2002-06-25 - 12:26 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Come Together", Beatles

Last night, as we were nearing "Why is the light still on?" time (see end of entry), I asked Poindexter, "Are you happy?"

I ask him that sometimes. Mainly, I think, I'm making sure I'm doing my job as his wife. Sometimes I have follow-up questions, like, "Am I listening enough? Are you feeling appreciated?" Stuff like that. Like a mini performance review.

Anyways, last night, the conversation went like this:

Evelynne: Are you happy?
Poindexter: [drowsily] Of course. I'm always happy. [pause] Are you happy?
Evelynne: Ye--yes.
Poindexter: [laughing] Are you sure?
Evelynne: Well, I'm happy, I am, but I've noticed that I get angry or cranky more often than usual.
Poindexter: That's because you're living in a box.
Evelynne: You think that's it? Hm. Could be. I miss our pretty sunlit house with hardwood floors.

This place does not feel crowded in terms of furniture placement and room to move around. I can actually do aerobics between the couch and the bed. But it's kind of ugly, and there's not much I can do about that. There actually isn't even anyplace to put curtains.

And sometimes I feel like I'm living on a boat. There's no room to put something down temporarily. Everything must have a PLACE and must be KEPT there or else the place is a chaotic disaster. And since finding places for miscellaneous things that I don't use regularly is difficult for me (currently they reside in hidden piles that I force myself to go through once a week so I don't forget what's in them), it makes me a little batty. Heck, I'm getting stressed just thinking about it.

What I really ought to do is use this opportunity to learn how to organize my crap, as well as to learn to throw it away. I'm getting good at throwing away, but not organizing. Argh.

My eight-year anniversary at work was last week. I've been out of college for eight years. I'm old.

Anyway, I got a very generous annual raise. Perhaps the Project From Hell was worthwhile after all. Poindexter was very pleased -- he likes being married to "a rich woman", as he puts it. I'm pleased because it helps with this infernal housing search -- gives us a little bit more room to get the kind of house we want, I think.

We were eating dinner and Poindexter opened up his fortune cookie and laughed. He handed it over to me, and I nearly fell off the couch. It read:

"You will experience an increase in income."

Poindexter's uncle is in King of Prussia (that's a town nearby, for you non-Pennsylvania folks) on business this week.

He has a cute nickname I'm not even going to try to think up a pseudonym for, so I'll just call him Uncle.

Anyways, Uncle is only four years older than Poindexter, so he's more like a brother or cousin. Poindexter's mom is the second oldest in their family, and Uncle is the youngest. One time Poindexter and his mom and sister were down in southern California visiting with his grandparents (Uncle was about 10 or so). Uncle got permission to return to northern California to stay with Poindexter for a couple of weeks. Then the day he was supposed to return to his parents on "the Dog" (Greyhound), he came down with some sort of stomach ailment and couldn't travel. After that they didn't worry too much about getting him home. He ended up spending nearly half the summer with Poindexter, from the sound of things. It sounds fantastic to me. I would've loved to have Stacey and Billy stay with us for that long when I was a kid. Usually we only got them for a long weekend.

Anyway, we went out to KofP to see him on Sunday. He's going to be pretty busy for work, but hopefully he'll get some time away on Thursday before he returns home.

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