Hibernating Bears
June 30th, 2010 § 2 Comments
I read the actual real news today. Typically I start out by reading TMZ and Popeater to glean important information that happened in the world while I was sleeping, but today I actually read real news. Granted, it was on the internet and it was while eating a Pop Tart, but nonetheless I think this is a step in the direction of being a bona fide adult. Anyhow, while I was reading the real news I learned the divorce rate has gone down. Which is great news, because if there is one thing I don’t want to be it is a statistic…or possibly naked in public. It is always toss up between those two. I am getting married and I hail from twice divorced parents so the percentage of failed marriages is of concern. It is good to know divorce is on the decline, maybe this means people are taking vows more seriously. Too many people look at marriage as a temporary situation, or something to do in Vegas to make the time pass quicker between buffet feedings.
But I do have a theory about marriage. I think more people should live together before they get married. This gives them an “out” before they choose to sign up forever with someone should they discover they engage in shocking behavior like, watching hours of porn while eating ice cream out of the carton, or drinking out of the toilet. And before you say, “But statistics show people who live together before marriage have a higher divorce rate.” I will stop you and say that is in direct conflict to the point I am going to make so I am choosing to ignore that statistic.
Paul and I moved in together a few months ago. Even though I felt I knew him before we moved in together, I was wrong. We have really gotten to know each other more since cohabitating and I find that very important. For example, Paul should know before marrying me that I will make my half of the bed while he is still sleeping in it. I do this because I know the bed will not get made if I don’t make it, and since I always wake up before him, I can at least have control over the state of my side of the bed. One can never be too careful about someone breaking into your home unexpectedly. I would hate for robbers to think I’m a slob.
And, it is important for me to know that Paul views the dishwasher as jail- a place for dishes to be locked up for an indeterminate amount of time. Furthermore, he believes dishes should roam free and not secluded to the confined, dark space of the dishwasher, regardless of their cleanliness. Even cups with 5 day old coffee, that is eating away at the porcelain of my great grandmothers china, deserve to enjoy freedom.
Paul should know I will lie to him for the greater good. I will tell him company is coming over just to get him to clean. Even if no one is coming I will lie if that means he will pick up the carnage in the downstairs bedroom or clean the toilet in the guest bathroom which, every other day of the year is his bathroom. And I should know that he needs his own bathroom, for the benefit of our relationship. I need to know that sharing a bathroom with him would surely lead to divorce,because I am a girl, and I like things to be clean and orderly. He is a guy, and isn’t bothered by water stains on the mirror and believes brown stain spots on the toilet seat are rust, while I believe them to be poop shrapnel.
I also needed to know that Paul is a sneak attack snorer. He will lie silently for hours at a time during the night and then unexpectedly let out the scariest most violent snort snore. When I was younger I was a heavy sleeper. The first time I felt an earthquake I was in middle school, even though there were record-breaking magnitude earthquakes years prior, since they all happened in the dead of night, I was ignorant to them. But, if I hear a snore, I wake up upon impact. Once, while on a work trip to a convention in Salt Lake City, I shared a room with a complete stranger. Cohabitating with a complete stranger was traumatic enough, and then the night came. In the darkness she transformed from a timid woman from Iowa to a 300 lb. truck driver drugged with Ambien. Her snoring was so loud that it vibrated my brain and even though I relocated to the hotel lobby to sleep, I was pretty sure I could still hear her. That morning I caught a cab to the airport and flew home 2 days early. I couldn’t fathom another night sleeping next to a stranger who sounded like a chainsaw starting up. So, it is important for me to know that Paul snores occasionally and we will always need a comfortable couch for me to run to.
Paul needs to know that I expect to be able to watch the television shows I want to watch and that I should have veto power. He must know that Van Damme movies are to be watched only on nights when I am out of the house and that I am a self- conscious pee-er and I will never ever, under any circumstance pee with the bathroom door open. He should also know that I will make dinner most nights and other nights an acceptable dinner is 5 popsicles and a granola bar. And I should know that he consumes a concerning amount of soda and while I see keeping a tally of how many sodas he drinks in a week as helpful, he finds it annoying.
So you see, living together before marriage is a good way to discover if you are ready to take someone for better or for worse, for richer or for snorer.
When I Grow Up…I Want to be a Mom.
June 29th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Since I am 32 and childless it is due time I give consideration as to the kind of mom I want to be, so when the day should come I’m ready to put the plan into action. That is of course, if I am not barren, which I have convinced myself I am. This conclusion is for no good reason, other than my obsession over all that could go wrong, so when I think about how badly I want to be a mother someday, the thought is followed by an image the shriveled ovaries and congealed eggs that reside in my slightly tipped and upside down uterus. Barring my insides being the humanized version of Death Valley, I should prepare for motherhood.
