Superficial

by Andy Cohen

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2014—LOS ANGELES—HAWAII

  Woke up early—seven-thirty—and put on the red onesie Bruce had left for me and went to the house to find Bruce and Bry in matching union suits and Ava hard at work unwrapping gifts, ignoring the depressing town that Santa had tragically arranged. Bry said she kept asking if Santa was real and he thinks the town was a giveaway. I thought it looked perfect last night but in the light of day he might’ve been right. All morning and all day I got a flood of tweets from people taking pics of themselves with The Andy Cohen Diaries under the tree, which made my day. I had hundreds by the end of the day. I made breakfast for everybody—eggs, bacon, toast. Then we went to Barry’s, where DVF was wearing her off-the-shoulder “Mazel” sweatshirt, and then to Runyon Canyon for a hike. I missed Wacha so much today. Saw Into the Woods at the ArcLight. I was fighting sleep during the movie so I could sleep on the endless flight that awaited me. I liked the movie, even though the score is a little like nails on a chalkboard. Yes, that’s my review. I am officially the only gay dude who doesn’t like Sondheim. Kill me. (I’m sure he would love my oeuvre as well.) Went back to the house and watched Working Girl with Bruce and then headed to Jason’s to go to Van Nuys Airport. Downloaded all episodes of Serial on the way. Got on the plane and it was me, Jason, DVF, Barry, Ashley Olsen, and Bennett Miller. Intimate! We watched Still Alice on the flight to Hawaii and I cried.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2014—HAWAII—RAJA AMPAT, INDONESIA

  We stopped to refuel in Hawaii and then Jason and I took our pills. We woke up somewhere over nowhere and I was quickly humiliated to find out I had been snoring horribly and the entire plane had heard me! Bennett asked what the plan was for the flight home. If I wasn’t already flying back commercially I might’ve rebooked. DVF said the snoring was going to be terrible for my sex life. We spent twenty hours on the plane and I only listened to one episode of Serial.

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2014—RAJA AMPAT, INDONESIA

  Woke up and DVF said it looks like we’re in Connecticut. Took a beautiful swim in the morning with Barry, DVF, and Jason. At some point I was in a corner of a cove and got a mouthful of salt water and puked up my scrambled eggs. Whoops. Later I went paddleboarding while DVF swam. She took pics of me and I hated them all. She said I will love them in ten years and she is probably right. Lunch was perfect—salade Niçoise, quinoa with avocado, meat filet, flatbread with cheese, lobster. I love lunch on the boat. Afterwards DVF and I watched Unbroken under thick cashmere blankets. Then we found out an AirAsia flight in the area was missing—the third missing plane in this area this year. So that freaked me out because I am flying home commercially on Friday. Lee, the bosun, brought me my itinerary and it is a mess—four planes; I’ll be in the air for twenty-four hours. My heart sank when I saw it. This is not where my head should be on the first day of vacation. All day we were scoping out a megayacht around the other island and then they invited us over for drinks. We got on the other boat and it turns out they’re Americans from LA who all knew Ashley—how random. The son-in-law is listening to my book on audio. Small world of rich people.

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2014—RAJA AMPAT, INDONESIA

  Woke up at 4:00 a.m. and tossed and turned until 8:00 a.m. when I got out of bed. My mind was racing, turning over these issues again and again: Jake and Angela, what the hell happened to that plane and its poor passengers, my own airplane situation end of week, my radio channel, Wacha, my apartment renovation and the imminent move for which I am completely unprepared, being alone … By the way, what happens if I meet someone and I have built my dream apartment and that person doesn’t like it? Then what do I do? My life is too big and set up. I leave no room for another life coming in. Swam around a bunch of coves—incredible snorkeling in pristine waters. After the swim I listened to Serial, then took a nap and that went right up until lunch. I can’t decide if I care about the murder case in Serial. Ashley and I had a scuba lesson and an intro session underwater and I only got to about twenty feet (Ashley was at fifty feet) before my ears were hurting but I saw a world of beauty—huge blue starfish and many varieties of yellow and blue and orange fish of various sizes. It was disconcerting to see trash on the surface in the middle of nowhere, though. Sat on the bowsprit and listened to the six new Madonna songs over and over and felt happy and confident, as she is prone to make me feel. I thought about what I will ask her if she ever comes on my show and overanalyzed how she’ll respond. She doesn’t like to dwell on the past and she isn’t into feuds, so that’s a bit limiting. Michael Jackson for sure I can bring up. Does she ever look at her Sex book? Does she regret doing it knowing that her kids can see it? Does she ever get jealous of Lola’s youth and freedom and beauty? Aging—how does she view it? Will she ever stop working? Who among her former conquests does she regret: Dennis Rodman? Vanilla Ice? (That’s a good Plead the Fifth question.) I’ll go deep about the music. These are good questions so far! Watch, she’ll never do my show.

