SGM Seeks LTR in NYC: Flashback to the Autumnal Orgiastic Antics of Yesteryear

I’ve hit a snag in my dating life recently, as my two existing potential love interests were eliminated in what basically felt like one fell swoop. I’m feeling pretty lonely, so I decided to get a cat.

But then I remembered that I’m allergic to cats, and they’re expensive, and if I got one there’s a good chance Ed Kennedy would just declare war on it and lead it into some sort of convoluted supervillain deathtrap anyway, so instead I got an imaginary cat.

My imaginary cat’s name is Baron Von Whiskerhausen III, Esquire. He’s the latest scion of a family of wealth and privilege, and he’s doing an admirable job of continuing his family’s impressive legacy. Having earned his law degree at Dartmeowth University, he spends his days practicing kitty law and ordering around his butler, a rat named Ratfield Cheddarbee.

The Cheddarbees have been serving the Whiskerhausen clan for generations, and they know their place in the world. But Ratfield secretly longs to break free of his life of servitude and become a jazz singer, and on his precious few nights off he sneaks away from Stately Whiskerhausen Manor to sing at open-mike nights at his favorite club, the Mousetrap.

"Blue skies, smilin' at me ..."

Baron Von Whiskerhausen III, Esquire is unfortunately burdened with having to care for his invalid mother, the Lady Bagina Von Whiskerhausen, who ever since her journey through menopaws has been slowly deteriorating mentally. The Baron is worried she might be developing meowltzhemiers, but the doctors assured him as of now its just standard demeowntia.

I had plans to visit my friends upstate for the weekend, so I made up an imaginary friend to take care of my imaginary cat (and co.) while I was away. I had asked my real friend, Jessie, to do it, but apparently she had “better things to do than watch an imaginary cat.” Pfft. Whatever. Anyway, my new imaginary friend’s name is Ignatius DePeriwinkle, and he’s an aspiring mime and circus clown. Despite having flunked out of clown college three times and the fact that he has an uncontrollable urge to narrate his mimes in iambic pentameter, I believe someday he will realize his dreams and achieve the kind of success only an imaginary person with the surname DePeriwinkle can.

Huh.

It … It's possible I’ve been spending too much time alone.

After the Australian left, as sad as I was, I thought it would be sort of cathartic. You know, fresh slate. Turns out it just really bummed me out. I found myself longing for a simpler time in my life, a time when I lived in Albany, New York as a college student, as well as a couple years following my tenure in higher learning.

Okay, it's no NYC, but that's a pretty cool skyline, right?

Albany is, of course, the city where I first started dating men, where I grew from teenager to young adult, and where I even got in my first (and only) fight. I’m still friends with many of the people I went to college with, and among them are my buddies Ethan and Natalie.

Ethan was the musical supervisor of my college a cappella group and Natalie is a shockingly beautiful lyric soprano, so when they got married it was a match made in elitist musical heaven. (Also of note, I totally sang at their wedding.) They have the distinction in our circle of friends of being the couple with the most "firsts" - first to get married, first to have children, first to own their own house, etc. They’re the trailblazers of grown-uppedness.

They have two little boys, ages four and two, and I love spending time with the young'uns because kids that age say the weirdest sh*t you’ll ever imagine, like this:

Ethan: How was nursery school today, buddy?
Kid: I don't.
Ethan: Hmm? What do you mean "I don't?"
Kid: (exasperated) I mean "I do not."

He prefers to remain enigmatic. I respect that.