First, I don’t want to be the kind of mom that is unrecognizable to her children in my wedding pictures. The kind of mom who was fit when she married but then spent the next 10 years eating uneaten Cheetos and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because, “That is what I made the kids for lunch.” I don’t want to wear mom jeans and I hope I have enough foresight to know what type of jeans will be considered “mom jeans” 10 years down the road. I don’t want to drive a mini-van and I certainly don’t want the only thing I talk about to be my kids. I want to be just like I am now, where the only thing I talk about is cupcakes, other people and my TV shows.
I’m not sure if I’d like a boy or a girl. I could say what everyone seems to say, “we just want a healthy baby” but frankly I find that to be a little uppity. REALLY? A “normal” child you say? Wow, that is so different from the usual answer I hear about people wishing their child is Autistic and stricken with that adorable Down’s Syndrome that everyone is talking about. Doesn’t it goes without saying that people hope for a normal baby with 10 fingers, 10 toes and a slightly misshapen head that goes back to normal before they begin walking and are regulars out in public? So yes, assuming I can have children and given that I want a healthy child, I then have to consider what type of mom I hope to be.
My mom raised me to be independent, to take smart risks and to always be able to stand on my own. She made holidays special, threw amazing birthday parties for me and, even though she passed genes on to me for poor arm definition and pale skin that resembles the color of frozen chicken, I’ve forgiven her. Because of my mom, I know the qualities I’d like to possess as a mother. And, through my years of dating, I know the exact kind of mom I don’t want to be. I once dated a guy who had a terrible mother, and I say this with reluctance because I believe you should always respect people’s mothers. Luckily, I am no longer with her son, so I can be honest and tell you she was a monster. I should’ve ran on my first date with her son, when I asked why he was still single at the ripe old age of 31 and he replied, “Because of my mom.” Granted, we all ignore red flags, and this my friends, was a huge one. But I didn’t run, partly because I was desperate to find a guy in the trenches of Los Angeles and the other part because we were at In-N-Out and I hadn’t finished my french fries. His mom was the epitome of passive aggressive. She would say things like, “Enjoy your time with my son, because you won’t be around long” and “I guess it is okay to tell me what my son’s plans are for Christmas. You have been together for a few months, I guess that’s your place.” She would say these things so sweetly that I almost felt crazy for thinking this woman was doing her best to push me out of his life. Had she of known he was doing a great job of that on his own, she could have saved her venom for more important things, like kicking Girl Scouts in the knees because who knows, maybe they would grow up and try to steal her 50-year old son that still lived in her house. But in her mind it would be warranted because she was entitled to protect her role as laundry do-er and tummy rubber for her elderly son. Because she was so nice-like, I wasn’t sure if she was trying to offend me or was just terrible at expressing the English language. But her dislike became easier for me to understand when she spoke in Spanish. I may not be fluent, but I know enough to understand when I am being called a little bitch and a son stealer, afterall “protective crazy mother” is kind of a universal language. Thankfully her son walked on his tippy toes, had a girl butt and said, “Pardon me ma’am” when speaking to strangers, all of which made me want to kick him in the baby-maker, so it was easy to let him walk out of my life…on his tip toes.
I cannot understand why mom’s want to hold onto their sons with a death grip. There is a place in a son’s heart that no girl or woman can ever replace and the roles they do play, it’s illegal and disgusting for a mother to think she can fulfill. Most guys will always want to run back to the comfort of their mom when they are sick, scared or lost. And quite frankly, most women don’t want to see their men in such a boyish state-so by all means, run to mom and come back when you are normal again. But isn’t the motherly thing to do, to push them out the door and challenge them to be a “man”? The worst thing a mom can do is to break out the footie pajamas and rub their back until their 33 year old son falls asleep in his bunk bed on his Star Wars sheets from the 80′s. There is nothing more unattractive than a grown man in his 30′s wearing footie pajamas and substituting “W’s” in words where “L’s” should be. No man over the age of 5 should say, “Mom, my widdle heart hurts, but I wuv you and you wuv me because I am your widdle boy.” But some mom’s don’t care. They are so obsessed with not losing their son they disregard accepted societal behavior and turn their sons into wussies. Only under very specific circumstances is a man living with his mother attractive. And the only one I can think of is where she is dying and he moved back from his lucrative career in the city to care for her. Walking away from a job he loved because he loved his mom more and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before she left this earth.
Someday I hope to be the kind of mom that accepts her son moving on. A mom who is proud of raising a son that a girl wants to be with. A son who is strong and self-sufficient and wears footie pajamas only if that is something his wife is into.
