A little break

[muckefuck]

In my head, there's a whimsical, chatty post about the last six days or so. I've been composing basically from the moment I left my house last Monday evening--listening for droll quotes, recasting descriptions, embroidering incidents, and so on and so forth. Last night, I was too tired to write out this entry, so I thought I'd get it done today. But that's not how it turned out.

monshu has an invisible switch. All it takes to throw is a few idle words, and you will never know in advance what words these will be. You only find out after they've been spoken and he instantly changes from the kindest, sweetest, cheeriest, most thoughtful person into the world into a mute taciturn troll who doesn't give a fig for anyone. This morning, while fixing oatmeal, his switch got tripped and he stormed off to the computer room. We basically didn't say a word to each for the next five hours.

For the first couple of these, I sat at the computer and seethed. I wanted to catch up on LiveJournal, but I was too distracted from the script in my head which had itself switched over from bons mots concerning my family's foibles to all the hurtful things I would say to my boyfriend if he were here in front of me and the first-one-who-speaks-loses hadn't been in effect. Fortunately, he had toddled off to bed at this point.

As it grew closer to 2 p.m., I realised two things: (1) he showed no signs of getting up from his nap and (2) there was nothing for lunch in the house. So I washed up, got dressed, and headed off to El Chorrito for a sandwich. Already as I strode through the cold still air, I could feel my mood lightening. By the time I was sipping my chocolate ("No hay champurrado hoy.") and listening to the tongue-in-cheek tongue-lashing the waitress was giving a smart-alecky customer, the inglorious moment of anti-argument was a fading memory.

I asked for directions to the nearest pharmacy, hoping there's be one closer than the Walgreens up at Howard Street, but that was the only one they knew about. So I began walking, thinking I'd catch a bus at some point. But I'd hardly reached Lunt when I decided instead to head east and try my luck on Sheridan instead, in the process giving myself a little retail therapy at The Armadillo's Pillow, my local used bookstore that I'd never been in. By now, my spirit was singing; it felt good to be out on the streets alone in a part of the city I knew but not well, charming little surprises (a cornice here, a new pub there) around every corner.

Tomorrow, after we've both had a night to sleep on it, I'll sit down monshu and see if we can't find some way to avoid these nasty little fallings-out. But for now, I'll collapse into the bed he's warmed with one of my newly-purchased books to peruse and contemplate the marvel of freedom, love, and leisure that is my life.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I've tried for ten years not to take it personally, and it's just not the way I'm wired. What I want to find out is if there's some way for him to communicate in advance that he's approaching the point of no return so that we can either prevent it or (more likely) at least deal with it civilly.

Let me give you an example: My family were yellers, so it wasn't unusual to scream at someone when they'd upset you. As I got older, I realised how much I hated this behaviour, but of course I'd been trained in it since an early age. All the same, there are ways to spare people's feelings. Once bunj was making a copy of a mix tape I had and accidentally taped over part of the first track on my copy. He was so responsible about this--telling me as soon as it happened and offering to buy a copy of the album the song was from (not a trivial offer given his budget at the time)--that I didn't want to make him feel any worse than he already did. But I was still mad that something I valued had been damaged.

So I told him calmly, "I'm about to get mad. Don't take it personally." I then spent half a minute hopping around the room and cursing and, when that was over and I had it out of my system, I told him he didn't need to worry about replacing the album. So even though I got mad, he didn't feel victimised. (At least, that was my impression; I'm not sure how he remembers the incident.) That's all I really want: Go and be by yourself if that's what you need to do, but just make it clear beforehand that you're not doing it to punish me.