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Because I can't bear to eulogize Doug - 2008-08-19
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11:45 a.m. - 2004-05-24
I’ve decided my younger son is a box kite. Off the chart height-wise, only in the 35th percentile for weight. Wolf is less subject to gravity than other people. When he hops he gets some serious air. I fully expect he’ll simply take off one of these days and go cruising on an up-draft. He’d love it. Swooping and diving then lightly touching down. I hit the ground myself this weekend, but my landing was far from light. Mike hung a tire swing from the big maple. A damn pricey tire swing, he used one of the old racing slicks from the hotrod. In 10 years of ownership I spent more to keep my car shod than I did my kids, the tires are that expensive. So well and good we squeeze a bit more ‘milage’ out of one by recycling it into a swing. Unfortunately…the rope was recycled too. It’s a good thing I’ve lost a bunch of weight. If the rope had let go while I was at my heaviest I’d have crawled under the porch and died of shame. As it was I could laugh about it and be relieved Wolf wasn’t on the swing when the rope gave it up. After all, ALEX had taken a few turns on it and he outweighs me by 100lbs. So there I was, proud as punch I got my rickety uncoordinated self up and on Wolf’s cool new swing, zooming through the air and SNAP! The rope broke and I landed with a thud. My right hip is bruised a dull lavender streaked with red and I took a goodly bit of skin off my forearm. That was Saturday. Yesterday I gardened. I’ve mentioned before that Mike NEVER gives me compliments. NEVER. However he is quite lavish with praise for other people. Other women. To their faces and to me. I’ve yet to fix a meal where he doesn’t mention how good his mother’s cooking is. I’ve never done up a room where he didn’t tell me all about how Such-n-such did HER dining room and how great it was. I’ve never worn an outfit that he didn’t find some connection to some other woman and what a snappy dresser she was. 22 years of hearing how wonderful all these other women are and not one single acknowledgement of my efforts. Not once. I swear on my son’s head on Thanksgiving this year the man listened to all the compliments the others gave me and when it was his turn to say something nice about the meal I’d been slaving for 2 days to put on the table, he shrugged and said, “My grandma makes the BEST gravy and mashed potatoes.” Anyone still wondering why I have trouble holding onto my self-esteem? I was loosening the soil with my trusty trowel. I got to thinking how I was sweating and how being out in the heat cost me big time and here I was half-killing myself to make a beautiful garden and how if I was stupid enough to show it off to Mike that I would hear how his mom, his grandmother, his aunt, his neighbor in Missouri, some chick he installed a toilet for were fantastic gardeners and how fucking wonderful their gardens were. I went nuts. I was STABBING that trowel into the ground. Ripping up the earth like a demented badger. All the while I was bawling. Huge body wracking sobs. An awful swamp of anger, pain, sadness, and hopelessness. Mike came down the hill just then, heading for the Bronco to get something out of the back. As he passed by he said, “Hurting, Hon?” (Meaning: MS problems.) I glared at him. “NO!” He rolled his eyes and sneered, “Okay, so what’s the bug up your ass today?” (Meaning: Here we go again. LA’s on another tear and I’m going to have to listen to more bullshit when I have so many other things to do. Waaaay worthier things than getting an earful from that psycho hose-beast I’m stuck with.) I hissed, “I’ll tell you what the bug up my ass is! YOU! If you say one word to me about your Great-Aunt Hazel’s geraniums or your mother’s zinnias or Andrea’s prize winning tomatoes I’ll put this trowel into your chest. I’m sick to fucking DEATH of hearing praise about every other goddamn woman on the planet and never getting a single kind word out of you about MY efforts. I’ve been waiting 20 years for a compliment from you and I’ve never gotten ONE! Not one! And I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen while you go on and on about every other woman you’ve ever known and how great they are compared to me! I’VE HAD IT!” He backed up and started stuttering, “But…but…but…but…” “But WHAT? But being married to you is compliment enough? But I should know by now how much I stink at everything and what a wonderful saint you are for putting up with my lame efforts? But I should be used to coming in dead last in your opinion? But what, Michael? You tell me but what?” He flinched. “But I don’t mean it like that! I’m just clumsy. You know I’m bad with people.” “No. You’re not. You’re not bad with people. Everybody looooooves you. Everyplace I go I get to hear how terrific you are! How sweet you are. How nice you are. How much better everyone feels after you’ve been by to spread your pixie sunshine. The only person you’re bad with, Michael, is ME. And I’m done. If you can’t be decent and say something nice to me every once in a while, the fucking least you could do is not get in my face about how great every other female is. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT ANYMORE! Are we clear on this?” He was gawping at me like a lamp had come to life and started shouting. (In a way that’s true. I AM just a piece of furniture around here.) He spluttered some more and finally said, “Um, the garden looks nice, Honey.” I nodded. “I know it does. Good of you to notice. And really, was that so goddamn hard?” Score one for the Crip, eh? Loudly, ~LA
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