this woman’s work

And while we’re at it? Down with married couples without kids.

Haven’t you guys heard? The people who orchestrated the gay marriage bans, they don’t hate gay people — they just want to preserve the sanctity of marriage. Tony Perkins says, “The definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is rooted in the order of nature itself. It promotes the continuation of the human race and the cooperation of a mother and a father in raising the children they produce.”

He has proof. He has studies (ok, so they’re funded by the Family Research Council, which is a think tank to promote conservative values). Kids do better with two parents of the opposite sex. So single parents? You guys are out. Remarried parents? Don’t muck up the system — Tony says not two moms, not two dads, not three dads. No. No blended families. Don’t you care about the kids?

Note, please, that Tony understands that marriage is about making and raising children:

“The reality is that kids need a mom and a dad, that’s what marriage is about.” (That’s God’s plan — you can’t argue with it. These guys? They have a hot line straight to God and they know what he’s thinking every single second.) It’s not about love or cherishing each other, at least not if you don’t have kids. So if you don’t have kids whether by choice or circumstance? No marriage for you either.

I mean, if we’re really about what Tony Perkins says we’re about, let’s not pussy foot around anymore. Let’s put stricter rules on marriage: Only one man, one woman. No divorce. And if you don’t produce kids in let’s say five years, your marriage is dissolved.

Wait. That’s insane! Whose business is it anyway? What right does the government have to say what your marriage ought to look like???

Exactly.

Single folks with kids. Married folks without kids. Don’t uphold this bigotry. Who knows — they might be coming for you next.

Brett just awarded me employee of the month at, you know, Smart Cookie Communications. I guess we’re going to take turns with that. I hope he’s buying me chocolate to celebrate.

When people ask me what my husband does (or ask Brett what he does) we’ve been saying he’s home with the kids but now we’re going to say that he handles the accounting for our business because:

1. He does.

2. It engenders less discussion.

3. It’s easy for the two of us to forget how vital he is to our daily operations and we need to put it at the forefront of our minds.

I can write for days and days but am easily bored by mundane things like billing and keeping track of W9s and remembering to send back contracts. If he didn’t help me with that stuff things would be so much more muddled around here. Plus he chases down people who haven’t paid, he handles all the insurance and retirement issues, and he deals with our tax records. I would be drowning in a sea of paper (and likely not even noticing) if he didn’t handle all that.

But this month I get to be Employee of the Month because I promised to catch up on the book reviews even though I am easily bored by them and he’s trying to cheer me on so I can get ‘em off my desk. Whenever I send an invoice out, I cc him for his records and I just sent one so he emailed me back and let me know I’d be getting my plaque any minute now. Maybe they’ll put my picture in the company newsletter!

If I hadn’t already snatched him up, I’d just marry the heck out of that guy.

I got Brett to help me turn my desk so that the kids can’t creep up on me anymore and scare the bejesus out of me. It’s better feng shui now, too; one should never have one’s back to the door. Then I got out all of my aggression by shredding old documents. That can get addictive. I could very easily go crazy and shred some important stuff in all the excitement.

I don’t start my on-site project for another week but next week is already getting crammed full of meetings. I’m already nostalgic for my dreary (but newly reorganized) home office when I think about actually going ON SITE where people have real jobs and actual time sheets! That should be an adventure. It looks like the project may take a couple of weeks so we’ll see how that impacts my blogging life. Especially if it becomes a regular thing. (My budget hopes it does but my being? She is neutral.)

Brett and I had a rip-roaring fight the other day about nothing to do with each other and everything to do with the still missing check (although it’s been sighted by the accounting department and we hear that it will arrive … soon). He was so mad that he very wisely went running and I was so mad that I plotted all kinds of ways to take revenge on him, which I told him all about when we made up that night. My revenge fantasies are pretty lame. Like throwing out all of the carpet that we both hate but that I hate more. Or taking the nice pillow. Or taking up smoking because I know that would make him crazy. And then I told him I’d always smoke outside the window of whatever room he was in.

Told you they were lame revenge fantasies.

See, the problem is? Even when I hate Brett and wish he’d run away from home for real? I also know that I still rather like him.

Noah and I watched A Room with a View on PBS (he missed the bloody death scene) and he was intrigued by the romance. Why did she like the one guy but not the other? Why was on worth marrying and one not? (Yes, we talked about the gay subtext and we talked about heterosexism a little bit and pronatalism and how silly all that is.) Anyway, I told him that best case scenario is that you LOVE someone and you also LIKE them and you think they’re pretty cute. See, I always think that Brett is pretty cute. Even when I want to kill him.

I don’t know why or how but I do. I have lost — so far — three cords and now I can’t find the one that came with the camera we just bought. (I know it must be down here around my desk because surely I uploaded photos since we got back — right?)

I lose things completely even when they’re right in front of my eyes. I’ve called Brett at work in a panic because I can’t find my keys and I’m going to miss an appointment and he’s rushed home to give me his only to find my keys sitting right in the bowl where we always put them. I mean, I just looked there but somehow didn’t see them.

This happens to me a lot.

Brett says it’s because my brain is too busy and it certainly feels that way. Sometimes I’ve got so much going on in my head that things fall out. Things like where are my car keys? Where is the camera cord? Where is that cup of coffee I just poured and somehow lost between here and the kitchen? Plus I’m a big picture person. I see where I want to go and I see a vague path to get there but the details? Where to turn and the name of the street? No. I mean this literally, too. I’ve gotten better about remembering to write down directions (and then remembering to take them with me when I leave) but for a long time getting lost and finding my destination anyway was an accidental hobby of mine. I prided myself on somehow finding my way with only a vague idea of the name of the street and a bare description of the building.

“I think she said Vaughn Way or Vanweigh or Wonvay Avenue but something like that and I know it’s near the mall and her house has a blue door.”

Now Brett is a detail person. He is meticulous and things take him much longer because he crosses every t, dots every i and then goes back through one more time to make sure he did it right. He can scan a room slowly and see keys and camera cords and cups of coffee. He always prints out directions and he stops several time to check them as he drives.

You would think this would make for arguments but you would be wrong. It can occasionally make for good-hearted bickering, true, but actually we’ve learned to lean on each other — me especially. I couldn’t get through my day (let alone the rest of my life) without someone who knows the particulars and he counts on me to, well, I don’t know what exactly but outside of rolling his eyes occasionally he tolerates my inattention to detail.

Now if I could only find that cord…