Conversations from Cohabitation

Are you guys watching the Olympics? Ok, we don’t normally get into them. But this year? TOTALLY hooked.

First, if you didn’t watch Women’s Rugby, you haven’t lived. In the words of my friend Mary: 

“This sh*t is bananas!”

Second, my husband and I should not be allowed to watch, well, any television together, really. Separately, we’re decent human beings. Together? We make a terrible human couple who should not be in charge of raising two respectful young ladies.

Last night, while watching men’s synchronized platform diving (as you do), this conversation occurred:

Me: “Wait. His name is Steele Johnson?”
CB: “Yeah…..”

Silence. Listening to commentators for about 5 minutes.

CB: “Is it just me, or are there double entendres everywhere?”
Me: “Oh my God EVERYWHERE. I wasn’t saying anything because I didn’t want to be gross for once. But come ON.”
CB: “Yeah. ‘Rough entry’?”
Me: “Penetrates the water?”
CB: “STEELE JOHNSON?”

Silence. *

Me: “We should be civilian sports announcers for the Olympics. Like, they have these two boring people here telling us all about form. But we can tell whether they’re going to get an 8 or a 9.5 by how much of a splash they make in the water. So who’s really the expert? Plus, you know that we would be speaking to America. No WAY other people haven’t started making inappropriate jokes, too. No WAY.”
CB: “We’d get kicked off of the air in about 4 minutes.”
Me: “But it’d be such a glorious 4 minutes.”

*it’s important to note that, during this conversation, CB made the dirtiest joke I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth and I actually was stopped in my tracks. I cannot repeat it here because, at some point, our daughters will be able to read and should never, ever know that this exists in their father’s terrible brain.

***

While getting into bed last night, we had this conversation. It’s important to understand that CB has slept with only one pillow for approximately four years. I sleep with three pillows and we use two separate blankets because sharing is for kinder sleepers who are not me:

Me: “Remember when we first started dating and we’d share a blanket and you slept with two pillows?”
CB: “Yeah, the good ole’ days.”
Me: “Oh man, it was torture. You didn’t use a fan, or have the windows open, and you’d have the heat on!”
CB, laughing: “Yeah, it’s called winter. Oh man, you’re a piece of work. Like I was doing something odd by having no fan and the windows closed with the heat on in the WINTER.”
Me, laughing.
CB: “You know what was odd? Having snow in my hair when I’d wake up! ‘Gee, why do you have pneumonia again for the second time this month?’ ‘Oh, I started dating this girl and she’s INSANE.”
Me, still laughing: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you knew exactly who you were marrying, it’s not like I hid it after the first few months.”
CB: “But those first few months you lured me in by making me think you were normal with your siren song: ‘Oh here, have two pillows. Oh here, we can share a blanket.”
Me: “Well that’s your fault. I was never normal. I was just being more polite.”
CB: “So can we go back to when that was one of your priorities? Because the air conditioning is currently set at 60 degrees and I wear a sweatshirt to bed in the middle of the summer.”
Me: “Negative. That ship has sailed.”

Thursday Wrapup? Sure!

Let's get to it!

***

Ok, so I know that I haven't done a wrapup in a while, but as you've maybe noticed, I'm on a roll this week! But you may have also noticed that it's Thursday instead of Friday, which isn't lost on me even though we all know that my brain is not my own right now.

Anyway, I'm leaving for the hottest place on earth tomorrow morning, known as Alabama, for inexplicable reasons. Or, to visit a dear friend and her adorable newish little baby boy. It's deep love for me to head to the deep south in the heat of summer, lemme tell you.

***

This week's book is "The Girl With All The Gifts" by M.R. Carey. Any review that starts with "I am not a fan of zombies" has me hooked! Also, this book is being turned into a movie soon, so get on it and read the book so you can lord it over people that you're more intellectual and didn't just hop on the "I'm reading the book because now it's a movie" bandwagon. Lording over people is a great reason to read!

Check it out by clicking here.

