Oh Sailor, I thought, the little size of you. This is what it feels like when everything goes wrong, and by your own hand. When you are caught, cornered, the one to blame, when you discover something in your nature that you did not know was there and which you do not like. Confusion, shame, resentment, regret: it's my area. Don't panic. Sit tight. I can help you with this.
'Hello,' I replied but didn't know what to add nor how to pitch it because she was three and I hadn't gotten to that page in childrearing yet. 'We're not supposed to praise little girls for their looks any more,' I told my friend, 'but for their brains, and my God but your daughter is clever. Such clever hair, such clever eyes.' She really was a beauty, that child.
'Gets it from her mother, obviously.'
I ducked around a corner. Look, Mama's going round the bend! I wanted to tell you, but oh, oh. What struck me as the starkest contradiction of all was that, having navigated this much of life the volatility of youth, of love and loss, the agony and the ecstasy - the closest I had come to losing my mind was during the period known as settling down.
I had listened to him on the other side of that door snoring away in the box room, those snug, contented snores I used to find endearing, the two of us tucked up together in the same bed on a cold night, except we were no longer in the same room. And soon we would no longer be under the same roof, nor even under the same stars. I could not get my head around it: how could my husband sleep under the circumstances?
pickA woman is taking care of her baby. In her eyes, her husband is never home, but always in the office. So she is left with “just” taking care of the baby and house 24/7. A grim portrait of the early days of motherhood.
‘I get just two days off, you know?‘ my husband was complaining. ‘I get just two days off a week and I have to waste one of them in IKEA?‘
‘Two whole days? I haven‘t had a day off since he was born. Unless we count the time I was hospitalised with pneumonia. And then you got your mother in.‘
‘Our marriage. Where is it going?‘
‘What do you mean? I just got a promotion.‘
‘How could you not get a promotion?‘
‘You mean congratulations?‘
‘No, I mean, how could you not get a promotion when you‘re always in the office? You‘ve a wife who does all the cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. She pairs your socks, she books your dental appointments . She sorts out all this shit,‘ I said, tapping the tax and insurance discs displayed on the
pickEngaging, entertaining, & thoughtful. Small town drug dealer Cillian English has pissed off his suppliers, they retaliate by snatching his teenage brother Doll and hiding him away in a country house. The story is elevated by Barrett's choice to frame the telling through the eyes of Nicky, Doll's girlfriend, and Dev, the owner of the house. Both really just want to get through this & be left alone. They give the story a unique and memorable heart.
Two VERY different #TuesdayTunes I keep returning to these days:
Rise - The Frames https://open.spotify.com/track/4mHLZO8iKoHQSkxRVavhC1?si=HCGuoB2URoOMvSbCGwQ5CA
Sorry, Not Sorry - Demi Lovato https://open.spotify.com/track/0yvPEnB032fojLfVluFjUv?si=LYWybnkARFWBNJpJtn3nOg
@TieDyeDude
(Tagged is my current read!)
