I've been feeling kind of gloomy today...I'm starting to think depression is like a mental cold, and doesn't necessarily reflect on the actual events in my life. Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself...

"Feelings are not facts," as the wise saying goes...I mean, although it's true I do have stressful situations to deal with (especially financially), I still have a decent amount of freelance work...

At least my sister Jenny is doing okay, and her tests are coming back good from the doctor --knock wood! My veteran readers will recall that she had a serious health situation over the last few months.

Anyway, it's just one of those days, I guess...I got some good work done, but it never feels like I get enough accomplished and I start to beat myself up...like a Cyclops taking on a midget in a Hercules movie...

I know I'm depressed when I realize that I haven't seen any attractive women on the street in days. Hey, that's not possible in New York, so I absolutely MUST be in a fog...

I tell you something that just cheered me up, though--seeing that Sherrena is writing again on her blog. She seemed to be laying low for a little while. She sure has a way of telling a story. If you haven't read "The Life and Times of Sherrena," check out her Christmas tree anecdote. It's one of her most recent entries. It's classic Sherrena. But she captures the serious side of things well, too. Yep, I wouldn't mind unzipping myself out of my skin today, to borrow her phrase...

Instead, I'm just going to meet a friend at an Italian restaurant and have some spaghetti puttanesca, and maybe a Sambuca to wash it down.

And tomorrow there's a memorabilia show, so I'll be able to talk movies and pinups for a few hours with my pals.

I'm really tapped out today. I worked again in New Jersey at my freelance gig, then came back to the city just as it started to rain. Felt antsy when I got home, though, so I went out for a beer at the stripclub. Still, I found my mind wandering...nobody there really caught my imagination, so I left and took a walk in the chilly rain until finally it was time to eat. Then I went to a diner, a place I've been going to for many years, a "clean well-lighted place," in Hemingway's phrase. Some restaurants are inviting to people eating alone; this is one of them. They let you sit at a big table and spread out with your newspapers, and there's enough space between the tables that you don't feel like somebody is sitting on top of you.

My first choice was to eat Japanese, but my favorite place was very crowded, and the sushi bar is not where I want to sit when I need space.

Anyway, I also have to find a Japanese restaurant where the waitresses wear kimonos. This place is convenient to where I live, the food is good, but the waitresses wear jeans and t-shirts...

I want to see some kimonos with my sake, for a change.

It sure is cold today. Even though I have the heat on full blast, it still feels chilly in my studio apartment, and I already had a half shot of Jameson and a cup of coffee...

Woke up at 3:45 this morning. I'd thrown the covers off and was awakened by the chill coming in through the windows themselves. Couldn't get back to sleep, even though I didn't have to get up until 6:20 so I could catch an early bus to my freelance gig in New Jersey.

I lay in bed, trying to get back to sleep, and you know how that works. When you "try" to fall asleep, you never can...my mind drifted...I felt alone in the sheets...then suddenly I was thinking about Angela, my favorite stripper/lapdancer of all. She left the business two and a half years ago, but I still contemplate with zeal our lovely encounters...

She had the most beautiful breasts, all natural, large, and she would gently sway them against my face...she was quite a beauty all around, and very personable too.

She never made any pretense to being anything more than a good lapdancer and pleasant conversationalist, and she had lots of loyal customers. She was always going into the champagne room, although I never went in there with her. No, I'd just enjoy a few dances out in the main area of the club, and that was more than enough for me...

Maybe I still remember her with such fondness because our interaction was straightforward and honest, as well as fulfillingly sexy. She never laid any bullshit on me that we would have dinner sometime or that we were anything more than dancer and customer. I guess in a way she respected me enough to be on the level and not pretend.

I can still see her always giving me a friendly wave from the stage when I'd walk into the club...

She made her money, and then she got out of the business. And I'm sure she made a lot of dough. Well, I don't regret a penny that I spent on her. The four or five dances which I'd get from her each time, which cost me an average of a hundred bucks altogether, are some of the most erotic memories of my stripclub days and nights.

Hope you're doing well, Angela...

