"Are you going to be there? Just get the fuck of the computer already and get over there."

"They HAVE no show without me!", "bravo is my family!", etc. She was with a much younger, more handsome man and two friends, sitting outside extra virgin. the best part was that her friends looked like they wanted to punch her. This bitch is crazy!

Yes, the whole gang is expected to come back, and Bravo is hoping to find two new ladies to join them. Initially everyone thought that leathery bitch Kelly Bensimon would not return, but apparently she's eager to go on TV again to prove that she's not a self-centered nightmare. Plus, as an insider close to the show told Gatecrasher, she sorta makes for good TV:

People may hate Kelly, but they aren't immune to her. They hate her so much that they want to see what she'll do next. She's the bad guy, and that makes for interesting television.

It's perfectly understandable that Ramona would hold out for more money—rocket fuel isn't cheap, and she needs to fix the carbine-capacitor before she can slingshot past the moon and straight on towards home—but Jill? Really, hon? We like your mom, and we adore your hideously redesigned house, but other than that, you're the most blah of the group! Even your kid isn't the most interesting kid! (That title will forever go to Avery.)

Anyway. Obviously we're most excited for the return of Countess LuAnn "Crackerjacks" DeLesseps. Unfortunately we weren't able to get a comment from her, though we tried via payphone before she zoomed off in a rusted-out Thunderbird headed toward the Sierra Madres, never looking back.

Yeah, Kelly Bensimon, the worst witch, was cuddling up with 300 star Gerard Butler at some sort of Details magazine party. What a big, on-the-rise movie hunk like that was doing curling up with that strip of jerky we're not sure, but evidently he enjoyed it. After consulting with Dan Abrams (of all people), Butler was heard cooing into his cell phone, "Where are you? Where did you go?" Ah, young (in spirit!) love.

And the Countess... Well, you tell the story better than I could, New York Daily News:

Spies caught ­Countess ­LuAnn de Lesseps - who's separated from hubby Alexandre - letting out her inner cougar at Georgica in East Hampton.

"LuAnn was drinking, dancing and making out with a young guy in his late 20s," says an eyewitness.

Sad. But also beautiful.

Have fun, girls!

Image via Getty

I don't really know how to "recap" two hours' worth of women sitting and shrieking, so maybe we'll just do a state of the union here. How does everything end?

Jill
Jill came out, mostly, roses in the reunion. Her various rages about tardiness and charity laziness were mostly valid, she made reasonable points. The finale blowdown between Zary and Bethenny seems to have been smoothed over, because those two dizzy broads are thick as thieves and no fight over branding can come between them. And then in the end Jill's wonderful momz was shown in a clip and everyone was reminded that life goes by "in minutes." And maybe somewhere someone sat in shorts on a couch, two weeks away from a scary birthday, the birds and thin bands of sun humming outside, and suddenly he knew exactly what she meant.

Alex
Poor Alex. The thoughtful scarecrow remained mostly mute for the reunion, eyes flicking back and forth like at a Mario tennis match, bewildered pile of hair sitting atop her head, scanning the horizon for any opportunity to swoop in and articulate some grand point. She tried to weigh in on the whole Kelly/Bethenny fracas, and ended up just criticizing Kelly, fairly, for being an idiot who can't do the verbal arithmetic of putting together a legitimate sentence. Everyone seemed to feel bad for Alex, and it made me like her, but who felt most bad was Simon. Simon was standing behind a curtain watching the whole proceedings, the bright glare of stage lights turning him into a crooked silhouette. He mouthed his own responses to the questions and feigned laughs and asides. To be a part of it! To be a real breathing, beating part of this thing! If wishes were horses, his heart would be Assateague. Full and heavy with galloping, snorts of breath, wild mane. A small trail leading down below the waistband, soft hungry-sad brown eyes, perfect plum lips, strong lean arms, a warm salty taste on his... Wait! Horses. Oh dear god, ha ha ha, he's thinking about horses. Nothing else. Absolutely no one, um, nothing else.

Bethenny
Bethenny emerges from the flames mostly unscathed. Not to say that she hasn't come off a bit too harping, a bit too snide. Just that she doesn't really seem to give a shit. She's got her girl J.Z. on her side, and a sort of half-willing ally in LuAnn. Fighting with Kelly is like fighting with a dying stand of pine trees or with a suspicious dog who is blind in one eye and you always see at the top of your street like he is waiting for something (maybe it's you) or with an old shoe that you found behind the bureau when you were moving or with a dead woodchuck. Which is to say, fighting with Kelly is pointless because you'll never get anything in return but frustration and emptiness, a vague sense that the world is playing a mean, strange trick on you. This person can't actually be real, you think to yourself. But she is. Oh, dear souls in heaven, she is. But brave Bethenny persists. She must be tired.

Kelly
As stated above, Kelly is a mostly useless inanimate object. Or maybe inanimate isn't the right word. She's animate, but like an earwig is. An earwig doesn't feel pain or regret, an earwig doesn't make wry jokes over Bordeaux on a snowy night. An earwig is just pesky and kinda gross, and not worth spending more time on than the time it takes to scramble shrieking to the kitchen to get a paper towel so you can go blot the thing out, stuff it up in the paper and throw it in the trash and forget it. Kelly was evasive, as expected, about the twink bashing, and at one point was like "I have a question. Everyone's talking about this and that and this and that and going back and forth and, like... who cares?" Which was a ridiculous, annoying, holier-than-thou-but-in-a-really-dumb-person's-kinda-way thing to say on a reunion special for the goddamned reality show you were just goddamned on. Be of the world, Kelly! It's a way better place than the self-built netherrealm of mirrors that you've been existing in for the past year or so.

Ramona
Speaking of other, fantastical worlds, Ramona took some time away from building her giant clock on the moon to beam down to New York for the reunion special. Mostly she gibbled and garbled and threw her purple features around the room, singing strange Barbados songs and making crazy eyes at everyone. Oh, crazy eyes. Countess Crackerjacks diagnosed Ramona with Oculum déménsium over and over and over again, each time Ramona's eyes getting even wider and crazier, while Andy Cohen felt a strange tingle creeping up his spine and then all of a sudden he couldn't speak and the room was growing swirly and oh god what was that horrible black light creeping up in the corner over there, who is it, why is it coming closer and closer and closer reaching out to him like some wraith of oblivion and oh god I should have been a doct—phew, Ramona blinked. All the bad sensations were gone. Andy sat there, trembling. "I'll tell you about crazy eyes," Ramona muttered. There was a strange silence, like the few seconds right after the sun has set on the wintry tundra. Finally Ramona smiled. She looked around the room. "Isn't Mario handsome?" They all nodded their heads, shivering.

LuAnn
Oh LuAnn. Sure she's sad and getting divorced and who knows if she'll even have a title come the dissolution of the marriage. But she'll always be a Countess, always be our Crackerjacks, in our hearts. She got called out, mostly, for being stuck-up and condescending, and for not practicing what she preaches vis-à-vis her etiquette book. Kelly the Dumb was brave and stupid enough to flat out accuse Lunz of not reading her own book, which was met with hoots and hollers from the other ladies (well, not from Alex, whom I'm pretty sure had either fallen asleep or replaced herself with a dummy stuffed with straw and left at this point), because Kelly, m'dear, you might be right. But you're still the new, worst kid in town, so it'd behoove you to shut yer damn yap. Anyway. After a time Loony just sat back and lit up a cigarette "Can I smoke in here? I can't? Well too damn bad, I'm gonna anyway. You know, friendos, all this bickering. Man it reminds me of my early days in Cee Tee. We bounced around a lot. Up around Meriden for a while. Stayed in Storrs one fall, daddy's conning college students and mama the professors and the deans, threaten to show sexy snaps to their wives. So there was lotsa change, lotsa things stayin' in boxes for years n' years. And I dunno, you get tired, y'know? You get rundown. But you get used to it to, your legs don't feel like they're workin' unless they're movin', unless you got some good old ground goin' underneath your feet. So I guess that's why I went, y'know, why I kept on wenting. Idaho and Big Sky and all them shitty rainy towns they got up there in the State and Or'gon. But you do still keep hopin', you know, you still keep thinkin' this time I'm gonna slow down, this is it, this is the move, this is the little apartment above the laundromat or the chamber of goddamned commerce, this is the one that'll stick. But it never does until it do. Y'know what I mean, Andy? It never does until it do and I thought this one here, this fancy old strange life I'd got goin' over here in New York goddamned City, man, this was gonna be it. But it wasn't and it ain't and that's the breaks. So you over there sparkletits, Kelly or whatever the hell your name is, you can go take a long jog off a short pier. And Ramona, your eyes are crazy 'n you know it. You know it better'n all of us. You found those in some old magic cave about two hundred years ago and they're just keepin' you alive. I don't care. I don't care if you're Gumby wearin' a godammned people suit. I just wish you were honest about it. And you other three? Aw hell, you're all right. But mama, well... Well, mama's got to be goin'. So in closing,"

And then she lifted her leg and farted, long and loud. She cackled once, threw her head back and opened her mouth and sent the sound into the rafters, and then she was gone. Left the back door of the studio slamming shut. There was a revving of engines, and she'd disappeared.

After they'd wrapped up the reunion, Andy went to the bathroom to sob for an hour.

Alex and Simon went home and sat in their sex dungeon and watched their kids play with the antique iron maiden. What a strange life they'd found, strangest of all was that it fit so perfectly. Like a black leather glove.

Bethenny went home and put on her lab coat and her goggles and drew the blinds and went to work in the kitchen trying to concoct a Skinnygirl Cosmo. It was hard work, but she had a calling. There waiting on the mail table was a letter from Oslo. The Nobel committee. Would she be submitting again this year, they wanted to know. She would be. Oh yes, she would be.

Jill called her Mom from the car phone and they made a lunch date. After driving for another minute or two, she yelled "Oh holy Fuck." She pressed three on the speed dial and her little gay house elf friend answered. "Bubbz, I gotta cancel lunch on Thurdsay, I'm sawree." And Bubbz understood. He always does.

Ramona just kicked herself in the behind and flew away into the tinfoil dusk and we all knew, each and every one of us, but especially greedy Kelly the Once-ler, that we never should have cut down her Truffula Trees. Because it was a beautiful world that Ramona had, more beautiful than all the Thneeds in all the land. But now she's gone, and it's too late. Too late as always. So Kelly sits alone in her empty factory, wishing.

And Crackerjacks. They say sometimes that on a crisp night, one of those first crackling autumn nights in October, that you can hear her chuckling on the wind. If you smell an earthy whiff of leaves burning, maybe it's actually her curling cigarette wisps. If you taste the stinging-sweet taste of cooling air in your mouth, maybe it's one of her whiskey drinks. Just last week a small town paper in Muncie, Indiana ran a small article about a mysterious woman who wore a headscarf and rented an apartment above the stationery store. Everyone thought she looked vaguely familiar, but no one could quite place her. After a week, she left, but not before leaving a five hundred dollar tip at the local diner. The young waitress, a sad looking girl with fussy brown hair, was flabbergasted. But even more so when she read the note that the mysterious woman had left with the pile of cash. It read:

I'm you, baby. And you're me. So from one of us to another, a word of advice. Keep lookin' out, kid. Keep movin' on. Keep strong, keep wise, keep sane. And if you see an old rich dude at a bar somewhere nice, and he looks like he needs some company and you just might be the gal to give it to him, you take that chance, honey. You do it, you run with it, you do it all the way. Cause sure it ends, but everything ends. Everything in this rotten, wonderful old world is one day gonna leave you. But no one's gonna blame if you hang on tight for as long as you can.

It's a mechanical bull, baby. This whole thing called living. And, if ya got the thighs for it, it sure is a helluva ride.

Peace and chicken grease,

- C.

Oh, you know how it went.

