The Rest and More in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

On my way home from work last night, my mother texted me. My father has had some wicked knee problems of late and I suggested that what he had described sounded like bone on bone. But I went to law school, my brother went to med school (not to be a doctor, he’s a biomedical illustrator). Turns out… bone on bone… but they can’t do anything right now because Dad’s heart is all messed up suddenly. He’s getting an Angiogram today, on Valentine’s Day. Which makes ooodles of sense. Today is Dad and Mom’s 43rd wedding anniversary… they’ve been in each other’s lives for.. gosh, at least 50 years. And their wedding anniversary involves a Dr. Hart working on Dad’s heart. It makes a certain kind of sense.

Last night saw another shouting match between the Wife and I. Yet another time where she wants me to see her point of view, but she’s factually wrong, so I’m trying to tell her what the actual way something works is, and she’s angry because she isn’t feeling heard. A difficult situation because… if you’re perspective on something is based on a factual fallacy, I can listen and appreciate why you feel that way, but I can’t allow you to continue to believe that (in this limited experience). You see… we’re having trouble with our Surround Sound Receiver. Wife holds herself out to be an expert on these types of things and I don’t challenge her… if she wants to deal with it, by all means! But she was fundamentally incorrect about an important part of the Source to Receiver to Television issue. She kept shouting “What happens if we turn everything on?!” I tried to explain to her multiple times that the receiver could have every Source turned on, the Television is only going to show what the receiver has been selected for (DVD, Game, Aux, Blu Ray, etc). She would reiterate that I’m not understanding her question, shout at me that we need to do something with/to the television to fix the problem, and I would (again) reiterate that I’m hearing her, but she is ignoring how the receiver works. While I accept that the problem in getting video from the receiver to the television is a TV/Receiver issue, the way a receiver functions is that it outputs only what is selected on the receiver. She screamed, stormed off into the next room, grabbed the old TV that we used to use in the basement, and marched back into the room. She shouted at me (as if I didn’t know TVs… the one she was using for her demonstration is one I received for selling TVs, btw) and took me through what she was trying to say. I again affirmed that I understood what she was saying, I figured out where she was coming from, but that her concern was impossible because the Surround Sound Receiver isn’t just audio… we have everything hooked into the receiver the way we do because it also acts as a “switch”. We could have everything connected to the receiver on (at which point, I did just that) and the only thing that shows up on the television is what I select the receiver to show (which I demonstrated). She, then, stated that “of course it works like that right now” because there is only 1 HDMI going from the receiver to the TV; but to make the stuff work that wasn’t working, we’d likely need a second HDMI from the receiver to the TV, so what I had just proved was completely irrelevant. It took a solid 50 minutes of this shouty back and forth argument of explanation before she started understanding what I was saying (a great microcosm of our relationship: I try to understand what she’s saying, she doesn’t reciprocate). Ultimately… I know what was happening and I accept it… but I don’t have to be happy with it. She was wildly frustrated that she couldn’t get something to work. As she was tying her brain up in knots trying to figure out how to fix the problem, she got herself all turned around and even more confused. When I arrived to explain something… all of that frustration and confusion finally found a target for release. So again, I understand that she needed to alleviate that frustration pressure valve, I accept that she felt she needed to do that… but I don’t have to be happy that her “dealing with frustration” always turns to “shouting loudly at my husband.”

The rest of the night was mostly just blah. We went to Hy-Vee, watched Jeopardy, and that was pretty much the entire evening. As I was trying to go to sleep, Wife started moaning and crying because she was having gas issues. Trapped wind making her belly feel bloated and painful. Wife’s pain is another one of those odd places where she and I just… don’t mesh well. She often calls me melodramatic, over theatrical, that kind of thing… because I’m so often trying to make people laugh, or smile, or trying to get a reaction out of them. But when it comes to my pain, I’m the exact opposite. I know that my pain is a constant and were I to give voice to that pain, I’d quickly irritate everyone in my life. So when it comes to my pain… I stay buttoned up, stoic, stalwart to coping. Wife is the exact opposite. In most of life, Wife is stoic, buttoned up, stalwart to stiff upper lip. But when she’s in pain? She’s the melodramatic one, throwing herself about the room, crying, and wailing as though every pain were a 10 pound kidney stone. It has affected me negatively. Before, when someone I cared about was wailing in pain… I’d care. I’d try to help. I’d try to get involved. Someone I care about is in pain, if there’s anything I can do to help… than helping is the least I can do! After over a decade with Wife, that has all mostly just changed to irritation.

