I can tell you now, because he's pretty much headed out of there, but Ned was in Las Vegas for work. He is a professional Celine Dion impersonator.
He was supposed to leave Tuesday afternoon (TUESSSSDAYYY AAAAAFTERNOON! Who sings that depressing old song?), and I was gonna be all CUNextTuesday and so forth (my favorite hairdresser in LA taught me that. "She was a total CUNextTuesday," he said, and I spit up, is what I did) and then he had to stay another day.
Ned is a professional Blue Man. The show was held over.
His being gone another day to fill in as a minister at the drive-thru wedding chapel dampens my spirits considerably, because even though Ned and I could easily go Monday through Wednesday not seeing each other, just the THOUGHT that I CAN'T zip over and see him makes me sad.
Damn Vegas's need for more go-go dancers in gay nightclubs.
The point of this story is that the first night he got there, he won $125 gambling and as much as he wanted to stampede over and try to buy first-row Cher tickets, he decided to have a drink at the bar and people watch. I have been to Vegas three or four times and I effing LOVE people-watching there. So feeling him on this desire.
But apparently I was not the only one feeling him, because it wasn't long before a woman he described as "actually young and pretty" approached him. "Where you from?" she wondered. He told her. "You want to go up to your room?"
See. My whole postadolescent life I been picking up mens and it never occurred to me to cut to the chase this quickly. I mean, does that work, generally?
Ned had a brief moment of panic. How was he going to diffuse the situation? He thought about saying, "I'm married" and don't fret, he isn't. This isn't a Very Special Episode of Bye Bye, Pie or anything. But he realized saying he was married would not dissuade this person, who probably wasn't all up in the morals. At any rate, he turned her down, but couldn't help but ask, "Just out of curiosity, how much is it, anyway?"
Okay.
How much do you THINK a Las Vegas prostitute runs? How much? Because I was appalled.
"Three hundred," she said. "THREE HUNDRED AN HOUR?" asked Ned, whose stint as a lion tamer for Sigfried and what's left of Roy started to seem lame.
"No, for a half-hour. It's 500 for the hour," she said.
DUDES! FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS AN HOUR!
I am sorry to tell you that Vilhelm and I figured this out at work; if you prostituted a 40-hour week, you'd be almost a millionaire. And that city never sleeps, so you could put in the overtime if you felt like it.
FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS AN HOUR!
Holy cats. I mean, what's she got that I don't? Does she have secret squirrel techniques we don't know about? Or is it like when you have to spend $12 for a sandwich at the airport because that's all that's available?
Anyway, that was exciting. I mentioned to Ned that if he won more money he might want to check out the half hour deal, just for research purposes. For my blog. You know. He seemed not so amenable to that plan, but then again he's working a LOT of hours as a pit boss, so.
I mean, there's a teensy part of me that's all GET OFF MY MAN and gouging out her eyes and pulling her hair and so on, but mostly I'm all, girlfriend has to make a living. It wasn't personal.
AND WHAT A LIVING. GEEZ.
That's about all I have to tell you, except that I got my roots done last night and as I sat in the chair it occurred to me that I really like that old Bangles song Going Down to Liverpool and why didn't I have it on my iPod.
So I came home and PUT it on my iPod, and by the way I desperately wish I had some opportunity to just drive around and annoy Leonard Nemoy like that. I really do.
MY POINT IS, I wanted to do my Susanna Hoffs impression for you.
You're welcome. That'll be $500, please.
