A +1 error

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I have learnt, over the past decade, to be… judicious… in what sort of pretty inspirational type messages to share with my husbean.

Because he is a beautiful soul, attached to a relentlessly analytical mind, encased in a web of straightforwardness.

Yesterday, for instance, without thinking much about it, I mentioned to him how I enjoy the whole package of the idea “Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight” (nice poster here).

He thought about it for a moment. Then he went a bit quiet. I figured he was mulling it over and enjoying it.

Then he said: “….I think it’s a plus one problem.”

Me: “Come again?”

Him: “A classic plus one problem. If you assume you were standing to begin with, then you’d only need to get up 7 times. It’s a plus one problem.”

Me: “It’s not a… the math isn’t the… let the poetry breathe baby. Just let it breathe.”

You should see him when he’s working on one hand clapping.

:::

ETA: Another friend just pointed out “It’s not a ‘plus one problem’ it’s an ‘edges versus nodes counting problem’. Tell him that.”

I am only friends with romantics. 🙂

Posted in: life stuff, ponderings, the EF

He’s a dear boy.

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Fact 1: I am a light sleeper with intermittent insomnia. It is something I am working on, but it is a hard row to hoe.

Fact 2: I have been with The Boy for 14 years. He pretty much knows all the things about me there are to know. Including Fact 1.

I got up early this morning, before I was really properly awake, did a big pile of things, and then made myself crawl back into bed about 4 hours later because my eyeballs hurt.

Shortly after I fell asleep, the boy walked into the bedroom.

Him (full volume): “Are you awake?”

Him: “Because I wanted to ask if I got the right thing yesterday? I think maybe you wanted baking soda and I got baking powder?”

Me: “You… woke… me… up… to ask me that?”

Him: “I was just wondering.”

Me: “You are beautiful and have many charming qualities, but I kind of want you dead right now. Baking powder.”

::::

Later the same day…

I am in my office, listening to “Salute Your Solution” rather loudly, and I may have been excitedly exclaiming to myself, also rather loudly, as I began allocating and filling my new storage boxes. (“Jolly disco!”)

When The Boy came into my office – which, of course, made me jump (Fact 3) – and started laughing at me. First for being startled, and then “Oh no, don’t let me interrupt. Keep enjoying your little storage party. What were you saying to your files?”

Me: “You are ruining my day.”

Him: “Don’t blog this.”

:::

UPDATED. The Him says I misquoted him, and has the following amendments:

Him: “When I came into your office, I shouted “FILE PARTY!” and joined in your raucous celebration of filing. Also, I didn’t say ‘don’t blog this’, I said I’m going to blog this.”

Oh my.

Posted in: funnies, the EF

A Good Marriage: Using your words (and obscene hand gestures)

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Not to use swears, but I am pretty darned good at just telling the husband what I need — and expecting him to do the same. I mean, fuck, games are for good times with buddies and bourbon sours, words are for gettin’ it done.

I like to be super specific. A la:

* “Could I have a hug?”
* “I could really use a cup of tea if you have a minute.”
* And, of course, one of my many obscene hand gestures. Those are his least favourite, in that he’s a fan of what they represent, but he finds them “not classy” or something. He’s my delicate little flower.

When it comes to gift-giving though, sometimes I outdo myself with my specificity (though I guess the hand gestures leave little to the imagination…):

From: Me <me@me.com>
To: Him <him@him.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 9:49 AM
Subject: Haaaaapppy
Valentine's Day to meeeeee Happy Valentine's Day toooooo meeee Happy Valentine's Day, dear Chaaaayyyyydaaaay Happy Valentine's day toooooooooooooo meeeeeeeee!: http://www.lush.ca/Love-Locket/05066,en_CA,pd.html#start=7
Posted in: funnies, life stuff, the EF

Are you calling me fat?

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Lemme tell you a little about a game we play in my house.

It’s called “are you saying I’m fat?”

And the more I have to stretch to make it work, the better.

