I gave myself to Anderson Cooper, and now he never calls

Dear Diary,

Please pardon my lack of a tête-à-tête with you recently, cherished friend. I'm just now catching my breath, after my whirlwind tour of New Orleans, the city of sans souci, of fleur-de-lis and fancy dress balls, of heat and humidity, not to mention hot and cold running hookers. Quel romance!

Oh Dear Diary! Had a wonderful time, wish you were there--but at $10 a day for an internet connection only usable in the lobby of the Hotel Astor, well, I'm sorry, mon cher, but I had to keep all my news and views to myself while spooning and mooning in the Crescent City.

I have so much to tell you! The food, the friendships, the FEMA-inspired design elements. But the most important thing on the agenda is this--my night spent sharing oxygen with Anderson Cooper!

Now, Dear Diary, I know what you're thinking. I haven't always been so kind to the Coopster. Yes, I have said that he resembles a prematurely graying Howdy Doody and that with just a touch of henna, he'd be the kissin' cousin of the Dood--or even Reba McEntire.

And, yes, I have complained that he was just another intelligent, pretty-boy Yalie with well-accessorized ancestors. Sort of like our dear President--except for the well-accessorized (tsk, tsk, Laura and those pants suits) and intelligent parts.

And, yes, I have disparingly remarked that his mother, the grande dame fashion doyenne Gloria Vanderbilt, perhaps designed those attrocious jeans of hers with his skinny, white-boy ass in mind.

I can be so unkind, Diary Dear, as we both know.

But I don't know, maybe it was the heat, maybe the humidity, maybe the mold spores infecting my brain and the risk of pestilence creeping alongside of me like an overheated, Louisiana drunk in quest of a quarter for another bottle of malt liquor. Or maybe it was simply the thought of my molecules touching Anderson's molecules (yes, I was *that* close). No matter the reason, bosom soulmate, but I must tell you this: I think I'm in like! In like with none other than the blue-eyed, silver-haired, pasty-fleshed He-Man of CNN.

(You certainly didn't think I was talking about Wolf Blitzer, did you, Dear Diary? I mean, really, I could never fall in amour with a man that whose name sounds like a character Vin Diesel would play in an action movie . . . or a man who the neighborhood children would taunt with the greeting, "Good morning, Mister Blitzer, how's your sister's blisters?" Shudder!)

I was so fortunate that I bumped into my dear friend, Spencer for Let, at the Morial Center on Monday, June 26, 2006--a day I shall now consider mine and Andy's anniversary, naturally. For it was Spencer that reminded me Anderson Cooper was the featured speaker at the conference I was attending--and he was speaking that very minute in the Grand Ballroom!

(An omen, Dear Diary, an omen. A ballroom--and soon to be revealed, a glass "slipper"--it was fate! Kismet! Shangri-La! Bali High School Forever and Ever! Ease on down the road! Billy, don't be a hero on the night Chicago died! Very Cinderfella-like, minus the Ugly Stepsisters.)

Like well-fed mice rallying around a pumpkin in a vain attempt to recreate a tableau of horses and carriage, Spencer and I scurried up the escalators and scampered into the ballroom just moments before Anderson began to speak. The luck, Dear Diary!

And soon he appeared in all his blue-blazer, nice-shirt-no-tie, 10 p.m. Eastern/9 Central manliness, simultaneously charming and controlled, sensitive and seductive, passionate and professional--all things to everybody, as only Anderson can be.

But just like those people who receive messages from the Martians via the tin foil stuffed in their hats, or even that woman who keeps breaking into David Letterman's house who keeps receiving on-air messages through the Top Ten List, I knew Anderson was speaking only to me, words and meanings that only I could hear and comprehend.

And here's what he had to say to me:

"Raplicious, come buy my book after the talk. It's only, like, $24.95 + tax! Hardcover, first edition! You can get a copy signed by me. In fact, if you're clever, you'll get in line twice, once for the signing and once to say hello!"

And that's just what I did, Dear Diary.