Our story began with the shaking sound of broken glass in a cardboard box, a sound effect they use on radio shows like A Prairie Home Companion, but also the sound that Alex and Simon make while they rattle around Manhattan, their crow-like eyes scanning the horizon for bits of detritus—swatches of fabric, old posters of Alice Cooper, chandeliers made of bones—that they could use in their fancy new renovated house. There was also the lilting music of a Victorian carousel, so even those far off could tell; their daughters Johan and Eloise were with them. Now if you want classy stuff for your new classy house, what you're gonna wanna do is go down to Zarin's Fabrics. Because the orange woman who greets you with an ear-shattering nasal whine is sure to know classy when she sees it. Also if you can seek the counsel of an elderly gay house elf who sleeps in a small, dusty cupboard in the back of the store, that's great too. With the both of them, you're sure to go right.

So Alex and Simon consulted house elf and Jill, while the little girls made holy terrors of themselves, rolling themselves up in fabric, setting customers on fire, maliciously pooping in the elf's tiny cupboard house. Jill sighed wearily while Alex and Simon did nothing, because they are powerless against these manic, magic cherubs.

Speaking of manic, magic cherubs, Bethenny went to go get her hairs coiffed and to "wash the gray out." Which is a cutesy way of talking about getting one's hair dyed. So she turned on the ol' Frankel laughtrack and chatted up her big gay hairdresser, a loungey Frenchman named Alize or something who wanted to set her up on a date. Bethenny wasn't really having it because dude was a model and she doesn't do models. Instead she wants to marry the hairdresser if she's 40 and still single and then they can have a kid together and live in the Hamptons and he'll just go off and boff mens in his spare time. Alize sighed and giggled, doing a decent job of pretending that this was the first time he'd heard such a proposal. But lemme tell ya, Beth. Even ugly 'mos like myself have heard this line a few times. It starts in college and, oh I dunno, probably ends when you're 50. So, enough.

The date turned out to be horribly awkward, mostly because Bethenny just kept trying to make jokes that were only sorta funny, but lots uncomfortable. Some guy from Jersey or Long Island probably would have picked up on it, but this dude was a French model whose English wasn't even that sound to begin with, so he just blinked at her and guzzled one of her Skinnygirl margaritas and time mooped on and I shrugged to myself and thought At least she's dating. But Alize, be warned. It looks like you're getting hitched in three years.

Over in the Fantasticastle on the Northern Edges of the Glittersad Realm, Queen Ramona Singsongy Bingbongy was strapped to a Canadian goose and taken to Dr. Eve Ensler's Plastic Surgery Depository, where she would have a new face grafted over her old one, in the hopes of prolonging death. Because, few people know this, Ramona is actually 122 years old. She was born to itinerant yam farmers in the 1880's and has just hopped the rails and stolen faces ever since. Once science caught up with her wicked desire for new faces, she stopped stealing other people's and began getting Botox and Restalyne and Horsebutt Injections. Dr. Ensler told her about a new crazy thing where you give your armpit a sonogram to find out if it's pregnant with sweat. If it is, you abort the Sweat Baby and then you don't sweat anymore. Ramona stared at her, unblinking, and sad "could you stop my eyeballs from getting wet, too?" She also requested a new form of magic Botox (just typed BoSox there by accident, and thought it would be funny if Ramona had Kevin Youkilis injected into her face), that will not leave ugly little scar marks that Ramona has to cover up with her magic skin cream that she bought off an old witch near the edge of the Deep, Dark Wood.

So Ramona was happy because her looks are the most important thing to her, not her dwindling sanity, not her religious jewelry syndicate, not even her terrifying daughter Avery. Well, actually, Avery is quite important to her, because when she turns 18, Ramona will perform an ancient ceremony and transport her soul into Avery's body, so she can be young again. And then she'll never have to hang that "Out Chasin' Faces" sign on her front door ever again. And everyone will be glad for that.

Alex and Simon, sensing that their beautiful home repairs were near complete, decided they would have a grand gala for all of their "friends" to show off their new domicile. "We'll send the girls to their grandmother's in the Deep, Dark Wood," Alex declared. Simon said "Oh, yes, of course! And we just got them those lovely red riding hoods." The only trouble with the party planning was that the house was still a shambles! There wasn't any paint on the walls, the black teak wood was only half on the floors, there was still a small greasefire in Simon's clothes hamper, and Alex's false teeth and gotten up and chattered off one morning and they still hadn't found them (I can hear them in the walls, Alex would think frighteningly to herself, lying awake in bed at night, Chomp chomp, chomp chomp, chomp chomp...). So cue the whirlygig sped-up Trading Spaces montage of stoves and paintings and Alex and Simon sitting alone in the middle of the floor on tiny red pillowseats. There was a problem with some huge steel doors and the rain, there was a problem with the oven, and, of course, the Floor People came back.

But after it stopped raining and the stove was compromised on and they had the old voodoo lady with the cat on her head over to exterminate, they were ready. Just in time, 'cause ding dong went the doorbell and it was horrible Kelly, very early and very confused. She said she had "no idea how long it would take to get to Brooklyn", so she left really early. Which, I mean... oh for the love of God, come on lady. You can see Brooklyn from Manhattan. Like, very easily. This whole fancy pants "I never leave Manhattan!" bullshit is such a sad, lame joke. Alex made the good, if a bit annoying, point that it takes five minutes to get to Cobble Hill (for godssake) in a Town Car. Then Kelly, wearing her pith helmet and warily stroking her elephant gun, asked how where they live compared to "New York." Simon haughtily replied, as I used to when I first moved to Bklyn, "you mean Manhattan, we're still in New York." So it was just a sad bit of urban anthropology or something, and god almighty is Kelly awkward and horrible.

The rest of the ladies, sans Ramona of course, showed up and they were all stunned into disbelief over the house. Jill bitched a bit about fabric choices and then gave herself credit for a lot. Bethenny called it "a little bordello," which was being generous. It looked like David Copperfield's sex dungeon. What I find funny and strange and a little bit scary is that, while they affect this bourgie "we go to the Met! and Sant Barrrthssss!" thing, Alex and Simon are also straight up freak nasty when it comes to meeting each other for sex on the internet, wearing leopard print dresses, taking nude photos, and decorating their apartment to look like the inside of Sharon Osbourne's vagina. Part of me thinks they might actually be kinda fun, in a weird and off-putting way, if they just dropped that pretentious knickknackery half of their personality and just embraced the other bizarre side. But then I have to start thinking about a world in which I actually enjoy Alex and Simon, and lordy loo, that makes me want to go hide in the walls along with the missing falsies. Hiding there forever, there behind the set for that sadism-themed episode of Roundhouse.

After she left Brooklyn, all brave and exploring and noble, like a twice-baked Robert E. Peary, Kelly was invited by Countess Crackerjacks to a little downtown Sex and the City gals drinky romp-romp with Lunny and her two weirdo nieces. I say 'weirdo' because the minute Kelly sat down, one of the girls, we'll call her Snowball, asked Kelly: "What is your perfect date?" It was creepy and sad, this girl thinking she had to ask this bland and hideous reality show question. Plus, everyone always gives a terrible answer (honesty: we go to a movie, get drunk, then go to bed). Kelly's was "I like to do stuff so he should want to do stuff but nothing cheesy or lame." Crackerjacks beamed at all of this, so happy to feel all sexy and downtown and young, with her two nieces and fried-out, flaking Kelly. And dear old Crackerjacks, didn't it just break your heart a little bit to watch her in this scene? Especially when she said "I'm just living vicariously through you single gals!" and then realizing that she herself is now a single gal, yet again, yet another miserable time? Ah well. Had they asked her, had Snowball turned to Lunz and asked "What is your perfect date," Cracky would have cleared her throat, lit up a GPC and smiled.

"Well, I'll tell you my perfect date is not. Hah. It ain't gettin' popped in the back of your Crackerbarrel manager's old brown Cressida. Tell ya that. And it ain't waking up in Van Horn Tee Ex with your bits around your ankles in some dude named Lonny's trailer, walking the six miles to highway 10 and hitching all the way to New Orleans, all the while you're just thinkin', I had six rolls of quarters stuffed down my pants when I woke up in Las Cruces yesterday, and now I got nothing. That, my dears, is not an ideal type of date. And it sure ain't daisy-do perfect when you finally get to where you're goin, in this case, in this particular month of May, it was New Orleans, and you find out that your one and only, a ranch boy you met dancing at The Boondoggler ain't some rich Cajun prince like he told you after all, no he just sleeps in a fan boat and eats whole crawfish, raw, all day long. That is not a pleasant, ladylike Saturday evening, that's for sure. But I will tell you one thing. One time. I was barbacking (no that ain't what you're thinking, Snowball. There's no 'e'.) at this place near Lake Powell, it was called the The Oceanview, on account of the lake bein' there. And it was a real nice place, table cloths 'n' shit. Anyway. This one day, guy comes in. Danny. Blond hair, tan, ass like an apple turnover, just dressed real nice. Well he walks straight up to me and asks 'When you get off?' And I smile at him and I say right back 'Right after you do, dimple dick.' And man oh man, was he waiting for me when I got outside. And we just went for a drive, that's all. Didn't have to touch nothing of his and he didn't try to touch nothing of mine. We just drove and parked and we looked out at that whole big map of stars, and we didn't say much but I remember he did lean over once, real close, and he whispered 'What are you doing here?' And, you know, I just didn't have an answer. But it was OK. 'Cause at least he'd asked, you know? He drove me back to the house I was livin' in with Dorine and I never saw him again. But I used to think about him every time I saw the sky at night, you know? That's why I moved here. No stars. No Danny."

That's, you know, if they'd asked. But they didn't. They just kept on blabbering on and Kelly's sorta Argentinian boyfriend showed up and Crackerjacks got a little mad at first, because everyone just likes to get mad at everyone on this show, but eventually she softened up and you saw that same familiar, sad streak in her eyes, that look like she was seeing something entirely different than everyone else, some whole different picture, some whole different place, some whole different time entirely. But she shook it off and bristled her collar and after Juan Peron had left she said "I think it's getting hot in here!" and Snowball and Misty and Kelly and everyone laughed but on the inside, our hearts were broken.

But it was not the time for sadness! It was the time for charity and work, on behalf of the Knobby Knees Charity for Broken People, which Jill is spearheading in honor of her daughter, an unhappy clam of a child whose bones ache almost as much as her suffocated soul. Bethenny and Kelly were the first to show up, which was all planned, because they needed to have the terrible round two to their terrible fight. Bethenny was righteous in her anger, sure, but really should have just dropped the damn thing because Kelly is an unmoving monolith of horrible skin and crinkly creases who will not listen to reason. Rather she will just pretend she is above it all, when in fact you are not allowed, never ever, to claim out loud or simply act as if you are "above" anything once you've signed the contract to appear on a basic cable reality television show about... yourself. Sorry Kelly, check your wig at the door, because you've failed. You've failed at pretty much everything you've done!, but now, especially, you've failed as a reality show star. Because you sincerely seem to think yourself better, and you sincerely seemed to think that you'd be shown in a positive light, because what possibly could be not so positive about you? Except everything.

Anyway, the fight. Bethenny said that Kelly was a bitch for saying that she was up Here and Bethenny was down Here. Kelly denied saying it, then tried to turn it back on Bethenny. All of the ins and outs of the tiff aren't really worth going into because they're stupid and circular and make little to no sense, so let's just say that Bethenny slapped Kelly and then Kelly broke a vase over Bethenny's head and before anyone knew it they were rolling around on the floor, grabbing items from Jill's beautifully made-over tchotchke hut of an apartment—there went the O of the POP tables thudding down on Bethenny's noggin, smash! went the mirror wall as Bethenny slammed Kelly's raisin bran face into it over and over again, donngggg! went a candlestick holder as it went thwunking into Bethenny's tiny abdomen, and kersplinkle! went a menagerie of figurines as Kelly went sailing into a decorative shelf. Bloody, bruised, and embedded with thousands of shards of glass, Kelly went limping off to buy wine, because Ramona was coming soon and if there wasn't wine, the carnage wrought by these two broads would look like tiny potatoes. Roaaarrrrrrrrrr! would go the world as Ramona tore it apart seam by seam.

