a mistress most welcome

so my darling bride up and took our tiny baby away. they are gone. the two of them joined mrs nice guy's dutch mother in cape cod, where they will be for over a week, doing lord knows what. eating lobster rolls and having clam bakes and saying "wicked" a lot, probably. i, sadly, could not join them. i was invited, mind you. the entire dutch side of the family is coming over from dutchland: mother-in-law will be joined by her mother, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. they all get together every summer, usually in europe, and have elaborate vacations that involve lots of wine and arguments. this year, however, everyone has come to the States to meet the baby, the latest in nice guy technology. i am unable to join them because i will be taking four months leave beginning august and my boss probably wouldn't have looked too, too kindly on me taking a week off before that happened.

so, basically, i am home alone for 11 days, bereft of wife and child. i can't believe how much i miss them. i can't go a whole hour without wondering what they're doing. ah, hell. readers, i can't keep lying to you ...




life

is

sweet.



ladies and gentlemen, do you know what a glorious thing it is to sleep for more than three consecutive hours? DO YOU KNOW HOW GOOD THE CHILDLESS AMONG YOU HAVE IT? you have it pretty good, i will say that. mrs nice guy calls me once or twice a day and, absolutely, it's genuinely lovely to hear her mellifluous voice. but, oh, man, the sleep. The Sleep! she is the most irresistible seductress. i love her. more than anything. ANYTHING. where has she been?

so, yeah. i am sleeping. also. just for the record, my alcohol consumption seems to have spiked by four thousand percent. my liver sent me an email today that said: "hey, maybe you should consider joining your wife on the cape." i marked it as spam. stupid liver.

i will not bore you with details, but saturday night--which was, as it happens, the night they left town--i managed to stay out until four a.m. (i seem to recall my friends throwing donuts at my house before i went to glorious sleep.) sunday night i had dinner and drinks with a colleague of my wife's who i suspect is a spy, but i tolerate her anyway because she is worse at billiards than i. this morning i caught the 11 a.m. showing of wedding crashers. that's right: a movie! i haven't seen a movie in an actual theater in like six months! then i spent the day doing NOTHING. i didn't change a single diaper. i didn't beg a single infant to stop screaming long enough to let me go to the bathroom. not once! now i am going to go to bed EARLY and i am going to sleep for TWELVE HOURS. AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME.

wife, when you read this, i apologize. i miss you. i know you think i am entertaining ten hookers a minute. but, honestly, i am too tired for that. truly. it will be wonderful to see you again. you should know that, even if i haven't vacuumed or fed the cats in nearly two weeks, i look at pictures of our baby every night before i turn in. i do miss you, i swear. i love feeling your presence, that heft of home, beside me in our bed. but sleep, she has not visited the bed for longer. and she is a mistress most welcome.