O, Mole-o Mio

Robin has been really sick this week. It's either a chest cold or cholera. I have no idea. He won't go to the doctor.

I've reached the sixth Kubler-Ross stage of his illness: Pretending I Don't Hear Him When He Calls For Me From Downstairs.

As far as I'm concerned, if a person is sick and won't go to the doctor for antibiotics because he wants to heal naturally and holistically, which means his wife makes him soup and cleans up, and disinfects the Neti pot a hundred times a day and makes more soup and runs out to get lemons at midnight, keeping up her strength by gorging on the leftover candy from the piñata at her husband's birthday party last week - and not the good candy; the rejected candy, the shit left lying on the ground, the Mike And Ike's and Nerds - then that person can just goddamn get Cholera.

Oh, the first couple of days of his illness I was so attentive to Robin. I emptied the wastebaskets filled with his disgusting detritus, I brought ice chips to him, I checked the expiration date on the Advil before giving it to him. But the week dragged on and he's still sick. Still home.

I hate when Robin is home during the day.

He can see things. Things like, that I'm lying when I say I'm busy. I'm never busy. He can see that I'm on Facebook when I say I'm writing and can't be disturbed. He can see that I don't accidentally pour an entire bottle of wine down the drain at lunch every day and that's why we are always out of wine.

This kind of transparency is not good for a marriage. I save my secrets for my dermatologist.

I went for my annual Full Body Mole Patrol yesterday. Have you done this? You can prepare by going outside right now, taking off all your clothes and standing naked in front of your house for twenty minutes. Invite passers-by to examine every inch of you. Illuminate your naked body with those huge Hollywood rotating lights that advertise movie premiers. Bend over. Encourage the passers-by to use a magnifying glass so as not to miss a mole, tag, scar or stretch mark. Point out your Psoraisis areas. Explain that the discolored patch "down there" is just a DIY wax job gone wrong and doesn't need a biopsy. Oh, and make sure everyone, EVERYONE, knows how much you weigh. Write the number down and show it to at least four people.

Now I'm no stranger to being naked in front of strangers- I lived on a commune in Santa Cruz - but without the dulcimer music and the redwood trees and the magic brownies and the anonymous sex, yesterday just wasn't the fun it used to be.

Oh I tried to bring my usual bon homie to the exam table but my dermatologist was having none of it. The low point - at least, for me - was when he asked me to lift my flab so he could measure a mole that was hopelessly trapped, screaming, suffocating, evidently, between my manifold stomachs. If ever there was a clever bon mot to bring mirth and distraction to that moment, it eluded me.

We completed the deed in our mutual silence and red hot burning shame.

On the way home, I stopped off to get more lemons for Robin's tea. I picked up a few cases of wine, as well. I have a feeling I'm going to be accidentally pouring a lot of it down the drain.