Bumming Around the Backyard

There are plenty of things I should be doing right now. I have one more paper and a children’s book to write before I’m officially finished with the semester. I should also be working since I am at the café right now. I toyed with the idea of sending out more résumés, but how much rejection can one person take? The only way to get away from schoolwork and thoughts about my ominous future is through the ancient and most venerable practice of procrastination.

This blog is even another effort to avoid. So, instead of writing about the latest news, I have chosen another topic that dimly reflects the state of affairs—the doghouse bed. One friend has described it as a “civilized solution” to a common problem. So, it’s worth exploring. Honestly, it’s either this subject or my repeated rejection of fake meat that tastes too real for my stomach. Both are necessary evils.

Our busy schedules have made midnight fights all the more frequent. Daniel and I usually have time together when everyone else is sleeping (or undertaking other nighttime activities). Since it’s the only time we have to talk, it sometimes leads to clashing late into the Manhattan mornings. After arguing, I often want him gone, far off into the dark and cruel New York City streets. Those streets, however, are not safe for anyone schlepping across Harlem to the Heights. So, he stays; Daniel drags in a mattress where we dwell in literal limbo.

Love sucks precisely because it’s not subject to reason. It’s not like solving an equation, or a murder mystery, or a missing six dollars in the check book’s balance. There’s no figuring it out. When he lies, is rude, or mumbles back a grievance that I’m hearing for the first time, I just want to send him home, albeit home head-first through a window. At the same time, I want him to stay. That message arrives to my brain as an emissary from the heart, as an asshole ambassador with diplomatic immunity. Who can refuse an audience?

Lately, we’ve been back and forth, second guessing our status. At a time when I’m evaluating the quality of life in the New York, I need to know why we’re doing what we’re doing and how much longer we’ll be doing it. Our work keeps us apart for much of the day, six days a week. Just like in the very beginning of it all, I’ll take him as often as I can get him.

The “doghouse bed” is a compromise. It keeps him close, and being close is part of the reason we fight. When we struggle with words, wishes, or windows, we’re doing so because we want to remain close. The doghouse bed keeps him near me, just not sharing sheets. Really, it’s the comparable to the couch of miserable mates; we’re just in a Manhattan apartment. The art of compromising with relationships and with space is a skill that most of us here must master.