How did it get like this.

I am 27.
I am a virgin.
My best friend is 5 years old.
About an hour ago I sat at the train station waiting for a train and reading Better Homes and Gardens... in French.
It wasn't actually Better Homes and Gardens, it was the French equivalent, My Garden and My Home.
Except it was French so it was actually Mon jardin et ma maison.
And I wasn't really reading it I was more like flipping through it looking at lawn tractors and wondering if any of the brands were still around.
It was the Mon jardin et ma maison from April 1975.
Sorry, "Avril, 1975."

The last time I kissed a girl was 7 weeks ago.
She was from Denmark.
We were in Morocco.
We snuck into a hotel to swim in their pool, then we went back to our hotel had a siesta on the rooftop terrace.
I told her that I believe in God and I believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ all men can find the power to change themselves into something better than they are.
You know, reach beyond their potential, become more than the sum of their parts.
She told me she doesn't believe in God, that she thinks when you die there is nothing.
Then we made out.

About 10 years ago I was 16.
The last day of my sophomore year a friend and I decided to walk to a party.
We didn't get there until 3 AM.
The party was over.
We didn't want to walk home so we snuck into a neighboring house that was still under construction and slept in the basement.
We thought it was hilarious.
When we told our friends they thought it was crazy.
We did too.
Hilariously crazy.

The day after I kissed the Danish girl I met Sophie and Mathilde.
They were both from Marseille, France.
They were both about to start their first year of teaching physics and chemistry at middle school.
Seven weeks later I got lost trying to find their new apartment in Epinay-Sur-Sienne, a suburb of Paris.
On my way back to the train station, after giving up the search for their apartment, I passed through a neighborhood that seemed strangely familiar.
It was almost like I was back in America, like my location had suddenly changed when I had turned the corner, the way it does in dreams.
I was filled with the fear that my life was just a dream and that I could wake up at any time, only I didn't know what I would wake up to, because I had no idea how long I had been dreaming.
Then I realized that the location hadn't changed, I was just sensing the all too familiar feeling of the unfamiliar.
That was roughly two hours ago.

11 weeks ago I boarded a night bus in Paris at roughly 3:30 AM.
I fell asleep.
When I woke up I had just missed my stop.
I started walking.
Around 5 in the morning I found some grass and tried to sleep for a few hours.
After fifteen minutes an airplane woke me up, and then a girl on a bike.
I didn't think it was hilarious.
I didn't think it was that crazy either.
This type of situation seems to be occurring more often.

I am 27.
I am a virgin.
My best friend is 5 years old.
About 50 minutes ago I sat at the train station asking myself, "How did it get like this?"
"When did I start thinking all of this was normal?"
...
I don't know.
Then the train came.
I tucked the "Avril 1975" issue under my arm and boarded.

Bars and tone

One time when I was in high school I ruptured my spleen. It sucked. I had to be confined to bed for 3 weeks.Getting out of bed for the first time in three weeks is an adventure, believe me. Severe muscle atrophy would be one of the major setbacks of medically induced comas, but worth it I think (refer to my first post.) Then for another three weeks I was confined to the top floor of my house, no stairs allowed. Actually I guess that it didn't suck that bad. I got to miss six weeks of school and I got to stay up late every night and sit in our massage chair lazy-boy and watch late night TV. I had the late night schedule memorized for most of the channels. Some of the more notable programs were Martha Stewart Living which came on at 3 in the morning followed by The Nanny.

On a side note, the first thing I thought when I saw Fran Drescher in This is Spinal Tap is "Who did she have to sleep with to get that role?" not that she is a poor actress, just that that was the very first thing I thought.

Anyway after the Nanny I guess the network realized it was scraping the bottom of the barrel in television programming, so in order to preserve some sense of decency they just aired two hours of bars and tone before the morning news came on. Yes, good times indeed. I think I enjoy watching television much more when I am taking prescription pain killers. Of course I doubt there are many things I wouldn't enjoy more after a couple of Loritabs (Prescription drug abuse is illegal and morally wrong... and fun. But I don't do it because it is WRONG... and expensive. But the price doesn't make a difference because I wouldn't do it anyway... or would I? No, no I wouldn't.)

Anyway the point of this whole thing which I am getting to is this: Have you ever noticed that late at night they have a lot of commercials and infomercials for mechanical beds? You don't really ever see those on at normal hours of the day. They always say something like "Having trouble sleeping at night?" I imagine most of the poeple who are still awake late enough to see these comercials say something like "No, I am sleeping like a fraking baby. Dip shit."

So... I guess it is smart for the mechanical bed companies to advertise late, because they are hitting their target audience of poeple who can't sleep at night. I just think it is funny. That is all.