My husband is a wonderful critic. He enjoys my use of humor as defense, and prods me to keep writing even when my mind goes blank for days, or weeks, at a time. Last night we were talking in bed, various arms and legs asleep under the weight of our animals.
“It’s just a little dark,” he said. He was talking about yesterday’s post, which apparently reads like a Grimm Fairy Tale. He’s right, it is dark, but only because it’s true. I huffed and puffed and channeled my inner Steve Martin and said, “Well, I can’t be funny ALL the time!” People who are funny ALL the time are a bit creepy, to be honest. I want to smack them upside the head and tell them to come out with what’s really hurting them. I figure that if I falter into such “darkness” every once in a while, I’ll escape the resident creepiness that comes from denying it.
People have been asking if I truly hate my mother-in-law, so let me clear this up. I do not hate her; I simply don’t like her. This is a certain distinction. I don’t wish her harm or that her airplane will fall out of the sky, and if it did I would surely feel badly. Kind of like when my husband immediately apologizes to the big black spider we just smashed and flushed down the toilet – sorry, little buddy – even after I’d hopped from foot to foot shouting, “Kill the bastard!” It’s not the spider’s fault it is ugly and potentially poisonous; it is simply being itself. I, however, don’t have to give it the chance to bite me. This is the way I feel about my mother-in-law. Make sense?
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and the second year in a row I have managed to escape spending the afternoon with my husband’s mother. Last year at this time, we were newly engaged and I was plagued by a string of migraine headaches that were miraculously cured by saying the word No. (I ought to bottle the word and sell it freely to daughter-in-laws everywhere, sparing them unpleasant experiences while simultaneously making myself rich.) This year, it is refreshing to have stated openly and weeks ago that I would not be attending the worship ceremony. I have my OWN mother to adore (albeit, over the phone) for being such a wonderful woman; I have no need to make smiley faces at another dame who would change my hair, my clothes, my attitude and, oh yeah, my husband if she could. Call me crazy for banning the holiday, but the last time we celebrated an occasion in public (aka my rehearsal dinner), she pulled me aside before leaving the house and pounced on me with a tube of lipstick and a can of spray-on tan for my legs. Do I feel like being accosted AND bringing flowers this time? Sorry, but no.
Oh, look! There went my headache! Damn, this stuff WORKS.
