Love and other laundry

The things you do for love, eh? The song, “The Things You Do For Love” was written by the Brit group,10cc. In one verse, the suggestion is it’s “like walking in the rain and the snow.” Well, if you live in Canada, you’ll walk in the rain and the snow whether you want to do something for the love of someone or not. The things I do for love.

Well, this week, LOML and I will be going to Hugh’s Room, in Toronto, to see and hear Loudon Wainwright III in concert. If you’ve been to Hugh’s Room, you know it isn’t really what you’d call a concert venue. There won’t be thousands of screaming teens in the audience. I’d be surprised if there are any teens, at all, who’ve heard of Loudon Wainwright III. Wainwright III is one of the things I do for love. If Loudon Wainwright III has recorded an album anytime from the late 1960s to present, we have it in our recorded collection. We’ve got vinyl, cassette tapes, Paste downloads and CDs. Yup, if it’s kinda obscure, we’ve got ‘em.

Frankly, Loudon is far too tedious (not the right word, exactly) and demanding a singer and songwriter for my liking. His lyrics demand I listen and get with his particular program. If I actually listen to Loudon—and we do have “Loudon days” here—I have to remember enough about him, his life, his lifestyle, his past encounters, his kids and his peccadillos to know what the H E double back beat he’s crooning on about. I don’t like working hard for music. Loudon makes me tired, just as a Linguistics exam made me tired back in the day. I just don’t get high and inspired by Loudon Wainwright III. I didn’t understand why someone would write about a “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road”, although I did laugh the first 80 times I heard it on the radio and the next 300 times I heard it on our stereo.

After that, I just started walking out of the room whenever that particular album was selected as “background music” at home. For well over 40 years, LOML (and, more recently, my brothers) have been fans of Loudon. It’s like a plague, the things I do for love. My brothers are a bit too young to have grown up with the likes of Wainwright, but,LOML needed an ally or two or three to make this concert happen for him. My theory: the Brothers have been groomed, for years, to crave Wainwright’s lyrics.

So, a Loudon Wainwright III “things I do for love” concert it is. At Hugh’s Room in Toronto. On the upside, I don’t have to think about cooking dinner because it’s a dinner theatre, of sorts, and dinner theatre makes it better because my rule is “dinner out means dessert.” So, am I looking forward to an evening of looking like I’m listening and “getting it,” and having my cake and eating it, too? It’s what I do to make it about the love—especially the dessert part.

By comparison, I look forward to some of LOML’s musical choices as much as I look forward to doing a cryptic crossword every morning. Cryptic crosswords and Loudon are mentally taxing activities which, when completed (either the listening or the filling-in of squares), makes me feel accomplished and superior and highly caffeinated. I really have to think about what’s going on when I do a cryptic crossword, but strong, black coffee makes a cryptic crossword almost joyous. I’m hoping Hugh’s Room has a Faema coffee machine or, at the very least, a well-stocked bar. My two sisters-in-law are looking forward to the evening about as much as I. We’ve got a bond, the sistersin- law and I. We love our partners and we endure more than a few “things we do for love.” Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all one-sided. And, to be honest, picking music isn’t my forte. I get all hung up on one artist’s album or song and play it until both LOML and I can’t stand it anymore.

But, it isn’t all one-sided. Things done for love happen to me all the time. About 10 years ago, after more than 30 years of marriage, LOML decided he could do the laundry. I was skeptical. What if he did a better job than I’d ever done? Not possible. At that point in time he wouldn’t have the challenge of dealing with an infant’s spit-up or steamy heaps of diapers or the heaps of teenagers’ tie-dyed t-shirts or dozens of pairs of bluejeans and jeans jackets and gym shorts and tube socks. The kids were mostly grown up and out of the house. I had told myself I’d always done laundry for love and, then, LOML told me it was something he thought he could handle since he was retired. Laundry it was.

I was semi-ready to give it up. It was a chore without a bright side. So, laundry he does for love and he does a mighty fine job of it, too. He didn’t tell me laundry needed music (I wish I’d known about the music). Every Sunday afternoon (off-peak) it’s laundry and Loudon for love.