she really liked me and would open up if we sparked when I got there. It was really important to her that she find me hot and that that intangible chemistry was there. It was for me as well but I had a feeling it would be so I wasn't as worried about it.

I inched towards the security station at La Guardia. I was trying to smuggle my CK One in my toiletry bag but just in case they vetoed it I had gotten a small clear 3 oz plastic bottle at the drugstore to transfer it into. The lady did veto it. She told me she'd accept the plastic bottle but it had to be in a zip lock baggy. They didn't have any there and she thought my only chance was to go downstairs and buy something that came IN a zip lock baggy, empty out its contents and use the baggy.

I just don't like taking no for an answer. I always ALWAYS feel there's a way around no.

Three minutes later I found a lovely Pakistani worker about to take his lunch break at the in-terminal Taco Bell. And what did he have for lunch? A nice peanut butter sandwich in a zip lock baggy which he was all too happy to give me to house my cologne bottle.

I made it through security with everything except my Tom's From Maine toothpaste which was too big and got confiscated.

I boarded the baby plane and felt I was going to be okay. It was a little bumpy but we made it safely to Charleston in only 84 minutes. I was an hour early and had told Melinda to meet me at my hotel for a quick hug and hello before I went to a yoga class I had scheduled down there. I knew I had to at least smell her and touch her for 15 minutes or I wouldn't have made it through the whole class and I really wanted to hit one down there because one of my teachers from Jivamukti had moved there and opened a center and I wanted to support him and also it would chill me out and put me in the best place for the first official date, which we had already worked out was really date number 6 in emotional dates but the first real one actually being in the same place.

I don't even kiss on the first date with a girl I like. If I don't like her I'll fuck her in the bathroom at the restaurant but if I think we have a future then I won't even kiss good night. Certainly no sex until date number 3 but I already knew I liked Melinda and we might have a future yet we had talked more on the phone than I would have with someone I had been out on many dates with so that's how we arrived at the 6 number... all bets were off.

I dumped my stuff in my room and paced nervously, awaiting her arrival. I splashed a little too much CK One on and sat on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes for a moment, taking a few deep breathes. I prayed to God to help it all work out for the best and then suddenly I heard a gentle southern knock on the door.

I opened it and there was...

To be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 1:43 PM

Happy Fucking Birthday - January 22, 2007

I turned 45 today. As with most occasions in my life I could tell the story as the best and worst day of my life. I'm too spent from the Charleston trip to start telling you about that now. Much fucking and fighting. I will tomorrow. But before I lay my head down I just wanted to make sure, on this day of celebration of this amazing gift of life, I thanked all of you who read and watch my work. I get amazing, beautiful, heart felt letters from many of you and I try to write you all back and I do a pretty good job of it, but whether you write me or not I know that my stuff resonates with you and I want you all to know that in my many dark dark moments, knowing that it somehow makes a small difference to you, fills me with a joy and a gratitude that's indescribable, so thank you for letting me know that. It truly does mean the world to me that we are one. All Love. Namaste.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 11:58 PM

Sasha Take Two? - January 17, 2007

So, completely over Sasha and knowing in my heart that she wasn't HER or she would have called me back, I went to yoga, back to the scene of the crime. I didn't even find myself wondering if I would bump into her, if the fates would bring us together that way, I just went to my usual 6:15 Tuesday class and was happy to be there.

Since I was early, the 4 o'clock class hadn't let out yet and we all waited on the floor outside the yoga studio. There weren't any women that interested me so I turned off my Blackberry and just sat quietly as more and more people gathered. Suddenly then I noticed a tall blonde woman in an army cap whisk by quickly and disappear into the ladies locker room. She was really pretty. Model pretty but with a twist so even more pretty.

The yoga studio door opened and the sweaty yoga glowing people started wandering out. I rose and went in. I put my jacket and plastic bag of clothes onto a shelf in the back, grabbed a blanket and a block and looked for a place to lay my matt. I don't usually scope out pretty girls to lay my matt next to, I think that's kind of sketchy and am really there to cultivate a deeper relationship with God. That's what yoga means, union with God. But if I happen to meet the love of my life while I'm there, then hey, what's more of a conduit to God than that.

