While You Get Ready

While you get ready
I shave, I floss
I watch you in the mirror
Slipping a dress over your head
Zipping it up
Looking at it
Turning around in it
Smiling in it
Sitting down in it
Then taking it off and putting on another

I see you make determinations about lipstick
And eye shadow
And blush, or rouge, or whatever they call it
I see you pull your hair back
Then let it fall in front of your face
I see you look at your nails
And decide they need to be touched up
Sometime this week
Before next Friday night's function

Tonight, however, you'll have to go out
In a dress you don't like
With hair you can't tame
Make-up you're unsure of
Shoes that hurt
A fragile mood
A messy house to come home to
And nail polish that's chipped and fading

And all your boyfriend has to do
Is run a comb through his hair
And shave
Spend five seconds assessing himself
Before he decides
Screw it
It's good enough

While you worry about my co-workers will think of you
And what their girlfriends and wives will say
And whether they'll look prettier than you do
Or be skinnier than you are
And you remind yourself you have to learn to seem more sincere
Because your friends always tell you that you seem fake

You change the shoes again
You go back to the first dress
And the second hair arrangement
You add a bracelet
You take it off

Then you come up behind me
While I'm shaving the last of my goatee off
Because, you were right
I looked like a fourteen-year-old surfer

You put your chin on my shoulder
And look at me in the mirror
And tell me I'm handsome

I take the last bit of shaving cream off my chin
And put it on your cheek

You laugh and say I'm going to mess up your make-up

I tell you not to worry about it

You mention the party
And I tell you
I decided last week
That we're skipping the party

Screw the co-workers and their wives
And their girlfriends
None of whom are as pretty
Or as skinny
Or as anything
As you

I tell you to put on comfortable shoes
And a dress you can do jumping jacks in
Because we're going downtown
To wherever you want
To do whatever you want
And we'll come home
When you damn well feel like it

Because while you were getting ready
I was watching you get ready

And any woman that goes to that much trouble
Getting ready for an event
That means absolutely nothing to her
And everything to the guy she's with
Shouldn't be forced to go anywhere

See, while you were getting ready for me
I was getting ready for you

I tell you that
And call me smooth
You call me 'Casanova'

But I just say--

'Baby, I've been getting ready for you
My whole life'

And you bite your lip a little
Then you bite a little bit on my neck
And that's when I realize
That we're going to be a little bit late
To wherever it is
We're going