Tonight I watched about ten minutes of “Deal or No Deal.” Wow. Alec Baldwin was right; it really is just bimbos opening suitcases for an hour.

Then we watched eight minutes of a holiday TV movie directly after the suitcase show. It “starred” John Goodman, whose exhaustion and annoyance did not seem like acting; Chris Kattan, playing the little bitch only too well; Carson Kressley, doing a poor job of doing basically what he did on “Queer Eye,”; Eddie Griffin, whom I once met in a bar; and Delta Burke, who was truly just collecting a paycheck. I think they did the opening credits in Photoshop. It was a cavalcade of b-listers and slumming. Ahhhh.

I had to switch over to Sportscenter at the 8-minute mark. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I did some arm lifts with the new weights Brian bought. They are the kind that you strap to your wrists. Two and a half pounds each.

I have been working quite a lot on Part One of me “novel.” Feels good to be in the “zone.” And use “scare quotes” around words.

But seriously. This one chapter I have been writing is about seduction, specifically in the punk rock world. It is something I am intimately familiar with. Well, was, long ago. In a scene similar (but not quite) to the one I am writing, I once met a boy who was a very prominent (and slutty) figure in the East Bay music scene, and on the night we met, well. He decided that I was going to be his for the night. But the way he did it was so cute and charming and nice. He didn’t take advantage of me or anything. But I do think he knew exactly what he was doing. It was fun, and he said something to me that night that was so blunt and yet so casually uttered, that I actually lifted it for use in a completely different part of the book:

“Do you wanna mess around?”