Jennifer and I have a wonderfully honest relationship. One of the things I really love about her is that I can, and do, talk to her about anything. And I do mean anything. For example, it’s not unheard of for us to have conversations similar to this:
(phone rings)
Her: Hey hubby… what’s up?
Me: Oh, not much. Just browsing some Asian porn. What’s up with you?
Her: Really? Find anything good?
Ok… in fairness, I embellish somewhat. With the exception of this past weekend, it had been a good 3-4 months since I looked at any kind of porn. That’s a testament to how great life is with my beautiful bride. Point is, I could have that conversation with her without batting an eye.
This past weekend, it rained, which means my cock-blocking Pekinese had to throw a little hissy, get completely un-potty trained, and annoy Jenn to the point where she was saying things like, “We’re just going to have too put him to sleep. That’s all there is to it.”
Now you may think she was joking, but trust me, I was there. It was four in the morning and there was poop on her floor. She was in evil dragon mode and the dog wasn’t the only one scared.
I tried to keep the peace. I said “baby… he’s just freaking. It’s storming and you know how he hates storms. Let me just sit up with him for a few and he’ll be fine. I’ll clean everything up and we can just go back to bed…” Then I made my critical mistake— I made physical contact by putting my hand on her shoulder. Brushing off my hand she turned to me and through clenched teeth said two words. “Your. Dog.” I wasn’t aware that evil morning dragons had heat vision, but trust me, they do. I had been vanquished and banished all in a matter of seconds.
I’m not a “yes dear” kinda guy, but by damn, there’s some times when you have to suck up the pride and realize there isn’t any way you’re gonna win.
So after cleaning up the mess, I went to spend time getting the dog to calm down. I kept mumbling things like “this is all your fault you know” to him while he followed under foot.
There are few things in the world better than rainy Saturday morning sex. However, realizing that I had been banished, and that if I actually went to snuggle up next to my still angry wife, the Pekinese was going to start his antics again, I figured the best option was to quietly web surf. It was way too early to actually do anything productive, so I decided to surf porn instead, which actually brings me to the point of this post (a revised point, since I’m too far off topic to actually go back.)
Is it just me or had porn gotten a lot worse over the past several years? I mean honestly, it could just be that I’m getting older, but it seems increasingly more difficult to find pictures of just a hot naked girl without her being gang-banged by three midgets and a honey coated kielbasa. Sweet Jesus… not everything has to be so extreme. Has the world gotten that desensitized to seeing just a smoking hot body that they have to resort to the most radical of fetishes? I’m hardly someone that minds breaking out the cuffs (and even the riding crop when we’re getting “freaky naughty”), but good god. Some things are best in their simplicity.
Anyway… I had almost given up before I found a site dedicated to mischievous anime schoolgirls and all was right with the world again.
Before I begin, let me just say that if you’re reading this blog, I can pretty much guarantee that at some point you’re probably going to take exception to something you read here. I’m fine with that. In fact, one of the points of this blog is to talk about all of those things people don’t like talking about, so if you’re looking for something other then my heavily garnished opinions, check out… um…well, crap. This is where I would give a reliable news source, but since I don’t know of one, let’s just say CNN. That way you can see a guy falsely admitting to a decade old murder get top headlines while they gloss over the fact that 61 more people were brutally killed in
And to think that I have people that find me fucking offensive.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to some more pointless drivel, shall we?
As I mentioned last week, Jenn and I recently took a trip to KC to visit her family. Jenn’s sister and brother-in-law have a great suburban home, in a nice little maze of other homes that I’m sure are just as lovely. They where nice enough to let us spend the night on the pullout downstairs so we didn’t need to get a hotel. They even got out the inflatable mattress so that we were as comfy as two people could be on a pullout couch. With the exception of my wife throwing a cat-hair covered blanket on my face (I’m quite allergic and proceeded to have my eyes puff out of my head) things were pretty uneventful.