Just then I caught this fast moving blonde flash again. It was the model-with-a-twist chick I had glimpsed outside a few minutes before. She was fast. I liked that. She laid her matt down near the back on the right side and left to go get a block.

What the hell. I mean, I need to lay my mat some place.

I joined her. Right next to her on the left. I folded up my blanket and sat on it. I felt her return and purposely didn't look at her. I didn't want her to feel like I had put my matt next to her just to hit on her. I closed my eyes and half pretended/half really did meditate for a few moments. Life is like that. It's not so fucking black and white all the time. I wanted to meditate and I wanted to fall in love with her. I was faking and I was sincere. That doesn't make me a liar, it makes me human.

But enough is enough. She knew I wasn't a player by this time so I opened my eyes and futzed with my blanket as an excuse to look down and to the right so when I was done futzing I would naturally have to look at her before looking straight forward again.

I did and BINGO, JACK POT! She caught my eye and smiled. I didn't fuck around. No more Sashas.

"Hi." I said.

"Hi." She was open and friendly just like Sasha had been, but without the slight hesitation Sasha had. This girl was wide open. With a subtle glance I double checked that she didn't have a ring on... nope, no ring. But she was wearing a watch.

Just like Sasha.

"Are you gonna practice with your watch on?" This was Sasha all over again. Except this girl was clearly the one I was meant to meet. Sasha was some kind of appetizer.

"Yeah. I never take it off."

"Never? You bathe with it on?"

"Yup." She laughed playfully.

"Sleep? Everything?"

"Yeah. It's pathetic I know."

"So it literally never comes off."

"Right."

"Wow. I'm Eric."

"Natalie."

"Nice to meet you."

"You too."

"I've never seen you at 6:15?"

"Yeah I usually take at 8 in the morning because I usually work late."

"Ahhh. What do you do?"

"I'm in advertising."

"Huh. I went out with another beautiful tall blonde girl in advertising once." Liza.

She smiled. We chatted for a few more minutes. She seemed totally into me. I was freaking out. Class was about to start so I folded my hands and bowed to her.

"Have a nice practice."

"You too."

All through class, of course, I obsessed on her. How our conversation had gone. Fantasizing about our future together. On how I would ask her out. I wasn't going to let her out the fucking door, I didn't care if I ruined her yoga peace, fuck, I might ask her out in the middle of a down dog. No, better wait at least till after class.

I snuck peeks at her all through class. She had a beautiful practice and a beautiful lithe body. Supple, strong, flexible, focused, quiet. And she looked to be about 35. Perfect. An adult, ready for love. But then I noticed she had strangely small hands for her 5'10'' frame. Almost retardedly small. Not quite but nearly. Well, if she blew me off at least I could rationalize that I could never have been happy with her anyway, the girl with the mutant small hands, but if she was into me, they would be easy to overlook. I'm way more mature than that.

A half an hour into class I started to get furious with myself that I hadn't asked her out before class started so I wouldn't ruin another yoga class obsessing on the outcome of a date request. That would never happen again. Hopefully it would be a moot point because this girl was going to be my wife.

Class ended. I could barely wait for the last OM. Gone was my madness over whether she would say yes or no. I felt calm and okay with whatever the outcome would be. When the last note left the air I turned to her. She was already rolling up her matt, preparing to leave.

"You know how in Annie Hall after they're on the way to dinner after she's sung on their first date, and Woody says to Diane Keaton, 'Can we kiss now to get it over with so I can relax and I can digest my dinner'?" She laughed.

"I should have asked you out before class so my moving mediation would have had a chance of remaining on world peace and not on whether you would say yes or no."

"I'm flattered but I'm married actually."

"Oh really? I'm sorry. I didn't see a ring." She smiled politely and left. Well at least I couldn't be rejected. I'm always so relieved when they say they have a boyfriend because then at least I can believe they would have gone out with me were they single. I mean I prefer them to be single and say yes, but short of that, I want them taken already.

