Old Flames and Sticky New Starts
The building is a phallus
Last weekend, my two roommates and I moved from one part of Crown Heights to another, a whopping five blocks away. The move took an entire day — nine in the morning until eleven at night. It was over 90 degrees outside. Allow me to re-create the sequence of events.
- 9 AM to 3 PM: Carry three people’s belongings down three flights of stairs and into a moving truck
- 3 PM to 3:05 PM: Drive moving truck five blocks; park
- 3:09 PM: We’re here! They didn’t do any of the renovations they said they would! It’s a complete mess! FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU …
- 3:10 PM: Walk to bar
- 3:11 PM: Rehydrate
- 3:12 PM to 5 PM: Get drunk
- 5:31 PM: Begin cleaning up the spilled varnish and sawdust and dustdust and general-disappointment-dust
- 6 PM: Down to 25 percent remaining of my buzz
- 6:45 PM: Cleaning complete; begin moving the accumulated belongings of three people up a flight of stairs
- 7 PM: Sober
- 11 PM: Finish; drop off moving truck
The next night, I went out to celebrate my new place, because staying in my new place to do so would have been too depressing. Yes, I appreciate the irony.
I went to an establishment of vague cultural purpose around the corner. It was offering live music. The band was good. There were racks of vintage clothing and cans of beer and bins of records and clusters of pretty girls who probably would appreciate that I appreciated the irony in that last paragraph. It was, in short, what I had hoped my new apartment would look like.
My apartment does not look like that. In my apartment, if you lean against any of the moldings for too long, you stick.
I considered talking to some of those pretty girls. I had recently formed new opinions about Mark Duplass, and I bet they would have loved to hear them. I could totally segue from those opinions to a recounting of my move via a carrying-a-puffy-chair-into-my-new-place story. Then I could have invited them to my new place. Then we all could be in love. Then this column could end.
I didn’t talk to those pretty girls. I must have been too tired from the move. The column continues….
While I do own a puffy chair, one of the reasons for this move was that we wanted a place that had space for a couch. I’ve found it exceedingly difficult to bring a lady home during the early stages of wooing without a couch on which to make advances.
Before: “Hey, wanna come over and sit in separate recliners in my tiny living room/kitchen and feel cramped yet distant? We can watch a safe-choice movie we’ve both already seen and aren’t totally into rewatching.”
Now: “Hey, wanna come over and sit on my couch and watch me cycle madly through the guide menu on the cable box while I try to think of ways to make you laugh, because I don’t know how to lean over and kiss you? Keep your shoes on, or your feet might stick to the floor varnish!”
See? What a difference a couch makes — better yet, a couch near a bar. I’ve been around the block a few times (watched TV), so I know that bars are where pretty girls go to be talked at by aggressive boys. So, here’s the plan: Bar, couch, bed, chapel, town house, stately manor, pine box.
(I think I finally used metonymy correctly! I’m going to call some professors and gloat.)
Now I just need to pick the best couch for this plan. Naturally, I’ll google “best couch to have sex on,” which, of course, brings me to “how do you do sex on the couch?“ on Answers.com. Here’s your answer:
You can have sex on the couch with a girl or a boy by just laying down and busting a move then take off all your clothes including your bras and underwear then make sure the boy has condoms so that the girl wont get pregnant and then be sure that the boy slowly pushes his penis into the girl’s vagina then do it over and over again while you kiss and make out, that’s what I do to have sex with my boyfriend.
Did this answer my question? I’ll go with “Partially.”
All this talk of metonymy and these run-on sentences remind me: I went to my college five-year reunion this weekend. How could I have done that while also moving this weekend? Because I lied about the chronology, that’s why.
Reunions are great places to hit on people. It feels like you are on a good third date with every person you run into. You’re really excited to see her again, surprised at how good she looks (how did you not notice those eyes before?) and best of all, you feel relaxed. There’s an intimacy you didn’t count on. Things feel safe. You get the prospect of new sexual experiences and an established rapport.
Better yet, there’s a definite end. This is fake life, and you get to go home. Yet this is even better than other fake-life dating situations, like being on vacation or in your early twenties, because there’s still some meaning attached. Everybody is (consciously or subconsciously) settling old scores. Some people come to reunions to let their wallet do the talking. Some come to let their jiggly bits do the talking. Everybody comes to set the record straight somehow.
So, did I hit on people? You bet I did! Did it work out? Stayed tuned….
After social events, I often wonder how thoroughly I will be researched by people I meet or catch up with who express interest in what I do online. How important to them is our new Facebook friendship? What is my EdgeRank in their lives? Will they google me? Will they find their way to this article? Is that cute redheaded photographer I hit on reading this right now? If any other classmates are reading this, you remember her, right? She was supercute, right? Are any classmates reading this? Is anybody reading this? Is Gene here? Hi, Gene!
Now that I’ve either wasted half a paragraph on an audience that doesn’t exist or mortified a nice girl from Clinton, New York, let’s get back to the point: How do you do sex at a college reunion?
Well, let me put it this way: You can have sex at your reunion with a girl or a boy by just laying down and busting a move then take off all your clothes including your bras and underwear then make sure the boy has condoms so that the girl wont get pregnant and then be sure that the boy slowly pushes his penis into the girl’s vagina then do it over and over again while you kiss and make out, that’s what I do to have sex with my I-didn’t-have-sex-at-my-college-reunion, but then, that’s probably because I was staying in a sticky dorm room, which totally trumps the couch; fake life imitates real life, and I hate my new apartment. Byyeeeeee.