In contrast, when I was walking home from the West Side Highway today, where one of my colleagues dropped me off when we drove back from New Jersey, I thought for a moment that I saw the gal I'd moved to New York with from college in 1973. She was in profile, but she looked about the right age, and I had a real feeling it was her--she had a distinctive profile--although I haven't seen her to speak with in over thirty years (we broke up in 1974). I think I did see her on the street about ten years ago, and I didn't talk to her then either. Anyhow, today I could have gotten closer to make sure, but I didn't want to. How do you like that...the bitter feelings I have from that relationship have never gone away. Our great love turned to shit...I actually thought to myself that if it actually was her, I truly didn't want to have to pretend that I was glad to see her...because I wouldn't be. We were young, and I guess we had our "issues" as the lingo goes these days, but our love for each other, which started out so pleasantly during a snowy winter at our bucolic Midwestern college, decayed after about fourteen months in Manhattan. Maybe we weren't ready to live with a person of the opposite sex yet...both of us, too immature. She was this intense feminist who loved to talk about "male chauvinism" and women being oppressed. Passive as I was, and receptive to tales of victimhood in general, I listened until I began to feel that she considered me one of the enemy too. That's around the time my stripclub fascination began...and you can imagine what she thought about that...actually, I only went a few times while I was with her, but I told her about it in the spirit of "complete honesty" (that ambiguous concept from the late 60s and early 70s) and she didn't look kindly upon my visits...arghh, it all turned crummy. I think the shock of that relationship turning out so badly after such a romantic beginning had a profound effect in souring me on the possibility of ever getting married...I remained wary ever after, although I did move in or shack up with a couple of other women in the succeeding years.

I have a very hard time letting go of disappointments and bad stuff from the past. It's definitely one of my bigger flaws as a person. I've worked on this, but I have a powerful memory when it comes to unhappy things...

I guess by keeping it simple with Angela, I didn't take any chances on spoiling those memories. I had a feeling they would come in handy on chilly mornings before dawn...

I didn’t watch the Golden Globe awards last night, but then, I don’t watch the Oscars either anymore. But I do look at the pictures in the paper the next day just to check out the babes.

Nice cleavage, Miss Mirren. I thought you were great in The Queen, too.

The popular consensus on who was the most beautiful and best-dressed gal on the red carpet last night seems to be Jessica Biel. Hey, Sir Cranky could have told you LAST WEEK that this would have been the consensus...when he bought the newly released DVD of the movie The Illusionist just to be able to look at Biel’s closeups whenever he wants.

Sir Cranky’s definition of a true movie goddess? I’ll buy the DVD just to see her, and I don’t really give a hoot about the rest of the movie--although I actually did like The Illusionist quite a bit. Still, I doubt I would have bought it for Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti’s performances; it was Biel who got me to plunk down my dough, with those incredible closeups of her beautiful face. I dug that British accent she used, too.

Very, very few actresses elicit this kind of response from me now. Not even Jessica Alba. I’ve written adoringly of her here, but I’ve never been compelled to buy one of her DVDs.

On the other hand, I frequently buy obscure old movies just to see alluring actresses of the past like Nancy Gates, Chelo Alonso, Mylene Demongeot, Linda Darnell, Barbara Britton, Jane Wyatt, and Frances Drake. Decades after their careers peaked, those gals are still selling tickets (because the sale of a DVD is, of course, a way of selling a ticket).

I saw Beyoncé’s pix in the papers this morning. I know everybody talks about how hot she looks, but her face is just too sweet for that body of hers. She should learn how to look a little mean. Better yet, she should start playing evil film noir style temptresses in trashy films. Then she might gain some sex appeal. It’s ironic, but I think actresses have to act in trash to really make a mark on the minds of men. Trash taps into the subconscious in a way that quality films often don’t. Hey, I could write a book on this topic...but suffice to say, actresses' agents should show them the wisdom of acting in crap every once in awhile. For example, Renee Zellweger should do a big sword-and-sandal spectacular, maybe in the role of Messalina, royal slut of Rome. Lots of treachery and open-mouthed kissing would be called for, and maybe a nude scene. Maybe then she wouldn't purse her lips so much on the red carpet, because she's starting to look like she's auditioning for head matron in a school for wayward girls.

The newspapers this morning were full of stuff about how gals like Salma Hayek, Jessica Biel, and America Ferrara prove that curves are ultimately sexier than skinny, but hey, most men could already have told the reporters that. It’s the media that are way, way behind in what the average guy in the street already knows...and has known for about the last, oh, seventy years. Like, Jean Harlow had curves. Yes, some skinny gals can be sexy too, but when it comes to cinematic appeal, nothing beats the classic curves along the lines of 36-24-36 or thereabouts. And those numbers are pretty nice in real life, too.

