Sitting on my laptop

My lovely other half just said, "I could hear this noise in the background, which I assumed was you talking to me darling". Now, had distance been a factor here then this would be understandable, had she been straining to catch my words from afar: up a tree perhaps, or maybe if we were both hanging off a mountain face together by grappling hooks with a vertical crevice keeping us apart...But we weren't. Another extraneous variable that would account for my inaudibility would be background noise- an overwhelmingly noisy environment (what's a whelm incidentally?). Standing on a busy street in New York, perhaps, trying to make oneself heard over the din of traffic, or on the dancefloor in a gay club,maybe, competing with speakers that tower over us (the electric type).

But no...proximity-wise, my lover was happily perched upon my lap surfing the computer while I peeked out from behind her regaling her with what I thought to be a few well-chosen bon mots. Other than the very faint whir of a laptop (the electronic one, not mine- my lap doesn't make noises like that, I hasten to clarify, before I acquire a reputation I don't deserve.) Incidentally, why lapTOP? There is no lap bottom which I can determine. I digress, in short, I was not drowned out by background noise, I was the background noise.

A more aged friend of ours once commented that, when a couple have been together more than a couple of years, what was previously intelligible speech between the two becomes a mwa-mwa-mwa noise. The best impression of this (not wishing to mwa mwa into my computer mike and then spend the best part of the day trying to upload it)...this being an key point I am trying to convey here so I am eager to reproduce it exactly..Is to be found on the commentary of Season I The L Word, when Katherine Moening-Shane- is narrating an episode and complains that she always hears herself like the teacher in Peanuts (the televised cartoon), she then proceeds to do a very funny impression of herself "warble-talking". (If clarification of this point is not yet another good reason to buy The L-Word then..words fail me, which they already have once today).

Another recent insight I had, which hit me like a near Biblical revelation, was when I noticed my lover echoing back the last few words of my sentence, in order to imply unity and accord.
The dialogue (is that word still appropriate or should I say monologue?) ran thus...
"Me: "Awww look, rabbit is so cute"
Lover: "Rabbit is so cute"
Me: "I wonder if she's fallen in love with your left mule slipper, she probably thinks it's another bunny"
Lover: (in sing-song nursery voice to appease crazy-people or the very young): "Another bunny".....
Cue protracted pause with whirring of my pink cerebral cogs as I replay this last snippet and realise I've been conversing with an echo. I could simply have been talking in a tunnel to achieve the same effect. While I slurp on my coffee I rewind through other interactions where I can retrospectively detect this phenomenon. I realise, not only have I been appeased while my lover was half listening but I have quite enjoyed myself chattering on. I derail this train of thought before I forever traumatise myself with the length of these dialogues.

I have been trained in counselling, this of course teaches this technique. Evidently I wasn't there the day they covered insight.
My lover and I have been together over half a decade now. That's 15% of my past that I've been head over heals in love, and 100% of my future. An expert in body language may be able to determine from the earlier pose that the garden is rosy despite the this audible hiccup.
Besides, I have confirmed I checked with my lover and everything is great. We had quite a good conversation, it ran thus:
"When I speak to you my love, I am talking rather than waffling?"
Lover: "Talking rather than waffling"
Me: "Like in the early days, you still hang off every word?"
Lover: "Still hang off every word"