Just Shut Up.

You act like you're fourteen years old.
Everything you say is so
Obnoxious, funny, rude and mean.
I want to be your blowjob queen.

-Liz Phair

Liz Phair's "Flower" song was stuck in my head today. My husband was being a charming, grumpy, handsome, fussy fool of a man-child beast. He is tired. He's worked a lot this week, and the work he's doing is hard. It's going to take him a long time to get used to being up and out of the house, being a grown-up and all that. It was rainy and cold today, and he was working outside, so when he came home, he had a fierce need to let me know how awful it was.

I am getting better at ignoring him when he's crazy. He threw some sort of man-tantrum about the side of the bed next to where he sleeps. He generally has a giant stack of clothes piled up there, and I'll pick them up when I'm doing the laundry on the weekends.

Why can't you just leave my clothes that I have on the floor over here alone? I want to have something that's mine! You clean up everything, and I want to have one place that can be messy!

It's great. For a few minutes, I was really hurt. I was trying to do his laundry, to help him, and he acted as if I'd been trying to take something away from him. I started questioning myself...should I not be helping with his laundry? Is there some indignity that I'm foisting upon him by cleaning up the bedroom that we share? I quickly decided, however, that it doesn't matter, and that something great has happened: I'm off the hook for his laundry! I finished the load that I was working on, and instead of folding his clothes, I threw them on the floor next to his side of the bed! Instead of washing his clothes that were in the pile of dirty laundry, I threw them on the floor by his side of the bed.

I hope he enjoys his mess.

Rare Form.

My baby was fussy tonight.

My husband behaves sometimes as if he were a giant slobbering infant from hell. His mood was foul, which made him break all our plans for the evening to go lie in bed and pout. Generally, I am very good at detaching from this scenario. When he is pissy and miserable and whiny and shitty to be around, I go away and protect my sanity from his bullshit. Tonight, however, he'd had a job interview, and we'd talked about us updating the website where he keeps his portfolio to make it easier for the boss to evaluate his work. I'd agreed to help him with that.

While he was hiding in the bed, pouting and pretending to go to bed, I started fretting about how he needs to update the site. I'd volunteered to do it for him, as I'm more proficient with the whole web thing, and he acted as if I were shitting in the kitchen sink (this phrase courtesy Damsel In Distress) by offering to help. His response was absurd and stupid.

I know when this addicty dramatic (and this phrase courtesy EJ) behavior is coming. I can see it coming from a thousand million miles away. I know the scenarios by heart, and I know the response that I need to have prepared to prevent myself from getting entangled in his insanity.

Is that the response I have tonight? Nope. I tangled.

I realize later that the reason I engaged in his whiny, shitty behavior is that I'm excited about the prospect of this job, and I wanted to do everything I could to help him get it. If I could update his website, that is me helping him out. I also was upset that he shitted our plans for the evening in favor of lying on the bed with the covers over his head feeling sorry for himself for his headlong dive into self-defeat and self-destruction. I was upset that instead of going to the meeting tonight, he sat in the car. I was upset that he was doing that goddamned addict dance of need and rejection, want and repulsion. I was upset that there was a goddamned needle in my yard this weekend. I was upset. I didn't respond right. I wanted his website updated, and I wanted him to want it, and I wanted it now.

It's better, and I'm better. I like to have these little lapses into participating in his mad dance so that I can remember why it's so important that I don't. I can't participate. It hurts me.