The Alley, Part 3

“Why are you so paranoid? It’s not like anybody can see in here,” he observed, rather witheringly.

And when he realized that was not going to get the response he desired, to persuade me of their unnecessity according to him, he resorted to sarcasm.

I hate sarcasm.

Especially from my husband.

“So what do you want to do then? Cover up all the windows and the French doors with curtains? You want me to put rods up everywhere so you can hang them? We’re going to have to get me curtains, then, right? You want to go shopping for them now?”

His response is absolute proof that higher education and listening skills, as well as relationship skills, are contraindicated. That’s my theory, anyway. I figure, you spend all that time bending your mind to figuring out complicated theories and formulas, the male brain simply does not have enough room to spare for other things. Like practical, or emotional skills. What practical skills, you ask? Understanding, say, that dirty laundry goes in a laundry basket, and when that basket is full, it then needs to be moved to the washing machine and dryer.

Go ahead and accuse me of gynocentrism. You would be right. It’s like a black friend told me, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life learning about white people. I’m done with that.” So you would be right. I’ve been taught all about the Euro-androcentric world. Time for a little focus on myself, I think. Because even if I have plenty of higher education myself, I don’t forget all those other things in my life.

The practical stuff, like cleaning every day. Everywhere I look in my house, I see something that triggers a panicked thought, “OMG! I have to clean that!” a hundred times a day.

And the emotional, “Honey, I know you’re having a really hard time with…(fill in the blank because he seems to have a hard time with most things).”

Or the intellectual, when I begin a conversation on postcolonialism and diamond mining.

The physical? Well, surprisingly, he’s not so good at that, either. Caressing. Hugging. A place to rest one’s head. One time, I was visiting a girlfriend whose husband was an artist, in the mode of Japanese cartoons with oversized eyes and undersized bodies—he was Japanese, after all. He had drawn an imaginary animal-like person with the standard large eyes, cuddled up in the lap of another, larger imaginary animal-person of the same species.

“Ahh,” I said appreciatively. That’s so cute!

“Yeah, Fumi drew that.”

“That’s really sweet.”

She paused for a moment, “You do realize that the little one in the lap is him, right?”

That seems to sum up so many relationships I know of.