Being Normal Is Hard Work

I'm in bed about 12 hours a day, for some reason.

We get in bed about 10 or 11pm, the girl and I. We have sex for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour -- depending on whether I'm abusing the Cialis -- and in the night I usually wake up for an hour or more due to mosquitoes, sinus problems, being too hot (the first few weeks) or too cold (the last few weeks.)

She gets up at 6.00am to get ready for work; I claim the whole bed and go back to sleep, and inevitably wake up again at 10.00am or 11.00am.

There's no logical reason to be such a slug-a-bed. I haven't been doing much of anything taxing. A few hikes in the country or some walking around the riverfront embankment, a few beers per day. A few mild and civilized meetings with former colleagues and friends.

We tried for one old-fashioned Boy's Night Out -- we went to the grungy cheap student nightclub we'd always patronized, known as the House of Pain due to the horrific hangovers one inevitably got from the cheap alcohol and poor ventilation. It was practically deserted on a Friday night at midnight -- something that would have been unheard of a few years ago. We had a few beers and shots of Jaegermeister, and then Crazy Bob got kicked out because he said something rude to some girls on the dance floor. I didn't catch exactly what, though I did hear him yelling at them.

We went to a slightly more upscale nightclub -- where, as it happened, my live-in girl had gone with her Girl's Night Out.

So it ceased to be Boy's Night Out, but it was still a good enough evening. English Teacher J got so drunk he slept right through his class the next morning, and Crazy Bob got beaten up on the street outside while trying to get a taxi, for reasons he can't fully remember.

The next day was the end of the big Russian Heat Wave of 2010 -- it was cold and rainy all day, so the girl and I stayed in bed most of the day, brutally hungover, venturing out only to the supermarket in the evening. (That's definitely that kind of day you don't mind having a woman around.)

All in all it's been quiet though. Most of the girls in my little Manson Family, and most of my colleagues, are married or shacked up themselves, so I maybe see them for lunch or whatever, or invite a few people over for dinner, but we have not repeated the excessive retarded drunkeness of the Boy's Night Out, or of the years 2004-2008.

As far as the co-habiting in general -- it doesn't suck. But I'm not completely comfortable with it.

It takes some getting used to, not being able to do whatever the fuck you want, whenever the fuck you want. It's the freedom I was addicted to, I should say, not the pussy or the alcohol.

Still, I think it's important that I try this -- I've seen too many old English teachers in the Middle East who are so miserably selfish and self-centered that they can barely abide amicably sharing an office with someone, or speak politely for more than a few minutes without starting to rant and rave about some personal obsession, and I'm not sure I want to end up like that.