At Least Some Kind of Work Is Being Done Here

Yesterday, I spent the entire day doing homework. I kid you not. Today was no different. Besides class, and 45 minutes of free time to work out, I sat and did homework. This aggravated me to no end, but my two cats seemed way more put off by this whole situation than me. One of them kept flopping himself on top of my laptop keyboard, succeeding in either scrambling all the words I'd typed or dislodging the power cord and shutting the whole thing off.

So, nothing interesting to report today, except for a small observation. Isn't it ironic, with so many people left unemployed and out of work by this economy, that I'm working my butt off for nothing? Yes, I know, I'll get an education and a sheet of paper to prove my academic worth, but I feel like I should be doing something to support my family now, not in the future.

I guess I should just keep plugging forward. Ben is - he put in some more job applications today. We've decided just to try for anything we can get at this point. Seems like minimum wage would be great right about now.

Still Searching

I had a bit of a disappointment today. Well, Ben and I both did. Early this morning we went to visit my parents with the dual purpose of seeing them and talking to Ben's grandmother about giving Ben a job. He would have asked her for one already, seeing as how he wants to take this business, but instead we decided to wait a week to see if any oil companies call to employ him. This, of course, did not happen, since the industry is doing layoffs like crazy and isn't even thinking about hiring someone who isn't an expert in the field.

Around 11:00 we arrived, and Ben met his brother, who drove them to his grandmother's house. They were gone for SIX HOURS. Seriously. Can you blame me for thinking something was going well? I'm sitting here, thinking everything is going great, imagining the two boys touring the warehouse with their grandmother, discussing wonderful future plans of Ben managing the place. Maybe she even gave him a small management position now, and tomorrow morning, he'll be combing his hair and setting off with a purpose.

Well, that didn't happen. Ben returned to my parents' house just as I finished my run, face a mask of irritation. She didn't offer him a job. She just hired three people.

This, I cannot understand. My dad owns a business, and if I needed a job, he would give me one, no matter how many people he had working for him. I assumed this was the way of all business owners in relation to their children, but I guess not. I'm so let down by all of this. I don't want to be angry with his grandmother, but I can't help feel a little irate. Ben's brother doesn't even want to work there, but he has a job. I guess this just proves that you can't rely on anyone but yourself. That's something I should have known already.

Why I Cannot Lose Weight

I had an epic 3-way fight today.

We Cajuns like to draw out our fights over long hours filled with swearing, hatred, love, and tears. Passive-aggressive is not exactly a fitting description of us. When it comes to me and my mother, we will let you know exactly how we feel, exactly when we feel it. I'll do my best to condense it for those who do not enjoy my particular style of fighting.

My 11:00 class was cancelled, so I decided to invest the time in running my 45 minutes at the gym. On the way, my mother called me. She got right to the point.

"Brooke, I think Ben is an idiot for wanting to do this stupid business thing."

I paused, bracing myself for the inevitable. I knew I shouldn't have told her about Ben's plan -without his knowledge - last night. "Um... why?"

"He's lazy. You and I both know that he's too damn stupid to run a business. This is a whim. It's a joke. He's got no maturity whatsoever. He's too busy sitting at home playing with toys!"

I decided it was best not to inform her that I, too, spent my fair share of time with The Toys last night. "Mom, he's trying. He puts in applications every day. He's just really discouraged."

"I don't care if he's discouraged! He needs to DO something! He wants to go to SCHOOL? Do you actually think he can pass a damn class?"

We went on like this for about an hour, until I had to hide in a corner of the gym to scream without being pointed out as a raving derelict. My mom was bawling, and I was so pissed I couldn't see straight. It's hard to defend your husband against a chronically pessimistic Cajun woman who only wants to highlight his worst flaws.

So, she started screaming, and I hung up on her. (Don't take this as disrespect - it's common for my mother and I. Once, she threw a candle at my face, probably with intent to maim. I don't hold it against her in the slightest.) Furiously I dialed Ben's number.

"You need to get off your lazy ass and DO SOMETHING! My parents are furious! Do you want them to stop sending me to school!"

"Whoa, whoa." Ben sounded disoriented. "You need to calm down, babe. I'm doing applications right now - "

"I don't care!" I shrieked, drawing a few stares from girls on treadmills. "You need to DO MORE! My parents are freaking out on me and I haven't done anything wrong, so YOU need to handle it!"

I'm not of fan of catching the brunt of my mother's frequent anger towards my husband. So, I transfer it to him. It's only fair.

