Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Teeth

My teeth have always been dim, but I haven't especially cared. However, the older you get the dimmer your teeth become, and the thinner your hair gets, and if you didn't start out blessed in those categories to begin with, well, it can get disheartening.

Since I'm already committing appearance fraud with the wigs now, I thought I'd go ahead and try to perk up my teeth. (It's a slippery slope and then I get a boob job. )

I bought this device that includes an LED illuminated retainer that plugs into your iPhone that supposedly helps. 

Gary hates it, because the light bothers his migraine, so, I don't use it around him.

Sadly, he was alone in bed last night in a dark room with his migraine when he yelled,

"ELLEN COME IN HERE AND GET MY EYE MASK OFF THE TABLE SO I DON'T HAVE TO GET OUT OF BED AND WALK ACROSS THE ROOM."

"Mwuh woom!" I said, because I had this tooth thing in, but then I just pursed my lips over my glowing mouth and walked into his pitch dark room. 

I started to grope around for the mask. Then I realized my back was to him, and I cupped my hands as if I was about to yodel, and smiled my biggest smile. Suddenly I could see everything. Human flashlight. Very handy.

Relationship

I was talking to a group of people, and one asked how Gary was feeling.

I answered, "This morning he said he felt okay. I told him that was the first positive thing he'd said about his health in a year and a half." 

The questioner asked if my intent was to make sure Gary just never spoke to me again.

I answered, "We tell each other the truth. Am I supposed to lie to him, or manipulate him?" 

The topic changed immediately. And that was too bad, because I wanted to pursue what the "right" response should have been. I suppose, "Oh, Gary, I'm so happy to hear you're okay today. You've had such a hard time lately." All about him, none of my perspective, maybe?

I wondered if I was falling down as a wife. Maybe I could be less brutal. So, I started to repeat the exchange above to Gary, because I was going to ask if he'd have preferred a gentler tone.

I just got past, "are you trying to make sure he never speaks to you again," when Gary exploded with:

"THAT person does NOT understand OUR RELATIONSHIP."

So that was nice. Brutal insults. Our relationship. Whatever works. 

TWIL: Dual nationality

Since Mom schooled me on my French Huguenot heritage, I've known I was descended from Balthazar Dewolfe, legendary Huguenot asshole. I say "asshole" as his early American records speak to his begetting of slave-traders, intractable public pipe-smoking, and tagging a neighbor lady as a witch after he lost a child. 

What I did not know was that descendants of Huguenots, regardless of their country of birth, were allowed dual citizenship in France. I suppose it was a national apology for running the Protestant Huguenots out of Catholic France.

Sadly, Charles de Gaulle revoked the rule going forward in 1945.

If only my grandmother had been on her game in early 1945, instead of working in the munitions factory, and had applied for her dual-citizenship, I could have been one half French citizen, with a pied-a-terre in Paris, and most important, I could have voted for hot French President Emmanuel Macron. Missed opportunity. 

Review: The Rehearsal

I don't remember which one of you was watching The Rehearsal on HBO Max, but thank you, It is so weird. So meta. So folding forward then back on itself, so telling, so personal, or maybe not, because you can't tell anything with this show.

I've only seen the first season. The first episode encapsulates the premise and then you can leave that behind, but I want you to remember as your watch S1E1, that episode is normal compared to the rest.

I felt quite a bit of satisfaction when season one came to a close and then there are, surprise, episodes of season 2. 

The highest praise, of course, comes from Gary, who said, "You watch the weirdest stuff." That was this morning. I am certain that means he's going to stay up and binge it all night. He did that with Poor Things, Breaking Bad, generally anything good. I suppose he wants to feel like he discovered it for himself. 

 

Chicago Style Pope

Big papal excitement here yesterday at lunchtime. New Pope is from Chicago and is younger than my husband. 

The Chicago connection is delighting St. Louis. Chicago and St. Louis have had a long baseball rival between the formerly-dreadful Chicago Cubs and the formerly-stellar St. Louis Cardinals. Many jokes about Popes and Cardinals. 

It remains remarkable that I could have passed the Pope on the street when I visited  Chicago when I was 10. I imagine he wasn't there when I was older.

And, as is always the concern, if he turns out to be the Antichrist I could kick myself for not killing him as a baby.

Weekly Paint Progress: 5/8

This week the Book Cover went from this:

... to this.

Well I am pleased.

