Wednesday, February 18, 2009

In the abstract

Eric's been craving bacon for a while now. (I call couvade syndrome. Aren't I the one who's supposed to be having cravings?) He finally bought some over the weekend from Andersons, where he prefers to get meat (and we both prefer to get produce), and fried it up last night. "It smells good," I said, and as he always does whenever I say that about meat, he offered me some. I declined, and something occurred to me that hadn't before: I don't really think of meat as food. For me, that is. It can have a nice smell that reminds me of a good restaurant or (in this case) Sunday breakfasts when I was a kid, but that doesn't make me want to eat it. "It's like the way I imagine a gay man feels about a pretty woman," I told Eric. "Abstract admiration, but no interest in partaking."

I had a long weekend, since I was taking my February days off this week so that I could be here next week while one of my coworkers is traveling, and we spent Monday and Tuesday doing household things (shopping and trying to repair a leaky spigot--we need insulation protection gear before proceeding) and sleeping late. It was lovely. I asked Eric what time he was getting up this morning, since he planned to visit a couple of school district administrative offices, and he said, "We should probably try to get up before nine." I reminded him that I had to go to work in the morning, but I thought wistfully that it would be wonderful not to have to. Would we get tired of each other? I don't know. Would I get more done? I hope so. I did some quilting and some writing and some laundry, so it wasn't a wasted couple of days by any means (not to mention the shopping and household repairs), but I always think I could have done more than I did.

This week: finish the spigot repair, write, quilt, plant broccoli, plan my planting schedule, make sure Eric does something every day. He really seems to want the structure that having work gives to his day; he's not enjoying the time off as I wish he could, though I understand why. Also, the sooner he figures out the substituting thing, the sooner we can decide whether I can buy plane tickets to go visit my family in April.

2 comments:

Carol said...

Being home all day - whether working or not - it is hard. Hard to separate "relaxing" from "getting things done." People who have not done this for an extended period of time will roll their eyes but they have no idea. We dream of it when the office walls press in (been there!) but like anything it has its ups and downs, pros and cons.

One pro is that you can talk on the phone as much as you like without your coworkers listening in. You call me Eric and we can commiserate our stay-at-home-ness together. :)

Unknown said...

I told Eric, but I don't think it's occurred to him to call, though he could probably use the company during the day. He's too busy playing WOW and working on a new programming project. And doing dishes, which I appreciate. :)