Being an exhaustive report spanning four entire days, plus this morning.

Friday
Friday I did domestic shit: laundry, dishes, shopping, cooking, dusting and sweeping. Housewifery is boring and it sucks.

We were going to go out Friday night, but Redbone fell asleep for a nap and didn’t bother to wake back up. Since he works an absurd schedule (you couldn’t pay me enough to get up at 4:30 in the morning on a regular basis) and we were planning on going out Saturday night for the Halloween party anyway, I just watched some shows I’d TiVoed and cuddled with my dogs on the couch and didn’t take it personally. (Yeah, right.)

Saturday
We went to Keosauqua to get wood for our woodstove on Saturday. The weather was gorgeous. Jimbo and Redbone ran around cutting things up with chainsaws. Chuckie helped Ella collect rocks and things. The dogs ran around doing canine stuff, and I took a couple of walks and read the rest of Eragon, which was really cute but not the most compelling book I’ve ever read. I also took a nap in the back of the cab of Redbone’s truck.

Redbone and Jimbo going logging

By the time we left it was past four and I was utterly starving, but Redbone wanted to stop at The Dew Drop for a cocktail anyway… and so stop we did. (What he wants is more important, you see.)

When we got home I made dinner immediately. After we ate, we unloaded the wood from the back of his truck and then I took a disco nap because those Dew Drop cocktails are really strong, especially on an empty stomach.

When I woke up it was a quarter past ten. I woke Redbone and told him I was getting ready to go to the party.

I woke him again after my shower. He opened his eyes and looked at me but wouldn’t get up.

So I left without him.

(There were three years in a row when Redbone promised he’d take me out for New Years Eve parties and didn’t. When I vibed him bad the next morning, he always asked why if it was so important to me I didn’t just go without him. So Saturday night I did: I went without him.)

Since I’d had two naps and didn’t even get to the bar until midnight, I stayed out all night. I hung out with Gorgeous & Rockstar and Mary & Jesus and Ray & T-man and Brady and had a really good time.

The costumes were great, the bartenders were all sexy boys, and the DJ was playing disco. It was worth driving all the way to town. Lots of people asked where Redbone was and told me to tell him hi for them.

Rockstar & Gorgeous

Because of the time change the bar was open until three, and I closed the place. When dawn approached I was sitting on Ray’s kitchen floor sobering up, drinking pineapple nectar and talking with her. (Ray’s awesome. I love her. It’s so good to find a new girlfriend when one has so few.)

T-man & Ray

Sunday
When I got home at a quarter past the crack of dawn, Redbone was awake and he was pissed off. We had a fight.

He accused me of not even trying to wake him up the night before. He suggested that I preferred the company of drunks at the bar. He couldn’t believe I’d gone without him and implied it was somehow my responsibility to make him do something he obviously hadn’t cared enough about to do on his own. He basically freaked out on me for going out without him. (Guess that’s why I usually don’t do it. Usually when he says he’ll take me out and then totally fucking lames out, I just stay home feeling disappointed and hurt. Apparently he prefers that scenario to the one where he gets his feelings hurt.) I was tired – I had, after all, drunk many cocktails the night before – and didn’t feel like I was in any condition to argue with him so I went to bed.

When I got up we were civil to each other. He still expected me to make his dinner but I didn’t. I ended up missing rehearsal with House 11 because I was totally in the doghouse with my husband and it wouldn’t have been PC for me to bail and go do something I wanted to do right then.

By the time the day ended we were on speaking terms. We went to bed at the same time and even cuddled a little. I couldn’t tell if it was apology or force of habit.

Monday
I woke up before dawn when Redbone did and I got up with him. I made him breakfast and a latte but I doubt he saw it as a bridge; he probably accepted it as his due. We laughed and chatted anyway and he went off to work.

I spent the rest of the day doing what I was supposed to: running erands, dusting, sweeping, de-cobwebbing, vacuuming, doing laundry, washing dishes, and making his dinner. (I made meatloaf, which I don’t even eat.)

He came home, and shortly after Bo dropped by. I fed them both. We watched television together. Eventually Bo took off, and Redbone fell asleep in my lap watching Blue Collar TV. Then we went to bed.

Tuesday
He’d already left for work when I woke up this morning. I’ve been thinking all morning.

He’s tired of feeling abandoned. I’m tired of feeling like I’m giving up my life in an effort to be something that apparently I’m not. He doesn’t understand why I don’t do kitschy shit with the house, and I don’t understand why he hasn’t cracked a book in seven years. He doesn’t understand why I’m a vegetarian or that it’s a huge labor of love for me to stick my hands in a bowl of ground beef to make him a meatloaf, and I don’t understand how a human being with an IQ over 65 can watch the Speed channel for six hours rather than something with character development and a plot. He doesn’t understand why I’m unhappy when I’ve got so much to be thankful for, and I don’t understand how he can possibly not need the kinds of social and esoteric stimulation that I require just to feel like I’m alive.

It seems as if we either live in such a way that he’s happy, or in such a way that I’m happy. We’ve yet to discover the way in which we’re both happy, and it sucks.