Him: “Could you please pass me the ketchup?”

Me: “Why? OH I SEE. You’re calling me fat? Can you not get your arm past my enormous girth to get it yourself?”

The trick is for him to confirm, and then one-up it.

Him: “Yes. Your gelatinous mass is obscuring my reach to the ketchup bottle. I can barely see it around your lardosity. Now please pass it over, your ginormitude.”

We also play this game in reverse.

Why do we do this?

Because it is funny. As it should be. Because women supposedly (according to The Braindead Megaphone) live in constant fear that people will think or say they’re fat, and men/husbands supposedly live in constant fear that their wife will think they’ve called them fat.

And that is ridiculous.

Because THIS DOES NOT MATTER.

Your spouse is your partner. You are a team. And being fat or not is not the most important part of that. If your partner says “I’m not happy”, or “I’m having trouble at work”… that shit matters. But “those pants are a bit tight”? That belongs right down there with “we’re out of pickles”.*

Being called fat has been ludicrously awarded special status as “the worst thing ever that your partner can say about you”. Cartoonish over-the-top Chaplin-esque backpedalling of husbands desperately trying to be 100% clear they didn’t just call their wives fat.

And how many things are more important than this? All the things. ALL the things are more important than this.

All. The. Things.

They said (or *gasp* implied) that you are “fat”. What is the absolute worst case? That… you… are…. fat? Okay. So? So what?

OH MY GOD HE CALLED ME FAT.

So?

Empirically, it’s pretty close to a statement of fact (unless you’re married to one of those a-holes who tells super slender people that they’re overweight. In which case, you have bigger fish to fry.) You are fat or you are not. And saying or not saying it out loud would not make it any more or less true.

OH MY GOD HE SAID I HAVE GREEN EYES.

(Unless you don’t have green eyes, in which case, see above: re: the big fish fry-up).

If you are genuinely concerned that your partner isn’t physically healthy, that is a conversation you have because you care about them and you want them to stick around. You work on it together.

Weight comes and goes. Fatness comes and goes. It is a part of who you are, but it’s a changing part. My hair grows. My food and exercise changes. My body changes. It’s bigger, it’s smaller, it’s older, it’s doughier, it’s more muscular. One thing my body definitely is not is static. Because no one’s body is static.

It is fascinating and incredibly useful, but it is not the totality of things that make up me. It’s importance is in how it makes me feel (healthy, strong, capable, soggy, slothy), and what it enables me to do with the precious sliver of time that is my life.

I care a quintillion percent more about character. If you are the biggest ass in the world, it matters a helluva lot more than if you have the biggest ass in the world.

*What am I saying? Being out of pickles is a serious fucking deal. Wait… am I out of pickles right now? BRB.

Posted in: corpus, the EF

Math!

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Last night, Hubby and I were lying in bed chatting. I know, it seems harmless. The problem is that Hubby and I really like talking to each other. So about half the time we’re lying in bed chatting, we are dooming ourselves to a next day filled with Badness and Fatigue.

Because, as mentioned, we are chatting. Where chatting does not equal falling asleep, winding down, or preparing for restfulness. It equals alert intrigued swapping and building of ideas and opinions and theories and memories. It is the anti-sleep, and can mean a pile of 2am “okay, no really we need to fall asleep… … … … so would it work if you took the value for…”

And we’re off again.

And again.

(And again.)

Last night, we were discussing math. One thread specifically on what math looks like in your head. When you’re trying to solve a problem, what do you “see”?

Which is when I confirmed what I suspected, which is that, when solving a math problem, there is no better place to be than inside my husband’s head. He may sometimes live amongst stacks of magazines, and keep a pile of shorts beside the bed like a feral animal (who wears pants), but when it comes to problem solving, there is no tidier place than my husband’s brain.

His description:

“Well, when I see numbers, they’re organized on a line in stacked blocks of 10. There are special markers for where the powers of 2 are. And of course A-F is overlaid for hex #s. Those all go left to right. Then there are the negative numbers, they run to the left, and down. Except if I’m working with negatives, then I reverse it.