The Art of Falling Apart
June 23rd, 2010 § 5 Comments
I haven’t dreamt of my wedding since I was a young girl. Most of my time was spent obsessing over trying to get a boy to be interested in me. Turns out, that could have been rectified by spending more time figuring out how to get away from bifocals, perms and cheese danishes. Back then, I would have settled for a kiss…imagining a boy ever wanting to get close enough for me to kiss him was far-fetched enough so the thought of one wanting to marry me…well, that thought could have possibly caused my head to explode.
It has taken me a while to get used to this whole, “getting married” business. I’m not a gusher, so when people ask, “How is the wedding planning going?” My first inclination isn’t to rattle off the colors of the wedding, the designer of my dress and all the details of our choreographed first dance together. My response is always, “fine”, which is apparently not the standard response since this is typically followed by dead silence and an awkward stare. People must think I’m not happy about getting married because I don’t brain dump every last detail of my impending nuptials for them to devour. But for me, it feels strange to talk about it. I’m still getting used to the idea myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m not excited. That doesn’t mean I haven’t spent many afternoons trying to figure out my new signature, or thinking about a suitable song to walk down the aisle to. I just haven’t had enough time to really sit in the idea of being a bride, planning a wedding or getting married.
The wedding planning process has, in many ways been dampened by family drama and emergencies, and more recently by Paul being laid off. You know those people who have been shot in the face or mauled by a gorilla or stricken with an incurable disease, and Oprah or Ellen are interviewing their family and friends and their friends and family are all, “Joe is such a man of strength. He has no lower jaw or eyes, or a nose, or teeth but he has never spent a moment feeling sorry for himself or asking, “why me”.” Apparently this is the exact opposite of the kind of person I am. When I first heard Paul lost his job I felt strong… “This is a chance for something better. ”This is happening for a reason”. And then, the next morning I figured out what the reason was-to drive me to the brink of insanity and punish me for living my previous life, as what could only be reasonably determined to be a murdered of puppies and small cute well-behaved children- because, why else would such terrible things be happening to me? And so, I spent the next two weeks asking, in every language I know how to speak, ”Why me?” I said it in the bathroom with the water running so Paul couldn’t hear me. I said it in the car on the way to work. I said it in my office with the door closed…and open. I said it to friends, to my mom, to co-workers and quite possibly, to a handful of strangers.
I could see Paul trying his best to be strong for me. And I did my best to be strong for him. I told him I didn’t need a wedding. Heck, I hadn’t even thought I would ever have a wedding until 6 months ago when he proposed. It wasn’t like I was a girly girl who dreamed of her wedding from the moment she could form the words, “Gimmie!”. I wasn’t the girl who swooned over bridal magazines and tulle. I would be fine without the wedding. ”It’s a big ole’ waste of money anyhow”….right? But when I told Paul this, he looked at me and said, “But you deserve a wedding” that is when I realized…I already had what I deserved-A guy who respects me, one who didn’t spend the beginning of our relationship playing games. One that didn’t leave me waiting by the phone, willing it to ring. I deserved a guy who made me want to put his happiness before my own-an idea that was like telling me to breathe underwater. I deserved someone who put my happiness before their own-someone who believed in me and knew that I dreamed of opening a bakery and supported the idea…even though they knew the profits at bakeries were the kind that meant many Ramen dinners. I deserved someone who could talk me off the ledge when I was worried about money, or people not liking me, or not being good enough. And I had all of that and more in the person I was marrying. Suddenly, the wedding became more important than anything. Not the flower part of the wedding, not the cake, not the decorations, not the limo we would take from the hotel to the ceremony and back to the hotel again. What became important was the wedding itself. The idea of having everyone I loved more than anything on the planet (and some distant relatives that we never see but have to invite anyway because our parents tell us we need to) there to witness me marrying the guy I love more than anything on the planet-the guy I never thought I would find. The wedding isn’t about the food, or the cake or the flowers it’s about the journey. The trauma surrounding Paul and I has brought us closer together. The turmoil has shown us that in crisis, we are good together and in times of calm, we are even better. Had Paul of not lost his job, I may have never known that my love for him wasn’t based on the fact that he was stable and could pay for nice dinners and pointless Valentine’s Day gifts. Had there been no drama surrounding my family, I may of never known that Paul wouldn’t judge me for one very dysfunctional family member. The struggle has made me realize, something I already had faith in…I am marrying the perfect person for me. The person who makes all the trouble so very worth it.
Even though our wedding journey has been plagued by potholes, pitfalls and self-pity I am now onto a new horizon. And to be honest, some days are easier than others…but it wouldn’t be a journey if it were easy. Paul is still jobless, I am still 10 lbs. heavier than I would like…but if you want to hear about my wedding I am ready to gush…because it is going to be the best wedding you have ever laid your eyes on!
