How to pretend there’s a person next to you in bed…
So I’m taking a breather here from assembling together the Metro Weekly Spring Arts Preview, which is an ordeal beyond all measure. Okay, I’ll admit, it’s not like brain surgery. But then, what is? (Well… I guess brain surgery is. Ahem.)
That said…
If you have never gone through the process of planning, selling advertising, gathering advertising, laying out advertising, assigning articles, prodding writers to get their listings in on time, prodding them more, prodding to the point where the prodding 
might be considered sexual harassment (though you didn’t know your fly was down at the time, and well, boxers really don’t contain certain, shall we say, items as well as they could), writing and researching reams of listings, editing reams of listings, finding artwork for said listings, then cutting 80% of the listings to make them fit the allotted space, and then sandwiching an entire issue around it on top of that, you haven’t lived a full life. Or maybe you have and I haven’t. I mean, is life supposed to be comprised of waking up daily at 6 am, working nonstop for 19 hours, eating a Family Sized bag of Utz Red Hot chips you shouldn’t be eating before crawling into bed at 2 am, feeling awful that you just did that and then really not giving a good goddamn fuck about it because, well, it’s your body and if you want to mistreat it with bad food that tastes better than even the idea of sex, well then, that’s your right, right?
But I’m off topic. My point — as a newly single gay man again after 16 years of marriage — was to share a tip with you single guys out there. Should you discover yourself in a similar situation and find that you miss the experience of a body next to you in the double bed — if you want to have something to cuddle or to give you at least the illusion of warmth — here’s all you do: Pile your laundry in the vacant spot once occupied by a living, breathing being. Please use the clean stuff right out of the dryer (dirty laundry always goes on the floor in a bachelor pad, in a bunch of randomly strewn plops and piles, never the bed. That would just be unsanitary). Bonus tip: white socks and fluffy towels seem to work best.
Trust me, it’s just like cozying up to another person. Albeit one who smells very April Fresh…