***

Last night, CB and I were watching the Mets game and an ad came on for a Styx concert at CitiField later this summer. They put those poor, aging rock stars in Mets jerseys and made them talk about the show while trying to sound cool and rocker-y.

Me: "Wow. It's kind of hard to be an older rock star and be cool, I guess."

Silence.

Me: "I mean, I can't think of one cool, old rock star."

Silence.

Me: "Right? I mean, can you? Think of one!"
CB: "Bruce Springsteen?"
Me: "He's not old, he's like 50."
CB, staring at me: "He's older than 50."
Me: "No way."
CB, googling: "Yep, he's 66."
Me: "What?! No way! Ok, he's a cool, older rock star. But he's not, like, old old. Like the Rolling Stones. Poor Mick Jagger just needs to stop. And that other guy who looks like he's been dead for 20 years but is still playing the guitar."
CB: "True."

Silence.

Me: "Actually, I think Eric Clapton is older and he's still cool."
CB: "True. And Billy Joel."
Me: "Ok, I'll give you that."
CB: "And Tom Petty."
Me: "Yeah, he's still cool."

Silence.

Me: "Ok, so I guess you can be older and still cool. But not Styx."
CB: "Yeah, definitely not Styx."

***

And now, the Video of the Week. I chose it because I love Brandi Carlile even though her last name inexplicably doesn't have an "s" in it, which confuses me. I spent a lot of time trying to make it so, too, which maybe tells us something about my personality. It's that "controlling" part that CB sometimes mentions as I walk away, pretending not to hear him. Or like last night, when I was trying to "help" him flip the fries by telling him how to flip the fries so they bake to the optimum crispness. All he had to do was sort of look at me with a side-eye and I was like "Oh right, you don't want this kind of 'help.' I'll continue to work on that." And then walked away.

Anyway, enjoy!

A Public Service Announcement

Repeat after me: “You look great!”

End scene.

If you must, re-read that sentence again, as often as needed, before speaking with a pregnant person again for your entire lifetime. Why? Because it’s all you need to know.

Let me be honest: nobody wants your opinion about their body ever. Like, ever. But they especially don’t want your opinion about their body when they’re carrying another body inside of it while trying to sprint across the street to beat the light. Oh, also, nobody wants to hear your opinion about how I shouldn’t sprint across the street to beat the light, either.

You see, I’ve been conducting a little experiment during my second pregnancy because I’ve wised up in the last 18 months. With my first, I was honest. People would ask when I was due, I’d tell them. They’d touch my stomach without asking, I’d let them. They’d comment on how good or bad I looked and I’d either downplay the positive or agree with the negative so I didn’t look arrogant or moody or defensive or human.

But now I’ve decided to beat ‘em at their own game. Mainly so CB doesn’t have to deal with me not wanting to leave the house or throwing all of my clothes away.

First, I lie. Well, sometimes, it really depends on you, person-I’m-speaking-with-about-my-body. I can tell by the way you ask and the look on your face whether you’re judging my size positively or negatively. If you’re all casual about it, I tell you the truth. Sometimes that backfires and I get a “woah, are you sure it’s not twins?” comment, to which I immediately regret not lying to their face and/or smacking it. But usually they’re smart enough to be nice about it and say “that’s great, how are you feeling?” and move off of talking about my width.

However, if you’re someone who clearly is ready to pounce, I lie. I go up. For example: this morning, a cashier asked me how far along I was. I’m four months, so I lied and said five and a half. Because for four months, I’m apparently a whale. For five and a half, I’m a waif. “Wow, you look great!” And then I walk away completely confident in my ability to not care that I just added 6 weeks to my belly for my own peace of mind.

Now, I know what some of you will say: “You shouldn’t care what people think, every pregnancy is different.” Yes, person, you are correct. However, I’ll just go ahead and ask you to walk around Manhattan for the duration of your pregnancy and not eventually make a game out of it for your own sanity.

You think I’m being dramatic? That’s very unlike me, first of all. Second of all, here are actual things people have said to me when I tell them the truth:

“Wow, I guess with a second pregnancy you really do get bigger faster.”

