Caught in the Crossfire

Yesterday was gymnastics day. The only thing I like about gymnastics day is that it gives me an hour in the afternoon to read nearly uninterrupted, save the frequent glances to see what brilliant maneuvers the girls are performing at that particular moment. Somersaults...great. So much for Beijing. I'm usually one of the few dads occupying the chatty, mommy and kiddie-dominated observation area. I don't mean to offend here because I know what it feels like to be alone at home with the kids all day long, but I can tell that these moms are craving social activity. It's sometimes hard to hear myself think over the din of moms fighting to get in their daily allotment of words while their kids fight to get the attention of their moms.

I've finally gotten around to starting the last of the Harry Potter books, and it's been so good that I've had great difficulty in putting it down. So to say that I was REALLY looking forward to my reading time is an understatement. After the girls scurried off to their respective classes, I found a chair in a relatively uninhabited area of the waiting room and sat down. There was a pregnant mom two chairs to my left, a mom in front of me diagonally to my left, and a mom with a cute little baby three chairs to my right. I smiled at the baby and Baby-Mom as I took my seat, then dove into my book. Not a minute later, a laptop-carrying mom and her daughter greeted Baby-Mom and slid into the two seats separating us.

Diagonal-Mom turned around and let out a loud gasp. Computer-Mom did the same. "HOW ARE YOU!!" they shrieked almost in unison, as though running into long-lost childhood friend.

"Your hair looks great! You finally found a stylist?"

"I did...it took awhile but I really like her..."

"She did a great job. I love it!"

"Awww, thank you!"

They went on like this for a few minutes, and I couldn't help but feel like I was in their way. I thought about asking Diagonal-Mom if she would like to trade seats, you know, so they could talk more easily, but thought that might come across as rude and self-serving. So I stayed put. And as I really had nothing to contribute to this conversation, I kept my nose stuck in my book. Until they started harping on their husbands. This topic of discussion attracted both Baby-Mom and Pregnant Mom as well. It was like a shark feeding frenzy. I was completely surrounded.

"My husband's out of town until Saturday."

"This is going to sound really bad, but I kind of like it when my husband goes out of town."

"I know!"

"Oh, me too."

"I can get so much more done at home when he's not around."

"Seriously!"

"I can get the laundry done and completely put away..."

"I stay up as late as I want and do whatever I want...I get the house so clean..."

"...and you don't have to worry about feeding the kids Kraft macaroni..."

CHORUS: "Yes!"

On and on they went until it started to sound like a June Cleaver secret society gone horribly, horribly wrong. At some point in the discussion, I looked up from my book with an amused grin. Part of me wanted in on this conversation, and part of me wanted them to shut up so I could fully enjoy my book. I decided to give the former a shot. The plan was to allow them to notice me listening in on their conversation (how could I not!), and then have them invite me to contribute the masculine point of view, which was basically this: you can do anything you want and you choose to do laundry? You ladies need to get a life!

The master plan was a flop. I looked around and followed their conversation for a few moments, looking for an in, but they completely ignored me. They had no interested in the masculine perspective. Oh, well. I guess you can't help everybody. They eventually turned their conversation to Crate & Barrel, Overstock.com and really soft bedsheets before redirecting their attention to their children flopping around in the next room. I shrugged it off and peacefully returned to my book, which is all I wanted in the first place.

Light Sensitive

One teeny-tiny source of contention over the course of our sixteen year marriage has been the issue of reading in bed, or more specifically, lights out time. Diane has developed a need to quash nearly every source of light in the room before she can go to sleep. Clock radios must be set on dim or covered up, a VHS tape is placed in front of the VCR's digital clock, and the bathroom door must be closed to blot out the light from the toothbrush charger. While all of these sources do produce a significant amount of light, they are easily blotted out by simply allowing your eyelids to close. All of my arguments as such have fallen on deaf ears, and over the years I have been gradually trained to cover my clock radio and the VCR, and to close the bathroom door. Yes, I have been assimilated.

So imagine Diane's chagrin when I bring a book to bed and read late into the night with light from my bedside lamp flooding the room. She tolerates me for the most part, occasionally covering her head with a pillow. But when I hear that disgusted sigh emanate from under the pillow, I know that's my cue to reach for the bookmark. Assimilated.

We discovered this issue early into our marriage. On an evening that we decided not to do what newlyweds do at night (and morning, midday, and for an afternoon snack), I kissed Diane goodnight and grabbed a book while Diane rolled over. I've noted before that Diane has what I consider to be the "gift of sleeps" and it amazes me how instantly it grabs her. She doesn't drift. She plummets. This night was no different and soon her deep, patterned breathing filled our small bedroom. I smiled as I scanned the face of my sleeping beauty before returning to my book. Fifteen minutes later my beautiful bride rolled over to face me.

"WILL YOU TURN THAT LIGHT OFF! I'M TRYING TO GO TO SLEEP!" she erupted, startling me.

"But, but you were just asleep," I tried to explain, wondering what kind of beast had invaded the body of my wife, who, moments earlier, had seemed to be enjoying a peaceful sleep.

