libraries -- a refuge of peace? not so much for me

when i was little, i used to love going to the library with my mom to check out my favorite books and play in the kiddie area. i've always loved books, but my love of the library was replaced by not-so-pleasant feelings when i went to college and had to research topics in "the stacks," which, at penn state, are dark, narrow and creepy corridors that reek of stale air and old books. those experiences, along with having to do mandatory sorority study hours in the library (come on, i would rather have chatted with my sisters about what party we were going to that night than have to crack open a boring oriental philosophy or history of communications book!) gave me a less-than-savory feeling about libraries.

after i graduated from penn state, and then grad school, i thought i'd give libraries another chance, now that i wasn't *forced* to use them for boring research. i went to my little hometown library, where i enjoyed going as a kid, and got an adult library card and checked out some books about my new career and some fun reading, and i had a great relationship with my library -- for a few years.

since i was going fairly regularly and reading quite a bit, i decided to check out a whole stack of books on some of the locations that dork and i were thinking of going for our honeymoon. frommers, fodor, lonely planet, you name them, i checked them out, with great intention of reading them all and doing some research on what island locations would be the most tranquil, have the best beaches and, of course, have the best shopping. (only kidding about that last one....mostly).

i did manage to read and get great info, but in the process of planning my wedding, packing away a lot of my stuff and moving dork's stuff in to my (our) townhouse, three of the books got misplaced/packed away/thrown out/kicked under the bed, or otherwise sucked into that big black hole that exists when you can't find something you're l0oking for. i returned the remaining 10 or so books that i had....and getting caught up in married life, then enjoying the barnes & noble that had opened, and then becoming pregnant, i hadn't visited the library in a few years because i was occupied with other concerns. but now that my concern at hand was the little peanut growing inside, i thought i'd head to the library to check out some books on parenting and healthy baby development. i almost had a hormonal meltdown when i went to check out my books and the library tech said that i couldn't get them -- because i had built up $100 in fines!! that wasn't exactly what i had planned for, and in my pregnant state, i didn't handle the news so well....so i slammed my books on the counter and stormed out, never to return again....until this week.

i went there to pick out some books for an elderly friend of mine who recently had surgery and can't drive for awhile. she loaned me her library card and gave me a list of what she wanted, so i buzzed through the stacks over my lunch break and even found her some vhs tapes on the railroad that i thought she would enjoy watching. i marched up to the circulation desk and presented the materials and the library card of "mrs. jane doe" and the lady checked them out and uneventfully slid them down to the end of the counter.

i figured that i'd take care of getting my daughter a library card while i was there, and she proceeded to help me with that. that is, up until i gave her my daughter's last name, which didn't match mine of "d0e". the following exchange then ensued:
"i can't let you take these books."
"you mean these, that i just checked out?"
"yes, because they're not yours."
"but i got them for my friend and this is her library card, which you just used to check the books out on."
"yes but i thought that was you."
"so you're saying i could have taken the books if i wouldn't have mentioned my daughter's last name, which was different than what was on the card."
(silence)
"my friend is elderly and can't drive, and she can't come to the library right now."
"well, she'll have to come in to sign a form saying that she's homebound, and then we will put that on file, and then a family member of hers can check out books for her."
"but her family live out of the area. i have her number on my cell -- let me call her and she'll give you authorization for me to pick them up."
"are you a family member? if not, don't bother calling her."
"no, i just told you, her family live out of town."
(again, silence)
"so, if i understand you, i just spent 1/2 hour out of my day looking for books, waiting in line for 15 minutes to check them out, actually checking them out, but then not being able to take them because i'm not a family member on record."
(note: i didn't exactly resemble someone intending to rip off a library in broad daylight, as i stood there in a pant suit and heels, carrying my coach bag in one hand and cell in the other).
"that's correct. so...do you think you'll be back for the books, because if you come back, we'll have to re-check them out again?"

