I had a great Fourth of July.

I got home from work, and cooked and cleaned like it was goin’ out of style.

A bunch of friends came over.   We drank a little, laughed a lot, set off some kickass fireworks, and hung out until quite late around a pit-fire – enjoying the weather and each other while listening to my two younger brothers (Harrison the blood-relative, and the surrogate brother, Patrick) play their guitars under the stars…

Everything was literally as awesome as possible.   I was in one of the happiest places I can be, given that I’m 1,000 miles away from the man I love.

There was ONE little issue, though.

One of our friends brought his girlfriend over.  (For the purposes of this, they shall be Jackson and Sienna.  Typically, I refer to people by their middle names.  Harrison and Patrick for example.  But this guy’s middle name is Ashley and I don’t know his girl’s middle name, so they just got made-up names!)

Now, don’t get me wrong, Sienna being there was not an issue. I adore her.  She’s stunning – without question the most gorgeous person I know.  But she isn’t even the teeniest bit conceited. She is warm and outgoing, funny, down-to-Earth, personable, accepting  – just an all-around awesome girl.

Sienna had a LOT to drink that evening, though, and I think a few things slipped past her filter…  It was barely noticeable, but twice I swore she was slighting Jackson.

It was slighting of his, uh, manhood, if ya catch my drift.  (Penis, for those of you who don’t catch drifts with ease.  This is an equal-opportunity blog.)

It happened twice in an evening that lasted 8 or 9 hours. It was subtle.  So subtle, in fact, I wasn’t sure if I had simply heard meaning in her words that wasn’t there.

I spoke to my friend Rais about it later.  (Rais also doesn’t get his middle name.  Because I suck and I can’t spell his middle name.  So he just gets a name very similar to his real name.)  I knew if someone else had heard the slights, it’d be him.

He and his family are very Americanized, but they moved here from Iran in the late 80’s so they maintain a lot of their Persian culture. (And some DAMN fine Persian cooking, lemme tell ya. Mmmmmm. *drools*)  Rais is more attuned to disrespect between partners than many other people I know, particularly women toward men.  Please don’t get the wrong idea – he has no ideas about “a woman’s place” or anything like that.  I will likely blog about this later, because I found I had a lot to say that became really tangential.  But, anyway, in short (until I can blog more about it) he is simply more apt to see it.

I wasn’t disappointed.  Rais nodded halfway through my query: “Didja notice how Sienna, just a couple times, said some stuff… about Jax…”

He stopped me with, “Yeah. I was going to ask you, actually, if they were doing okay.  She’s got some passive-aggressive anger or something going on there.  It’s much nastier than outright anger. Sucks, man.  I feel bad for Jax.”

And so did I.  I mean, let’s say it is a truly superficial gripe.  Let’s say nothing deeper is wrong in their relationship… I can only imagine being in a long-term relationship with someone and being less-than-satisfied with what he’s “packing” (to use one of Sienna’s mumblings).

Honestly, I can only imagine it.  It’s just not my reality. I’m five-year-old-on-Christmas-morning happy with what The Man’s got going on.  Size, shape, color, feeling, taste – all are perfection in my book.  I have nothing but blushing, gushing, glowing praise… glee, reverence, worship and… And… And… God dammit, this blog topic was a moronic idea.  Now I’m off in la-la land, with a lot of dirty mental images, and nothing I can do about it.  FFS.

Btw, I can practically HEAR Antonio going “NO complaints?” So, okay, FINE, I guess, once in a while, mainly when I find myself gagging and with my windpipe totally blocked, I do not ALWAYS exude pure joy.  But I hardly think “It’s making me choke!” counts as slighting him.  In fact, it’s a compliment.  I’m nearly 6 feet tall (read: I don’t have a tiny frame by any stretch of the imagination) and I’m a former bulimic.  And I still choke.  So, see?  Compliment!

(And it’s not like I wander around telling strangers that his MASSIVE COCK chokes me when he’s FACE-FUCKING me, his HORNY SLAVE… Oh hai internet stranger!!!!!  You got here via google-search, you say?)

*beams* ANYWAY!  Yeah. It kinda freaked me out that she snuck noticeable (at least to me, and Rais), nasty references in there about Jackson.  And if it wasn’t about that?  If she was angry about something ELSE and dealt with it by slipping untrue unkindness into public conversations with a group of friends?  WTF?  That was the only thing that tainted the day, for me.  That sort of stuff makes me SQUIRM, in a bad way.

Otherwise, a fabulous Independence Day.  I put a lot of love and positive energy out into the universe as well, for our men and women serving in the armed forces.

OH, and I got my first piece of Free Mail too, on Friday!  I’ve gotten emails from service members, thanking me for my support.  But Friday, the first letter showed up. A female Marine, named Shelby, currently serving in Afghanistan wrote to thank me for making contact with her.  I love that.  I love letting these loyal men and women know that their country – including me, a perfect stranger – is behind them, regardless of ideas about war, politics, religion, etc.  I love supporting fellow countrymen who make the noble sacrifice of volunteering their lives to serve in our military.  Their service is such a gift, and such a deep show of patriotism.  So I always try to give back to them.

As I’ve said before in here – I support the troops.  But support is not a word or a magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of a car.  It’s an action.