You're Not One of Those Sentimental Fags...

...although you have been known to cry during Massengil commercials, but that probably has more to do with your general fear of female genitalia than anything else. Anyway. You are so happy to be back in New York even though you actually just landed in New Jersey. After seventeen days of $5 Coke Lights, the first thing you do when you land at Newark Airport is buy yourself a delectable Diet Pepsi and your savor it during your train ride to Penn Station courtesy of New Jersey Transit. Once you reach the station, you and your BFF can't say goodbye fast enough. After seventeen nights of sharing a room with twin beds, both of you seem to be in a huge hurry to go home and masturbate in the privacy of your own bedrooms.

However, by the time you lug your giant suitcase, backpack, skis and ski boots up the six flights of stairs to your Home Sweet Hovel, you realize that there isn't enough time for you and your right hand to get reacquainted with each other since you have a Fresh Direct grocery delivery on it's way. The only cash you have on you is in Euros, and even though your tip would be much more generous in the foreign currency, you decide the Delivery Man would probably prefer US Dollars. However, when you throw your luggage down in the living room you are instantly struck by the horrible state of things in your Apartment. Filthy doesn't even begin to describe it. It basically looks like your Hobosexual Roommate decided to sublet your half of the apartment to a Homeless Crackhead who threw Rave Parties in your Home Sweet Hovel every night. But you don't have time to do your White Glove Treatment right now, so your feet attempt to make their escape toward the front door, only they're sticking to what feels like the floor of a Movie Theater. More like a Porno Theater. But just as you unlock the door you notice a card on the top of your unread mail pile. And you never get cards, unless of course it's your birthday, which, thank God, it is not.

Upon further inspection you realize that the card is from Blonde Beard. Needless to say, you are more than intrigued. And there's even a little hand-written note on the envelope which helps draw your attention to the Super Special Star Wars X-Wing Fighter Stamp that he chose for you. You quickly open up the Amy Ruppel card which has an animated Owl on the front, and when you flip it open, Blonde Beard has written in all caps, "WHOOO MISSED YOU? I DID DUMB-ASS. HOW CAN YOU EVEN ASK A QUESTION LIKE THAT? WELCOME HOME!" which instantly warms your dumb-ass, overly-sentimental heart. Of course you call him on your way to the ATM so you can gush about his thoughtfulness and firm up your plans for the evening (which you've had since before you left for Europe).

You end up meeting Blonde Beard at his place in the West Village and when you knock on his door it mysteriously opens even though nobody is there. You walk in and hear someone washing dishes behind the open door and are about to jump into a kiss until his Jealous Roommate with Dishpan Hands grunts an unwelcoming "Hello" to you. But then from behind you hear, "Hey," and you turn to see your smiling Blonde Beard, standing there and looking sexier than you remember. You greet him with a subdued kiss since the Jealous Roommate is busy ogling, but even that is probably crossing a line. Both of you want to escape his roommate's judgmental eye, so you decide to go out for drinks at Shag before grabbing an early dinner.

Yet when you get to Shag and walk up to the bar you quickly realize that, gulp, you made out with the Bartender last summer and you feel super awkward even though you didn't do anything wrong. Well, you did stay after Shaggy closed the bar and then hid in the back corner by the tiny bathroom so you could make-out without being caught in a compromising position by the nosey lens of Shag's security camera. However, in hindsight, that particular position seems much less compromising than the one you find yourself in now, so you quickly excuse yourself to let Blonde Beard order while you escape under the guise to secure a table in the empty bar. You go as far away from both the bartender and the security camera as you can possibly get without seeming too suspicious or guilty.

Next you share a romantic Stella Artois while telling Blonde Beard all about your Misadventures in the (011) as you knock knees and take lingering glances of the boy you imagined yourself cuddling with in each and every country you visited. However, when you eventually finish your beers, unfortunately it's your turn to get the next round. The Bartender you kissed is smirking at you from behind his bar (or perhaps that's just your perception of the embarrassing situation). You return the empties to him and order another round as you attempt to diffuse the situation with a friendly "Hey!" You start asking Shaggy about the touring production he was in last summer, only he tells you that you must have gotten him mixed up with another bartender at Shag? Could this be possible? How many bartenders did you actually make out with in the Security Camera-less corner anyway? When his friends at the bar start snickering at your Swiss-cheese of a memory, you decide to finish up your beer and hightail it out of Shag.

Afterwards you head down the block for a quick bite at Miracle Grill before your Jet Lag kicks in and your fall asleep in your Tortilla Soup. Unfortunately the waitress likes you boys much too much and she ends up giving you free Margaritas, and, of course, you run into a slew of boys that you almost did a Fire Island Share House with until you realized their hobbies included copious amounts of Cocaine with a splash of Fisting, both of which would have seriously infringed upon your peaceful Blackouts. Anyway.

Between the Jet Lag and the free Margaritas you are definitely a bit buzzed, so you race back to Blonde Beard's place to get reacquainted with each and every one of his hair follicles. You quickly excuse yourself from his Jealous Roommate and barricade the door closed with a shoe so his kitty won't mistake your moans of passion for a cat in heat. And, as usual, he's amazing. Both hot and simultaneously tender which is such an intense combination. After kissing his face for an extended period of jet lagged time, you end up putting your finger in his mouth and stare intently into his blue eyes as he sucks on it. It's so hot that you begin to explore his mouth with your index finger and you are getting so turned on that you have to hold yourself back from whispering in his ear that you are falling for him. However, the only part of you that actually ends up falling is your erection, because when your finger moves toward the back of Blonde Beard's mouth you end up discovering a gaping hole where one of his molars used to be. "Oh my God," you say. "You're missing a tooth..."

Blonde Beard explains a long drawn out story about his misadventures with a bad dentist, but you're not listening because you're too busy remembering that 60 Minutes special on Crystal Mouth where incarcerated addicts were losing all their teeth years after they had last touched the drug. You want to talk to him about it because you are, indeed, falling for him. But you're nervous that you might scare him away, or worse, put him on the defensive so he winds up lying to you about it. You really have to think about this one because you want to handle the situation in the best possible way so you can learn the truth. Most of all you want to trust the man that you are falling in love with. Unfortunately you're way too caught up in your own paranoid, guilty-until-proven-innocent judgmental bullshit that is based on unsubstantiated evidence, when what you should be doing is talking to Blonde Beard, non-judgmentally, about your fears. Instead, you end up feigning sleepiness and blame your Jet Lag. Anyway...