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vodka and Brie.
    But for me the highlight of the party, the reason I ponied up, was the Oscar-ballot competition.
    Gary and I walked into the ballroom that night wearing our sleekest suits and silk ties, our fingers dripping in gold and silver, diamonds and lapis. Gary had slicked his hair back à la Gordon Gekko. I was carrying a money clip. Which held roughly seven dollars.
    I looked around the room.
    There were hundreds of competitors.
    This was high stakes.
    This was George Clooney and Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts type money.
    But I could take them all.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you?” Gary asked as we searched for a table. “You’re … dripping.”
    I was sweating.
    I never sweated.
    My mouth was dry, my face and body wet.
    I felt as if I’d been struck by a rattlesnake.
    â€œYou’re freaking out,” Gary said.
    â€œGet me a ballot, please,” I gasped.
    I hunkered down over it, and—channeling the gifts I had been granted at birth—checked off my winners with more ambivalence than confidence, using the lucky Napoleon Dynamite pen Gary had given me.
    â€œVote for Pedro!” the pen told me.
    â€œVote with your gut!” my gut told me.
    I mean, I had seen every film, some twice. I had taken notes. I had prepped harder for this than for my ACT.
    When I was finished, I wrote my pseudonym—as we were asked to do, for fun—at the top of my ballot and turned it over to a man who’d obviously had more face work than an antique pocket watch.
    I grabbed a cosmo, took a seat, and watched the night unfold.
    It was a grueling four hours. Our ballot tallies were, thankfully, updated at each commercial break, and the entrants’ names and scores were projected on a big screen in every corner of the ballroom.
    After a few rounds, the hanging chad began to fall away, leaving me—MissFayeDunaway—alone at the top, along with only one other competitor: Liza with a Z (but of course), a rather bothersome mosquito, who remained annoyingly close as the evening progressed.
    In fact, we leapfrogged each other the rest of the night—me nailing Best Foreign Language Film, Liza snagging Best Sound Mixing. And then we were tied, and stayed tied until the final award of the night: Best Picture.
    I was confident.
    I knew
Brokeback Mountain
would win.
    It had momentum. It had great press. Ang Lee had just won Best Director. The Oscars were the gayest event of all time. It was time for the gays to break through big-time, brokeback style.
    â€œ
And the winner is
 … Crash!”
    â€œWhat? Are you kidding me?” I screamed, standing up, frightening the elderly gay couple sitting next to us who looked like the Smothers Brothers. “Nothing with Sandra Bullock in it can win an Oscar!”
    And then I heard a series of loud whoops and a lot of screaming.
    I turned toward the projection screen.
    Liza with a Z had picked
Crash
.
    Liza with a Z had picked
Crash?
    I locked in my personal GPS on Liza, toweled off with a cocktail napkin, and headed across the room with a mission.
    â€œWhere are you going?” Gary asked. “You lost. It’s okay. Please don’t freak. I can win it all back in Miss Teen USA!”
    â€œNo one beats me!” I yelled. “And what kind of lunatic picks
Crash
over
Brokeback
?”
    I headed toward the celebration, where I found a man in pleated Dockers and a wrinkled Ducks Unlimited sweater drinking Budweiser and high-fiving a group of unattractive men.
    â€œLiza with a Z?” I asked.
    â€œWho wants to know?”
    â€œMissFayeDunaway.”
    I stared.
    He stared.
    Neither of us blinked.
    It was a standoff at the Gay O.K. Corral.
    â€œJust one question,” I said. “How could you pick
Crash
?”
    â€œ
Brokeback
was just too … you know … gay, dude.”
    I recoiled.
    And then I looked him over, closely, once again.
    Dockers.
    Ducks