Yes, I'M The One Who Is Ridiculous.

Couples argue. Some fight well and resolve the matter at hand. Others fight ineffectively and create more problems with every attempt to deal with their conflicts.

Then there's my ex and I.

I must indeed be the one that is unreasonable. After all, I cannot have a disagreement without pointing it out when Darius' argument doesn't make sense. He always responds that, "It makes sense to ME." And I rarely feel that's enough said.

Reason Number One why Mars and Darius will never be effective as a team trying to resolve disagreements: I expect him to make sense all the time. Even on the small stuff. And I have the crazy notion that if an argument makes sense, then we should both understand it.

So of course we have a blow out when he wants to know where Blue Man Group is on my videotapes. I put in the Yellow Submarine tape and say "I think it's about 2 hours in." When he still can't find it, he pulls the tape out, looks at it, and puts it back in to rewind and fast forward and back and forth some more. When I pass by and see a familiar point on the tape playing, I suggest trying 10 minutes ahead of that spot, and that's where Blue Man Group is found, to which I reply, "Yeah, 1:59 on the tape, that's where I thought it was." He says the counter isn't accurate because he popped the tape out to look and it reset. So I ask what he thought he'd find out by taking out the tape, and he says he wanted to actually SEE if the tape was near the end. I said that the counter set itself to zero when I put the tape in, which is common knowledge, and that since it was at the start of the tape, he could have seen if it was getting near to the end of the tape simply by looking at the display numbers. "I don't trust those, sometimes they're wrong" he says. Which to me begs the question of why I'd have told him to go by the counter in the first place if it wasn't accurate. And then it goes in circles until I finally say it just doesn't make any sense to take it out to look at the tape for its nearness-to-the-end status when that information was displayed right in front of him by the counter. And we get the "it makes perfect sense to ME" thing and I have no good way to explain that sense and logic are not purely subjective things that can exist for one person and not another; that something either is logical or it is not. That's when we get to...

Reason Number Two why disagreements between Mars and Darius never end amicably: because after I pull out what he considers to be dirty words -- Logic and Sense -- he pulls out his "I'll shut you up by hurting your feelings" words. Tonight it was this gem: "Do you know how many of my friends I've told about these arguments and they all think you're crazy?"

So, please, Friends of Darius, feel free to let me know exactly where I've been unreasonable. Maybe missing yet another weekend of time with J. by leaving town to visit a friend -- wait, that was Darius, not me. Well, I do raise a stink about having to miss a couple hours of work once every 3 months to meet with J's therapists -- wait, Darius again, because I lose 2 hours or more per WEEK for meetings with them, not including the jobs I can't take because they don't fit into the small and shifting hours of J's therapy program.

Really, it takes someone crazy to have days like mine, so they must be right. Drop J off to school, go to work, sprain ankle and manage to still get through the day, (had to because I took off half of last week to care for J with his eye infection,) do a phone meeting with therapist, take off early to pick J. up early to bring him to meet new after-school teacher, go BACK to work for 30 minutes with him, grocery shop, get home with all groceries up 3 flights of stairs (on previously mentioned ankle,) water back porch garden for one minute till cat sneaks out and falls off back porch and hurts HER ankle (yes, this is all true,) spend the rest of the evening monitoring her WHILE cooking dinner for J and Darius and myself, deciding to eat in my room to get an hour free before Darius goes home but fail at that because (1) they can't find Blue Man Group on a tape without me, and (2) Darius spots a wasp in the living room and insists it would be better if I take care of it.

At least the past hour has gone with few surprises, and kitty will be brought to vet tomorrow since she's resting and avoiding the paw (though she has managed to walk across the apartment on it when I had J. in the tub.)

So, please, let me know if being less ridiculous and crazy might make my life a little easier and less dramatic. Maybe it will help find the other secret rituals that can help my son live a normal, successful life; maybe it can help me finish my solo CD (which my fellow artists and fellow activists are continually reminding me is way past schedule, as if I needed reminding to finish the most important artistic project of my lifetime!) Maybe being less crazy can help me more easily read all the reports on police brutality escalating in Chicago, and then I'll have time to write the song about it that will change everyone's thinking, causing mass action that will be the final straw to end it once and for all.

And being less crazy would help me be like other poor people with special needs kids: I'll learn to say "I can't afford that program! I need full day care for him so I can work! We were under the poverty level ALL OF LAST YEAR. I'm the only adult in our home -- how can I pay our bills if I don't work fulltime? What kind of drudgery can I do for work when I can't start till 10:30 am or later, and have to pick him up by 5:30 at the latest?!! Certainly not the kind of work I'm highly skilled in with 20+ years of experience in. What, I'm just supposed to go from consulting at $60 - 100 an hour to $10/hour cleaning cat shelters and being talked to like I'm untrustworthy scum, just one of The Help?"

See? I AM crazy. Cause no sane person would make THAT choice, gambling on their child's success in one school when the daily stakes of economic survival are so high. Yes, I am ridiculous, guys. I look forward to my next life, when I'll be a reasonable person and take trips when I feel like it, develop a taste for sushi and martinis, buy expensive shoes, carry a Treo, be inconsistent visiting my son but always flaunt the latest photos of him with me to everyone around. And I'll be sure to call anyone who criticizes me "ridiculous."