And there the episode ended, with blood and glass and tears and wine, as most parties end everywhere, as some parties begin, somewhere. No one really moved forward, did they? Alex and Simon still live in a dilapidated lean-to, now it's just full of Donny Osmond's darkest fantasies. Ramona is still stealing faces, but now it's just from science, not from actual people. She still lives in the Sparkleplace, a slip of a realm between this world and the next. She still speaks Diamond and Dogbark, her ears still twirl at the sight of rain, her hair is still made of ghosts. Bethenny is still on course to marry her gay hairdresser. He's still on course to never, ever actually do it. Kelly is as bashed-up as she always was, still having the same fight, still doing the same boyfriend bragging, still staring at that postcard she tacked up on the wall next to her bed when she's trying to go sleep at night. Someday she'll make it to this faraway, exotic place. When she saves enough, when the girls are older, when she can find the time. When she becomes brave enough. Queens, they call it. And it's across the big yellow bridge that stretches out like it's going to China. China is that way, isn't it?

And LuAnn. LuAnn is still drinking and dreaming, plotting and scheming. She's still wandering her house, running her hands along all the expensive wood, the impressive-looking books she'll never read. She's still sighing with the weight of giving up and moving on so very many times. She's still thinking about Danny. The way he lightly touched her hair, the way he smiled when she smiled, the way he made her feel that love and life was not about giving yourself up for someone else to use. Rather it can be a series of frogleaps. He helps you, you help him, over and over and over again.

Until it's getting dark out and it's time to go inside for dinner, like when she was a little girl. The 50's! she still thinks, alone in the study. The half-life of a century. The whole world spinning into dust, all of us disappearing, forever.

So that's that! Unfortunately I'm on vacation next week, but the wonderful Joshua David Stein will be recapping the finale episode along with, I believe, the premiere of 'New Jersey'! Thanks for reading these silly things. It's been fun!

But oh well, last night's was a Halloween episode anyway. Halloween in April! What a treat. Many scary and vaguely sad things (scary ghosts are, after all, vaguely sad) happened for the occasion. And what is the scariest and saddest thing of all, in all of stony, bony New York. The Countess Crackerjacks du Airstream, naturally. It was a big episode for her.

Big because her daughter Victoria came home from boarding school. Oh Victoria. All tall and grown and a real young lady. Cracky was so happy to see her, because it meant that Lunz could do her usual buffoonery while her daughter watched, bored, quietly and suddenly wishing she was back at school. You could tell, you can see it in kids' eyes, that moment when they realize that home is one place and the world is another, that there are tips of iceberg secrets that they've uncovered while out on their own—roving, adventuring, planting wobbly flags—and they'll forever be eager to get back to them. It's the melancholy price we have to pay for living, that nothing is forever. And you could see some granite twinkling in the Countess' gray eyes—she knew. Knew the jig was up. Knew that time had come and gone. Knew that she'd sent her daughter off early, and thus lost her that much sooner. But Lunz is a fighter, she'll lead the sandy charge against anyone—hell, high water, Napoleon—and Time is no different than any other enemy. So she did. She clapped her hands and cleared her throat and the trees swayed in the breeze and people sighed and blinked and ghosts were born and Lunny said "Let's go shopping."

So they did.

And elsewhere in New York the world was forgetting things and creating things in its little glue-stuck art table way and killing things and setting things aside. One of those people cast off to a dark corner, to a place where light and wind bend in ways they shouldn't, is Ramona. Dear Ramona, her parakeet eyes flicking back and forth, back and forth. White and black buoys in a sea of chicken skin. Ramona is a creative genius, so she decided that her religious jewelry needed to be shared with an even bigger amount of people than it already is. More than 10 people? Crazytown! Ramona figured the best way to accomplish this lofty goal was to haul her old AV equipment out the steamer trunk and make a video of herself selling the products. Ramona's little bindle of a wish was to get on the Home Shopping Network, where she could send her moonbeams out of her eyes through television sets and straight into your brain, as you sit addled on the sofa, the creeping dread of failure snaking its way up your back, the clock glowing in mean red letters: 3:02 AM.

But of course because Ramona must be loyal to the strange currents and frequencies that govern her, the little film project proved to be a disaster. Mario is not the ablest of directors, his camerawork remedial and lacking a clear point of view. As a line producer/script supervisor/makeup girl/craft services rep, Avery was also an unqualified failure. Ramona kept bug-eying her precarious daughter, scared of this miniature version of a person. "It keeps moving," she whispered to herself. "It's judging me." Realizing that his wife was clearly no longer able to recognize her own offspring, Mario figured that it was time to call it a day. And there went the camera equipment, back into the trunk, where it will just get dusty and forgotten once more. And when they find it in the future, when they land their hazmat spacecrafts and blip their sensors over the hulk of rubble that used to be the great island Manhattan, they'll find this video. An Earth human of indiscernible age, alive some twenty years before the Water Wars, giving some sort of religious service in her sleeping quarters. Her gleaming eyes telling a strange, lilting story. One of the Earth explorers will shake her head and wonder, What is she staring at that we can't see? What is she so afraid of? Avery. The answer is always Avery.

Let's hop in this cab here, and take it over to Jill's house. Oh, you don't have money for a cab? Huh. OK. Must be the economy. But just to be sure, let's ask Jill. Because, you know, Jill is an expert on the economy. She's been interviewed by the goddarned BBC for chrissakes. Yeah. A bunch of English people showed up to the Roundhouse and Jill sat there and answered their strange questions. "Can you eat American money? What does it taste like? Why do cars drive upside down here?" Jill nodded gallantly, pretending to understand their peculiar language. "I think rich people are nice," is basically what Jill mustered. Laughing a bit, a tad awkward, she sputtered at them, "I mean... don't you?"

No!

Horrible Kelly went to a photoshoot. Horrible Kelly went to a photoshoot and there was a terrible Frenchman who told her to open her legs and when the blood started pouring out of my face my roommate turned to me and said "Richard, you have blood pouring out of your face," and I said, "Yes, you too Rose," and so we both sat there, blood pouring out of our faces, as Kelly opened her legs and talked about how pretty she was and at this point there were pools forming at our feet. "Well, I'll never wear these pants again," Rose said merrily, blood pouring out of her face. Once there was no more blood and we had both passed out on the floor, Kelly decided that she was going to use one of the photos for a Halloween party invitation. Because she's so funky and fresh and fun and, oh fuck, blood just started pouring out of my face all over again.

Speaking of awful things pouring out of people's faces, Alex and Simon keep saying words. Last night they decided to tell us about The Environment. The Environment is a place somewhere near Alaska where all the polar bears are melting and everyone's dead. Alex and Simon were very concerned about this far off place, so they decided to solve the problem the only way they know how: buying hideous clothing. Yeah, whenever something goes bad, Alex and Simon just put on their flaming tophats and step out into miserable Brooklyn, pavement cracking under their feet, three-legged dogs trotting by, blood pouring out of their faces. Usually the problem they need to solve is something simple, like a stubbed toe or a terrible case of homosexuality, so they just need to buy regular ugly clothing. But The Environment is a big problem, so it would require something really ugly. So they went to Ed Begley Jr.'s house and he sold Alex a corset that was made out of potato sacks and said "Feed" in big black letters on the front for like five thousand dollars. Thus The Environment was saved and Ed Begley Jr. waved them off, smiling, and when they turned the corner he shrugged, sighed, and put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Because The Environment was no longer an endangered place, and so his work was done. He'll be buried, ironically, in a Styrofoam container full of gasoline.

Speaking of buying clothes! Do you know one thing that Victoria has learned at boarding school? Poor people stuff! Like how to buy clothes for a measly, scrabbly dollar. One buck! For a sweater! When Victoria told LuAnn this proud fact, the Countess' face did gymnastics and a rumble and moan sounded in her belly. "How charrrrmmming," she purred. And she looked at her daughter, all proud and trying to be poor and normal, like regular Wendy's-eating shitheads, the kinda folks Lunny had been dodging, shaking off, evading, escaping her whole damn life. LuAnn thought to herself, I didn't shoot that Greek guy in Des Plaines for this. I didn't scuff up my good boots doing honky-tonk burlesque at a truck stop in North Platte for this sweater. I didn't steal Dana Plato's Mazda for thrift stores. I didn't get chased by wild dogs for six miles across the Sangre De Cristo mountains for a buck. I didn't look out on that big Painted Desert and feel my heart swelling and my knees buckling and my tits twirling and that cold steel of the Smith & Wesson pressing against my hip and my wig blowing in the wind for a goddamned thrift store fuckin' sweater for a dollar. No sir, no m'am. Not on your life, Stefanos. Cram it with walnuts, wild dogs. Up yours, Plato. I was always better than you, Boot-'n'-Scoot. I won this shit. I beat you. So my daughter? She's gonna be wrapped in hundos. She's gonna shit twenties. She's gonna fart fifties. My kid's gonna be a regular goddamned ATM. So Crackerjacks grabbed her daughter and they went out to buy "cheap" earrings. For like $150. Well done.

Then it was time for parties. Alex and Simon had spent their afternoon carving pumpkins on their front steps with their little cherub children. As the slopped the mealy sluice out of the pumpkin, like brains from a head, they thought about their old friend Ed Begley. So sad, what happened to Ed. Then they had to get dressed for their big party. So they put the kids back in their boxes and put them up on the top shelf of the closet and they'd be back for them someday. Their costumes were Natasha and Bullwinkle from the cartoons. No, Alex. No it wasn't Sarah Palin and a moose. That is incorrect. It was Natasha Fatale and her dumb Minnesotan moose enemy and Fearless Leader in this case was Andy Cohen. So yeah.

Simon walked around a party in a moose costume. I mean. It was perfect.

Ramona showed up for Halloween eating dog food and dressed as Robin Hood. She tried to blow in her own ear while shooting an arrow and now she's wanted for manslaughter. Jill decided to dress up as a Classy Old Lady. This involved a purple fright wig and the wallpaper from an out-of-business Stride Rite that was lashed around her midsection. She looked dynamite. Bethenny was Roller Girl from Boogie Nights, though she looked more like Janis Joplin at the rollerderby, all drugged-out and confused. "Bobby... is this the post office?" "No Jan. Just go back to sleep."

Though everyone had about six or a million fancy parties to go to, they were actually lying and didn't have anywhere to go. So they all went to Horrible Kelly's dumb party for jerks. It was perfect for a Halloween party, because everyone was just standing around with blood pouring out of their faces. "Thinkin' about Kelly's open legs?" one guest would ask another. "Yep."

The only problem was this: Kelly is a complete jackass and showed up like twenty hours late to her own stupid party. Worse still, she was dressed as a Playboy bunny or something, which was just sad and pathetic and prompted people to stare at her for a while and finally ask "Did Hef survive the fire?" So everyone else stood around—Jackie Jormp-Jomp, Classy Foreign Broad, Ramona in flames, and Natasha and her gay moose—and waited. And waited. And waited. Bethenny was pissed because it was a cash bar, and Jill was just mad because someone asked her if she was supposed to be the Marquise de Merteuil and Jill had responded "No thanks, I'm married" and the person had laughed at her bemusedly. Ramona was up in the rafters of the club, having tea with some pigeons. Finally they just decided to leave because what the hell is Kelly's problem anyway.

Finally Kelly showed up with her dumb outfit on and her naked boyfriend in tow, and surprise, everyone had left. "Where are my friends," she blubbered. They were gone. Had skated off into the night. And everyone was angry. Because Kelly thinks she's people. Which is a shame, because she's not. She's an old hat that's been flattened out and given the spark of life. She's one of those bugs that look like sticks.

So Halloween ended on a sad note.

Eventually, we're to assume, everyone will see Kelly again and a fight will ensue. At some point someone will douse Ramona out and she'll totter off into the sunset, keeping a wary eye peeled for any sign of Avery lurking in the bushes or perched atop telephone poles, watching... Bethenny will continue to be mad at everything and maybe she'll keep her rollerskates on because what the hell. SkinnyGirl rollerskate diet. It could work. Alex and Simon will go to Ed Begley's funeral to which Alex will wear her newest fashion, a pickle barrel with the word "Manure" written across the front in big black letters. Simon will twirl his dandy cane and think about that one magic summer evening he spent rolling around the compost heap with a naked Ed Begley, their bodies smeared with corn oil, the earthy stink of apple cores lodging in hidden crevices.

