And the house of cards comes tumbling down...Pt. II

Continued from Part 1
........................
Flashback to a few weeks prior, when we had gone to his parents' house for Sunday lunch, the first time I was to meet his mother, father and grandfather. In the days preceding, he explained that we couldn't just drop in because his mother "wasn't much of a housekeeper." He also warned me not to give her my cell phone number lest she start calling me all the time and ditto for friending on Facebook. The words "intrusive" and "slightly crazy" might have also been used, or at least heavily implied.

That Sunday also marked the first time I got irritated with him, as he had said he'd call me to let me know when he would pick me up. I was finishing up a cake to bring when he called me and said he'd be there in 15 minutes. While not aimed directly at him but more in his general direction, my semi-expletive laden response and frentic running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get dressed amused him to no end, but to his credit he apologized profusely and made a major effort to calm me down.

What I saw of the house was a little cluttered but nothing out of the range of normal. The lunch wasn't as awkward as I anticipated, mainly because his mother never stopped talking and thus I didn't have to worry about my socially awkward habit of silence when I get nervous really being noticed. He father spoke little and his grandfather a bit more, showing me a photo of his wife when she worked on the American military base in Napoli.

And after when we got back to my place, the clothes went flying and he slammed me against the wall as soon as the apartment door shut. Thank jeebus my flatmates were at the beach. Moment noted for posterity when I am old and senile, because fuck that was hot.
........................

That which does not kill you...

...makes you sicker? Seriously I can't recall a winter where I have gotten sick so often. Reading around, apparently the cause might be that I am trying to kick the cancer sticks. Supposedly while the nicotine kills you, it also kills off a bunch of other little nasties hanging around. Supposedly. Last week I started getting a fever Sunday night, which lasted for about 48 hours off and on. Tuesday night the BF came over to play nurse and we watched Benvenuto al Sud. During a shot of the sun setting on the Gulf of Napoli, he turned to me and said

"When my brother and I were young we used to look at the horizon and tell each other 'Over there is America.' Even then I knew where to look for you."

"But that's the Mediterranean, not the Atlantic. Over there is Africa."

Between paroxysms of laughter he managed to gasp out

"Thanks, love. You just killed the dreams of a 6 year old boy."

Sometimes I am the most unromantic literalist on the planet.

Muscial Interlude

Been humming this to myself all weekend. I blame it on (in no particular order)

• the BF's hot calico 3 day beard scruff
• him stopping a car theft and then emergency babysitting so his friend could take his sick wife to the ER, all in the same night
• a rousting political argument which ended up with him asking

  "We've never fought in almost a year and now you're getting mad at me over the crisis?"
  "I'm not mad, I'm just really irritated." ¹

• him lounging on my bed shirtless while messing around on his iPhone, beard scruffy and wearing his new eyeglasses and that happy trail leading straight to the seatbelt buckle belt that makes a lovely little metallic *snikt* clank when you open it ²

¹ I'm a "little bit to the left" like water is a little bit wet. 
² Am getting a bit Pavlov's dog about that belt buckle. I hear that sound and my pink bits automagically turn into a Brazilian Rain Forest: hot, humid and extremely damp.

Intermission

"You need to update your blog."

Ja, don't I know it. September sort of sucked, October was meh, and November saw me back Stateside for Middle Sis' storybook wedding and Thanksgiving, Ma Liason in tow.

I should probably find a new name for Ma Liason finally, seeing as he met all of my family and I've only ever brought a guy to meet the family once before. (My Inner Neurotic is currently screaming "AND LOOK HOW FUCKED UP THAT TURNED OUT, HMMMMMMM?!" Shut up, Inner Neurotic.)

Plus, to the great delight of Olive*, I have been been breaking out in massive amounts of HIVES due to the plethora of PDA-tastic Ti Amo's, utterly diabetes inducing declarations of luuuuuurv, and maybe a small feeling out of future plans together which might or might not involved him using the words ci sposiamo.

That sound you hear is the Inner Neurotic hyperventilating into a paper bag while hives explode upon my body.

Anywho, I will be picking up from where I left off, if only to introduce his batshit insane family. And then you too can all marvel with me about how a perfectly lovely, generous, caring and outrageously nice fellow managed to result from the nice yet manipulatively egocentric mess that is his immediate family.

