give me your troubles, i’ll keep them with mine
Cake Woman’s days off coincided with my days to be at work and be productive, so I took part of Tuesday off to do things with her. Our vague plans for a fancy-type dinner were complicated by Lisa and Stan needing me to babysit (last minute and all) and then the inexplicable closure of Muffalettas during post-lunch and pre-dinner hours. Instead we went to the Abundant Bistro over in Frogtown, where the food was indeed abundant, and simultaneously everything I imagined soul food would be. I inhaled black eyed peas and my pork chop, then ate the cornbread and collard greens more slowly. Cake Woman had salmon, macaroni and cheese, and candied yams.
At some point on our way home Cake Woman and I had a spectacular fake fight in the car. I scared myself a little by how well I could produce sturm und drang on command.
Today after work I headed up to Anoka so that Cake Woman could drive me to Becker, Minnesota to look for couches in the Becker Furniture World And Outlet For Stuff To Put In Your House That Won’t Fill That Bottomless Hole In Your Heart. The only couches there that Cake Woman liked were in the multi-thousand dollar range, so we hopped back in the car to drive home. Becker is several hours up 10 from Anoka — somewhere before Saint Cloud but after Bumfuck. We also stopped at the Hom Furniture And Place Where The Sales Ladies Wear Pantyhose With Their Pants And Sandals. There we saw Cake Woman’s soon to be couch. I’m not very good at haggling, but Cake Woman is worse. If I would have known and been in the right mood I would have swooped in with more of that improvisational styling — basically working in imaginary deals on “not quite the right couch” at another store that could be surpassed by “the right price on this couch that we really want, if you could just bring it in under the cost of the line of credit that she has from her bank.” See how easy that rolls off the tongue? If the sales people have any leeway in their pricing they should go right for the sale.
“Oh, you know what, honey, I know you really love this couch, so I can make up the difference between what you have and what she’s offering, I think. Can you wait a week for me to get paid?”
Then, of course, you let slip that you will be looking again at the other place. I’m not saying that it would work, but with the right motivation (promises of sex) I’m sure that I could grift — I mean con… convince the salesperson that they need to make a sale at a lower price.
None of that stuff happened because I was tired and feeling kind of crappy. Then we got ice cream at Target and watched a couple of episodes of Ballykissangel. We crawled into bed and I read her “The Picture In The House” by H.P. Lovecraft.
“Don’t look like such a fucking sad sack,” Cake Woman said as I stood up. I was too far away to see her eyes flashing fire at me. Her raised eyebrow was mostly hidden in shadow. I could only imagine how her cupid’s bow lips were flexing as she spoke, loosing arrows straight at me.
The night outside was clear and unseasonably warm. Stars hung above me as crisp points. My mp3 player had me listen to the Pixies covering the Jesus and Mary Chain:
Makes you wanna feel
Makes you wanna try
Makes you wanna blow the stars from the sky
Not to be confused with “I’ll Keep It with Mine” as sung by Nico and as written by Bob Dylan.
Yes, this is a PJ Harvey song.
I need you inside me!
Wait. No.