The next morning however, I woke up much earlier than anyone else. Now this is bad for a couple of reasons. First, I’m not very good at doing “nothing”. I get fidgety and start to even annoy myself.
Secondly, Jenn’s an extremely light sleeper. And I mean extremely light sleeper. Ninjas sleep more soundly then Jenn does. She not only hates being woken up, but my sweet little Jennifer turns into an evil dragon in the morning. I’ll admit it… any time before
Lastly—and this really is the very worst part—I had to take a dump.
This provided a dilemma not only personally, but tactically as well. For starters, I hate hate hate using a strange toilet. But there wasn’t much choice since we were 4-5 hours away from a familiar commode.
They have a bathroom downstairs, but it’s a refinished basement and if you turn the bathroom light on, it turns all the lights on in the entire downstairs. With the pullout only feet away, flipping the switch would have surely woken the dragon. Not only that, the bathroom door has a hole in it big enough for a cat to run through. Now, I’m a man who wants a well-ventilated, fully-fanned, three-matches-lit, no-hole-in-the-freakin’-door, bathroom when I’m doing my business.
Upstairs, they have another bathroom, but after a quick recon up the steps, I noticed that the door was open to the master bedroom, which the bathroom sits right next too.
So becoming increasingly more desperate, I thought of another option. Go downstairs, grab my keys, and go drive to the nearest Mc D’s or other public facility. But what kind of note do you leave for that? And worse yet, I mentioned this was a MAZE of houses, right? I had literally NO idea where I was. Just so you know how seriously I considered this option, I went looking for a pen and paper to write said note.
Lacking anything to write my note with, and fearing getting hopelessly lost, I decided to venture into the dark pit of a bathroom without turning on the light. I feared waking the dragon by shear smell alone, but that was a risk I just had to take.
Ever tried to wipe your butt in the pitch dark? It occurred to me that I never had. In the dark, yeah. In a “you can’t see anything except that damn hole in the door” dark? Never. And instead of having their toilet paper hanging on the wall, they have it on a cute little metal stand. Or I’m sure it would be cute if I could’ve seen it. Instead, I just knocked it over with my elbow and had to scurry to keep it from banging against the floor. And in the dark, how many times is enough wiping? I must have used half of that roll of TP just to be safe.
And then, from the darkness, came one of the scariest things I’ve experienced in recent memory. In writing it, you wouldn’t think a cat putting it’s paw on your leg would seem like a scary thing, and trust me, I’d build up the drama if I could. But I swear, when you think you’re sitting alone in the dark and your hearts still racing from knocking over the TP stand, a cold, rough kitty paw on your leg is enough to make you jump out of your skin.
So you may wonder, what’s the point of this stupidity? Absolutely no point. That’s the point. I just thought that the next time your feeling stupid about something, you can think back to my little bathroom dilemma and suddenly not feel quite so foolish.
I’m sure you’ve heard any number of guys talk about how they don’t get women. Generally speaking, I find that if you just try to be a good listener instead of a problem solver, you’re 90% there.
However, lately I’ve found a plethora of random topics that my wife no longer sees my opinion valid on. The dilemma is that I don’t think she knows what those subjects are until they come out of her mouth, so I tend to walk blindly into these topical landmines.
Here’s an example of one of these exchanges that happened just last week:
Jenn: (looking in the car mirror) "Do you think I’m getting more freckles?"
Me: "If you are, I hadn’t noticed them. But I think your freckles are adorable, so if the question is are you looking increasingly more adorable, I’d have to say yes."
Jenn: (Looking at me like "I just tried to belch the national anthem) Ugh. What do you know? You’re my husband… you supposed to say stuff like that."
See what I mean? Getting married completely killed my point of view. I’d have to bring in a series of experts, a team of analyst, and a Simon frickin’ Cowell before she would have considered my opinion valid. Truly boggles the fucking mind.
