It’s 1 am and Cowboy wants to go to sleep but I’ve still got the light on and the new In Style Weddings in my hands and I’m starting to freak about all the things I should have done already as per the In Style in my hand. Lately Cowboy’s had enough of me reading bridal magazines late at night and not sharing them. We have a rule that if I’ve read and dog-eared pages he can’t read them because he might get an idea of what my dress will look like. This bums him out because he loves girly magazines.
He did confess that he’s nervous about the fact that I might wear something that’s too hippie and I have no idea where he got that idea and I almost found it funny if I hadn’t been more intent on scolding him, “You’ll love whatever I wear and you’ll tell me I’m beautiful and you’re damn lucky I’m marrying you.” Then he put on his eye mask. OK, actually it’s my eye mask, but he stole it and now it has this slightly greasy sheen from being rubbed around on his man pores and it smells a little acrid. It’s pink and has hot pink cats on it.
I’ve tried to take pictures of him sleeping with it on, but he always seems to figure out what I’m up to and wakes up and wrestles me to the bed and takes the camera. The truth is that we’re both challenged in the sleep department. Me and the fact that I won’t share my girly magazines is his challenge; my psychosis is mine. I wear earplugs and sometimes get nervous about going to sleep and put them in while Cowboy is still talking to me, or even, sometimes, while I’m still talking to him, so I won’t really hear his answers and I’ll say really loudly “What?” “I can’t hear you.” And he’ll tell me to “take the fucking earplugs out, geez, baby.” And then I’ll get huffy and turn the light on and start reading In Style Weddings for the 100th time.
It’s like clockwork: as soon as I start hearing his breath get deeper and his mouth open in a little "o" underneath the hot pink cats on his beauty mask, I start freaking about the wedding planning. According to Cowboy I have a psychotic problem with bringing up stressful topics right before bed. He’d rather just exist in a world where nothing stresses him out, but I like to pop life-important and serious questions right at his most vulnerable moment when his mouth starts to open and I see him snuggling into his mask.
Sometimes the topics are along the lines of “How much money is in our bank account,” and “Have you changed your mind about speaking to your mother,” or, lately, “Oh my God, you need to wake up. This. Is. Serious. “
Him: Huuuh??
Me: Wake up.
Him: What baby? (Then he pulls the mask a little up from his nose to let a little light in and assess how insane I might look and whether I’m wearing my glasses which means serious no-nonsense up-for-hours business. I’m wearing the glasses.)
Me: We haven’t chosen our colors?
Him: Our what?
Me: Our colors. For the wedding.
Him: I didn’t even know we needed colors.
Me: Well, we do. How about green?
Him: Great. I love green.
Me: Green bridesmaid’s dresses? You have no taste. Those are so ugly.
Him: Ok. No green.
Me: Yellow.
Him: I love yellow.
Me: Oi, gevalt. Go to sleep.
And like a good boy he puts his hot pink mask back on and drifts blissfully off into his beauty sleep dreaming of green grass on the other side of yellow fences.
Email the author
Caitlin Shetterly:bramhallsquare@yahoo.com