And I had gotten a straight answer. Not like with the Sasha situation. I was happy it had all been asked and answered. But then I started to get a little annoyed. I mean the fucking girl never takes off her watch but her wedding ring seems to get left in the old jewelry box with regularity huh? We have wedding rings for a reason in our society gals. It's so I and countless other men don't get their hopes up and waste perfectly good chances to unite with God because we're obsessing on whether or not you'll fucking go out with us!!! So do us a little favor okay? Keep your God Damn wedding rings on!! No wonder she was so fucking nice to me, she had the protection and relaxed safety of already having her love of life waiting for her to get home from fucking yoga to kiss her and make her dinner and lick her fucking pussy till she came ten times!!!!

I'm not really that mad, but come on. Cut the passive aggressive bullshit and keep the rings on. And don't flirt with me-especially if you're not gonna wear it- if you have a husband. That's not nice. Be friendly, fine, but don't giggle at my jokes and shyly look away when I look deeply into your eyes.

Bramacharia- The yogic guide for relating to members of the opposite sex when one or both of you is taken. Treat them as if their lover and yours were standing right there. And if you're single and they're not, treat the other as if their beloved were there and the girlfriend you don't have was there as well. Or visa versa.

But enough about that. I met a girl on Nerve yesterday who very well may be HER. I'm flying to South Carolina tomorrow to take her to dinner. Of course you'll be the first to know. Pray for me.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 10:22 AM

The Secret to Women Conquering (Part 3) - January 14, 2007

I looked up, was about to say hello, and it wasn't her. It was some red haired girl.

Sasha had left.

She had somehow gotten past me. She must have been that lone woman I was convinced she couldn't have been in the very beginning who was putting her coat on while I ripped off my clothes in the men's changing area.

I was crestfallen. But that emotion was quickly replaced with a small but growing powerful self hatred and feeling I've felt at the core of my being, (among other good ones as well) that I had done something to irreparably damage a grace from God and I wouldn't ever get another chance. I work hard at trying to reframe my conception of God and make it a loving, forgiving, abundant God rather than a checks and balances God and I'm having some success but it's slow going. I wasn't raised any religion, let alone Catholic so it's strange I've adopted the concept of a punishing God. I guess I saw the opportunity to corral another's tool for self hating and jumped on the chance.

Kind of the same way I never used to have a problem with people who rode their bicycles on the sidewalk until Ebner once yelled at a guy and then turned to me. "Fucking asshole. Sidewalks are for people walking, not bikes." From that moment on I've hated people who ride bikes on the sidewalk. Thanks Mark, as if I already didn't have enough petty resentments to pray through.

Not quite as bad as when Liza left me with a ring in my hand but in that ballpark, I repeated the scene I never wanted to even once in my life let alone twice. "But you said you would take the ring back." I had said to the Hasidic Jew on 46th Street in the diamond district the morning after she said no.

"But, You already bought the ring."

"Do you think I want to be standing in front of you saying this? Before I bought it you said you would take it back if, God forbid, she said no. Well she did, okay? Now just give me my fucking money back please."

The sequel was with the chocolate bar.

"Hey, can I give you this back?"

"Ohhhhh, really? It's kind of a pain in the ass. I would have to get a manager to get the key for the register. You can freeze it you know and save it."

"That's fine." I skulked home. The chocolate bar the trophy for the most pathetic cunt on the planet who didn't just go out front right away and wait for the girl of his dreams but instead did a quick change and missed her. I got angrier and angrier as I rode the subway home. By the time I got to my building I was seething with self loathing.

"Here. It's a healthy chocolate bar." I handed it to Jake, my Serbian doorman.

"Oh, thank you Eric."

At least that thing was out of my hands and could stop mocking me.

I went upstairs and into my apartment. I was squirrelly with rage. You fucking stupid cunt!!!!! What the FUCK WERE YOU THINKING!!!!

You finally met someone you might really like and you fucked it up. And she said she hadn't been in months so you're not gonna see her again there.

I went for a walk with my friend Rebecca in Central Park to try and clear my head. I was really losing it, it having just been Xmas at all.

"Why don't you just call the yoga place and ask for her name?"

