Articles in “Strange Conversations”

MY MOTHER: We’re going to the pub tonight.
ME: Oh, it is cheap steak night?
MY MOTHER: Well, it’s Light Up Camden.
ME: For Christmas?
MY MOTHER: They turn the streetlights on.
ME: Don’t they do that every night?
MY MOTHER: No.
ME: I’m pretty sure they do that every night.
MY MOTHER: These are the Christmas streetlights.
ME: But I just asked if—never mind.

More Wii Fit chatter:

NICK: You were probably just plateauing, when you were upset about that weight gain before.
ME: No, that’s because we’d stuffed ourselves that weekend.
NICK: Oh, yeah. That seems to affect you more than it affects me.
ME: That’s because I’m a girl.
NICK: I tend to forget that.
(Pause)
ME: Thank you, sweetheart.
NICK: I don’t mean that I tend to forget you’re a girl! Dammit, that’s not what I meant at all.

A follow-up to this morning’s conversation:

NICK: (standing on the Wii Fit balance board): Aw.
ME: (reading on the sofa, not wearing my glasses, and therefore unable to see the television screen): What?
NICK: It says, “Someone told me earlier that your posture is improving.”
ME: Aw, that is nice.
NICK: Aw.
ME: What’s it saying now?
NICK: It says, “I can’t tell you who told me that, but I’ve sensed that about you as well.”
ME: That’s not what it told me! The lying git!
NICK: It’s playing us against each other!

This is perhaps the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.

WII FIT BALANCE BOARD: Good morning! Did you sleep well?
ME: No.
WII FIT BALANCE BOARD: It’s Friday! Have you made any plans for the weekend?
ME: (preserves a dignified silence)
WII FIT BALANCE BOARD: By the way, what do you think of Nick’s posture?
ME: The hell? (Picks “Is improving” from the limited selection)
WII FIT BALANCE BOARD: Oh. Well, in a certain sense, you might be right!

Imagine if your exercise equipment could dob you in to your partner! Well, that’s only one of the special advantages of Wii Fit.

In which I am ungrateful:

NICK: I’m about to buy your birthday gift
ME: Oooh! Really? Hurray!
NICK: Yes. Hoping you’ll like it.
ME: I love birthday gifts.
NICK: I may get something else as well.
ME: Oh, god—it’s not online storage space, is it?
NICK: No.
ME: No, seriously.
NICK: Though I could get that too.
ME: No! Thank you kindly, but that’s all right.
NICK: OK.
ME: It’s just not a birthdayish thing, you know?
NICK: Yeah, that’s true.

He’ll probably get it for me for Christmas, now.

Nick was making a pasta bake out of last night’s leftover rustic pasta with lentils, carrots, and celery, shredding part of a roast chicken to put over the top, when he found the wishbone.

“Let’s pull it and make a wish,” I said.

He came out on to the back verandah, and we wrapped our fingers around the bone. But it slipped out of Nick’s grasp. We tried again, and it slipped out of my grasp.

“I’ll dry it out and we’ll try again,” he said.

“No,” I said, “that’s a bit revolting. We don’t need to make wishes. We do okay.”

“I think we won a moral victory,” he said.

“I think the wishbone won a moral victory,” I said.

In which I become cranky while doing the washing up.

ME: Yes, that’s an excellent dance, Mr I Leave An Enormous Mess For My Girlfriend To Clean Up, Even Though She’s Marking And Going Insane.
NICK: Isn’t it?
ME: That’s exactly what someone wants in a boyfriend.
NICK: I’ve heard this.
ME: Tell me. When you heard this, did it sound as though it was in your voice?
NICK: It did, now you mention it.
ME: And you didn’t think that was questionable?
NICK: No.
ME: Why not?
NICK: When I hear words of wisdom, they’re usually in my voice.
ME: Of course they are.

I’ll give Nick this much credit: he knows enough not to engage with the crazy.

