I don’t remember what causes most of the arguments I have, so I’ll go with one of the few I do remember. It was while I was pregnant with Coraline. Rich thought it would be a good idea to share with me some artwork he was working on of his ex-girlfriend, as well as the (sweet, he alleged) story behind it. I argued that maybe that wasn’t what his pregnant wife cared to see. He didn’t get it. It took him a few days to come around and agree that maybe it wasn’t the best idea in the world to show his pregnant wife artwork featuring his ex-girlfriend. And yes, he did apologize. Also, no I never bothered to ask to see that artwork.
This is, I think, a stupid prompt. Unless you have the world’s worst parents, they deserve at least some respect. I say this from the point of view of someone who is now a parent: I (along with the spouse) do what I think is in Coraline’s best interests and hope she doesn’t end up screwed up down the road because of those decisions. Knock on wood, so far, so good. At least she respects me right now. As much as a 5 1/2-year-old can, anyway.
Ah, this list could go on forever. I already wrote about the horrific political climate. In addition to that, there are plenty of other real-world things that scare me: terrorism, health epidemics, the possibility of economic and social collapse, my recurring nightmare of being in a car accident, home invasions, being terrified of dying young and leaving Coraline without a mom, family and friends dying. Real, legitimate fears.
There also completely unrealistic things that scare me. Which is largely where my love of horror movies bites me in the ass. Despite knowing better, I usually end up watching scary movies when Rich is out of town. Which then makes me paranoid and reminds me of other scary movies, all of which basically are about the worst possible kind of home invasion: The Purge, You’re Next, The Strangers. I won’t get into how horror movies have also made me worry about camping and trick-or-treating.
Finally, there are these fuckers:
Wavy tubes are the devil’s advertising. Image found via Google search and Satan’s guiding hand.
After last week, I’ll go with the obvious: no family members have received grim prognoses, no one has passed away, and no one else has been diagnosed with cancer.
Fucking cancer made last week a living hell for me and many of my loved ones.
I’m going to go with something I do that never fails to gross out the spouse: I snack on Pringles with ketchup. Which I LOVE. And the very idea of which makes Rich want to barf, which I don’t understand — to me it’s the same principle as fries with ketchup. He vehemently disagrees with me on that point. No matter what he thinks, though, this is still one of my all-time favorite snacks.
Most of my and Rich’s dates consist of dinner and a movie. Assuming money wasn’t an issue, I guess a dream date would be somewhere far away from everyone and everything, and where we didn’t have a set agenda and could take our time deciding what to do. I’d also love to do something we’ve never done before: a hot-air-balloon ride, renting a boat for a weekend, visiting a new-to-us country (Spain, anyone?). Needless to say, this date would also involve Coraline overnighting at my parents’ house.
Since those kinds of dates are literally just dreams, I will continue to enjoy and appreciate the rare dates we enjoy these days, which are often dictated by a big Marvel movie release. That’s right — our next date night might very well be the day Captain America: Civil War comes out.
An easier question would have been: What am I not worrying about. The people who know me best know I’m a worrier. I normally function at a baseline of anxiety, which ratchets up easier than I like to admit. It doesn’t take a lot to get me stressed out.
So what am I currently worrying about? Oh, so many things, which I won’t list here. I guess what I’m most worried about these days is the political climate in our country. At this point I’m for anyone not named Trump, be they Republican, Democrat, or Other. I think that oompa-loompa orange, cat-hair-toupeed, stubby-fingered, delusional, tantrum-throwing narcissist would do irreparable damage to the U.S. He’s saying what people want to hear, which they’re (unfortunately) responding to. I get that people are fed up with the two-party system — who isn’t at this point? — and tired of lying politicians — again, who isn’t? — but this is not the outsider who will make things better. He will not make America great again, largely because so much of his “platform” (it’s hard to take him seriously when he doesn’t offer specifics) is flat-out anti-American. So much of what he espouses goes against the very foundation of what America was founded on, which makes it all the more depressing to me that people are buying into what he’s selling.
I think this year it’s more important than ever that every voting American really thinks about who they are going to vote for, and doing the research to validate their choice. I’ve never been one to vote along party lines; I vote for who I think will do the best job. I’ve voted Democrat and I’ve voted Republican based on who I had faith in. We shouldn’t ever blindly vote for a candidate simply because that’s who our respective parties are offering up as their best man/woman/circus attraction for the job.
That’s my piece on the matter (you can see why I don’t often talk politics). I really feel like no matter who wins this year’s presidential election, our country is doomed. How doomed is up to us, though. We can elect a new leader who might manage to do a bit of good, or we can elect a bully businessman con artist who will lead us to ruin and cement the U.S.’s place as a universal punchline to a joke no one asked to hear in the first place.