"I CAN'T SLEEP WHILE THAT LIGHT IS ON."

You know that whole thing about not going to sleep angry? At that moment I dismissed it as complete crap. I was pissed and there was no way I was going to try to "resolve" it right then. I would have gladly turned my light if she had simply asked. She didn't have to be so crabby about it. I slammed my book down, turned off the light, and went to sleep. Angry. And I woke up angry the next morning. Diane noticed my moodiness and asked me what was wrong. As. if. she. didn't. know.

"Well, I didn't particularly care for the way you snapped at me last night."

"Snapped at you? About what?"

"About turning off the light."

"What light?"

She remembered nothing of what had transpired the previous evening. In the same way some people walk in their sleep, Diane had bitched in her sleep. I was married to a sleep-bitcher. This scenario played itself out several times over the ensuing months, and I decided to have a little fun with it.

"Turn off your LIGHT."

"You're asleep."

"I am not."

"Yes you are."

"No, I'm NOT. I can't SLEEP 'cause your LIGHT is on!"

"You're not going remember any of this in the morning."

"Yes I will, now TURN OFF YOUR LIGHT!"

"Wow, you sound like a crotchety old woman."

I eventually decided to cut back on my nighttime reading for sanity's sake. Oh yeah, and for the sake of our marriage. Even though I liked messing with Diane during her sleep-bitching episodes, I still couldn't help but be a little freaked out by them. It also occurred to me that it might be possible for Diane's sleep-bitching episodes to transform into a sleep-knifing episode should I continue with my mental hijinks. So I regulated my bedtime reading and sleep-bitching drifted into the memory of our marriage past.

On Father's Day, Diane gave me a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. I was already working through a small stack of books, so I didn't get around to using it until last week. I picked out three books, and as I approached the checkout line, I noticed a display filled with book lights. I've often thought about picking one up over the course of our marriage. Why I haven't, or why Diane hasn't given me one as a gift, is beyond me. So I grabbed one and added it to my short stack of books, believing this would be the solution to our long-standing night reading conundrum.

In theory, the book light should have worked, except for the fact that this particular model harnesses the light from a thousand suns. It is so frickin' bright. "Oh, that's not going to work at all," Diane commented the first time I tested it. I put the light away until a couple nights ago, when I decided to give it another try. I had roughly twenty pages left to go on Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and I wanted to finish it. Diane was sleeping soundly, so I grabbed the book light, situated it on the spine of my book and flipped the switch. The incandescent lamp burst to life, flooding the bedroom with an eerie blue light. Diane stirred, then settled, and I felt a wave of self-consciousness wash over me as flashbacks of sleep-bitching filled my head. I laid a pillow between us in a lame attempt to shield her eyes, but it didn't ease my growing anxiety.

I finally pulled the covers over my book and the book light, and curled up into an uncomfortable position on my side so that I could see the pages to read. This is ridiculous, I thought. I'm a grown man who's afraid of waking up his wife. I'm pretty sure I could take her if I needed to. Yeah, right. I finished the book and, disgusted with myself, switched off the light and went to sleep. The next day I awoke with a stiff neck, the result of reading in that weird position. Next week, I'll try to exchange my book light for a "lesser" model. Otherwise it'll be back to the same ol', same 'ol. Assimilation.

Battered Randomness

A smattering of events in the past 48 hours:

Oh No...Not Another One

I hate that I watch reality TV, and even more, I hate ADMITTING that I watch reality TV. It's like driving by the scene of an accident: you really don't want to see the blood and gore, but you can't help but rubberneck as you drive by. I blame Diane. She's a reality TV junkie. Quick, somebody organize an intervention. Current shows that we watch fairly regularly are Top Chef, Little People, Big World, Dog: The Bounty Hunter, and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. You have no idea how painful this is for me. Please bear with me as I cleanse my conscience as well as my soul.

Sunday night we added a new show to the list (please forgive me, Lord): Scott Baio is 45...and Single. What's worse is that we stayed up until 11:30 to watch it when we knew we had to get up EARLY the next day to get the girls off to school. Scott (don't call him Chachi) has hired a life coach to help him get through his mid-life crisis, and we get to ride along as he tracks down old girl friends who confront him and tell him EXACTLY what's wrong with him. It's too delicious to pass up! I need serious counseling.

Reading is Fun

Kailey picked this book to read last night before bedtime, and we had a lot of fun with it. The book is Smelly Socks, by Robert Munsch, and it chronicles the adventures of Tina who vows to "...NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER...take them off." You can just imagine some of the chaos that ensues. Kailey and I shared several laughs as we read the story and enjoyed Michael Martchenko's illustrations. Several of the illustrations totally cracked us up prompting Kyra to yell from the other room, "Hey! Keep it down!" If you're looking for a good, slightly gross book to share with your kids, give this a shot.

Life as a Not-So-Handy Handyman

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon, OK, ALL of yesterday afternoon repairing the leaky shower head in our master bath. Since I usually have no idea of how to fix stuff, and I'm too prideful to call my father-in-law to come over and fix it, I jump on the computer and surf the net to read various do-it-yourself articles until I'm sufficiently satisfied that I won't completely screw up the house by venturing out on my own to do the job.

