Potential

Joe has been out of town this week, and I keep trying to think of all the really great things that I should be doing, since I’m unencumbered by marital responsibility, and I swear that despite my best efforts, I can’t come up with anything that I really want to do that I can’t usually do because he’s here.

The best I’ve done is that I’ve eaten two things he doesn’t care for (it probably isn’t worth mentioning that I don’t really care for them either, I was just making a point) watched a movie that had no explosions in it, and have slept diagonally in our bed just because I can. These activities have been less fulfilling than expected.

Tonight though, oh, tonight.  Tonight is a night of potential.  Tonight, my sister and I are going to see Prince.  Me and Prince, in case you don’t know, have a really long history together.  It started in 1984 when I was sixteen, and we’ve been close ever since.  (If by close you understand that by close, I mean spiritually close – or as close as you can be when one of you is completely devoted to the other, and the that other has no idea who their soul-mate is.  Like that – though I’m not saying who’s who in that scenario.)

In my secret heart, I believe that the only thing standing between Prince,  me and a lifetime of happiness together is that we’ve never physically met – in the real world.  (My secret heart also believes several other things, like that we could totally overcome our religious differences, and that the fact that I’m 5’1" and he’s 5’2" has always been the strongest indicator of this truth.) Seven years ago, the last time that Prince and I were together, I realized a bunch of stuff about our relationship, not the least of which was that while both he and I realize that our life paths are taking us in different directions,  I had the shocking discovery that despite being a loyal wife to a wonderful man, and despite being the slightly dumpy mother of three near adult women… I would still totally sleep with Prince if he asked me. 

This morning my sister and I were discussing just that, and I said that I knew that it was a little ethically disappointing to discover that was still true. That no matter how freaky the king of funk gets, I just keep on wanting him.  That if I had the chance (and were that chance  now not biologically past me) that I would bear him as many tiny little babies as he wanted.  (There has never been any doubt in my mind that the products of our union would be vertically challenged.  Neither Prince nor I am bringing much to the table there.)  Erin sighed, and asked me what I was planning on wearing.  (She has a really great outfit planned, which makes me wonder about the sense of bringing your better looking, well dressed younger sister to your rendezvous with your soul-mate) and I said that I was just going to wear jeans and a tee shirt, because if Prince cares what I’m wearing, he’s not the man I thought he was.  (Ditto for the unshaved armpits.  I don’t care if he man-scapes his. Our love is perfect and oblivious.)  I’m going to be me, and he’s going to be him and all will be as the universe has ordained. 

When I got off the phone with Erin I decided that maybe I would at least where a clean tee-shirt.  I bet Prince would  appreciate that effort, and that’s when the phone rang, and it was Joe, calling home.  He asked what I was doing, and I said that I was getting ready for Prince, and he chuckled, and told me to have a great time, and I said "You do know Joe, that I am going to sleep with him if I get the chance?" and Joe said "I know baby,  I know you would."  and we laughed for a few minutes and discussed the free pass Joe would have, would Parker Posey only knock on our front door looking for him, and we hung up. 

The thing is, that when I got off the phone, I realized that I’m really only sort of kidding, and right now, I’m sitting here drinking coffee, and realizing that there’s only one redeeming thing about the very real truth that I would sleep with Prince if he asked me. 

He does have to ask.  I’m not a hussy.