Sometimes in life there is a certain cruel irony. My ploy of calling in sick from Rome worked like a charm. It was precipitated by the fact that I was FED UP with meeting students at the airport. It worked, I didn't get caught out and Rome was fantastic. Oh, it rained a little and was chilly at times but it was fabulous. Rome always is.

My new clothes look wonderful (I spent a fortune), I got lots of attention from interesting Italian men (passion!) and I had a good rest away from work.

Having made a full recovery I attended the office on Monday morning only to be redirected to the AIRPORT! The homophobic mysanthrope who was supposed to work the airport duty for the last arriving students found something less like work and more like advancing his career through ass kissing to do. Therefore, I returned to the place of my rebellion. The Munich airport.

What a day. 14 hours in that artificial environment (and it ain't no Tom Hanks movie). Flights cancelled all over the place, drivers giving me trouble and the snow and more snow and then more snow. I am glad to see that day behind me. It almost erased Rome but not quite.

Work is dull and anticlimatic. But then, when was work ever exciting?

Winter is on with a vengeance but at least the skiing is good. An interesting man I met in Rome says he is coming up to ski this weekend. We'll see. In gaylandia they lie a lot.

I have just finished living at the Munich airport for 5 days meeting 150 of my closest friends get off airplanes from all over the world. It has been a whirlwind of lost luggage, frayed nerves and travel drama. I am spent.

They are not REALLY my closest friends though. They are the winter crop of new students and not just any students. These ones are all mid career all grown up professionals. Undergraduate students would be oh so much easier. These people have needs!

I was so tired and fed up that at the end of it all I went to the last minute fare counter, called in sick and bought a plane ticket. I am writing from Rome. ROME! So warm, so nice, so fashionable, no students.

I didn't even go home to get luggage, I just took my credit card, my backpack and my smile and got on my 75 Euro round trip flight. At DaVinci airport I got some more Euros from the ATM, hailed a cab and said "take me to a gay hotel." The driver thought I meant HAPPY because he took me to the Bernini Bristol just off the via Veneto and down from the imperial American embassy (and the Ritz and the Eden and all the other storied hotels). I talked with the guest services people and found a REAL gay hotel, not just a happy hotel. The cabbie was right though, those people at the Bernin Bristol were HAPPY. And happy to help.

When I got to my real gay hotel, an astonishingly handsome (all italians are astonishingly handsome even the old trolls who raise all the standards for troll-landia) met me with effusive kisses (cheeks not lips, damit) and showed me to my room after swooping my credit card through with a flourish.

It's a nice room and the bathroom is almost a religious experience.

He asked if I need a porter. "No."

"All you have is that backpack?"

"Yes."

"Do you need anything? Toothbrush? Razor? Lube? Condoms?"

I like gay hotels in Rome. I said "I need everything."

He said "What will you do for clothes??"

"Buy them!"

"So expensive!"

"I need them anyway, I have been loosing weight."

Then he gave me several good recommendations for places to buy clothes. I shall buy ONE good pair of black wool slacks (cuff, no pleat); ONE good black leather belt (I already have my good Italian shoes on - maybe another pair of shoes though...); THREE good black T shirts since I am here three days; THREE white pairs of boxer briefs since I look fabulous in them; ONE black cashmere V-neck sweater; ONE good white dress shirt since I love white Italian dress shirts and one or two white t-shirts.

In Amerika, when someone dresses all in black he is either goth or a Johnny Cash wannabe. In Rome (or New York or Paris for that matter) he is terribly chic. With my black hair (okay, Sinead, there are a FEW flecks of grey in it) and my steel blue eyes how will the Romans resist me? They won't!

I will also buy a smallish black bag to cart it all back to Munich. How vain and irresponsible I am being. This is the way to call in sick and I don't even CARE how much it all costs.

Isn't it wonderful that in ROME, when you arrive without the toothbrush at the gay hotel they ask if you need CONDOMS? What a city! The irony of all this planned shopping is that I'll probably find some fashionable sauna and spend most of the next day or so naked. But then, Rome is like that.

The pink and white woman in Munich was nightmare enough but then I had to come back to work today. It is a twilight zone existence on the best of days. Further, my epals who write me on YAHOO! are seemingly lost to me forever. I am too dysfunctional to keep their email addresses written down somewhere and YAHOO! won't let me on. Period. I've tried everything including a bizarre email exchange with their bot. Adam Gopnik quoted the french philosopher correctly. "There is no regulon in the semiosphere."

YAHOO! epals, if you are out there and you read this, email me through the blog. I put it on a recent post.

Luke, enjoy New York pal. I know it's grimy when you go to the doctor but all in all it beats working for the man.