“Wow, are you sure you’re not carrying twins?” wink wink. Yeah, wink wink this.

“Wow, do they have the due date wrong?”

“Wow, I can’t imagine what 9 months will look like!”

And now, here are things people have said when I lied:

“Wow, you look great!”

Yep, that’s it. And it’s a lesson for everyone. Because I didn’t get pregnant to win some beauty competition, though my skin is killer, you guys, and my hair has never been more lush – pre-natal vitamins, yo, I’m telling you. But I’m also still me, the same person who couldn’t brush off critical comments before I built someone else’s spleen. You think it’s better now that I have extra hormones?

And so I’m writing this as a public service announcement to everyone:

Repeat after me: “You look great!”

End scene. 

My Brain Has Left the Building

So I think that my brain is a bit overwhelmed at the moment – probably a combination of having a 13 month old with Coxsakie, juggling work and a crazy schedule lately, being pregnant and hormonal, and watching too many episodes in a row of Season 1 of Mr. Robot (OHMYGOD). Probably mostly the last part.

And when my brain gets overwhelmed, two things happen:

1. It stops working. In just the last week, these are two of the many things that have occurred on my watch within a 24 hour period:

• I wrote two checks last Monday; one for our car payment, one to our daycare. Except then I got a call from daycare later that day saying “So, we got a check from you but it was made out to Ford Credit for a different amount?” To which I responded, “Oh crap, that means that Ford will get a check made out to Happy Today and Bright Tomorrow. They’re going to be so confused.”
• I went to the grocery store and came back with too many bags for me to carry up to our apartment all at once. So I asked CB to go back down to the car to get the rest from the trunk. While he was gone and I was unloading the others, I started panicking that at least half of the groceries I just knew I purchased weren’t anywhere to be found! So I started preparing for telling CB that I left at least four bags of groceries at ShopRite and would need to go back to get them. Darn pregnancy brain…..and then CB came upstairs with the remaining groceries I thought I’d forgotten about. You know, the groceries I sent him downstairs to get…..

2. I have really crazy dreams. Like last night, when I dreamt that Johnny Depp made me a drinking glass out of chocolate chip cookies PLUS extra chocolate chip cookies to dunk into the chocolate chip cookie glass. I mean, that’s an awesome dream and should become reality, don’t get me wrong. But still a bit odd. Or the night before that when I had a dream that an albino chicken was attacking me while I was trying to go visit our friends’ new baby. But to be fair, that could totally happen because farm birds are the worst.

Oh, and I get super emotional and sentimental. Hence, crying on and off all day yesterday. And also, having conversations like this with CB.

Me: “I hope we get to stay married for a long time and you don’t die.”
CB: “Um…me too? Also, why am I the one dying in this scenario?”
Me: “Because the other night we took that quiz online about how long we’ll live, and I’m living until I’m 96. Duh.”
CB: “Oh, right.”

Silence.

Me, tearing up: “If you do die, would you want me to get re-married?”
CB: “Oh God. We’re having this conversation?”
Me: “Yes, it’s important!”
CB: “It’s really not.”

Silence.

CB: “Fine. If I die, I’d like you to re-marry again eventually. I mean, feel free to grieve for a while, though. But yeah, I’d want you to be happy and it’d be nice for you to have a partner.”
Me: “Aw, that’s so nice of you. But I probably wouldn’t love him as much.”
CB: “Probably?”
Me: “It depends on who I meet.”
CB: “I love you, too.”

Silence.

CB: “So if you die, do you want me to re-marry?”
Me: “I mean, honestly? No, not really. I want you to love me forever. But then I’d feel bad and you are too good of a guy and I do love you unselfishly, I guess. So I’d want you to find someone if she makes you happy. But please not some annoying woman who would badly influence our girls. I’ll haunt you forever.”
CB: “You’re haunting me forever regardless of whether you’re dead or alive.”
Me: “We really should re-write our vows.”

Happy Monday, everyone!