Comments

  1. ANB says

    I agree with you. I don’t know how she puts up with you.

    Seriously, I think (from afar) that you seem to have a good relationship, and that you’re really having a tough time, but you have a great spouse (who also has a great spouse).

    At about the same age, I’m looking for another job in CA. ‘Cause my principal has no clue what my job actually is.

  2. PaulBC says

    “I have a lot of exciting plans.” sounds vaguely threatening, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take it.

    For myself, I was really into quarantining for at least the first 6 months or so. One thing I discovered was that we could buy ahead and keep our pantry way better stocked than I ever remember. I go out to the garage, see what we have, and sort of feel like a grownup for once, not a student just scraping by. I can focus on work a lot better when I don’t have a commute (when I had to go up to San Francisco a few years ago, I would get there and think… well that was a full days’s work, now I want to go home and sleep). Meetings over Zoom are nearly always better than ones where I’m trapped in a seat, the exception being those productive meetings where it’d be nice to interact at a whiteboard.

    But with my one year pandemiversary coming up, I gotta say it’s kind of a drag. I would like to do a little bit of travel and even stay somewhere else for the night.

  3. redwood says

    Marriage is such a fascinating societal concept. Two complete strangers meet, then decide they like enough of the other person to live together with them, perhaps even procreate. As their personalities change, they continue to stay together (the familiar part is still comfortable or the changes not so great) or they split up. There have to be similar core beliefs and values for them to stay together for a long time, though. Without those, it’s impossible.

  4. nomdeplume says

    Hey PZ – ‘Come what may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.’ Macbeth Act 1 Scene 3.

    Hang in there my friend.

  5. Samuel Vimes says

    @PaulBC
    You took it precisely the right way – it is vaguely threatening. That’s just the author’s sense of humor.

  6. ajbjasus says

    #5

    Dead right, and where does this almost universal mantra that it’s a “good thing” come from?

  7. StonedRanger says

    @PZ The Boss and I will be together 40 years this year. She puts up with me for the same reason that your wife puts up with you. Spite and revenge. No, just kidding. It has to be love that blinds her to my ‘imperfections’. Neither of us is perfect except to each other.

  8. magistramarla says

    We’ve been married over 44 years, and together for 45 years.
    We were very, very lucky. We moved from Texas to California in July, 2019 and moved into our house at the end of September.
    (We could have been there dealing with the weather, power outages and water problems!)
    We were still unpacking boxes when the pandemic hit. I’ve been a fairly happy person over the last year – I’ve finished unpacking, organized my new home, and I’ve done a lot of cooking. We do all of our grocery shopping at the military commissary, since the MPs are very serious about enforcing the mask-wearing mandate in the store.
    My husband built a pantry for me, and we’ve been comfortably stocked.
    He’s been working from home for a year now. I must admit that I will be glad when he can go back to work. I will be glad to have my house to myself during the day again. It will be nice to be able to blast my “oldies” music as loud as I like while I do what I choose, when I choose.
    On the other hand, I’ll miss the comfort of having him nearby all day.
    This was a great dry-run for what life will be like when he retires in a couple of years and begins to do consulting work from home. I guess our relationship will survive!

  9. unclefrogy says

    there have been days on end when I felt like this life I was in if in is what I am was the one described by Samuel Beckett, at least I do not feel as depressed as I did years ago nor as frantic either. maybe even OK some of the time but I am not sure how I can put up with me either

    “I don’t worry about a thing” (cause I know nothing going to be all right)

  10. maireaine46 says

    That is also me and my husband, except I am the depressed one and he is the one who puts up with me. PJ, glad you have a good wife, as I am glad I have a good husband. Putting up with a depressed person is no small task.