Saturday, January 29, 2005

I Like to Think We Live on the Equator of Love, i.e., That Our Relationship is Not Too Hot Not to Cool Down

Ah, the things that keep love young.

We have our little weekend ritual. We make the coffee and use it to fill two cups of a certain size and then we go into the living room and sit on the sofas -- one pretty big sofa and one smaller sofa -- and drink the coffee and read the newspapers. Right now we read the Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturdays. Add the New York Times to the mix on Sunday mornings.

We talk back and forth on topics of the moment, not in a hectoring way but genially. This is a two-way thing. If someone reading his or her morning paper says in a pleasant way, "Wow. I did not know this," one does not reply, "I know that and have been knowing that for a very long time. (Pause) Welcome to modern times."

The generous answer is," Neither did I." A slightly less generous answer in which you edge toward being a know-it-all with a whiff of condescension is, "I think I read something about that."

If you add, "...beginning in the eighth grade and many times since," you deserve what you get.

So this morning I am looking at something in the newspaper -- I don't really remember what -- and I suddenly ask my wife, "What is it if it isn't a knee?" My wife looks back not with incomprehension but in a bright spirit of interest in the incomprehensible. (There is a difference.)

"I mean," I say, "if the leg bends backward..."

"At the joint," she says helpfully.

"...like with an..."

"An animal? Certain animals." she says.

"Yeah, if it bends forward, it's a knee," I say. "But if it bends backward, is it still a knee."

My wife looks at Her Amazing Husband. She was a biology major before she became an architect. She considers this amazing insight just long enough.

"I believe it is," she says. "I really do."

And in the best of spirits we came to the mutual decision that we will make room for sex in our busy schedules sometime in the near term, midterm -- and I don't mean the 2006 elections -- the very worst case.

(Oh. Is it all right to use the word "sex" on the internet?)

4 comments:

B. Wieder said...

Whereas at our house, the air fairly rings with cheerful cries of "Why have you confused me with someone who gives a fuck?"

....J.Michael Robertson said...

Yet you are a master of the art of marital seduction. That was always the word on the street.

Anonymous said...

IN PRISON...you spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell. AT WORK...you spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.

IN PRISON...you get three meals a day. AT WORK...you only get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON...you get time off for good behavior. AT WORK...you get rewarded for good behavior with more work.

IN PRISON...a guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you. AT WORK...you must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors yourself.

IN PRISON...you can watch TV and play games. AT WORK...you get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON...you get your own toilet. AT WORK...you have to share.

IN PRISON...they allow your family and friends to visit. AT WORK...you cannot even speak to your family and friends.

IN PRISON...all expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work required. AT WORK...you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON...you spend most of your life looking through bars from the inside wanting to get out. AT WORK...you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON...there are wardens who are often sadistic. AT WORK...they are called managers.

Please keep details of your sex life to yourself.

....J.Michael Robertson said...

Darwin's Cat is but one of many weapons in the battle against recidivism. We will continue to do our share.