OUR MISSION: What I Do Here

by Diane Farr

The last home I walked into on a blind date was when I realized I was the Ass.

This last man I left standing (as opposed to laying beside me when I married the next guy I met), invited me and our mutual friend Peter to his country house FIVE HOURS AWAY from where we all lived in NYC.   I should have known then what was in store for me.

As Peter pulled our rental car onto a dirt road on an empty plot of land, I really had to pee.  Way in the back of this property I could see a large barn.  Truth be told, I was so unimpressed with the outside, I was worried if this barn even had heat.  But as we bumped along the pot-holed road to this building/home/animal house, I was racing out of our vehicle to get inside it.  (For the bathroom.)  I darted up two rickety steps and was surprised by some beautiful detail on the woodwork of an over-sized front door. I ran my fingers on it and poof! The door pushed itself open.

I hollared a “hello” into the cavernous space, feeling like Nancy Drew on the verge of a mystery.  I then entered, unaccompanied.  With my first step mood lighting sprang on.  With my second, classical music filled the room. At which point I froze.  Not because of the trick electricity but because of Venetian plaster.

My Dad was a general contractor and I have a theatre degree.  These two things mean I am well-versed in finished carpentry.  For a chic with nice fingernails, I can actually build anything.  I also contracted my own home and ran a team of thirty laborers on hiatus from a TV show five years before this date.  And the most tricked out thing I did in that house – was Venetian plaster.  I hired two different artists to do this on the best wall, with the best lighting, in my showpiece kitchen and neither got it right.  It cost me a fortune and the compound still alludes me.  And here it was, done PERFECTLY, in a HALLWAY of a single dudes house?!

A guy who has no wife and no kids and yet, at the end of this masterpiece hallway I can see 40 foot ceilings, a dining room table that seats 20, and three fireplace on the ground floor alone!  And one, two, three, four, FIVE BEDROOMS overseeing the dance floor in his living room!  Done in the best possible taste imaginable.  WTF!

The Last Man standing approached me and tried to introduce himself but I had so many questions.
“IS THIS VENETIAN PLASTER IN YOUR FREAKIN HALLWAY?”
yes.
“Do you really have five bedrooms in this barn and seating for what looks like – 50?”
yes.
“And you live here alone?”
yes.
“No kids visit you and no ex-wife screams at pick-up time that she decorated this and you got it in the divorce?”
um, no.
“And you maintain this “second home”, in the middle of nowhere, for the sole purpose… of pulling down ass?”
Last Man Standing just looks at our mutual friend Peter, wondering what he should say to that. Until both of them burst out laughing.

“Sorry.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  I’m Diane, and your house is spectacular, but I just realized that this is an AssCastle.  And I’m the Ass.”
The laughter continued and finally, all this man had to say to this was:
Welcome.

*****

Hey, it’s cool if you buy, build or decorate a house just to get laid.  This is America and this is why people hate us.  Get on with your bad self.

But some of the decadence is overdone and some, too “on the nose”.  Plus, men and women really don’t share a common language in single life.  So I thought I might offer up a little advice, as a married chic who frequented a number of AssCastles in her twenties – on how men should decorate or re-adjust their décor – to the tail they are trying to catch.  Cause an informed man is a better man to date.  So no judgment from us girls.  Just some cues for you

(and a couple of good spirited giggles for us.)

OUR MANTRA HERE:

FOR THE  LADIES: don’t playa hate – just know the court you are playing on.

If a man says he is not interested in a relationship LISTEN TO HIM.  This is not a challenge to see if you are worth changing his mind.  It just means, he is not interested in a relationship.

FOR THE GENTLEMEN: don’t lie like rug – lay the truth down and see who is willing to lay next to it.

You’ll have a better time with a well informed female than a psycho you create by sending her mixed signals.
Now get out there and have some good clean, condom-ed fun.

DF