October 13, 2011

The bricoleur.



Xavier, the bricoleur. I often come home and find him like this - having started on a project that consumes him. Often his weekends are reserved just for that. He is currently attacking all the walls in the house with his special paper rolls (you remember, the ones transported from Paris). The house has plaster walls from the 1880s, so even with his magical dressing, they remain full of character, like the surface of a pumpkin.

He has been cracking me up lately. Today he announced he was well on his way to American citizenship. It just requires an American civics exam. I asked him if he felt he was prepared for it. "Come on babe, 300 years of history? It is a joke."

In other Xavier news, he calls me with a new plan every day - at work - to tell me we should fly to California that very weekend to drive a car back he is coveting, or he's suddenly working on a motorcycle license or, "babe, there a rugby game we have to watch at 3:30am tomorrow" (because it is live in New Zealand). Some work out, others don't (cars). He also keeps my dreams at night fascinating. He is most often the villain and says I talk out loud, bemoaning.

On the pregnancy front, I feel like I've been invaded. I mean, I'm sincerely excited for a baby to appear, but I have a semi-bad to pretty bad attitude about the process (said half-joking). I guess I am more custodial of my body than I suspected. It's pretty annoying to go to work everyday and be examined and scrutinized, as if every day should bring some drastic change - especially when, at 4.5 months, there is almost nothing to see. That being said, upon hearing the news, my boss did exclaim his felicitations and then promptly forgot. I appreciate that. The only sign he remembers is when he occasionally asks if I am feeling flustered (my position could be described as being endowed with so many simultaneous tasks under an imperishable time crunch - pregnant or not, genius or idiot - a permanently flustered feeling is often the natural result). When he voices this observation, I think it must be an acknowledgement of my "condition", but the remark just feels insulting. I must be giving myself away more. Xavier is good at soothing this, reminding me at befitting moments the triviality of any of that, no matter who I work for. He's right.

2 comments:

Jill said...

You must post pictures about how these improvements turn out. I've been dying to see the effect of the wall paper from France. Keep up the good work of building things(baby and otherwise) you two.

Brad said...

The X Man is priceless. Great update.

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