servitude

I’m enjoying listening to Julia Sweeney’s new book, which is about her adoption of a baby in her forties and subsequent marriage:

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/02/an-excerpt-from-julia-sweeneys-if-its-not-one-thing-its-your-mother/

At the end of disc 3 she discusses all the confused and ambivalent feelings she has had about romantic relationships over the years, from strong feelings of independence to desperation. I could relate!

Things are smoothing over with my roommate, although I’m still amazed at his laziness. He does work all week, but yesterday he literally laid on the couch and watched television the entire day. I went swimming and grocery shopping and met up with a friend and cooked and cleaned the apartment in that same amount of time. He’s paying me for the food service, so I can’t complain, but it’s been eye-opening.

I’m not saying all men are lazy– many are quite hard-working and productive. But it does strike me as funny that so many (admittedly, not all) women do so much in the way of self-improvement– from dieting to exercising to traveling to spiritual awakening to hair removal to relationship seminars to career-building etc.– in the hopes of meeting a mate who may just, in the end, want someone to do all the work of maintaining the home and perhaps bring in most of the income to boot.