ONE OF MY best friends in the world is Shoniqua. She is black. She's also six feet tall and has an ass the size of a medicine ball. I call her "Hammer Toes."

Shoniqua is the only person I know who can actually make me look shy. She has a huge personality. She can walk into a room full of people and within seconds take over. When I'm with her I just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

We've been friends for ten years, and all the while she has been with the same man-married to him for the last five. He is a true African, from Nigeria, who I'm pretty sure is capable of Voodoo. He'll take one look at someone and before even speaking to them decide that they are no good for Shoniqua. I was scared when I met him because I knew my insides were flooded with alcohol and I was sure he would take that as a bad sign. Fortunately for me he thought I was a good seed, just confused about where my life was headed. His analysis sounded a lot better than being a "slut," so we grew to be fast friends too.

I met Shoniqua while I was performing stand-up comedy at some hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in Alta Dena. She ran a comedy room filled with only black performers and black audiences. She wasn't opposed to whiteys coming to patronize or perform, but this wasn't a section of town with a surplus of Caucasians.

I knew that Shoniqua's place was the perfect platform for my comedy. Black audiences always seemed to have a better sense of humor than white ones. Their laughter is hard to get, but once you have it, they really let go. I enjoy challenges, and so the next step in my comedy career was to ingratiate myself with the brotherhood.

The first person I met at the club was Shoniqua's mother, who also happened to be black. When her mother questioned why a blonde, blue-eyed Jewish girl would make her way to that part of town, I wrote her a check for one hundred dollars and asked her to please be nice to me. She took the check and told me to buy her a Corona. Why they sold Corona at a coffee shop was unclear to me, but as the person behind the counter pulled an ice-cold Corona from a portable beach cooler, I realized businesses in this neighborhood were clearly subject to different regulations.

I was extremely nervous before going onstage but the set ended up going well, thanks to a 350-pound black woman who hooted and hollered at every joke I told. There weren't many people in the audience, and I couldn't hear anyone laugh over this woman, but I decided it had been a positive experience and asked Shoniqua if I was allowed to come back. She told me that she liked white people but didn't have any close white friends and asked if I was interested in cross-pollinating. I told her we would see how things went but not to put the chicken wing before the egg.

We grew to be fast friends, and a couple years later we made plans for a weekend getaway to the Big Apple.

We booked separate rooms at the Peninsula Hotel because Shoniqua didn't like sharing a room. I, on the other hand, love sharing rooms with anyone, especially girls. It reminds me of childhood sleepovers, where you would talk into the wee hours of the morning and put the fingers of the girl who fell asleep first into hot water to make her pee in her sleep. I did this once to Shoniqua, but it wasn't as much fun without anyone else there to witness it. The next morning, when she realized what had happened, Shoniqua came very close to bitch slapping me. She was physically superior to me in strength and I had to outmaneuver her for almost thirty minutes. With her long arms and legs coming at me from every direction, it felt like I was fending off a real live octopus. It took a while before she would speak to me again after that. Reluctantly, I agreed that all future trips together would be in separate rooms. I was not happy about it, but I was working my way back into her circle of trust.

On the second night of our trip to Manhattan, the concierge told us about a great new restaurant called Tao. He tried to make us a reservation but it was completely booked, so Shoniqua took over.

She called the restaurant and informed the hostess that we were the executive producers of the television show Friends and that there was a possibility Monica and Chandler would be joining us. I reminded her that those were not their actual names, but she was already hanging up the phone. "We're in," she said.

"Oh, really?" I asked. "And where do you suppose we're going to find Monica and Chandler?"

"Listen, bitch. They're not gonna fuckin' care when we get there."

She was right. They didn't care. But they did take a long hard look at two twenty-seven-year-olds, wondering how it was possible we were the executive producers of anything beyond a half-hour segment on the Nickelodeon channel. I kept my head down and avoided eye contact with anyone. Shoniqua, however, milked it for all it was worth.

"Hello, nice to see you this evening. Is our table ready?" she said with a big cheesy grin that reminded me of a billy goat in heat.

When we were seated, she told the hostess, "Please make sure we get a complimentary round of drinks. We had a long flight. I'd love something sweet."

"That's okay," I told the hostess. "Just ignore her."

"Fuck off, ho!" Shoniqua snapped at me, then looked up at the hostess and sternly commanded, "Just ignore her."

The hostess gave us an uncomfortable smile and walked off.

"Cut the shit," I said. "Why do you have to be so embarrassing?"

"Listen, bitch, they don't know who the fuck we are, let's get some free shit. I'm not a Jew like you, okay." Shoniqua thought being a Jew meant that I was born with a trust fund and received direct deposits into my account from the Bank of Abraham. I explained to her, on many occasions, that my family was the Sanford and Son of our neighborhood and the only trust fund my father had in store for me was a 1985 Yugo with a missing radiator. She chose to ignore this information and instead focus on the fact that we had a summer home.

The dinner was fantastic. I introduced her to foie gras, along with Kobe steak and yellowtail sashimi. Shoniqua was a walking oxymoron: She never bought a handbag or a pair of sunglasses that wasn't Prada, Gucci, or Chanel, but she couldn't pronounce filet mignon or, for that matter, pick it up with a pair of chopsticks. I'm not the most sophisticated girl in the world, but my brother Ray is a chef, and it didn't take me long to figure out what was worth eating and what was worth skipping for more alcohol.

Shoniqua and I always had a great time when we went out, and this night was no different. She was regaling me with a story about one of the 107 children her mother fostered when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my hot piece of Peruvian ass.

He was at the bar, leaning up against a glass partition, watching us. He was tall, with olive skin and wavy black hair. His nose was a little crooked but not enough to ruin his face.

I told Shoniqua that there was a beautiful specimen right behind her but not to look right away. "Heeeeeeeeeeeey!" she screamed in what she thought was a flirty tone and knocked on the glass like we had been dropped onto the wrong side of an aquarium. The billy goat was back.

Every person within twenty feet of our table was now staring in our direction. "Hey there!" she shouted, rapping on the glass again. I slid lower in my seat and contemplated using my dirty napkin as a burka. Shoniqua is great for introductions to new men since she is married and doesn't give a shit what anyone of the opposite sex thinks. "I got a husband," she would tell me if I ever asked her to tone it down. "I'm fucking trying to get one for your ass too." Shoniqua and her husband have the greatest relationship I know of; I can only assume it's because they don't have kids. They're constantly surprising each other with weekend get-aways and showering each other with gifts. They talk on the phone close to ten times a day. Lately I've realized I need a man just like him for myself. Except white.