Two trips to Ace Hardware, two faucet cartridge installs, and several hours later, the repair was complete and the shower head no longer leaks. I ROCK! Sorta. If I would have followed some of the instructions I read online I would have been done much, much quicker. I stretched what should have been a 20 minute repair into a couple of hours. Oh well, live and learn. No sooner had I finished my shower head repair than I noticed one of the zones in our backyard sprinkler system wasn't working. I guess a handyman's job is never done.

Happy Tuesday.

A Little DAY Reading

When I was a teenager and into my early twenties, I was a huge Stephen King fan. I got this from my Mom, and everything of his she read, she passed down to me: Carrie, Salem's Lot, Cujo, Firestarter, The Shining, Pet Sematary, Misery, The Stand (my personal favorite), It (a close second), and various short stories of his. I stopped reading Stephen King for subliminal reasons back in college. During the winter of my freshman year at the University of Illinois, I read It, a story about a sewer-dwelling monster that manifest itself as a clown and lured kids to their deaths..."down here, they all float"...and it scared the hell out of me. The U of I has a series of steam tunnels linked to several steam vents peppered throughout the campus. I would walk home to my dorm in the wee hours of the morning after an evening of study in the library or in a classroom on campus, and have to pass several of these steam vents, all the while keeping a wary eye out for Pennywise the clown. After finishing the book, I guess I decided to take a break from Mr. King. Yes, I am that big of a wuss.

Last year, Diane and I were perusing the bargain table at Barnes & Noble when I came across King's "On Writing", his book about, well, writing. The book was priced right, something like $4.99 for a hard cover (apparently not too many people are interested in taking writing tips from Mr. King), and after thumbing through it and seeing that a good portion of it contained a mini-autobiography, I bought it. I was interested in discovering what went on in that demented mind of his. I wasn't disappointed. I breezed through the autobiographical section, then stalled during the "tools of the trade". I put the book down for a couple of months only to pick it back up and finish it about a month ago.

Although Stephen King is probably not the first person you'd think to go to for a lesson on writing, there's no denying that he's had a long, successful and lucrative career, and is therefore worth listening to. His no-nonsense approach to writing was refreshing and inspiring, and it was interesting to see him use his works as examples of his approach to writing.

On completing "On Writing", I decided it was time to end my Stephen King break for real and pick up one of his newer novels, and so I did. I was on a Target run one afternoon where I saw what I believe is his newest novel, Cell. Without any clue of what it was about, I grabbed it along with a couple of other books (John Berendt's City of Falling Angels and David Sedaris' Naked, both great reads), and headed for the checkout lanes. It seems like I can never get out of Target without dropping at least $100, but that's neither here nor there.

Yesterday afternoon, I started reading Cell after I dropped Kyra off at school, where I soon discovered that it is King's contribution to the "zombie" genre of horror stories. On October 1st at 3:00 pm of an unknown year, every user of a cell phone gets their minds turned to mush which causes them to go on a maniacal, homicidal rampage. By page 8, the people of Boston are attacking and chewing on each other, cars are crashing, planes are blowing up, and mass chaos ensues. The city of Boston is burning to the ground. Wide eyed, oh he just knifed that guy in the throat, I kept turning the pages because I needed to see what these people were going to do and how the crap they were going to get out of Boston. But I eventually had to put the book down because it was time to get the girls from school.

I returned to my book after we put the girls to bed. Diane had some work scheduling she needed to do on the computer, so I plopped down in our big comfy chair and began to read. The wind was howling last night and it beat upon the house as I read. Then the lights in the family room began to flicker. Did I mention that I'm a big wuss? Suddenly, the book that I had been able to read with little problem in the daylight had become much more sinister in the night. Our heroes were hunkered in the lobby of a hotel as night was falling and they kept hearing loud thumps from the floor above. Coincidentally, I kept hearing loud thumps from outside, and then the lights behind me began to flicker. I began looking nervously over my shoulder until finally I decided that perhaps I should should give Cell a rest and just flip on the TV.

I wandered into the den where Diane was working instead. "He he he," I laughed nervously, "Perhaps that book is a good DAY book." Diane shot me a pathetic look. "These are not your normal, arms in the air, shuffle your feet zombies," I explained, trying to defend my honor and what was left of my masculinity. "These are quick, frickin' zombies that..." I rushed across the room, grabbed her shoulders, and began nibbling on her neck. She usually doesn't mind this routine except that this time the Hannibal Lecter, fava bean "pht pht pht pht" noise I made kind of freaked her out.

"Maybe you shouldn't read that book at all," she suggested, wild-eyed. Not a chance. I have to know what's going to happen, but I'll have to rebuild my tolerance for King. I'll start during the days for now and ease my way back into nights. But there's still one thing that's haunting me now. If I was nervous about the steam tunnels on the U of I campus twenty years ago, what the hell am I going to have to go through, what courage will I need to summon, to answer my cell phone every time it rings?