Roman Holiday

If you don't enjoy whiney bloggers then perhaps you should go to the next entry on your reading list since I plan to bleat and moan a bit in this post.

Go on, admit it.

You like hearing a nice droney little whimper every now and then if only to feel superiour and say to your self, "That little bitch ought to buck up."

So I've called Ms. Mahwah Kiss like seven times since I got back from Florida and have gotten no meaningful response. When we were more casually acquainted, she'd drop off my radar for months at a time. Then we'd hook-up by happenstance and have dinner or coffee, then go months without seeing each other. But in these emotionally charged times I need more than this from a friend and she's just taken a complete powder.

She-Who-Visits has called me a couple of times in the evening this week and I've been out play dating. Practicing up for my Monday night real deal. I think it's the height of rudeness to take cell calls during dinner. So I didn't answer when she rang. She'll often call and either not leave a message or snark a little, send her love between the lines, and hang up. But on Thursday night she left a message and specifically called my outgoing voice mail dispatch whiney and unprofessional. Then unequivocally stated she was "officially giving up on me."

Now I know she probably doesn't mean this. I've called, texted, emailed and she hasn't responded. I tried her at lunch on Friday and she actually answered.

"Not now", she spat into the phone and abruptly hung up.

This, I suppose, is the downside of liking mean girls. Sometimes they are mean to me when I least deserve it. She knows this is the weekend before the Monday release of exam results. Mr. She sleeps on the same bed of pins and needles that I do. I thought it was particularly cruel of her to announce she was cutting me off just before the last exam watch weekend.

But what? I expect this personality type to be low-maintenance?

Finally, my wife is off to the West for ten days. She suffers a horrible limbo status; she knows she has a serious medical problem but awaits a veritable barrage of test results. This sends her scurrying compulsively to every doomsday Web M.D. diagnosis site on the internet. She's professionally concluded with a high degree of "scientific certainty" that she is about to die. Nothing I can do or say helps. I try suggesting that it is interesting that her obsession with death has coincidentally arisen practically simulataneously with our separation. This, might I say, astute, observation is immediately dismissed in a hail of vitriol. She is certain I believe she is simply an hysteric. As completely selfish as it sounds, I'm actually relieved she's gone for a little while.

Now watch, she'll die and I'll feel years of deep post-mortem, guilt ridden, remorse.

Finally, my oldest dog - my fifteen year old heart and soulmate dog - has green pus infected, bloody, abscesses on his back. Formerly a thorn and thicket tough, pheasant flushing hunter; he can barely keep up with me on our very moderate morning runs.

No wonder I bought a case of rock lobster so the restaurant could serve my Monday night birthday dinner date her favorite arthropod al fresco. That and I want her to tie me up and make out with me.

For some reason, this all made me think of the scene in the HBO series "Rome" in which Atia whips her slave Castor just for the hell of it. No sex, no punishment. Atia of the Julii is just going through a rough patch and she decides to whip the shit out of her loyal, devoted, protective, personal.

Perhaps that's what comes with the turf submission. Doesn't mean I can't whine about it every now and then. Here's a clip from the show about the slaves of Rome. Start at the 1:35 mark for the Atia/Castor profile.

I love Castor's line after he's taken an innumerable number of Atia's best.

"Will that be all, Domina?"