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Nightmarriage 2011: eBook Announcement + “Swinging on the Mood Swing-Set”

Sunday, January 1, 2012 12:19

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I plan to release an eBook in the not-too-terribly distant future, and it will be a compilation of all of my blog entries from my Nightmarriage and Preggersville serials, as well as any other entries that seem to fit the familial blogging bill. I have hired Jennifer Harris-Dault to edit and help me compile things in a seamless way, and I have also asked her to write the Foreword to the book. (She is currently on the lookout for freelance editing and writing work, and I recommend her without reservation.)

Since deciding to plague the world with an eBook, I have been inspired to write more entries that might be suitable for the book. This is one such entry. There will be exclusive art and writing for the book as well. We hope to release it in both Kindle and tablet formats. I am going to make Jennifer sing for her supper so you, my faithful readers (all three of you), will be able to dine on literary prime rib, or at least literary pork butt.

At our best, my wife and I are playmates on a marital playground, enduring the up-and-down motions of life’s seesaw together. At our worst, we swing on the mood swing-set. Depending on who’s pushing, at any given time one of us is likely to say “Push me higher!”, and the other is all too eager to oblige. In the end, the swing is empty, and the person who was swinging only moments before is face-down in the playground sand, eating the kind of dessert one finds in deserts.

A few months ago, when my wife and I were celebrating our second anniversary in Kansas City, we were at a store at Crown Center called Function Junction. It is essentially a kitchen gadget store, filled with all manner of unnecessary culinary accoutrements.

I know what you’re thinking: Function Junction is hardly a place for lovers to carouse and celebrate their wedding vows. But you are wrong. When a store sells sock-monkey wine-bottle covers, you know you are in Cupid’s headquarters.

Upon sighting said sock-monkey wine-bottle cover, Becki and I had the following conversation:

Chad: Oh look! A sock-monkey wine-bottle cover! Amazing!

Becki: Uh huh.

Chad: I think that’d be an AWESOME giveaway on my blog!

Becki: Uh huh.

Chad: Look! It slides over the bottle and covers it like a sock! See?

Becki: Uh huh.

Chad: (Removing the item from the shelf to hold and caress it) Can I get it and give it away on my blog? Can I –

Becki: PUT THAT BACK!!! (Spoken with force and volume enough to cause the sock-

monkey wine-bottle cover to screech, leap out of my hands, and return to its home in the footwear forest.)

Chad: (Makes whimpering sound, cowers beneath display case of Pastasaurus pasta servers.)

Becki: Oh sorry. I think that was pregnancy hormones.

Chad: (Whimpers some more.)

I think I moped about that spontaneous scolding for about an hour. Because I am soft like an overripe avocado, and I have a wooden pit for a brain when it comes to processing startling events such as these.

Since Evie’s arrival, Becki and I have both had our share of overly emotional outbursts. On the surface, they are as absurd as the aforementioned sock-monkey wine-bottle cover incident. As any psychologist will tell you, after all, words are not everything in an argument.

My dad, who counsels people all the time as a pastor, once taught me about the “two-car crash” rule. That is, sometimes when a person spouts off, they are not actually mad about what they think they are mad about. It may be that something else happened earlier in the day, or some other underlying factor is contributing stress to the situation. Yes, you are having an interpersonal car-crash with your spouse, but someone or something else may have crashed into your spouse unbeknownst to you before you ever joined the pile-up.

Last night, I picked Evie up from daycare, and she cried all the way home, as she was hungry. All I had at home were frozen bags of milk that needed to be defrosted and then warmed in a bottle. My pectorals, while formidable in a skirmish, do not produce milk. Therefore, I am “udderly” useless in situations such as these until I can thaw milk for my daughter. (Were my daughter to attempt to nurse at my bosom, she would end up with a mouthful of chest hair, and my white chest would blind her, giving her nickname “Evie Wonder” even more credence.) Since I value my daughter’s well-being, I am slowly becoming skilled in the art of thawing frozen milk.

After contending with our caterwauling baby and lulling her into a quieter state, I cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the cat litter pans, and took care of both the garbage and the recycling. When Becki and I sat down to eat, then, I was already feeling sorry for myself because I had not stopped doing housework since I walked in the door. I was primed for martyr mode. I was ready to apply for sainthood in the Catholic church even though I am Protestant.

By the time we sat down on the couch to eat in the living room, I was already feeling overwhelmed. (Yes, we vegetate while eating dinner. We “turnip” the volume on the TV and shout “Lettuce rest!” to the world around us.) When I got up to get water for my wife and came back to find her changing Evie’s diaper in the exact spot where I had been sitting and eating my dinner, it was another car crashing into the pile-up that was already happening in my mind.

Indignant, I sat down on the floor next to the baby swing. After eating, I then proceeded to stomp around the house and do more housework. I’ll show my wife, I thought to myself. She’ll never take my seat again!

It took Becki much longer than I thought it would to notice my behavior, which meant I ended up doing more housework than I planned. Eventually, she asked if I was okay, and I loudly exclaimed, “YOU TOOK MY SEAT! YOU CHANGED EVIE’S DIAPER RIGHT WHERE I WAS SITTING!!! IT WAS MY SEAT! I WAS SITTING THERE!!!”

(I am 33-years-old, by the way, despite the fact that I sound like a 3-year-old here.)

I wanted to say, “Oh sorry. It was the pregnancy hormones.” It felt honest even though it was physiologically impossible. My wife no longer carries Evie inside her. Now we carry Evie together each day, and outwardly. Now our lives are pregnant with her existence – with her smiles, her cries, her feedings. Our lives are fuller than they once were – on the verge of bursting, in fact. No wonder we both lose our minds from time to time.

I apologized to Becki for my attitude, and she said she knew I was not simply reacting to her swiping my spot on the couch. It was the pregnancy hormones. She knew it. I knew it.

By the day’s end, all was fine in the Johnston household. After fighting, we usually continue swinging on the mood swing-set until we are content to be playground playmates again. We continue to play until one of us suspects the other has a sudden appetite for sand, and then we blame the outcome on the pregnancy hormones.

“Chad Thomas Johnston is an author, sonuva’ preacha’ man, PhD-dropout, singer/songwriter, music producer/sonic reducer, daydreaming doodler, gorilla/guerilla publicist, cinemaddict, & pop-culture obsessive. He is represented by Seattle, WA-based literary agent Jenée Arthur, who is currently shopping his debut manuscript to major publishing houses.

Follow Him on Twitter: @Saint_Upid

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