Emmaprovement Continues...

My friend Brandon, who lives in Las Vegas, came to town last week. Everyone has a bad influence friend. Brandon is mine. The last time he came to London, we ended up at Turnmills - Turnmills, people - and I fell asleep sitting up at the kitchen table. At ten am.

So, this time, I'm prepared. I don't go out for a few nights. I send him continual emails and text messages, telling him that we are just going to have quiet dinners, maybe a few drinks at some swanky bars. There will be no 'six am, I wonder what's open' taxi conversations.

But it's no use. A quiet birthday party turned into a champagne drinking contest, with Brandon seriously depleting London's supply of Moët. I think I danced. By myself. In the street. Thankfully, I can't remember.

The next day, when we emerged from bed in the late afternoon, Brandon said he would maybe like to see some of London. You know, in the daylight. And so, we set off for my favourite tourist destination, the Tate Modern. I'm a member of the Tate. It makes me feel a bit smug and arty, but the truth is: I only joined because I love the private members bar on the roof.

I do love galleries, though. I love the fact that all this art - this art I learned about in school - actually lives in the same city as me. And I love the sound my heels make on the marble floors. But, mostly, I love galleries because they seem like such romantic places. But I hate going with people. Men, especially.

There is something so awkward about visiting a gallery with another person ­ you feel compelled to discuss the art, in showy-off, smarty-pants ways. Piller does this. I want to rip my skin off just thinking about it.

But Brandon is much cooler than Piller. On the way in to the Tate, he tells me about this financier in New York who bought the apartment beneath him, just so he could house his art collection.

'That's what I want to be when I grow up,' says Brandon. 'that P word.'
'What? A pederast?' I ask, snickering.
Brandon has a tendency to date very young, very beautiful women. Vegas will do that to a man.
'No,' he says, glaring. 'A philanthropist'.

And for a second, I remember being in high school art class, and promising the best girl in art that, one day, I'd be very rich and I'd be her patron. A wave of guilt washes over me. That girl is now an artist. And I can barely support myself. I vow not to eat anything ever again. Rich boys don't make passes at girls with fat asses.

Brandon and I spend the rest of the afternoon choosing the art for our future home galleries. It's basically like we are three years old again, in the Christopher Robin classroom (Brandon and I went to nursery school together) playing house. But better.

We both felt the Anish Kapoor egg would be the centrepiece but disagreed over some of the Lichtensteins. I felt they were too 'bachelor'. Brandon, being a bachelor, disagreed. Tyson's Swimmer made it. As did Dijkstra's Venus. We plan to have a wing reserved for John Currin. Brandon even suggested that it might be an idea to commission a Currin portrait of me for my 40th birthday. I make a mental note to check my wardrobe for portrait appropriate outfits.