P.S. I should warn you about the tweakers in the yellow house next door. The darling old lady who owned it died six months ago and her awful son, Captain Tweaker, moved in. I’m almost positive he and his minions regularly cook meth in that rotting van parked on the curb. At least once a week they party loudly until dawn and chuck beer cans into my backyard. I try my best to ignore them and would advise you to do the same!
CHAPTER ONE
June 21, 2012
Dear Everett,
After what happened last night, I am now officially adding a new ground rule to the list. It’s one I failed to include previously as it should be intuitive.
Ground Rule 6a: YOU WILL NOT come into my bedroom if the door is closed.
I was already in a funk last night that it was summer solstice and I had not gathered with an interesting coven of female friends to celebrate the longest day of the year with a series of elaborate rites. Rather, I’d been moping around in my room, trying to find solace in the poetry of Alice Notley and a pint of vegan ice cream, and wondering why it is I spend so much time home alone. I’ve drifted apart from my college pals who, in my defense, have let themselves fall into lives of bourgeois pleasures and office drudgery. If I was painting and drawing, or making love to some hottie, it would be fine. But usually after my shift at the Whole Foods deli, I just head home to hang out with the furballs.
Nor can I seem to muster the energy to blast myself out of this funk. I can’t help but compare myself to Annie. I helped her get her job at the deli only six months ago, and already she has an interview for a position as assistant to Topher Doyle, the quirky CEO of Whole Foods. Don’t get confused by his C-suite acronym—Topher Doyle is not the Chief Executive Officer; he’s the Chief Ecosystem Officer, which is more like a CEO Lite in charge of supporting both the environment of this beautiful planet, the corporate culture of the company, and its “give back” initiatives. (While in theory, I want my friends to excel in life, in practice I don’t want Annie to leave me behind! And I can’t help but juxtapose Annie’s motivation and ambition with my current lack thereof. When I graduated from the University of Texas over five years ago, I thought in short order I would launch an impressive career as a visual artist. But after two years as a gopher at an uninspired gallery on the East Side, during which I almost starved to death, I took a “temporary” job as a deli maid. Three years later, I’m still there!)
After marinating for a time in my lost dreams, I decided to take comfort in some self-pleasure. I had just taken off my pajamas, settled into bed with my purple merman vibrator, and opened my MacBook to read one of my favorite stories on literotica—written by the extremely prolific and rather kinky author Silky Raven—when you barged into my room WITHOUT KNOCKING. As my platonic roommate, I do NOT want you to see me naked, much less naked and masturbating!!! You scared the living crap out of me and more than ruined the mood. Thus I risked the insomnia-provoking blue light of my laptop without the narcoleptic effect of an orgasm to counter it.
Furthermore, you know I am terrified of spiders and yet not only did you come parading into my bedroom without invitation or warning, you did so shirtless, baring that sloppily rendered, yet very frightening stick-and-poke tattoo of a black widow. You tell me you cannot take back the past, or any decisions you made on that naval vessel sailing through hostile waters, but you can certainly put on a damn shirt! (Aha! Ground rule #7b: YOU WILL wear a shirt around the house!)
After I dove under the covers, you plunked yourself down on the edge of my bed, as if nothing had happened, and proceeded to tell me about how you signed up two new dogs for your fledgling dog-walking enterprise, a gigantic Rottweiler named Cuddles and a tiny Chihuahua named Biggie. Everett!!!! Boundaries, please! The episode clearly did not seem out of the ordinary to you, hence the need for me to explain in writing why your behavior was unacceptable!