[This is part I of a two part series, inspired by the fact that I was deleting my Myspace account. I realized that they had saved every email correspondence from the past 6 years… it was like discovering the Pompeii of my social life. There they were, all my shennanigans.  Pefectly and horrifically preserved.]

PREFACE: To be a successful person in life and also to understand this blog, you should have some familiarity with the Kenny Chronicles .  But for those of you who won’t because you’re too lazy (and God love you for that) I will give you a brief background. Whilst attending college in London, I met a charming, British Indian lad who was stricken by yours truly.  Several months later, he moved to my blue-collar, closed-minded Midwestern town to “study abroad,” but I fear all of that was just a really pathetic excuse for said illegal immigrant to be with yours truly.  But can you blame the chap?  Shortly thereafter, I discovered charming lad had more money than God and a very hopeless addiction to heroin.  Two traits that I don’t generally seek out.  In the rolodex of past relationships, I now affectionately refer to him as My Slumdog Millionaire. Oh, and Kenny. He is basically the male version of me, otherwise known as my metrosexual best friend.

The moment Slumdog moved here, it was blatently obvious that he didn’t belong.  Everyone here is exactly the same.  He was British. He was Indian.  He was 26.  He wore Versace Couture and got regular facials. He had no occupation, yet immediately paid cash for a home in my city’s most expensive neighborhood, where he parked a Porsche Carerra 911 and two Mercedes in the driveway.  He was surrounded on all sides by maple trees and white doctors with young families.  To say that he stuck out, would be to say that my mother is paranoid of life, or that my dad hates Al Gore, or that I have a mild distaste for mayonnaise and commitment.

Among the many positive benefits that heroin has to offer, my favorite is paranoia. It only took about two days on American soil for Slumdog to decide that our unexplainable chemistry meant that Kenny and I were having a secret, steamy love affair.  I laid down the law that Kenny wasn’t going anywhere. Long ago, Kenny and I came to the conclusion that when we finally meet “the one” they will understand our relationship.  It seems that since then we’ve both dated quite a few “not-the-ones.” During the three years of hell that followed, Kenny was the only person who knew.  He helped me hang on to any small shred of sanity I had left, when he wasn’t pissing me off, of course.  We crafted many a sneaky maneuver to carefully hide the addiction from everyone, including  friends, neighbors, family, my employees… and the cops.  As someone who hadn’t had any experience with drug addicts [so sue me], I didn’t want everyone to judge him on the off chance that he might someday overcome his addiction.  Chalk that up to naivete and Nice Midwestern Girl Syndrome – both traits of which I’m glad to be free.

In a last ditch effort to gain me back for the 100th time, Slumdog planned a trip to see his London doctor and “sort himself out.”  As usual, I was left to tend to all of his bills, the ginormous house, 3 cats, 300 gallon salt water SHARK TANK [for which I had to dice up raw shrimp and squid to satisfy their ravenous appetites morning, noon, AND NIGHT], and various other duties – all while I was attempting to run my retail store in the mall.  Bottle of wine, anyone?

Kenny and I had always thrown combined birthday parties. Well, hey, whaddya know? I’m going to have a big, huge house all to myself… I spose we could just have a small little get together type thingy here, eh? And so we started planning a top secret gathering for the week after Slumdog’s departure. It was especially confidential since Slumdog hated the Kenny.  And Slumdog was a freakishly paranoid about his house and/or possessions.

The theme was to be “Risky Business”… cus well, it was. And Kenny has always had a ridiculously unwarranted mild obsession with Tom Cruise [and does bear a slight resemblance to him circa Top Gun. ..or so he says].  We had sent out a few, or 300,  invitations via every social networking avenue available.  I should also mention that we’re not good at keeping promises, or anything on the “down low.” Thus, we booked a DJ, purchased ambient lighting for the entire house, ordered several hundred glow in the dark beads and Ray Bans, and secured people to help us move out all the furniture.  My London roommate was also flying out from New York for the, uh, get together.  Oh, this is only the beginning.

Things to anticipate in part II:

*An exact replica of the party invitation as has been preserved in the MySpace museum.

*When everything blows up in our big, fat lying faces.

*Slumdog misses his flight to London, which throws Kenny and I into Mission Impossible crisis mode.

*Kenny distracting the cops, as I burst out into tears and tons of minors scatter out the back door and hide inside the rich neighbors’ tube slides.

UPDATE: CLICK HERE FOR PART II

How We Met

How to Talk Yourself Out of Dating Almost Anyone

A Conversation at Starbucks

A Metrosexual in a Yankees hat

A Bad Gordita and Some Classy Water