12/9/05

Rollercoasters

Sometimes my wife is hard to be around. Sometimes she's angry, or depressed, or impatient, or just plain shitty.

But other times, she's more wonderful than you can even imagine. When she's happy, she literally glows - I'm telling you. Her smile can make you thankful to be alive on this earth.

It's a very expressive face, she has there. All these moods I'm talking about, you can see each one right away, just by looking at her. I, on the other hand, have pretty much just the one expression.

I'm also very even-tempered. I'm not prone to such mood swings as she is... I reserve judgment; I delay reacting; I stay calm.

But, truthfully, that's boring. ...I bore myself; I really do.

There's a scene in a movie I like, where Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen are freaking out over all the chaos their kids are creating. One lost his retainer, another is banging his head on the wall, and they're all late for something important... that sort of thing.

The grandmother comes up to them, wobbling across the room - she's fairly senile, it seems - and more or less out of nowhere she tells them how much she liked going to the amusement park as a girl.

She describes how much she looked forward to riding the rollercoaster... the hills and drops and curves and speed and how thrilling it all was. Other kids, she says, preferred the carousel, but she never understood why. "That just goes around in a circle," she tells them. "Where's the fun in that?"

I love rollercoasters too. Not just the zooming down the hills, or flying through the tunnels, or even clanking up the hills in anticipation, though that is more fun for me than it seems to be for most people.

The truth is, now that I think about it, I even like the waiting in line. I want it to go faster, of course, but really, the whole time I'm in line I know exactly why I'm there. Pretty soon - maybe not as soon as I'd like, but soon enough - I'll be riding that rollercoaster... zooming down the hills and flying through the tunnels.

For that, I can wait.

Penny makes life exciting, and fun. She's unpredictable in the moment-to-moment, but overall I always know I can count on her to make me smile, or laugh, or gasp in amazement.

I wouldn't change a thing.


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Originally uploaded by This Guy Colin.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

um.... my husband (the one who is all marvellous in his own special way) is like insanely jealous of you, because I regualrly and very pointedly uh... point out that you always write the loveliest things about P-lope. I have also pointed out on several occassions that you are like, you know, handy and stuff. Where as my husband? Um, not so much.

But for all of that, he sure does know how to make rollercoaster living that much better.

xo Wee

Thomas said...

She's fun as a sister too. Not predictable. And Wee, not everyone can be handy, or noone would need a hand!

Anonymous said...

in an effort to prove me entirely wrong about his handiness (or lack there of) my husband did not one, but TWO handy things this weekend. Number one: He removed and replaced the belt on the vacumn cleaner. The vacumn now sucks with renewed vigour! Plus, he tapped in the little metal bookshelf brackets in the Ikea number I assembled. With a HAMMER even. sooooooo manly!

xo Wee

lorna said...

What a wonderful post (and interesting to see it from the man's point of view- I'm sure my husband would share some of your thoughts on rollercoasters.) I'm always cheering up, just as he decides that maybe there is something to worry about if I'm so wound up.

hehehehe,