Chapter 9

Last night Donna and I got into a huge argument. The origin of the argument was bizarre. We were over a friend's house and had finished watching this movie called "Pi," which was about a numbers theorist who comes up with the numerological name for God while he's looking for the way to figure out the pattern behind the stock market. Throughout the movie, images of chaos were used, so I made some comments about chaos theory and about how people are using it to try to understand things like the stock market. On the way home, she said she didn't believe there was just one number that could describe everything, so she didn't believe in chaos theory. I said I agreed that there wasn't just one number, but that there was probably a mathematical formula that could describe everything - we just hadn't found it, and that what she described wasn't chaos theory at all.

When I tried to explain that chaos theory said that things that appeared to have patterns were actually chaotic in nature, while things that appeared random actually had strange patterns underlying them, she said she didn't care about chaos theory and didn't believe in it. I wondered how she could refuse to believe in something she didn't understand, and she repeated that she didn't care. So I told her I didn't care to be with someone who preferred to remain ignorant her entire life.

Now, Donna is almost finished with her B.A. in nursing, so she's not exactly stupid, but at the same time, she's never shown much interested in learning anything she hasn't had to. I'm addicted to learning new things. I suspect she feels inferior to me for that reason, so that is a sore spot for her, and she started yelling and I started yelling back and she slapped me and I returned the favor, for which I immediately apologized, explaining if she hadn't slapped me, I wouldn't have slapped her. In the argument, I accused her of being a liar, of misrepresenting herself for, among other things, refusing to get a job after she said she would when we moved down here. (I'm working 40 hours a week and attending Graduate school full time while she sits around the house and watches T.V. or plays on the computer while not keeping the house cleaned or the dishes washed or doing the laundry in time for me to have clean socks (most recent), which is the least she could do since she's not going to work and only going to school). After accusing her of sponging off of me in retaliation against the other men she's had to support all her life, she went through this ridiculous, childish litany of things she "must" be lying about, ranging from past boyfriends to her mother dying, then finally admitted to what I'd accused her of by saying she wanted to see what it was like to have someone take care of her. I told her the truth and said I would love to take care of her, but that I can't. I'm behind on my credit card bills, my phone has been shut off for months, and I'm lucky if I can pay the electricity bill every other month - all because she wanted to see what it's like to have someone take care of her. She's ruined my credit to be spoiled.

By the end of the argument, she had a list of things I had accused her of lying about, and she had only managed to find one thing I had lied to her about: I had promised to never hit her. And I had promised. Because I despise abusive people. But I never expected to live with a woman who would make the Dalai Lama want to hit her. Now don't get me wrong -- I never actually hit her until last night, after she slapped me first, but I had thrown a plastic spaghetti scoop at her when we were cooking and she was mad and throwing the spaghetti in the water like a spoiled child. I was actually throwing the spaghetti scoop to her, telling her to cook the meal herself if she was going to act that way, but it hit her arm instead, and I instantly apologized.

There was also another thing I told her last night. She asked me if I loved her, and I said, Yes, I did love her. But I didn't like her, and the fact that I loved someone like her was a bad reflection on me and the kind of person I was. That was about the only thing she didn't get mad about last night. I would think most women would have gotten mad if they were told something like that. But it's true. I don't like her. On so many levels she represents the very things I like least in people. So why am I sleeping with her? Why do I love her? I don't know. I wish I did.

So what does this have to do with this novel? I hate to say it, but I can see Michel and Sarah acting the same way if they moved in together. Only, Michel would be the one acting childish.