A presto

* Who has also apparently been taking bets with another friend of ours as to whether or not I would come back married or engaged. Luckily she knows that the phrase "I hate you bitches" is my way of professing my deep and abiding platonic-overlooking-the-shores-of-lesbos love for my homegirls.

And the house of cards comes tumbling down...Pt. I

After a rather late night out Saturday, I awoke Sunday morning around 7am to Ma Liason frenetically pulling on clothes.

“There's missed calls and messages from my brother that they've taken my grandfather to the hospital.”

He calls his brother to get details and I hear his brother through the iPhone speaker tell him that their grandfather didn't make it.

His wail is heartwrenching. “What do you mean he didn't make it?” I hug him tightly as he cries, rubbing his back in circles, disjointedly remembering that my mom would do the same when I was a child.

He abruptly continues getting dressed, “I have to go there.” I attempt to cajole him into slowing down, beg even. Just give yourself 15 minutes, I say. I'll make you coffee, you just woke up, you shouldn't be driving on the motorcycle right this immediate instant when you've had such a huge shock.

He acquiesces to the coffee, abruptly sits down on my couch like his legs gave out and begins to sob. Huge body racking, air gulping sobs ripped from his soul. I bend over him and hug him and rub his back again.

When he stops, he grabs his helmet, refuses to wait for me to make him some coffee. I trail him to the door, where I grab his chin and look at him. His eyes bright blue and bloodshoot, all puffy and slitty from too little sleep and too much shock; he refuses to meet mine. “Text me when you get there.”

He doesn't. I gnaw at a ragged cuticle, try to distract myself with reading a book, of which I read a sentence and immediately go back to the beginning of it, like a record skipping, because I've totally forgotten what I just read.

Breaking News

Olive: HOLY SHITTTT
Olive: Change your fb status honey pie
Me: Why?
Olive: Ta Liason is now in a relationship
Me: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
Olive: I am grinning so hard right now
Olive: I wish I was with you to witness your hives
Me: BITCH
Me: OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK
Olive: Oh I am going to have fun with this
Me: Seriously you wrote that and I felt like I'd just gone on the first hill of a massive roller-coaster. Whoah
Olive: Are you freaking out yet?
Me: Um, a bit. The low blood sugar isn't helping
Me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. OK FINE I'M FREAKING OUT A LOT
Olive: Well I just left my thoughts on this change
Olive: Holy shit
Me: *whimper* oh shite
Olive: Why am I freaking out with you
Olive: And he put your anniversary down
Me: I hate you Olive
Olive: 16 march, correct?
Me: HOLY FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?
Me: I am going to start hyperventilating in about 2 seconds
Olive: Doll just breathe
Me: OMG HE DID
Olive: You know that you are in a relationship this is just another weird step to confirm
Olive: And he just linked it to you
Me: SHIT
Me: Logically I know the FB relationship status change freakout is silly
Me: but dude, I haven't told my dad that I'm seeing someone yet :D
Me: (Dad and I don't talk a whole lot, which is why I haven't mentioned it to him - I think I last talked to him for US Fathers' Day because he didn't pick up his phone for his birthday.)
Olive: Well its probably better to tell him when its official
Olive: Jesus that means you and Ta Liason have been together for over 5 months now
Me: Time flies when you're fucking like rabid weasels in heat

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Wherein Olive & I dissect my 4 day Alpine getaway with Ma Liason and a friend of his...

---

"The food was so good. But oh my god, TMI warning, but I could not take a dump for 3 days. I finally managed some pissant little turd the the night before we left. Ma Liason apparently had the same problem."

"Please tell me you two did not get blocked up because you didn't want to fart in front of each other."

---

"So the A-word was used during the trip."

"A-word?"

"Amore. As in, 'Fammi una foto con il mio amore.'"

"Oh." *snicker*

"Ja. And the beard burn lasted for another two days and I almost had sex in the changing cubicle of the thermal baths."

Sun, Sand & Gettin' Serious

Yesterday found me, Will, all three of my flatmates, a friend of theirs and Ma Liason beachside. This was notable not only for the fact that all of us managed to get together for the first time in a very long while, but also for the fact that Ma Liason had the rare entire Sunday off work.

