(UIM direct-messaging a cow-orker.)
Quiet and Distant and Remorseful — thestuffedalligator: thestuffedalligator: ... (tumblr.com)
In my young adulthood, my mom heavily collected spinning wheels.
I am now mentally constructing an AU for my own life where her membership on the high school rifle team took a sharp turn into collecting scaled-down siege engines, and in her 50′s she forms a LARPing group named The 516th Battle Nurses Regiment.
Motto: “We can heal your wounds. We can cause your wounds. Your choice.”
When I moved in with my then-girlfriend-now-spouse, one of the communication compromises we needed was a balance between my "I just thought of/read/saw this thing I must share right now" with her "Sudden noise/movement/conversation startles the hell out me".
Apparently, a 6-foot 215-lb man bounding into the room at top speed cackling about ... oh, let's say a posting on Fark.. is really really stressful to a 5'2" woman who has been living quietly with her cats for most of the previous decade.
Eventually, I understood that 'so startled she can't appreciate whatever I'm trying to say' was not a rejection of love. (Had I learned that earlier in life, I'd have been a lot more pleasant to be around.)
And so, we developed the Six Words That Frage Dreads:
"I feel the need to share."
Usually, the scene will be thus:
(Frage and UIM laying in bed.)
(Frage is playing game on her phone, half-listening to either an audiobook or whatever is on Hallmark Mystery Channel.)
(UIM is obsessively scrolling through YouTube or through the same six text web sites he always reads on his Kindle .)
(UIM laughs at something.)
(Pause.)
(UIM takes out his earbuds.)
(UIM takes a breath.)
(Frage holds her breath, hoping against hope.)
UIM: "When you reach a stopping point."
Frage: (weary) "yes?"
UIM: "I feel the need to share."
My brother Shell called me for my birthday.
During the call, I threw out a new Dad-riff idea: "Dad as a Druid."
He ran with it immediately.
"Oh, sure, the holly berry is sacred - because it's growing on my trees, you damn moochers."
"Goddamn squirrel chewing the thatch of my hut. I cast spells, it does nothing. Damn squirrel won't listen."
"I shoulda listened to my father and joined the warrior class."
I contributed:
"The goddamn sacred pool is full of goddamn flies, because the goddamn birds aren't doing their job."
Later in the day, when my brother Stringer called, and I updated him on these gags, he responded, "Well, now I have my next character for D&D."
It's really weird how comfortable it feels to be drunk, even while you feel things careering wildly out of control.
There's some part of being drunk that feels comfortable, in the way that a heavy blanket, or a stack of blankets, feels comfortable in the cold, while at the same time, you feel uncomfortable because you have to take extra care to express yourself, or to move when you get out of your chair,
No, you cannot force a Red Vine through a Stuffed Puffs Chocolate-on-Chocolate marshmallow as though the Red Vine were a stick for roasting the marshmallow.
"Urination - all I ever wanted.
Urination - had to get away.
Urination -meant to be spent alone,"
- You know, if Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin decide to kick my ass for this, that's fair.
Errors of my Youth
Toilet Crimes
"Every f^{king week I watch my colleagues summon another f^{king Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man, and then I have to cross the damn streams and clean up all the f^{king marshmallow."