once again...there was a slam and a storm....and a big apology to my friend for coming up empty-handed when i visited her later in the day. i'm not exactly sure if it will be a few years until i visit the library again....but i do know that i don't encounter that kind of "customer service" at barnes & noble. and last time i checked, my local library didn't have scones and infusions of caffeine readily available, so bet you can guess where i'll be doing most of my reading in the future.

the wife gene

washing dishes late at night always seems to bring out the worst in me. it happened again last night as i was scrubbing the pots and pans from dinner and putting away the leftovers and loading the dishwasher. i had put morgan to bed and she was asleep, and Dork was in his usual position -- on the couch, with the laptop glued to his legs and south park blaring in the background.

don't get me wrong, he works a 40-hour week just like i do, but i always get infuriated when i'm at the sink or folding my daughter's clothes or clearing off the table after dinner and he's nowhere to be found. last night, while mindlessly scraping the remains of the stir-fried tofu out of the bottom of the skillet (which, by the way, was a pretty tasty addition to my newfound diet....and morgan loved, it too! hmmm, maybe because i told her it was potatoes?!), my thoughts went back to the same ramblings they always do when i'm standing at the sink and he's in the livng room on the computer. for some reason, i get infuriated that i'm cleaning up his dishes while he's enjoying himself -- and it hit me especially hard last night because he had the day off, so it wasn't like he had either a physically or mentally taxing day!

bad part is, i don't know if i'm the only gal that feels this way -- other women seem perfectly content to do their husband's laundry, pick up their husband's clothes off of the floor, clear their dishes, and clean up after them. i end up feeling resentful when i do those things, yet society makes you feel like those are your wifely duties. maybe i didn't get a full helping of the wife gene when it was being doled out?!?

i thought for awhile that my resentfulness was a generational thing -- after all, my mom and mother-in-law are both from the generation in which men's and women's roles in the home were more clearly defined. i don't necessarily believe that anymore; there are women i know that don't seem bothered by cooking and cleaning while their husbands don't contribute to the household. a good friend who's my age makes dinner for her husband every night and even gets a meal ready for him when she's not going to be there, so that he's taken care of -- am i wrong for not even giving a second thought to what my husband is going to have for dinner when i go out of town for work? after all, he's an adult that survived on his own for four years away from home in college -- if he can't survive on mac and cheese and pizza, that's not my fault!

it's not like i acquired those thoughts from growing up at home, either. my mom cooked the majority of the meals, she did the laundry, she did the cleaning, and she primarily took care of me. my dad, however, did clean up after himself, helped my mom around the house with odd jobs and with some cleaning, and was definitely a hands-on dad. he was also a 'neat' person -- he's not the type of man that would have left his dirty boxers lying on the floor for someone to either step over or pick up. and if he did, he wouldn't have expected my mom to pick them up. maybe Dork doesn't actually *expect* me to do that, but if i don't do it, it doesn't get done.

i guess with me, it comes down to the notion that you always hear about the difference between men and women is that women don't keep score until the score is really uneven. sometimes i feel like the score is off in our relationship and that's what makes me upset. i don't want to have to *ask* him to help, i want him to *want* to help. i'm a full believer in equality -- we're both responsible for household duties and for taking care of morgan, or at least that's what we agreed on when we started kicking around the idea of getting married almost six years ago. however, Dork grew up in a traditionally male-dominated household where his mom did most of the work and took care of the kids, while his dad made a living for them and had a career. maybe that's why he acts like he does, since that's what he grew up with -- but it still doesn't help me feel any better about the issue at hand, where i'm damned if i do the dishes and pick up after him (because then i feel resentful) and i'm damned if i don't (because then they pile up and we have a mess!). until i figure out a solution, i'll see you at 11PM at my kitchen sink, and i'll bring the snark.

what did i do wrong?!

picture this -- i'm pulling out of the driveway this morning with my daughter in tow, heading to drop her off at daycare and then to work. i pass Dork a few blocks from home, and he has his window rolled down and is waving at me.