Original:

Daydream

When I was in junior high I filled my head with daydreams: impossible fantasies about fame and love and wealth and discovering I had been switched at birth away from my real family who were people who could have civil conversations with each other. 

I remember one of many quiet car trips with just my Dad, and it made me wonder what he was thinking about while we drove miles in complete silence.

I asked, "What do you think about when you aren't talking? Do you daydream?"

(I did not use the word "fantasize", because I had no idea what fills a man's mind, as I was not yet 60 years old.)

He just laughed at me, and said he had no need to daydream because he already had everything he wanted. 

All through adulthood I would always lull myself to sleep with a daydream, and then for a while I would lull myself to sleep by winning arguments in my head, and lately it seems my favorite bed-time occupation is to replay old conversations.

I have an excellent stockpile of re-runs, sorted by genre. I recently encountered a trivia partner I hadn't seen in ten years and said "Oh, you're the person who knew they invented the vacuum cleaner out of a box and a fan." And how did I know that? I have lulled myself to sleep with that trivia match many a time.

So that makes me wonder, have I become my Dad, and turned the corner from daydreaming about what I want into having nothing to dream about? Do we all do this as we age? Or do we just give up on dreams? 

Tesla Truck

“Those things creep me out.” 

That’s the only thing I’ve ever heard about the Tesla trucks. We saw one on the highway once, and it did look a little too dystopian for my taste, but I wouldn’t say creepy.

More recently I saw this little guy tooling at 20 mph through a parking lot. 

Why was this one creepy and the highway ones were not? The hubcaps were a blur on the highway. However, at 20 mph you got the full optical effect in which the tires were spinning but the hexagon hubcaps seemed to be clicking forward like a clock, at a different rate of speed. 

Like magic. Creepy magic. 

I understand Tesla has stopped making the hexagon hubcaps, supposedly because they dig into the tire itself. Or because they detach at highway speeds. Or because they MESMERIZE OTHER DRIVERS and cause accidents, I assume. 

The Seminifrical canal

Remember Gary and his ear mites? He was talking about his imaginary ear mites just yesterday.

He was discussing the mites because I believe I had just sighed, “Enough about your imagjnary ear mites already.”

“IMAGINARY? THEY ARE NOT IN ANY WAY IMAGINARY.”

“Until you go to a doctor and that doctor says you have ear mites then I must believe they are imaginary.”

“THE DOCTOR WON’T BE ABLE TO JUST LOOK. THEY ARE BURIED DEEP INSIDE MY SEMINIFRICAL CANAL.”

“Did you say your ‘seminifrical’ canal?” I turned to the Alexa. “Alexa, is seminifrical a word?”

Alexa said, gently, “While nice in a poetic sort of way, it isn’t a word.”

He had the grace to laugh at himself. But please, come on.

Also, I intend to weave “seminifrical” into conversation once every day this week.

TWIL: Homophones are a real problem

Gary was suffering with his skin and stomach and bowels and pain. “I HURT ALL OVER THE INFLAMATION INNERVATES ALL MY CELLS.”

“That word doesn’t mean what you think it does,” I said. “Enervate means to drain of sensation.”

“YOU ARE WRONG ALEXA WHAT DOES INNERVATE MEAN?”

Alexa, like Gary, was wrong, and so was Siri, until finally I took over and asked one of them what the word “E-N-N-E-R-V-A-T-E” means and finally got the answer I expected, “To drain of energy.”

 

I had no idea that “innervate” was even a word, based on the number of times I have smugly corrected people in my head. 

 

 

Gary's current complaints

Gary and I have tinnitus. I have mild tinnitus, the kind that lasts about a minute. Gary has tinnitus that drowns out everyday conversation and lasts for days. 

Gary's current theory is that his tinnitus is caused by microscopic mites that were released into the air by the same house construction that ruined his skin. Gary thinks the mites flew out of the torn out ceiling and then took up housekeeping in his ear canal.

I heard that and I thought, oh no, invisible mites? It’a that delusional parasitosis thing again. I just felt sick, until I remembered, that sometimes Gary says things to hear how nutty they sound out loud. 

Years ago he had an episode before where he thought there were flies crawling on him. It's a drug side effect from Topamax, which he's been on for thirteen years. Still, during the previous episode, he swiftly acknowledged the drug/hallucination connection. I haven’t heard that about the invisible mites. 

In happier health news, he did say he needed to reschedule his colonoscopy. Given that all he eats lately is Chicken and Rice soup, the bowel prep should be a snap. 