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2014—RAJA AMPAT, INDONESIA

  Overnight we had crossed over the equator so after lunch there was a ceremony on the bow for the crew members who’d never crossed the equator before today. The captain dressed as Neptune/Poseidon, God of the Sea, and “punished” the crew, who had to dress as the opposite sex and dunk their heads in a big barrel of water with fish heads and gnarly stuff in it, then the captain read their list of “offenses” and they got spanked. At the end they walked a plank, which meant jumping off the bowsprit, an activity that I joined in on. Dove and made it to forty-five feet, then I took a paddleboard and swim with DVF and we saw more amazing natural beauty. I have been pining for one of the deckhands for the last couple days and when I got back from the long paddleboard tour he was taking Jason out for a swim, so I joined just so I could bail out of the swim quickly and then chat with him. He has a girlfriend. I had sensed a gayish vibe off him, but after the chat it was gone. I did take a magic-hour selfie with him behind me and post it, so all was not lost. I’m overindulging in every kind of way—which means plenty of booze, starch, and desserts. My face is really fat. But come January 4 or 5 I’m clean for a month, so I am enjoying myself now. I was alone on the aft deck drinking and listening to Madonna and had to grapple with an unusually strong attraction to the young blond deckhand who is on night watch.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2014—RAJA AMPAT, INDONESIA

  The last day of the year: time to reflect. And I started reflecting at four o’clock this morning, meaning I tossed and turned and once again fretted about stupid stuff—my apparent feud with Wendy Williams, what the hell I’m going to perform next month on Lip Sync Battle—and then not-stupid stuff: flying over the triangle of terror commercially on Saturday and moving to an apartment I don’t have. Eventually I gave up trying to sleep and I went up to the aft deck and ate. We were in another corner of paradise, little mounds of islands all around us and green water, with a light rain falling. I went back down to sleep and DVF—it’s her birthday today—came in my room to give me a present, which was that we’re now leaving Sunday and I don’t have to fly commercially on Saturday and go missing. So that was one great weight lifted. I napped, then went on an incredible dive with the group. There can’t be a better place to dive; you see every last thing, all different colors and everything alive. I am five episodes into Serial and I’m getting really, really bored. Why is everyone so obsessed?

  New Year’s Eve dinner on the aft deck was a barbecue under lanterns. I got high on the hash vape thing and we played Balderdash, which was amusing. BD said during the game he is not competitive nor is he scary to work for, so we spent a lot of time challenging that. DVF told me she’s curious about what I am like in bed, am I smiley? She thinks the idea is hilarious. I told her I am a different person in bed. They all went to bed early and I joined ten or so crew members on the aft deck as they swilled champers and I drank tequila and Sprites (side of ice). We counted down to midnight on Lee’s precise clock and fireworks appeared f
rom the next cove. There were lots of hugs and I felt a little awkward; I guess we all do at midnight but this was especially weird given that I was hugging the Thai masseuse lady and the dive instructor dude who lives in Bali. Tried to figure out who is sleeping with who below deck. The ginge-y deckhand with whom I am in unrequited love (I have a few loves onboard) asked me my New Year’s resolution and I went very deep about needing to open my life up to someone and it felt awkward and double entendre-y.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 2015—RAJA AMPAT, INDONESIA