This weekend Jenn and I went to KC for our nephew’s third year birthday party. Yeah, I had to backspace to say “our”. I’m still not used to that. This is our family. And man… is it huge.
My parents are both only children, so on the holidays, if my brother can’t make it with Kim and the kids, we’re looking at around half a dozen people, tops. This was a kid’s birthday party and there must have been at least twenty-five to thirty people there.
Now, with that being said, I had a great time. I think, in part, it was because unlike when we went to KC for Christmas, I went with my own set of objectives. You see, at Christmas (our last trip to KC), Jenn and I had been going out like 5 months, and my basic plan was “adapt, make a decent impression, and don’t look too idiotic. You never know, if all goes well you may actually see these people again.” Now we’re married. It’s a whole new ballgame. This is family.
So what was my strategy going into this trip? Good question. Here’s the list in no particular order:
Well, I’m happy to report that I had varying degrees of success with just about all of these goals. Here are the results, which are also not in order.
Jenn helped me with the last goal on the way there. Thank you all for your prayers, well wishes, and emails of support. The PT Cruiser is officially christened.
I also got to know the brother-in-law a bit better. I prepped before the trip by going to darkhorizons.com and superherohype.com before I left and got all the latest movie gossip. I had several conversations with him where not only did I feel that he was having a good time, but so was I.
Avoid staring at cleavage? *sigh* Well, there’s always next year, right? For various reasons it was completely impossible for me to avoid the cleavage stare. However, I take some solace in the fact that I caught my father-in-law staring too (albeit at different cleavage.)
Don’t do anything stupid? Another thing I didn’t do overly well. Here’s a little etiquette tip: If you’re going to start out a sentence with “I have a friend who used to be a stripper…”(believe it or not, this was relevant to the conversation at the time) check the room to make sure your brother-in-law’s religious mom isn’t standing behind you. Jenn tried to cover for me to no avail. So again… there’s always next year.
Lastly, there was spending time with my nephew. This was, without a doubt, the best part of my weekend. Not only was I able to keep up with him, I had a really great time doing it. We hung out on the back deck for a good long while flying his air-pump powered plane and I got to teach him the overhand toss of the plane (verses the dump over the railing.)
But the moment that cemented the fact that I want to have kids was this little exchange:
Nephew: “Larry the Lizard is stuck up there (pointing up.)”
Me: “Really? Way up there? In the sky?”
Nephew: “Yeah. But he’s not in heaven; He’s just on the roof.”
So I’ve been in a really creative mood the last few days. However, I haven’t had a shoot in several weeks, so there’s not much to work on. I suppose I could go back in the files and find something that I had looked over in the past, but I hunger for something… new. That’s probably the best way I can describe it. Being really ravenous, and yet not quite figuring out what I have the taste for.
On the plus side, it’s been a while since I’ve done something creative where the parameters weren’t dictated to me, so hunger is good.
It’s good in other ways too. Jenn’s asked me “what’s gotten into you lately?” more than few times as of late. As much as she likes her “good man”(which is, btw, the best compliment she can give me) she equally appreciates my darker side.
It’s also helped me at the job quite a bit too as I’ve been able to come up with some “out of the box” solutions to problems. (God I hate clichés like that, but I don’t know how else to say it. “Creative” is also pretty overplayed considering where I work.)
And I’ve been enjoying music more than I normally do. I’ll freely admit to being rhythm challenged and being partially deaf doesn’t help much either. I’ve been digging back on Blue October and I don’t think there’s anything of theirs I don’t like. They’ve got a very eclectic blend of music that runs the board of stuff I really dig. For example, they’ve got a song that sounds very NIN called Drilled a Wire through My Cheek. Here’s a nugget:
I try to stay on top of you
To hold your body down
Your shaking seems to hinder
Every grap that I have found
Moving every inch around me
To defuse your private bomb
I stretch myself surrounding
And protecting you from harm
I use a wallet for your mouth
So when you bite you will not bleed
I drilled a wire through my cheek
And let it down and out my sleeve
And as your pulling out the best of me
Yeah which never ever comes
This wires all thats left of me
And its hooked within my gums
within my gums...