"I thought of that but it's a little sketchy, you know? I don't think they'd give that out and even if they did and I called her, she might get mad at them for giving it out and they'd get in trouble or she might just think it's weird."

"I think it's totally sexy. If you hunted me down and left me a message I'd totally go out with you."

I called the yoga center. "Fuck it." The number was ringing. I was hoping someone who liked me would answer. A couple of the girls who work the desk have crushes on me, sadly I don't return them. I was just hoping it wasn't the chick who wouldn't let me return the chocolate bar.

"Yoga Center. Hello?" I think I got lucky.

"Hey, this is Eric Schaeffer." I had no idea who had answered but we'd soon know the outcome.

"Oh hey Eric. How's it going?" She said in a really friendly voice. Jack pot.

"Great. Is this...?" I was vamping.

"Angie."

"Oh hey Angie, how's it going?"

"Great. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I was actually hoping you could play cupid for me. I just took the 6:15 class and I was talking to a girl named Sasha and I really liked her but somehow she slipped out before I could get her number. Could you tell me her last name?"

"Let me look on the computer here. What did she look like?"

"Tall, dark hair, kind of an Aimee Mann face."

"I love Aimee Mann." I looked at Rebecca and gave her the thumbs up. She was excited.

"I think it's Sasha Roderick... yup, she bought one class today. I'm sure it's her."

"Sasha Roderick? Thank you so much."

"No problem, Eric. See you soon."

I hung up.

"That's awesome!" Rebecca said. I dialed information.

"Sasha Roderick. New York City, please." I waited. She had a fucking number!!! "And what's her address? 24th Street?" I said out loud for Rebecca's benefit. "Thanks." I hung up. "She lives on fucking 24th Street. Two blocks from yoga. That's why she bolted in her wet clothes. She showers at home."

"Are you sure it's her?"

"Please. How many Sashas live 2 blocks form yoga? And it's a pretty unique name. Sasha Roderick. It's definitely her!"

"Yeah. It has to be her. Call her."

"Okay. I mean, it's not like the place gave me her number. They just gave me her name. And if she's listed she can't be that weirded out and private. I mean if she's not into me fine, but I'm not gonna stalk her so she won't have a bad experience so she probably wouldn't get mad at the yoga place anyway, right?"

"No. It'll be fine. Just call."

"Okay." I pressed the number into my phone and waited as it rung. We were on the horse path next to the police station in the middle of Central Park next to the reservoir. It kept ringing... My phone is restricted so sometimes people don't answer because of that fact. A machine picked up. "Machine." I said to Rebecca. BEEEEEEP.

"Hey, so I waited out front to give you your special vegan chocolate bar birthday present but you somehow slipped out before I could. This is Eric. The boy who talked to you in yoga about how you use a pencil as a scrunchy. I wanna take you to coffees sometime. Call me." I left my number and hung up.

"That was perfect."

"It was okay?"

"Perfect."

"It was light and nice and cute and I didn't sound like a psycho, right?"

"No. You were great. I would definitely call back if I got that."

"In how long?"

"Two days... well... no. Yeah. No more than two days but definitely not the day I got it."

"Okay, But I'm not going to call again in two days if she doesn't call.

"You should."

"No, that's weird. She got it. If she's interested she'll call me back."

"What if she's shy?"

"Then I wouldn't want her. And she's not anyway. If she doesn't call, it's done."

"Okay."

I left Rebecca and went home to Google Sasha. Two pictures came up. It was her. The girl from yoga, so I was sure that the girl I had called was the girl from yoga. I didn't love that her picture was on some society news letter and in both pictures she was standing around drinking at fund raisers with young-Kennedy-meets-Euro-trash guys but I was happy I had found her. We would be dating within the day.

After the third day with no call back I was over it. I really would want my future wife to call me within an hour of getting that message, a day at the most if she had a good explanation for the delay. The most important thing was I had found her and found out that it wasn't fate. I couldn't have lived with the not knowing, the rejection was fine. Another soul mate bites the dust. Which is fine for the obvious reason that she couldn't have really been the ONE. SHE is still on her way. The subway must be slow today, or she stopped to get a smoothie on the way.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 1:47 PM

The Secret to Women Conquering (Part 2) - January 10, 2007

So, in yoga class, standing over the sexy girl who looked like a dark Aimee Mann, I said, "Are you going to practice wearing that watch?"