Thankfully, she left the bedroom and went to the living room to watch 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (and after being distracted by that show, she seems to have gotten all better)… while I tried to sleep. The cold and the exercise has made sleeping difficult as my pain radiates from my legs, up my back, tightens around my neck, visits my shoulders, than races down my back to beat up some more on my legs.

I finally got to sleep and had a rather specific dream. I was back in High School, I was a senior. I was backstage of a theater performance, but instead of acting… I was with the Orchestra. And I was a bit fuming. I should have been out on stage… it was my Senior Year, I was an actor, why did I have to meet my obligations as a Cellist instead of getting to be on stage?! After the performance was over, I rushed to the swimming pool because the Orientation for the New Swim Season was scheduled to begin immediately following the play/concert. I was late, of course, and had to assemble my own Orientation Packet while trying not to distract the Coaches from their speeches. Only problem was, the packet pieces weren’t organized… and apparently the packet was 63 pages long! I kept trying to find where the pages were and it was a daunting task. Then (as dreams are wont to do) things suddenly shifted and I found myself back in college. I randomly knocked on the RA’s door to explain that I had already been to College so if he should need anything, I could help. The door opened and it was N’Shawl, my original RA from College. He knew that something had happened, because he too thought “I’ve already done all this.” So we teamed up to figure out what was going on. Then I woke up.

Of course, even with that dream still on my mind as I awoke, there was another thing on my mind… something more primal. Because I have had sex this month, I was hoping that I wouldn’t need to return to Porn for my relief… and I haven’t exactly had time or opportunity… but this morning, I was cursing my late waking as I would have far preferred some extra time to take care of that issue. And it brought me to the realization and frustrating conclusion that… apart from the romance or lovey-dovey or tangible gifts of Valentine’s Day… there would be many couples that would make out tonight, or go down on each other, or have sex, or in some way take the opportunity of what February 14th allegedly is to enjoy one another in a sexual manner. Obviously, there is no such possibility and no such likely opportunity for me. And at moments like that, I do feel a little bitter. I don’t necessarily want my wife’s moods to be dictated and scheduled… but I’ll be damned if it is too much to hope for a little fooling around on important dates like Valentine’s Day, Birthday, Anniversary. But no, those dates typically pass with perhaps an exchange of gifts and that is all. While my day is going to be bloody well packed and frustrating due to 4 trials back to back to back to back.

But… by hook or by crook, I’ll almost assuredly add some saucy stories to my Explicit Content Book in the next few days. Of that, I have no doubt.

And as I likely won’t have time to read them, I’ll simply hyperlink the news and comedy stories I’m interested in so that I can read them at some point when I have the time:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47234491

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47237490

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/paul-manafort-donald-trump-russia-probe/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/politics/green-new-deal-proposal-breakdown/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/media/trump-russia-poll-question/index.html

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ridiculous-ways-men-keep-trying-to-impress-women/

http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-1273-21-romantic-moves-that-only-super-famous-people-can-pull-off/

http://www.cracked.com/article_26186_5-forgotten-historical-facts-that-prove-pasts-crazy-af.html

https://news.yahoo.com/house-democrats-taking-real-steps-104502824.html

(Not to mention the Prosebox Bookmarks I’m looking forward to reading… after I do my damnedest on the following
1: A woman sent hundreds of text messages to someone threatening a great deal of violence because “That’s my man, don’t be talking to him!” This woman believes she can prevail in court with some defense of justification. If she wins, then I will have proven myself to be the very worst lawyer in this state.
2: A man and his girlfriend got drunk, entered the wrong house, caused a commotion, and were kicked out. As they have no memory of these events, they are demanding that they are not guilty of the charge of trespassing.
3: A woman and her boyfriend got drunk, entered the wrong house, caused a commotion, and were kicked out. As they have no memory of these events, they are demanding that they are not guilty of the charge of trespassing.
4: A man got drunk and went home. He decided that the women in his house were making too much noise and he needed to discipline them. His daughter (tried) to explain to him that he had entered her house and that he was not in his home. He did not like being talked back to and assaulted her in front of her friends. He has demanded a trial because, “I didn’t do anything that wasn’t called for.”

That’s my day!