I saw a stripper the other night with a body, personality, and fine floozy face that all together could have gotten her an RKO contract with Howard Hughes back in the days when Hollywood knew what real sexiness was all about. We’re talking Jane Russell quality here, although this dancer’s body was more remarkable derriere-wise than in the bust like Russell’s. This peeler would have wiped the red carpet with most of Tinseltown’s finest last night at the Globes. If she wore a gown with a scooped back like Hilary Swank did a year or two ago, she would have gotten worldwide press coverage on her deep sacral dimples, those two little indentations above her butt--dimples which have been regarded as a sign of great beauty since the days of classical Greece.

The problem with the media these days is they talk about how all these actresses are beautiful when, in fact, many are not. They have pleasant faces at best.

Years ago there was talk about how our society has “defined deviancy down,” in effect making what used to be considered weird behavior now acceptable. It is the same with our standards of beauty today. There are many actresses who are called gorgeous who most assuredly are not, and the audience knows it, and this then creates a believability gap not only in the perception of them as performers, but in the acceptance of their work in movies and tv.

Truth in advertising is called for.

Very few actresses are called to the vocation of goddess. And we do a disservice to our standards when the media assign that designation to every woman on the red carpet.

Damn, I shouldn't have had a milkshake about 4:00. I got it instead of a cup of coffee, and figured it would be a nice libation while I blogged. But I couldn't seem to write anything I liked, and I ended up with indigestion. Now I'm belching and I have no appetite for dinner...and I'm giving today's entry another whirl.

Belch, belch, belch...

What is a 25 year old like me doing in a 55 year old body? Hmm?

Although sometimes I feel like 60 now, because there is nothing that ages me like financial stress...

Money is tight, and freelancer's tax time is only ninety days away. Actually less, because February is a shorter month.

It's enough to make a man get a lapdance...or two...

I've been nixing the lapdances, but it definitely makes my stripclub visits a little less convivial.

There's no two ways about it; lapdancing is woven into the fabric of modern ecdysiastical entertainment. It's not 1951, and I'm not sitting in a burlesque theater; it's 2007, and I'm sitting in nightclubs where the strippers make their real dough writhing on men's laps.

I'm glad to save money, and I enjoy watching the girls onstage, but it all adds up to a feeling of keeping everybody at arm's length.

There is one waitress at a club who seems concerned about me. I get more of a genuinely friendly vibe from her than from all the dancers combined. She knows me from my more free-spending days. She is really sweet and friendly.

Can there actually be genuine affection for a customer?

I guess since my hopes for becoming friends with Lily, my erstwhile favorite dancer, were dashed some months ago, I've grown increasingly cynical. I try to be stoical, but I am very bitter that it came to nothing. I can't fool myself.

Nowadays, I wonder if I use the excuse of not wanting to spend a lot of money (which is certainly wise on my part) as a way of keeping the dancers at a distance...

I almost DON'T want to talk to them...don't want to hear their stories...because I get sucked in too easily.

I am not only a sucker for a pretty face and body, but a sucker for people's dramas.

So I wonder if I am throwing up a force field around myself.

I wonder if my lonesomeness and disappointment are visible in my body language, my face.

I often feel that people dislike me, and yet I don't know exactly why. I think I am amiable, but maybe I'm not; after all, I know I get into very angry moods when I am alone. I think that I'm easy to be around, but maybe that's not true; perhaps my inner tension wears on people. I know I am a good listener, but maybe that doesn't really matter. After all, there are many disagreeable and self-absorbed people who have plenty of friends.

Then again, sometimes I feel I can take people only in small doses; my capacity for feeling engaged by them in person seems to be diminishing.

Sometimes I think I prefer the products of people's imaginations to the people themselves. I love good books, good films, good art; but I don't necessarily want to know the people who made them.

I think there is something about me that has made my life far more isolated in recent years...

That is why the friendliness of a waitress in a stripclub, who really has nothing to gain from me other than a dollar or two for a beer, startles and puzzles me. Makes me feel grateful, and curious to know where the friendliness comes from: if it's dispensed indiscriminately, or somehow especially for me.