Last night, my friend Jules sponsored another event at James Beach… which basically means that she picks and chooses amongst her copious friends and corrals them all into one place. Luckily, I’ve made the cut the last few times.

It was fun, and I think it was mostly because I seem to be hitting my stride, lately.

I had one of those moments where you float outside of yourself, look down, and observe your body from a vantage point of roughly a foot or two above and behind your head. I looked down and noticed that I was telling a joke, or being somehow witty, because whoever it was I had just met, and her friend, and her friend’s friend, were laughing their asses off. There was a lot of touching of me while the talking continued. Hand on the shoulder, gripping my arm, raking down the chest.

And then, I somehow extricated myself and ended up with another group of three girls, with the same effect. When the hell did this happen? Floating over my head, I glanced to the right and saw a couple of guys I had met that night, looking at me and shaking their heads. My real body turned to look at them, and one of them game me the high-sign and said, “You’re my idol!” And all I could do was laugh.

I am not your next American idol, trust me. Even if (as I observed), I spent the entire night talking and holding the attention of three groups of three women at a time, and even if I got an appreciative comment and a guy-fist-to-fist thing, and even if I got unprompted hugs, unprompted compliments, and a very unwanted unprompted phone number… I am still no idol. I’m just a guy with crippling-ly low self-esteem who’s humorously self-deprecating, can tell a decent story from time to time, and seriously now ladeez: is very, very single.

But I did have fun, and that’s important.

And better still, when Jules called me this morning, she opened with “Well weren’t you the belle of the ball last night!” Which is worth more to me than any of the other stuff because Jules and I have been friends for forever and a day.