Now, first impressions being crucial, the comeback to the opening line always, ALWAYS tells the entire story.

"Did you have a better idea?" She said sardonically but with enough of a smile to reveal a softness. She had scored big, hitting the ground running like that.

"I've just always wondered about people who practice with a watch on."

"It's so when I start getting tired I can see how much longer class is."

"I would think you wouldn't want to know at that point."

"No. I want to know." She was smiling through the whole exchange. Another good sign.

"And what's the pencil for? Gonna take notes?" I said, referring to the pencil that sat on the floor next to her mat. She rolled her long black hair up in a bunch behind her head and stabbed the pencil into it, which held it in place.

"Ahhhhh. Nice."

I knelt down so we could have a longer conversation. I was starting to feel self conscious being the only one standing. She seemed okay with my move.

"I've never seen you here before," I said.

"I haven't been in months. I know that's not good. I should make time."

"What have you been doing instead?"

"Other things." She said and smiled again mischievously.

"Other things?"

"Other things that are equally good for me."

"Excellent."

Beat. I smiled at her. She smiled back. Beat. This would be a moment when, if interested, she might ask me a question... She didn't. I chalked it up to nerves. While she seemed sure of herself, she also seemed an equal part shy, or she hated me and was just being polite, but why then would she have met my smile so eagerly and engaged me in conversation so fluidly? It must be nerves. A self deprecating joke was called for to break the tension.

"Am I supposed to fuck off back to my mat now?"

She laughed. "No." But again, even though she said no, part of her didn't seem completely comfortable with me there either.

The point of no return. Naked, in front of the entire world!!! I went for it.

"What are you doing after class?"

"Meeting some friends. It's my birthday."

"Today?!"

"Yup."

"Oh my God, that's amazing."

The teacher took her seat which was the signal for everyone else to follow suit.

"I better leave you now to your pencils and watches and mediations..."

"Okay."

"Eric." I extended my hand.

"Sasha" She shook it.

"It was nice to meet you Sasha. Have a good practice."

"You too, Eric."

"Maybe if you don't bolt after class we can chat," I said as I was rising to go. She didn't really respond. I let it be but wasn't very hopeful.

I obsessed about her the entire class. I snuck looks at her on and off for the hour and a half, checking to see if she was sneaking peeks at me, (she wasn't) how advanced her practice was, (intermediate) and how her body moved, (a little clumsily.) She was also much taller than I thought she was when she was sitting. 5'10" at least, which I loved.

This could very well be my new girlfriend... if she didn't hate me. I liked that she was sharp and quick and brunette and New Yorky and in yoga and she must be single if she was going out with "friends" for her birthday, and hadn't dropped the B word. A lot of serious plusses.

Instead of my practice being a moving meditation on world peace, it was a mental fixation on my plan to court Sasha. While not as noble as world peace, certainly not an evil consolation prize for the universe.

Some people leave fast right after the last "ohm" to beat the crowds in the changing room, other's like me, take our time and languish in the after yoga glow. But this day I had to move with alacrity through the sweaty bodies putting away their props so I wouldn't lose Sasha if she happened to be one of the quick cruisers.

I didn't want to swoop in on her in the actual yoga hall seconds after meditation in case I was wrong and she didn't enjoy me, so my plan was to wait for her somewhere outside of the room. I cut my "Ohm" short and was already rolling up my yoga mat by the time the others were finished and hawked Sasha's every move in the dark as people started leaving. She was moving slowly, which I liked for many reasons, not the least was it seemed an invitation or a least not a repulsion at the idea of an after class chat.

I put away my block and blanket and waited just outside the yoga room. There was only one door out and I had definitely left before her. I could see her still putting her blanket away on the shelves. I didn't want to be too conspicuous so I pretended to do something to my yoga mat carrying bag for a couple seconds.... She didn't come out.