And somewhere someday LuAnn will send her daughter back to boarding school. Victoria in her fancy rich people clothes, that strange and wonderful flutter of realizing that the wardrobe opens up to a whole magical world tumbling in her stomach. What wishes she'll make! What hopes and what dreams she'll have, and so easily! Not knowing the bloody, dirty, scuffy cost. But LuAnn will know. She'll always know. She'll know about the unmarked grave up in the foothills outside of Missoula. She'll know about the burned-out car probably still sitting in that front yard in Bellingham. She'll know about mournful train whistles. She'll know that a grown ass woman wearing velcro sneakers just might be the saddest thing in the world. She'll know about the ratty clothes. Oh those clothes. A sweater. For a buck!

She'll shake her head and make a tight ball of a fist with her hand and she'll watch the train leave Grand Central, whisking her daughter off to this storied place, and she'll know all these things. But it will be OK.

Because past is passed. Because trains mostly move forward.

Boo.

Given that Spitzer is the focus of the frame, one gets the sense the cameraman knew this was no ordinary cutaway. Several viewers did, too.

Thanks to tipster Luke for sending in this screengrab.

These busy bitches were hawking everything that wasn't bolted down—diets, furniture, fabrics, books, ideas, mind grapes, head lice, whole children, fancy jewels, fantastic surprises. Everything was being hustled out of a suitcase and into our greedy, sad little mitts. And we ate it all up, because why wouldn't we, our faces smeared with Ramona grease, hands trembling from LuAnn gulleting. It was disgusting and disgraceful. So let's talk more about it.

Ramona has skin. One day she was walking down the highway and there, lying in a ditch, was a pile of skin. "Prettyyy..." she said in her strange click and rattle language. She put the skin on and now she wears it all the time. Because she likes her skin so much, she has decided to kidnap make friends with a chemist and make strange chemical salves that people can rub on their skinsuits to feel young and fresh and humanoid again. It's called Tru Ramona True Skin and it retails for about a hundred space bucks. Ramona is very proud of it.

For her part, Jill Zarin sells fabrics. She sells fabrics to Chinamen and Gays alike, there in her huge warehouse of fabrics, her little gay house elf lurking in the corner. To celebrate her fabrics, Jill had a big party at the warehouse and everyone but you was invited. The Queen of France came with her valet, Lionel Richie was making out with Amy Yasbeck in the broom closet, plus all those batty bitches that are on the show with her made appearances. Alex and Simon came crawling out of an air duct, their mandibles pinching open and shut, open and shut. Bethenny popped out of a birthday cake, then fell asleep because she was just so tired and had only had a margarita and a bowl of SkinnyGirl cereal (sawdust and saline solution) to eat all day. Ramona came crawling out of a cater waiter's head, like a crazed, bug-eyed Athena. I'm sure the Countess was there, probably sputtered up in her rusted-out Geo Prism and made a beeline for the bar. And then there was a loud moaning and all of Hell's Kitchen melted into an oozing sex puddle because Kelly Killoren Beensomeone showed up with her strapping Argentinian boyfriend, Urgay.

Jill's gay house elf went apeshit. He pooped himself about seven times and kept cooing and purring all over him. Jillzee was totally embarrassed, for the house elf, who was tipsily swinging from the chandelier and screaming "fuck me! fuck me!", but also for stupid Kelly and her stupid Argentinian lady friend. Because they got into a whimsical pillow fight in the middle of the fancy fabrics party. Kelly, for a seventy-two-year-old, you sure are spry with that little schoolgirl giggle. If only the whole thing wasn't so devastatingly mortifying to watch. Almost as devastating as poor sad gay house elf, who just... oh didn't you just ache for his battered, boozy, lonely soul? Don't let me be him in thirty years. Please.

After the pillow fight, Kelly was so energized that she decided to go for a run in New York. Her favorite New York thing to do. Run down the middle of the fucking street like a fucking idiot holding up all traffic. Of course that's what Kelly does. Of course it is. It's the only thing. The only way she could possibly be. She's also that bitch who pushes her way onto the subway before anyone's had the chance to get off. I mean, you know, if she took the subway. If there's one line serving all four registers at Duane Reade, she'll get behind one person and say "it's four lines, it's four lines" even if it's obviously not. You are the worst person in New York City, Kelly Killoren Beensomeone. Congratulations.

It was back to fabric town when some people from a very prestigious magazine called Shut-Ins Quarterly came to Jill's horrible MTV loft apartment to do a photoshoot about fabric and the normal behavior of a common North American gay house elf. Does he poop in a box? Does he drink wee drams of whiskey out of thimbles? (Is that decomposing corpse hidden under stuffed animals in his room Kelly's Argentinian boyfriend? Yes, sadly, it is.) So Jill showed them around and said that it was the highest honor to have this magazine or catalog or leaflet or report filed on the wind to be heard in whispers in catatonic people's ears or whateve come to her house. The gay house elf beamed in the background, his biggest accomplishment finally realized. He could die now. So he and Urgay could be together forever.

Jill then had to go help two homos at her big store for fancyboys. Someone's parents were coming to visit so, lest the old timers be shocked, they needed to find some nice, understated, simple curtains. Right, because that's what was going to scandalize the parents. Not the realization that that one was putting his thing in their son's no-no special place. Not that there's an ominous box in the closet marked simply "Summer Wigs." Not that there's a framed photo of Michael Lucas hanging in the hallway. No, it was the lack of curtains that would send the parents into a tizzy. So, Jill had important work to do. She helped them and they were happy and they trotted back home, wondering if they should maybe clean out the hot pants credenza. Nah. That's no big deal.

Next up was sad LuAnn, that rickety old bitch who's no longer a countess. So she's just plain Jane Crackerjacks now, left to wander New York a husk of what she once was: a husky. She was meeting with a poor beleaguered writer who would be forced to translate throaty cackles and salty grunts into coherent writing on manners. LuLu had her over the house, and they sat on her cream white sofa and discussed manners. "Well," Lulu started, picking at her underwear and eating a cocktail wiener, "I think it's about bein' real decent like. Like some sorta country club girl. You know, one 'a them rich bitches they got over in Darien." The writer blinked at her sadly. "Ok..."

Lulu took a deep breath, continued. "You know, back in high school, before I dropped out. We used to go over to the state park, go swimmin' in the lake when it was warm, get stoned, listen to Bread. You know, kid stuff. Anyway, one day we were all there—me, 'n' Ricky 'n' Donna 'n' Santoro 'n' and that dippy chick Marcy 'n' Val 'n' Sammy and the gang—and Ricky's got the tuneskis goin' in his Charger (loved that fuckin' car man, loved it) and we're just mellowing the fuck out, you know? Just like shootin' the shit and foolin' around a little. Santoro's got his hand up my teeny weeny bikini top, you know, fiddling with the strap cause he's all drunk off some rice wine he stole from one 'a those chink—uh, excuse me, Chinaman—restaurants they got out on route 11. So we're all there havin' a good time when this fuckin' Caddy rolls up. No kidding, beautiful black fucking thing. And outta that Caddy come these ditzy rich bitches—Kim Thatcher, Allison Dorwood, Maisey Linden—and their dumb jocko boyfriends. One dude, I knew him cause I'd given him a hander at O'Meara's house party last Christmas, he's on the lacrosse team at that fancy shit prep school they got. Other guys must'a been his teammates. They look at us like we're lower'n flies on shit and Santoro's hand isn't on my tit no more, it's all balled up in a fist and he and Ricky and Sammy and the rest of the gang are all lookin' like they want to get in a fight and I'm needin' a coffee for all this cream I got goin' cause you know man, a fight just turns a chick On, you know how it is, you're a lady. Sort of."

The writer gulps her tea and looks at Lulu, who's lost in some memory. She figures it's best to just let her continue.

"So we're all thinkin' it's gonna be balls out, fists and fingers man, you know? But no. These rich bitches and their fruity boyfriends with that wavy hair, they just look at us. And one of 'em says to us, cold like Lake Tahoe in March man, he just says 'You nothings aren't even worth it.' So they just get back in that Caddy and just roll off, man. Just like that. And you know? You know? You know the shit of it? I coulda had my hair pulled and my box stomped by Maisey Linden and had it hurt like hell, but man oh fuckin' man, I will tell you... Just gettin' dismissed like that. Tossed out with the paper towels and used rubbers, like trash. Man that hurt more'n all the cooze clamps in the world. I'll tell ya. And that's manners. That's what manners is. Saying no, and winning. Doin' nothing but be better'n someone else, and winning because of it. I always thought, you know, I wanna be like that. Like Allison fuckin' Dorwood. Just like that."

The writer slowly wrote "Allison Dorwood" on her notepad. Lulu continued to stare off. She took a deep breath.

"Anyway. That guy, the lacrosse guy? He and Rusty Morton died in a car wreck the next fall. Drunk and just hit one of those corners, you know. And Maisey's married now. Lives in... Philly, I think. Don't know what happened to Kim and those other guys. They're probably just married, you know, havin' kids'n shit. Allison? She was on a soap for a while. Now she lives in the city, just like me. I saw her once. At a party. She didn't recognize me. I spent all night eying her then, just as I was leaving, I went up to her and I said 'Hey Allie, you probably don't remember me but I remember you. It's LuAnn. From back in CT. You know, Santoro's girl? Yeah baby, how you doin'?' She smiled, you know, like a princess. So I stomped my heel down on her toes real hard and I held it there and I grabbed her hand and leaned in real close and said 'I'll be seein' you.' Her eyes were all watery and she looked like she was about to shit her J.Jill, I'll tell ya. But I ain't seen her since. Nope. But anyway. That's manners. That and always make the man pay. I'm a stickler for that."

So the writer closed her notebook and ran out of the apartment and got into a cab and burst into tears and that's the last we'll ever see of her.

Kelly went to Los Angeles to talk about her precious owl jewelry with some stupid designer. She bragged about all of the other non-celebrities the fool represents—Christina Milian, one of those Gastineau things, Andrea Barber, Shane McDermot, Nicole Bobek. You know, all the biggies. So, yeah, that was stupid and no one cares. I hope Kelly isn't back next season.

Next it was time for Ramona's skin party! Bethenny, who had just had a fancy photoshoot for her new book, nay her new EMPIRE, was all giddy and flush and full of herself and feelin' fine (event though no one in Greenwich will eat her cookies, apparently) when she showed up to Ramona's mountaintop lair. I was sort of hoping that Ramona would be wearing enormous goggles and a lab coat and holding beakers and stuff, but instead she was just in another of her weirdo dresses and talking to her friends, who are some of the animatronic animals from the Splash Mountain ride at Disney World. So they cawed and crowed and cooed about skin and Ramona's fabulousity. Bethenny looked horrified. But the best was yet to come.

Somehow the topic of Jill came up, as it always does, and Ramona started bashing her. She's always on a project, she thinks she's better than everyone else, her shit stinks too trust me I smelled it once when I was hiding in the bathtub at her house in the Hamptons no I wasn't hiding from her I was hiding from the Will-o'-the-wisp I saw lurking in her backyard earlier that day, etc. She then started tennis serving some insults Bethenny's way, calling her the lonely underdog, the dateless wonder, the single and ready to mingler, the Lady Dies Alone, the Self-Shocker, the Rides the Mechanical Bull A Bit Too Sensually. You know, those kinds of lonely lady things. Bethenny got upset (watch clip above) and blessedly one of Ramona's friends intervened. Amazing what Br'er Rabbit is able to do. Bethenny also gave Ramona some advice about rebranding her Tru/True lines of skin goop and religious costume jewelry, but crazed Ramona would have none of it. She clapped her hands and trilled a triangle and three parakeets flew out of her mouth and it was time to try the epidermal epoxy.

