Last night I went to a friend’s birthday party. A few close friends were there but most of the comics were three minute jobs: they ask me how it’s going, I say “all right” and ask them the same, they then spend 2:50 telling me everything going on in their career and personal life and I point to an imaginary friend and say, “Nice talking with you but I have to go talk to that spot on the wall immediately.” Not quite- I give the spot a name so as not to give away my desire to escape.

After about an hour of greeting people I haven’t seen in a long time, I realized I wasn’t being groped in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed. See, when you’re a female comic you quickly get used to male comics fondling various body parts. It reaches the point where having one grab your ass doesn’t seem much different from having him shake your hand. In fact, it’s very much like having a little kid cop a feel here and there in the pool: you don’t see anything sexual about it. While I don’t particularly enjoy the man-handling from comics, the thought of becoming unworthy of it is somewhat depressing.

A couple people pulled out cameras and asked me to take their pictures. When did I become the photographer? These are friends of mine and they didn’t even pull the “Take our picture and then I’ll take one of you two” tactic. It’s a goddamn digital photo. You can delete it later but at least pretend you want to take my picture. It occurred to me that the last time anybody took my picture was at my brother’s wedding last fall. I mean intentionally. There has been the occasional “Hey- that’s me in the corner scratching my head!” But I don’t think there’s been any posing.

Finally, the birthday boy A. asked me to be in a shot with two of my friends who were looking particularly fabulous (I’d already told T. she looked like a trophy wife and S. looked like the mistress- those are big compliments in this town). A. took the picture and said, “Wow- that’s a hot picture with T. and S. in it.” I think I let out a yelp and he added, “Oh, and Jenée.” The little fucker tried to play it off as a joke, but I’m not entirely certain it was one.

I was engaged in a heated debate on the importance of nail polish on a woman when across the room I spotted R., who’s spent the last seven years trying to get me in bed. I said to the guy next to me, “If R. doesn’t make a pass at me, I’m going to cry.” He asked why and I explained I was feeling very unattractive because of the pictures and the lack of groping and then I told him the history with R. He said, “If you’d like, I could anal rape you in my rental car.” I hugged him for the sweet attempt to make me feel desirable.

Five minutes later, R. came over and I was a little worried I might not make the grade. But the first words out of his mouth were, “Oooh, your hair’s down. Too bad your top isn’t.” So I fucked him. Ok, I didn’t. But I’m beginning to think five years from now that just might be enough to make it happen. At least I know I’ve still got it for now. Maybe not much of it, but a little.