Sheer Boredom

Since yesterday morning I have had absolutely nothing to do at work. I'm waiting on my boss to meet with me to go over my work. I can't move forward until that takes place. After many hours of email writing, facebook checking, blog reading, job hunting, weather checking, and many other various things the internet enables me to do, I am writing this post. Hmmm...what to write?

Funny story: I was sitting at my desk this morning and I had an itch near my collar bone. As my fingers are running over that area I feel the tag at the neck line of my t-shirt. Then I think, "Smooth Kim, you put your shirt on backwards this morning."

About a week ago, Tyler and I went to go get our marriage license, yay! When we get into the office where this romantic event is supposed to take place there is lady, probably in her late 30's, sitting at her desk about 6 feet behind the counter. Her hair was done up as if she was still stuck in the early 90's and her clothes the same. Without removing her eyes from the computer monitor in front of her she says "Can I help you?" I reply, "We need to get a marriage license." Still no movement away from the monitor, "Come on over." So we go over there and she asks if we have I.D.'s and then has us fill out all this paper work. I don't think she looked at us through the entire process. Her voice was as though she did not know how to fluctuate it in any way. This whole time I'm thinking...does her husband beat her and she isn't remotely happy for anyone entering into the bond of marriage? (She was wearing an antique looking yellow gold ring on her left ring finger.) As she hands us the marriage license she says so quickly, quietly, deeply (for a woman) and with the least amount of enthusiasm I have ever heard in a human voice, "Here ya go congratulations."

Tyler left me for Chicago Saturday afternoon (no more Milwaukee for the summer), and I'm feeling lonely. For the past few days I have been hanging out with girl friends and I feel like I'm thrown into single life again. Tyler and I have been dating consistently (we dated once before in 2006) since July 2007. Since I moved back to Rexburg in January, we have not gone one single day without seeing each other, until this past Sunday. Weird. I won't be seeing him again until 2 days before the wedding.

I got this book called "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husband's" at my bridal shower a few weeks ago. I finally read the intro to it last night and it was pretty interesting. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the author, said some things I thought were really interesting and so true.

Since Gloria Steinmen wrote that “women need men like fish need bicycles,” more than a generation of women have foolishly bought that destructive nonsense and have denigrated men, marriage, family obligation, and motherhood – all to their own detriment…when their own mothers, much less society tell them that they don’t need men to be happy or to raise children, and that their own children don’t even need a mother raising them (day care will do), it’s caused many women to lose the incentive and the ability to treat their personal lives with the love, dedication, sacrifice, compassion, and loyalty that will ultimately bring them happiness and a sense of purpose.

She goes on to say later in the book talking about women and their double standards. How women can feel that their needs and desires are legitimate and important while men's are unimportant and selfish. She says:

What causes this double-standard mentality? In one big hyphenated word: self-centeredness? I believe it’s a result of the women’s movement, with its condemnation of just about everything male as evil, stupid, and oppressive, and the denigration of female and male role in families, as well as the loss of family functioning as a result of divorce, day care, dual careers, and the glorification of shacking up and unwed motherhood by choice.

I will admit it right now that sometimes I think my needs and desires are the most important and, though it is my own fault for feeling this way, I think today's society plays a big role in why I sometimes think that way. There are so many night time sitcoms about a married couple and in everyone that I can think of the woman is this smart beautiful lady and the husband is dumb and immature. It is unfortunate that this can lead us women to think that treating our spouse like their needs are less important than ours is OK and it's even more unfortunate that this will lead to the deterioration of the family.

Well, this was fun. Have a great day!