Ben, at this point, hung up on me. I was pissed about the whole exchange, and even more pissed about having my workout disrupted, so I threw my phone in my bag, said screw it, and decided to at least get one mile out of the way before I drove home to wring my husband's neck. Or my mother's. Someone, anyway.

After I ran my mile, listening to the loudest punk rock you can imagine, I dialed my husband. Straight to voicemail. Aggravated, I dialed my mother. Same with her. The jerks were conspiring against me. Throwing my phone down, I sprinted down the track again. I pushed on until I finished another mile, then returned to my phone. One missed call. I punched my husband's number.

"Babe! Everything's okay! You and your mom need to calm down! You two start screaming at each other and get hysterical."

"Whatever." I was hot, tired, and annoyed. This put me in no mood to calm down. "I don't want to talk to either of you. You both have ruined my workout!"

"Babe, you need to calm down."

I hate when he tells me to calm down, so I hung up.

In retrospect, I might have been a little too irritable. It's hard not to fight back when your Cajun mother comes at you with the claws out. But honestly, I share some of her concern. Ben doesn't have a job. Ben's sitting around a little too much. Ben needs to work out more.

But what can I do? I'm just one woman. I can only do so much. I'm his partner in life - but some things, he needs to straighten out for himself.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do my Wii Fit. If anyone interrupts me again, they'll be lucky to come out of it with all four limbs intact.

Go Figure

I'm going to be totally honest here. Today, I suffered an immense lack of judgment, and am currently feeling very, very guilty.

Remember the fantasy game with the little toys? Yeah. Well, Ben's friend J decided to play this game, so Ben decided to drive with him to this mall that is really, really far away that contains the only official store that sells this game. And, for some reason, I decided to go with them, for lack of having anything better to do.

We arrived at the mall around 4:30, and since we went after my only Wednesday class at 3:00, there was nobody there. Uber-nerdy fantasy game stores don't exactly attract droves on weekdays. The employees there, a nice guy named Austin and an Irish guy named John, looked really, really excited to see us, if only to have a break from the monotony of an empty store. J ended up buying a box of Elf figures, and seriously, I don't know how this happened... but I let Ben buy one, too.

The guys decided to plop down at the hobby table to start painting their figures. We all sat for awhile and talked with the employees as they told us the intricacies of the game. I'm going to be honest, here. It sounded kind of fun.

I really, really like video games. I grew up playing them, being the socially awkward single child that I was, and the passion lingered with me. Our shared love for video games very likely contributed to Ben and I getting married. So as Austin and John detailed the intricate, realistic rules for in-game battle, I found myself really, really wanting to play. Plus, one of the races you could choose was all pretty cavalry and flying horses - and I really, really love horses.

So... a few minutes later, I sat down next to the guys with my own box of The Toys. We spent a little while painting at the store, then went home and continued. At this point I realized that my fine motor skills were about equivalent to those of a skilled 6th grader. Needless to say, my pink horses were a little... well, weird and clumpy. Ben's turned out beautiful. So, now that I wasted a good chunk of time - it's off to do homework. Stupid freaking fantasy figurines. They should not exist when unemployed people are running amok.

Nonetheless, I think some good came of this. As I'm writing this, I look over at my husband, hunched over and painting his little regiment of warriors, and I can see a wide grin spread across his face. 

Stress

So, in retrospect, maybe I was a little hard on Ben last night.

I love my husband to death, and I don't mean to talk badly about him and his being unhealthy. Honestly, I'm starting to freak out just a little bit.

Ben has decided, since no job offers are coming in, that he wants to take over his grandmother's helicopter parts business, which has recently been offered to him. Here's the story, as short as I can make it.

Ben's brother was set up to take over of this business, but he decided he wants to pursue his dream to join the police academy and someday live the action-packed life of a cop (I know). So, Ben, unemployed as he is, has decided to "take a chance" and ask his grandmother if he can have the business.

Have I mentioned that Ben has NO business experience, NO degree, NO credibility whatsoever to take on this sort of responsibility? Not to mention the maturity issue. He likes to play with toys, people. I don't exactly think this is such a great idea. For one, I don't think Ben has the gonads to do something like this. My parents own a business, and I've seen my dad slave over that damn business all his life. Ben doesn't have that kind of love for helicopter parts. So this whole thing is basically stressing the ever loving hell out of me.

I need a break.

