That was one of the more awkward blind double dates of my life. Turns out we’d all been on a blind double date with each other just a day earlier… and we’d all gone home with each other. I excused myself and crept out of the restaurant. Feeling ashamed, I called my mother to tell her about the date. Found myself in front of a friend’s apartment building and thought I’d stop in to say hello. My friend was on her way out and didn’t have time to chat and my mother, who occasionally astral-projects herself wherever I am, started to follow her out until I reminded her that her body was still in Pennsylvania and she should probably get back to it.
I was about to ask my friend if I could crash at her place since I was exhausted but now things were awkward, what with my mom’s astral projection wandering around in just a t-shirt, so I walked off and ran into another friend, D, in a big empty warehouse. D tells me he’s off to meet up with our mutual friend A, who is cooking a large meal and that I should come with him. I’m pretty tired and D reminds me that it’s Friday night and tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. I decline anyway and continue my walk home when a busload of teenage tourists pull up next to me and start catcalling at me. I duck down a side alley and find myself in Chinatown. I start climbing up the huge hill of dirt in front of me and when the dirt suddenly crumbles away, leaving me clinging to the top, certain I’m about to fall to my death, an old Chinese woman catches my hands. She starts to pull me up while telling me a joke and then stops because she can’t get the punchline right. I realize I’m probably going to die unless she remembers the goddamn punchline.