So drill it, so drill it
So hard
Feel it
Its proof to show that I bleed for this
And ive cut myself the shame
But to get to know this macicist
Who has stolen my first name
Pretending he's a teacher
Holding all my weight at ease
Yet the teacher seems to split in two
Destroying both his knees
Now crawling I position myself
Below your broken wing
I lift your featherd left arm
Where you hide your heart for me
I never noticed it was swolen
With the touch of brutal pain
I never knew a heart could live inside
The rust from all your rain
all your rain...
That’s only half the song and yes… the whole song is that dark, fucked up, and I love every line of it.
Anyway, I’ve got the day off tomorrow, so maybe I’ll have a new image soon. I’ve got to get a bunch of freelance stuff done and we’re going to hang out with Jenn’s family in KC this weekend,(which means a road trip in the Cruiser and the potential for road head since I finally have an automatic. Keep me in your prayers) but I’ll try to budget in some art time.
I’ve been pretty swamped at work and I’m feeling pretty sleep deprived, so my apologies if today’s post seems a little more disjointed then most.
I have a friend who’s going through a rough spell in her love life, and the whole thing just got me thinking about the very nature of love. Without diving into names, let me give you the jist of her situation.
She’s been serious with her boyfriend for a number of years and things haven’t been moving forward quite at the speed she had hoped. Particularly recently, she’s been thinking that they either need to move forward or break up entirely.
So after a heart to heart, what’s said boyfriend do? He went out, got himself a good paying job, laid out a solid 3-5 year plan, and is looking to finish up his degree. Everything should be great, right?
But here’s the rub… in the meantime she’s started having feelings for some other guy. Those feelings aren’t reciprocated, and nothing will probably come of it, but her stomach’s all in knots about it.
Anyway, long story short, she’s apparently tried getting advice from a goodly number of people, and one of her close friends told her she needed to break up with her boyfriend because it wasn’t fair to continue to date him when she’s starting to have feelings for someone else.
That’s the phrase that really struck me. It’s not fair. And that’s really what this little rant is all about:
When has love ever been fair? Yeah, I know… there’s that saying “All’s fair in love and war.” But I would say there are damn few things that are actually fair in either of those items.
Fair, but its very nature, is a balancing. A harmonizing of logic.
Love, by its very nature, (and one of the main reasons I love love) is completely illogical, utterly unpredictable, and defies anything close to fair at every turn.
Ever wanted to be with someone with every fiber of your being only to have them have “eh” feelings for you? Far too many people see this as “in love”. Personally I see this like an uncapped fire hydrant. Water’s going everywhere, but it’s not actually “in water”. It’s just bouncing water off the pavement and down the drain. What’s actually fair about that? Absolutely nothing.
I’m wildly in love with Jennifer. She’s wildly in love with me. One of the really wonderful things about our relationship is that I don’t feel like any of that love ever hits the pavement. We just soak up every drop. But do I ever foresee a time that she or I might be tempted? Sure. It’s possible. Hell, it might be shortsighted to say it’s not probable. But if love is real— if it’s not just a flash in the pan—then you stick with it. You cultivate it so that there’s never a time when temptation is anything more than a passing thought that quickly slips away. You drink love in so deeply that nothing else will ever do.
Only my friend can decide what’s best for her, but here’s my nugget of advice. If you’re really in love, you know it. You know it completely. It’s not fair and it’s not logical, so don’t try and qualify or quantify it in such black and white terms. Stop trying to be fair about abstract emotions and be true to yourself.
So the lunchtime blog hasn’t gotten much attention this week because, well, I’ve been too busy to take lunch. That’s ok, by the time you get done reading this post, you probably won’t have much of an appetite either.
