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January 29, 2006

he gives a new kind of meaning to what I am

The Husband's phone fell apart, he called me at work to say, and so he had decided to get a new one. Pretty much as soon as he hung up the phone with me he went straight off to Verizon and did just that, and then decided that his old phone, whose performance was unsatisfactory for his needs, would be perfect for mine (since they are--admittedly--basic: I hardly require more than a ringer and a connection).

So I got The Husband's old phone. Naturally I read the text messages he had not deleted--hello, you would have, too--and once I was finished depressing myself with those, I went about eradicating every trace of Spooky Girlfriend from the phone as well. Considering how completely unattractive a person SG is (though perhaps I'm biased), there was a surprising number of pictures. Well, I was surprised. I deleted the phone numbers and photos: the sitting-at-a-table-smiling one; the ones with somebody's kids and a long-nosed dog at Christmas; the one of Spooky Girlfriend asleep in bed, how touching. If I could have hacked the photos out of the database with a knife that would have been nice, but I had to content myself with pressing Delete.

And after the photos there were the videos. Riveting cinematic records of Spooky Girlfriend reading the paper, although it probably wasn't a paper, come to think of it, since I don't imagine newspapers are SG's thing, exactly; and one of Spooky Girlfriend laughing. I suppose when you are in love everything your beloved does is interesting and I should have been grateful there were none of SG taking a dump--but I have to admit that I watched the laughing one over and over before I deleted it. I guess they were watching a movie, I guess it was a comedy, and I was fascinated by what I was watching and by wondering why The Husband chose to film this particular thing. Maybe he was struck by the same thing I was.

You know how when people laugh, they seem to take pleasure not only in what they find funny, but in the very act of laughing? Almost like laughing makes them laugh. But watching Spooky Girlfriend... it was like watching a robot laugh: Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha. Absolutely no sign of "I like this," just an awareness of being filmed, maybe, and the mechanical display mimicking how regular people act.

I guess I just don't get it, do I? I mean, I don't get why, why this person, why, why, why even though it's been explained to me by people who ought to know, and I ought to know, too, but I don't. I looked at the pictures and I watched the movies and all I could think the whole time, mostly, was "ugh." And trying to figure it out only makes me angry and bitchy, but I keep on trying anyway. The whole fucking thing is a mystery to me, or a joke that I just don't know enough to get, but I keep trying and when all else fails, I fake it. Ha.Ha.Ha.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)