Hello and happy Wednesday. Today I write to you from New York City, the place I live in an apartment all by myself because I am a grown man. I got in last night after a largely uneventful flight home from San Francisco. I slept for about half the flight and ? as a result ? missed the in-flight meal and beverage service, something I really look forward to as it really breaks up all the time I spend flipping through the pages of SkyMall and ogling at all the cool things I would like to have embroidered with the logo of my imaginary company where I am the leading regional sales manager for five years running now. And since I missed all the food and beverages, I also managed to not have to go to the bathroom for the entire flight, which left me sitting in my coach seat for the most part motionless for more than five hours. I keep reading about people getting blood clots as a result of such in-flight inactivity, and I flew into a mild panic somewhere over Chicago that death must certainly be near. Normally, I'd dismiss such thoughts as hypochondria, paranoia, or the result of being just plain hammered, but this whole getting-a-blood-clot-from-not-moving-for-an-entire-flight thing actually happened to my brother, so I decided my freaking out was entirely warranted. As the story goes, he was flying from Italy to New York when he decided to take an Ambien, Xanax, and/or elephant tranquilizer and then conked out for the entire flight. The next thing he knew, he was writhing in pain in the back of a cab and, a couple days later, had to start taking blood thinners, which don't seem like they have any recreational potential whatsoever, so it's basically a lose-lose. There is talk of also installing a baboon heart at some point, but that might just be an Internet rumor or something. Regardless, my brother is a walking miracle any way you slice it.
Once I got back into Manhattan in mostly one piece and, as best I can tell, entirely blood clot free, I got a text message about one of those grown-up adult wine parties I keep hearing about and ? despite being pretty wiped out from the past few days ? decided I should probably attend since I am a published author now it seems like that is something Christopher Hitchens, John Updike, or even Jackie Collins would have done if they got the cool text message I did. The party was fun, but everybody else there had jobs and spouses and houses and babies and stuff, so I really had no idea what anyone was talking about most of the time, which left me with little choice but to just stand there and laugh knowingly whenever anyone finished a sentence. There were also a few nice dips and things like that, so when the laughing knowingly ran its course, I just stood in the kitchen all by myself and stuffed my face while pretending to receive a series of important phone calls and/or humorous text messages.
I have spent most of today doing crunches, struggling with my hair, and practicing a look of concern in the mirror in case that baboon heart thing turns out to be true. It has been going okay mostly. Tonight, I head out to Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for a show in which authors do anything but read from their books. That is the rule, I'm told. I feel like I have a pretty great idea for what to do, but the odds of me getting my hands on a live chinchilla by 8 p.m. aren't very good, so I might have to just stand there and talk instead. I will let you know what happens. Wish me luck. And if anyone has a line on a live chinchilla in the New York City area, do not hesitate to get in touch immediately. I promise he will be in good hands, and I'll get him washed afterward.