Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe
It took me SIX damn comments to respond to everyone, since Blogger has made a new limit on the length of comments (WTF?!), so commenters please make a point to read the first one, since it's to all of you. Thanks!
So, you have been trying to refocus your priorities by moving your attention away from some selfish things and towards more marital-familial-homestead things. Trying to at least find some semblance of Peace, especially since Contentment seems to always be away somewhere on holiday, hand-in-hand with Happiness.
You and your spouse FINALLY devoted an entire weekend recently to sitting down together and establishing a REAL budget with real plans on addressing long-ignored matters like debt, home maintenance, etc.
You work together in the yard, devoting hours and sweat to your neglected property. You think you're on the right path. Both of you are being productive and life isn't so bleak. Things are looking up.
Then . . . news come down the pike that a band has reunited and is putting on a concert in a city that is roughly 4-5 hours away. The concert is right in the middle of the week, on a Wednesday night. Since work for your spouse has been sparse lately, your spouse already decided both of you are going and before you're consulted, purchased tickets. You know it doesn't fit into the current budget and with such short notice, you won't be able to get off of work for the two days required for the trip. So you bow out, but decide to be gracious and tell your spouse to go since the band is a fave of their's. Your ticket is sold to a mutual friend and the two of them plan their trip together (friend is same sex as your spouse, so nothing hanky-panky going on there).
And then this happens...
Tuesday evening before the Wednesday concert, the two of you spend more time working in the yard... you are manually digging up bushes to discard and digging up a large hydrangea bush to relocate while your spouse does a little weedeating and is then spotted comfortably cruising around on the riding lawn mower. You reign in your smirk.
The sun falls faster than you can accomplish all you wanted to do, so you call it a night by placing the hydrangea in a very large bucket with some dirt and a little water, with the intention to rise in the morning and get it into the ground before starting the rest of your day. Since your spouse plans to head out to meet the friend and hit the road for the concert around 10:30am, you'd like to think your spouse will rise earlier, with you, and go outside to help you in the yard before their trip, but you know that won't be the case. And true to form, it's not. The next morning, you go out and not only get the hydrangea into the ground, but also manage to find homes for 5 other plants, as well as water them all in. After awhile, you glance at your watch and notice it's right at 10:30am, so instead of putting the mower and tools away, you make your way inside to see your spouse off. You hear the shower running, so you then head to your mutual home-office and sit in your deskchair, to do paperwork and wait. That's when you glance over at your spouse's laptop which sits on the desk that adjoins to yours. The laptop was off and closed when you went outside but now there is the image of a video that has been played on the screen. The stilled-image from the video is a naked person you don't know lying back on a bed, obviously in the throes of masturbation.
Now, here are some givens for you to consider about yourself:
~ You're tired. You're hot. You're sweaty. You're sore. -- all from hard manual labor outside in the heat for the previous several days, not just that morning.
~ Your spouse, who slept in (again), is getting ready to go on a fun lil overnight excursion to another state for a concert with a friend.
~ You're not going and one of the reasons is because you know the expense doesn't fit into the budget. The budget that you and your spouse JUST made about 10 days ago.
~ You know your spouse watches porn and keeps nudey pix on the computer. You don't really have a problem with that. Or at least you never had a problem with it before.
~ Not only did your spouse not get up to help you in the yard, your spouse did not make any indication whatsoever of being in any kind of sexy mood during the entire hour you listened to their snooze alarm being repeatedly hit before you gave up on really sleeping in and crawled out of bed 2 hours ago.
~ Your new laptop (that was bought over THREE weeks ago) is still not internet-active because your DSL modem does not support Windows Vista. A new internet service is one of the "to do" things on the list that your spouse was going to check into... but since your spouse's laptop is Windows XP and gets online with no problems, there doesn't seem to be any sort of rush to investigate a new internet service. You know this is yet another thing you will end up doing yourself if you want to get online on your new laptop before months have passed.
~ It's been nearly 2 weeks since you and your spouse had sex.
So, your spouse gets out of the shower and crosses your path in the hallway and you ask, "So. Who's that on your desktop?" and after checking, their response (complete with laughter) is: "Oh!, I was just trying to load my iPod and I guess my QuickTime started pulling stuff up from my hard drive while I was in the shower. I didn't even know that was there... I didn't watch it!"
How do you react?
1) Laugh with your spouse and know computers can be so silly, randomly pulling up porn videos all by themselves like that. Wow, our laptops will be HAL before we know it, huh?
2) Mentally compare yourself to the image of the person you saw on their screen and get hurt that your spouse keeps porn videos and nude pix of random strangers, but nothing and none of you.
3) Get pissed off because you were outside busting your ass in the yard while your spouse was inside getting off their jollies to somebody masturbating on video.
4) After an hour's worth of discussion, you say to your spouse, "It's 11:30 and our friend is waiting for you. You need to go. Be careful. Have fun." and when your spouse responds, "Ok, I'm gonna go then. I'll put tarps over the lawn mower and stuff." and you look out the window and your spouse is in their vehicle, tarps forgotten that quick... and you run down the stairs and outside, tap on the driver's window and holding back yet another smirk, ask, "Hey, where can I find the tarps?" and when you see their eyes register "oh shit, I forgot", you say, "Nevermind, I'll find 'em. I got it." and they respond "ok, I love you", you then answer "Yeah, I love you, too.", and close the door, wishing your freedom lasted longer than two days.
5) Thought things were getting better only to now realize you were wrong. Again.
6) Discover the event also surfaces other underlying issues for you which in turn brings on a big ole self-wallowing Pout Fest.
7) Find yourself still steaming about it the next day.
8) Believe your spouse's explanation, realize you have jumped to the wrong conclusions, and YOU'RE the one being an ass.
9) A combination of the above reactions.
10) None of the above reactions.
*Note to readers*
No, I'm not back. Not really.
Currently, I'm just lost in the woods with dirt under my nails, wandering aimlessly, and somehow found a way to get my OLD, possessed, bitch-of-a-laptop back online to post this.
I'll be back around when I can.
Or not.
I dunno; I'm not much in a mood lately for shallow bloggy banter.

While doing some research on the Sins, I managed to attract a vicious monster to my antiquated 'puter. Fuck! The lil bastard is wreaking havoc & I think a couple more hairs framing my face have now turned grey over it! No matter what I do, I can't get rid of the demon and he laughs in my face when I try to.
