  I am overly dependent on emojis. They’re so ingrained in my head that I just think in them—mainly the face with hearts for eyes and the streamers, and party hat, but even the turtle is popping into my consciousness now. It’s so lazy and childish. On the plus side, it is very Cher-like. New Year’s was happening in America during our daytime and I was already over it so I felt very Regina George whenever I got texts from the States. We had a jam-packed day: a swim and a dive in the morning, then over to the other yacht, Suri. Back on our boat, the group started watching a documentary about Jews on Broadway before dinner. Jews love making documentaries about themselves: Jews in science, Jews in movies, Jews on Broadway. Dinner was mellow yellow and I sat on the bowsprit listening to music for a while before popping an Ambien at eleven and getting into bed.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2015—RAJA AMPAT, INDONESIA

  Deirdre wants me to find a replacement host just in case I don’t make it home in time on Sunday. I’m landing from the other side of the world two hours before the show—what could possibly go wrong?! We did a dive in the afternoon in a really strong current that was horrible—my ears were hurting and I was huffing and puffing against the current and Mike, my dive partner, suddenly raised the orange flag and pointed at me to go up. He called me out! Then Ashley and I went paddleboarding in a mangrove forest and it was an eco-paradise in there. Very quiet except the birds and fish jumping. She and I went deep about my future and hers. She said I should get into consumer products, but I couldn’t figure out what. Then we talked Full House. She’s smart. And very nice, and dry and funny. I like her.

  I dropped my phone in the Jacuzzi tonight and Lee rushed it into a thing of rice to sit for twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours without my phone, and I was actually really zen about it. So I went on the deck in my robe, free of the phone, and I had a great therapy session with DVF. We talked about how quickly time goes, how you are getting older for a period of time and then suddenly you are old. She said the danger about being alone with no family as an old person is that you disappear, become invisible. Just an old person. I see some of these people in my building. She asked why I’m alone and what I’m blocking. I talked about my ex, John Hill—what we were and why we split. I talked about nights of coming home from the show and feeling lonely—allowing myself to feel that recently for the first time. The dog, I fear, is a Band-Aid. In ten years he will be dead, then I’ll be alone again. I talked about sex, how I love it, and how now that I’m famous it’s gotten better and worse in a way—there is more to chase, more opportunity, but to what end? I love doing whatever I want in my life; I love my friends. She said okay, then you’re happy—you don’t have a big problem. She said I need to start having affairs; they don’t have to be committed relationships, just a way of getting to know people. I should take a boy to the Matisse exhibit, for example. So my new rule is that I need to start doing things with new people. I think this is the most practical advice to begin getting me out of whatever circular pattern I am in now.

  After dinner, I went to the aft deck, then Jason came and turned his phone on and a pic of Wacha appeared. I had dropped his phone in the Jacuzzi! He took it pretty well, all things considered. (And yes, I was thrilled to get mine back.) Watched twenty minutes of Postcards from the Edge, took half an Ambien, and fell asleep.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 4, 2015—INDONESIA—HAWAII—LOS ANGELES—NYC

  Woke up and had a last swim to a little private beach near Sorong, where some locals came and took a thousand pictures with me as though I was a Martian. Showed DVF the dirty picture of Jake and she said maybe I should bring him to the Matisse exhibit. Got a last blast of sun, wrote my note to the crew, planned my tip with Jason, signed the guest book, and left. The flight was like floating on a cloud for twenty hours. Of course on the plane I felt like I had no tan, and everybody on board seemed to agree. WTF! To prepare for reality, I did all my work: I watched three episodes of Vanderpump Rules, two of RHOBH, and two of RHOA. Landed and went straight to WWHL and I suddenly wasn’t on a boat or a plane or in the water and I didn’t have my land legs. I was sober, though, and people at work said I was tan. And somehow I was on top of my game and had a great time, so whaddya know. Got home and there was a note with the doorman, in a child’s handwriting, from Teresa’s daughter Milania, of all people, saying she had stopped by to say hi and I wasn’t home. She’s what, ten? It was eerie and interesting.

  WINTER/SPRING 2015

  IN WHICH …

  • I AM CHER ON LIP SYNC BATTLE …

  AND I VISIT CHER’S HOUSE.

