9.12

My friend Steinburg once famously said that mankind is not happy getting what it wants. Any attempt to pry into his meaning was thwarted by his inability to communicate with beautiful women. Alas, I think that may have been his point.
Yesterday, Michelle came over to my house with her girls. Her girls played with my girls while we girls played. Soon, irresponsibility could be heard ringing through the house.
You see, Steinburg is a pediatric dermatologist. All Day, all he sees is terrible skin conditions and cancer and rashes and reconsctructive facial scarring in the shape of half a crescent moon dripping down a nine-year old's cheek like a silvery tear. You would think that he would come home to his completely normal, healthy-looking girls who have no melanonchia, adiposis dolarosa, dermatitis, genodermatoses, chronic infantile neurologic cutaneous and articulate syndrome, or racquet nails, you would think, and you would think that he would burst with joy to see them rosy pink and happy, but Steinburg didn't even want children, I think. He just went along with it because it makes his wife happy.
Get this: Michelle is just crushed by the state of their marriage. If she could escape, she says she would. I think she's in love with my husband, But I can't prove it. Everytime her husband comes up in conversation, she turns to me and spouts off some garbage about how lucky I am and how she would trade places with me in a heartbeat. It's all hogwash anyway. She's just tired of him coming home and vegetating I front of the television every night.
Steinburg has a hard life, of course. I know he does. His work is overwhelming. His wife is oppressive. His children are a disappointment. You know, I'm frankly surprised that he's doing as well as he is, all things considered. I mean, his daughter--
That poor girl. She's got such distracted parents. Her father didn't want her, her mother wanted her to be wanted by her father so her father would want her mother. But that's not how babies work in a splitting marriage. The baby is used by spouse against lover and nothing gets resolved or closer. That poor girl. This summer, she started having trouble adjusting to school. That's how her mother put it. Two years in and now she can't adjust. I don't question it because it's not my place. But now the poor girl chooses--chooses, mind you--to starve herself. You don't understand. She won't eat anything. She was always a picky eater, but her mother made sure to enforce a solid dietary regimen. It's just now that she's old enough to make decisions, she has decided to not eat. The parents have made a choice to feed their darling daughter through a tube. Maybe now that the girl is in school again after the summer, she'll eat because she wants the feeding tube out.
Anyway, Steinburg is a nice guy. Wife, kids, home in the suburbs, well-paid job with people who rely on him. What I wouldn't give to be him.

Ah, well. We can't always get what we want.