I fiddled some more... she didn't come out... was she talking to someone? Thanking the teacher? I decided it would be way cooler to wait for her in the front of the yoga center, where the front desk and boutique is. That way she could get changed and I could BUY HER A LITTLE GIFT! A BIRTHDAY GIFT! GENIUS! I hadn't said "Happy Birthday" to her when she told me it was her birthday. What was I thinking? I was too focused on asking her out. God, I must have seemed like an asshole. A gift would be perfect and make sense as a reason to hang around in the front for her.

Should I change first though? It would be creepy if she was all changed and I was standing in the front waiting for her all sweaty from class. Okay, I'll do a super fast change and because of where the men's changing room is located, I can look through the curtain and make sure she doesn't leave before I get out there.

I ran to the changing room and stripped of my shirt. Fuck it, I'll leave my sweaty tights on and put my pants on over them to save time. I looked out through the curtain. There were a couple people heading into another class and one woman putting on a coat which couldn't have been her because she wasn't even out of the room yet when I left and I had only put my head down for a split second to take my shirt off before I looked out of the curtain and there's no way in that time she could have traveled from the yoga room, down the hallway, around the corner past the men's changing room to the coat rack and be putting her coat on, so I was safe. I put my shoes on, all the while looking out the curtain, grabbed my leather jacket and yoga mat and headed out the curtain to the front of the center.

A vegan chocolate bar! Perfect. That would be her gift. I bought it and waited, my excitement and nervousness growing. People started filtering by on their way out and to the boutique. Still no sign of her. She must be in the girl's changing room.

I waited. A minute went by. Still no sign of her.

I waited. Another minute went by. Still no sign of her. I walked down the hall back towards the men's changing room so I could look down the hallway towards where the girl's changing room was. Nothing. She must be one of the "shower people." The few who actually take showers after class. Most people just change and shower at home, some even leave in their wet yoga clothes but a few shower there. She must be one of them because it had been a few minutes and many people had left already. I went back to the front and sat on a bench... a few more minutes went bye. I was starting to get scared... I couldn't possibly have missed her! There's no way!

The teacher for the next class emerged from the woman's locker room. I knew her so I felt comfortable asking, "was there anybody left in the girl's room?"

"Just one girl in the shower."

"Thanks."

That had to be Sasha! I sat and waited.

5 minutes later I could hear footsteps from the hallway around the corner. I nonchalantly rose and leaned on the front desk pretending to be looking at the chocolate bars I just had bought for her. I felt her near and looked up just as she was about to pass...

to be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 3:34 PM

The Secret to Women Conquering - January 5, 2007

Girls have no idea how profoundly exhausting it is to be a man. While I'm sure being a woman has its exhausting features, like constantly having energy flying at you from men, I'd take that in a heartbeat over the exhaustion caused by having to always be the pursuer. The bottom line is this;

If we don't ask... there is no chance for us, and therefore you, to ever have love.

Think about that for a second. Just let those words slowly make their way through your bloodstream like the evil virus they are. Don't worry; I'll feed you the antidote just before you die.

If... we... don't... ask... there... is... no... chance... of... ever... having... love.

Fucking epic.

Imagine going through life with the absolute knowledge that if you don't risk abject rejection at best, cuckolding at worst, you're going to be alone for the rest of your life.

Pretty scary. And the least women should be doing (since they aren't helping the process and are apparently locked in one of their rare brain freezes of stupidity, not realizing that like the scorpion killing the frog half way across the pond, they are killing their own chances of love by not helping,) is worshiping at our warrior fucking feet every second of every day in gratitude for our courage to do it all ourselves.

I'm a fairly massive risk taker and always have been; deciding long ago that the pain of failure is no where near as profound as the pain of staring up at your ceiling at night knowing deep down you didn't have the guts to try. That regret is something I refuse to live with, so I keep asking. Doing. I get my teeth kicked in 99 percent of the time, but when I win... I win big. Dream-come-true-big.

In everything. Work, friends, God, women. Risking vulnerability is the biggest gift I believe you can give. Whenever I offer love, even at the smallest level, I'm risking getting hurt, which is really really not fun. But we do it because we're noble.

