This is not getting my taxes filed.
10:27 p.m.
I have been waking up early, too early, with hot flashes and then am unable to get back to sleep. Instead of tossing and turning, I rise and log into the online game I have become addicted to so that I use up my turns early allowing me the pretence that I have the rest of the day to use “productively”. My husband, though, resents the time I spend online. He feels that I purposely withdraw from him, that there is something clandestine about my activities online, specifically because he is not part of them.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have tried to interest him in what I do, in the friends I make, but he doesn’t acknowledge that they are of any value. He has never taken to the “culture” of the web, and for him relationships are made with people you can see and touch (and play tennis with), not with faceless screen names encountered in chat rooms and blogging sites.
Yesterday I was up early, playing my game, trying to dispel the morning mists that gather in my sleep-deprived mind by killing monsters with mindless mouse clicks, when Little Princess came upstairs and said that Dad thinks he’s lost me to the internet, that I’ve withdrawn from him and everyone else, and I have a problem; and she actually thought this might be true. May I just comment here that Little Princess is never very far from her own laptop, either talking to her friends, doing homework, watching movies, drawing pictures, etc.?
But before I could log out of my game, my husband was already practising guitar, which shuts me out even more completely than my using the computer does to him. He played for a couple of hours, then went off and joined his friends for tennis. When he came home he marked papers. I asked him if he wanted to do something in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day. I suggested we drive to North Hatley and go for a walk. He couldn’t because he had too much work to do. My question is: Who is ignoring whom?
Then Kevin called because he had to tune one of the Steinways on the stage before the college concert that night and didn’t have a key to unlock the piano. We drove to the rescue, he touched up the piano, and then the four of us (his girlfriend was there, too, having just got off work) adjourned to the Lion for supper. It was loud in the bar, and while I did have some fun, I also felt as though I really didn’t need to be there. Hubby was having a great time and I wanted to be home where it was quiet and not crowded, where the food was cheap and I didn’t have to wait for it. Finally we got out of there, came home and watched a pay-per-view movie, Mr. Mag0rium’s W0nder Emp0rium, and then spent some quality time in 800-count percale sheets with scented candles burning before going to sleep.
This morning I was up once more at the crack of dawn killing monsters. When Hubby called upstairs asking me if I wanted a cup of tea, I said yes, logged out and immediately joined him. How can he complain? The rest of the day progressed very much like yesterday, except that Buddy Boy made it home for supper, which was a veritable feast (I so much prefer my own cooking to anything I can get at a restaurant). After supper did I hang out with my husband and son? No, they promptly went downstairs to watch the hockey playoffs. I took the opportunity to head to the other end of the house and play on the computer. Now that I’ve vented, I’m going to bed.
<~~~ * ~~~>