The girls slathered it all over themselves and stood normally. "It feels nice," one lady said. "I like it," agreed another. They stood like that for a minute or two, until one them started twitching. Then another. And another. And another. Until everyone in the room, save for Ramona and Bethenny, began twitching and shaking and finally convulsing and shrieking with agony. "What's... happening... to meeee..." moaned one of the ladies as her skin fell off of her body in gooey clumps. "It burns......" another croaked, her eyeballs falling straight out of her face. Then there was a loud bang, a sizzling hiss and a burst of smoke. When it had finally cleared, the other ladies were gone. There was just a pile of reading glasses and shell-colored cardigans. Baubly gold earrings and high heeled shoes. Bethenny was glad she had only pretended to apply the skin gunk. Ramona surveyed the eerie scene, a strange look of... something on her face. Was it what aliens look like when they are satisfied? Whatever it was, she eventually just tightly smiled and turned, perky, to terrified, relieved Bethenny. "Well! Back to the drawing board!" And that was that.

And so I've saved the best, scariest plotline of the evening for last. I am referring, of course, to lady Alex McCord's fabulous 50th birthday and the ruined surprises that her wife, Simon van der Beef, had planned for her. Alex was picked up from work in a black sedan and driven to Simon, who was wearing a black suit and top hat and performing his Mr. Bojangles Bone Dance on the street, busking for nickels. Once he clinked and rattled and folded himself into his seat, Simon told the car driver to head to a specific address. There, waiting in a hidden white annex behind a book shelf, was an Australian jewelry designer. "Ohhhhhh!!" clapped Alex's glassy eyes. "Wheeee!!" went her rubbery cheeks. Simon looked pleased with himself as he gulped champagne and watched his beloved try on ugly jewelry. Finally Alex settled on a gaudy pair of poorly-made gold earrings and said "Yes." They were $7,000. Seven thousand dollars. When they're redoing their house. And he manages a hotel. And she's about to get laid off. Sigh.

Then they got back into the car and dark storm clouds gathered. The driver had been instructed to go past the Brooklyn Bridge so Alex wouldn't know what the next surprise was. The surprise was that she was going to go home to spend time with her children. Yes, you read that right. Her birthday surprise—her big, only-once-a-year birthday surprise was that she got the rare treat of seeing her children. What an ingenious idea, Simon! Who would have ever thought that someone could actually spend time with their offspring rather than flush money they don't have down a gold-plated yacht toilet? Simon is the most creative birthday lady in all of New York City.

But alas things didn't go as planned. The dumb stupid idiot driver took a turn that he wasn't supposed to and Alex figured out that they were going home and Simon's face turned a horrifying shade of red and he yelled "FUCKING SURPRISE! SURPRISE! FUCKING! RUINED. RUINED SURPRISES, FUCK. RUINED FUCKS: SURPRISE! SURPRISE, DEAR, I RUINED YOUR FUCK. YES, YOUR GOOD FUCK. THE FUCK YOUR GRANDMA GAVE YOU. SURPRISE! RUINED. I'M RUINED. FUCK. YEAH, JUST TURN HERE, THANKS."

Alex just sat there like a sad idiot and let the rant happen and the driver probably wanted to throw the fucker out but Bravo was gonna give him a big tip man so they just continued on. When they returned home, the kids were waiting there in pointy little party hats and they are adorable little creatures, friendly and bright and just plain old regular kids, despite their parents' best efforts to turn them into the snobby assholes they always wanted to be themselves.

And I thought about it last night, a bit sadly. What was this flashy birthday surprise? This Towncar outburst? These precarious children, squashed into fancidom by their parents. It's a particular brand of woe, this strange gangly need of Alex and Simon's. This willful, terrier desire to bounder into rooms in which they don't belong, to jimmy open the locks with homemade keys, fashioned out of hair and bone and soap, dust and wood, the stuff of houses. Of ordinary houses. It's the saddest thing on the show, because they've banked too far left, they've skipped the road and are now rumbling through uncharted woods. They'll never get to where they want to be—louche and wealthy and eased. Because you have to be born into that, it's an old money, it's genetic, it's as inherited as eyes, as hair, as cancer.

I too spent some teenage years longing for the country club, for the private schools, for the Volvos and the tennis racquets. But at a certain point... one just has to give up the ghost. I mostly have. And I wish poor Simon and Alex would too. Because if they don't, they'll be stuck in a No Exit of their own doing. Left to ache and yearn and want some undefinable thing that will forever elude them. Hell will be other people, and those other people will be themselves, the weary faces in the gilded mirror they've hung in sunny Brooklyn. Their two lovely boys disappearing in the background, the rumble of bricks settling, of wood bending, of a house being a house.

A house hoping desperately, and perhaps in vain, to become a home.

A tipster spotted either McCord or a lookalike in a Web video for the prewar, Lower Manhattan building. The Real Housewives of NYC star appears to be devouring an infant in the marketing clip, although our tipster argues the creature is actually computer generated. Either way, "it's definitely not screaming [McCord tot] Francois." You can see the video at left, or on the building website under Residences/2 bedroom.

A Curbed.com spy spotted the McCordish video back in October, so it's been online for a while. What has the professional actress done for sales in the interim? Not much, apparently, judging from what's in the Times:

At 99 John Street... buyers were offered a chance to "rent to own," and a promise that Rockrose would buy back an apartment after five years at 110 percent of the purchase price. The developer also began offering the apartments in bulk to investors, in packages of 15 apartments.

Maybe it would help to mention that McCord doesn't actually live in the building, but all the way over in Brooklyn? (Best not to point out how close the bridge is.)

It wasn't all about tennis though. No, there was also home design and charity work and important issues about branding to be settled. Oh, and toward the end of the episode Kelly was eaten by squirrels while walking in the park. A sad end for a sad lady.

First we'll get in our Lexus and put on the up-tempo Phil Collins and mensch our way over to Jill's soaring observatory condo. Her little gay house elf finally finished decorating the place, from old century mid modern carpetbaggery to new century mid chic decor for the 90's woman. This involved getting the set from The Real World: Miami out of MTV's storage warehouse and having it delivered to the Upper East Side. Oddly enough, Flora came with the furniture. So Jill keeps her in the closet now. She brings her out for special "vacuuming parties." Jill was thrilled with the new house. "Oh I love thissss," she purred while stroking the taxidermied corpse of Idalis. "And this is terrific!" she exclaimed upon seeing the cover art for Deep Blue Something's classic LP blown up on her east-facing wall. But her favorite part was that the gay house elf had somehow managed to get all of her TVs to play news from the 90's. So in Jill's house it's always the Clinton era! Caroline in the City is STILL. ON. THE. AIR. You're still a virgin, mom and dad are still married, you're 30 pounds skinnier, you don't smoke, you and Donna are still talking, Aunt Sarah is alive!, Steven Seagal could still have that comeback (I mean, The Glimmer Man isn't that bad!), you're younger and your heart hasn't hardened, the world doesn't seem so roped off as it does now, there in Jill's fabulous mid-90's apartment. Back when the world was green. Back when we were grownups. Back in those wonderful times when dreams hadn't yet taken wing, and buildings hadn't fallen, and everyone had jobs, and beautiful things outnumbered the ugly, and cynicism still got trumped, every time, by a happy thought. So thank you for the time capsule, the fabulous shimmering time machine, little gay house elf. Here's a sock. OH WAIT FUCK NO. I've given it clothes now. It's free. Free to design other houses. Goodbye, dear friend.

In other corners of this remote, dying futureworld, Kelly showed up to Jill's house or someone's house, really who the hell knows, to help with the Achy Dicks charity. That's probably not actually what the charity is called. I think it's actually called SoreTits: A Charity Club for Friends. That's probably right. So Kelly, obviously embarrassed about being a complete nincompoop at the last Leaky Taints meeting, figured she'd be all good Samaritan now and donate things like her Hannibal Lecter face mask and an hour of her precious ex-husband's fancy photo time. You know, for the auction. Because of course Jill and the rest of her unleavened friends would be the kind of people who would pay "$25,000" so they could have their own fucking photo taken. Because, what do you do with that? Hang it over the zebra-skinned fire place? Does it look really good next to the shrunken head of Kevin Williamson, Jill?

Whatever. Jill and friends no longer doubted Kelly's commitment to Sparkle Non-Motion Because We Have Arthritis, so Kelly felt good about herself. And it's important that Kelly has those memories, because her life has taken a swan dive into a shitter made of more shit recently, so she'll need to cling to the good old days lest she go insane(r).

At a restaurant, Bethenny was sitting minding her bin'ess when a rare albino flamingo wearing stilts walked up to her and started squawking. "Sit down, Alex" Bethenny mumbled. Alex was actually there to talk about SkinnyGirls, Bethenny's brand name for her Booze for Fat People program. (See the trick is, you drink cause you're fat and you're fat cause you drink but at least you can drink SkinnyGirls and feel like you're not a fat drunk who, evidently, spends way too much time watching Real Housewives of New York City). Alex seemed to be fairly helpful and Bethenny congratulated herself for not stabbing her in the eye with a fork or rolling her up in a rug and throwing her off a bridge like the other girls would have done. When it gets to be that the most decent person on the show should be hugely praised for not having an epic Frisco Freakout, then it's probably time to pack up the Penske.

Then the best thing in the entire world happened. And I mean this almost literally. My beloved Countess Crackerjacks did a Crackerjacks monologue. Well, not entirely. But, like, she went to Black People's Town for Black People, which is also called Brooklyn, and talked to Black People about Black People Feelings. The kids were really excited, nervous, thrilled, and grateful to meet her, LuAnn informed us. Because, you know, she's a fancy lady who wears red sweaters and high heel boots and she's a Countess! The poor girls LuAnn showed up to counsel about self-esteem just blinked at her confusedly, guessing that this strange braying lady had maybe mistaken hot air for a'steam.

There was an activity where the group had to write down a list of four things that they liked about themselves. The answers were cute, things like "My sneakers." But then we got to LuAnn. She smiled and a tooth fell out and her wig crept down the left side of her face and somewhere an old jalopy sounded its loud owwwooooga horn and Ruth Buzzi fell over dead. "I like that I'm likable. People like me." Is what LuAnn had said. What LuAnn had said at the Boys & Girls club in Brooklyn. What LuAnn had said, brazenly, in front of a camera crew. How those unfortunate fuckers didn't bust out laughing is beyond me. Anyway. Then she lit a campfire and played her wooden flute and told a story about her (ex! yikes!)-husband, the Count of Monte Cristo Sandwiches, and about her upbringing as a fancy, magical Native Injun.

And, oh, I could picture it. Little Lunz standing there, a scrabbly girl of 17, her white bathing suit with the thin rainbow stripes baggy at the rear, her clear Jellies dirty and broken in places, the curl of Newport smoke caressing her scabby, sun-tanned arms. Papa Crackerjacks, we'll call him Poppycock, asleep or drunk or passed out in a fraying lawn chair. Mama Crackerjacks, we'll call her Fiddle Faddle, watching her stories up in the single-wide, the smell of Hamburger Helper a'waft. And Little Lunz is flipping through a book she stole from the liberry, a book about places called an atlas, like the moving truck company her old boyfriend Sean—is a guy who fingers you at a $2 matinee of Little Darlings your boyfriend?—used to work for before he shot that toe off and went to Wethersfield for screwing Ricki Graynor, who was like twelve or something at the time. Anyway she's looking at this atlas and she sees this place, one of those African places, and they got this water near the pyramids and there's this canal thing, the Suez Canal, and some dude, some guy built that. "I'm gonna marry that," Little Lunz murmurs to herself. Poppycock stirs in the lawn chair, maybe not as unaware as he seemed. "You ain't marryin' shit. Ain't no man gonna buy the Dodge if her trunk won't stay shut."

