There are a lot of folks out there doing a lot of important things. Doctor friends go to work saving lives every day. Scientist friends go to work to discover new things to make our lives better (unless they're one of those "green scientists" in which case they work on new ways to make our lives worse: I'm talkin' to you low-flow toilet and twisty lightbulb people). Lawyer friends go to work for an hour and a half each day to remind us that, yes, we too could have been rich beyond merit if we'd abdicated our soul in college in favor of law school. The rest of us cling to those things we do that, if not important, at least make us happy. For me, that happiness comes in the form of a well played game.
I grew up in a forest raised by manbearpigs. As such, without a daddy figure to lead me, I never quite grew into the role of a Chess master. This and this alone is the only thing that keeps me from being one of those jedi-master heroes that pop up in the occasional Hollywood movie. You know the one. He's the wizened genius, pulling off the ultimate smooth operator persona and gaming the system. The chess master runs a ring of super-thieves in some David Mamet-like screenplay with bad dialogue and fun but hole-filled plot. If only I'd learned chess, the world could have been mine in similar style. Instead, I've thrown my certified genius (thank you Acme University) in on the complex game of Scrabble.
That's right, Scrabble has nuances. This isn't just some game for word-wonks filled with the holy spirit of the Oxford English Dictionary. Much like Chess, this sucker can be used to eviscerate your enemy. You can trip up, box in, and stump your prey from even making a move. Scrabble, in the hands of the right intellect, becomes a game of chance, knowledge, and cunning. No, I daresay Scrabble becomes the scepter of a mighty latter-day demi-god!
The moral of the story, if you love playing Scrabble, don't make your wife cry by beating the tar out of her.
Love You, Love You Not
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Marriage Mind Meld
The Mind Meld is a cognitive condition that affects more than just married couples. The root cause of this condition is significant amounts of time spent in close proximity with someone else. Symptoms include, but are not limited to the ability to complete each others’ sentences, near superpower abilities when playing Pictionary, or picking up the phone only to find the other person is calling you at the exact moment you intended to call him or her.
The Mind Meld can seem like a superhuman power. From a close connection with someone else grows an enhanced understanding of another person, his or her life experiences, and how that person thinks. A short-handed communication is born. Complete sentences aren’t always necessary to convey a point. Sometimes you don’t even need words.
What science has not yet proven about the Mind Meld is whether two people in the Meld just really understand the way the other one thinks, or whether they grow to think similarly to one another over time. Perhaps it’s both.
I have experienced such a condition with roommates. In a game of Taboo, my college roommate was able to elicit the response, “a rainbow!” from me by saying, “something you have never seen…” As one of the other players in this game pointed out, this clue could refer to any number of things I hadn’t seen, such as lions mating in the wild or Bono in concert. But I knew it was a rainbow because of the Mind Meld.
Charles and I have been Melded for years now, long before the wedding took place. When we team up for a game of Cranium, we are virtually unstoppable, unless in the presence of other strongly Mind-Melded couples. I know which grunt means he’s not satisfied with the answer to a question he received, and he knows when my sighs mean something more than just a sigh. Sometimes our very silence speaks volumes.
As wonderful a gift as the Mind Meld can be, it can go awry. Take yesterday, for example. Charles and I have been planning to attend the Irish American Heritage Festival ever since we learned that Eileen Ivers would be giving a concert there. However, we didn’t buy the tickets immediately. It was understood by both of us that we would cross that bridge after our trip to St. Louis at the end of June.
We’ve been back from our trip for a little over a week now, falling back into our daily routines. Yesterday, we decided to take action about the tickets. The deadline was coming up, after which ticket prices would double. I placed the order online while Charles was napping at home, deciding I should act on it while I was thinking about it. Charles placed the order after he woke up, after shooting an IM message that I didn’t immediately see. When I turned around and saw his message, I snatched up the phone to stop the inevitable disaster. He answered just as he hit the sent button to make the purchase.
The moral of our story is this: if you or anyone you know would like to attend the Irish American Heritage Festival this weekend, please let us know! We have tickets!
The Mind Meld can seem like a superhuman power. From a close connection with someone else grows an enhanced understanding of another person, his or her life experiences, and how that person thinks. A short-handed communication is born. Complete sentences aren’t always necessary to convey a point. Sometimes you don’t even need words.
