Tearing Down The Gancer's Wall, Brick By Brick

I've been blown away by how open I've been with the new Special Lady Friend. Granted, I still won't let her read the blog, which is causing some tension, but we have a very open dialog, which I'm not used to. When it comes to expressing our feelings, I come from a family of bottlers, with the exception of my sister, who, with her outbursts and outpouring of emotions, would be more appropriately likened to a fishnet. Because of my upbringing, and unwillingness to change in relationships, when something pisses me off, I just talk about it with my friends, you people, my butcher, or anyone who isn't the girl. Then I just let it fester until I up and leave one day. This SLF doesn't let me do that, and, thus far, I don't resent her for helping me to change for the better.

So, the other day she relays to me that during some downtime at work she was telling her coworkers that she can't find anything wrong with me*, except that I sing in the morning when she's either still sleeping or awake but crabby. This led one of her cohorts, a bright one in my estimation, to say, "Well, doesn't that mean that he's more than likely happy waking up with you?" Good point, sir. I told her I'd work on it, which I will, but it will be tough, in the shower especially. I have a song on my head at all times, sometimes just one lyric or phrase.**

She then asked if there's anything she does that bothers me. This was a great opportunity to bring up something that had been bothering the shit out of me for the last two months. I said, "SLF, you use the world obsess too much. You can't possibly be obsessed with 14 things in a given week, or you'd drive yourself mad. Perhaps it's too strong of a word for all of these circumstances?" To this she just smiled and said she too would work on it. I thought she'd be super pissed or at the very least a little hurt, but perhaps she's not as harsh a critic of herself as I, especially when it comes to vocabulary and word usage.

Are there other things that bother me, sure, but they're minor. However, they'd be major if I weren't diggin' so much. For example, we're sitting in my kitchen one day, and she's looking at my Pink Floyd Back Catalog poster***, and the following conversation transpired:

SLF: Why do you have those naked ladies in your kitchen?
Gancer: Well, don't you recognize any of the pictures on their backs?
SLF: No, should I?
Gancer: (Flabbergasted, but restrained) Well, how about the one with the triangle?
SLF: Nope.
Gancer (In his head thinking, "Holy hell!, but instead, he says) Well, that would be an album by a British, psychedelic group, and it stayed on the USA, Billboard Top 200 for 741 weeks, which comes out to roughly 14 years . . .
SLF: Yeah, no idea.

And you know, it really didn't bother me that much. Then the other day I'm telling her how there's a pretty good possibility a website will be paying me to drive out to Lafayette, Indiana to interview Izzy Stradlin, the underrated, down-to-earth guitar player and songwriter of the seminal rock group Guns N' Roses. She said how happy she was for me, because she knew how big a band they were, despite the fact that SHE DIDN'T KNOW ANY OF THEIR SONGS. Excuse me? I named a couple, and turns out she did, but wow. Again, doesn't bother me. All I ask is that she humor me when I throw out a quick rock anecdote, and I do try to make them quick. She does this.

Things are going well. She's got this smile too, and it seems to me that it reminds of childhood memories where everything was as fresh as bright, blue sky . . .

Now, I wouldn't be mad at her for not knowing that lyric, but I would be mad at you, reader, cause you're not sleeping with me. Now it's time to share: Have you ever had an exchange like this, where you calmly tell each other what quirk or habit bothers the shit out of one another? How did it go?

*I, of course, don't believe this minor infraction to be the only thing that bothers her.
**For a few days it was the first verse of Across the Sea by Weezer. I love songwriters who write very odd vocal melodies, and I think it's cute how he uses broken English to sing the praises of his biggest fan in Japan.
***Don't think I'm oblivious to the fact that I'm far too old to have a 'Floyd poster in my kitchen.