But Little Lunz will dream. She'll dream hard and she'll dream big and eventually she'll skip that shitty old town, Poppycock and Fiddle Faddle eating her dust. She'd go out West, is what she'd do. She'd go out West and be a rodeo bride. She'd go out West and hump a movie star. She'd go out West and spend a few aimless years serving cocktails to balding drunks and their malnourished wives, slips of things who would disappear forever into the cracks of history, their family trees gnarled and dying. She'd go out West and do the floor shows, work the mid-afternoon dancing shifts, hole up near Ashville for a while then drive South and find herself one day at Big Sur, looking out at that water and behind her those hills and all around her those people, real people, people who were going somewhere, people who knew things, who really knew things. She'd go out West and feel a lump in her throat, some tightening ache in her chest, and she'd know that some dark mass, some mean thing, was settling inside of her. She could feel it every dusty day, every starless night. She could see it in patterns, spelled out in the dead moths still stuck to the porch light. She'd go out West and forget it, or learn to love it, do something with it, anyway. She'd go out West only to find herself back East, living some lie. Standing there in her townhouse, wearing her furs and fancy boots, her daughter Noelle breakdancing in the background, and all the while she still feels that baggy hollow, that small, embarrassing, human, windswept space where that bathingsuit sagged down. And those Jellies blisters, well they never did heal. They never, ever seemed to.

So after the Countess solved the problems of black people in Brooklyn, because she has so much to teach them, she played basketball with the girls and she thought of that blissful week she spent with the Golden State Warriors, and then she left. Clacking away back to her car, as beautiful and mysterious in leaving as she was when she arrived. The girls stood gazing out the window as she puttered away. After a moment one girl, the girl who liked her sneakers, softly said "Man, that lady is a mess."

Bethenny had a meeting with her assistant, Molly, and they had a good laugh about Simon. He has a Facebook appreciation group or something. It was perfect timing, because then Bethenny went over to Jill's house and something Simon-related occurred. After suffering through the house tour—"This is the withered body of Samantha Mathis, and here's my Pog collection, and that, dangling from that sterling silver cord up there, that is a vial of Eric Stolz's semen"—the two sat down to talk big important things about tennis. Jill's sexy pro partner had canceled, so she needed a new one. After pushing an eager, chained-up Jennifer Capriati away, Jill turned to Bethenny for help. The wicked bitch had an idea. Simon! That gangle of bone spurs and tree burls, that mincing kangaroo stuck in its own gooey pouch. It was a perfect plan, because Ramona's strange, made up, Santeria-esque religion believes Simon to be "Verdooloo," which roughly translates from toucan language as "The destroyer of the Earth and Controller of the Realm Beyond." (For Ramona, the 'Realm Beyond' is a guest bedroom in her house. She lost the key one day and couldn't get in for months. Now her husband has made a new key but she's scared to go in. It's been months. What if there's something bad in there now?) So she'd be totally psyched out and maybe would lose the match.

So Jill went off to play a practice round with Simon, who confessed to not being the best tennis player ever. After what looked like the chandelier from the Sedlec Ossuary had been suddenly made animate and done some strange, haunted fever dance, Jill decided that Simon was a decent enough player. Game on, mothafuckaz!

But first Spaceman Spiff Kelly returned from her vacation home on the surface of the sun and decided to go on a date with Isabella Rossellini. Or whoever that weirdo foreign guy was. She asked him a horrible TV date question: "If you could be anyone, who would you be?" He grinned, pretending to understand English, and just said, as is his stock answer for everything, "Superman." Hello sir, how are you today? "Superman. Yes. Yankees." Sir, how many pounds of pimento loaf would you like? "Superman. Fantasteriffic." Sir, your loafers appear to be on fire. "Superman. Asbessstos." Kelly thought it was adorable and had her cheek muscles not been lost in that terrible modeling accident, she would have smiled.

Then it was on to tennis! Everyone who knew about the Simon Surprise was super excited because Ramona would probably, upon seeing his crooked silhouette fast approaching, run around in circles, hyperventilating, then pass out, only to be carried off by the group of six swarthy Greek 25-year-olds she travels with. And that would be awesome to watch. Everyone who didn't know (Ramona and Mario) was trying to put their terrible game faces on. Well, Ramona was wandering around the hallway, muttering to herself, praying in her weird religion way, asking for protection from Verdooloo, lest he open up the Beyond Realm and let a scary mouse out or something when she least expects. Oh, and, you know, please let me win tennis, amen. The problem was that Ramona wouldn't leave the breezeway, so creepy old Simon couldn't skibble in on his bone-wheels and surprise everyone properly. Eventually Ramona finished her chanting and stepped out onto the court. Then it was time for Simon to make his grand entrance. He rattled in, a mechanical marvel that he's even able to stay upright. Everyone thought it was funny and surprising but also disappointing because Ramona, mad as teacakes, decided not to react. To show that she was mature. And angry. And because Verdooloo will destroy her if she speaks negatively about him anymore. Don't open the secret room, Ramona thought fretfully to herself.

The tennis match was:

Four crippled alligators tumbling down a flight of stairs.

A small tornado that forms over Westchester and destroys a historic barn.

A child crying at a ChildWorld toy store circa 1989.

The entire offensive line of the Bengals dying in a plane crash.

The answer to the question: "Why do they call it work?"

A zombie playing an organ in the middle of a snow storm.

Everyone seemed pretty satisfied with how it went, except for, well, everyone. Ramona and Mario were angry that the game wasn't taken seriously, what with the Simon joke and all. Jill was mad because she started playing very well but still lost in the end. And Alex was mad because Simon played terribly and it was so embarrassing but mostly it was unfair because "he didn't have time to warm up." Jesus Christmas what would Simon warming up entail? Someone standing in the middle of an empty field, shaking a mobile made of human teeth, is what I'm guessing.

So that was tennis. Everyone played and everyone came to watch. There was Kelly, that buffalo pelt infused to her skeleton by the wicked Colonel Stryker. There was Bethenny, dreaming up more ways to keep people fat and drunk. There was Alex, in some sort of trench coat dress, trying to remember where her children were. There was the gay house elf, wearing the most glorious chapeau. He sat there thinking to himself that maybe, just maybe, he should have kept that Airborne Special Edition DVD for himself, rather than making it the centerpiece of Jill's breakfast nook table.

And there was Crackerjacks, smiling coldly at these horrid proceedings. In her head the song "Sister Christian" was playing. Because it was that song that she listened to when she grabbed Poppycock's car keys out of his limp, gray hand while he slept, shouldered her little ratty blue overnight bag, and busted out. That song that was playing on the radio, loud and beautiful, when she crossed the state line for the first time and began to see the event horizon of her dreams being realized approaching. That song that played as the old world died out and a new one—full of dingy, sick pine trees and holes in screen doors and men named Cody and women who disappeared at 35 as it was, it was still terrific, every bit of it—being born in front of her. That song that was playing as time raced on, like a freight train, like a hurricane, like a Kenyan marathoner, like lightning, like a pinball, like Sonic the goddamned Hedgehog, like a tennis ball.

Thanks to Lauren Strupp for the clip and the beautiful screen cap.

The New York Post reports that Bensimon, 54 (give or take a few years), will not continue to model with the luxe department store. She was the face of their spring catalog but now, perhaps due to her legal troubles or her sudden infamy for her terrible behavior on the Bravo show, she will pose in twill and tweed and cable-knit no more. The company has "no plans to re-sign her," says a Saks insider.

Kelly for her part remains upbeat, saying "Working with Saks is a wonderful experience that I hope to continue in the future."

We wonder if, at this point, she'd say the same thing about the show. Look up 'backfire' in the dictionary these days, and you just might find a picture of her, signing that ill-fated contract.

Aha! Also! A tipster reminds us that Bensimon is trying to sell her Hamptons home. Cash flow problems perhaps?

The big old book creaked open and our fable began, with Ramona and the ruinous flagellation strop known as Kelly attending a Badgley Mischka show. This is a fashion line run by Dan from Gossip Girl and the ladydetective from Law & Order Rape Squad. So Ramona's cockatoo head perked up and fluttered and cooed, while Kelly cracked and stretched under the hot lights. The Beggin' Strip started complaining about Bethenny, about how they had a fight over arthritis and Bethenny had lobbied the most insulting insults of all insults at her. She sarcastically called her Madonna. Kelly growled that it was rude and talked about jealousy and then kindly said to Ramona, who was wearing a captain's hat and quietly singing The HMS Pinafore in Greek to herself at this point, "I mean, that would be like me being jealous of you. That's ridiculous. Why would I be jealous of you?" So kind, Kelly.

After the show, Ramona had to give a special secret coded message to Penn and Mischka. Then she and the cinnamon stick that's been in the cider a bit too long went to a purple room full of drinks. Ramona tried to talk her off a Bethenny ledge, saying "She's had a hard life..." Kelly snapped back "I don't care. I don't care if she grew up in the woods." Suddenly Ramona's face turned both pale and red at once, as if some great conflict were rising up in her. "What's so wrong about growing up in the woods?" she asked, trying to sound innocent. Meanwhile she was desperately making sure that her pointy ears and curly elf toes were well hidden by hair and special shoes. "You know, it's not so bad. As long as it's not a Buttercup Famine or Snorbinkel Season." She paused, ruminative. She added quietly "Snorbinx killed my whole family." But Kelly wasn't listening, she was busy being packaged as blackberry Fruit Leather and sold to the children of hippies for their lunches.

Jill remodeled her house and fought with a gay person. Everything was over-budget and Jill wanted credit for everything, but so did the gay person. Jill's husband, Limon Zerga from Ocean's Eleven, just nodded and chomped a cigar.

Other remodelings were happening in gloomy, needle-strewn Brooklyn. Alex and Simon found a pile of sticks and plaster and decided to put a name tag on it that said "Hello! My name is House." But it's not much of a house, just a few rats and two little blonde glowworms squirming around in fancy Victorian pants. Doesn't matter to them, though. They had a few designers over so Simon could brag about his wonderful head for numbers and aesthetics. Simon said that he'd bought some art recently. One piece was apparently a gigantic photograph of Alice Cooper with a snake. Sounds lovely. Simon then said something about how, as a kid, he didn't read regular books like Winnie the Pooh or Fear of Flying. He read encyclopedias. He'd always flip through, reading intently... "Pendulum: a hanging thing... Penetration: an invasion... Pen— Oh... Oh dear..." There he'd sit, with his bonny little sailor hat on, in his parents' parlor. Just a boy in Queensland, mesmerized. Some growing something snaking its way around his insides, gripping him tight. "Oh my indeed," he'd whisper.

Then it was time for the main event! In this corner we have, showing up a half hour late, a tall column of burnt craisins. In this corner we have a lady who diets by drinking lots of margaritas. They met at the Brass Monkey and smashed into each other like two puttering Vespas, the clanking of thin strips of metal and leather echoing throughout the Way West Village. Kelly was pissed about the Madonna comment, Beth was pissed that Kellz was pissed and so they just barked at each other. Kelly kept saying dumb things about how they weren't friends and that they weren't kids and why is this childish shit happening, seeming to completely forget that it was her who had called The Meeting in the first place. Bethenny shot back that Kelly only collected famous people as friends and remember that one time when Kelly creak-wrinkled her way up to Beth's man and began flirting with him? That story was sort of fuzzy.

In the end, Kelly thrashed Bethenny in the face and ran away to go beat up her twink boyfriend. And by beat up her twink boyfriend I mean go to the bar downstairs and flirt with some strange European man. He tried to calm her down saying that most people like her (this is actually not true) and that her ugly, stupid, ironically childlike boots "remind me to the Pink Panther." They remind me to Bubble Tape. Bethenny left the bar, dumbfounded by the encounter, while Kelly seemed satisfied yet annoyed that the whole thing had even happened. How dare Bethenny show up to a meeting that Kelly had arranged?

Then, as it always is, it was off to tennis in New Rochelle. Ramona had put on her Zummi hat, taken a big gulp of Gummiberry Juice, and bounced her and Bethenny there in one mighty leap. Her beautiful, be-maned husband was there playing tennis. "It's just amazing to watch him at this level," Ramona mouth-mopped about this terrific tennis event in the most famous town for tennis ever, New Rochelle. I played tennis for quite some time as a youngster, and let me tell you. Mario and his partner? Were not very good tennis players. All this thwacking and thrashing. Ugh. Terrible strokes! Just terrible. Meanwhile on the sidelines, Ramona was playing a zither using only the power of her mind while Bethenny told her the Story of Kelly, which ended in the heartbreak we now know of all too well. Ramona was wide-eyed (more than usual!) and surprised that Kelly had said "I'm up here, and you're down here" but wasn't quite sure who to like best. I guess it will have to depend on the circumstances. Mario and Luigi swished and flitted mightily, but in the end, Ramona put on her toadstool hat and little purple vest, teetered over, and said "I'm sorry, but the Princess is in another castle."

