Cranky Actress Blog

Cranky is going away today. Cranky doesn’t like traveling. Cranky likes to stay home. Except for work. Because work means making money and making money trumps everything. But traveling for fun? It’s not fun. I’m going because my husband has to go and I am keeping him company.

When he first asked me I said I didn’t wanna go. Then he convinced me that it would be nice for him, so I said I would go. Then the date got closer and I realized I would actually have to get on a plane and stay in a hotel and leave my home. So I told my husband I didn’t want to go. I started running around the house petting the walls to express how I felt. “I LOVE HOME. HOME GOOD. HOME NICE. STAY HOME. CRANKY LOVE HOME!” All this while petting the walls of our apartment and hugging the doorjamb to the kitchen. “But you said you would go and I bought you a ticket!” he said. “Oh” I said. So I once again agreed to go. Then a few days later I was tense and whiny on the phone about everything I had to do before we go and my husband said, “You still want to go don’t you?” “I already said I would go. I’m going,” I said. Then I hung up the phone and thought, “Wait a minute. That sounded suspicious. Is he trying to make me stay home? Does he want to go alone? Does he want to get away from me? Is he trying to make me say I won’t go?” So I called him up and asked him why he didn’t want me to go. “I do, I do, I want you to go,” he said. “I thought you didn’t want me to go. Why did you ask me if I still wanted to go when I already said I would go?” I said.   And on and on…

These are the times I feel a little sorry for my husband that he married an actress. I think the definition of the above interchange is called histrionics or herstrionics as the case may be. But I feel sorry for him only rarely. Because being a homebody/home lover also means I cook and decorate. Any magazine wants to stop by and take a picture of my apartment I’m ready anytime. We have summer curtains, winter curtains, summer throw pillows, winter throw pillows and a summer slipcover for the couch. I just switched everything. How could I leave now? And even though I perform I am actually an introvert who likes to stick close to home.

My husband found this French movie, “I Married An Actress”. He got this funny look on his face when he told me about it. Like he’s discovered some support group he’d been searching for all his life. Like he wasn’t the only one. Like Ah-Hah See!! Actress/wives are a handful. We watched it and all her crying in the rain and running out of the house seemed pretty normal to me, and oddly enough her husband was a cerebral type just like mine. The type that needs herstrionics to keep him in touch with his emotional side. To make sure he remembers there is an emotional side to life. Which is what good art theater can do I think and maybe a good actress/wife.

Recently my husband got mad at me. I was being crazy hyper about getting somewhere on time. I was like pushing him down the street. (He has only one speed. Snail.) And he got mad at me. So I apologized. “I’m sorry”, I said. “Do you forgive me?”   “Not yet”, he said. “Well, when are you going to forgive me?” I said. He answered, “I’ll forgive you after I’ve seen a pattern of normalcy.” Good luck with that.