June 28, 2023:
She's angry all morning.
Over what, she won't say. Perhaps that I spoiled her surprise by walking in at the wrong moment — a disappointment she could have avoided by locking the door as she changed into the lovely suede western skirt I'd bought her as my own surprise. Whatever the origin, she responds with episode after episode of criticism, complaint, vituperation, and performative withdrawal.
Sneering at my driving, at my confusion in town when the thrift store I was hoping to find for her wasn't where I remembered, at a distracted mixup of "lunch" versus "dinner" while Googling that thrift store. Mean-spirited, sharp-tongued, just plain mean, until I eventually protest, providing her cue to leap onto the sidewalk shouting about feeling unsafe. As though she now expected — what? To be left on that sidewalk 300 miles from home?
Declaring defeat we cut the trip short, until the stress climaxes on a wooded roadside on 20 east of Mendocino, where I pull over to clear the tears from both eyes, now crying uncontrollably while she feigns remorse.
This was our life for eighteen months.