(Note: For an explanation of the BLUE text and the GRAY struck-through text that appears in this log entry, please refer to the log entry dated Thursday, January 23, 2003, titled One Brief Conversation On IM.)

It was particularly chilly last night as we were getting ready to hunker down and switch off the TV, and even though we had been drinking wine, the chill was setting in, making the cozy comfort of our bed and bodies more and more inviting. Techno-kitty had much earlier claimed his spot under the covers, and my Boy was drunkenly getting the blankets wrapped around them both.

We have six pillows on our bed. Four are rather normal sized, and my Boy and I each sleep with two of them whether or not we are drunk from wine, which, this night, we were. The other two are “body pillows,” about five-feet long, which Techno-kitty usually claims for himself. These two body pillows reside on either side of my Boy and me all night, and Techno-kitty takes his pick of which one to nestle into.

So last night, we were hunkering down as I said, the warm after-glow of wine beginning to wane, and my three pillows were piled up against the wall, the body pillow on the bottom of the pile. So I was moving the pillows around, So I was piling pillows on top of My Boy, in order to pull the body pillow out from the bottom of the stack, and lay it alongside me where it needs to be to appease Techno-kitty, when a question shoots out of the darkness.

“What are you doing?”

(An innocent sounding question, I thought, spoken quite eloquently for someone so drunk on wine, warranting a simple answer, which is what I offered.)

“I’m pulling the pillows out so I can get to the body pillow and lay it out next to me,” I answered.

“Well you’re the one who arranged them that way!” came his reply, spoken, no doubt, with a very scrunched-up, drunken face (though this was impossible to see in the darkness, and because my Boy’s back was to me).

(I’ve bolded the above sentence because I will be referring back to this precise moment a little later. Three years of living with my Boy have taught me a lot of things, one of them being that I am better off not responding to that statement (and many others). It doesn’t matter, however, that I have learned this particular lesson, because I never accomplish a “no-response” response soon enough. As in this case, where I responded…)

Quite calmly and quietly, “I wasn’t complaining, I was just telling you what I was doing,” I said.

(Now, I thought this was reasonable, because the conversation began with the question, “What are you doing?” and was followed by my answer, which detailed precisely what I was doing, but, upon examination of the statement (in bold, above), appeared to have been interpreted as a declaration of dissatisfaction regarding the arrangement of the pillows on the bed, which, naturally, warranted the blaming statement (in bold, above) that was directed at me, the purpose of which was to inform me that it was my own fault that the pillows were arranged in such a fashion. So you see, because I felt that no blame was necessary (although, I would not deny that it was my fault that the pillows were so situated) because I was not complaining about the pillows, I felt it appropriate to clear up the fact that I was not filing any form of complaint, therefore negating any need for blame.)

“I wasn’t complaining either!” he told me, passionately.

(Honestly, in all the words between quotation marks above, which constitute the entirety of the conversation thus far (a total of four sentences, just to recap) I can not, anywhere, find any indication, not even a hint or subtle nuance, that might have given the impression, or even cast the faintest doubt, that I thought he was complaining. It could very well be, I suppose, that he was simply stating it for the record, or perhaps he even said it to seal his solidarity with me. But, I’ve highlighted the above text in red anyway, because regardless of the motivation, I am sure that’s what color the words were as they exited his mouth, perhaps due to the color of wine he had been drinking. Red means danger. Red means stop. Red is the color of many a fine wine. And here was my chance. They say everybody deserves a second chance, and this was mine. Another opportunity to say nothing. Another opportunity hopelessly lost.)

“No, you just said, “But YOU’RE the one who arranged them that way!” spoken, naturally, with an honest attempt to mimic perfectly the scrunched-up musculature that undoubtedly contorted his face when he originally spoke those words, and in, of course, for accuracy’s sake, the same shrill, nasal, wine-soaked tone pitch that I recalled hearing.

“ENOUGH, JILL!” he interrupted.

And that did, truly, end the discussion. Not because “third times the charm” and I had finally mastered my “no-response” response, but rather, because I could not for the life of me fathom why he had just called me JILL.