"I would love to have just one day this week to deal with my own bullshit and not everyone else's, Marlene, and that includes yours."

It wasn't what I wanted to say but it was what I found myself saying. The germ had been there for a couple of months now. It's just her shit I don't want. It's not that I don't love sharing her personal space and living her lifestyle. It's not that I dislike her cats. It's only the bullshit which is ever-present and no matter how insignificant it is, hers is always worse than mine.

I could not, of course, tell Marlene this in any other fashion than over the phone at a quarter to six on Wednesday night. Too late in the week and I'd forget I cared; too soon and I'd pass it off as having an acute case of the Mondays. Straight to her face it would come off as insensitive and mean. In a text message it would come off as insensitive and mean. Voice message, the same. In an email it would no doubt inspire a five-page reply full of anger and hatred.

So then it is decided: over the phone as I'm prepared to leave work, I am in fact insensitive and mean, distant and uncaring, conveniently and cowardly nowhere in sight. Thinking to myself as I end the phone call and say, "So, goodbye," that no, I really am not insensitive or a coward at all. It's a trick of the mind I've become accustom to because I want to be happy. Or pretend to be. And to be happy or pretend to be happy, I have to put everyone else's concerns in front of mine. After all, the more shit other people come to you with the less your own shit concerns you to the point that it feels as if you have no shit to deal with at all.

By the time I get in the car I decide I'm not going home. I should hit the gym but I should really eat. A decent dinner I guess; I didn't have a chance to eat lunch because our clients finally decided to move ahead with a big project they had put on hold for three months now. Marlene is probably at her Mom's place or out with her friends in New York City. I don't know. She goes out all the time without letting me know her plans.

I'll deal with her when I get home but there's no point driving over there. It's a forty-five minute drive from Parsippany to Iselin, I figure, and it would suck to wind up cooking for just myself. Fuck it. I should hit Grasshopper off the Green, check out a game for a little while, and have some stew. Nothing terribly exciting. I'm used to nothing terribly exciting; I like that I guess. I see that I've missed a call from my old friend Karyn in Cranford.

I call Karyn’s phone but after three rings I get her voicemail and decide against leaving a message. I don’t decide so much as I’ve always hated to leave a message. She’ll see I called and she’ll wait for me to call back. It won’t matter if she misses my call twice or more nor will I care if I call that many times and she never picks up. We both know I will get her on the phone eventually if I want to.

She dropped me a quick email maybe a week back but I hadn't opened it until last night. The subject line read, "Hey!" and I almost deleted it along with a bunch of junk mails that were sitting in my inbox. I hit a little traffic going into Morristown but not too much. Park a couple of blocks from Grasshopper and take a seat at the bar.

I ask the bartender for a dinner menu and she asks if I'd like a drink. For some reason it strikes me as odd as if she had asked if I am married or how much money I make. Reluctantly I decline although I ponder my hesitation. Okay, I know why I decline a drink and I know it's because Marlene hates when I drink. Not as a rule but at the bar. When I'm with her at the bar I rarely drink or just have one, maybe two. It's not that I'm not allowed to drink, it's not that I'm an out of control drunk. Honestly, I don't really understand why I don't drink when we're together. I just know it's another thing she gives me shit for and I hate it so much when she gives me shit for anything.

As I'm looking over the menu and the Irish Sausage and Potatoes catches my eye, I get a text message. It's from Marlene and it reads, "Please don't be mad at me. Let's talk tonight, okay?" It beats her calling me, I guess, I just can't talk to her right now. I order the sausage and potatoes and decide to round out the meal with a Smithwick's instantly feeling better just for having a drink because I want one. I take a sip of my Smithwick's, wait for my meal, and hear my phone ringing. After three rings, I cave in and answer.

"I thought we agreed to talk later? Do I have to deal with your shit NOW when I'm about to have dinner?", I inquire harshly, hastily, not calmly.

"Did we, Pete?" comes a familiar voice, but not Marlene's, "Just give me a call later, then."

"Karyn. Hey. Sorry about that. I had a rough day and thought you were," I paused, "someone else. I mean you NEVER call back right away when I call you," I explain, "So but I'm just having such a shitty week right now and anyhow what's up?"

"Ah, yeah, okay, so have you gotten my message about the happy hour in New Brunswick? You know if everybody else is going?" I had no idea what she was talking about and told her so. "There's an article in the free paper about a happy hour at Old Man Rafferty's this Saturday. It says something about it being a New Brunswick Drinking Society gathering. I thought you knew about it and I was going to check it out, maybe. See how the gang is doing."

The New Brunswick Drinking Society. Heh. "The NBDS? Fuck the NBDS! There is no NBDS and there hasn't been for like two years now at least," I yell into the phone without a moment's hesitation.

"I'm telling you what's in the paper; that what it says. I know I haven't hung out with you guys in like a year or two, right, but I mean as long as there is you there's NBDS so I thought for sure you'd
know about it."

I really am puzzled at this point. Karyn and I were at times best friends and at other times we’d go months on end without exchanging a word, a text, an email. It is that way now, actually, being I have Marlene (or do so for the time being) and she has her boyfriend and son. We forward joke emails to one another or relevant news clippings pertaining to our friends and things they would find interesting. Now and then a written wish to meet for dinner at Stuff Yer Face which never pans out because of one commitment or another we suddenly make.