He also hates the beach. He has skin like a red-head's; one hour on a pedalo in the middle of an Abbruzzo lake resulted in him looking like a lobster for almost a week. So I was caught by surprise by earlier in the week when he proposed going to the beach.

"Andiamo al mare domenica? Magari vedi un po se Will e Olive vogliano venire pure."
"Cosa? Ma tu odi andare al mare."
"Ebbene ma se ci sei tu è diverso..."

So after a bit of a late start due to the weather forecast faking us out ¹, we all met up at our local beach hangout, whereupon I promptly slathered SPF 50 all over Ma Liason; I was having no repeats of our daytrip to Abbruzzo. And it worked :) Viva kiddie sunblock. Plus, for my excellence in sunblock application I got a back massage later. I'm pretty sure that's just a socially acceptable way of feeling me up in public, not that I'm complaining...

Things to Reacclimate To

There's some stuff to which I am having to reacclimate with Ma Liason, or even in some cases, simply acclimate. In short:

• Having sex. Quite apart from the whole "muscles I forgot existed" thing, the second time he came over I bled like the proverbial virgin, right onto the white duvet cover as we didn't make it under the covers. I didn't even notice until we got up off the bed after and he pointed it out.

  "Ti ho fatto del male?"
  "Era un po scomodo proprio al inizio ma sarebbe la colpa di ieri sera; dopo un paio di secondi era tutt'ok. Anzi, altro che semplicemente OK. Perché?"
  *He indicates the splotches of blood on my duvet cover*
  "Oh. Oh cazzo."

  < sarcasm >Yeah, not embarrassing at all.< /sarcasm >

I think it might be illegal to orgasm this often...

...I jest, but since Ma Liason gets off on getting me off multiple times, my mattress is getting thoroughly hosed on an extremely frequent basis. I had to tell him to stop last night because Loin Lake Eerie had progressed to Small Loin Locked Sea.

"Are you embarrassed?"
"Well yeah, a bit. I mean hello, the entire bed is pretty much soaked. Except maybe that corner over there."
"So what? I like it."

And with that he shoved me back down on the (slightly soggy) bed and continued to make my toes curl so hard they exploded out the top of my head.

Do you have any idea how often I am washing the sheets lately?! I need to go to Ikea and buy some more because I'm sort of embarrassed how much laundry I am doing, not to mention I'm sure my flatmates would appreciate it if I would stop hogging the clothes line.

Making Me Giggle

With the mid-morning sun bouncing off the warm cobblestones of a Sunday-empty Trastevere piazza, suddenly getting swept off my feet and carried across the shallow sudsy grey puddle created by buckets of post-mopping water from an opening restaurant...

...that's like Sandra Bullock in a rom-com type of cute. My bitchy nihilistic inner cynic is totally battling it out with my inner Disney princess right now.

The Honeymoon Period

Wherein you are walking funny from excessive horizontal mamboing and are lucky if your friends don't throttle you, because every other sentence out of your mouth is some reference to the guy you have started seeing...

For fuck's sake, I almost want to throttle me. But we've already determined that I am Her Royal Highness TMI, Intergalactic Queen of Oversharing ¹, so even though I attempt to edit myself, shit keeps popping out like champagne corks at New Year's. Usually while giggling like an idiot. Gah.

You can't see me, but the face palmage is epic...

In my defence, I think my brains melted out my ears about two weeks back, a side effect of shagging like two rabid weasels in heat. I heartily endorse dating a younger man, because WOO-BOY CAN WE SAY STAMINA?! My flat mates are taking great joy in teasing me, pointing out that I've lost my little love handles. Who needs a gym when you can fuck your way into bikini form?

I Don't Remember How to Do This

So I have the beginnings of a post on the perils of Internet Dating sites, which I keep meaning to finish off eventually. But today I've sort of been musing on the Post NRA II: RNRA interactions with the opposite sex.

There was the guy who gave me a total intellectual & physical wide-on. We played a few rounds of tonsil hockey, until I discovered that he was actually dating a friend of a friend. Who was a single mom and had the usual single mom problems with the father of her child. She was extraordinarily cool when we talked, but to say I felt like absolute shit  is a mild understatement. Actually, I thought I was gonna hurl. "Hi. Yeah,  I didn't sleep with your boyfriend, but we made out in his car." I was torn between abject grovelling apologies and wanting to beat the everliving shit out of this dude for her. You don't fuck around with single moms. Single moms are sacrosanct.

