Sweet Jesus, I saw this photo taken in Portland, Oregon because of course it was, while I was laying on my couch because naturally, that’s where you can find me between the hours of 5pm and the end of of the second episode of Seinfeld on Peachtree, surfing the Reddit dot com as I am hourly, and thought: “Yes, I totally want to fuck my couch.” I love my couch so much it hurts. It’s a masterpiece of form and function. I can move its pieces and it’s a regular “Chesterfield” (as per my mom)  and matching ottoman (what, why? wiki here) then I can get up off my ass and turn it into an L-shape settee thing, or better yet shove it all together and make a giant bed, yes. Which is what it is most of the time. It’s sturdy and dark brown and hard and firm and big and hard but! Its skin is soft and plush like a teddy bear. It’s definitely a man couch and totally fuckable. If it were to manifest in human form, it would be my tv boyfriend, Michael Strahan. You know how he has the super cute adorable perfectly nipple-sized gap in his front teeth? Well that’s the cushions that split open and swallow all the couch accoutrements like the tv wand, cellphones, and chopsticks. I think of it as more playful than annoying on most days. Like the innards of my couch are scrapbooking, archiving all my antics. Oh, look, there’s a Swedish condom wrapper from that time when ginger beards were my thing.

Also I took a lot of time looking for my couch which had to be my soul mate. It’s my part of my marital separation collection of furniture. I swear to God it took my ex-husband less time to find a new wife than it took me to find this fucking couch. And please don’t get me wrong, he did well in his search, she’s awesome and I love her, but me finding the perfect couch would have to be matching my criteria precisely from tits to tail.  My inspirational couch belongs to my brother and his wife which lives in their “tv room.” Tv room, lol, right? Every room is a tv room in my house, greasy laptop + Netfix = Toilet hour. The couch they have is so the embodiment of comfort that it’s virtually non-descript and metaphysical in its form. What it does is it turns into a bed and there’s all these pillows and the softest blankie and it truly is the best place ever that you want to be, not even an ocean front coconut shaped pod in Bali could compete. It’s more like a  womb, not a room. So I had to find one like it but somewhat bigger because of scale and math and it had to fit the room just so. I finally found it at Philz on Queen Street, one of those mid-century junk places in Riverside that also sells modern furniture that costs zillions of dollars. I don’t even know if it’s still there anymore, it’s a scary place to visit because it had all this great stuff and you want everything but don’t have space to put it. Same reason I have to avoid puppy adoption fairs and certain internet websites.

But! I remember the first time I laid eyes on the floor model which was the same one I chose. It came in custom colours and fabric and I could have had it in leather but got talked out of it by someone (who shall remain nameless) giving me a visual of what it’s like to lay on a leather couch naked. Just no. And aside from that, it was smart to go in furry bear fabric because the wretched dog I ended up adopting later is one of those primal beasts that must violently dig out a spot before she twirls around and lies on it like a sweet little angel baby croissant. Don’t worry,  it’s okay, the couch is strong and can take her paw gouging, in fact her scratching kind of rakes up the upholstery and makes it fluffier.  Can you imagine scratching Michael Strahan while he is watching his favourite tv show? Oy. Betty has it right.

Anyway, I saw the couch, I fell in lust! Which of course, I mistook for love because that has been a recurring problem in my life. I ordered the couch in furry dark brown, paid a zillion dollars because I had a line of credit back then, and waited them to make it and deliver it three weeks later. Well, well, wouldn’t you know, when it arrived, it didn’t fit up the stairs, even with the legs taken off. It had to come in from the back balcony by hoisting it up to the second floor with rope and manpower and some yelling and beers and more yelling and regret. And then I had to get some rubber placemats for his soles so he wouldn’t keep slipping all over the floor like a sloppy mess, defence men who play for the NFL need to stay put. But yeah, that was almost eleven years ago and couch and I are still banging, so it must be love. Or long lived lust. What is the difference again?

The other day, one of my best buds called me and asked me to come with her over March Break to buy a new couch. I was floored, pardon the pun, because I was with her when she got her current couch which was around the same time I got mine….like a decade ago….oh my…. times flies, kids, so go forth and fuck your bunk beds and keep moving, that’s my best advice at this point. Also: Don’t fucking worry about feng shui either, just let energy flow where it wants to go, it will find a way in and out whether or not you put a mirror at the north east corner in front of a rock soaking in a bowl of water or not. DO NOT SPEND $500 FOR A SAGE CLEANSE! Spend it on weed instead.

Anyway, I had shopped so long and hard for my couch, I was known as the couch whisperer so I was the perfect person to go hunting with. Plus I wasn’t going to talk her out of spending money she wanted to spend but was afraid to, because in my mind, couches are an investment. She found hers at Biltmore, so fucking fancy there that they call their feather-stuffed couches “sofas.” Also a zillion dollars required but we were living large back then and felt we deserved a place to park our lady arses on to drink wine on, fart our lady farts into with impunity, and watch Gilmore Girls. No Ikea for weary old broads.

Her couch is so beautiful that if it were to come to life in human form it would be Nigella Lawson but before she lost so much weight after she dumped that fucking Saatchi prick. Her couch was and still is gorgeous! It’s plump and full and bodacious and thick and curly and juicy and soft and lush. When you walk into her apartment and see her sofa, all you want to do is dive on top of it and stick your fingers in it, lick it and then ask how she does her eyebrows with such an exquisite arch. And then let her make you whipped creamy pea mash and tell her all your secrets while you wiggle your toes in her butt crack.

So when she told me she wanted a new couch, I was like WHAT?

And she: “I’m sick of it. It’s old and so dirty now, the cushions spread open and there’s crumbs stuck in there, ugh.” She is dissing Nigella’s vagina basically. I will not have it.

So I, channeling my inner Martha because she is in there, farming her own weed an making popsicles out of vodka:  “Jesus Christie Brinkley! Sprinkle that baking soda stuff on it, leave it on for 2 hours, and then vacuum it up! It just needs a spa treatment.”

This conversation went on with me championing her sofa and her slowly changing her mind that she could salvage it, perhaps get it re-upolstered (dumb) or put a blanket on it (smart) and then through all the flippy-floppy I started getting excited to shop for a couch again. Is there is sofa out there that looks like that glassy eyed dude from The Vikings? I love him! I bet if he was a couch he could pull out into a bed. And have a wet spot that you’re cool with. And have a rough patch that you can exfoliate on. I think that’s key anyway. Your couch is your raft in the sea of life that you should be able to surf the internet and watch your dumb ass shows on perfect peace and don’t let anyone, least of all some judgmental graffiti tweeter in Portland, tell you what to do. Yes, fuck your couch, and then make it breakfast in the morning.