So it’s no secret that since Jenn and I started dating we’ve put on more than a few pounds. As most of my friends know, before Jenn, (should I start calling that “B.J.”? Um… probably not) I was on a perpetual diet just to keep the sluggish Copeland metabolism in check. A few weeks ago, after my darling wife gave a stirring speech about how “enough is enough” and “we need to get up off of our big fat asses”, I decided to do the low carb thing one more time. While I know it’s out of fad, and everyone tells me it’s unhealthy, it’s the only thing that’s ever worked for me and being overweight is even unhealthier, so there you go.
Jenn is one of those anti-low carb folks, so she decided to do her own thing. For example, last night, she had KFC chicken strips. So much for stirring speeches.
The best thing about the Atkin’s diet is that it really does leave you less hungry. Once you’re on it a few weeks you hit this stride that makes it pretty damn easy to maintain.
The bad thing about Atkins? The first two weeks. You see, to get to that “not hungry” euphoria, your system has to pretty much reprogram how it’s been digesting things. This can affect people differently, for example, last time I was a bit blocked up, while this time I’m in the bathroom several times a day with highly volatile ass butter.
Now this would be bad if I lived alone… it’s worse now that I live with someone with an uber-sensitive sniffer and a genuine curiosity for what’s going on at all times. I’m often met in the hallway as I sneak out of the bathroom for the third time with “so what exactly is going on in there? Are you ok?”
Sweet jesus… am I ok? Doesn’t she know that it’s better not to talk about it? (far better to blog about it days later) Yeah, I know she’s just worried about me, but there isn’t anything worse then admitting stomach issues. I’d almost rather come back with “Oh yeah… I’m just pounding one out before bedtime. *yawn* No worries” then try and explain what’s really going on.
Now why am I mentioning this “too much information” topic? Because the other big thing that’s been going on in my life is that I’ve been having some sizably fucked up dreams. Now normally, my dreams are pretty dark, twisted, and, well, inspiration for lots of my art. My subconscious will run wild scenarios that will show me the darker side of my nature, how difficult it is for me to really let things go, and most of all, just how tarnished my self image truly is.
The problem is when these two issues collide.
For example, the other night I was dreaming that I was going through an old, dilapidated mansion with Jenn and an old friend of mine. Actually, they were wisely staying on the porch while I snuck in to get some pictures. As I went into the house I was on the prowl for my real goal, a bathroom. Disturbingly there wasn’t one on the first two floors, so I had to go up to the third. The attic area that I knew, in the way that you just know things in dreams, was way haunted. As I got up there, the air became stale and there was a pile of antique dolls with their eyes plucked and shattered in the corner. On the wall across from them there was glowing blue writing in a language I didn’t understand and the voice of a child began to read the text in an equally unintelligible language. A pair of candles lit on a table in the center of the room and they danced with eerie shadows as several other voices began to recite more cryptic passages. But in the candlelight I spotted an open door. The open door of a working bathroom. So I said to the spirits, “I’m sorry to interrupt. I really am. But I really gotta use your bathroom.”
Moments later, the alarm clock went off.
Alrighty… so where was I? Ah yes… random rant about friends and such not.
So now you have the back story, that brings us to the point where I met Jenn. I think it was about our second date when I knew she was the girl for me. We went off like fireworks, without the fizzle afterwards. Tom Robbin’s wrote in his whimsical book Still Life with Woodpecker that so many people are searching for the perfect lover that they often miss the perfect love. I totally get that now. Jenn changed my life simply by making me feel like she’s there for me as much as I’m there for her. It’s a simple little thing, but it means the whole world. When I look at her she’s the embodiment of beauty, love, and passion. Jenn may not be my creative muse, (she actually tends to muck up my creative mind since she makes me think “happy”) but she’s most assuredly my spiritual one. She really did show me the difference between a soul match and a soul mate.
