Tag Archives: Marriage is not for the faint of heart

Going Solo

  By Eden M. Kennedy | September 7, 2011 - 11:32 am | ,
22 Comments

Things I love about practicing yoga at home:

  1. I don’t have to arrange my day around a yoga studio’s schedule
  2. I don’t have to pay for it
  3. I don’t have to spend half an hour on the road (plus $4 in gas) getting there and back
  4. No vaguely New Age music
  5. I can wear shorts and my most comfortable, least supportive tops and no 20-year-old will glance at me and possibly wonder (a) if her skin’s going to get all crinkly like that when she gets old, or (b) why don’t I cover that shit up
  6. Nobody to get arrogant about their space or feel entitled to “accidentally” thwack me if they feel like my mat’s invading their territory
  7. I don’t have to pray to become invisible during backbends so that the teacher doesn’t come over and help me, when really all I want is to be able to struggle through, no matter how ugly what I’m doing may look

Things I don’t like about practicing at home:

  1. I can’t put down my mat next to advanced students and use them for motivation
  2. Yes, well, sometimes it’s nice to have a little help with backbends
  3. Those 20-year-olds are a good reminder that it’s totally appropriate for me not to be as flexible as someone half my age
  4. Hippie music camouflages the unhappy noises my body makes sometimes
  5. My home practice space is small and I often accidentally knock into chairs, bookshelves, stray shoes, or other detritus that has nowhere else to go
  6. Then of course Peewee cries and harrumphs outside the door until I open it and let him in
  7. And then he wants to lie on my mat and make it impossible to do anything

Speaking of Peewee, it’s his birthday today. He’s four in Earth years, but if you give him five human years for his first two, and seven human years for everything after that, he’s actually 24. Like many people that age, he’s into high-risk activities:

Unlike many people that age, he naps five to six times a day and eats out of a bowl on the floor. Happy birthday, Peewee! We will continue to enjoy having you around for as many years as your genetic programming allows for, and we will try not to think about how much longer that will actually be.

This morning during all of our separate trips outside, each of us noticed the dirty twin-sized mattress leaning up against the wall next to the garbage enclosure. And then we had to talk about it.

Me: “Is it so hard to stick that in the dumpster? Assuming you’re strong enough to haul it all the way out to within a foot of the dumpster, can you not go the extra mile and push it up into the trash? Absolutely no one is going to recycle that, it’s disgusting.”

Jack: “Jackson said* maybe a hobo could use it.”

Me: “You think? Hobos need to stay mobile.”

Jack: “Maybe an immobile hobo.”

“The Immobile Hobos” is either your new band name or a class of Coach bags that weigh 500 pounds.

* Jack has to take Jackson to school for an entire week as payback for missing the MANDATORY PARENTS NIGHT last week, which I went to, and which resulted in me volunteering to help with something like six different events this school year. I did it to make up for the last two years of book-related absence on my part. Do you want me to participate in something? Try guilt! It works like a charm.

Things Fall Apart

  By Eden M. Kennedy | May 10, 2011 - 6:13 pm | ,
32 Comments

You’ve been waiting a long time to Internet-diagnose my latest disease or uncomfortable physical symptom, and now that wait is over.

Sunday morning I woke up around 3:00 a.m. — okay, no, it started earlier. Last month I remember lying in my bed at the Fisherman’s Wharf hotel where Alice and I were staying, and I had a weird little sensation in my lower right torso quadrant. Just a little, “Huh, that’s unusual” feeling, an intestinal princess-and-the-pea moment. I kept an eye on it, so to speak, and then I got my ladies time and the feeling went away. The consciousness of the feeling went away? I went back to my usual brain-in-a-jar, neutral body mode feeling like I’d managed to dodge, if not a bullet, then something benign but potentially inconvenient like a runaway shopping cart or a surprised skunk.

Fortunately for you, the Internet, the story does not end there.
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Word to Your Mother

  By Eden M. Kennedy | May 6, 2011 - 2:50 pm | , ,
11 Comments

If memory serves, and it doesn’t always, but we can talk about my early-onset dementia/menopausal memory leakage some other time* . . . Jack’s mom only sends the Zabar’s box on New Year’s, Jack’s birthday, Father’s Day, and our wedding anniversary. But this! Year! It looks like I am finally worthy to receive the Blessing of the Lox and Cream Cheese, GLORY BE TO GOD AND HOLD THE CAPERS.

