What they take up

I was just thinking about what pisses me off the most, why I feel this damn rage against certain people. It's because they ask so much, they take up so much time and energy. Those are the same people who never give anything back. Emotional vampires, they're called. I have other names for them.  

Great tune

 

13 years

 

About my new project

I'm 11,000 words in and I'm not really having fun. It may show, I'm not sure. I'll let you be the judge. From a snippet of what I wrote yesterday:

Of course I remember what the fight was about: macaroni and cheese. She bought the generic stuff. I very gently tried to tell her that I liked the slightly more expensive type – not the Annie’s, mind you, just the kind that wasn’t so damn gross. She got pissed off as hell at me. It wasn’t just a request. That’s what she said. It was a judgment. It was a statement of who she was and how she wasn’t as refined as me.

 

Jesus Christ. Why do women – all people, really – have to be so goddamned human?

 

I was watching videos on YouTube when she walked in with the fucking pasta. “Dani California,” I remember this specifically. Red Hot Chili Peppers. That one where they make fun of all generations of music, including themselves. That passion. That love. That amazing connection to what they do. Art. Why couldn’t I have a passion like that? I, like every other lawyer I knew, hated my job. So many hours and for what? Problem is that it came easily and paid well. I kept telling myself I was going to get out of the game, go back to school, reinvent myself. In the end we never can.

 

She went in the other room for a while. I could hear her stomping around. Maybe she chucked something, I don’t know. Kelly’s good at that. She’s a thrower, a wall-kicker. When we move out of this place, we’re going to have to scrub the baseboards down from all the times she decided to use her foot to make a point.

 

Then she emerged. At that point I’d decided I was hungry enough to eat her nasty mac and cheese. It was just as bad as I’d imagined it would be: gloppy, pasty. Not only did Kelly buy the crappy shit, but she took shortcuts when it came to making it. I mean, come on. Take those two minutes to really blend it together, you know? Nothing like getting a mouthful of processed cheese, lumpy and gross, while you’re trying to choke down your lunch.

2017, Sacramento

 

Three years ago

 

My boys