Last week, guest columnist Tamara Paris thrilled the masses with tales of her newly broken heart. This week, the divine Ms. Paris continues her mystical journey toward self-sufficient singlehood, or something. Enjoy!


MONDAY, MAY 1 Schmader says I'm being a big baby about the smokejumper who dumped me and that I need to get back up in that saddle and date a horse, any old horse. I'm leery, but he locks the door and plays Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville over and over until I feel emboldened enough to burst from his office and proposition the first man I see. "Uh, I'm currently married," squeaks the trembling writer I've pinned against the fax machine. The experiment is a success! I do have the balls to get back up on the back of that beast!

Exhausted from the effort, I head home where I float in the tub, watching the lack of gravity do flattering things to my breasts. I ignore the jangling phone. Ever since my cry for help in last week's column, sympathetic girlfriends have been ringing incessantly, chirpily inviting me out for coffee "so we can talk." Wow, nothing like a feigned suicide attempt to make a girl feel desirable. I'm so relaxed that only my nostrils are above water when the commotion commences. I sit up and look at the ceiling. Grit and dust sift lazily down into my bath water. The noise is unmistakable. Rodentia are fucking above me.


TUESDAY, MAY 2
The scent of warm dirt and lilacs drifts through my windows and I awaken in a state of acute desire. I flip sleepily through my mental catalogue of masturbatory images -- Lieutenant Bud White bursting out of his undershirt in L.A. Confidential; the deranged performance artist I briefly dated (the one who actually purchased a pocket pussy); my abduction by many-tentacled space aliens -- but they're all like gum with the flavor chewed out. I trot the smokejumper out for a spin but find he's devolved into an asexual blur. New fodder is needed. I call my best friend Po-Po at work and ask him if he'll have sex with me. "For the thousandth time, no," he says, and suggests I try the personals. I haul out The Stranger and peruse the ads. What's with this "petite" obsession? I've been called many things in my day, but diminutive is not among them. Appalled, I hurl the offending rag across the room. I stomp into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee down my enormous throat. I'm so involved with feeling self-righteous that when Mr. and Mrs. Mouse leap out of the sink and scamper down my leg, it takes me a full 15 seconds to start screaming.


WEDNESDAY, MAY 3 I'm living with a dysfunctional rodent couple who fuck and fight all day long. The sheer noise these two tiny creatures create is staggering. Since Mr. and Mrs. Mouse have ignored my polite requests to pay rent, I resign myself to evicting them. I call the building manager and tell him about my surly squatters. "I haven't seen you since I saved your life," he says. So you pulled my head out of the oven, big deal, I think to myself. Enough with the messiah complex, already. After chatting my ear off for an hour, he vows to call an exterminator. Relieved, I wander to Broadway. I walk behind a foxy woman in red boots talking with another woman. Maybe I should be a dyke again, I muse to myself while trying to move in close enough to eavesdrop. "Are you going to spend Christmas with my parents this year?" "I spent Christmas with yours last time!" Realizing that it is May, I conclude that I still do not have what it takes to be a lesbian.


THURSDAY, MAY 4 I'm in my robe when the ruggedly handsome exterminator unexpectedly knocks on the door. Despite the fact that this is a classic setup for porn, he ignores me and my strategically loosened garment as he sets out poison for my unwanted guests. Who needs him? I have more technologically advanced fish to fry. I place a personal ad online in which I describe myself as petite. "You've got mail," my computer optimistically blurts every time I come near it. I slog through hundreds and hundreds of hopeful missives before I crack the code: Christians send photos of themselves standing in front of waterfalls, while divorced men with mustaches prefer snapshots of themselves leaning against tiny convertibles. I may be back in the saddle, but it seems just as slippery as ever.


FRIDAY, MAY 5 Mr. and Mrs. Mouse are dead. My God, what have I done?


SATURDAY, MAY 6
I lurch out of bed to make coffee and that's when I see him. The rattus maximus stretched out dead on my living room carpet easily measures 18 inches from tip to tail. My horror knows no bounds. Piercing screams bounce crazily off the walls as I leap back under the covers. I dial my other best guy-friend, Chris, and beg him to come over and help. Retching sympathetically, he breaks the news: Only a man getting laid by a woman might feel compelled to remove a carcass for her. I'd offer to fuck him, but his herbalist fiancée would poison me with pennyroyal. I'm on my own. Trembling, I wrap enough paper towels around my hands to absorb a toxic spill and reach down to grasp the rat. He lifts his head and gazes into my eyes.

I remain curled in the fetal position in my closet long enough to aurally hallucinate. I swear I hear Mr. Rat calling to me. "Pretty lady? Can you get me a glass of water? I don't feel so good." My only option is to evacuate the apartment, wait for him to die, and find a man to have sex with, right away.


SUNDAY, MAY 7 I wake up in the Ace Hotel next to an Alaskan fisherman. Despite our recent intimacy, he claims the smelt are running and practically bolts out the door when I ask him nicely to come take Mr. Rat away. Once again, I'm forced to do a man's job. I return to the apartment where Mr. Rat has indeed expired in the night. I don oven mitts over which I wrap two bath towels. I bend down and gingerly grasp the tip of his hairless tail. Weakly, he swivels his head.

I pound on the building manager's door for what seems like an eternity until I realize my blows are being muffled by the towels. I tear them off, and he opens up right away. He seems strangely glad to see me, considering it's 6:00 a.m. and I'm crouched on his welcome mat grunting incomprehensibly. I remain, tracing crude pictograms in the dirt while he races to my apartment and mercifully ushers Mr. Rat to a better place. He returns and guides me gently inside, where he elevates my feet and applies a cold compress to my forehead. Several hours, one crab omelet, and a foot massage later, I have an almost religious epiphany. Suddenly it seems crystal clear: The assholes may be sexy, but the nice ones get shit done. And remember friends, if a wretched old sinner like me can be saved, well -- there may even be hope for you.

Once again, thank you, Tamara. Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com or phone the 24-hour Hot Tip Hotline at 323-7101, ext. 3113.