4/28: What I Accomplished Today

1. I was awakened today by, "I don't want to be a shrew." I, of course, groaned something that was probably supposed to be, "Good" and tried to go back to sleep. But the Co-Vivant said, "I caught up on your blog, and I'm concerned that I sound like a shrew."

Okay, this is apparently going to be a real conversation for which I must be awake.

"You're not a shrew. I've been with you ten years. Why would I stay ten years with a shrew?"

"You spent quite a log of time trying to demonstrate how much you do around the house (which, incidentally, didn't prove your case at all because it was bubkes), and I just seem to watch TV and not help you."

"Oh, those were funny stories! I think they make you look cute, sweet, and charming!" (This was probably a mistake, as none of these are goals of hers.)

"I look like a shrew."

So I thought about this for awhile, and later in the day, I said, "You know, we have a hundred times a day when we have a good time and laugh together, but I didn't post those because I'm trying to preserve privacy and anonymity; did you notice I'm using no names? Our good times are not the internet's business; they're personal and private."

"And I appreciate that, but the stories that are left make me look like a stupid nag."

"You're neither stupid nor a nag."

2. The lady came to clean the house, so we went to Costco. When she was done, we took her home.

At this point, more or less, I asked my Co-Vivant, "If you're not happy with your depiction, would you like me to stop blogging?"

"No. That would be shrewish of me."

"I'm also noticing that you're not commenting on whether or not you enjoyed the blog."

Beat. Beat. Uh oh.

"I don't know. I haven't read many blogs before, so I don't really know much about the form. You have some interesting points, but you don't seem to come to any conclusions."

"I don't think anything's ever done."

Whenever I introduce the research paper, I specifically have to say, "No, you're not writing me a biography of Napoleon or Henry Rollins or anyone at all. As far as I'm concerned, biographies don't qualify as college-level research papers because Lives Don't Have Thesis Sentences. Sometimes, over the course of learning someone's life, you see patterns, but that's only when observing the life as a whole, which, to be frank, you can't do adequately with a week and a half of research."

She and I both consider each other good writers, I think, but we both like our own writing better (sensibly enough; we each write in the style we chose to practice and develop). I tend to write for character and plot, and she tends to write for description and word use. I am not at all visual, so I don't tend to describe things; as I read, I'm making a movie in my head, and it infuriates me when the writer says the dress is blue when I can see perfectly well that my movie works best if the dress is red or green or chartreuse. I want the dialogue; I learn things by hearing them, and I usually write good dialogue. But I don't care what the room looks like or what color people's eyes are or how the couch is upholstered. And yes, I agree that my division of "character and plot" and "description and word use" is arbitrary and artificial, but I also think it's accurate.

3. We enjoyed The Whales of August so much last night that tonight we were inspired to watch our other NetFlix movie, Little Miss Sunshine. This was a wonderful movie; yet again, it falls into the Devil Wears Prada/Ugly Betty theme of being true to the self. Interesting twist on the quest motif; it's a series of failed quests, which is unusual, and it's even more unusual that most of the main characters manage growth, and certainly the family coheres, through these "botched missions." A few little twists we didn't see coming, which is fun.

Both of these NetFlix films worked just fine in our player, so the first DVD must have been defective. I went to the website and marked it accordingly.

Let's think. Then we watched Best Week Ever and Acceptable TV. The problem with the latter is that it's difficult to decide what to vote for, the funniest ideas or the most sustainable concepts. Several of the sketches (like the Joke Investigation thing from the first episode) were hysterically funny, but I wasn't sure how they were going to be able to produce one of those every week. Why do people keep voting for Mr. What's-his-name, the Cat-in-the-Hat gone awry? It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it's holding up well.

Then we watched a lot of The World Stands Up, a BBC show with 5-10 minute snippets of several comics. We'd seen most of these before, so we cleared them quickly.

4. Read the last 50 pages or so of the Oppenheimer. I didn't see the St. John portion as that controversial (except for one cranky neighbor story), so I wasn't sure what the deal was. Sad life. Started the Norton Critical Edition of The Writings of St. Paul, which I got as an exam copy for my Bible as Lit class. I don't foresee assigning it in the class, but it should be useful for me to read it nonetheless.

Two magazines came today, Nutrition Newsletters or some such and something called Reason. I have no idea where the latter came from, and I have no recollection of having seen it before or ordered it, but the mailing label says I have a year's subscription, so I must have. It seems to be libertarian, which is okay by me; I think it's an interesting viewpoint even if I don't always agree with it. It had a really interesting profile of the Wikipedia guy and a run-down of what each of the current major presidential candidates of either party would mean from a Libertarian point of view which was actually a very good summary of where each candidate stands on various issues. (Again, my point of view isn't a strictly Libertarian point of view, but I'm highly in favor of discussions of candidates that discuss their actual views on important issues.)