After being rejected by women over and over and over for years and years, some polite but most with an air of "You're the scum of the earth for having deigned to say 'Hi' to me," I am nearing the end of my rope. God only gave me a certain amount of energy for this job and it's almost gone.

I've been asked out twice in twenty years.

There may have been a few smiles and glances that were invites to approach, lessoning the risk of rejection, but still, in the end, I had to open my mouth first. A girl just straight up saying, "You wanna go out with me?" There have been two. Ask most guys, I think that's actually pretty good. THAT'S INSANE!!! Two fucking girls have had the guts to ask me out in TWENTY YEARS?!!!!! Listen, I'm not the cat's meow to all but I don't think it's conceited to think more than TWO girls in TWENTY years have wanted to go out with me.

What the fuck! And with every rejection, it gets harder. There is a necessary built-in- forgetter God has installed in us or there would be no more life. No more babies, except hooker babies which probably wouldn't be enough to sustain mankind for very long. But even with this machinery that enables us to not be mortally wounded by the "fuck off" vibe most women give to our simple and sane request for their attention, the cruel rebuffs still add up and render us increasingly like scared members of some sick experiment in torture, frightened of our own shadow, which of course is the biggest turn off of all and gets us even more rejected. The vicious cycle. All set in motion by cowardly women.

Listen, I don't drink or do drugs or rage or shut down. I'm on the cutting edge of what I feel most of the time. And to all of you who don't think you identify with me on this, I humbly submit that you are in for a rude awakening if you ever wake up and shake free of all the things you do to deny what's really going on with you, so don't judge too harshly lest that add to your catastrophic breakdown when and if you choose to leave your slumber for the real world.

I'm not saying you gals should say yes to boys you don't want to, I'm just asking if you could summon the fucking strength to even the playing field just a bit and ask us out once in a while. Come on, I know you have it in you. You have the balls to show all sorts of other emotions, cry in public, push gargantuan objects out of small holes in your bodies, enduring much physical pain, you're the fucking love creatures for God's sake. You're very powerful. Can you maybe have the spine to say this one tiny little sentence, "Hey. I was wondering if you wanted to get a coffee some time?" I mean, please! You wanna be president. You wanna get paid the same for the same work. You don't want to be treated with sexism, heed Gandhi's words and "become the love you want to see in the world." What you give, you get. And maybe, just talking out my ass here now, on a bit of a roll, the hatred that comes your way sometimes is the understandable collective pent up rage, fear, hurt and anguish of thousands of years of our burden of proof.

You now have the power. I've given you the gift. You can turn it all around and conquer. Just with one little sentence. "Hey. You wanna have coffee sometime?"

See, girls, taking the proactive approach has many benefits. Ultimately, the best one is that you'll get everything you want. Secondly, you'll be giving us a wonderful gift we richly deserve and by doing so, we'll chill way the fuck out and be much more easy to get along with and be the boys you want us to be... at least much closer to the boys you want us to be. And thirdly, you can let go of that really evil by product of the existing boys-always-have-to-ask paradigm; loving us with your eyes and then still rejecting us when we come over and talk to you, acting as if you hadn't just been loving us with your eyes.

A classic example of this gross phenomenon occurred in yoga last week. I noticed a very sexy black haired chick in the back on the right. I hadn't seen her before and although I do go to yoga to find God, while I'm there, if I find a wife, I'm killing two birds with one stone.- I just realized what a horrible saying that is in general but really in this context. Yoga, love, God? Killing birds? Not good. We can never use that again.

I'd be gaining the love of God even more so by finding him in her. There, that's nicer.

Anyway, so I saw this girl. It was before class so I pretended I needed another block and headed across the room towards the closet where they keep them so I could pass right by her. She caught my stare and suddenly a big smile flooded her face. I was shocked. That almost never happens. Usually it's the opposite when you look at a girl, she looks away in disgust. I returned her smile. She kept smiling and didn't look away. Amazing! Did she know who I was maybe? A fan? I didn't care. I had gotten a double-no-look-away-smile. I passed her without saying anything, grabbed a block from the closet behind her, bashed her in the head with it, dragged her unconscious body into the bathroom and fucked her.

