there is
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
so what are you looking at?
What makes me happy
my wife
my son
writing
books
listening to music
comic books
movies
fantasy football
man's exploration of space
law & order
unemployment
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What I dislike
Working at uninteresting, unfulfilling, jobs
My wife on PMS (hey, at least I'm honest about it)
Ignorant people who are unwilling to learn
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One current obsession
Digital Video Creation
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Sequential artwork I've recently read
**** out of *****
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If I were single, here's who I'd like to ask out and inevitably be turned down by...
Sanaa Lathan
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Serialized television viewing
DEADWOOD
****1/2 out of *****
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Recent posts
Weird Home Stuff / More New Home Stuff / Lala.com
Sunday Morning Shuffle 6/25/2006: Ultimate Playlist
Graphic Novel Review: Blankets / Star / Octogenarian Murderess / Hump Me
African-Americans & A New Racism / Baseball iPods / Money & The Wife
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Sites I visit regularly
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Reading or Read Recently
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Listening
***1/2 out of *****
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Cooler than a penguin's feet
Venus and Earth
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(most recent article on top, earlier articles on bottom)
July 13, 2006: 1304 hours
RAGING TERRORIST HORMONES
My wife brought a friend home when she came in from work yesterday. The friend's name was A. Pure Anger, or APA for short. Let's back up to fifteen minutes before she got home when she called me.
"I hope you've cooked something for the boy and you." Those were her first words after I answered the phone.
"I'm getting ready to bake some chicken and cook some carrots and potatoes."
"Good, I'm picking up something for me on the way home."
"Where are you going?"
"Chick-fil-A."
"Wow," I say, my mouth watering at the thought of a meal from Chick-fil-a. "Why don't you bring us something, too?"
I want Chick-fil-A, but I don't really want fast food for dinner, so I'm half joking in my request. It's a game my wife and I play. When I cook dinner, she usually picks up something for herself on the way home, not so much because she doesn't really care for my cooking (though she's not particularly fond of my cooking) but because she a fast-food whore. I'll either act really offended that she won't eat my cooking, or I'll ask her to pick up enough food for the three of us to eat. Usually, she'll cut back with some sarcastic comment, or sometimes agree to pick up something for us all.
My wife emits a clearly audible sigh. "Haven't you cooked already?"
"No, I'm just getting started. I can put it away and we can eat Chick-fil-A with you when you get home."
"Why'd you wait so late to cook? You should have had his dinner ready by now. What's wrong with you?"
I begin to reply but the cellular line breaks off before I say three words. I figure my wife has hung up on me, and I cut up the chicken breasts, season them, put them in the oven, and begin opening a couple cans of vegetables.
Fifteen
minutes later, she enters the house clutching the familiar white, red
and black Chick-fil-A bag. She makes a sharp turn and heads to the
bedroom without saying a word, not even hello, nothing. Too late.
Our son has seen the bag and he hops up and follows her down the
hallway.
"I want Chick-fil-A. I want Chick-fil-A. I want Chick-fil-A." Each time he says it, he says it a little louder.
"I don't have any Chick-fil-A for you, son." My wife says nicely enough, but I can hear the frustration simmering under her words.
"I want Chick-fil-A," our son says loud enough to almost be a shout.
The tone my wife uses is not almost a shout. It is a shout. "I said I don't have any for you!"
I call my son from the kitchen and quickly make my way down the hallway to head off any escalation of the situation. I get him to follow me to the kitchen where he watches me cook for a couple of minutes, then returns to the living room off the kitchen to watch cartoons. A couple of minutes later, after my wife has inhaled her Chick-fil-A meal, she joins us in the front part of the house. She doesn't look happy.
"How was your day?" I ask.
"I hate that job. Absolutely, positively hate it with a passion."
I've seen this mood often before and I know what to do and say. If I agree that it's a bad job, she'll say I don't really understand what she means; if I say it's really a good job and she only had a disagreeable day, she'll say I'm the anti-Christ. I say nothing and turn my attention to cooking dinner for my son and I. The mood will break after a while (although usually not until the following morning) and we can hold rational discussion when it breaks. Unfortunately, my wife isn't as willing to be silent until the mood breaks.
"Why did you hang up on me?" she asks bitterly.
"What? When?"
"When we were on the phone and I told you I was getting something to eat."
"I didn't hang up. The line went dead and I assumed you'd hung up on me," I explain. "Your cell phone must have lost the signal."
"Well I didn't hang up. If you really wanted me to bring y'all some Chick-fil-A, you should have called me back."
"I didn't really want you to. I don't want the boy to eat too much fast food, and we've all had more than our share these last three weeks as we bought the house and moved in. I wanted to cook him a fresh meal tonight."
"Well, you should have called me back anyway," she say angrily.
I can see anger and disgust in her eyes, and I avert my eyes lest I be lured into the trap. When I'm really feeling my equanimity I can slough off her rages as easily as a duck sheds water. When I not quite on top of my game, I succumb and get sucked into the vortex of her moods. I'm not on top of my game at the moment, because I'm physically and mentally fatigued from moving, unpacking, and cleaning for days on end. I know this, so I look away and try to keep my mouth closed, while hoping she gets what she's looking for from the kitchen and return to the bedroom.
"Why did you wait so late to cook dinner. Our son should be eating by now. By the time you finish cooking, it will be time for his bath." She goes on for a while, and when it becomes obvious the only thing she's looking for in the kitchen is an argument, I weaken.