*You’ll have to remind me.
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Warm Leatherette

  By Eden M. Kennedy | February 21, 2011 - 10:19 am |
32 Comments

I have recently discovered that, much like yogurt and bad relationships, furniture has an expiration date. Our couch, for example, had been begging to be put out of its misery for months. Its pillows were bursting at the seams, leaking feathers and foam. The frame had split and sagged to the floor. Recently Jack had even put a piece of plywood under the cushions for support. “I can’t wait to put this fucking thing in a dumpster,” he said. Repeatedly.
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me am literate

  By Eden M. Kennedy | January 1, 2011 - 6:18 pm | ,
16 Comments

You’ll be excited to hear that I’ve read another book. In keeping with my new habit of finding books that take roughly the same amount of effort to read as the back of a cereal box, I went to the library and was lucky enough to find a copy of Sh*t My Dad Says. That’s right! I checked out a copy of someone’s Twitter feed! It’s like the Universe heard my plea and gave me the literary equivalent of a “Sanford and Son” episode.
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There’s a lesson in all this, I’m sure.

  By Eden M. Kennedy | September 3, 2010 - 10:41 am |
24 Comments

How was your summer? Ours was good, and now I’m going to try to make the story of a lazy, poorly-photographed, mostly-housebound summer into fascinating reading without lying too much, or digging through the thesaurus for a bunch of pretentious adjectives. It’s going to be a strain, so bear with me. Or, if you’re in the mood, take off your shirt and bare with me. (I’ll be wearing flip-flops.)

I know summer’s not officially over until September somethingth, but for all intents and purposes, when you have a kid going back to school / it’s Labor Day weekend, summer’s over. Santa Barbara gets a reprieve because when the tourists leave, the beaches clear out and we raise our melanoma-scarred faces to the sky and give thanks for what often turn out to be our warmest months, September and October.

But — you know what? I don’t want to write about my summer. I want to write about this ridiculous thing I realized last week.

About six months ago my husband decided that our pillows needed to be washed. The pillows on our bed. I think Jack had been mildly under the weather for a couple of days and had had a bout of night sweats. So when he woke up and saw steam rising from his pillow, he declared that he was taking ALL the pillows to the laundromat.

This, I felt, was a mistake.

“The laundromat ruins pillows. They just stuff them in the washer and dryer willy-nilly, and they come back all lumpy. Don’t do it,” I said.

“I am going to do it,” Jack said. “It’s easier.”

“I don’t care how long it takes or how many times I have to check the dryer and rotate the pillows for optimum shape maintenance, I am going to wash the pillows here,” I said. “You take your pillow to the laundromat and see what happens.”

“I will,” said Jack. And he did. And at the end of the day he picked up his pillow at the landromat and it was a lumpy disaster of epic proportions.

“HA!” I said triumphantly. “I told you so.” I showed him the rest of the pillows, which I had washed and painstakingly tended all day long just to prove a point.

“I don’t give a shit, at least it doesn’t smell like sweaty hair anymore,” said Jack.

I took all the pillows to the bedroom and put fresh pillowcases on them. I put the lumpy one on Jack’s side. Smugly. And he slept on it for six months without complaint. Every time I changed the sheets I made sure he got the lumpy pillow, while I got the nice, flat pillow.

Then, last week, Jack spent some time reading in bed and propping himself up with all the pillows he could find. And so it happened that when he remade the bed, he (inadvertently, I’m sure, because when Jack says he doesn’t give a shit, he really doesn’t give a shit) gave me the lumpy pillow. Later, when I came to bed, the room was dark and I was tired and as soon as my head hit the pillow my first thought was, “This is the lumpy pillow,” and my second thought was, “OH MY GOD THIS IS THE MOST COMFORTABLE, WONDERFUL PILLOW I’VE EVER SLEPT WITH IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE.”

The lumpy pillow is now My Pillow. It’s like sleeping with someone who understands me. It’s a pillow to hug and spoon with all night, and if you try to take it from me you will see the white hot eyeballs of fury lunging out of my head. Or, if I’m tired, I’ll just say, “Hey, give me that pillow,” and yank it out from under your head.

  By Eden M. Kennedy | September 17, 2002 - 4:40 pm |
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Speaking of movies that I once hated but now really like because Jack made me watch them over and over again . . .