Everything is colour coded too, but you can’t see the colours because they’re in your head. But it’s there.”

He then proceeded to rattle off offhand the powers of 2 from 0 to the 17th power. Hazard/Job perk of being a programmer.

While I enjoy doing mental math, when I see numbers in my head, they bear a closer resemblance to how they appear on Sesame Street. You know. Like they were rendered by someone on acid. They’re sort of floaty, sometimes with a background pattern.
Sesame Street Number 3

Hubby’s a fan of this. (My representation of numbers, not acid.) When I described my mental math process, he said it sounds like I do math very symbolically, higher on theory, lower on rote. But I tend to get the right answers when I do math in my head, which I guess is a point in support of the Sesame Street Acid Trip Method.

However.

When it comes to division, it turns out that he is a dirty hippy anarchist. He may be all sequenced spitshine for most functions, but division? He’s a mess. When I divide in my head, I do long division. AND IT IS BEAUTIFUL. My mental long-division is done with a sharpened number 2 pencil and I would be happy to turn in my work with my answer.

When Husband does division, apparently he just tends to guesstimate multiply, 9 times out of 10.

You think you know someone.

“Close enough.”

I guess I found his pile of shorts.

Posted in: life stuff, the EF

Get in your monkey stance.

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Me: “Why do furries creep me out so much?”
Husband: “Well… you do hate pretending…”

It’s true. I do hate pretending.

Husband: “It’s like this blanket. You love this blanket. It’s soft and you say it feels like a bunny. But you’re not thinking of that when you think of furries. You think of people pretending.”

I also think of their creepy pointy dog faces. But point taken.

I like to think I’m fairly open-minded. Or, as I put it when I said that to the Husband “I like to think I’m fairly open-minded… but … yeah. I’m almost definitely wrong about that.”

Sure. I’m pretty liberal and and pretty shameless and pretty cool with other people doing their thing. Furries, you just keep on keeping on — I am sorry my hatred of pretending catches you in its wake. I don’t hate you. I just hate the magic of make believe. Who’s the sick one now?

Fetishy preferences aside — I do of course reserve (and frequently exercise) the right to think people are doing the wrong thing. Quoth Tim Minchin: “If you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.”

But this isn’t about judging people. This is about pretending, and how much I hate it. My open-mindedness contract has a “pretending notwithstanding” clause.

God how I hate it.

Sometimes people ask me what good plays are on. And I have to tell them they are asking the opposite of the right person. Because I don’t go to plays. In fact, I kind of hate the theatre. Does it involve make-believe? A wondrous transmogrification of the heart and soul into the world of fantasy? Are there costumes? Can it be goofy? Is there audience participation? Can I wait in the car?

I mean, I like that the theatre exists. I like that people go to it. I will support its funding, and get all poetically waxical about its essential role in life pushing forward.

I just don’t want to go.

Husband: “I don’t know. It’s some deep-seated fear of yours. It’s why you hate drama kids.” (I don’t hate you drama kids.)
Husband: “It’s why you hate the Hokey Pokey.” (I do. Oh god I do.)
Me: “But the Hokey Pokey isn’t pretending…”
Husband: “Yeaaaah, but it’s the same sort of thing. There’s something in there and you don’t like it. No sir, not one bit.”

Well, maybe I will never Stop Worrying And Learn To Love The Hokey Pokey.

But… there is a spot in my heart for the Tickle Trunk.

Maybe one day it’ll grow a few sizes.

p.s. Aaaahhhh and how much did I love when he’d go to the shelf behind the tickle trunk and there would be some crazy adventure about the figurines back there. I may hate pretending, but everyone loves a good backstory.

p.p.s. Where by “figurines” I of course note they are stuffed animals. Touché furries.

Posted in: ponderings, the EF

I finally got to Dollhouse, and I wish I could go back.

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Spoiler alert: Season 1 of Dollhouse contains rape.

