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Posts for the date of Friday, September 07, 2001
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 1:45 PM |
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As I sit here I am looking at a yellow piece of paper that I found in my lunch today. It’s from my daughter. It says, “Have a good day. I love you.” You have no idea how it floored me to find it.
This morning she was inspecting her lunch box and found the love note her mother always leaves her. She’s gotten to the point where she can’t wait until she gets to school to see what Mom does. As soon as the car pulls away the daughter is tearing into her lunch box to see what it says. I remember that feeling of excitement about something. Knowing you have something special waiting just for you. And, the crushing feeling when it wasn’t there. I suppose the daughter needs to know that Mom still loves her before she even leaves the house. She can’t wait until lunch, she must know now.
So, this morning I was jokingly lamenting the fact that no one leaves me a note in my lunch box. Sniff. Wounded bear look, etc. As usual, I went back to sipping my coffee and reading the paper.
It’s normal for the daughter to draw or write in the morning. Most often she’s lost in some little project she’s working on and I’m an insignificant bit of white noise on the borders. She’s in the land of childhood focus. The focus so intense that, in her mind, I imagine she sees herself alone in the world while she works. It’s amazing.
When I got to work, I found the note. There was an audible sound of glass shattering. That was my heart breaking and melting. We view children as these little fragile beings who need to be protected from the world. For some reason we see them as easily corrupted or destroyed by any moment that might possibly shake their confidence.
Turns out, it's the other way around. My daughter saw that I was unhappy and feeling left out. She wanted to protect me from that pain. What better way to do it than to provide me with what I needed? Just a little note that reminds me that I’m loved.
And it worked. I made it through today, with no problem. In fact, I’ve had a big grin on my face and wanted to show everyone my little note.
“See? I’m loved. This proves it!”
When Monday rolls around and no one is looking, I’ll check my bag. Maybe I’ll have another note, and for another day I'll have proof that I'm loved.
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Posts for the date of Thursday, September 06, 2001
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 11:47 AM |
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My wife is sleeping with someone else. Someone who is more sensitive to her needs, more attentive to her physical discomfort, a more reliable partner. His name is Bob.
She’s doing this out in the open because . . . she doesn’t care. Sure, it hurts me. I feel pained, but I figure it’s best for her pregnancy and, perhaps, she’ll come back to me after the baby is born.
I doubt that.
Bob is a body pillow.
This is one of the subjects they don’t teach you in fathering school. (They don’t have one? Well, they should.) Pregnant women have an innate need to be surrounded by pillows at all times. It’s for their comfort. Or, in case a roving movie crew needs to film her jumping off our roof and they forgot their airbag.
Our bed currently looks like one of those Indian fantasies where the Raj is sitting in a room of pillows, surrounded by harem girls. He’s getting fanned, while exotic women dance around him in gauzy silk. He thinks, “Perhaps tonight I will take Maryanne over Ginger. Hmmmmm.”
In my house we have the pillows, but no fanning. No gauzy silk. No exotic dancers. Only my wife, Bob and the cat. Yes, the cat has her own space on the bed. Bob is in mine. Currently, if I’m allowed in the bed at all, I have to cram myself into the upper corner, because the other three inhabitants are hogging the rest of the bed.
I’ve tried to move the cat. This is a bad idea.
It wouldn’t be so bad if Bob stayed in the bedroom, but he doesn’t. When we watch TV at night, my wife is wrapped around Bob like Mary Lou Retton around a Chippendale. Again, I’m relegated to the upper corner of the couch. The upper corner seems to be my area. At least I still have an area.
One of these days, I’m expecting to go home and find Bob wearing my clothes, sitting in my chair, eating my dinner. The kids will be calling him daddy and he’ll just sit there, in his feather pillowed indifference. My wife will divorce me for the perfection that is Bob. He has no needs. He has no wants, he has no desires. He’s never asked for a plasma television 18 times in one day. He doesn’t require 18 DVD and CD purchases a month. He’s low maintenance.
Eventually, their relationship will falter. My (ex)wife will wonder why Bob no longer speaks to her. Why he seems so flat and distant. She’ll find that after a few years of use, he isn’t as supple as he once was. And he never helps with the kids or does the dishes. The bastard.
