Chase the Toy, Sparky! Eat the Foot, Cassie!

New Year's Eve, like Valentine's Day, is the sort of holiday that makes some of us feel hopeful and others cynical. It is, however, never, ever a good time for a first date. First dates are tricky enough under the best of circumstances, let alone when you've had to get dolled up in a shirt you still feel self-conscious about, and wear the contact lenses that have been molding in their case for three months just to impress someone you're not even sure you're going to speak to the next day.

You know what's another bad idea? Pairing an ethereal "artist" type with someone who wears sarcasm like some people wear WWJD neckbands. I should qualify this statement by saying that I have the utmost respect for artists. But as much as I have respect for them, I also expect anyone and everyone to have a pretty healthy sense of humor, particularly when it comes to that thorny concept called "modern art."

Oh, yes. Modern Art. I've been to the MoMA, the Tate's South Bank gallery, the Pompidou. I've seen the masters. I've also seen a room full of Cy Twombly that looked like a seven-year-old named Sally's Mom posted her kindergarten doodles on a refrigerator.

Which is why I feel perfectly justified in my latest Crash and Burn experience with both modern art and dating. I'm clearly a proponent of efficiency. Why stop at exhibiting your artistic ignorance alone? Why not go for the whole kit 'n caboodle by simultaneously insulting the person you're supposed to be necromancing with your other, as yet determined, charms?

Having left New Year's party No. 1, being hosted by my friends, to head to New Year's Party No. 2, being hosted by his friends, we decided to cab it to his apartment so he could pick up a bottle of wine and card he'd bought for the hosts of the next party. Along the way, my companion expanded on his life as a sculptor, peppering our conversation with several Captain Intensity moments and uttering phrases like "be true to my art" and "find myself."

Don't give me that. You know who Captain Intensity is. You all know who Captain Intensity is. Some of you have even attempted to be Captain Intensity. He's the guy in the cubicle down the hall who tries to woo you with tickets to David Mamet plays because, like, the dialogue man, is so, like, totally REAL. And because he read somewhere that men who sit around shouting "Fuck this shit, Man. And Fuck You!" for two hours are a turn on for women.

Captain Intensity is also the guy who routinely plays Sir Toby Belch in your community theater productions of Shakespeare, chewing up scenery like Homer Simpson at the Captain McAlister's seafood buffet. He staggers and swaggers, lurches and slurs and then backstage gets his serious actor on, quoting James Lipton and attempting to bore holes into your soul with a stare that goes for "fiery passion" and lands just this side of "I have irritable bowl syndrome."

By the time this particular Captain Intensity and I arrive at his apartment, I've heard all about the virtues of sculpting with resin and plaster. We enter his apartment and he's just begun to flirtatiously challenge me to pick my favorite sculpture of his, when I accidentally grab one such piece of "art" and loudly mistake it for a CAT TOY. Seriously. It consisted of a block of plaster dangling from a piece of yarn and I actually squealed "You didn't tell me you had cats!" Yeah. It was just all downhill from there. All. Down. Hill. He gave me the Captain Insulted stare, said "I don't. I made that in college," and proceeded to shake my hand like a used car dealer as I made my hasty exit.

Heinous, heinous evening.