We Need To

The two days of vacation time that I had all to myself were a wash. The first day I wasted and the second, though I tried to make some new drawings, they were crap. My heart wasn't in it and I didn't stick to my usual methods of working. I just set myself up to fail. But the weekend wasn't so bad. I expected that all of the time would need to go toward taking down Christmas decorations and moving things up into the attic, but there was time for other things.

On Saturday morning, for instance, my wife slept pretty late and I did one of my best drawings so far. I colorized it on the computer and posted it on a drawing forum website where it got some positive feedback. The last drawing I posted there had received no responses at all, which is pretty rare on that site. When my wife finally woke up Saturday morning, she didn't get out of bed too quickly, which indicated to me that she was ready for some nookie. Normally when we have sex after a hiatus I feel like the first time isn't too spectacular, but it was really good.

Sunday morning, she slept in again. We hadn't done any housework on Saturday, so I wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. By the time she got up, I had already done a sinkful of dishes and dismantled the Christmas tree. She got out of bed, though. We had breakfast together on the couch and watched TV for about an hour. I put my arm around her and acted sweet. Then she got up and and I pulled her back down so she was sitting on my lap. I ran my hands over her body, massaged her. I fondled her breasts and she laughed. And then she got up. I got the sense that she wanted to get started on the housework now. No matter that she slept for three hours after I got up and then proceeded to kill an hour doing nothing sitting on the couch. Now, all of a sudden, the housework was important to her. More important than what I wanted to do, apparently.

I finished working on the kitchen and then went to take a shower alone. When I take a shower alone it means that she will probably shower alone later and I will have 10 or 15 minutes to myself to look at pornography if I want. In the shower I thought all of my usual frustrated thoughts. I wished I could communicate how I felt, but I couldn't conceive of a way to do it without having her get defensive and angry. That wouldn't accomplish anything. When I was getting dressed I said to her, "Yesterday was so great. We were so in sync with one another. And I managed to do a good drawing that I'm proud of." I was hoping she would realize that I was comparing yesterday to the present day, but I think the point was lost.

While a mechanic was coming to fix a flat tire on one of our cars, I took down all of the Christmas lights on our house. My wife emerged to say she would help me once she'd had some lunch. The mechanic fixed the tire and I finished taking down the lights. I brought them inside in a tangled clump. She helped me separate them and then we went to work in the garage. We had all of the Halloween and Christmas decorations, plus some furniture to move into the attic. I started moving things up. My wife asked what she could do to help. I suggested some things. She announced that she was getting a headache and that she had some work she needed to do for her job. See you later. When she talks about things that need to be done around the house, the sentence starts "We need to..." but it typically translates as "You need to..." She came back out later and helped me finish cleaning up the garage. Even though she was getting on my nerves, I still felt good about everything we had accomplished. The house did look much better than it has in a while.

One of the things my wife says we need to do is, "We need to pay off our credit card debt." The unspoken corollary is, "While I still purchase whatever random things I want for myself." So this weekend she wanted a Stylophone which was available on eBay. A Stylophone is an instrument that David Bowie played on "Space Oddity." Mind you, she already has one smaller Stylophone which I've only heard her play once, and that was when she first got it. It's obviously not a priority for me that we have another one, but I'm not really interested in being the asshole that quashes her dreams either, so I just told her, "I don't feel like I can talk to you about it. I know you want it, but I don't believe that you won't ever find another one up for auction again." She agreed and said that she wouldn't pay more than $115 for it. Shipping is $25, so she wouldn't have paid more than $140 for it. Thankfully, someone outbid her. And believe it or not, it wasn't me.

She said she was going to take a shower and invited me to join her. I reminded her that I had already showered. She said it would just be quick and that she planned to wear a shower cap to keep her hair from getting wet. That light blue shower cap has to be the most unattractive thing I have ever seen her wear. I told her that she wasn't selling me on the idea. She said she wouldn't wear the shower cap, so I went and showered with her. Neither of us were very affectionate though.

Then we went to bed. I would have enjoyed some sex if she initiated it, but she didn't. While she fell asleep I watched some of Chris Rock's standup on TV. He talked about how if you've never felt like killing your partner, you haven't really been in love. How if you like having sex, then marriage isn't for you. How when you're in a relationship, you both need to have the same focus. And the focus needs to be on her. I grinned and felt validated. She dismissed his commentary saying, "Black people are different than white people. Men are different than women." A lot of black comedians' standup does sound like that to me, but Chris Rock was being a bit more insightful than that.

After she fell asleep I watched some crappy adult programming on a Cinemax subscription my wife doesn't know about. I got bored and turned it off. Sometimes I want to improve our communication and have us both commit to trying harder to meet each others' needs, and sometimes I just want my needs to go away.