What science has not yet proven about the Mind Meld is whether two people in the Meld just really understand the way the other one thinks, or whether they grow to think similarly to one another over time. Perhaps it’s both.
I have experienced such a condition with roommates. In a game of Taboo, my college roommate was able to elicit the response, “a rainbow!” from me by saying, “something you have never seen…” As one of the other players in this game pointed out, this clue could refer to any number of things I hadn’t seen, such as lions mating in the wild or Bono in concert. But I knew it was a rainbow because of the Mind Meld.
Charles and I have been Melded for years now, long before the wedding took place. When we team up for a game of Cranium, we are virtually unstoppable, unless in the presence of other strongly Mind-Melded couples. I know which grunt means he’s not satisfied with the answer to a question he received, and he knows when my sighs mean something more than just a sigh. Sometimes our very silence speaks volumes.
As wonderful a gift as the Mind Meld can be, it can go awry. Take yesterday, for example. Charles and I have been planning to attend the Irish American Heritage Festival ever since we learned that Eileen Ivers would be giving a concert there. However, we didn’t buy the tickets immediately. It was understood by both of us that we would cross that bridge after our trip to St. Louis at the end of June.
We’ve been back from our trip for a little over a week now, falling back into our daily routines. Yesterday, we decided to take action about the tickets. The deadline was coming up, after which ticket prices would double. I placed the order online while Charles was napping at home, deciding I should act on it while I was thinking about it. Charles placed the order after he woke up, after shooting an IM message that I didn’t immediately see. When I turned around and saw his message, I snatched up the phone to stop the inevitable disaster. He answered just as he hit the sent button to make the purchase.
The moral of our story is this: if you or anyone you know would like to attend the Irish American Heritage Festival this weekend, please let us know! We have tickets!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
They will SUCK your BLOOD!
When it comes to matters of medical hokum pokum, I am what they call in the scientific community a Woosicus Rex. I cannot handle needles or any other form of invasion by a medical professional. My body has developed a handy response to such stresses to my body and psyche; the blood rushes from my head and I faint. I learned later in my life that this response is called Vasovagal Syncope—the very same physiological response that prompted our former president to faint after choking on a chunk of pretzel. (All things considered, I don’t think death by pretzel is a terrible way to go.)
I fainted for the first time in the fourth grade, when we were learning how bruises formed in Health class. In the fifth grade, during a D.A.R.E. class with our local police officer, Vasovagal Syncope struck again as we learned how some drug addicts shot up heroine underneath their fingernails and toenails to avoid detection. Needless to say, I never contemplated a life as a heroine addict. The class had its desired effect. During high school, I fainted at the ophthalmologist’s office when he stuck his fingers in my eyeballs to put in a fresh pair of contacts.
For years, with varying degrees of success, I have been trying to explain this to members of the medical community when they try to inject some ‘helpful’ chemical or antibody, or even worse, extract some of my blood for their nefarious purposes. The last time I had a blood test was enough for me to swear off needles for good. My veins eluded the nurse’s attempts to find them. She had me squeezing a ball, and she poked my right arm twice and my left arm once before finding a vein to give her blood. I made her take a break to let me slow down the hyperventilating.
Today, I had to return to the scene of the crime for another blood test. Needless to say, memories of my last bloodsucking experience haunted me all the way to the office. But, today, unlike that morning a couple years ago, I was armed with something that made all the difference: my husband.
Sure, this time I had a nurse much more adept at extracting my blood. Sure, I was more hydrated and my veins more visible. But, the lynch pin to help me through the troubling ordeal was my Charles, holding my hand and distracting me with talk of Diet Pepsi. It may not seem like much to anyone who can donate blood, but to me it meant all the difference to have him there distracting me and supporting me.
Am I strong enough to get through things like this on my own? Sure. Would I have made it without him today? Yes. But, it would have been much, much harder. Sharing your life with someone doesn’t make you weaker because you have someone to depend on in situations such as these. It makes both of you stronger, because support from someone you love makes it easier to buck up, face the music, and do what you must do.
I fainted for the first time in the fourth grade, when we were learning how bruises formed in Health class. In the fifth grade, during a D.A.R.E. class with our local police officer, Vasovagal Syncope struck again as we learned how some drug addicts shot up heroine underneath their fingernails and toenails to avoid detection. Needless to say, I never contemplated a life as a heroine addict. The class had its desired effect. During high school, I fainted at the ophthalmologist’s office when he stuck his fingers in my eyeballs to put in a fresh pair of contacts.