Jill's apartment was still being remodeled. The gay person was there, trying to flirt with delivery men. Then there was a problem with the TV. "Liiiiiiimon," Jill whined into her pink phone. "Send some men over to pick up this TV." In the background, the gay person got tangled up in his rainbow suspenders and accidentally hanged himself. "Liiiiimon, send two more men over to pick up this gay person."

Back in Ramonaville, she and Mario were enjoying a fancy dinner and talking turkey about tennis. There was still some ongoing ridiculous fight with Jill about a rematch and who Jill would be playing with and Ramona didn't understand because Mario invented tennis and why couldn't anyone understand that? Then she got mad at Kelly because in her widely-read (by Kelly) PageSix Magazine column, she'd said that she was introducing her RHoNYC friends to the world of fashion. Which was not true in Ramz's case! See, she'd been a buyer for this company and that company and this fashion concern and this U-Haul by the side of the road selling oranges and partially-soiled blouses. Her resume, if true, is actually sort of respectable, but it was weird that she rattled it off to her husband, Mario, who presumably, already knew these things. It's not like there were television cameras there or anything. Anyway, Ramona changed the subject by saying "Oh, hun, I want to show you something." She reached into her enormous purse and pulled out a little velvet étui. She opened it up and inside was a bright red kazoo. She smiled, widened her eyes (more than usual), delicately played one loud, honking note, and everyone in the restaurant fell over dead. Heads in soup, ears in spaghetti. Ramona beamed. "Neat, huh?"

Kelly, still fuming from not being treated as wonderfully as she demands, decided to commiserate with Countess Crackerjacks. So she had her black chariot pick her up at her house and then tried to tell her the tale. Crackers was actually pretty cool about the whole thing. She chastised Kelly for calling The Meeting in the first place, and then chastised her again for being egregiously late to The Meeting that she had called. Kelly said "You know, after what she said to me...You know, calling me Madonna (ha ha, as if I were that famous! Ha ha, I mean but I am kind of famous right, so like it sort of could be true, right?? Ha ha, right??? Madonna. Me. A comparison), she could have waited all night for all I care." Lunzie smiled and leaned back in her seat. She reached into her purse and pulled out a flask. She took a long pull. She offered it to Kelly. "You want? It's Rumplemintz and grape Juicy Juice." Kelly reared back, shaking her head. "Suit yourself." Lunz took another pull, then lit up a cigarette. She looked at Kelly, hard.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was living in Coeur d'Alene, doing odd jobs? Well, I was shackin' up with my girl Mikki and her brother Ray Ray in the single-and-a-half wide their aunt'd left them when she died in a hitchhiking accident. I was doin' odd jobs. You know, cleanin' gutters, midwifing shadow babies, givin' rub and tugs on an old mattress I kept out behind the Food Lion. Anyways, so I'm at this bar we used to go to, The Fur Trapper, one night and this girl's workin' there. She's got like real big puffy honey blonde hair and little jean shorts with studs in 'em and this Seger t-shirt cut up to look all sexy, you know the type. So we get to talkin' and she's a cool chick, name 'a Ginger. Ran away from home, back in Kalispell, had some drunk fuckin' stepdad or whatever who used to take a drink in the pink every so often, if you catch my particular meaning. Anyways. We got to talkin', got to be friends. Until this one night. I'm just crawlin' out of a three-day K hole and my hands are chapped from workin a double out at the Food Lion mattress and I go up to the Fur Trapper just lookin' for a few drinks, a few laughs. Well Ginger gets to yappin' and just won't shut her damn trap. So I snap at her, 'Hey Ginge, why don't you shut that damn noise hole of yours.' And she slurs back at me 'Well why don't you just shut yer damn legs.' So I throw an ashtray at her and she gets out the soda gun and before we know it this old drifter Mel was basically dead on the floor and I got kicked outta the bar. I said I was never gonna talk to her again, never ever. Well I moved on, you know, mama's gotta keep on keepin' on, and was doin' cocktail at the Tail Feather in Bend when I got this phone call. It was ol' Ginger. Don't know how she found me at Darryl's place, but she did. She was all cryin' and stuff and I just said 'Hun, I'm still mad. And I don't want to talk to you.' She was carrying on about bein' in real bad trouble but I just hung up the phone. 'Cause I was fuckin, you know, mad as hell."

The Countess paused. She turned to look out the window, smoke curling around her face.

"Well, turns out she went missin' a day or two later. They didn't find her for 'bout a year. I was engaged in a brief commonlaw marriage to a lumberjack up in Humboldt at the time, but you know, Mel the drifter, he tracked me down. Showed up at my door with that sad little hat of his in his hand. And I'll never forget it. He just came out and said it, you know? 'Ginger's dead, Loony. She's dead.' Yeah. Well. They'd found her, mostly bones at this point, out near the Caldor's they started building but never finished. Out by the highway. You know. One of those places. Guess it was that boyfriend of hers, Trent. Or her stepdad finally caught up with her. I dunno. I guess I just wish. Well. I wish..."

She trailed off, took another pull from her flask.

"Anyways."

Kelly just shrugged and they kept on driving. She couldn't be bothered to consider another side, because it was time for a PageSix Magazine party! (Their first and, maybe, last!) Everyone was there. That lady who wrote Sex and the City and the Countess and Kelly and Alex and Simon, begging photographers to take their picture. Everything was going fine. There was an awkward conversation about how Crackerjacks almost became a Duchess (a higher title). She didn't, because the Count's dad or whoever turned it down.. But oh it doesn't matter, right? Countess sounds better anyway, right?? No. Actually. Duchess is much cooler. But yeah, everything was going swimmingly until Jill and Mario started talking about tennis. She shrieked at him for being annoying. He bellowed at her for being entitled and thinking she was way more famous and important than she is. And they were both right! Husband Limon just stood on the sidelines, awkwardly, trying not to wrinkle his fancy purple suit. Eventually Jill tried to treat her driver, Wayne, like security. Because he's a black person, I guess. Wayne just shook Mario's hand. Secretly you could tell that both Mario and Jill were having fun, so that was actually amusing.

Then Ramona teleported over to a tent where Simon and Alex were arranging each other into interesting poses. "If you put your leg here, and your neck... here. Perfect." Simon decided he wanted to talk to Mario about being friends with Jill and Mario just sort of nodded awkwardly while Simon yapped on, sadly. He just wants some man... friends. Just some friends, I think. So everyone was getting along perfectly nicely until Simon had to go and say "See, we're getting along tonight, just like the first time we hung out." And then Ramona's tea kettle boiled over and Gummiberry juice dripped from her pores. "No we did not!!!"

See, Ramona was embarrassed because only one short day after she'd taken the von Kempen Dorfs to a fancy religious jewelry party and introduced them to all the fancy religious people, she'd found out that Alex had nude photos that were being released in the prestigious InTouch magazine. What an outrage! An embarrassing disgrace! When, at the fancy religious party, Ramona began talking to the ice sculptures and hired a shrimp cocktail platter to babysit for Avery, that was one thing. But when someone went to the party and then a while later that same someone was found to have been naked once, that was just the end all. Simon shot back that Ramona was a hypocrite. See there was another time when Ramona was running around making out with some Playboy model (shudder) who is like naked all the time. That was different though, because they're weren't crazy religio's there! But one side wasn't listening to the other side so everyone just yelled at everyone. Simon eventually stormed off, calling Ramona a hypocrite. Ramona grumbled "I am so not a big-toothed amminal that lives in the mud and eats black people."

So the party ended and the blood was mopped up and everyone returned to their houses to stew. Mario and Ramona played a game they invented called Sex Tennis, which involves a fresh can of Wilson balls and the soundtrack to Pirates of Penzance. Jill wandered around her fancy new house and, once again, determined herself the winner of all of it. Bethenny poured herself another SkinnyTini and left another nasty comment on Kelly's blog ("ur not Madonna, ur not even Ace of Base").

LuAnn, the Count off somewhere, opened a bottle of wine and got an old, worn shoebox out of a top shelf in the hallway closet. She sat in a chair by the window and opened it up. Inside were ticket stubs and parking tickets, photos and postcards, buttons and cigarette butts, beer caps and old lighters. She sifted through the things until she found what she was looking for. It was a yellowing Polaroid picture. In it were two girls in their late 20's. One was a younger LuAnn, the other a skinny, nervous looking girl with huge blonde hair. In the photo they were brandishing cigarettes and shot glasses, clinking before they gulped. In the background was an old fellow sitting by himself at the end of the bar. LuAnn ran her hand over the photo. "Goodnight, Ginger old gal," she whispered. She put the photo back in the box and sat, looking out the window, the city humming along as it has for years and years and years.

Kelly, still angry, had driven, through the night, to the Hamptons. She arrived very late. As the first tiny slivers of dawn began streaking into the sky, she stood in her kitchen, angrily flipping through magazines, looking for mentions of her name. Then something caught her eye. Some quick, bright something moving outside. She looked out through the window. There, at the far edge of the field, was a skinny blonde girl, twenty-six, twenty-seven maybe. She was standing, almost teetering, in too-high heels and a sad little acid-washed denim skirt. Kelly knew. She knew who this person was. "Ginger," she whispered. The girl in the distance raised a wobbly arm, and waved. Kelly, astonished, quickly waved back. And then she disappeared. Into the trees or just up and into the sky, into thin air. Kelly couldn't quite tell.

Scared, exhilarated, she ran to the phone. She dialed LuAnn's number.

"Hey Lu, you up?"

"I am. I am. What's up? What're you doing?"

Kelly stood, holding the phone, looking in the hallway mirror. How had her face gotten this angry, she suddenly wondered, this stiff and hard? It seemed so strange to her all of a sudden, such an alien thing. A bug. A magic trick. A joke told out of place.

She sighed. Gulped.

"Nothing," she said quietly into the phone. "I guess not doing anything at all."

Another LuAnn Stalker tells us:

My boyfriend and I sat next to her at the bar on Saturday. It was called Players (with a backwards "a") located at 20 West 32nd Street - in Koreatown. We thought it was her the second she sat down but figured it couldn't possibly be because she was with a younger man who was clearly not the Count. She smiled at us a bunch and said hello and then continued to giggle and kiss the man she was with. They did not stay long but it was without a doubt, the Countess.

I guess ol' Crackerjacks knew the end of her Countesship was drawing to a close. So she decided to creak on up to a bar stool in K-town and suck mug with some young colt. Good for her.

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com]

Aaron Altman's new line beats the original, "The F-ck You Lookin' At, Huh?"

Count de Lesseps has apparently taken up with an Eithiopan woman in Geneva. How did he confirm his countess' suspicions that he was seeing someone else? Via email, according to Page Six.

It would seem even nobles are ignoble these days, where by "these days" we mean in the early stages of the second season of a successful but always ratings-hungry reality show spinoff, like say Real Housewives of New York City.Anyway, there's all kinds of dramatic emotion for the cameras trauma for LuAnn and her children to have to deal with.

"Luann was blindsided. She was just devastated," the close friend told Page Six. "They have basically lived apart for many years — he lives in Europe and comes and goes as he pleases, but she never thought this would happen.

Yes, who would have imagined a long-distance relationship with a count who "comes and goes as he pleases" would end in tears? Perhaps the fellow seen getting into the elevator with LuAnn the other night; the countess' flacks say he's just a friend, so he must possess some insights that have eluded LuAnn thus far.

She's sticking with the "Countess" thing, obviously.

[Page Six]

A Stalker tells us:

Was in Koreatown on Saturday night around 12:30AM, leaving a bar on 32nd between Broadway and 5th, and as we leave through the lobby, we see an abnormally tall woman getting into the elevator. She turns around, and it's The Countess Luann DeLesseps with another man. The man was not the Count, and looked tan, and in his 50s.

