Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Reason Eleven: Constant Power
Our house is the home to way too many cords. This is just a small assortment of the cords that we have. I have had to dig into it exactly once. Yes, this mess of cords irritates me. Yet, there is something even more irritating about the electrical nightmare.
If someone had to guess where this pile was, they might say a closet, an extra bedroom, the shed. If only I could say that any of these was the location. Instead, our extension cords live in the dining room. Now, even the dining room might make sense if we had a formal one which we never used. Instead, our living room and dining room are one great room. So, I am lucky enough to see extension cord island from just about 50% of vantage points in my house. I am one lucky woman.
A fairly constant theme in this blog is that of complete disconcern for the appearance of anything. And, you guessed it, this is another. I find it hard to comprehend whether this lack of concern is simply an HH thing or if it is secretly an attempt to gain and/or maintain power within the household. Is the constant complaining about needing more space a residual genetic effect of some ancestral homesteader or is it just something to do to avoid going through the 20 boxes he hasn't unpacked since we moved in? Is HH a hoarder or is keeping all of this stuff his way of asserting his identity in the relationship?
I doubt that I will ever know the answer to these questions. But what I do know is that if you need an extension cord, I have plenty.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Reason Ten: Dining Out
A while ago, we got to sit in his company's luxury box for a pre-season football game. As a non- red meat eater, I was worried that I should eat something first for fear that burgers and hot dogs would be the only dinner available. Well, I was wrong, there were chicken strips but there was also a ridiculous amount of hotdogs. For about 15 people, out THIRD container of hotdogs included about 50. Another wife and I were shocked that a) they would bring so many hotdogs and b) that the stupid men had ordered more at anout $6.00 per person.
HH chowed down on, oh I don't know 5 hotdogs. Yuck. But HH is perfectly content to eat hotdogs - HH eats carrot sticks with barbeque sauce. HH thinks Chevy's is a REALLY nice dinner out.
I wouldn't say that I am hard to impress. I like good food, it doesn't have to be gourmet or even fancy, but sometimes, it would be nice to go somewhere that doesn't include sweatpants in its dress code.
Thankfully, HH is fairly easily swayed so I could pick any restaurant. Getting him to not wear a t-shirt is another story. Getting him to not make a shocked face when the bill comes would be comparable to ending the war (or peacetime mission or whatever it is supposed to be) in Iraq. I yearn for a day when he suggests going to a hip, local mexican restaurant with a good patio and better guacamole. I dream of white tablecloths and more than one fork. I pray that one day, HH will see eating out as more as an opportunity to locate an even better buffet.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Reason Nine: Motor Vehicles
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Reason Eight: Cleanliness
I once lived with a gay man that left opened cans of peaches on the living room table for weeks, had questionable fluids on his walls, and wasn't all too angered when I made him a dirty ashtray candle as a joke. He also wrapped himself with an ace bandage to appear thinner under his wife beater and ruined a kettle made for sitting on top of a wood burning stove for humidity after making tea for a friend one night. That friend is no longer with us, but when I think how much he would have not made the ideal gay husband, I have to giggle. In addition to these "flaws" though, he told a mean story, was always ready for an impromptu barbecue and, most importantly, understood that even if you are a slob, you should clean up if people are coming over.
Now, this is one trait that I wished that HH had. Despite my constant nagging about keeping the house, at the least, presentable if someone would happen to come over, HH seems to think that leaving five pairs of shoes in the living room is necessary. Above, you see HH's pair of brown dress shoes that he obtained by trading a football jersey with some man at work (I am not making this up.) HH wears these shoes about 4 times a year, but when he does, they take permanent residence on the living room floor for at least three weeks. This is added to a pair of indoor slippers, outdoor slippers, work boots, tennis shoes, summer sandals, and an old, old pair of shoes that are worn while playing drums once or twice a month. Now, when we get a call that someone is on their way, HH does not simply carry them upstairs to the closet. Instead, they are pushed against the wall or hidden in a nook. Because people obviously want to sit in a room full of your stinky shoes.
I do not try to argue that I am the cleanest person alive, but I do see the need for dusting. Not too long ago, HH told me that dusting once or twice a year wasn't a bad idea. When we first started dating, he confessed that he hadn't cleaned his kitchen floor in 4 years - the floor that I walked barefoot on. While I mopped it, though, I realized why we needed indoor slippers. I have now come to believe that HH believes that our house has a magical fairy that cleans the toilets and washes the dishes since he never offers to do either.
So, while I know that not every gay man would have an immaculate sense of cleanliness, my ideal gay husband would at least rush around to put dirty dishes in the oven when guests were coming over.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Reason seven: Tape
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Reason six: Certainty
Monday, August 13, 2007
Reason five: Random Acts of Decorating
This first happened when the side mirror on my car was damaged and hanging partially off (no, this did not have anything to do with me hitting the garage...). HH proudly announced that he would fix it. Well, he did. By screwing it onto the car. Genius...
More disturbing than fixing a car in the most ghetto way possible, are the "decorating ideas" that HH gets in those evenings while I sleep unknowingly on the couch.
