Donna invented a new dirty word while we lay in bed Sunday morning basking in the glorious silence of children on vacation. WITH NO PANTS ON.

Mess kit.

So that she can never deny it, I posted the definition on Urban Dictionary.

I put off taking anti-depressants for years. I was ashamed to admit I needed them. I was afraid of going to the doctor. I was afraid I would become someone else. I was afraid of losing my sex drive.

Now that I've been on them for a month I can't imaging a time when I won't want to take them. My mood has dramatically improved and, frankly, I haven't missed my sex drive. In fact, now it's Donna who lays wondering why I went to bed so early with nary a thought about performing the marital act while I sleep like a cat in a patch of sun. Content and happy.

Now I just know some of you are going to get all up in my face about how much I bitched about Donna and her lack of libido back in the day. And how I used to go on and on about how much it kept me up at night. All I can say is, I think I understand a little better what it's like not to want it all the time. Or to pretty much never have it occur to you.

It started like this, "Dad, can I go to the movies with Tyson?"

"You mean with Tyson and his parents?"

"Well..."

I've had a hard time catching up on my sleep lately. After a couple days on the road and a weekend full of shows and rehearsal I was finally able to sleep in on Sunday morning.

Usually sleep-in mornings are interrupted by the kids or the dog or the insane urge to empty my fifty-nine gallon bladder. But this Sunday I was able to sleep soundly well into the ten o'clock hour. Which was followed by me not showering and instead watching television in my underwear until about one o'clock.

So far so good.

So I had this ambitious idea that I would kick ass on this whole NaBloPoMo thing. That ambition got me exactly two days in before a Saturday full of rehearsal, a show, and a beer-and-karaoke-filled birthday party for Sarah distracted me. So, unless you count drunken Twitters and iBlog entries, I am a total failure at the daily posting thing. Just add that to the pile of things I'm a total failure at.

On the upside, Donna and I are keeping up on our other once-a-day-every-day-of-November commitment. We call it NaFuEvDaMo.

I assure you, I will try very hard to keep it up.

"I think you should do more shows at the theater."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"So I can get a boob job."

Last week, after I got back from New York, I was flooded with a rush of emotions. Some of which had everything to do with my trip and my personal regret about not having followed my dream to be the cliche struggling actor, scraping by in the city. Others had been festering for a while and just came along for the ride once the gates were opened. Still others were nothing new and are the same old things that always get thrown into the mix.

It's no secret that Donna and have more than our share of painful history together. It's also not news to any regular reader of this site that, while each of us has done a lot of work and come a long, long way, it's very likely that there will never be a time when we are free from the burden and hurt of those common experiences. There are some issues that no amount of therapy will help us overcome.

The long and the short of it is that while Donna is a terrific person for whom I have a great deal of love I most often feel like we each spend a lot of time disappointing each other. And while that's certainly not unique to our marriage, the combination of those incompatibilities and our rocky history might make it hard for either of us to get close enough to each other for either of us to ever be as happy as we might be apart. Does that make sense?

Because we've decided that five is simply one too many weddings to finance before we're forty-five, Donna has had an intrauterine device entrenched in defense of her fertile-as-the-Tenessee-River-valley uterus for a couple of years. Crammed in her cervix just like God intended. Or wherever it is they jam those things.

Sorry, I haven't had a close look for myself lately to know the specifics. Also, I don't think cram and jam are the exact terms that reproductive medical professionals use for this sort of installation. It does send and receive SMS messages though, so that's cool. At least, I presume that it does based on what our insurance company paid for it. I mean, for nine-hundred bucks, it had better have an IP address and run some flavor of UNIX.

Being the high-tech, bionic fishing lure that it is, the IUD requires some kind of regular maintenance. Lube and oil change, probably. So Friday Donna took it in for its fifty-thousand mile maintenance and to have her airbags safety inspected.

Every now and then a few people from the office get together for a beer after work. It's never a formal affair and it's not always the same exact group of people. It's more one of those, hey if anyone wants to go for a drink we're meeting at the bar down the street, kinds of things.

Yesterday was one of those days. A couple people mentioned that, some people were getting together and did I want to come? So I dropped by long enough to have a beer and be on my way.

I was the last to arrive and there were only three others there. All women. Let me take this formal opportunity to say that I did not plan for this to be me and all women. I had no ulterior motives. I made no scheme to arrange to be the only guy in the group. It simply worked out that way.

"Do you really need to take your water purifier with you?"

"I'll have you know, if I don't drink enough water on my trip, I might die."

"I'm more worried that you'll die from no sex for ten days."