How much rape? SO MUCH RAPE.
Joss: Would you like some rape plots to go with your rape subplots?
Me: No. No, I would not Joss. Of course not.

Dollhouse. More like Rapehouse. Population: rapity rape rape rape rape rapetown. With a main of rape, dressed in rapesauce, featuring creme de rape for dessert.

And when it’s not flat out rape, it’s hypersexualized violence. Holy sexy sexy slashy face wounds Batman!

The rape with rape on rape effect was especially potent as I was bingewatching Dollhouse after getting home from travel (travel summary: Chile was chilly). I was too fried to do anything but sleep and eat and recharge on The Husband — the man is the human equivalent of footie pyjamas.

We started keeping track of how many episodes either starred or subplotted around rape, but then we got bored, because the answer was All The Episodez. An episode guest starring Rape, followed by an episode featuring Rape, and then the story arc continued with… wait for it… recurring character: Moar Rape.

The fuck Joss. The. Fuck.

Soooo…. yeah. All done Season 1. Deeply uninspired to watch Season 2. And, very sadly, this experience has cost me more than a little Faith (GET IT?!) in Whedontopia.

It’s not just because I have zero interest in shows featuring rape. It’s because it’s just so … lazy. Rape is shooting the beloved pet, beating up the nerd in the locker room. It’s what a writer busts out when they can’t be bothered to come up with nuanced characters, complex backstories and motivations. It’s goodfernuthin, socially-destructive, normalizing shorthand. The Bad Guy(s). The Broken Girl(s). Done.

In the worst — and increasingly frequent — cases, rape is used the same way they’d use an actual sexyfuntimez scene, to make the show titillating. It’s like the deeply depressing observation that it’s easier to show a woman’s breast being cut off than to show it being kissed. Spoiler #2! Kissing is so much better! Yay kissing! Actual pleasure! wheeeeeeeee!!! Team Geniune Sexyfuntimez FTW!

Also, this:
“KevinB Aug 29, 2009
The only way I could give this a positive score is if the second season reveals that Dushku’s character is actually a horrible actress and the real life Dushku is an incredible actress, acting like a horrible actress, who is acting like randomly-generated personalities. Bring back Firefly.”

The opening credits, listing all the many ensemble actors and actresses, but showing only footage of DushkuDushkuDushku (seriously, did her granny crochet those thigh-highs for her? *shudder*) led me to come up with own version of the theme song. Main lyric: “It’s the Eliiiiza Dushkuuuu shoooow!”

TV, you have failed me again. I guess I’ll just have to go back to reading books. But not Game of Thrones because… sigh.

Why does the dog become a star? Where does his little doggie body go? Why doesn’t he get a helmet? Dogs need oxygen too! Oh god, here come the nightmares again… RUN SCRUFFY RUN!!

Posted in: life stuff, ponderings, rantish peeve, the EF

Scenes from a (good) marriage

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-1-

[About 5 minutes into his side of the conversation…]

Husband: “… so I really love my $1000 amp, but the one thing I’d change is to have the split head and cab version. And this would be about $500, but if I could get $700 for the one I have, then it would only be a few hundred to upgrade and…”

[Few more minutes of discussing ups and downs of a few hundred here and there…]

Husband: “So what do you think I should do?”

Me: “I bought gloves for running today. They were $29.99.”

Him: “…”

Me: “I was looking at the $35 ones, but then I was like ‘dude, let’s not go crazy with this’. I mean, $35. So I went with the $29.99 ones, because they also come with a hat, and I had been waiting to buy a hat too, so this way I could get both for $29.99.”

Him: “…”

Me: “I also stopped in to see if I could pick up another pack of those cloth napkins while they’re on sale for $12.99. Because that’s $4 less than usual.”

Him: “…”

Me: “Sorry, what was your question again?”

Him: “Yes, you’re very clever and funny.”