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com]

Steverino_Begins' new line beats the original, "Oh Look There's a Lamp Over There. Let's Go Bump Up Against It for Awhile."

This week's episode of our Bravo Parade of Miseries was all about Fashion. Who's in, who's out? Who's crinkling in a corner like a dark brown paper bag, the quick, raspy hiss of her breathing awaking dogs and small rodents, who scurry away from her, like a Pied Piper in reverse?

Well, that would be newest housewife Kelly, who was awarded the ignoble prize of leading off the episode. You see she's a writer who interviews people about things for things. Actually I think she was writing for Page Six Magazine, a publication that Rupert Murdoch made himself on his 1996 Mac Performa that is now defunct. It would be way too overreaching and ridiculous to blame Kelly for the magazine's failure, but let's be honest. It was all her fault. But oh well. She was wrapped around a piece of cantaloupe and placed on a tray, awaiting a masticated death by some early-spring bruncher.

It was Fashion Week for our Housewives, which means they get to show up to events where no one likes them, and they plaster on those smiles of theirs that are near-indestructible, practiced bits of leathery puppetry that they are. Jill was excited because she had just discovered a magical, beskirtted Asian man-pixie named Zang Toi. He was living in a barrel of rainwater, befriending rolypoly bugs and bestowing rainbows upon worthy people. Jill had woken up in an alleyway and was stumbling home when she spotted him, playing his tiny piccoloflute and making shortbread in his little fairy oven. "What an adorable little thing you arrrruhhhhh," Miss Zarin exclaimed. "I'm gonna take you home and you can work your pixie magic on my clothes, yessir that's what I'm gonna do." Had Jill been able to speak Pixinese she would have heard the tiny creature, like the littlest bell in the littlest church in the littlest town in all the land, crying "No pleeeease, don't take meeeee!"

So Jill had a fashion show for herself at Zang Toi's workshop, where she cooed over the clothes and discussed the various natures of gay peoples, while her old manservant Cumley dyed her eyebrows and another person scraped the rust out of her joints. What a fabulous occasion! Creepy old circus music lilted over the proceedings, but no one seemed to notice. If you looked closely, you could see out the window and there, waiting ominously on the street, was a black hearse. Signs!

Meanwhile in Brooklyn, Alex and her wife Simon were going clothes shopping. IN BROOKLYN. Isn't that disgusting? They sifted through piles and piles of garbage, their hands red and raw from the broken bottle shards and hobo-scrapes, flaming cats running by them, screeching into the night. Eventually they found a soiled heap of garments at some trendypants boutique in Williamsburg. Alex was kind enough to explain to us that where they live, in Cobble Hill, it's all fancy tea and crumpets and no one ever farts, but up here in hipster town Billsburg, it's anything goes. If you can lash it around your emaciated legs and sport it like a pant, you can wear it. So Alex strapped herself into various ensembles while Miss Simon sat on the sidelines, giving bitchy commentary like "If that's charmeuse, then I'm Diana Rigg." The young designers and owners of the store seemed scared and befuddled, shifting awkwardly in front of the cameras and these strange, cawing ostrich people. Glad for the attention, but frightened of the consequences. Meanwhile, in the store's backroom, a man with a pointy goatee in a red satin suit cackled as he clutched a document signed in blood. "They're mine..." he hissed. "All mine..."

Also in fashion were Bethenny and Ramona, who went to a ridiculous rooftop patio to have a meeting about arthritis. Both Jill and Ramona's daughters suffer from the ailment, so Jill has decided to spearhead a charity called Creaky Joints. Bethenny got mad because none of these clucking biddies actually has any idea how to run a charity. And that's something I find amusing. Why do these ladies—same thing can be said of the Atlanta broads, but not the selfish crayfish over in Orange County—think that because they've got a pile of bones in the bank that they somehow know how to be doting philanthropists? It's a sad story of nouveau riche posturing and insecurity and I sort of only half delight in watching it. The rest of the time I put my head in my hands and just shake my head.

Hey, you know what would be good for this episode? Fashion!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a Russel Simmons fashion show and Kelly had washed off the tanning fluids in a river near Woburn, MA and invited everyone to attend with her. Ramona was in High Tonal Mode, calling LuAnn's daughter "Noah," when her name is actually "Noelle." She then got in an awkward yelling fight with Simone de van der Beauf about why he is a shallow, feminine person. Simon said "You don't know meee!!!" and Ramona stood her ground, so that was vaguely sad. Two grown ass adults having a sixth grade conversation about hurt feelings, while terrible dance house music played and the pretty girls frowned. Simon decided that Ramz was "speaking through her derriere", and then chose to brag about his and Alex's seats for the fashion show. They had a "nice long view of both front and back of the models." They were MALE MODELS. That is funny because Simon is likely a homosexual. He declared that he was his own man now, not just Mr. Alex McCord and it was sad because it wasn't true. It was never true. (Disclosure: I met Simon once. He is definitely Mr. Alex McCord.)

Kelly caught a strong side wind and was blown over to a clothing store with Countess Crackerjacks. Cracky was really excited to try on clothes and demonstrate her hot bod. "I love trying on clothes," she declared while picking something out of her teeth. "Reminds me of these crazy sixth months I spent in Tahoe. You ever been there? Real pretty. Rocks and trees n' shit. Anyways, I'm living at this guy Carlos's ski house or whatever and my job, for like six fuckin' months, is to just wear his dead old lady's clothes. I'd be lying on the shag, drinking a Kahlua and Diet Coke, and he'd clap his hands all crazy like and just say 'OK! Fashion show!' So I'd have to put on these ratty old dresses and shit and do like sexy dances for him while he just sat on the white leather couch, sobbing. Other thing was that he'd always put on this tape of 'Rich Girl,' you know the Hall & Oates song, and it would just play over and over again. Man to this fuckin' day, to this day, I can't hear that damn song without thinkin' about old Carlos, sitting there on that pissy white leather couch, just bawling his fuckin' eyes out while I danced all sexy in some dead broad's pantsuit. To this day, man. Hey can I smoke in here? Fuck yeah I can smoke in here. I'm a fuckin' countess. Kelly, your box looks fantastic in those pants."

After shopping, Kelly and LuAnn puttered over to Fashion Week in the Countess' maroon 1979 Dodge Aspen, where Crackerjacks bragged that it "really looked good" for the fashion types to have her in the front row. You know, for like fancy photos and stuff. Cracky turned to Kelly and began a story. "Did I ever tell you about the time I was workin' as a fluffer on porno shoots down in El Salvador?" Kelly shook her head and said "Yes. Yes you have." Crackerjacks surveyed the fashion show. "This crazy scene reminds of those days man, lemme tell ya." Kelly frowned. "Let's just watch the show..." Before it started, they talked about why Ramona is a crazy person and LuAnn reached into her purse and pulled out a photo. "Look at that," she said to Kelly. Kelly examined the photo and murmured "Overlook Hotel... July 4th... 1921... What the fuck? Is that Ramona in that picture?" Crackerjacks nodded solemnly. "Holy Christ," was Kelly's stunned response. Then she bitched about getting her name put on charity lists. Her grudge was that she wanted more credit than just being on the list. "You know what," LuAnn said wisely. "I like the charity work because I like to give back to the homeless." What a homeless person would want with a shell-colored sweater set that LuAnn made off with, running down the Tahoe hills like mad, while Carlos raged in the living room, waving a pistol, is beyond me. But I guess beggars can't be choosers.

Kelly interviewed someone for a magazine and said that she wasn't interested in being snarky or "cunning." Don't worry, Kelly. You're not cunning.

Bethenny had a meal with Jill, who was being hosed off by a bunch of Irish dock workers after her most recent voyage, and they bitched about Kelly. Jill doesn't like that Kelly doesn't wear a bra. Which is fair. Kelly had a boob job probably about 10 years ago, so she's perky, but perky is happening about six inches too low. That's what I'll say about that. Bethenny said to Jill: "I like you how say 'brar.'" I do too. It's too bad that Bethenny was bitching about Kelly and fashion, because the producers then made her go to a fashion show... with the dreaded leathery mink. Bethenny kept insisting that she wasn't a fashionista and hated this world, while Kelly tried to make nice. It was very awkward and eventually Bethenny basically said "I don't give a shit" and Kelly's face sank (further) and she didn't understand how this world of glitz and glamor and fabric and tired, harried, hungry people all working, all the time, even when they are sleeping they are networking, how this amazing world couldn't be the dream of every woman. Outside there were birds chirping and people in ugly old jeans and sweatshirts walking happily down the street and somewhere some folks got married and elsewhere someone died. But Kelly was in the tents, obsessing over meaningless clothes. And yes, Meryl, I know that the royal blue came from whosie who gave it to whosie and then it ended up in a bin so Ella Enchanted could dig it out, but I don't care. Fashion is, by and large, a pretty vapid career. There. I said it.

Anyway, Kelly and Bethenny got into a pissing contest about who knew who. Kelly was bragging about Mick or something who takes pictures and Bethenny let slip that Kelly had flirted with her exboyfriend and again, like with Simon and Ramona, we were transported back to middle school. This weird parade of pretty girls tromping by in the distance, two cool spirits warring against each other. Low pressure fronts. Pimply storms.

Jill had another meeting for Rickety Legs, her arthritis charity, and it was a mess. No one knew what to do, and eventually Kelly breezed in late and said "I don't want anything to do with this." She also said, when finding out that Jill's daughter had arthritis, "Oh, how cute." Ack. The insulted daughter looked at Kelly. She saw her cracked, Magic Shell visage. Her horsey, guttural ramblings about fashion and famous people. The way she looked, for someone who is so pretty, so ugly and exhausted. Jill's daughter looked at her nice sweater and her own healthy, young hair. And she knew she'd won. Sure there was sad, sweaty Paris. Sure there was the incident at the Days Inn yet to happen. But in total... she beat Kelly. And she always will.

Kelly didn't want her name on the invitation for the charity event. She didn't have the time. Nothing was important to her. The cute girl with retard legs or whatever would have to, kindly, stuff it with pumpkins, because Kelly is a busy old bitch who needs seven surgeries daily just to keep her eyeballs from withering and sifting like dust out of her sockets. Bethenny engaged in her in a fight about her being fucking Madonna or whatever. "This little girl is an adorable kid," she said, pointing to the crippled heap of arthritis and scabies or whatever that thing was in the corner. "But I'm busy."

Next week Bethenny and Kells have a big blowdown where Kelly says "we're not friends, you're not funny" and Bethenny fiddles with her cell phone and oh gosh, it'll be good.

In the meantime, we'll just have to listen to that creak and sfffft of Kelly's joints ambling around the city, her deflated balloon heart beating bravely in the spiky caverns of her chest. She roams the city, the Countess Crackerjacks always at her ear.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was in that snuff film? I was the desk girl at a seafood processing plant just outside-a Tacoma. It was a front for the mob or the Yakuza or somethin'. I didn't ask questions. Anyway, there was this one little yella fella who walked up to me one day and said 'Hey, Tits. You want movie, be in?" I pulled down my tube top right then and there and said 'Sure, Sugarshack. Where we doin' this thing?' He shook his head and said 'No sexy, no sexy. Just —' and he made this like stabbing motion or whatever, with his hands. 'Ohh that kinda picture,' I said, while puttin' the funbags back in their green sequined holster. Loved that top. Found it in the trash out behind a Dots. Anyways, so we go off in this old Land Cruiser he's got and there's this cabin near Crater Lake, and it's creepy as hell. I'm floatin pretty fierce on mescalin and Capris at this point, but whatever, I get outta the car and —"

"I'm sorry, LuAnn, but does this have a point?" Kelly will interrupt.

Crackerjacks will smile slyly and light up a cig. She'll chuckle a low, smoky laugh.

"My point, m'dear, is that I know a whole group a people that'd pay good money to see you dead. And that's just the Japs."

She'll laugh and clap her hands.

"So you put that in your peacepipe and blow on it, Sugarcane. There'n Arby's around here? Mama needs some Curlies."

Kelly will blink, terrified and confused. She won't understand.

But we will.