The magazine was published by a non-profit so it didn't have ads per se, but it had several public-service-announcementy looking pages, more than one of which expounded the virtues of an economist named Hayek. Judging from the pictures, Selma doesn't seem to be involved. I have never formally studied economics, and my suspicion is that this isn't necessarily the sort of economist studied in book; seeing these pages felt a little spy-like to me, like glimpsing a Unification Church ad extolling Reverend Moon. (Again, I don't know who this Hayek is, and this comment may be very inappropriate, but that's what it looked like from one issue of a magazine I don't believe I've ever seen before.)

I wonder where they got my name.

5. Finished four Pogo badges, the two for the week and two Mix-and-Match badges. Still working on the pool personal challenge.

6. Got my World of Warlock Human Paladin to level 23.

7. Today's BigFishGame is based on Spongebob. I gave this a try the last time I saw a game based on Spongebob, the Diner Dash adaptation. It was ear-bleedingly slow, so I won't be downloading this one.

8. Today I helped shop. (I do most of the heavy lifting at Costco, which included nine five-gallon boxes of water this month; it's usually 12. This also involves getting them onto the cart, getting them into the car if we can't get a loader, and getting them into the house.) I also put water in the frig and on the counter. I stayed out of the way of the lady who cleans the house.

I also injured myself at Costco today; getting a carton of copy paper, my pinky got jammed into my hand. Doesn't really hurt; feels odd if I think about it, but I haven't all day. Co-vivant made me ice it when we got home, and now the swelling's down. I was trying to downplay it, but she said, "Look at your hand. Your pinky is swollen. This is going to be a bruise here on the wrist. This is a Palmer bruise; you're going to have a problem with your thumb's opposibility for a while." As I said before, I'm not particularly visual, and I didn't see any of these mystically invisible bruises (I don't know what a Palmer bruise is; my guess is that it has something to do with penmanship), but I tend to do what she says medically. I apparently did it wrong, because it wouldn't numb. It was fine this evening, though.


Because of my Co-Vivant's comments, I've been thinking about consequences today. I obviously didn't write anything thinking, "This will make her look mean" or "This will make her feel foolish." Actually, most of the house stuff I put because I thought she'd think it was funny in a "lady-doth-protest-too-much" sort of way. Oh, well. Since she's brought up the concern, I can see how the representation isn't balanced because I mentioned almost none of the good or fun times we had because, not to be mean or anything, but I fail to see how they're your business. I don't know you. (Even if I do know you, I can't imagine that you're all that interested in what goes on in this house on a moment-by-moment basis.)

Twelve or thirteen years ago, my ex and I lived with her brother and sister-in-law-to-be in a very nice in a very nice neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. As you do, we just went about our lives reading and watching television and eating meals and just living. As you do. And one night, my ex and I were sitting at the dining room table eating dinner, and we noticed that the man across the street had binoculars and was watching us through the front windows as we ate our spaghetti.

I went a little ballistic and wanted to march across the street and confront him. "Jeeze, people can't sit and enjoy their spaghetti in peace? Does he think lesbians have some mystical way in which we eat spaghetti differently than other people? What kind of crappy mental illness is this?"

And my ex's brother and future sister-in-law said, "Don't take this personally, and this isn't sexual-orientation related; he does it to us, too."

Now this is obviously different, because this isn't precisely the equivalent of sitting in the dining room that happens to have a picture window facing the street and eating a private dinner that is violated by some sad, pathetic little person with no life. This is my opening the curtains and windows and inviting you to watch portions of the day. I understand that.

But I can also see that some of the scene selections I've made, or rather the combination of selections I've made, may have made a very smart, funny person look like a shrew. (We've been having fun with Taming of the Shrew jokes all day. "Would this make you Elizabeth Taylor? You know, there are worse things to be than Elizabeth Taylor.")

This is, by definition, self-indulgent. I'm working under the incredibly arrogant assumption that some human being on planet earth other than my mother and my Co-Vivant might find parts of what goes on in my head interesting. Probably not; I'll probably just type to myself and maybe my Co-Vivant forever. I still think this may be worthwhile.

Other possible consequences, too. I've made it pretty clear that I didn't enjoy either a particular book or a presentation about it, and if someone were really interested (which I doubt anyone is), it would not be hard at all to find the authors and the giver of that presentation, about whom I heard nothing but wonderful, delightful things as a person.

I also made a rather rash statement that the people who subjected our returning veterans to shameful medical conditions should be forced to undergo that same treatment themselves, and I've felt bad about that all day. Forcing other people to undergo wretched treatment themselves would solve no problems and would be mere vindictiveness. That would serve no purpose, and I'm sorry I said that. I wish no ill on people; I would find it hard to believe that their actions were intentional or malicious.


I said earlier that Lives have no Thesis Sentences, and I believe that to be true. As I also said, however, sometimes pattern emerge, but the formation of accurate patterns requires both extensive data and a very long perspective.

That may be at least part of the overriding project here. I don't know yet. But it might be.