than her name. It’s a totally different thing.
I’m pretty sure you’re already well acquainted with Ken’s low libido and comatose performance in the bedroom by now, based on my first few entries, so we’ll move on to the third behavior I hope to target with this little experiment, which is getting Ken to compliment me. I realize that also sounds rather petty and shallow, but if you only knew, Journal. This motherfucker1 has never complimented me without coercion—ever.
I’m sure you’re wondering, how is that possible? Surely, that’s an exaggeration.
Oh, it’s not. Ken is the most stubborn human being on planet Earth, and ever since the first time I pouted about his refusal to compliment me way back when we were dating, it has turned into a power struggle of epic proportions. Every four to six months (and usually about three to five days before my period is due), I bring it to his attention, and every four to six months he just rolls his eyes at me as if I’m being some needy succubus.
Take his annual company Christmas party for example. Every year, when I emerge from the bathroom after spending two hours primping for this black-tie bullshit that he knows I get anxious about, do you know what he says when he looks up from the couch?
You guessed it. Nothing.
Do you know what his face says? Oh God, you’re going to expect me to compliment you now, aren’t you? Well, fuck that noise. I’m just gonna go back to watching this riveting bayou thrift store gold mine show now and pretend like you’re not there.
Shit. Why are you still there? I’m not even looking at you. Oh no, don’t put your hands on your hips!
Fuck! Now, you’re pissed. If I club myself unconscious with this remote, can we just skip this conversation and go straight to the hospital? I don’t even care that we’ll miss the silent auction. Like I need another iPod. Am I right?
About two and a half minutes into this ridiculous stalemate, the crickets are so loud that it’s like they’re trying to compliment me just to cut the tension.
Inevitably, I let out a huff and hiss through my teeth, “I’m going to go back into the bathroom, and we’re going to try this again. Only this time, when I come out here, you are going to say, ‘You look nice,’ and I’m not going to stab your dick with my stiletto.”
Listen, Journal, I’m a psychologist, not a mind reader. If Ken doesn’t tell me I’m pretty or that I’m a good mom or that I cook a mean bowl of cereal, how can I assume that he’s thinking it? I can’t. Ergo, I walk around every day under the assumption that my husband thinks I’m a homely asshole. I’m a homely asshole, and I smell like one, too. So whenever one of the extras in the movie of my life happens to throw an errant compliment my way, I respond like a drowning drunken coed who’s just been tossed a human floatation device. I cry and flail and smother that bitch.
The first time I leaped into the arms of a scary, probably contagious, possibly parole-violating young man on the street downtown, it was because he hit on me while I was seven months pregnant and feeling especially fat and undesirable. As I passed him on the sidewalk Gang-Affiliated gave me a blatant, unashamed once-over with his bulging bloodshot eyes, cocked an eyebrow and asked appreciatively, “How you doin’?”
Despite my massive midsection, I pounced on that man like a cheetah trying to take down a gazelle. I’m pretty sure no one’s ever made a card-carrying Crip feel more embarrassed and uncomfortable than I did that afternoon.
At my next OB/GYN appointment, I half-expected the doctor to tell me that the baby was fine, but I’d need some antibiotics to clear up the syphilis I’d contracted during that hug.
Then, a few months ago, I was at the grocery store, feeling unsexier still, as I used my grotesque post-childbirth body to shove my three-year-old son and infant daughter around in one of those obnoxious shopping carts with the plastic race car bolted to the front that’s as long as a city block and impossible to maneuver without clearing all the endcap displays when yet another mauling occurred.
In an attempt to avoid being seen by any real humans, I heaved the five-hundred-pound yellow-and-red monstrosity through the self-checkout lane, flinging nursing pads and nipple cream across the scanner and in the