So that sucked.

Frustrated Velociraptor: I am woman, hear me GRAR!

Being a single female at 35 sucks sometimes.

Not in that Sex & the City "Oh me, oh my, will I ever land my guy?" way either. Actually I don't even want to think about S&C because the facile 4 tropes of women (with admittedly fabulous shoes) would just piss me off even more right now.

I look young for my age (thanks for the awesome genes, Ma). I have lost track of the times I have gotten the "Oh you'd better hurry up and find a man before you cant procreate any more" bullshit spew upon finding out that I am 35.

As if my uterus is the only reason for my existence and even that is worthless unless I procure my self a penis possessor to plow the field before the bloom of youth fades.

Fuck that noise. Fuck it right in the ear with a rusty chainsaw.

 *deep breath*

What I Did this Weekend

• went to the SO's cousin's wedding on Saturday, which involved:
  
  • meeting a zillion different people, all while being introduced as "SO's future wife" courtesy of the cousin
  • me getting flustered at the above and mistakenly correcting said introduction with fidanzata instead of ragazza
  • an 8 course meal to die for and all the alcohol one's liver could handle
  • the SO's youngest sister trying to get the bride to chuck the bouquet at my head (no bouquet throwing was done though, as the thing, though gorgeous, weighed a ton.)
  • my hormones going into overdrive due to the SO's new suit. PHWOAR. *fans self just thinking about it*
  • *fans self some more*
  • *fans self even mo...aw, fuck it. [COMMERCIAL BREAK GOES HERE]
  • the SO totally ambushing me by slow dancing to Sinatra. And singing loudly off key while doing it. And with a total semi. In that suit. Nobody else was dancing at that point in time. My face was fire engine red and speaking of fire engines, well, one with the hose pointed at my pink bits would have been handy at that point.
  • [YET ANOTHER COMMERCIAL BREAK]
• the SO & I broke his bed yesterday afternoon. this is not related to Saturday's events. Swear to Dog.

You Men and Your Fucking Selective Memories

Normally I'm not one to jump on the "Females are from Venus and Men are from another Galaxy Entirely" bandwagon, but I'll make an exception in this case.

SO is going to be an uncle again. And the BG's niece came over the other day with her 2 month old girl.

Cue the SO's atomic biological clock and much ribbing from the BG & flatmates.

So lying in bed the morning after Pavlov's atomic biological clock, SO once again pronounces that he wants a kid in around two years. It's in the AM and therefore my level of tact is automatically set to Zero.

We've had the Sproglings Discussion before.
We did? When?
At the Chinese restaurant.
...
We talked about marriage *and* kids.
Oh yeah. You want to be married before having kids.
*I resist the urge to use his head as an imaginary bell and say "DING DING DING! We have a winner folks!"*
What about having kids and then getting married? Like when we're 50?

The last comment is him pushing my buttons. Fucker. But he honestly didn't immediately remember the conversation. Silly me. Here I was thinking that on the subjects of Desires One Wants Out of Life, one would remember serious conversations with one's SO. Most especially when you are not the one who has to be In Gestation for Nine Fucking Months and will most likely end up with saggy tits and an ass the size of Bermuda.

Apparently not.

Apparently it's more along the line of 'Ooga Ooga, Me Want' and serious discussion form the 2nd party involved goes flying over one's pointy little noggin. Then you see something shiny and forget for a while until something triggers the 'Ooga Ooga Me Want' all over again.

Let me tell you what you can do with the Ooga Ooga, buddy...

This Clucky Shit Would Work a Lot Better If He Had a Uterus

Grand Award Winner for the "Did You Really Say That Just Now?!" Out of Left Field comment of the year:

Amo, facciamo una famiglia?

Tone of voice: like a little boy asks their mother for a puppy
Setting: while we're playing on the PS2 a game where ramming the shit out of the other cars is the object of the game.

