James
Joyce rocks
Wednesday 24 May, 2000
A conversation while stuck in traffic this morning:
"I like Max (Matthew's friend)", I said, "he's a good kid."
"Yeah", says Deb, "he often tries to help Matthew, I remember once when Matty was crying, and Max brought Lala over to him, saying 'here-ah Matthew, here-ah'. And Matty snatched it from him, pushed him away and kept on crying."
*laughing*
I stick up for Matthew. "Sometimes Matty is really nice. I've seen him offer something to Max when he walks in the door, he holds it out to him, saying, 'here-ah Max', and when Max reaches for it, he pulls it away, 'nah, nah!'"
*laughing*
"You see", opines Debbie, "Max is the youngest in their family, he's had to learn skills like getting along and helping others out, he's had no choice. Whereas Matthew just rules the roost. He's the only one and he's got us wrapped around his little fingers usually."
"His pudgy little toddler fingers!" I think. "So, given that I'm the oldest in my family, and you're the youngest, just what are you saying?"
"Well", says Deb, "that I'm nice and you're not!"
But I am nice, and sure this entry is fuelled by the bottle of 1998 Shiraz we had tonight with dinner (Maglieri of McLaren Vale, ripe plums and blackberry fruit with coconut vanillin, carries through to the full, rounded palate that finishes with firm tannin), but we were talking tonight, me and Deb again, and we've been together over 13 years — we just had our 10th wedding anniversaries the other week — and she said, tonight, that she loved me from the first moment, although, personally, I think it was just a little later than that (same New Year's Eve night though) when I noticed her compilation tape and asked her if the "Femmes" meant the "Violent Femmes and she knew I had good taste in music, and although I haven't always been the best I could be (and in fact we got kinda melancholy for a while talking on this very fact, even wanted to put Tom Waits on to play, except the turntable no longer has a needle and the tapes are all inside drawers taped shut so prying toddler fingers can't destroy them, so we couldn't play Tom, having no CDs of him) I'm still here, and we're still together, and there's been a lot of good things we have done together these past 13 years, and as I told Deb, there is no one I'd rather spend the rest of my life with than her, and, (this was before the wine but still relevant) I held her in my arms and said we have a wonderful friendship and relationship and we have Matthew and we've done stuff together and even have two cats who ignore us for the most part, so I may have fucked up, and we may have fucked up, but, in the end, who hasn't?, and the fact that we are together and still love each other must, surely, count some way towards proving I am nice? and as I wrote these words, Deb tuned to me and she smiled and Yes she said, Yes, Yes, Yes!