I am a major prick — Again!

The Other Half comes home last night.

It’s very late. It was after midnight in fact.

The OH was all spun up over some musical conference thing they’d been involved with over the past week.

Mind you I don’t know shit about ancient music, exotic instruments, or ethnic music beyond a bit of Afro-Celt Sound System and perhaps some experimental albums I’ve heard.

What I was doing was watching an interview featuring Charlize Theron that was very interesting. I had in fact stayed up very late to watch this interview. I was also blogging at the same time.

Of course the OH had no idea about this having been gone all day. Or that I was irritated over the ispq silliness.

Or that the satellite box had 10 minutes before the interview show started, changed channels to some Top Model reality rerun and then refused all commands from the remote or front panel. (Had to pull the plug 3 times and the smart card once to get the stupid thing working properly)

I missed the first few minutes of the show but had happily settled in to watch what remained and was trying to follow the twitter feed live too.

My multitasking was at it’s limit when the OH blustered in and started expounding how wonderful the concert with <static> was and how beautiful the <static> was and what wonderful time they had in their jam session playing the <static> and <static><static><static><static><static><static> more <static>

In fairness to me, I did point out that I had no idea what we were talking about several times. I don’t have the lexicon to speak about music at that level and since I had no context I was clueless.

The OH wasn’t listening and wasn’t paying attention.  I realized I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with what I was doing and at the same time be a courteous listener.

So I closed the lid on my laptop and gave the OH my full attention.

What I FAILED to do was slide the mask over my features that disguised my annoyance.

Of course the laptop closing also closed the conversation. Now I’ve hurt the OHs feelings.

I felt terrible, and tired, and just gave up then went to bed in the spare room.

No redemption I was a prick.

I guess I’m better at reading body language. My employment is technical and complicated, on the rare occasion that I discuss my work, if I see someone glazing over I stop and try to move the conversation back to common ground.

The OH has never developed that observation or conversational ability.

But I should be kinder, gentler and mindful that the joy in ones work is important and sharing it with someone you care about is part of having a good relationship.

I’ll do better…