Ensuing Discussion: I sidestepped the question with a well placed

"Oh dear christ. Little versions of you and me?"
"If it's a boy we can name it Thomas. And then his nicknamed will be Tim."
"No honey, Tom is short for Thomas, Tim is short for Timothy. Why do you want Tim as a nickname?"
"*im, *im, and Tim"
"No fucking way."
"...yeah, you're right."

So at least we've agreed the more Rhyming Names are absolutely out of the question.


Yes, our names rhyme. Yes, it's cute enough to induce vomiting. Ironically his parents still can't remember my name at times.

Currently Contemplating...

...that Thanksgiving in Rome this year ain't an option as everyone is paranoid about the avian flu thing. To which I say Chickenshits

...that I need to buy SO a birthday present still but am not in the mood as I have no idea what to get him and he sort of fucked me off this weekend.

See, SO & a friend of his (we'll call him Paddy the Hottie) had planned to visit another friend of theirs, Nice Austrian Boy, as a type of boys weekend party for SO's birthday. SO was then planning to go to Switzerland to visit his brother.

SO asked if I wanted to come along, to which I replied that I wasn't sure if A) I had the money & B) could get the time off. Then SO clarified - I could come to Switzerland, but not Austria.

Boys weekend - no problem. I understand I'm not invited. No big deal.

SO decided to just do Austria & put off Switzerland until January, when I would have a little more free time. But then I found Paddy the Hottie's girlfriend Ms. Piccolina was going too. And Marco Bevecomeunaspugna.

Still not invited. Still not pissed off. (Apparently Paddy couldn't bring himself to tell her it was a boys weekend. Or maybe it never was. Either way, I don't care.)

Despite saying that he wanted a quiet night before he left at the asscrack of dawn Friday morning, Thursday night saw us over at Ms. Picolina's for dinner. She was surprised to find out I wasn't coming on the trip and when she inquired why, SO replied:

Sesso e la Città Eternà - Jealousy Crisis.

You might say I have jealousy issues. I say mine are not as bad as other people I have known. Take the Rebound Boy Toy for example. He would look on my cell phone to see who I called, who called me, what messages I got or sent yadda yadda yadda. He'd even freak out if I didn't call him the minute I got out of work.

Look, I know I have a huge jealousy streak but at least I try to control it.

It's not that easy to control, though, when one is dating one of Rome's bigger ex-man-whores this side of the Quirinale. And it's not easy to control when he's best friends with what seems like every single chick he's ever fucked and thusly they call a lot.

It's not that easy to control when said ex-man-whore drops comments about big huge commitments like having kids, marriage, or starting a business together but during a discussion about cheating says

Seeso e la Città Eterna - My Life Is a Sitcom

we in the apartment are fortunate to have SKY TV (satellite cable to you N. American folks). Despite this fact, Italy in general is still behind the states in terms of what programs it's airing & which seasons (notable exception being Desperate Houswives...we're only a few episodes behind. Thank god. I ♥ Eva. & co.)

Will & Grace is a program I had heard of, but never seen until SKY TV. Curly & I are hooked, probably because it's the sitcom version of us. Well, minus that whole "Curly is gay" thing. anyways...

Boys & girls, I have often facetiously compared my life to a soap opera or sitcom at times. Tonight's episode of Will & Grace took the fucking cake.

(& I swear to you I haven't downloaded episodes via Internet. Half the fun of *big booming voice* "SEASON CLIFFHANGERS" or "SWEEPS WEEK" is watching on your own boob tube in real time. Besides which I don't download that shit at work.)

It was this episode, folks. I'll excerpt it here for those of you who don't want to read through a script.

[CUT TO GRACE'S BEDROOM. GRACE AND NATHAN ARE UNDER THE COVERS MOANING...]

NATHAN: Sweetie!

GRACE: Oh, baby!

NATHAN: Oh, Grace! Marry me!

Yes boys & girls, my life is a fucking sitcom.

I would sue for copyrights or infringement or whatever bullshit the lawyer could cook up, but the fact is that:

A) SO watches Will & Grace only while we're at my place (which ain't often)
&
B) this episode's original airdate is 11/1/2001 (which is either November 1st or January 11th 2001. If it's the latter I just might have to kill myself as that would be the day after my birthday P.R.A.1 Post Relationship Armageddon 1. The cause of death would read "Self Inflicted Irony Wound")

You don't want to know how many cigarettes i've smoked tonight.