I Will Not Take These Things For Granted

I can’t believe I neglected to mention that while watching Martha Stewart the other day, I witnessed her getting her exercise on a — well, it was on a stripper pole, friends. While she had the sense to turn down the request from the guest (a strip class instructor, natch) to do that upside-down stripper thing that probably has a more technical name other than “hump the pole upside down,” she still did that side swing thing that usually precedes it. I am completely traumatized, because again, if you missed it: MARTHA STEWART ON A STRIPPER POLE, DING DONG AND ALSO HALLO. During the same segment, she also admitted that she signed up for her first stripper-aerobics class and … well, God, thanks for the additional visual, Martha. Appreciate that.

I’m not sure if now is the time to admit that I have the television on almost the entire day while I’m home with Sam, but either way, there it is: I have the TV on quite a bit. I like to think I’d be one of those people who speaks of the evils of television and intelligently cites studies and articles about the loss of vocabulary in children who are exposed to it, and how television — even the most benign — encourages kids to be angry and violent, but I’m not. I can’t be. I want to be, but the truth is having adult conversation and adult themes in the background (even in the form of Martha humping the pole) is as important to me as it is to breathe.

The thing is, she doesn’t even look up at it or watch it. I am on the floor playing with my kid for most of the day. We read books at least three times every day. We have a ton of playdates and playgroups. We take time out to listen to music and dance around the living room. We build things with her kiddie-sized Legos, and I almost always catch her before she splits her lip on the coffee table. But yes, the television is on, and most days, I don’t feel bad about it, except when I do, which is also most days, when I worry that she’s going to become a non-verbal angry violent serial killer because I exposed her to too much Meredith Viera, and the occasional Bill Henrickson, including that very unfortunate time that he was boinking Margene.

***

Whenever I hear that someone is getting a divorce or is already divorced or is in the process of marital woe, I have an overwhelming urge to pick at it like a scab. If it’s a blogger, I go combing through the archives, desperately trying to find out what went wrong; I make three times the effort if I find out that they have children. I am of the futile mentality that by dissecting others’ relationships, I can prevent the same dynamics from occurring in my own marriage, as though fact-finding mixed with selfish, paranoid worry is protective, even though I am acutely aware that it isn’t.

I do this even though my marriage is among the most realistically happy I know. Some days I love him so much I can hardly contain myself. Like the love I feel for Sam, I want to pour him into a tall glass and drink him to make sure he’s comfortably inside me, safe and warm. Other days I wish we lived in a cartoon world where I could break him down limb by limb and put him in a wood chipper, taking immense pleasure in his demise, only to watch him put himself together again. Most days I just love him, and feel very lucky.

Have a happy Thursday.

*Toad the Wet Sprocket

34 comments January 20th, 2010