Mom 'n Pop Detox

Live from Illinois, it's Saturday morning. I had a great 30-hour trip from New York to my parents' home, via Amtrak. It was wonderful, although there was a six-hour stretch somewhere in Pennsylvania where I almost regretted getting on the train, but it dissolved as the sun rose. I was sitting in the cafe car, drinking crappy/wonderful coffee, and watching the fields go by with my new friends talking about the book of Revelations...

It was a much, much-needed respite from the three-week bender I've been on. Just when I didn't think things could get much more wanton/drunken/randy, I hung out with Joe again, artfully evading his inquiries about (a) sex stains on my bed that didn't belong to us, (b) breast bruises that did not belong to him, and (c) what I thought about his plan to start a tee-shirt company. Prematurely possessive questions aside, this last one really got to me, because the world needs more snarky tee-shirts just as much as we need more babies, nuclear war, and graphic designers. I wanted to call it our last night together, but it is hard because I really do feel like his body was made just for me, and he left his flask at my place before going out to meet his family for Mother's Day.

I had to hustle him out of my apartment because this Swiss couchsurfer called me from JFK to tell me he was on his way over. I half-heartedly dragged myself around my apartment cleaning up disgusting things and kind of feeling bitter/overextended about sharing my apartment for the third, fourth, night in a row. But he was passed to me by Love Affair and Girlfriend, so I had agreed to let him stay two nights with me.

As soon as I opened the door to let him in, however, I told him he could stay the week with me. He was so fucken adorable! Thank you, Girlfriend! What a delightful Swiss gift! I promised myself I wouldn't sleep with him--it's kind of against the couchsurfing protocol, and he's a bit younger than me--but it wasn't my fault. It really wasn't. I'm only human.

The funniest thing about that whole situation was happened as I was leaving for Penn Station Thursday morning. I was hustling around trying to get my shit together and give him instructions on what to do, whom to call, while he was sat there in his underwear scratching his head, and he asks me, "So...what should I say...when your friends ask about us?" I knew exactly what he was saying, but it was so fun to watch him squirm, so I was like, "What do you mean? Tell them we met on Couchsurfing. Or tell them about Girlfriend and Love Affair. They know what Couchsurfing is." And he's struggling to say the right words in English without being vulgar, "No, I mean...about...not that..."

Hilarity!

So now, after that week of sluttery and drunkening, I am chastely sitting at my parents' house, sporting the patch, and remembering what life in middle America is all about: big houses, big cars, big meals, and big televisions. TV is crazy, man. Me and Little Brother are watching Pretty Woman at one in the afternoon, and there are commercials on for BecomeAnEx.Org, a quit-smoking program. It was a hilarious commercial, by the way. You must check it out.