MY KIND OF ROMANCE

Make it a man in the tub and you've got the picture.

Valentine's Day is coming up. I work pretty hard to find a nice card for my husband because he is sentimental and takes them to heart. Beyond that - he is like most men in his disdain for the "holiday" and we rarely do anything special. I usually plan a nice dinner and maybe get him some good chocolate. Sometimes he gets flowers or something, most years not.


The Huffington Post ran a column by a sex therapist about men's expectations of sex (which equals romance in many of their brains) and how it just turns Valentine's Day into yet another occasion for the wife to give and do for him.

...women are working harder than men. Most are still being paid less for their work outside the home. They are likely to be shouldering more of the burden of household and child rearing responsibilities than men. Women in the workplace continue to face sexism, spoken and unspoken. They are often exhausted by the expenditure of energy trying to combat the sexism they face without appearing petty or bitchy. Their work day is almost never over when they arrive back in their homes. Adding insult to injury, Valentine's Day becomes an opportunity for men, in the guise of romance, to obligate their wives to sex when what their wives really want is time to relax, sleep, and have their houses cleaned by someone else. Therefore, for so many women their understanding of Valentine's Day sex is just one more task that she is expected to perform.


I admit that statement struck a few nerves.  At work I am stuck with these guys who think it is so clever to make sex related remarks and so funny to be crude.  It gets old and it is exhausting to "play along."

Also, even though my husband moved his office into our house and has a lot of free time during most days to go to the gym or out for a bike ride, to watch TV and surf the net - he does NO household chores.  NONE.  His lunch plate is sitting next to the sink when I get home.  The trash will spill out onto the floor and he will not carry it out to the cans. He will call me at work to tell me we are out of milk.

Meantime, I leave the house at 8am and walk back in the door at about 5:20 (If I don't stop for a quick workout; then it's 6:30). I go straight to the kitchen to start dinner, cook, clean up after dinner and do whatever other household things need to be done and rarely sit down before 8pm to whatever leisure I might pursue before I head to bed at 10. The weekend is taken up with cleaning, shopping and laundry.

I don't think it's the sex that most women mind - it is the lack of thoughtfulness about the realities of our lives.  No matter how many times or how many ways I have suggested that pitching in or taking over some chore would improve things, I get blow back.  And believe me, I am not a nag.  I think in the past 9 years since I started working outside the home, I have mentioned the subject  5-6 times. 

I am thrilled to say my son is not like his dad in this respect. He has learned to cook (his girlfriend doesn't like to cook but she likes to do dishes.) He cleans up, he does laundry. I am very proud of his attitude about these things.

I don't think my spouse is different from most men.  He doesn't see things as "women's work" he just doesn't see things.  He claims he doesn't do housework because I somehow won't accept how he does it... I think that excuse is tossed around in locker rooms across the country.  He has admitted to doing some things in a half hearted way in order to make it seem like he is incompetent and so I won't prevail upon him to do it again...sigh.  What makes it worse is his huge resistance to having a cleaning service in.  For me it's the best, most desirable gift I can currently imagine.  To him it is a huge waste of money. 

So I say to any man who might stumble across this post - even if you don't get it.  Even if it doesn't seem romantic.  Skip the flowers and hire a cleaning service.  You might just get a memorable night out of it.

TRIPPIN' PROMPT TUESDAY

I had heard about the PromptTuesday posted by San Diego Momma every week and was moved to post this week:

I ask that you write about a trip or an excursion that left you changed in some way. Did you conquer a fear on your trip? Learn something about yourself? Learn something about another person? Break up? Get together? Consider hospital time for the largest walking blister this side of Manhattan?

In May of 1980, I was 3 years out of college and was manager of a restaurant in Oakland. I enjoyed the work but was getting restless. I was searching for my next move. I had done some career counseling and testing at Stanford University which had been pretty inconclusive. I thought I might go to graduate school - maybe law school.

I had been dating around. No major relationships. One of the guys in my life was an old friend from high school who lived in Washington state. We first got together at our 5 year high school reunion, and got together several times a year when he was in town. I am not sure why he heated up a bit on our relationship, but he invited me to go visit him in Washington and "see how we feel about things." So I went.

I cooked him meals, I met his friends, visited the school where he taught and coached football. It was nice, I felt that we were getting along well. So I was floored when, Saturday night after a nice dinner out he said he didn't think we were going to "make it." It seemed like he knew before I got there that he wasn't really serious. I wasn't crushed, but I was not happy.

Sunday morning we decided to go to the store and get picnic stuff and go to the park before I had to go to the airport. It was a bright sunny day, but while we were at the store, huge dark clouds began to roll through. While we were in line, someone said that Mt. St. Helens had erupted and the clouds were ash from the mountain. We got out of line and added to our provisions, checked out and headed back to his place. By that time the ash was not just in the clouds, it was falling everywhere, coating everything. It looked like a very dense fog - but it was dry and puffed up like fine dust when cars drove by.

We turned on the TV and called the airport and it was very clear that I wouldn't be flying out that afternoon - or any time soon. The ash was acidic and grainy and dangerous for engines. We made the best of the awkwardness which had decinded after his pronouncement of the evening before. We were unable to leave the apartment for 2 more days. We drank a lot. I remember sitting on the floor playing one Beatles album after another, singing along. I remember wishing that he hadn't said what he said -that it could have been very romantic.

I flew home a few days dater, applied to law school in San Diego and met the man who would become my husband.