-Like all mammals, I instinctively react to dire circumstances and suddenly develop abilities I do not normally possess.  For instance, during Mardi Gras 2003, after a three-day liquid diet and taking a stray bead toss to the jugular, I found myself alone, lying on the floor of my cousin’s house in New Orleans, unable to move.  Suddenly, my survival instincts kicked in.  I knew that I needed to eat solid food, and quickly, or I would soon die a lonely and breastless death.  I struggled to my feet, willed open a cabinet, and made myself a bowl of pasta wheels.  It was the first time I’d ever made pasta, boiled water, used a stove, or touched a pot.  But, alas, this flash of domesticity was short-lived as I soon reverted back to getting take-out and laundry delivered right to the door of my apartment in New York City.  Since moving to Los Angeles this summer, though, I’ve been forced to fend for myself like never before.  Still, put me near a stove, washing machine, or vacuum cleaner, and things get ugly quickly.  You might even call it domestic abuse.

-I’m renting a furnished apartment in LA and I knew that if I was going to actually use the kitchen, everything would have to be thoroughly disinfected first.  I also knew that, as a bachelor, and a skinny one at that, I wouldn’t need much.  So I carefully soaped up, scrubbed, and left to dry two spoons, two forks, two knives, two bowls, two plates – two of everything.  You should have seen my countertop.  It was like the Noah’s Ark of flatware.

-But let me assure you I have not gotten soft by any measure.  There is still no fucking way I’m doing laundry.  Just like in New York, I send my laundry out.  Except in New York, it’s called “laundry.”  In Los Angeles, it’s referred to as “fluff & fold.”  What the hell does that mean?  It sounds like something you’d get from an obsessive-compulsive porn star.

-Of course, just in case the fluff & fold place is closed, I have an emergency supply of JC Penney boxers I can resort to when the going gets tough.  They’re so old that they sometimes fall behind my dresser drawers as if they’re trying to escape to freedom.  I don’t mind wearing them once in a while, but the elastic waistbands are so loose I have to fold them over like a slutty chick’s shorts at summer camp.