During the first few weeks of dating, we spend as much time as we could together, as much to find out where the flaws were as anything else I think. We’d both been hurt before so we were sort of both looking at it as “this person seems entirely too perfect for me, and those things that seem too good to be true, generally, are.” But like an addictive drug, the more time we spent with each other, the more we wanted to spend. To the point where it was difficult to work the long hours at work that were required during the “busy season”. To the dismay of all of my friends who suddenly found me far less accessible.
It wasn’t something that was conscious by any means, and I certainly feel in some respect like I should apologize, while every other part of me proclaims, unabashedly, how I wouldn’t have changed a moment of the time we spent. My most quality of friends realized that right away and others eventually came back around (and I treasure each and every one of them.) But those that smiled to my face while making snide remarks to others about how we “were ruining our lives” can go find a pointy stick to sit and spin on.
See, I told you we would eventually get back to a point… or at least something pointy.
It's funny how quickly the little things can change in your life.
This year has seen the most fundamental changes to my world that I’ve ever experienced. There are the obvious ones like getting married, and there have been more subtle ones like the shift in my friend base. It got me thinking about the first time I had a substantial shift in my friends.
I know they are only a few states away, but the interests of your typical guy in St. Louis is a hell of a lot different then the same demographic here in St. Lou. I had a pretty substantial friend base in
Over many a bar tab we would have conversations about how they really screwed up the re-release of Star War when Han didn't shoot first, how Magneto sees himself as a savior not a villain, the best way to detain a Bigfoot (which left me with my Indian name Squatcheye, Yeti Sympathizer), and, the various merits of ordering your bride from China verses Russian.
Surrounded by people that played more video games then I did, learned Klingon from online classes, and were on a seemingly never ending quest to save enough money to move out of their parents home, I seemed downright hip.
It was a rude awakening when I moved to St. Louis and realized that you shouldn’t ever say the words “I’m not really into sports”, stating you’re an artist makes people assume you’re gay and the proper response to being called a hoosier is not “Close… actually I’m from Ohio.”
In other words, for the first time since 8th grade, I was a social outcast.
So I didn’t have a lot of friends. Those that I did meet were in the art community and most of them happened to be women (which, at the time, I didn’t see as much of a problem.)
I did eventually meet my buddy J, (coincidentally in a Comic shop) who, besides being as un-hip as me, also is one of the most loyal and honest men I’ve ever met. He introduced me to a few of his friends, but generally speaking, that “friend of a friend” thing is always there and you feel awkward if that connecting friend isn’t around.
I dated around some too, but I tend to be the guy that women think they should be with instead of the one they want to be with. That white knight. The comfy teddy bear. The guy you run back to when you realize the bad boy you’ve been dating has another girl on the side or still treats you just as bad as the 3 times you were with him before.
Wow… all this back story and we haven’t even gotten close to the point of this little rant. But I’ve run out of time, so I guess I’ll have save the rest for the next post. Stay tuned for part II…
While I was walking by an office today, I overheard two of my female co-workers say the tired old adage, “men are pigs.” I’m sure it was said mostly in jest, and as soon as they saw me, they clammed up in the way that gets across, “Look Slappy… we're not talking to you. Move along, before you incur our wraith.”
Men are pigs? That’s a despicable stereotype. It’s the sort of blanket generalization that this week’s top hater, Mel Gibson, would make in a drunken rant. That’s right sugar-tits… I said it. I mean, the only real difference between what he said and what my charming co-workers said was that what Mel barked was pretty much a complete fallacy,(I mean, “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”? Come on! The Catholic Church holds that title) while what the women said is almost entirely true.
That’s right, men are, in fact, pigs. Now some of us are in fact better at covering it up then others. For example, you think that sweet little gay dude that served up your latté at Starbucks doesn’t fall into this pigeonhole? Please! I guaran-fuckin’-tee he was dropping an eye on the guy behind you and wondering what his pigeonhole looks like. And God bless him for it! He’s keeping the stereotype alive.
You know where I think all the problems with Priests come from? Not embracing their inner pig. It’s like in Ghostbusters when they are all trying really really hard to clear their minds of anything evil, and at the end of the movie still end up covered in exploding marshmallow.