I don’t know if it’s one of those codependent relationship things where my tastes and beliefs are slowly being replaced by my partner’s, or if it’s healthy and normal and shows my flexibility and openmindedness, but there are quite a few movies that I used to think sucked but now I like them a lot because my bossy husband buys them and plays them whether I want him to or not. So I thought this might bear further examination in a public forum, where strangers can judge my inability to form a coherent, stable personality and/or world view.

So here we go!

Lawrence of Arabia
Used to hate it because: Dated style of filmmaking; too much scenery chewing; Anthony Quinn’s prosthetic nose
Now love it because: David Lean’s genius never goes out of style; overacting can be embraced for its campy hypermasculinity; Anthony Quinn flourishing his robes and shouting “I have nothing! Why? Because I am a river to my people!”

Blazing Saddles
Used to hate it because: It was stupid
Now love it because: Richard Pryor co-wrote the script with Mel Brooks; Madeleine Kahn doing Marlene Dietrich in a garter belt, stockings, and a feather boa, singing “I’m Tired” (“I’ve been with thousands of men / again and again / they promise the moon . . . / They’re always coming and going / and going and coming / and always too soon”) in front of a male chorus dressed as World War I German infantrymen; Cleavon Little dressed in a Klan robe saying, “Where the white women at?”

Out of Africa
Used to hate it because: Robert Redford can’t act his way out of a paper bag; Klaus Maria Brandauer plays twins
Now love it because: The story is magic; Meryl Streep is a brilliant bitch; Klaus Maria Brandauer is a sexy rogue times two; Jack and I both cry when the lions lie down on the hill at the end, every time

The Last Waltz
Used to hate it because: Who gives a shit about these hippies? Fell asleep in the theater when it came out
Now love it because: Robbie Robertson is a total babe; I’m now older than everyone in the film, so I can be amazed at the beauty of their talent and sacrifices and the drug habits that most of them overcame; The Band fucking invented that country rock thing; oh yeah, Martin Scorsese directed

Anything with Paul Newman or Steve McQueen
Used to hate them because: Newman = boring; McQueen = married Ali McGraw, then had her serve him and his girlfriend breakfast in bed
Now love them because: Newman = The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy, The Sting, Slap Shot, The Verdict; Steve McQueen = she didn’t have to do it, did she? Plus: The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, Le Mans, Papillon

Still on the fence about: Burt Lancaster = Creepy genius, or big fat closeted fake? You make the call.

Movies I will never love, despite my husband’s clever brainwashing tactics:

1. The Unforgiven (despite Richard Harris’s clever turn as the Duck of Death, and my eternal love for Gene Hackman)
2. Bird (Charlie Parker played sax without moving anything but his fingers and his eyes; Forrest Whitaker plays Charlie Parker playing sax like a man with spiders in his hair)
3. The Professionals (yeah, yeah, cowboys having shootouts in echo-y canyons — what else is new)
4. There are more but I don’t have time to go digging through the tapes right now

Conclusion: Are you still reading? Guess what? There is no conclusion, I could go on all night about this, but if I don’t want to see my site stats plummet to one visitor per week I need to exercise a little restraint. You’re welcome.

  By Eden M. Kennedy | September 9, 2002 - 11:30 am |
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One of the first things Jack claims to have fallen for was my vastly original record/tape/CD collection. I’ve got everything from Japanese plink-plonk to African hum-hum to Library of Congress yee-haw, as well as a big chunk of stuff so suicidal-nerd-punk that he just laughs at it. The names just kill him, never mind the music. So last night we were driving to pick up a pizza at Giovanni’s (they don’t deliver, we don’t care) and I popped in a CD. Jack listened to it for a moment or two and then said, “Who’s this, The Velvet Steamirons?” “Why, yes!” I replied, “It is The Velvet Steamirons.” (It was actually Coldplay’s first, which is mildly depressive but also relaxingly babylike.) We got our pizza and stopped in the liquor store so Jackson could peruse the beer case and I could browse the porn (man, I thought we as a nation were over Freakishly Big Tits, but I guess I’m out of touch, and as punishment now I’ll get seventy hits from jerkoffs looking for Freakishly Big Tits. THERE ARE NO TITS HERE. GO AWAY. And take the weirdos looking for pictures of forced diapering with you). We got back in the car and, as usual, Jack just wouldn’t let it go. “You can’t fool me,” he said, “this isn’t The Velvet Steamirons, it’s the Pumpernickel Pimple People.” I was trying to make a U-turn at this point and just about ran into a light pole.