i pull close enough to 'high five' him, and he tells me he went to get me breakfast and proceeds to hand over a huge coffee and a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich (and this isn't just micky dees, either..., it's panera, so it's the decent, no-trans-fat-filled stuff that he went out of his way to get).

i thank him, blow him a kiss, drop off the kid, and then, as i've got the radio cranked on my way to work, it dawns on me. my husband, being of the male species that he is, didn't get me breakfast for no reason at all...either he knows he's about to land in the doghouse for something he did and is trying to dig himself out before i find out, or he's trying to make me feel guilty for something i didn't do. turns out it's the latter.

"honey, i was just thinking," i say to him on my cell as i'm driving up the road that leads to my office parking lot, "why did you *really* get me breakfast?!" he acted a little taken off-guard at first, but then lets me have it....lo and behold, i've been a little 'surly' to him lately and he was just trying to cheer me up. (but as my female co-worker so aptly pointed out, he's also rewarding my bad behavior! of course i'll stay bitchy if it means i get a treat every morning...)

i admit, sometimes i am surly....i've always been the kind of person who seems like i'm always in a good mood and pretty positive, and i usually am....but when i'm not, i only let it show at home. my friends and co-workers have never seen me really mad or pissed off....the only person who really gets the brunt of my anger or surliness is him. sometimes i guess from being 'on' all day and from juggling work, a home, and being a mom and wife, i let down my guard at home and get into my 'leave me the f#$& alone' mode (especially late at night after the little one's gone to sleep and he's surfing through 32 different channels over the course of a two-minute commercial break while simultaneously surfing the web and not talking to me even though we haven't seen each other for more than a few hours over the past couple of days...oh wait, do i sound bitter about that?!)

and speaking of being bitter....when the eff is the sun ever going to come out?! we've had so much rain and coldness lately, i forget what the sun looks like, even though i think i saw it for a few minutes this morning. i really want to take my daughter to the park that's two blocks from our house -- she loves the swings and running through the grass, but it's been so muddy lately. i know we'll have lots of time to do that this summer, but i get impatient!

Cinco De Mayo

So I had a lousy day yesterday -- just busy with lots of meetings -- and my daughter has been a holy terror. Between throwing tantrums and every other word out of her mouth being "mine!", I had a PMS-induced breakdown last night.

In typical "I need to control everything everything" fashion, I was browsing through the rack of Mother's Day cards at our local Target, with my daughter sitting in the cart and my husband nearby. As I'm browsing through the cards, I see the most adorable card that a little girl should send to her mommy, and I show it to Dork, who proceeds to tell me that that would ruin the surprise if he'd buy me that card, and that he had everything taken care of. (This is coming from the man who, on my first Mother's Day, thought it would be sweet to give me a card 'from my daughter' that talked about farting....so you can see why I feel the need to tell my husband the type of appropriate cards that he should be picking!)

So when I see the cute, sappy card, I start crying and tell Dork that he has no taste in picking out cards and that he just doesn't understand what being a mom is all about...and blah, blah, blah, right in the middle of Target. My two year-old, of course, is just sitting in the cart looking at me and laughing, and my husband then tells her that they should take a walk "since Mommy will be awhile at the cards." That really makes me look like a blubbering idiot, since I'm now standing at the card display crying....and my husband and kid have left, so I'm there alone.

I pull myself together and go browse at the makeup display to take my mind off of what I was doing (and besides, since I'm PMS-ing it, I needed a bit of a shopping fix and figured a few new lipsticks should make me happy). The family meets up with me and we go on our merry way home, and as I'm changing my daughter and putting her in her jammies, I hear Dork rustling around in the kitchen. Turns out that he decides that I could use a drink, and a pitcher of margaritas, complete with chips, salsa, and a salt-rimmed glass, are waiting for me in the kitchen after I put her to bed. Guess it's not such a bad Cinco de Mayo after all, even if I am bloated and bitchy!