Umm… ok, that may be a bad analogy, but you get my point.
Even I (before this post) am considered a pretty nice guy by most everyone I know. I hold the door for women – no matter if I know them or not. I write my wife little letters just to let her know I’m thinking about her. I’ve been known to drop by with flower for no particular reason. And in most conversations I make eye contact for at least a minute and a half before I sneak a peek at even the most quality cleavage.
The other day Jenn and I were watching a bit of TV and the “Girls Gone Wild” commercial came on. About the time the two college girls with “GGW” logo’s strategically bouncing across their nipples started making out she turns to me and says, “I just don’t see the point of these things. I mean, they don’t really show anything. If you’re going to get that you might as well just go rent a good porno.”
Now, she’s got a valid point, but that didn’t stop me from thinking “Hush woman! Can’t you see that these girls are tumbling around in zero gravity?! And for an additional $4.99 we can get the extra
Luckily, I’ve got one of those pig filters installed, so when the words came out they sounded like “I totally agree sweetie. Probably some 40 year old guy sitting around his parent’s basement is dialing right now. But, you know, the world takes all kinds.”
Oink.
Alright… So Jenn just called to say she’s going to be running late to pick me up, so I’ve got a few minutes with nothing to do.
I’m intrigued, and a little frightened, by the loops that stress makes. Here’s my latest little snowball.
Last week I had a client tell me I wasn’t going to get paid for a rent-sized project I’ve already put time and money into (she actually ended up paying me even though the end client isn’t paying her, but I didn’t know that at the time.) Slap on that I’ve started a new diet and my system is completely wacked. Wrap that all in a floury tortilla of anxiety because of the missed days of no power here in
At the day job I’ve got a big 3D project that requires me to do all the programming, then hit “render” and walk away from it for a few days while the computer cranks out thousands of images. If the programming's screwed up in any way, or there’s even a slight fluctuation of power, I’ve dry-humped my deadline. Everyone, from the owner of the company, to the project manager, to, well, all the other happy little henchmen, are expecting this to be the cornerstone of their presentation on Wednesday morning.
So last Thursday, I started stressing hardcore when all the pointy heads still hadn’t finalized the room layout, and I couldn’t even begin working on the thing. I woke up at 2 in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Normally I would hop in my car and gone to work at times like that just so I was doing something, but since we’re down to 1 car, that wasn’t really practical. So I sat and stewed over it.
Now I handle stress differently then a lot of people. I don’t freak about it right then and there, I push it down, repress it, and generally do every other stupid machismo thing that eventually boil over days later when I'm standing in line at the Walgreen's and the woman in front of me can't decide if she wants to get her lung cancer in a box or soft pack, menthol or light, pays for it all in change, and is way way to loud because she's to fucking lazy to pause the Ipod.
So anyway, the next morning I went into work at the normal-ish time, busted my ass, and got the whole thing ready to render in a single day. I was pretty happy with myself, but again, there was that “hit render and walk away” issue that I had to deal with.
We were off buying the car on Saturday, which I also found stressful, but since Jenn kept asking me how excited I was about the car I kept smiling and thinking that if I put on my happy face there was a slight possibility of the drought being over later that night.
By Sunday, I started getting waves like someone was punching me in the chest from the inside. Jenn walked by when I was having one of these little episode (isn’t there something else to call them? They’re not “events”… nor should they be called “attacks”) and asked me what was going on. I was trying to come up with some nice way of saying “I’m having chest pains” without it sounding like something from Sanford and Son’s. Anyway, she didn’t freak out, but tells me to lie down and then takes the dog out for me. A little later on in the evening, she asks me how I’m doing and what I think the pains were. As I begin to answer, I notice that her eyes are welled up and the tears are rolling. Ugh. There are very few things that “get to me” but wife tears? Fuck. Fuckety fuck. This ain’t good. I try to explain that it was probably stress and re-explained to her all of this. She asked what would make me less stressed, so we ended up going back over to work and I checked the progress and tinkered for a few hours, with her there just to make sure I wasn’t going to keel over in my chair or something.
