10:09 pm...

for the last few days, The Goddess and I have been stuck in a rut, an emotional and behavioral vortex akin to one's laundry being caught in the spin cycle long enough for even the denim to start unraveling. Ironically, my brain went in with no more constitution than an old, used, twenty-thread cotton bedsheet, single size.

After the last encounter with Mommy Dearest, almost two weeks ago now, I was left with a few gouged open, suppurating wounds, with a couple of new ones added just for good measure. Not quite ready to write about it, I decided to pour out all of the redundant negative energy, to cope, to heal, by finishing the redesign to my site that was long ago promised and overdue. This meant spending long hours in front of a monitor, upstairs, away from the house central and all the goings on therein. I talked to Herself about this. I told her what I was doing. I thought I made an impression as to how important, and temporary, this was going to be.

Once I decide to delve into something, it is quite difficult to come up for air for extended periods of time until all i's are dotted and all t's are crossed; thank you for flying and have a nice day.

Well, as Achebe once said, things fall apart.

In my mini-hiatus from what Herself considers a normal life, she became, shall I say, hormonal. Fuck that, to put it more adequately, she has put us through the worst, most brutal PMS in the history of our relationship.

I hear the hooves of the feminist posse as we speak, and I say to them, "Bring it on!". When Herself has PMS, we both experience it. To hell with sympathy.

She's been crampy. She's been bloated. She's been achy. She's been toasted.

She's had headaches, she's had backaches. She's had joint, muscle, tendon, and eye aches.

Although she's been happy, more often she's sad. Even more so she's angry, but most times she's...

... mad.

And I use that term literally.

She's had mood swings greater than if I were to Tarzan my way across the Grand Canyon.

And for some strange, inexplicable reason, justified (certifiably) only to Herself, that is...

...it is all my fault.

I am not spending enough time with her. I am not attending to her with sufficient frequency. I am not showing her enough affection. I'm looking at her the wrong way. I'm not looking at her the right way. I can't say anything right. I don't say enough. If I'm moving, I'm not moving right. If I'm sitting, my body language is not right.

I'm not in love with her anymore.

The animals are too much for her.

The house is never clean.

And, because the God's are shining down on me at this very moment, we were not able to afford her Paxil last week, and she ran out three days ago.

So...

She's obsessing about my not spending enough time with her. She's obsessing about my not attending to her with sufficient frequency. She's obsessing that I am not showing her enough affection. She's obsessing that I'm looking at her the wrong way. She's obsessing that I'm not looking at her the right way. She;s obsessing that I can't say anything right. She's obsessing that I don't say enough. If I'm moving, she's obsessing that I'm not moving right. If I'm sitting, she's obsessing that my body language is not right.

She's obsessing that I'm not in love with her anymore...

...get the picture?

I have been patient. Not only have I been patient with "her miseries" in their own right, but also for how she has completely subjugated the process that I have been going through these last few days.

Have I had my medication during this process?

No. I have braved the pain without it, and tried to in a manner that was productive and positive.

But it's all about her.

Beyond a brief "how's the site coming", she did not once come upstairs to ask me how things were, or to express an interest in what I was doing. All I got was that I wasn't spending enough time with her.

Has she once asked me if my work has had any healing benefit? Has she asked me merely in general how I am coping with my mother's latest tirade?

No. All I hear is that I'm looking at her funny, and that I'm not showing her enough affection.

Because it's all about her.

I am searching, ever so diligently, for a time when, in the last few days, she has motivated me to want to spend time with her, to want to show her affection.

And then I remembered, it's all about her.

So to hell with me.

Except that this evening I became angry. She said one too many things, made one too many assumptions, and I just stopped interacting altogether. I have been staring at this monitor ever since.

This cycle has spun, shrunk, and shred the last few fibers of my old, used, twenty thread, single size cotton-bedsheet-sanity. It just could not withstand the forces pulling and yanking and tearing at it, spinning it out of control, round and round and round she goes and where and when she stops...

...no one knows.

Because, after all, it's all about her.

Be Well