Three Very Special Christmas Conversations

1.

Me: I feel kind of bad that I don't bake or have traditional meals or anything at Christmas time.
Dan: Well, that's okay. No one minds or expects you to.
Me: I still feel guilty.
Dan: Think about it though -- how often have your really been here at Christmastime when you weren't too pregnant to be alive anyway.
Me: You're right! That's right! I'm never here at Christmas time! I am completely absolved!
Dan: Yay!
Me: Gee, honey, you could have gotten something homemade out of me on that one. You really played that wrong!
Dan: Did I?

2.

Sadie: This is pink puppy! She's the strongest of all the dogs! She eats bullets! And guns! And monkey meat and kangaroo meat! And then, most furiously, CHEETAH MEAT!

3.

Me: We have to take toilet paper upstairs when we go to bed. There's none in our bathroom.
Dan: Well we don't *have* to.
Me: Oh really? What are our other options?
Dan: We could just scoot around on the rug.

A New Day

I have decided that the missing factor in my weight loss plan is nerdiness. I am a big nerd and while I am not really comfortable with analysis and introspection, I do really like rules, specific orders, and competition. I also really like computers and games and ticking things off in boxes and little icons and social networking. So when my friend Joshilyn suggested that we do Weight Watchers Online, it was as if the clouds had parted an a single sunbeam shone down on my face.

The Weight Watchers site is high on ticky-ticky boxes and rules and things to click. It is a little low on social networking. However, I feel that if I look for 2 seconds I will find a WW Flickr group, a WW Facebook group, and many more ways to get my nerd on. The idea is to make weight loss more like a computer game. If this can be done, I will be svelte in mere moments.

So tomorrow is my first weigh-in. I am optimistic. I haven't weighed myself since the beginning of the 50 day challenge, so who knows? Maybe I have actually lost those 20 pounds already, and replaced them with good thoughts or kind intentions of equal volume!

Me: So, do you feel confident in my ability to properly execute Weight Watchers?
Dan: (trying to watch The Simpsons) Mmm hmm.
Me: Do you ever wish I would just shut the hell up so you could watch The Simpsons?
Dan: Aww, honey, I never wish you would shut up.
Me: You are the nicest husband in the whole entire universe!
Dan: Shut up.

More Bloggable Dan

To understand the depth of my oppression, you should know that for the first 25 years of my life I read myself to sleep almost every night. It was just what I did. I grew up doing it, and I did it in college, in grad school, etc. You might say it was habitual. Almost necessary. Then I married Dan and between this, that, and the other, I can't do it anymore.

There are several reasons but perhaps the most significant reason is that there is no light by my side of the bed. Wait. There is a light. But it is a pretend light that is plugged into nothing. I believe that years ago it used to be plugged into something like, you know, an outlet with electricity running through it. In fact, I remember turning it on in order to change a diaper in the middle of the night when Sadie was still co-sleeping. However, once that necessity was removed, the light somehow magically got unplugged and all the outlet spaces in the area got magically used up with other things. Plus, the only outlet on that wall is behind the 40 ton bed and only Dan can bed-wrangle effectively enough to plug something into it.

Dan is disturbed by night-time reading. It keeps him awake. He doesn't like me doing it. This has been a minor point of contention between us for years.

So last night I was feeling restless and irritable and I'm in the middle of a book I'm interested in, and I whined, "See, I really wish I could read myself to sleep right now. Just six pages of Tom Wolfe and I know I would be able to sleep peacefully!"

And Dan responded, "Awww, honey, don't give up. If you keep working on your phonics with the kids, I'm sure you'll be able to read someday!"

And I said, "I'm telling the internet you said that mean hateful thing."

And he said, "Oh good. That'll play well on CNN."

So my question: Given his unabashed lack of sensitivity to my wishes on this point, do I need to

1. Climb under the bed and plug in my lamp. (I may never get back out.)
2. Get over it. Life with Dan has other compensations. (He is very good at video games.)
3. Read in the bathroom, crying softly, until he relents. (Could take forever.)

Everyone on TV has separate bed lamps! Therefore, it must be true!

Bloggable Dan

Benny has a fever and I'm not feeling so great either. Bully for me. Bully for you. My spine is feeling like a sad little goat with a very sharp axe is methodically, dutifully slicing away at it. And I feel myself getting whatever cold or flu Benny has invented, I can taste my tonsils and my throat feels gritty. So, GREAT.

I got up to make coffee, and creaked across the floor, all stiff and irritable. Dan asked me if I was okay, and I said something along the lines of, "Oh, I'm fine, I just have the back goat slicing away, and am miserable, but THAT IS FINE, because nobody knows, and NOBODY CARES, and do you know why nobody knows, and nobody cares? BECAUSE I SUFFER IN SILENCE. I go along, trudging, secretly groaning, rotting, dying, and nobody RECOGNIZES THIS and I get no sympathy, no love, from the dark bland wasteland of this miserable world, because I do not complain, and I do not holler about it, and I still get up to make the coffee, and I DO NOT DISCUSS IT."

You know, something like that. It might have been exactly that. It might have been something even more obnoxious. I might have sloshed blame around with a thick, broad paintbrush. Of course, Dan is accustomed to blame. He wears it like a protective mantle. The dark, blamey mantle of marriage. That protects him from joy.

Anyway, so much later I was doing something (noble and self-sacrificing, no doubt) and I said something to the effect of, "My throat hurts. AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT." And Dan said, "You're right, I don't know. You must be suffering silently again." And then I said, "Do you know what you are?" meaning to say something like that he was cruel and unusual, and he said, wincing, "Bloggable?"

Bloggable Dan

#1:

Dan: "Leroy, you have such terrible breath. It smells like you pooped a fish and then ate it."

#2:

Dan: "Wait, does a vertical line have a slope?"
Me: (with certainty) "Yes, a vertical line has a slope of one. A horizontal line has a slope of zero. A vertical line has a slope of one."
Dan: "Are you SURE?"
Me: "Yes! A vertical line has a---"
Dan: "--slope that's undefined. It's undefined."
Me: "You're totally right. You're right and I am insane. And I am in charge of homeschooling your children."
Dan: "Yeah, thank goodness they make books."

RIGHT DAN. Thank goodness for THEM and those BOOKS they make.

My Husband is Awesome

New Hampshire results are in, and Hillary is victorious. All over the blogosphere, pro-Hillary blogs are using up their yearly allotment of exclamation points and squees: "Go girl!!!!!! SQUEEE!!!!!"

Here's Dan wearing his penalty shirt:

I said, "Now, I need a nice cheerful over-the-shoulder thumbs-up."

My Husband

Last night in bed, I couldn't get comfortable.

Me: I can't get comfortable. I'm restless.
Him: Mmm.
Me: I blame you.
Him: Mmm.

Obviously, he was trying to go to sleep or something.

Me: I blame you for everything, you know. Even traffic in DC. Even scented candles.
Him: I know, and I let you. It does seem to make you feel better, and I know that I am in all things impervious to blame.

Then I tied him up in the blankets and sawed off his head with my forearm. No, not really. I still like him too much to decapitate him.

At least I know I have an open ticket now, for blame that is. And I am willing to share. Feel free to blame Dan for everything from your lost dog to your broken toe. He is, after all, I M P E R V I O U S. No sense letting that go to waste.