Running on Empty

The day after a long break from school is always a somewhat depressing one from me. The day before I've got to go back to work, I'm always plagued by this horrible feeling of impending doom, but when the dreaded day actually comes around, it's really not that bad.

This morning, Ben decided to constantly harass me about this fantasy game he found out about, where you paint these little miniature figures of knights and wizards and dragons and play a chess-esque strategy game. Don't get me wrong, I love video games. I've wasted my fair share of hours raising virtual horses on Harvest Moon or hacking at monsters on Zelda, but the issue I have with this tabletop game is the time commitment. Ben woulds have to spend hours painting these figures, not to mention learning all the super-complicated rules, in the event that my husband actually gets me to break down and let him buy it. Honestly, I don't want to hear about it.

So the morning ambled on with him dragging me away from my homework and to the computer to look at tiny painted figurines (toys, to be precise) and I finally got so irate at him that I had to stuff him full of grilled cheese sandwiches to get him off my case. As far as Ben goes, sometimes it's best to let him burn himself out on one of these whims, which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't. My first class, 20th Century Literature, was thankfully interesting. We got to discuss the Waste Land, a gloriously complex poem by T.S. Eliot that I've been reading over for years without any actual comprehension.

My 6:00 class was cancelled, which I was quite happy about, due to the fact that after 45 minutes of running at the gym, I was really, really smelly. Some news for the weekend - spring break and all its home-cooked Cajun food took its toll on my hips. Now, I've got a good fifteen pounds to burn off, and nothing less than an intense workout regiment is in order. Here's the thing about being married, namely being married to a big dork who really, really loves cheeseburgers: you gain weight. Since being married, I've doubled the Freshmen Fifteen that I unfortunately also gained. Now, with a whole new wardrobe full of clothes with tags bearing sizes I don't really want to think about, I've come to the conclusion that I need to get this thing under control.

Ben, unfortunately, is a totally different story. Me - I'm kind of a health freak. I refuse to eat at any place I know serves food that contains trans-fats. I count my calories every day. I cook fish three times a week for my required dose of omega fatty acids. This is a recent development. After the dizzying realization that you aren't really that thin and cute anymore hits you, you start freaking out a little bit. Well, maybe not you, but that's how it went for me. So now, I'm plagued with this constant nagging notion that if I don't get Ben up off his ass and onto a treadmill, he might have a heart attack before he's 30.

When I got home, two hours before I was supposed to, I begged Ben to come to the gym and take a walk with me. He was busy submitting resumes - a decent excuse, I'll give him that - but after a few hours crept by, I was starting to get pissed. Doesn't this guy understand that I am genuinely concerned for his health? That I don't want to end up widowed and alone because he's too lazy to go jog a mile?

It's frustrating, being married to someone with no concern for their health. I'm honestly worried about him. In this life, you have to take care of yourself. I wish I could get healthy for him, but that's something I can only do for myself. Oh, well. Maybe he's just discouraged. Or maybe, once he weighs 300 pounds, he'll actually get off his ass and go for a jog instead of looking at toys on the internet.

Escape

I'm in the midst of this conflicting stream of emotions. The responsible part of me, naturally, wants my husband to get a job and start bringing home the bucks again so we can do things like, oh, eat, and buy booze, and go out. But there's this other part of me, a guilty part, the part of me attached to most of those irrational feelings that typically dominate the rational ones, that wants him to stay. I know how juvenile that is. We aren't in high school anymore. If we wanted to go on living without having to pay for anything, then marriage probably wasn't the best of ideas. But we didn't get married because it was a good idea. We got married because we loved each other, obsessively and completely.

This guilty little notion hit me when Ben and I were, once again, at my parents' house in Weatherford helping my mother get in and out of bed. For the second time this week, Ben led me out to the pasture and groomed the horses with me, letting me bask in the quiet, relaxing. There's nothing more relaxing to me than my parents' ranch. Small clusters of live oaks tower over sprawling plains. Fat black cows dot the pasture, leisurely eating while their calves bound around nearby. The earthy smell of the horses always remind me of my childhood, when I was calmer, able to shrug off all the little things that bothered me and just be. It's hard for me to quiet my thoughts - I'm sure I should look into meditation at some point, but isn't it more fun to eat popcorn, drink cheap wine, and play video games with my husband? Yes, yes it is.