That night I got next to no sleep. I was up thinking about those tears. Thinking about how stressed I was because I had made my darling wife cry. Thinking about what I need to do to limit my stress. Correct that… STRESSING about what I need to do to limit my stress. How screwed up is that?
So my computer is crap. I absolutely need a new one, but with the honeymoon coming up in November, it’s not the highest priority (and did I mention the new PT Cruiser I just bought?) It overheats to the point that I popped the side of it off and put a big fan next to it just to keep it cool.
The primary problem with this sad little system is that I can’t hear anything when I’m sitting at my desk. It not really an issue since I lost a third of my hearing when I was younger (an issue I don’t normally share with people.) In addition, over the past several years of living alone I’d gotten acclimated to only hearing the random noises of the drippy-eyed piglet (my dog, Poco). Now, I’ve got to keep an ear tuned for the random call of my wife, who sits in the other room, watching TV or surfing on her laptop. I generally don’t hear her until the third time she’s called for me. I know it’s the third time because nothing quite sounds like that third call.
“Hubby?”
(no answer)
“Alan?”
(silence)
“
“Sweet Jesus! What is it?!” As I come shooting around the corner. By the time I get there I fully expect someone to have crashed through the window, buck naked, engulfed in flames (or something equally as dramatic.) Her normal response is something along the lines of “what’cha doing?”
“What am I doing?” (Trying to figure out why my worst case scenario was a spontaneously combusting nudist, but that’s beside the point.) “Baby…”(stay calm…take deep breathes…) “What do you need?”
In her sweetest voice, “I just wanted to tell you I love you.”
She makes it really hard to be annoyed sometimes.
Instead of doing a typical first blog introduction discussing how I’m a unique little snowflake (just like everyone else), I’m just going to jump right into my first rant.
Ever had a cock blocker? No, that’s not some new fangled toy (or maybe it is and I’m just not hip enough to know about it), it’s just that one “something” that works as your own personal chastity belt. It could range from kids, to parents, to drunken friends, to a dog that sits in the room making snorty piglet noises. Whatever it is, it seems to always be there to make sure you’re not gettin’ any. Anyway, my most current just happens to be my car.
My wife Jenn and I were married about a month and a half ago (it’s still not too late to send a gift) and have been spending our evenings (almost every) doing typical newlywed things. That is, we were, until we needed to take her car into the shop for some pretty simple body work (ironically enough). Since then we’ve had to carpool, using my Ford Escort that has a plethora of problems, the least of which is no AC and a driver’s side window that if you roll down takes about 20 minutes to creep back up. Her car, which was supposed to be done in a few days, is now been there for 3 full weeks, through this 100 plus degree heat wave. It takes her about 30 minutes to get from her work to come pick me up and another 30 for us to get home. How does the car issue relate to anything? Well by the time we get home we’re both tired, sweaty and on more than a few occasions just downright pissy.
For example, one night after a flurry of dirty little emails throughout the day, I snuck in for a kiss and she stared at me like I had just taken a crap in the middle of the floor, put a firm hand on my chest and said “Honey, I love you, but ewwww.”
That’s right… “Honey, I love you, but ewwww.”
You don’t really recover from that. There’s no “well, maybe if I romance her a bit…” You’re pretty much done at that point.
So it was then I decided that we needed a new car. I kinda loved not having a car payment, but the Escort would have taken more to fix up then it was worth at this point, so it had to go, like right now.
So Saturday we went out, and I purchased a PT Cruiser.
Yes, I, in fact, bought a car with the primary goal being to be able to have sex Monday through Friday. Is that sad or what?
The only hitch was that we had to be at the dealership at
“I feel soooo crampy.”
*sigh*
