My husband and I have started watching Friday Night Lights again, after a hiatus of, let’s see here, how old is our child, exactly? It was the perfect show to watch when I was pregnant, then once the baby was born we sort of forgot about it, due to the distractions of late-night feedings, shopping in the nightmare of Babies R Us, boning up on the lyrics to "Old MacDonald." Even after a break of 21 months (give or take a day or two), those Texas football boys and their ladies are still interesting and compelling and surprisingly gripping. I mean, for television.
One of my most sister-like best friends (some of her work is here) left today for two weeks in Rwanda. We squeezed in one last phone date last night as she was packing. After talking for about twenty minutes, I pathetically told her I had to go because my husband and I had a date to watch dreamy Tim Riggins try to help Coach Taylor cope with his West-versus-East Dillion drama. Because my husband and I are super cool, we go to bed moments after dusk, so we needed to get cracking. Rather than hanging up on me or shouting something completely justified like, “I’m LEAVING FOR RWANDA in four hours and you have to go WATCH TV?!” my friend said in a slightly dreamy voice, “Enjoy Riggins… Everyone enjoys Riggins.”
Indeed. When I was pregnant I—the woman who never gets to have sex dreams (not what I want on my tombstone)—dreamed about having sex with Riggins. Yum.
Last night I dreamed I was sitting at a table at a meeting with a bunch of strangers. We had to go around the circle counting off for some reason, but instead of going one-two-three, the group started counting the way my baby does as she’s going up stairs: Waaan. Two. Aaight. Niiiiine! One of the men at the table (not Riggins) and I started to correct people at the same time. No, it’s “One, two, THREE…” As it dawned on me that the people around the table were fucking with us for sport—what fun to count out of order!—the man gave me a fist bump and said excitedly, “Types like us are hard to find!”
It was the first time—waking or dreaming—that anyone has suggested I’m a Type-A personality. Unlike good ol’ Riggins, I was able to finish college, but come on. I’m a perpetually underemployed creative writer who went to community college at the age of thirty to learn how to become a filmmaker because it seemed a more practical career path.
Does believing that “three” comes after “two” make me Type-A?
Incidentally, I do not correct my just-learning-to-talk baby as she counts her adorable, “Waaan. Two. Aaight.” That would be obnoxious.
I just count along with her. Correctly. And with emphasis. And a tiny bit louder than her.
But then I catch myself thinking how much I will miss these sweet moments of learning to talk and learning to count, and I shut up and try to keep my secret Type-A tendencies to myself.
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