  • WACHA BECOMES CUJO …

  AND MEETS HIS NAMESAKE.

  • MY DATING LIFE HEATS UP …

  BUT—

  MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2015—NYC

  Woke up and read that Teresa turned herself in overnight. And Milania came by to see me while I was in Indonesia? I was trying to get my head around this all day. Sherman dropped off Wacha around ten-thirty and he was licking my face so much I thought he was going to take a bite out of it. Maybe my tan is making me extra salty and delicious. A crew was downstairs to shoot me walking Wacha for the World Dog Awards—which seems very Valerie Cherish, but he is up for Dog of the Year and I feel like it’ll help him get a Purina deal if he wins. Ran into Hickey on the street while I was shooting and he compared me to a Toddlers and Tiaras mom. Went up to Bravo to pitch a scripted show. I want to pull my hair out during pitches that are being presented to me, but it’s actually worse being on the other side. Went from there to a photo shoot with the NY Housewives and it was such a trip seeing Bethenny in a red jumpsuit in the middle of the clump of wives again. I love it. There was a big drama before I got there, which often—okay, always—happens at cast photo shoots. Kristen from Vanderpump Rules and Margaret Cho were on the show. There was a viewer question to Margaret asking what advice she would give someone about how to bottom for the first time and I immediately got a series of texts from my mom: “TOO DIRTY! STOP! YOUR AUDIENCE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT BOTTOMING.”

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2015

  Today was the day I said no to Oprah. Slept until ten forty-five, when I felt like a truck was running over me but it was actually Wacha standing on me, telling me it was time to wake up and take him out in the first snow of the day.

  When I read my email there was an offer to be on OWN’s Oprah: Where Are They Now?—an interview by Oprah. Dream of a lifetime, right? Well, I thought about it and looked at the website—it’s pop star Tiffany, the original cast of The Real World, Natalee Holloway’s mother, and Robin Leach. Is that my category? I feel like people should pretty much know where I am now. Where was I? That’s a better question. I passed. I actually considered being classified as a has-been just to be interviewed by Oprah, but my dignity won out! Fredrik is sending me listings but so far there’s nothing. Starting to stress. Went to the show full of piss and vinegar; Jeff Lewis arrived and we kibitzed in my office while I paid bills. He told me they are looking for an egg donor and maybe they should use Brandi. I joked that her eggs are scrambled. On the show he was on her about her wine toss and told her what I’d said about the scrambled eggs (which I did not appreciate). When someone asked if Brandi could run her hands through his hair to see if he was wearing a toupee, he asked if he could get an STD from that. Then we played Paintionary with his new paint and he was drawing dicks and uniballs and really nasty stuff. My mom was furious! (Texts: “NOT AGAIN! STOP! THIS IS DISGUSTING!”) During the last act of the show Brandi sudde
nly got very upset at Jeff for the STD line and threw her wine at him, turned her chair around and started crying. She said, “If you read my book, you would know this is sensitive.” He was stunned, I was stunned, Wacha was stunned. After the show I got Jeff to apologize and they made up. It was really awkward and Twitter was lit up, but then Brandi whispered to me, “It was an act; we planned it.” Jeff corroborated that they were going to go after each other, but said he hadn’t expected her to go that far and that he was wondering if it was real. I didn’t know what to think—we were trending on Twitter; the control room was electric, but the whole thing felt wrong. A staged fight with no “Haha, just kidding” doesn’t seem like it helps anybody. I told her this was supposed to be her big redemption night; she had wisely been totally sober so she could succinctly account for having thrown the wine at Eileen on RHOBH. Two wine throws in one night is two too many, and I told her I thought it was a bad look for her. I got home and texted Brandi and said I wanted her to succeed at some point and was worried this had backfired. Then I couldn’t sleep, and Twitter was going strong with hate for Brandi, who realized a few hours (and a few cocktails?) later that it wasn’t a good look and tweeted that she’d been kidding. I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and had a text from her from 3:30 saying she’d made it better and that having a dog had made me a nicer person.