Ashley has a conference to attend tomorrow and to prevent having to wake up at 4AM for the drive she and some of her classmates will head down there tonight and stay in a hotel room. While this does lead me to imagine various lesbian-porn scenarios, it also brings into sharp focus that in the last 834 days we have spent exactly one night apart.

That’s just slightly more than 0.1%.

I’d like to tell you that I’m going to do all sorts of awesome things while I have the night to myself. I’d like to say that I plan on downing every millilitre of alcohol in the house while watching football on three different TVs.⁽¹⁾ I’d like to tell you I plan on watching every version of The Thing that has graced American cinema screens in the last 60 years. I’d like to tell you I plan on eating nothing but potato chips while playing survival-horror video games stark naked, that I’ll plug my guitar in and turn it up to 11 and jam along with the stereo at eye- and ear-popping volumes, that when she comes home tomorrow there will mysterious pieces of clothing strewn throughout the house and even the cats will be hungover.

Or she'll walk in on a scene like this.

I’d like to tell you I’m going to man-it-up so hardcore that Chuck Norris himself would nod to me…from the other side of the street.

But the truth is I’m going to miss her terribly. And I probably won’t sleep all that well.

It’s a good thing I turned in my Man Card years ago.⁽²⁾ I’d be forced to surrender it tonight as I cry myself to sleep.