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May 12 - Friday I'm resisting the compulsion to erase yesterday's entry. The Serious Meta-Journal Speech First I'd like to say something unbelievable: The last thing I want to do is hurt my spouse's feelings. See? You don't believe me. All you have to do, though, is think about the last time you were talking to your friend and you used the opportunity to complain about your own significant other. You wanted to vent. You wanted to tell your side. Even at the time, you knew you were just talking shit and that you aren't perfect and that your lover isn't the horrible jerkwad you make him/her out to be. That's the way I've always felt about this journal. People who stick around long enough to read all my complaining must be sympathetic to me on some level, so they won't mind if I carp about my spouse. At the same time, they must know that I exaggerate, just like their real-life friends exaggerate when they say, "Yeah, I'm really starting to hate Joe. I'm gonna kick his ass to the curb." Etc., etc. I know this journal isn't private and that I should have realized that my spouse's friends would see it sooner or later. I never really imagined that happening, though. Trite Cliche Time! See, it's like I have two lives. I have my online life, where I write this site and people think I'm witty. Some of them even find me attractive. (Yeah, that picture I've been sending out on #!!hotmonkeysex is fake, okay?? So fucking sue me. Like everybody else doesn't do it, too!) Then I have my real life, where I'm a trailer-trash housewife. I'm the one who answers the phone when people call to talk to my spouse. "Hi, Gwen," they say. "Is Paul there?" I say yes, no, I-don't-know. I ask to take a message. Sometimes the people on the phone will say, "So how's it going?" I'll say "Fine." I don't say, "Oh, dude, I feel like shit! Yeah, some fucker's been plagiarizing my stuff. Oh, and did I tell you I just sold part of my site and I'm getting a new computer? Hey, do you think I should dye my hair Golden Auburn or Dark Auburn?" Because I know better than that. In my real life, I like to know my place and to stay in it. When I'm being Paul's Wife, I stay in the kitchen and make the potato salad. Paul's the one who does the barbecue. I stand in the kitchen, make the potato salad, and talk shit with the people helping me cut up vegetables. That's my mother-in-law, Aunt Sylvia, my cousin Helen, my nieces, my sisters-in-law, Tania, Dot, Nicole, Moira, Cate, Kate, Sharon, Maria, Erika, Gail, Maggie, Tara, Jackie, Vicki, Jonny, Mike, Paul W, Danny, and all of you. If my husband wants to shoot the bull with the guys around the pit, that's cool, too. I don't expect anything less. Now I feel weird, like my brother-in-law came into the house with a pan full of fajitas and overheard me telling a nasty joke. Now I have to get used to the fact that there are more fajitas to cook, so people are gonna be coming in and out. WORLDS ARE COLLIDING! Heh. Okay, well, that's all I wanted to say about that. Except that I'm sorry, I'll try to do better, and please remember that my thoughts are separate from my spouse's and that he has his own thoughts and his own sides to every story I tell. Don't look down on him because he mistakenly married a lying, neurotic blabbermouth, okay? Thanks, y'all. I appreciate it. |