a moment in the day: the scolding

Ten at night, finally home from work and class and grocery store, we stand by the fridge in the kitchen. Stephen's been telling me he had a bad day, his arm hurts, he's not sleeping well, he can't get up the motivation to paint. When he can't get up the motivation to paint, that makes him feel stupid and lazy, which puts him in a bad mood, which further erodes his motivation to paint.

"I'm tired of whining," he says.

He grabs the bottle of cava from the refrigerator. "If this were Veuve Clicquot," he says, "I wouldn't have any. I wouldn't deserve it."

The face I give him is the kind that scolds, that says, "Alright, stop being so hard on yourself, you weirdo." I figure that's all I have to do, and he'll get the picture, but the face he gives me back is a kind of open-mouth huh?

"What are you doing?" he says.

I press my lips together and make my eyes wider so I know he'll get it.

"Oh," he says. "You want to have sex?"

I try again. Keep my face really nice and scoldy at him. It looks scoldy to me in my head. I mean, don't we look exactly like we think we look in our heads?

"Oh," he says. "You want to watch I Love Lucy?"