The Continuing Saga of the Mouse Detective

I started my day telling Gary, “We need to call Rottler and see if the that lady can come by and check out the basement. There are three traps sprung, but no mouse bodies, but the insulation has fallen entirely onto the floor and it’s got mouse poop and peanut shells in it, and I can’t clean it up.”

Gary said, ”WHY CAN’T YOU CLEAN IT UP ARE YOU AFRAID OF A MOUSE JUMPING OUT AT YOU?”

“No, it’s evidence. She needs to see what fell where and reconstruct the mouse activity.”

Gary said, “THE INSULATION FELL DOWN BECAUSE OF THE RAIN THERE IS NO MOUSE.”

I said, “We’ll just see what she says about that,” and made a note to call her after work. 

She sensed our need and showed up that afternoon even before I called. That’s how good she is.

First thing she said was, “I think the rain brought your insulation down.”

“No! Damnit. That means I have to tell Gary he was right. So the new droppings and debris are from months ago, probably. Damnit.”

She said, “But, we need to see where the moisture’s getting in and I need to caulk it.”

I think I said “caulk” twenty times in the next five minutes. Things like, “You don’t need to go to the truck, I just need to get my hands on my caulk.”

I could not find my caulk (see?), so she’s coming back sometime this month. I’m going to clean up the crime scene. I should go to buy some other insulation because I don’t want to touch that mess. There were peanut shells in it and the like. 

Tune in later for the next installment of Mouse Detective.

Weekly Paint Progress: 5/1

This week the Book Cover went from this:

... to this.

God, she looks sad. Perhaps it’s because she has that mustache. 

Review: You, final season [No spoilers]

Now that I’ve finished the final season of You on Netflix, I’ve been trolling YouTube for extra nuggets and I’ve found that the actor who plays the lead character is not fond of the lead character.  

I remembered my husband stopped watching early in because he was not fond of the lead character.

Based on those two points I can determine a line pointing to what it takes to be fond of the lead character, and that is two X chromosomes. 

Yes, he does bad things. So does every man in Ocean’s 11. Why is George Clooney’s character a charming rogue and Penn Badgley’s isn’t? Why the judgment? It’s all part of the suspension of disbelief. 

Of course, the last season lacked the novelty of the first season, which sent many ladies off to seek out Words of Affirmation porn. (Those ladies were disappointed.)  I suppose I feel a kinship with the character because I have the Affirmation Dialogue running in my brain at all times and if my mouth is open, well, it falls out. (I am less obsessed; I indiscriminately compliment the green eyes of the cashier at the convenience store and never see him again.)

Could it be that men have a running script of “I must scheme to catch this woman” in their heads and they see this character and feel he is spilling the secrets? I don’t know. Perhaps I suspect? 

Coffee Talk

I saw something lovely at the Starbuck’s on Tuesday morning. 

There were ten men in the seating area, and two women. The men were all paired up, and every pair was deep in conversation. Like, really talking. Not just complaining about the Cardinals or rejoicing over the Blues. 

Pethaps I’m looking at it through a 1960s bias, but I haven't seen men that intent on listening to each other, ever. Maybe it’s just that I’ve never seen men in the wild in the morning. Maybe -- or let’s say definitely -- I’m sexist, and make assumptions. Most likely every man is different, and this coffeehouse had the talkative men assembled there by coincidence. 

I began eavesdropping. I got a lot of good eavesdropping done as I made each of my four trips to the bathroom, which was really why I was in the Starbucks. 

Conversation 1: Man A had to fire someone, and Man B was giving advice. Man A said “Well, sounds like I've got some hard conversations ahead of me.”

Conversation 2: Man C confessed he was having trouble stepping up for his family, but, “You gotta do it, even if it’s hard.”

Conversation 3: The ex-wife and Man E were trying to make it work, but sometimes it’s not worth the effort. Man F had nothing to add. Things must have been good in his marriage. He sympathized but did not add examples. 

Conversation 4: Man G gave off a heavy church Deacon vibe. He was educating Man H on the five love languages. 

Conversation 5: No idea. They were on the other side of the creamer station and were by the window and I would have had to be very obvious in order to listen to them.

It was just remarkable. Who knew? Coffeehouses. This is where the men open up and the work gets done.

P.S. And if you are a man, and you were at a Starbucks Tuesday in the St. Louis Metro area, have no fear, I lied about the date, the coffee chain, and the location.