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Veeda is convinced that we are going to have a fight before our first wedding anniversary this Sunday. Apparently she has been led to believe that this is an unavoidable universal occurance and that I am foolish for thinking we might just escape our fate. She has been bringing this up on occasion for the last month or more. So far we haven’t had any blow-ups. I honestly don’t think we’ll have this collossus that is purported to be a marriage milestone. Veeda seems anxious to get it over with, as if the anticipation is just eating her up. It’s sort of like when the doctor is honest to you about how much the needle they are about to stick you with is going to hurt and you tense up just waiting to be overwhelmed by the piercing sensation. Sometimes it doesn’t really hurt that much and they have to tap you on the shoulder to tell you that it’s over cause you’re still clenched up with your eyes closed tight waiting for that excruciating pain you’ve heard so much about. On the other hand, sometimes you react by wailing and holding your arm and screaming about how you’ll never recover from the agony now that you have a gaping hole in your arm, and the doctor has to tap you on the shoulder and tell you that he hasn’t even used the needle yet. That’s what we call a pygmalion; a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes, when she brings up the fateful eruption I think we might just have that big fight… about whether or not we are going to have a big fight. Then again, it could end up like the booster shot I got when I was just a kid. The needle didn’t hurt. I was fine getting the shot, but later on it left my arm in sorry shape. We could pass through the anniversary without a hitch and heave a sigh of relief. Then, days later when we’ve forgotten the curse upon us it’ll happen. We’ll have a big stupid fight and I really will end up sleeping on the couch this time.

I suppose any one of those things could happen, but that’s why I don’t believe in Doctors anymore.

Posted by poweredbyapathy at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I wen to a Walkmen concert last night with my good friend Josh. As we were waiting for the opening bands to go away a hippie couple took up camp in front of us. Hippies bug me. They are unkempt if not dirty; they are always asking for change; they think drum circles are awesome, many of them are stupid high school kids who just want to smoke pot and eat hallucinogenic mushrooms and not remnants from the woodstock era; they dance really badly; they are always dancing. So, they were dancing badly in front of us and the hippie girl happened to make eye contact as her head was sort of dangling on her neck as she flopped there and she gave me that “hey man, cool band huh? Life is sooo rad” smile and went on dancing badly. If you smile at me it makes it hard for me to hate you! You are supposed to just stand too close smelling sour with hair and dirt all over your body and ask me if I have rolling paper or if I have any change! You broke the rules. That’s not cool. I can’t even be mad at you about it and that makes me furious. The next thing I know I’m watching you two dance and thinking, “I hate the way hippies dance, but that guy seems like the nicest guy in the room right now and I just can’t seem to keep a cynical thought in my head long enough to make it stick.” You’ve just messed with my worldview. Now, I have to qualify every remark I make about hippies, like:

“They’re actually pretty cool when they are too far away to smell”

“They’re actually pretty cool when they aren’t playing the damn drums”

“They’re actually pretty cool when they aren’t asking for change or rolling papers”

“They’re actually pretty cool when you pull that stick our of your butt… and beat them with it (sorry, I just can’t quite make that last statement. I’m not into beating anyone but I’m not totally reconciled with the hippie culture and I had to abort. I will probably never want to hang out with most hippies, but I don’t think it’s unfair to ask you to meet the rest of us half-way. Just work on that hygiene and work on not asking us for rolling papers and/or change all the time. I don’t like the dancing, but I think it’s kind of cool that you don’t care. We simply need some distinguishing features to be able to tell you apart from the mentally ill homeless people with whom you share so many qualities.)

Posted by poweredbyapathy at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

We are on the downward slope of this pregnancy. We are anxious to meet our little girl and blindly positive about the ways her arrival will change our lives forever. One change which Veeda is anxiously awaiting is the dramatic weight loss that will come with the expulsion of her little freeloader and all of the extra things a pregnant body takes on in preparation for labor. Her belly is big and our little girl kicks like a punter. To me her belly is a smooth round wonderous orb that I like to rub for good luck and to cradle when the baby is kicking. Although it is no less miraculous to Veeda, it is far more of an inconvenience. That new girth throws her balance off, makes it hard to get up and down and makes her back ache. She could surely amass a larger list than that. Now, seven and a half months into pregnancy, she feels very big and slow. She says that she feels like a Stegasaurus. A grazing, spiky tailed dinosaur. If paleontologists want to understand dinosaurs, they really ought to speak to pregnant women. My wife understands what it feels like to BE a dinosaur.

(for the record, she still looks beautiful but refuses to believe me or the very many other people who tell her that almost daily)

Posted by poweredbyapathy at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)