ME: Aren’t you glad I talked you into buying “She Sells Sanctuary”?
NICK: It didn’t take much convincing.
ME: No, but you didn’t have it already.
NICK: I probably have it somewhere.
ME: Unless it’s on that Goth three-disk collection, I doubt it. You don’t have any Cult albums, except for Pure Cult. And it’s not on that.
NICK: No.
ME: It sounds like it should be a best-of, Pure Cult.
NICK: It’s just lucky it didn’t go out . . .
ME: . . . with a typo in the title. Yes, yes, yes.

Here endeth the gratuitous Spaced references for the night.

ME: You only have to put the roast mushrooms on half the pizza if you like. They still have that mushroomy texture you don’t like.
NICK: Actually, I find marinade makes everything better.
ME: It’s quite sharp. There must be some lemon in it.
NICK: I love lemon. Lemon makes everything better.
ME: No.
NICK: No?
ME: No.
NICK: I suppose lemon makes most things better but not everything?
ME: Yes. Case in point: papercuts.
NICK: True.

The Hallowe’en edition:

ME: That’s everything. But you’re going to have to do some chopping and so forth when people arrive, because I’m going to basically disable myself, in the truest sense of the word.
NICK: What, get maggoted?
(Pause)
ME: I was thinking more of my fake fingernails?
NICK: Oh. Well, them too.

While Nick is reading the first draft of my novel:

ME: You could come and read it in the bedroom. I’m going in there to play Mario Party DS.
NICK: But I’m comfortable now.
ME: Okay. Do you need me?
NICK: No. Well, generally speaking, yes.

Bless.

In which my mother demonstrates that, while she’s persistent in chasing all the minutiae of her daughters’ lives, at least she believes it’s a two-way process:

ME: Well, when are you getting back from Tasmania?
MY MOTHER: Oh, not long after we set out.
ME: That’s not helping me, Mother.
MY MOTHER: You don’t know when we’re setting out?
ME: . . . No.

This conversation came while we were listening to Ride’s “Drive Blind” (an event succeeded by me becoming overwhelmed by mid-‘90s nostalgia and insisting on listening to a couple of tracks from Bush’s Sixteen Stone album):

ME: Ride really are shoegazer, aren’t they? It’s odd, because I love them, but I normally hate shoegazer. Like My Bloody Valentine. And you know what I dislike most about My Bloody Valentine? The fact that they’re called My Bloody Valentine, so I can’t even use that name pejoratively.
NICK: Yeah.
ME: You weren’t listening to that, were you?
NICK: I can only hear about one word in ten. So I just keep listening, and say “Yeah,” and pick up the conversation later.
ME: Remember when we said that that increases the chances of you getting shouted at? Because it’s really annoying?
NICK: Yeah.
ME: Did you hear that?
NICK: What?

ME: My calves are never going to forgive me for all this exercise.
NICK: Never?
ME: Never!
NICK: “Never gonna give you up . . .”
ME: Sweetie, if you Rick-Roll me again, I shall punch you.
NICK: Fair enough.
ME: Metaphorically speaking.
NICK: Of course.

Post-Wii Fit:

ME: Then I did the free jogging, but I spent most of my time shouting, “Stop slowing down you, you stupid cow!” at my Mii.
NICK: Really?
ME: Yeah. And on an empty stomach, too! Sometimes, the balance board asks me if I’ve eaten my breakfast, and I think, “Are you kidding me? Dude. Shut up and exercise me already!”
NICK: You’re developing quite an adversarial relationship with that balance board, aren’t you?
ME: And with my Mii. They’re just so damn chirpy.
NICK: They’ve probably had a crack team of Nintendo engineers working out the exact degree of chirpy that works best.
ME: Yeah, but it was designed in Japan. And judging from this and other games, they have a much higher tolerance for chirpy than I do.
NICK: Doesn’t everyone?
ME: Oh, shut up.