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"A few nights ago, I put a mood ring in the Advent calendar for Maile. Remember those? They&amp;#039;re supposed to change color depending on the emotional state of the wearer. If this were actually true (and of course it&amp;#039;s not; I&amp;#039;m pretty sure the shimmying shades are brought about by changes in body temperature\u2014I&amp;#039;ll have to Google that), and I was wearing Maile&amp;#039;s mood ring right now, it would be flashing like Christmas tree lights. Yesterday I was feeling all blue and sorry for myself; today I&amp;#039;m so frustrated with Don that I&amp;#039;m seeing every shade of red in the crayon box. I can&amp;#039;t be too specific here, but the gist is that Don is doing everything he can to smother me\u2014physically and emotionally. I think perhaps he&amp;#039;s just hanging on for dear life, which is understandable, but he&amp;#039;s also sabotaging any sympathy I might have for his own fluctuating emotions. For one thing, he hasn&amp;#039;t yet officially moved into his apartment (I&amp;#039;m not really sure why), and while the bitchy me wants to shove him out the door and change the locks, the compassionate me feels genuine empathy. (And let&amp;#039;s not forget the wimpy me, for whom &amp;quot;confrontation&amp;quot; is a four-letter word.) For another, before he left for work yesterday he handed me a fat envelope\u2014a letter, &amp;quot;something I wrote a few days ago.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t know what color indicates &amp;quot;irritated&amp;quot;\u2014maybe a dark, bruise-y purple\u2014but that&amp;#039;s the mood the mere existence of this letter put me in. I have yet to bring myself to read it. I&amp;#039;m not afraid that it says mean things. I&amp;#039;m more afraid that it&amp;#039;s a plea for a &amp;quot;second chance,&amp;quot; or an overwrought apology, or some sort of declaration of undying love and devotion. And if that&amp;#039;s the case, all I can say is, How dare he? How dare he try to manipulate me at this particular juncture? How dare he put me in possession of something that he can use against me\u2014as he did last night when he asked if I&amp;#039;d read the thing. I told him no\u2014which meant he felt perfectly justified to act all hangdog at 2 a.m. (yep, he woke me up to ask me), and all put out at 8 a.m. when I came back from a coffee run in time to get the kids off to school. As I write this, I&amp;#039;m moving along the color spectrum to &amp;quot;resentful,&amp;quot; which has got to be a putrid yellow-ish green. Yuck. The saving grace is that tonight is a therapy night, so we can air our respective grievances within the pleasantly ecru cocoon of Dr. K&amp;#039;s office. Based on the events of the past 24 hours, I think Don is going to have quite a few. Based on the events of the past 24 hours, I&amp;#039;ve got quite a few of my own. P.S. Turns out the same dude who developed the mood ring in the mid-70&amp;#039;s was the genius behind an equally useless invention: the Thigh Master. &amp;quot;Amused&amp;quot; = bubblegum pink. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a41832/color-my-world-3701/>