All these holiday parties this past week have forced me to get out of my indoor hibernation. The best gathering I have been to was a party at the loft of my old friend El Naughty. It was just what you always hope for in a party (but rarely happens) - everyone was interesting, stimulating, friendly, intelligent. Senor Naughty likes to collect people that he finds beautiful or fascinating and this was definitely quite a crowd.

Heres something interesting. I was at an event yesterday with A. We were greeted at the door by a woman who did not know us but whose task it was to give us a nametag and give us a name. She had only two types of tags. One said "I am the Master of _____" and the other said "I am the Muse of _____"

Anyways, she looked us up and down and wrote up A.'s tag which said "I am the Muse of Open Expression" and then wrote one for me which said "I am the Master of Passionate Action"

What I liked about this is that at the party everyone felt the need to comment on why you had been branded as you were. It was a reliable conversation-opener.