Keroaucked

He would sit and pout like a petulant child. It was kinda cute… until it really wasn’t.
At 38, he was pushing the upper limit of the acceptable age bracket for that kind of behavior.

As there was no space to hide in my little sunny yellow boudoir, he would take up residence in the IKEA Poang throne by the window and read Keroauc. Forget gun permits, moody men shouldn’t be allowed to immerse themselves in a world built around it’s protagonist’s descent into madness. They’re just too impressionable.

Sometimes he’d mix it up and stand by the dresser, intently studying a travel book or map. He made a point to be sure that I saw what he was reading. The message implicit in the exaggerated gesture was that he was plotting his escape from me-and-us-and-the-rest-of-the-f’ed-up-western-world.

I’d exhale and check email, preparing to wait the tempest out. Eventually he’d slide back into bed next to me, at which time I’d ask him if he’d gotten that out of his system. I’d apologize if I was in the wrong (sometimes even when I wasn’t) and we’d laugh about what a dumb-ass he was.

Lather, rinse, repeat and so it went… until it didn’t.