Mike guesses what Dee wants 2 hear?

Blogger is being imposs this morning. I totally can't get myself logged in, so I'm gonna use my e-mail-to-blogger thingy. I'll hafta fix the formatting l8r. And add labels. Sorry abt the commercial 4 yahoo that's gonna B @ the bottom. NEway, Mike had sum more 2 say in a post last nite:

April,

Little sis. I believe this will be the last part of my story involving the fire, so your readers can finally rest easy after having heard all the details. I had returned home after my very emotional visit with Josef Weeder and Carleen Stein, and I found my wife Deanna staring wistfully out the window of our room, which used to be your room. I remember reading once that one of the questions women really like to hear is "What are you thinking about?" You can't go wrong with this question, because just asking it shows you are a sensitive and caring husband willing to listen to whatever your wife wants to say, no matter how silly it is. The occasion seemed to call for it, since Deanna was staring wistfully after all. Deanna responded, "How it all was before the fire." That seemed like a dangerous answer to me, because as a husband, you don't know what "it" is. If she is talking about perfume or makeup or sanitary napkins, then you are venturing into an area of conversation most men avoid at all possible costs. If she is talking about how your relationship was before the fire, then she is most likely going to lead into saying something about how "it" was better before, because women rarely ever say the relationship was worse than it is currently. I thought to myself, "I better not say anything and hope she is not talking about relationships or other really girly things."

That worked out very well, because Deanna started to elaborate on what "it" was. She told me, "I can see the clothes in the closets, where everything was in the kitchen, the kids' room, the hall carpet, the pictures on the walls…" I got a little nervous then. I looked outside the window, and I couldn't see those things. I thought it might be one of those games where you see images in the clouds, but the clouds I saw looked like a rubber duck, a laptop computer and Josef Weeder's nostril hair. Then I thought she might be speaking metaphorically, like the things she could see stood for something else which was similar to what she saw, i.e. her lost childhood, or her alienation from her parents, or her never-changing hairstyle. Then I remembered, "This is Deanna. She is not that deep. She's talking about actual things." But then I was nervous again, because she was talking about things I could barely remember. I thought to myself, "I hope she doesn't quiz me to see if I remember those things too. I could tell her all about what was up in the attic, and all about our bedroom, which is where I spent most of my time; but I was iffy on those other places." Once again, I kept silent for my own safety and it worked again.

Then Deanna said, "It's like it never happened. We'll wake up in the morning and go home." Once more I panicked, because I didn't know what "it" was. The first time "it" was something which could be before and after the fire. This time "it" was something that happened, which could be reversed and return us to our homes, like the fire, or our marriage, or something worse. I had to take action quickly to cover all the bases. My mind was racing like a top, and miraculously the solution came to me. I said, "We'll have a place of our own again, Deanna. But, for now, as long as we're together….we're home." It was a cliché, but it seemed to work. I put my arm around Deanna and held her close and for once she didn't push me away and make some joke about how I wasn't getting any. We had a nice quiet moment. I breathed a sigh of relief. I had once again survived a conversation with my wife.

Love,

Michael Patterson

Mike--the first time she sed "it," Dee was talking abt yr apt. When she sed "It's like it never happened," "it" was the fire. Duh.

Apes
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