PLANET OF THE HUMANS
I've known Amy for eight years now.
The first two weeks of it was awkward conversation.
The next two weeks was whirlwind "Oh my God I've got my hand on her ass!" relationship.
The next year was all about pining after being suddenly denied her presence.
The five years after that was seriously dating / engagement.
And these last two years have been indeed a happy marriage. Although, really, I told my housemates that I was going to marry her after week 3.
I've heard most if not all of her stories.
"Baby, this is the twenty-fourth time you've told me that story," I've said in various permutations.
Sometimes she still surprises me, though.
Like with her Planet of the Apes knowledge.
She absolutely loves the first original movie. She explained to me the hierarchy of the apes, how the orangutans were the upper class, and so it went down to gorillas as the warrior caste.
So of course she had to see the new Planet of the Apes movie. We both enjoyed it. It had Tim Burton's imaginative dreamy/nightmarish vision, even if it was lacking in writing or plot quality.
I liked how they tried to express the ape culture, and how aggressiveness was just another form of communication and not a threat at times (a lot like Star Trek's Klingons maybe). I also found it amusing that Marky Mark's politically-incorrect usage of the word "monkey" instead of "ape" was corrected by the only Asian (not Oriental) ape actor in the movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. But I admit, that part was probably just coincidence.
We love watching Animal Planet. I've said many a time that people are basically animals, who either improve upon themselves or really fuck things up by all that unnatural thought that occurs in the spongy chemical soup under our craniums. But that underlying primality can come out in subtler ways.
Like with Amy and myself. Occasionally we do snap at each other. Barking our unhappiness at being pushed around. I'm mostly mild-mannered but if I feel like I'm being pushed into a role I don't care for, I will let her know quite loudly.
Amy can be quite bossy at times. And I can be quite moody and argumentative (with her) as well. I think I'm more aware of our dynamics than Amy is. Or maybe I just overthink them, to be more accurate.
But sometimes I get the feeling that if I didn't bark back at Amy, she would unknowingly start taking me for granted and beat my spirit into submission until I became one of those soulless husbands in another unhappy loveless marriage.
Or the converse would be if I browbeat her until she became a meek obedient house pet.
Neither of us wants that of course. And neither of those situations will happen as long as we stay true to who we are and who we fell in love with. We both sought out strong partners to balance each other, even if we didn't realize it.
(Although *I* realized it after knowing Amy for only 3 weeks. Or maybe my penis did all the realizing. Good boy.)
Our occasional nonsensical spats are just a form of wolf cub play that makes the monkey lovin' that much better, I suppose. With divorce rates as high as they are, it's all about survival of the fittest couple nowadays.
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LEAVE IT TO ... (The) LIGER!
In our living room. Amy's watching Leave It To Beaver on cable.
ME : "Why do you have to watch Leave It To Beaver every day?"
AMY : "It's funny. And ... The LIGER! likes watching it too."
ME : "This stuff is so ridiculous. So unrealistic. I can't believe you watch this." (Proceeding to sit next to Amy)
AMY : "Why do you watch Powerpuff Girls?"
ME : "It's funny! ... and The LIGER! likes watching it too!"
I used to hate that 1950s Leave It To Beaver show. I saw more than my share of reruns as a young Scott, and I was shocked when I learned Amy had loved watching it so.
To me, it meant dull witless humor, black and white TV, bad-but-protective hair, propaganda, and patriarchism.
But as I had learned later on, for Amy, that show represented the kind of stable happy family and always supportive parents that she felt she lacked. Family dinners. A household where everyone wasn't yelling back and forth until either their eardrums or their voices cracked.
Even now, I've found more interesting reasons to watch the show with Amy sometimes.
Like how the father sometimes is clearly making up his so-called lessons off the top of his head. Like most parents, they just barely know what they're doing. (This is not a slam on parents. Raising children is difficult.)
We also like to make fun of the mother on the show, June. We are certain she is really a f3mm3-b0t (or "femme-bot" for the non-cyber-hipsters). The evidence as such :
1. She almost never shows physical affection (kisses or hugs) on the show. Even to her own children.
2. She has no recollection of what it was like to be a child in any way. ("Ward, when you were a child ... ?") The show almost never reveals any of her past as well.
3. She can hardly function in any useful capacity outside of the kitchen (or maybe the bedroom, but 1950s TV could never allow that). And even then, the house is inhumanly immaculate at all times.
4. She blinks at only a fraction of the rate that real human eyes blink. And her hair NEVER moves (same could be said of everyone back then).
5. By all that's Holy, THOSE are NOT the shape of real human female breasts.
6. The show NEVER revealed what the husband's occupation was. I suspect he had a secret lab and was making even more pointy-breasted f3mme-b0ts.
Okay, so granted most of that was simply old-time TV censorship, prudism, and fashion, but still ... it makes the show a lot more entertaining trying to guess who the real humans are.
Sometimes this is equally hard to do in real life, as well.
So I guess Amy wants to have that kind of stable accepting family environment for our family someday. I guess we can manage that. And I'll stop teasing her about watching that show every single weekday.
Besides, I've come to take great pleasure in "The Beaver" since I was a young Scott.
(Yeah, I did mean it like that.)
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One more "... Beaver" quote to prove my f3mm3-b0t suspicions :
Ward (the father) : "Um, June. Gilbert's always talking about his parents. Have you ever met them?"
June (the mother / f3mm3-b0t) : "Oh, I see her at the supermarket once-in-awhile. She seems like a very calm, sensible person."
Ward : "But you can't really go by that... You may look the same way to her."
... Okay, so the show can be surprisingly funny at times.
Amy knows best.
