Last night, after the not-as-thrilling-as-it-once-was This Life we switched over to see Letterman. I’ve only ever watched the show while sitting in my little room in suburban Houston, and this laughing man seemed like he was hosting a direct pipe into my alternate life.

Apart from eerily coincidental friends of friends links, my lives in London and Houston are completely seperate. No one from the UK has visited me in the States. Hell, so bad is the suburban wasteland, I’ve been advising people not to fly over. Which is a shame in a way, as I’d like to share my world of humidity, wide roads, international students, Denny’s and Seinfeld. I want to say “Look, this is where I’ve been all these months, isn’t it different from London? Mustn’t I be fantastically balanced and competent to accomodate such varied existences?”

But no one, thankfully, will visit. Until I go back I’ll just have these little wormholes linking me to Houston. Emails from professors, checking voicemail, a quick listen to RealAudioed KTRU, a call to the automated class-booking system, and probably more Letterman.