You Can Make It Up, Ghostdad Edition: Hanging Out With Marcia Gay Harden On New Year's Eve

So I'm sitting at home, just doing nothing...watching a "No Reservations" marathon on the Travel Channel when this guy I "know" Derek calls me up and is like "hey, man...you gotta come to this party with me tonight. It's going to be epic". And so I throw some Brut on and a cummberbund and I'm out the door.

When I get there it's more like something from "The Big Chill" than "Can't Hardly Wait". I mean, there's white wine and appetizers with scallops in them and young dudes in tuxedos cleaning up after people. So I see Derek and am all "WTF, D? I thought you said this party was going to be live. Where's all the honeys? The Moet? You know?". And he goes "patience, my good man...patience" and before I know it some of the old foggeys take off and some glitterati type motherfuckers start showing up. The dude who played Urkel comes in with a big group of ladies (whom he calls "bitches") and Kato Kaelin is even there. So I'm thinkin'....ok, cool. This could be ok. I can finally find out if it was hard for that dude to play both Urkel and Stefan Urquell simultaneously and if OJ uses fancy soaps in his guest bathroom and stuff. As I'm in the middle of talking to one of Kato's groupies...trying to make some time...I feel this tug on the back of my cummerbund strap and I turn around real angry like.

"What the fuck, man? What are you-"



Then I see her. Marica. Gay. Harden. I've never been a huge fan or even all that attracted to her but there's this look in her eyes. It's a glow. It's like her eyes are pregnant or something. I'm tempted to even use the word "angelic" but I won't.

Marcia looks me right in the eyes and says, with an embarrassed smile, "oh, excuse me. I thought you were someone else. Someone who owes me a kiss at midnight".

I play it real cool and go "oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm not him. If you can't find him though, feel free to hit me up again". She smiles at me longingly before drifting off into a sea of sequins and formal wear.

Some time passes, Kato bores me with details about trying to set up his imdb page, Derek throws up on a bonsai tree. Marcia does her thing and I do mine until we cross paths again later out by the gazebo. She lights up a cigar and says "do you mind if I smoke?". Even though I do kinda mind cause cigars smell pretty foul I'm smooth about it and go "hey, it's a free country".

Then we talk about some stuff. Politics, the environment, fine dining, you know all that kind of Hollywood shit. She then tells me I remind her of Ed Harris on the set of "Pollack" except a little more intense and that seems cool, I guess.

She reaches over and says, "you know, I never found my friend. The one who owes me a midnight kiss". And I'm all like "Oh, lame. That's a bummer cause it's almost midnight and if you don't kiss somebody that's pretty shitty and...." then before I know it she kisses me with the burning intensity of a thousand suns (on the lips). It was heavenly. Again, not that attracted to her but there was a force behind it. Some would call it magical, I would not though. As I sit there, struggling to process this situation she tells me that my shoelaces are untied. I bend down to tie them but when I sit back up she is gone. There's a note in her place that simply says "don't ever change".

I clutch it to my chest, it smells like her perfume. I whisper into the cool winter air, "I won't, Marcia. I won't". I mean...unless I get hit by a bus or something. That would probably fuck me up a bit. I'd probably get brain damage or paralyzed or something. I mean, I would still be cool like I am now but it would definitely be a discernible change. But...anyway. That night was pretty cool.