Apropos Of Nothing

I sent Ray a text this afternoon complaining about Ernest Hemingway.

We weren't having a conversation about Hemingway and we hadn't recently had any conversations about Hemingway. I just happened to became irritated with him while I was eating my lunch. I imagine a lot of people probably feel this way, likely Ray too, so sent him a text so he wouldn't think he was alone with these feelings.

This is how many of our conversations begin... in the middle. Books, Hollywood D-listers, outfits, blood sugar levels at home improvement centers - all great conversation starters.

A few recent examples:

Me: The real love story was Levin and Kitty.
Ray: Who?
Me: Levin and Kitty. Sure, Anna and Vronksy get the headlines, but I think it depends on when you read the book. If you read the book when you're younger, say in your 20s, you think Anna and Vronksy are fated but star-crossed, like Romeo and Juliet. But that isn't true. The interesting story is really about Kitty and Levin and how they struggle, suffer, forgive.
Ray: Didn't you finish that book two years ago?

Me: Oh my god, I almost died. I just ate an entire bag of Bugles and a Reece's Cup in the checkout line. Where were you?!
Ray: By the paint.
Me: My blood sugar was so low that I was shaking. I abandoned the plants in the garden center so I could get to the snacks in the check-out line quicker.
Ray: What happened to the plants?
Me: Did you hear what I just said? I said I had to eat Bugles because I ALMOST DIED.

Me: What do you think of these shoes with this?
Ray: They look good.
Me: I don't know… they look kinda weird. I'm just not feeling the color. Does it look like I'm going to a fancy funeral?
Ray: I guess...
Me: I knew it.

Me: If you cheat on me with some skank in Canada, I will throw all of your stuff onto the lawn and light it on fire.
Ray: What? What skank in Canada?
Me: Dean McDermott cheated on Tori Spelling in Canada while he was filming some crappy TV show or something.
Ray: Don't worry, I'm not even going to Canada this year.

Me: Does my belly look poochy in this?
Ray: Poochy? No.
Me: I feel kinda bloated, like I'm going to explode, and like this shirt is clinging to my gigantic poochy belly, you know what I mean?
Ray: There is nothing I can say that will be good at this point.

Me: I was never a big fan of Tiger Woods, but ever since his big scandal broke and he got his tooth knocked out and started sucking at golf, I have to say, he's much more interesting.
Ray: Why?

Me: He was so boring before, at least now there is evidence there is blood coursing through his veins. Dirty, washed-up blood, but blood none-the-less.

Me: Why don't teenagers moon people anymore? I remember when I was kid, getting mooned by a gaggle of teenagers in a station wagon was a legitimate possibility.
Ray: We should moon people.
Me: YES. Pale butts in car windows for everyone! My brother was a notorious mooner. I remember he mooned my mom in the kitchen once. It might have been the best thing to happen to me as a kid.
Ray: People wouldn't know what to make of my juicy booty.
Me: They are not ready for your jelly.

Singing and Swearing

In between the whirring of the drill in the basement, I can hear Ray singing along to My Sharona.

Drill.
'My motor run.'
Drill.
'Come a little closer, huh.'
Drill.
'My, my, my, WOO!'
Drill.

He is building built-in bookcases for the office, which I requested so that we can remove the bookcase from our bedroom. Having nearly 300 books stuffed into your house without built-ins takes up a lot of room. Somehow our three-story house is barely big enough for Ray, me, the cats and my 300 book friends.

The built-ins are on the heels of my sawhorse desk that he built me for Christmas. Unfortunately for him, my wish list for Santa isn't as simple as ordering from Amazon. I asked him to create me a sawhorse desk with an old door we had. This was the result.

What you can't see on my shirt is that the cat is a DJ. He is wearing headphones and scratching vinyl.

As usual, it's perfect. The next step is to create an attic library around the desk so we can move some more books around.

My real goal in all of this is so that one day, when the reporter from the New York Times Magazine comes to profile me at my home for my amazing invention/Great American Novel/scientific discovery/ability to eat frozen pizza every night for a year, our house can be described as "book-lined."

It's also my not-so-subtle way of justifying my book buying habit – look at all this storage space we have now! – and keeping Ray flush with woodworking projects so he can justify his tool buying habit. I am such a good wife.

Right after My Sharona ended I heard: "Damn it. That's not gonna work!"

With all these bookcases to be built, there is no shortage of time he can spend singing and swearing at things in the basement. Ray is a lucky man.