I decided to get this wall mirror after I realized that I am very, very bad at plucking my eyebrows in the medicine cabinet mirror. HH gladly hung it on the wall for me, BUT put it at his eye level (a good five inches higher than mine.) It does swivel, but HH needs to check his bald spot every two hours so evidently, that was more important. A few weeks later during my slumber, I awoke to the sounds of banging. I immediately ran to the source; HH was hanging up his brush and dollar store hand mirror (also used to check the bald spot.) There are two reasons that made me most angry about this...well, maybe three. First, I have never seen HH use this brush, he is mostly a comb user. Second, with the new swivel, movable mirror, hand mirror is really no longer necessary. And, last, this is the guest bathroom, they don't want to see your crap hanging on the wall AND the room is painted pretty bright ORANGE; we really don't need more craziness going on. Oh, and a fourth reason, notice the patched holes that needed to be made to hang just two items - very classy.
Besides the bathroom "decorating", HH has tried to slip several other items onto walls while I slept. There was the STL Cardinals miniature base that was taped to a hallway wall with electrical tape. Recently, a sheet of USPS Commemorative Star Wars stamps was added to an extra bedroom wall with scotch tape' only one usable stamp remains so I hope that this will soon be removed. An ongoing fight was a metal sign of an old advertisement for guns and ammo that I recently won and it holds a rightful place on the garage wall.
As if these guerrilla decorating efforts aren't bad enough, I often have to spend time arguing about ridiculous ideas. In an effort to not bore you, I will share only my favorite: We had a minor mishap when we bought a new television. It was too big for the cabinet, so we had to dismantle it and the poor tv simply sits on the bottom. HH believes that this is too low to the ground (it is about a foot or so). So, for Christmas he asked for bed risers. My mother indulged not knowing that his plan was to bring a nasty, greasy car jack into the house, jack the tv up (it is terribly heavy), put the bed risers under each of the legs and create a new "entertainment center." This argument got all the way to the attempt. Thankfully, the jack could not get the tv high enough - crisis averted.
I am not so naive to attempt that my gay husband and I might not have blow outs over decorating. But I am fairly confident that I would not wake up to sports memorabilia taped to a wall. I am pretty sure that the goal for the bathroom would be a spa like interior rather than a wall of grooming items. I doubt that I would have a two year argument over a sign for guns (unless, perhaps, we were talking about arms as guns).
No amount of watching HGTV will ever make HH a "good decorator". No amount of complaining seems to stop the late night tape sessions. I have learned that I must do a walk through in the morning to see if anything has been added to his gallery of oddities.
The frustrating part is that I think that people still see a hetero home's decor as a reflection of the woman living there no matter what. People assume it is the woman's taste, the woman's effort. Yet my efforts are overshadowed by HH's weird decorating power struggle. If I had a gay husband, at the least this burden would be shared. I wouldn't spend hours arguing over junk furniture and maybe, just maybe, I would be able to fall asleep and not worry.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Reason four: Wildlife Obsessions
Monday, July 30, 2007
Reason Three: Gifts
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Reason Two: Yard Work
This is the pile of wood that has been sitting in my backyard for months. One day, my hetero husband came home with a truckload of wood from work. Did he pile it up nicely, NO. He just threw it in a pile as close to the gate as possible.
Then, a few weeks later, he decided that we needed to cut some branches off of our trees. These were added to the pile whole. The were partially on the pile, partially in the yard and partially hanging over the fence into the neighbor's yard.
Last week, tired of this huge, hoosier pile, I decided that something had to be done. I put on my gardening gloves, located the reciprocating saw (which is for some reason kept under the bed in the spare bedroom) and went to town on the 15 feet branches. I sawed, snapped branches, and got covered in bug bites until the sun was beating down on me and I couldn't take it for another minute.
Thankfully, this brief desire to hack at wood led my husband to want to make the remaining pile more manageable. We sawed and snapped even more branches until the neighbor no longer had our crap leaning over his fence and we had a huge pile of sawdust on the ground.
In his hetero male world of big trucks and fire building, having all of this firewood makes sense. In my world, I would much rather spend the time making the front of the house more presentable. Weeding, planting flowers, etc.
Somehow, I think that my fictional gay husband would share this same desire. My fictional gay husband would not plop a tree load of wood on the patio. He would need that space for entertaining. My fictional gay husband would think that curb appeal was more than making sure that the lawn is not overgrown. Going to by a flat of petunias wouldn't be met with groans and eye rolls. And that same trip to Home Depot would not then involve looking at ladders, even though we own three of various lengths. What a wonderful world that would be.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Reason one: Collectibles
When I moved in with my husband, I had to give up one shelf in the curio. Actually, I don't know that I actually agreed to it; it was more of a retreat from arguing. After all, it's just a shelf.
First it was the Star Wars figurines. He wouldn't let go of the stormtrooper that he had fashioned a display case for. Then R2-D2. Then a football and an old 7-up figure that was his grandma's. Now we have casino chips, a golf ball, and replicas of the 2006 Cardinals World Series Ring. All by themselves, I don't have a problem any of the items (well, maybe the star wars memorabilia) if they are sitting in a drawer or box somewhere. In my curio, though, they look silly.
A gay man might or might not appreciate my angels; he might call them "his girls." A gay man would fight for a shelf, but not a shelf to place random junk from the past. Or if it was random junk from the past, he would at least somehow make it make sense amongst his girls.
I always imagined that I would marry a gay man. Whether it was for one of us to get insurance, or to realize some inheritance, I saw myself in a mutually beneficial marriage to a gay man. Not until I was married to a straight man, did I realize just how beneficial it could be.