It took forever, mein schmerz, but it was oh so worth it. I stood in line while Spencer purchased the books, but when the book-buying line went slower than the meet-and-greet line, I stepped out to let others with books go before me. Generous, yes, cara mía, but selfish, too, for I was hoping I'd be last in line and, thus, have Anderson all to myself.

But, alas, the book-buying line was slower than my march down the aisle at Saint Louis Cathedral. The clock was striking midnight (actually, 7 p.m., but please indulge my dramatic reenactment), and the signing was about to end. So I got back in line, walked up tall and proud, extended my hand, and said with a smile, "Hi, Anderson Cooper, it's a pleasure to meet you!"

I thanked him for his impassioned, perceptive speech, and just for his all-around excellent, committed reporting during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. And he smiled, looked me straight in the eye (so piercing, so blue), and shook my hand back! Anderson Cooper touched *me*--and didn't immediately use an antibacterial handsoap after the experience!

He asked me where my book was, and I told him I didn't have it quite yet, that my friend Spencer was in line trying to buy it now. And he quite charmingly chatted with me for a moment before I needed to move out of line to let a new upstart get his/her book signed.

No sooner was I done, then Spencer arrived with the books, bless his heart. So we both got back in line and once again found ourselves before the Super Duper Mini Cooper!

"You got your book!" he said. Dear Diary, Anderson Cooper remembered me!

Then I rather jauntily said, "Yes, but I also wanted to continue the conversation from before." And then Anderson Cooper chuckled at my joke. He laughed with me, not at me (a point I must stress for all future readers, full of bitterness and jealousy who might speculate otherwise). How can I not use the "L" word this guy, Dear Diary?!

Unfortunately, my comrade-de-plume, neither Spencer nor I were quick enough on the draw to slip our telephone or room numbers to Anderson--although the next day we did tell all our colleagues that the headboards in our hotel room were the backdrop to Anderson's reporting on that evening's Anderson Cooper 360.

So no late-night rendez-vous by the Andrew Jackson (alas, not Cooper, not yet anyway) statue in the square in front of St. Louis Cathedral, no moonlit walk along the banks of the Mississippi, no guerrilla asbestos-removal project-for-two in the Lower Ninth Ward after midnight. But, Dear Diary, I didn't go away empty-handed either.

For you see, after Andy left his signing table, Spencer and I scoped the area for mementos and trace amounts of DNA, and lo and behold, we hit the souvenir, skin cell, and saliva jackpot like it was a nonstop weekend of sad shopping and sleazy sex at South of the Border!

Spencer grabbed up the very Sharpie that Anderson used to sign all those hundreds of books with (including our very own). And I, Dear Diary, absconded with the very drinking glass that Anderson used to de-parch his pucker (if you'll pardon the expression) while talking to all his fans. I have the glass now positioned on my bedroom dresser--sleeping with it under my pillow was entirely too impractical, not to mention ill-advised under my health insurance plan--where, along with the moon and the stars, I bid it good night just before I fall asleep.

Perhaps someday soon Anderson will come riding on a gallant steed through my neighborhood in search of the "glass sipper" that perfectly fits his sweetly bowed lips. I'll play it cool, all demure and unskanky-like, then with a flourish reveal the glass, hidden discreetly behind my back. I'll murmur seductively, like a middle-aged, male Holly Goodhead in James Bond's Moonraker, "Is this the vessel you're hoping to fill, Mister Cooper?"

And, of course, it will be.

We'll then live happily ever after in a loft in the Dakota on Central Park West off Mummy's squillions. I'll photograph and garden for a living, while Anderson retires to his study to write nonfiction bestsellers and perfect speeches for his book tours. On weekends, we'll motor up north to our country chalet in Vermont, in our canary yellow Saab 9.3 convertible, with our springer spaniel Molly and our rescued greyhound Spike in tow. And one weekend on a whim, we'll cross the border into Quebec, where we'll find a registry office in some quaint French-speaking farming village, where we'll become legally and spiritually Mister and Mister Anderson Cooper-Licious.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that will never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

(Editor's note: With sincere apologies to Miss Dorothy Parker.)