I like this escape, and I like Ben being here. Even though I could strangle him and rip that scraggly beard off his unshaven face for not trying harder to find a job, I like him being here. The real world is such a pain, and nothing in it seems to be getting better in the slightest bit. Not for us, anyway. I know that it's not practical, but I don't care about the situation Ben and I are in. Sure, we're broke, we don't have insurance, we're in a little bit of debt, we live in an apartment we surely can't afford - but we have it so much better than so many people. I know it sounds so cheesy - but it's because we have each other. The problems of the world are a lot easier to bear when you don't have to do it alone.

St. Patty's Hangover

So I woke up this morning with dry mouth and a mother of a headache. To be honest, when I woke up, I didn't actually know where I was. I ripped off my black sleep mask thing that I use to block out the obnoxious 24-hour light outside my window, blinked the crud out of my eyes, and turned to blearily look at my husband. I think he might have been drooling just a little.

When at last the memories of last night started piecing themselves together, I felt quite proud of myself. It must be the Cajun in me, but when I get a substantial amount of booze in me, I'm ready to fight. And there is no one in this world I love to fight with more than my darling husband. So when I realized that I'd gone through an entire St. Patrick's Day of bar hopping without trying to knock him out in the street, I felt somewhat accomplished.

"Love you," I murmured sleepily, throwing a leaden arm over my husband's shoulders and shoving my face into his back.

The festivities began spontaneously at around 6:00, when we called our friend J and announced that we would be going to The Ginger Man, our favorite pub famous for wonderfully fattening imported beers, for St. Patrick's Day. J agreed, and soon enough the three of us were crammed into my Pontiac, singing our lungs out, most appropriately, to Flogging Molly.

Expectedly, the bar was completely packed - and they were out of Guiness. I'm not the biggest fan of Guiness (I think it tastes sort of gummy and burnt) but J really wanted one, so we knocked back some Spaten Optimators, allowing only enough time to absorb the rich, tart taste of the beer before we got back in the car and returned to the apartment. Ben and I live downtown, so we decided (wisely) that the safest thing we could do would be to park the car and walk to the rest of the bars downtown. Sure, we might have to stumble drunkenly back and risk some skinned knees, but it beat a DUI any day. Plus, nobody had to be the driver this way, and everyone liked that idea.

Billy Miner's came next. Ever had an Irish carbomb? Well, I did, and it was freaking nasty. Picture it: a shudder-inducing mixture of Bailey's Irish Creme and Irish Whiskey, dropped into half a glass of Guiness. Ugh. Well, we had two of those, and I had some drink called Sex with an Alligator, which was actually just as green and brown and interesting as it sounds. At this point, things began to get a little hazy.

Ben, J, and I staggered out of Billy Miner's around 11:00, sufficiently buzzed. Ben and J saw a group of motorcycles parked outside of the next bar, and Ben decided to declare how he was going to get one.

"Stupid!" I snapped, smacking him on the arm. "Do you want to waste all or money, or kill yourself, or both?" The signs of drunken Cajun bitchiness began to emerge.

Then, my wonderful husband did something I must remember to thank him for. He grabbed me by the shoulders, hard, and said, "Look, you are NOT going to get pissy tonight! Got it?"

And I did. We went to the next bar and I was in such a damn good mood, joking around and telling the bartender how great the drinks were, that I scored us a round of free drinks. Well, maybe it was J winking slyly at the bartender behind all our backs, but I'd like to think it was my uncharacteristic extroversion that did it.

Now, this may not seem like much of a breakthrough to you, but for me, this was major. Here's the thing - I like to fight. A lot. For me it's like conversation. You're sharing your problems, only louder and faster than you would ordinarily. I think part of me constantly holds back this urge to scream at everyone, pretty much all day long. So, of course, nearly every time I drink, the floodgates are opened. I wouldn't call myself an angry drunk. Just an excessively cranky one.

Because I'm so comfortable with my husband, he's always on the receiving end of this raw tide of emotion. Usually, he takes it entirely wrong. If I'm snapping at him, I'm not mad, per se... I'm just being snappy. Usually he goes all silent and starts sulking and won't speak to me again until I apologize. I don't want this. I want fireworks that match mine.

Apparently, this doesn't work for everyone. So my husband did the next best thing he could do for me, besides getting into a fabulous sparring match. He snapped me out of it. And in doing that - in standing up to me - my night ended up being amazing. Imagine that. Maybe that's what I really need to be happy - someone to stand up to me. I think that's how it has to be with any close relationship I'm in. You either stand up to the temper, or you crumble beneath it. Luckily, I haven't managed to break Ben yet.