The good news is that Sunday night is now Pizza Night, and Jackson likes it with ham and mushroom but he dinks off the pineapple. I’m like, “You liked pineapple at lunch, what’s wrong with it now that it’s warm and has oregano on it?” And I get a look that says, “Pineapple on a pizza? Where do you think we are, California?”

  By Eden M. Kennedy | September 6, 2002 - 10:29 am |
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April was the last time I actually hauled myself to the laundromat, avec Jackson and 40 pounds of dirty clothes, and as a reward for my thrifty housewife ways I slammed my thumb in one of the dryers. It hurt like shit but it didn’t turn purple for about six weeks, and then about two weeks ago half the nail decided that it was time to fall off. Problem is, the other half of the nail wants to stay put, so I have this ugly, nasty, dead yellow Hobbit claw on one half of my nail that’s curling up and getting caught on everything my hand strays past — lacy stuff, wickery stuff, pubic hair — and the other half’s healthy and goddamned attractive.

BandAids, sure, but they look pretty fucking ragged after awhile. White bandage tape is better, but then every parsnip you run into says, “What happened to your thumb?” Finally, after he suggested it like 600 times, I did what Jack said and put some Krazy Glue over it. Jack used to work for a vet, and any time an animal had a nonlifethreatening wound the vet, knowing that the animal would just chew stitches right out, would squeeze a bunch of Krazy Glue into the wound. It’s sterile enough, I guess, and as the wound heals it just pushes the glue right out. Apparently pets are being glued back together in vet practices all over the world and I had no idea.

Things I wonder about

  By Eden M. Kennedy | September 4, 2002 - 4:53 pm |
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1. Again this morning, Jackson walked out of the bathroom with his hair slicked back with gel, smelling of Issey Miyake cologne.

2. Jack’s friend just had all his teeth replaced for $20,000. Each new false tooth is on a titanium rod that screws directly into Friend’s jaw. For as long as I’ve known Friend, who is sixty-something, he’s been walking around with no teeth, and I hadn’t really noticed, he just looked like a dirty old man. Friend used to play guitar in a famous rock band and along with the new set of choppers Friend’s charisma has apparently returned. Or, as Jack puts it, “Oh, now I get it. He’s a handsome motherfucker.” His new girlfriend paid for the teeth.

3. I used to think you could safely go out into the world if at least three of four things — hair, face (with or without makeup), clothes, shoes — were working for you that day. If your mascara-boots-and-kilt combo rocked, it didn’t matter if your dirty hair was tied up in a rubber band. But lately I’ve been looking around and I’m noticing people with not just bed-head, devil-may-care hair but really bad hasn’t-been-cut-in-two-years hair and they just look like shit no matter what they have on, and they look especially ridiculous if they’re wearing makeup. As a matter of fact, a formal faceful of Mary Kay combined with any outfit that you’re not going to wear on television is a real problem. (Says the shoeless, makeupless woman whose hair, which hasn’t been cut in two years, is currently tied up with a rubber band.)

4. I used to work with Another Friend at a local bookstore, and I ran into her at the playground the other day, she was with her mom and her almost-two-year-old son who looks just like Miranda’s cute boyfriend Steve on Sex and the City. Another Friend weighs I’d say well over 200 pounds, but she is more okay with herself than anyone I know. Not just okay with herself, either, but smart and loves life and seems completely unselfconscious. You should have seen her come right on down the slide. I remember another coworker running the registers with her for a couple of hours and then saying to me in disbelief, “I can’t listen to another minute of how great Another Friend’s life is.” So when I’m old and withered and mean from too much yoga, Another Friend will be old and withered and just fine with herself, and I hope she’ll ask me over for tea. I’ll bring the animal crackers.

5. Weleda Diaper-Care butt cream smells exactly like Juicy Fruit gum.

6. I must really be in need of amusement, for I have just renamed my cell phone’s ring tones Vibrator, Frozen Tundra, Whimper, and Bang!

7. Can you spot the irony?

Scenario #1

Me (as we’re getting out of the car, which has been parked in the sun): Would you leave all the windows rolled down a little bit so it won’t be like an oven when we come back?

Jack: Oh, so someone with a coat hanger can come break in?

Scenario #2

Me (as we’re walking in to the grocery store): Would you press the remote thing that locks the car?

Jack (look of weary disgust): Where do you think we are, Compton?

Bonus question: How many miles do you have to drive, and at what speed, to fully cook a pot roast on your engine?