-2-

I’m working in my office, and hear Husband waking up in the other room. Mumbley mumbley waking up noises. Something that sounds like a sentence directed at me. I can only assume it’s about the cow sock I put on his foot while it was sticking out from under the covers…

-3-

Husband came through to ask that when I turn on the heat in the morning (broken furnace shmoken furnace), could I please also take the big duvet off of him, because he gets stuck under it (it’s true, he does).

Me: [shmooshing his face between my hands] “Sure thing baby. Do you get twapped under da big heavy bwankie? Is it hard cuz you get all stucksy wucksy in your bedsie? Poor widdle munchiekins!”

Him: [hands on hips] “Make. Me. Oatmeal.” [turns on heel and leaves my office].

And I did.

The End.

Posted in: the EF

How do you take your granola?

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Y’know, we know you get to know how your spouse likes their coffee. But most people have preferences for how they prefer most of their foods, most of the time. Valuable memory space in my head is currently allocated to lyrics of shit 80s music, and how my husband likes his tortillas folded (tucked in at the bottom and holdable in one hand).

11 years in, and the only thing I know is that I don’t know all of his food quirks. I mean, I’m good but I’m not perfect.

A few of the ones I do know:
* Granola (and most other cereals): Milk just barely cresting the lowest point on the cereal. NOT TOO MUCH MILK. Where how much milk I like == too much milk. Err on too little.
* Coffee: Americanos black. Drip coffee sometimes with a bit of milk. Err on too little milk.
* All baked goods: With raisins. Err on too many raisins. There are never too many raisins. Fact: All boys everywhere fucking love raisins.
* Scones: Buttered. Freshly out of the oven? Made with 2 lbs of butter? Fuckit. It still needs moar butter.
* Pancakes: Special ingredients facing down. If there are bananas/blueberries/chocolate chips present in the pancakes, they should be kissing the plate. Or They Are Wrong.
* Broccoli: Absent. (Unless in dish of General Tso Chicken.)
* Eggs: Yolk firm but not hard, soft but not runny. Will both make relentless fun of me for ordering eggs scrambled (“kiddie eggs!”) and occasionally have them that way himself.
* SC Festive Special: Substitute white meat, fries, whole wheat roll (to be healthy). Lindor priority ranking changes year to year. Hazards: Will steal my dipping sauce.
* “I want something dry”: This translates into either instant oatmeal (IN WHAT WAY IS THAT DRY) or a blueberry waffle or … or… I don’t know, chili. Cravings for “something dry” usually appear approximately 3-4 hours after dinner and 4-5 minutes before videogames.

…

What I still don’t quiiiiite have down? When it is time for the forks he thinks are “stabby” versus the forks he thinks are “scoopy”. I cannot for the life of me get this “right”. So 1 in 3 meals start with him quietly standing up and swapping out a utensil. The echoing clank of metal on metal as a fork is returned to the drawer is the sound of a marriage failing and he will eventually leave me to marry another and she will always know the right fork and will bear him many fat children that they’ll cram into a “mini” SUV and drive to Kindermusik while I ride off on my motorcycle and console myself in a vagrant wandering forkless life filled with endless nights of meaningless sex with attractive strangers and… wait.

The Stabby Scoopy Problem is not helped by that I consider the “scoopy” fork better for stabbing, and vice versa. And I think it’s that … fish is… scoopy if there’s rice and sauce… and…. pasta is stabby if it doesn’t have … a meat with it… unless it is… a… “chunky” pasta? Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…

“Juuungle life, I’m faar away from nowhere, on my ooooown like Taaarzan Booy…”

p.s. Post title answer: Orally, you perverts.

Posted in: the EF

Doodle.

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Me: “Do you want to see my doodle?”
Him: “… I don’t know honey. I don’t know how much privacy these sheers give us.”

See? SEE?! It’s not just me who does it.

The actual “doodle” in question:
ThingsYouAlreadyHave
(I can’t explain. I don’t know why there’s a spray can. I don’t know why there’s a wonky triangle. I just don’t know. Doodles will out.)

Posted in: sketches, the EF