High-pitched screams and squeals, yadda yadda, Liz made a big silly scene down at her office. When I hung up with her, I listened to the message again. Jeff Cohen. He can't make it to our party. He sounds nice. He's kind of laughing at us for throwing a party in his honor. But he's acting like he's sort of regretfully declining or something. It's some classy stuff. He gets it. And he leaves his number "In case you want to ask 'Goonies' questions or anything like that." Hmmm. Wasn't that considerate? He didn't need to go and do that. Don't mind if I do.

After I composed myself a little, I called Jeff on his cell phone. I won't go into the whole conversation, because we talked awhile. But hear me now and understand me later and always know: This is a nice guy. This guy is the real thing. He's real nice to me, you know? I asked him what he's been up to, told him about all the stuff I've been working on and the subsequent failures that have resulted from my efforts, etc. Let it be known we had a 20-minute conversation. Me and Jeff Cohen.

"Sloth? You're gonna live with me now."

The Y2K party comes and goes without so much as a light flickering or an alien sticking forks up our butts. 'Twas quite a motley crew we assembled down at New Jeannie's that night, a crowd made up primarily of the disgruntled shut-ins and drug addicts who are fans of "TrollConcept," the local cable show that I host with my writing partner, Meg Martin. Cohen graciously sent a recorded "millennium message," which we played just before midnight in the style of an acceptance speech from an absentee Oscar winner.

I was dressed as Hooker Spice for the occasion, and Meg fell facedown drunk in the street outside New Jeannie's, while her sister Anne discreetly puked in the bathroom. My sister, meanwhile, plunged her tongue down the throat of Joseph Dangerhausen from the AC Idols, taking advantage of him in his drunken state, and then she proceeded to go down to the basement and play her violin for the imaginary dolphins down there.

And so it was that we all found ourselves sitting around in the year 2000. Same shit, different millennium.

But one thing was different: I had Chunk's phone number.

I aimed to use it. Not frivolously, not so as to make a nuisance of my dumb ass and risk getting arrested or made a mockery of on "E!" When I appear on "E!" it's gonna be in my very own True Hollywood Story and it's not gonna be some weak two-minute segment where they show my head being pushed down into the police car for stalking Chunk, and then the whole rest of the story is a feature of Cohen himself. That's not how I want it to go down, if you catch my meaning.

So I used the digits sparingly. I called him a couple of days into the new year to tell him thanks for playing along, and how fun the party was and how many drunken idiots enjoyed his millennium message. Then when I finished editing the party footage for my cable show, I sent him a copy of the tape so he could see for himself. I congratulated myself on working those follow-up techniques. I was so proud of myself that I bought several beers and a new pair of fluffy slippers from the bin outside the 99" store on Delancey Street.

Meg and I have been working our asses off for three years now trying to become big, huge, wealthy, jeep-driving Hollywood "it-girls." In January we finally got some poor wreck to agree to be our manager. So in February we flew out to L.A. to take meetings with this guy's contacts, thereby defaming his name in "the industry" forever after, amen.

Since Cohen lives in the Southern California area, I called him up once again. This time I got voice mail. Just as well. So I put on my most upbeat, human-like voice and left him a quick 'n' to-the-point message, which went something like, "I'm coming to California and I'd be thrilled to meet up with you, if you're into it."

No response.

OK, this makes sense. I'm a zany, salty, wingnut dame on the other side of the country and it's all fun and games until I decide to descend upon his county like a huge, scary, toothy-beaked dodo bird risen from the grave. That's pretty damn frightening for Jeff. I can appreciate it. So I leave him be. I'm content to have had a few nice conversations with the guy.

"Gee, mister, you're even hungrier than I am!"

Yeah, right. My ex-husband, Ed, believes I can get away with one more call before I become threatening. What the hell. From my hotel room in L.A. I dial Cohen's number. Damn, I really don't want to go to jail and have to miss my big crumb-bun Hollywood meetings. That would look bad for me and Meg. Like our partnership isn't rock solid or we're not serious bidnizzwomen in boxy jackets, calculating the square root of rouge, ready to endorse all the enormous checks that come our way.

BA-RIIIIIIIIING ... BA-RIIIIIIIIIIIIIING ...

"Hello?"

"Hey, Jeff, it's Norah Pierson calling."

"Hey, Norah."

Once again, at the 11th hour, Cohen comes through like a glistening dewdrop in the heap of demon dung that is most of the other people I have encountered in my life's travels. Jeff Cohen rocks. We're having lunch on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning it is pissing rain. I'm smoking a cigarette on the patio of my room at the Magic Hotel, trying to predict just how fucking ugly and psychotic I'm going to look -- bedraggled and soggy and unpretty and unsane -- by the time my appointment with Jeff rolls around. Weather really affects me. I do well in sunshine.

But as they say out there in Hollywood, there are no small parts, only small assholes. So, come Wednesday, Meg and I go off to our second day of exhausting L.A. meet 'n' greets. (Sideline: That is the most enraging term in the universe. I hereby decree a moratorium on the use of the term "meet 'n' greet" to describe hideous encounters in which a wannabe artist, actor, writer or whatever has to sit in a room with someone who has lots more money and valuable prizes than they do, and act as if they're not an envious fuck and that it's just two really cool people having a pleasant and amusing conversation about how interesting and interested they both are.)

But I digress. The day wears on. It is monsooning and mudsliding. My feet are wet and they stink. Me and Meg are driving along chain-smoking and popping Altoids like there ain't no maqanas. Meeting, meeting, meeting. We are a veritable pack of wack. Buy us. Buy and sell us. Market us.

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