The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

Or felt...

Nervous/amused: I got talked into touring a "haunted house" in the Village (Manhattan) today. The theme was "old-fashioned insane asylum" -- lots of psycho patients doing "scary" things like goading people into kissing (what looked like) the carcass of a dead baby, and then accusing them of being perverts. "Why would you do what I say? I'm wearing a [bloody] diaper! Bwahahahaha!" And so on. The actors -- NYU drama students? -- were pretty good, I must say. If it wasn't actually frightening, it was nerve-wracking at times, especially when I was pulled from the group I was with and put in a small, pitch-dark room. A ghoul with an electric chainsaw came in and began crowding me against the back wall. After a while, he started sawing his own scalp. I got out of there fast....

Sexy? A guy at the train station yesterday said "you look like a movie star" as I was passing him on my way to the PATH train. I think he was sincere, because he didn't ask me for money. Of course, he could have been crazy. Or he may have meant William H. Macy, which I get sometimes -- and don't particularly think of as a compliment....

Puzzled: My annoying next-door neighbors, the ones who last year had raucous backyard parties every weekend, were peepless all summer. I'm not sure what happened to them. Their hound, who yaps at me every time I step outside my backdoor, is still there, however, so I assume they haven't moved out or succumbed to some tabloid-style atrocity. Maybe they just got tired of sharing their drunken banter and golden oldies with the neighborhood....