"Look, we didn't get home until just before you called me. After I picked him up from daycare, I went back to our old home with the daycare provider because she wanted to look at some of the furniture we plan to discard to see if she wants some of it. After that, I stopped by the mechanic's shop to see if he'd finished repairing the lawn mower so I can cut the grass. When we got home, I took a few minutes to play with our son, then got down to preparing dinner."
"So what?" she said, unwilling to be deterred. "Why didn't you cook earlier in the afternoon? You've been home all day."
"Dammit," my equanimity broke. "I have not been home all day. How the hell do you think all this stuff got here? How do you think our new house gets cluttered every day with stuff from our old house? I've been moving stuff back and forth all day."
"All day?" she questions. "You couldn't have been moving all day."
"No, you're right. For a couple of hours, I cleaned up some of the mess we left behind at the old house. And I'll be back tomorrow doing the same, and likely the next day. And I haven't even begun to empty the attic over there, or construct a floor in the attic here to have somewhere to put the stuff in the attic over there. Or maybe I should just ..."
I stop myself before going any further. I can feel myself working up a head of steam and I know nothing good can come of it. Once my temper is breached, shuttering it is sometimes as difficult as rescuing a beached whale. I take a breath and stir the carrots, studying their orangeness intently.
"I'm sure you had some time to cook," my wife continues, oblivious to the battle I'm fighting to cap my gushing anger. "You were probably just sitting around doing nothing, like you usually do." She continues pouring on the insults, her voice bouncing between bitter anger and shrieky whining.
Instead of pushing me over the edge, her complaints have the opposite effect of staunching my anger. Frustration remains, but the anger dissipates quickly. Her inability to keep her complaints on any single topic are the final tip off that I need to prove she isn't angry. Only her hormones are angry. As she continues her assault, I deflect the barrages by saying "you're right" or "I'm sorry" over and over. After a few volleys of those phrases, she relents and returns to the bedroom.
I complete dinner and my son and I eat in front of the television. We play a bit and feed each other a bit and play a bit more. I'm still frustrated at my wife, but I'm not angry. Besides, I like to be jovial around my son after he witnesses such exchanges between my wife and me, just so he knows the good times roll on.
My wife walks down the hallway, walks past us into the kitchen and opens a cabinet. I wonder if she remembered what she came to retrieve thirty minutes earlier before she went off on me. She reads the directions on a pack of Jello pudding and looks in the refrigerator. She looks peeved, but I can't be certain if it's a new peeve or a continuation of her general peeviness for the day. Against the advice of the voice in the back of my head begging me to say nothing, I speak.
"Something wrong?" I ask.
"Are you still going out?"
I remember that I'd mentioned that I had to take some bags to Kevin, a carrier who lives in our neighborhood.
"Yeah, I'm going to Kevin's soon, but I should be back in less than five minutes. I can take our boy with me if you're not in the mood to watch him for a few minutes."
"No, it's not that," she says. Her facial muscles twitch as a handful of emotions fight for control of her face, her mind. "Nevermind."
"Do you need something?" I offer. "I need to go get some milk for the boy because I forgot to get some when I went to the grocery store earlier today. If you need something, I can go get the milk and what you need."
"I just need some milk to make the pudding."
"Say no more."
I pull on my pants, kiss my son goodbye, and am in the car before a minute passes. I pull a half-smoked Black & Mild cigar out of the ashtray, stick it in my mouth, and light it before I'm out the driveway. I pull on it furiously as I drive. I drop off the bags at Kevin's house, stop at a clothes drop box on the main road to deposit some clothes that are in my trunk but won't make the move to our new house, and stop by a convenience store for a gallon of milk.
By the time I return, I've smoked away my frustration. My equanimity has returned. My emotional clarity is in place. I feel so good, I don't even want that beer that had been on my mind for the past hour.
Once again, I realize my wife's outburst was the result of being nine months pregnant and wanting desperately to be one week post-delivery. I know her emotions are being hijacked and held hostage by raging terrorist hormones. I realize that the best way to resolve the situation is to understand the circumstances, to avoid confrontation, and to stand down when challenged.
Sometimes, all a man needs is a good drive and a good cheap cigar.
The rest of the night passed quietly, and I love her all the more for going through the hormonal imbalances to produce another child for us.
July 12, 2006: 1118 hours
SENEGAL MIGRANT SONG
Senegal is apparently heavily encouraging (some say forcing) its
youth to undertake the perilous 60-mile journey across the Atlantic
Ocean to Spain in flimsy boats. The Senegalese government says it
is in the best interest of the young Senegals to move to a country where
they have the opportunity for economic advancement.
What the government doesn't say is that of those Senegalese youth that undertake the journey, nearly as many will die in the effort as those who successfully make it to Spain. And many of those that do succeed will suffer serious injury along the way.
DJ Awadi, a Senegalese rapper, has written a song detailing this practice and created a slideshow to go along with it. Click here to see the presentation. The lyrics are in Senegalese (or is it French, or some hybrid?) and you won't know what is being said and sung unless you speak those languages. However, you won't have any trouble feeling the emotions in the music and words because it hits all the right notes, especially when viewing the accompanying pictures. There are 51 slides in all, and nearly every one elicited a pang of compassion from me.
Here's a link to the BBC article that led me to the song.
nothing to see here
Overworm is a writer available for work and/or agent representation. I write mysteries, tales of suspense, and African-American fiction. I also write articles for web and print, and marketing collateral.
nothing to see here