No, of course I didn't do that, but as a man, that's what we're wired to do, so you might want to give us all a little credit for abandoning that arcane instinct and supplanting it with the much more civilized watching America's Next Top Model. I think we've come a long way baby...

I stood behind her with my block and plotted my strategy. It was yoga so you to have to be very respectful and not misjudge a loving vibe from a girl lest you wrongly return a flirty vibe and blow her whole unconditional-love-I'm-In-Yoga-why-are-you-hitting-on-me-that's-not-what-I-meant thing.

But I really felt I wasn't misreading her vibe and decided to talk to her. See, this is what I'm talking about. There are twenty women all within ten feet of her, surrounding her with their communal we-must-protect-each other-from-the-evil-men vibe and the ones that aren't silently sending out that vibe are competitive and hate you and her for your attention to her so it's a mine field any way you look at it. If you whisper to her, it's conspicuous and creepy and projects no confidence so in this venue, wooing is very very difficult, but I wasn't about to pass up her invitation, so I threw hell to the wind, and went for it. I noticed she was wearing a watch.

"You gonna wear that watch when you practice?"

She looked up and...

To be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:46 PM

Christmas Eve with a Hooker, Ebner, And Maybe a Boxcutter (Part 3) - January 2, 2007

So, the angry pack of dead heads circle me and I'm waiting for the bloodbath to begin. I looked for a possible getaway but then decided to try to talk my way out of it one last time.

"Look, I don't know who took your acid dude, but I didn't. Check my pockets."

This seemed sensible to the guy and he did. Because I had managed to stash the baggy in a hedge miraculously without anyone seeing me even though they were all around me escorting me to my death by beating, I didn't have anything on me which equal parts soothed and infuriated the guy.

He slapped me in the face. Not really very hard but a slap in the face is a slap in the face. He was hoping I would punch him so everyone could kick the shit out of me but I didn't.

There was an uncertainty among them whether to kill me or just go back to the bar and get drunk, but he couldn't back down after he had slapped me, especially in front of all his friends so he said, "I'll give you until tomorrow to either give me back my acid or 40 bucks to pay for the hits."

Sensing a collective lull in energy of the group, I suddenly bolted, lest they change their mind and rescind their reprieve, and took off into the woods. This was the action they needed to get their blood boiling again and they ran after me.

So now, just to recap, I'm tripping my brains out, running through dense woods in upstate New York, in the middle of the night, with an angry throng of kids wanting to kill me.

Luckily, even though I grew up in the city, because of my 4 years in Vermont in high school living with my father, I apparently had more survival skills than I thought and outwitted and outplayed my competition and managed to successfully hide from them long enough for them to get tired and leave.

The next day I went back to the hedge and lo and behold, the baggy of acid was still the stuck in there. I met with the guy and gave him a quarter gram of coke so I could still maintain my innocence telling him, "I don't know who took your acid but here's some coke just to put this behind us." He accepted the trade and it was over.

So back at the West Hollywood hotel at 2am after being robbed by the hooker and her driver... Ebner came to my room.

"Was anyone outside?" I asked, sure they were waiting for me.

"No. It's fine."

"I wanna move to another hotel."

"I'm sure you'll be fine here."

"I wanna move."

"Okay."

I checked out and Mark escorted me to my car and followed me to Santa Monica where I checked into the Georgian on Ocean Avenue. It was far away from West Hollywood and I felt safe there. I checked in under an assumed name, one of the characters in one of my movies I think. Ebner left. I sat alone in this unknown hotel room, the fear from the ordeal slowly subsiding but I still had that lingering foreboding you have long into the day after a really bad nightmare.

I was alone again and lonely on Christmas Eve. "Maybe I should get a hooker," I thought. As Woody said, "the heart is a very resilient muscle." And I'm an addict.

I didn't.

And went to bed.

Merry Christmas... and Happy New Year. May all your hookers be nice and not rob you and may all the people you rob not hunt you down in the woods and kill you... and may Karma visit you quickly so the deal can be squared fast so you can move on... or maybe we'll just give nothing but love this year and be happy and avoid the whole shebang. Namaste.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 7:00 AM