I slept with a homeless man last night.

(not to be outdone) I slept in a tent in my friend's backyard.

(impressed) Your friend has a backyard?

My rich friend has a backyard, and also a terrace overlooking the backyard. This morning, she called down to me from her terrace. My friend didn't wear any underwear, which I could tell when she leaned over the railing in her short silk bathrobe and called out to me.
(imitating the lilting voice of her lovely rich friend) “Lindsay!” She called out, “Lindsay, are you awake?” So I crawled out of the tent and looked up and the first site I saw was my friend's naked coochie gleaming in the sunlight.

(matter-of-factly) I brought the homeless man back to my apartment.

I was blinded by it, I think she must have it encrusted with diamonds or something.

I didn't know how to ask him to leave after. It just seemed so mean, especially since it was cold last night.

I hope you made him shower first.

No I didn't. He wanted to, because he felt embarrassed that he was so dirty, but I wouldn't let him.

Wow, that's pretty gross.

People are pretty gross, making them smell nice doesn't change that.

It kind of does. I should know. After I slept in a tent in my rich friend's backyard I took a shower in the bathroom of her master suite. Do you know their bathroom is bigger than my last apartment?

(a truism) Rich people have big bathrooms.

They do! Really big. Three shower heads! And a steam setting, and a little bench with a separate massager attachment thing.

What do they need all those shower heads for?

I think it's for orgies. Should I be insulted that they never invited me to any orgies?

Why would all those rich people want a poor person at their orgies?

It's not like I'm dirty, I'm not sleeping in the street like your homeless man. No judgment.

He was living under a tarp at Occupy Wall Street before those fucking capitalists kicked everyone out.

So that's where you met him.

He was ahead of me in line at the kitchen. We were both crazy for the vegan french fries. And he's very fit.

Are you sure he's not just skinny from being a hungry homeless man?

No, I mean he's really fit, I think he works out or something. Plus he's got this big pack; you can't be weak and carry that shit around all day.

(almost sheepishly) How was it? Y'know, sexually.

I'd like to say it was rock hard, but ..

(disappointed) You bring home a homeless man the least he can do is get it rock hard.

Honestly it would have been okay but he was just so grateful. And like worried he would mess up, like y’know how you go someplace and it is plain as punch that the place itself is better than you?

Like my friend's shower.

Yeah, he was acting like I was your friend's shower.

I rinsed off in the kitchen sink before I even set foot in that bathroom.

I had to let him shower half way through. He was so ashamed, really, it was sad.

We're all humiliated by our own dirt.

(humiliated by her own dirt) I guess he's still there.

(shocked) You left him in your apartment?

He didn't have anywhere to go!

(half-joking) You wanna crash out in my tent?

No, I do not want to crash out in your rich friend's backyard.

(still only half-joking) We could have an orgy in their shower.

While that may or may not be tempting, it's not gonna work. I can't beg for scraps from rich people.

(insulted) Oh right, you're too good for that.

Don't judge me, I slept with a homeless man; isn't it clear to you that I don't think too highly of myself?

When I look on facebook or twitter or google plus or linked in or even like, pinterest all I see are people writing about how great their lives are and how happy they are or how thankful or blessed. I really thought, after a while, everyone would get a little more honest, and they'd admit how life has not met their expectations.

No one's going to admit that.

I've admitted that.

You live in a tent.

You fucked a homeless man!

I know! I know. God. I just did it, y'know, to like .. escape my life.

Did it work?

No. But you know I have this ongoing fantasy about disappearing, about severing all my attachments to proper civilization and embarking on my own.

I Do know this about you.

This morning, before I left the homeless man in my bed, when I realized that fucking strangers outside of my own social class didn't open up an escape route, I cleared out the most important things — my grandmother's ring, my teeny tiny Christo, and my passport.

(oh good, more reasons to feel hopeless) All my grandmother left me were some bicentennial stamps and a two hundred dollar savings bond that matures in 2022.

Didn't you hear what I said? I took my passport.

That's what you always do when you need to feel a sense of freedom. But if you were really taking off, why aren't you already gone?

Because

(continuing, and with growing vehemence) I'll tell you why, because you don't intend to go anywhere. You never intend to go anywhere. In fact, I posit that, if you actually ended up in one of these far flung places like the Basque country, or Bouvet Island, or Semisopochnoi, or fucking Fangataufa, you'd be so pissed off at the lack of mini-bar that you'd come running back here as fast as your charge card could carry you.

(with perfect calmness) I came here because I wanted to invite you to come with me. I know you've hit hard times, what with the economic downturn eating your job and all your money, I know it's been rough living under the feet of rich people, friends though they may be, and I know that I don't want to go alone.

Why do you do stuff like this? Invite me on fancy vacations? Or even out for drinks? Do you know I've been sitting here with this same drink for over an hour because I can't afford to buy another one?

(to the Bartender) Two more!

Don't buy me things, it makes me feel pathetic when you buy me things, like I'm just this dog begging for scraps.

Fuck that. Drink. Don't deny me the pleasure of sitting here with my friend who actually understands me, unlike the homeless man I brought home last night, and having a stiff strong drink.
(to the Bartender) Could you puh-lease! Add some actual vodka to these drinks?

I went to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of my rich friends. And they'd invited their parents and other friends, and assorted older relatives, and there was this one woman there who wouldn't stop talking about other people's money. She kept being like (imitating the old rich lady) “Oh so and so does very well, he retired at 41 and opened his own B&B.” We were standing there in front of the raw bar

The raw bar?

I ate two dozen oysters and puked behind the rhododendron.

(impressed) That's how it's done.

There we were in front of the big windows that look out to the backyard, and she said (imitating) “I hear they’re letting one of their friends sleep in a tent in the backyard, can you believe the generosity.” And I said I could hardly believe it, especially when they have a spare bedroom, and she said (imitating) “Well you wouldn't actually want that sort in your home would you? There are limits, even to generosity.”

Listen. I've got it all figured out

You always say that. You were the one who convinced me to open my own cheese shop and look how well that turned out.

It's not easy running a small business.

Yeah, I know that now, now that I'm living in a tent, getting robo calls about my student loans every twenty minutes.

You're too attached to this corporeal reality.

I am not forming a suicide pact with you.

Who said suicide pact?

“Corporeal reality?" I've heard that before, yeah I'm attached to my body, it's where I live.

The body's borders are constantly expanding. No one even has any control over their own body's boundaries.

Y'know what's expanding, the universe Is expanding, and it's expanding at an exponentially increasing rate.

That's what it feels like in my body. I thought sleeping with the homeless man would let me escape myself but instead now I just feel like he's part of me, and I feel sympathy for him, and for other homeless men I see

Don't sleep with more of them!

No I don't want to! But every time a new city is built or a forest is torn down or mountains are fracked, the borders of the collective human body expands to take in that new space, that new place that was created for the collective human body to live in. But we can't keep expanding forever. I want to redefine the borders of my body to encompass just my body and then start over, and expand into the space I see fit.

Everything I have of any value is in this bag, and my few remaining possessions are in a tent sealed with a plastic zipper.

Then you see where I'm coming from. Right now the boundaries of our bodies are expanded enough to reach out around this whole island, and I don't want my body to reach out around this whole island anymore.

If I could have it to do over again I'd be an astronaut.

Do you want to face another morning with your friend's bedazzled vagina in your face?

(trying to understand) A smaller island that won't stretch the boundaries of our bodies to the breaking point.

Yes, that's right.

I don't want to break apart. And I don't want to move any faster.