Spring Break - Literally

I know 3 people who are going to Cancun for spring break. A few of my friends are going on a cruise. One of my best friends left for Rome last week. Do you want to know what I get to do? You ready for it? Well, my mother, who I love dearly, threw her back out. And guess who gets to spend the next week bending over and picking up things for her? Oh yes, it's me.

I just finished a load of wash. Ben vacuumed the carpet. Immediately after I threw a massive load into my mother's industrial-size washer, she called me over to turn her heating pad on - and wash the dishes, and fill up the dogs' water, and cook lunch. 

All of this isn't really an issue for me... except the dishes part. I kind of have this obsessive thing where I can't touch other peoples' dirty dishes, aside from my husband's and my own. Especially if they've been sitting in the sink immersed in water, so the dishes are filled with a grayish liquid suspension with little particles of food floating everywhere. Even the thought of it makes me shudder. In retrospect, I now realize why I was never tipped very well during my one job waiting tables - I must have had the most disgusted look on my face every time I took someone's nasty, spitty, guacamole-encrusted plate.

What a way to spend spring break.

After grimacing my way through half the dishes, Ben came to my rescue, blessedly scrubbing out the pots, namely the one I'd been avoiding with day-old canned corn lurking at the bottom. Yuck. Grinning at my obvious distaste, he wrapped an arm around my waist and led me out the front door.

"Where are we going?" I asked, not really caring, just relieved to be away from the contaminated food.

"To make you feel better," he said, taking the back of my neck between his fingers and rubbing, just how I liked.

We strolled in silence down the dirt road to the barn, my mom's corgi-chihuahua mix, Peanut, bounding excitedly alongside. Two fat horses stood in the pen beside the little tin building - a rotund palomino with dirt in his once-white mane, and an ancient roan who seemed to wobble precariously where he stood. Ben and I walked into the barn and retrieved three brushes - one for the mane, one to scrape off the winter coat, and one to massage - and a handful of butterscotch treats, then made our way to the horses. We fed and brushed them until both stood with their eyes-half closed and noses nearly touching the ground. Every few minutes, Ben would set his brush atop the roan's fat red and white back and would come give me a hug or a kiss on the forehead.

I don't like being broke. I don't like not being able to pay my rent without my parents' help, and I don't like having to worry every day that something is going to happen to make our lives simply fall apart. But on days like this, I'm glad that my husband is here. So he can spend time with me, like this. Sure, it doesn't make anything better. But it makes me forget about everything going on in my life, just for a little while.

Dead Broke

By way of introduction -

My name is Brooke, and I just turned 21 at the end of February. Which, if you count backwards to October, means I was married at the ripe old age of 20, when most of my peers are out cruising bars or parties in hopes to get laid. Not to find a marriage partner. So, needless to say, when I announced my decision to marry my boyfriend of a year and a half, Ben, I received more puzzled looks than congratulations. Actually, the most commonly asked questions were "Are you insane?" and "Are you pregnant?!?!?!" The latter being absolutely unthinkable (children both terrify and disgust me), I would have to lean more towards the former. And, almost six months into marriage, I'm officially pretty sure that I am, in fact, crazy.

When I got into this thing (and by thing I mean marriage) my husband was successfully employed by an engineering company working with computers, leaving me free to go to school and neatly finish off my degree without any major financial hurdles. Now, thanks to the plummeting economy, my husband is jobless and we are stuck in our ridiculously overpriced downtown apartment with no income save his meager severance and unemployment in an amount so arbitrary I'm actually embarrassed of the institution.

So, three weeks into utter joblessness, where are we?

My husband is presently sitting on the couch, playing Assassin's Creed on the Playstation 3. I think I've spoken, oh, four or five sentences to him today. See, my husband and I usually have this really great line of communication. Add three weeks of unemployment and he's regressed about 10 years, crumbling into a 14-year-old whose attention span is only wide enough to encompass video games and food. 

Note the following exchange, which took place a few hours ago:

"Sweetie!"

"What?" Ben snapped, eyes not leaving the blundering battle scene taking place on the T.V.

"Could you possibly take the trash out?"

"I'm kind of busy right now, babe, I'll get it in a minute."

"Okay. Did you put your application in for that piping place?"

"GOD DAMMIT!"

My mouth dropped open. "What did you say?!?!"

"Not you - SHIT - look what you did!" Furiously he pointed at the screen, glaring at me. His little marauder lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, obviously dead.

Screw this. I need a drink.