In which I go slightly batty

For 204 of every 208 weeks in every four years, my fiancé is an attentive, thoughtful guy.  He does an A+ job of looking at me and nodding when I'm going on about things I'm excited about but about which he doesn't particularly care; he makes an effort to remember some of the content of such gushings and is genuinely embarrassed and apologetic when we both later realize he wasn't paying as much attention as he thought he was and doesn't even remember the conversation; he goes through all the late night shows every night and makes sure to set up any that feature anyone I'd want to see; he lets me watch Scooby Doo and Murder She Wrote on Saturday mornings without so much as a grumble and seems appreciative when I save clips from The Middle on our DVR for him to watch that remind me of us or me....

But for four weeks in every four years, there exists a horrible black hole called the Olympics.  My fiancé is obsessed with the Olympics.  It's an addiction that at first made me crabby and antsy and now, after years of being together, I've come to accept... and still makes me crabby and antsy.  As I write this, there are 31 recordings on our DVR labeled "2018 Winter Olympics."  Every 2 1/2 years or 1 1/2 years, depending on whether it's going from Summer to Winter or Winter to Summer, I lose access to the TV, and more importantly, my wonderful, thoughtful fiancé develops a single-minded addiction that results in a magnet that keeps him firmly attached to the couch, spending every waking moment (literally -- not literally the way people use literally to mean figuratively, but actually literally) at home watching the Olympics.  If I try to talk, he involuntarily sighs and pauses the TV, which makes me ask, "I can't even talk over the commentators?" to which he responds by politely trying to remind me that he only gets to watch biathlon or Nordic-combined or ice sweeping or ping pong or trampoline once every four years, so yes I can talk, but he wants to hear the commentating, so then I get all irritated and in a huff that I can't talk, and I do my best to let him be and keep to my book and writing, but I'm me, so that doesn't work, and I inevitably forget I'm irritated and start talking again, and by the end of the two weeks, he learns how to tune me out so I can keep talking and he can keep listening to the commentators discuss the nuances of sledding, and I stop making much of an effort not to talk.

And being the nice guy he is, when he really really wants to listen to something on the TV, rather than say "please don't talk," he says, "Now, I'm trying to get through this block before the next recording starts, so I'm going to be really focused on it."  This translates to "I'm not going to hear a word you say until I've finished watching this recording, and I'm not pausing for you to talk."

So the other night he started watching one of the 512 winter sports that looks to me like gymnastics with either skis or a snowboard attached (not literally -- this is hyperbole -- people who use "literally," please take note of the difference), and I started talking about something non-Olympics-related that I found interesting.  Or I wasn't talking out loud at all, as you'll see....  Anyway, then something exciting happened on the TV and he told me to watch it because it was cool, so I did, and then this almost-conversation happened:

Me: Wait what were we talking about?
Jonathan: I don't know.  I told you I was focused on this.
Me: Yeah but it was important.
J: Sorry.
Me: Hmm.... You know what, I don't think it was us.
J: Okay.
Me: I mean I think it was Julie and Caroline who were having the important conversation.
J: Ah.
Me: They're characters in the book I'm writing.
J: Yeah.
Me: They were having a conversation in my head in the next scene I'm writing.
J: Mm.
Me: ....Also it could have been me talking to myself. That seems to be happening, too.
J: Yup.

~~~~
Post Script:
That was going to be the end of this blog post, but as with all blog posts in which I write about my fiancé, I let him read it first before posting it.  When he finished, he told me to check his Facebook wall. I did. This is what he posted:

Someone please remind me to take a solo vacation in 877 days.