It’s time to concede this one, this long-standing argument with My Beloved. Not argument, debate. No, discussion, a … philosophical discussion. We must define the frame. Any of these words can turn in reflection to “fight.” Even “conversation” is loaded. Healthy couples have conversations. A conversation at its meekest is where participants agree. Such a “talk” — “We need to talk,” well, talk about loaded — is both brief and boring. Engaging in dialogue with a spouse, apparently, comes from what you grew up with. Mom and Dad had a happy, long marriage, not the least scuffed from conversations from his being a Republican and her a Democrat. These conversations just ended after a few minutes (Dad though always voted Democrat in state elections, except for Win Rockefeller.) They didn’t bicker. I wouldn’t put up with bickering now. M.B. though worries that a talk can tip over into something worse. I don’t worry.
So last night M.B. said once again that having fun is important to her and not only that it is a life goal. And not only that, she claimed this could be defended theologically in one to three of the world’s great religions — she gets to pick which ones. This is a repeat topic but not a frequent one. It’s a path still grassy, just matted down a little. I always counter that pleasure, contentment, satisfaction and happiness — or their “pursuit” — are not-quite-worthy life goals due to their selfishness. That reasoning puts “fun” below them.
Fun is childish, momentary, trivial and fleeting. Fun is getting together at 15 with Mark or Bobby or Keith (or Kevin or Dana) or most of us and deciding to bicycle to Central Mall where you might run into other friends from band at Madcat Music, with luck maybe see that cute flute player. There was fun in the impulse but coupled with dread. Yes, dread: We friends do this a lot, and it so often ends up being boring, disappointing or sometimes even embarrassing. The pedaling always is fun, though. The mall is fun in spots but otherwise about the same, again. You wonder — as you’ve being doing this for a couple of years — whether you’ll “cruise” similarly, but maybe in a car, all the way until you leave for college: killing time on Saturday afternoons.
Yes. I miss those guys.
On the even-more-boring Sundays, you wonder if fun, and perhaps all the way up to happiness, lies only in the anticipation and, later, recall but not so much in the execution.
Like I said, it was late last night, bedtime in fact. She said her part, and I said mine, neither bothering to give examples. We stopped, abruptly.
We weren’t having fun.
For all the decades I have bragged about being childlike, I must admit that it’s been quite a while since I loosened up. No, wrong. I do have good times with some frequency, even take pleasure and a little pride in providing others with pleasure (throwing a good party and just bantering at dinner) or at least not hindering it. M.B. stays with me to no small degree because I am, for her, fun most of the time. To be honest, then, I am loose, I do have fun. I just didn’t see it as important until today.
We woke this morning, and she went to work and I began my typical Monday off, and I realize she is right. It’s the day before the sixth 9/11 anniversary, 12 days before the Day of Atonement and two months before a birthday ending in five or zero. It’s suddenly obvious:
I am addicted to fun.
Even in these last three years, since grad school (now that was fun) I have fun daily. If I can’t have fun a few times a day, then I’m ready for the State Hospital. Granted, what I find fun has evolved, developed, matured, regressed and taken unexpected turns. Also, what is fun for me would not be so for others. So what?
I cannot start or end any day without fun. End, as in last thing before bed? That addicted.
- Read an hour or two after work ends about midnight. Watching TV somehow is too much like newspaper editing. I get intense pleasure from sitting with a hot herbal tea or cold Scotch (depending on how work went), and reading a short story, a few pages of a novel, part of a magazine and the rest of what’s interesting from that day’s newspapers. Then to bed.
- The first 10 to 20 minutes of ABC’s “The View.” It’s at 10, about when I wake up, during which I do the day’s first email combing. Listen to The Gals over two cups of steaming Irish breakfast tea with milk and a drop of honey.
- Bicycling remains exhilarating. Walking comes in second.
- Messing in the kitchen. Cooking began weeks into my first job after college, taught at first by Jeff Smith and Pierre Franey on PBS. Plating up a favorite or an experiment always is fun.
- Overloading on coffee is fun.
- Too many chips is fun. I crave salt but rarely sweets these days.
- Plays and museums and bookstores and concerts (including spoken-word) are fun. After research to filter out all the junk, some movies and some TV are fun.
- Getting lost on the Internet, clicking from site to site and forgetting the time, is fun.
- Women are fascinating and often fun. Men generally are lugs but occasionally fun.
- Writing is fun. Otherwise I couldn’t stand it.
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