Sitting in the car, waiting for the boys to finish tennis clinic at the Cal Club, I listen to Eminem’s, “I Love the Way You Lie” over and over. The song shows how crazy a man can get when he is madly in love with a woman, which makes me feel very annoyed with Beloved. Why can’t he be more wildly passionate?! Not in the physical sense, which I didn’t mean to infer because that would be gross, but in the hard-core rapper sense, which isn’t. I get a little thrill every time his girlfriend (Eminem’s, not Beloved’s) says she’s going to leave and he says forcefully (but only because he loves her so much) “No you aint!” If I said I was going to leave him, Beloved would probably just (sensibly) say “I hope that’s a decision you’ll be happy with down the road.” And he would definitely not say, “ain’t.” The rest of the song gets a bit risky what with tying people to beds and setting houses on fire, but still it’s enough to make me exasperated with Beloved’s sense of restraint and annoyingly proper grammar.
I realize it’s not fair to judge Beloved thus, but still I do! One minute I’m wondering why he can’t be as manly as the cigarette smoking job foreman working on our house, and in a startling about face wonder why he’s not as attentive a listener as the darling sales associate at the Jonathon Adler Boutique.
If Beloved were to judge me as I do him I would collapse in a heap. Luckily for me, he seems not at all interested in analyzing my personality, femininity, fashion sense, behavior at dinner parties, sense of humor, friendliness to service people or how I am at “active listening.” In fact, he is so accepting that if I ask him if he likes my outfit he is able to mumble that it is “fine” without ever taking his eyes off his computer screen. A couple of times, just for fun, I’ll stop speaking in the middle of a sentence to see if he notices. I’ve timed him up to 18 minutes before I storm out of his office, slamming the door as loud as I can leaving him completely bemused, saying he has no idea what sets me off on these moods of mine.
Of course, I love Beloved just the way he is, but why can't he try just a teeny bit harder? I know it is silly for me to expect my straight-laced husband to act like a rapper, but would it kill him to work on his snappy repartee and maybe acquire the slightest hint of a British accent? Hugh Grant seems to manage it well enough!
So, I know this all too well. My "beloved" and I went to a party in Napa this weekend. Alone in the car driving there we managed some nice witty repartee and even found ourselves talking about topics other than those related to our children. Sadly on the way home, we didn't speak to one another. No argument had occurred, no source of any irritation on the part of either one of us. When I asked him if there was anything wrong when we got home he said in a very chipper fashion, "why no, just felt that we had sufficiently bonded on the way up. why would you think that anything was wrong?" huh...If I had thrown myself from our moving car in total frustration, I'm really not sure he would have ever noticed.
Posted by: angelica | June 28, 2011 at 02:34 PM
Two comments...
if you said you were going to leave the family, i am pretty sure youngest might say,"no you ain't".
Rarely does the "man" listen to word i say but instead of stopping i like to add sentences like, "and then i slept with Steve Bachmann". it doesn't really work though...
Posted by: serena | June 28, 2011 at 03:05 PM
perhaps you are not saying anything of interest to Beloved. throw in "and then i slept with Vandy."
Posted by: NY girlfriend | June 28, 2011 at 08:11 PM
http://www.wimp.com/eminemviolin/
Posted by: kari | July 05, 2011 at 12:11 PM
Why cant Beloved be black and play the violin?!
Posted by: kimbachmann | July 05, 2011 at 04:32 PM
The New Yorker cartoon says it all. Hysterical.
Posted by: Heather Elder | July 06, 2011 at 09:31 AM
A+!
Posted by: Maryam in Marrakech | July 15, 2011 at 10:16 AM
I'm not sure which is worse silence, or the type that never shuts up. That is absolutely exhausting and has the same results. The chatterbox has no interest in listening.
Best,
Liz
Posted by: Dovecote Decor | July 19, 2011 at 09:22 AM
Oh, my guilty pleasure. I was just looking for a treat post from you. Please post, I miss your exploits--miss you, an actual stranger.
Best,
Liz
Posted by: Dovecote Decor | November 16, 2011 at 09:59 PM
Where are you? I miss your blog!!!
Posted by: Maryam in Marrakech | December 17, 2011 at 01:40 PM