Excuse the lack of photos--coming soon!
Oh, this is so not going to work! And all I mean by that is this computer. It took me ten minutes to get online after having about 20 windows pop up. I'm going to rant and it may be all over the place, so if in doubt, read the post before. This isn't a Mick rebuttal, but close.
Mick and I used to have a long-distance marriage, splitting our time between Alaska and Oregon. Now we have a blogging marriage with visitation on the weekends. Marriage is a partnership, after all, and now it is a blogging partnership as well. How did this happen?
Mick and I are now both living and working in Dallas, Oregon full time. However, we talked more when we lived apart four months of the year. Thanks to a $20/month flat fee for long distance, self-employment, and me being a full-time stay-at-home, full-time writer (oh, woe is me! the good old days!), Mick and I would some months log in about 1400 minutes per month on the phone--long distance--$20. I kid you not. I slept in the middle of the bed. I never hung up on him, (perhaps a bit of sulking and terse statements here and there) and all was right with the world.
Now we are apparently living 12 months of the year together. I see him for approximately 12 minutes a day, Monday through Thursday, about an hour Friday night when he gets off work, and we see each other every waking moment on the weekends.
Mick naps.
I am not a napper.
All told, about 20 hours a week. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just compact.
So, a lot of our marriage may end up being conducted via Chicken and Sponge. It wouldn't have to be, but Mick never thinks to look at our dry erase board next to the sink. I don't know, maybe he thinks it's a New York Subway schedule or something, but he really doesn't look at it. Neither does Miranda. I write chores down on it ("Mom, just write a list for me somewhere and I'll do it". Uh-huh, uh-huh.) but I seem to be writing in swahili or classical greek and everyone else reads, well, nothing. As Miranda would say, "that's hyperbole" or to look at it from a different angle, "complete sarcasm". Bottom line: I write on that board to practice my penmanship. No, I don't write on the board to nag Mick.
I was calling him from work in the morning when I had a spare moment, but I haven't had much of a spare moment lately. I have a co-worker who used to have a phone permanently attached to the side of her head, spending hours just hanging out with her forgetful husband while she walked around getting her work done. But it became blatant enough that someone must have said something. The phone is no longer sticking out of the side of her head. I hesitate to do anything that would cause someone to "have a talk with me". I'm just now getting over having my nose out of joint after someone looked sideways at me for stopping and having a cup of coffee ( and it was an excellent opportunity to take a coffee break because all hell was scheduled to break loose at the appointed time--11:30 a.m. monday-friday, just in case you didn't know). My point? Yeah, I had a point. I don't call and visit with Mick on the phone while I'm working. So monday morning until friday night, I kind of feel like I'm operating in the dark.
So I have this horrible head cold. I thought I was getting over it, but I got dizzy this afternoon, my nose was stuffed up, someone stuffed a letter opener in both of my ears, I was unsteady on my feet, and I realized that I was feeling just a mite bit sorry for myself. Of course, I might just be a big whiner, and probably am, or maybe the cold resurrected itself, got its second wind.
Why do I share such information? Because I logged on to Chicken and Sponge, just to see, just to see where I left off. One day last week I asked Mick what he'd done all day. Yes, there was subtle, very subtle implied criticism. Hey, dishes in the sink, laundry like I'd left it, flea-infested carpet unvacuumed, and he blasted me! Oh, was he mad about how tired he was! Would he tell me that he felt like crap and was sick? Absolutely not. He mentioned it in passing several days later, disgusted that I hadn't psychically known this tidbit.
How have we managed to stay married? Sheer laziness?
How does blogging affect marriage? To tell my story the long, drawn-out, nonsensical route, this blog may save our marriage, and our readers can share in the journey. The blog saves me and Mick from the tediousness of actually speaking to each other. We can just each log in. At work we use a program called Therap in which we write log notes and record activity data for each individual as well as exciting information like who peed when and how much and what did their poop look like. Endlessly entertaining. Chicken and Sponge will be our Therap, where we sign in to find out what the other is doing for the week. I'll try to spare you too much detail in the area of bowels and bladders, unless it's just too entertaining not to share.
First order of business, the first major piece of news I heard when logging in to Chicken and Sponge, was the prognosis for this piece of crap computer. E machines. What kind of brand is that? I meant to write much more on this computer than what I was writing about, but it's so depressing, I'm not sure if I can continue. Let's fix the old machine. Mick hates the old computer because I've typed enough that I've worn the letters off the key board and he has to look. I don't have to look, so I don't care. Obviously, it annoys him. But not as much as this computer annoys me. I'm ready to pause for the night...Let Mick share thoughts tomorrow. I was so pleased to see a post from him. Why he won't let the blog go, I don't know. But in case you don't want endless love letters to the Trail Blazers and the Mariners, I will try to produce. I will try to explain the whole blog vs. novel debate soon, and I'll welcome your input.
One bone to pick. Readership increased by half this past week. What were you all doing the week before? Let me know. Reader comments welcome.
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