Then she’ll come back to me. After endless sleepless nights, she’ll need a new body pillow, and she’ll seek out the original. Me.
Perhaps I’ll take her back. Maybe I’ll find it in my heart to forgive her cuddling infidelity. Maybe. If I can get a plasma television.
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Posts for the date of Wednesday, September 05, 2001
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 7:31 PM |
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No update today. Except this, which is technically an update.
I had a rotten, rotten day. Horrible. Beyond words. Except, of course, those words that I just used.
Tomorrow will be better.
But probably not.
Maybe.
Ack.
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Posts for the date of Tuesday, September 04, 2001
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 1:08 PM |
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Whatever you do, don’t tell my wife she’s tiny. Because she’s not. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can call her huge either. It’s quite the conundrum.
You know she’s pregnant, so her size is the topic of daily discussion. Usually, she’s happy with it and she gestates away, content with her constantly changing shape. She’s good-natured and seems to have a bizarre relationship with the fetal invader that is currently occupying a good 80% of her abdominal area. It’s a cute little pouch that sticks out in front of her, making her look like the perfect pregnant woman. Compact, glowing and round in all the appropriate places.
Or so I thought.
My family had an innocent get-together this weekend where we all ate, drank (water for the wife) and mingled to our hearts’ content. Of course, wifey was a huge (oops! Sorry, constant) topic of discussion. How is she feeling? Is she excited? Is she having any problems? (Some offered advice . . . we won’t go there.) Everyone commented on how tiny she looked for being six months pregnant. One woman (who isn’t part of the family), when hearing Wifey say she felt bloated said, “Oh honey, you have so long to go! You’re just tiny. You don’t even know what bloated is!” (Husband’s interjection: We met this woman two hours prior to this comment. I guess she was comfortable saying whatever she felt to whomever was in earshot. I should have shot back, “With an ass like yours I’d feel bloated too. Honey.”) Despite my wife’s relative small size (she started small, so it only stands to reason that she remains small), I imagine that a huge portion of her internal organs have been shifted by the gargantuan, constantly shifting uterus and growing being inhabiting the small area. All things considered, if I had something the size of a cantaloupe in my stomach, I’d probably feel bloated too. (Okay, let’s face it. I’d feel bloated and uncomfortable if something the size of a neutron was there. I’d bitch and complain endlessly.) The point is, my wife looks amazing pregnant. Healthy and appropriately sized.
Still, in comparison to other women who have been pregnant in history, perhaps my wife’s stomach isn’t as large as others at the six-month mark. So? I figure that anyone who tells her she’s tiny spent the whole of their 9-month pregnancy camped out at McDonalds drinking cold, congealed fry grease while sucking on raw meat. When labor finally struck (which they thought was gas) these nameless women had to be hauled to the hospital via a forklift. To even get them out they had to remove an entire wall.
Yes, my wife is eating a healthy diet, which has resulted in a woman who has gained a good amount of weight. She looks pregnant and happy, rather than like Jabba the Hutt with a tumor on his stomach.
Still, a woman’s stomach size during pregnancy seems to be a strange sort of status symbol among other women. (Much like penis size in men, but women don’t have to lie.) The larger it is, the better job she’s doing. So, in saying that she’s tiny, she’s hearing that she’s not gestating well. All she has to do is grow a baby and she’s under performing! Of course, this isn’t remotely true, but you can’t tell a pregnant woman that she’s being irrational and survive. It just doesn’t happen.
This presents an interesting conundrum. Normally if my wife asked me if she looked fat, a simple “No honey, you look fantastic” would suffice. Now, I don’t know what to do. She doesn’t look fat at all, but she wants to in order to fulfill the fetal growing requirements impressed upon her by the unwritten code of women. It doesn’t matter, anyway. If I tell her she doesn’t look fat, she cries because she’s not pregnant enough. If I tell her that she looks amazingly fat, perfect for baby growin’ she cries because she is unattractive. It’s a no-win situation. So I have devised my own answer, which I think she will accept. I am trying it this evening; I’ll let you know how it goes.
Tell me what you think of it:
“Why honey, you look gestationally appropriate.”
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