For years, with varying degrees of success, I have been trying to explain this to members of the medical community when they try to inject some ‘helpful’ chemical or antibody, or even worse, extract some of my blood for their nefarious purposes. The last time I had a blood test was enough for me to swear off needles for good. My veins eluded the nurse’s attempts to find them. She had me squeezing a ball, and she poked my right arm twice and my left arm once before finding a vein to give her blood. I made her take a break to let me slow down the hyperventilating.
Today, I had to return to the scene of the crime for another blood test. Needless to say, memories of my last bloodsucking experience haunted me all the way to the office. But, today, unlike that morning a couple years ago, I was armed with something that made all the difference: my husband.
Sure, this time I had a nurse much more adept at extracting my blood. Sure, I was more hydrated and my veins more visible. But, the lynch pin to help me through the troubling ordeal was my Charles, holding my hand and distracting me with talk of Diet Pepsi. It may not seem like much to anyone who can donate blood, but to me it meant all the difference to have him there distracting me and supporting me.
Am I strong enough to get through things like this on my own? Sure. Would I have made it without him today? Yes. But, it would have been much, much harder. Sharing your life with someone doesn’t make you weaker because you have someone to depend on in situations such as these. It makes both of you stronger, because support from someone you love makes it easier to buck up, face the music, and do what you must do.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Death in a saucebowl.
My ladylove and I have a pretty equitable system for chores. Not codified on paper anywhere, the rules have sort of evolved naturally over time. I'll even jump on the "green" fad and say it evolved "organically." How's that for using some lemming-like vernacular?
Since my wife's mutant power manifests in the form of Meganvision, a highly defined ability to see dust particles left behind by my mere mortal sweeping attempts, she gets to sweep. I generously fell on the garbage Seppuku sword since I prefer she not be hauling rotting garbage down 3 flights at night to a dumpster in an ill-lit city alley. We each wash our own clothes, asking nicely if we need to fill out a load if the other has some apparel they'd like to hitch a ride to cleantown. Cleaning the tub even has a ritual. I auger out the occasional hairball that breeds in the tub drain while she'll occasionally take care of the special cleaning our whirlpool tub requires. Overall our chore existence is pretty amicable. Now and again, however, evil strikes in the form of saucebowls.
Cleaning dishes has been the only area where we still have a back and forth relationship on who gets what and when. Generally we each keep up with loading our items into the dishwasher and running it. The real death to our matrimonial harmony comes when the saucebowls arrive. First you might see one or two. The lady will have some veggie potstickers and fill a side ramekin with some soy or other asiany-type sauce. I will maybe have some leftover chicken tenders and slam some BBQ sauce in a dipping bowl. Regardless of who starts the trend, we get overwhelmed by saucebowls. The things breed. Soon the sink has become a bio-weapons playground full of stagnant saucebowls all in varying stage of superflu petri-dish creation. Then the denial begins.
"I did dishes last."
"No, I did dishes last when I washed the thing near the thing after we went out to see the thing, remember?"
The argument starts off weak, then a few more days of fungal growth occurs in the dishes. Our yuck-pools have, by now, developed a latent early-evolutionary sentience and have begun plans for condo conquest. I'm not entirely certain if spores haven't been released into the air from the growths occuring in the sink, tainting our abilities to rationally just DO the damn dishes. Regardless of the cause, we begin to start targeting each other. Our dog becomes the intermediary for discussion as we refuse to directly tell the other person to do the dishes.
"Roxy, tell mommy it stinks in here from her stagnant saucebowls of death," I'll advise the dog.
"Roxy, tell daddy nothing smells worse than what comes out of his ass every 20 seconds," she'll inform the dog.
Eventually something snaps. Maybe the dog's boredom of our inanity does it. She'll go lick the floor somewhere more interesting. Maybe it's the fact that the other person disappears for a bit (usually the one who snaps does so when the other is working). Maybe God is a jester who has decided to get back to a normal show. Eventually one of us does the dishes. Someday, however, I know in my soul, the death of our marriage could lie in a saucebowl. This is why I'm plotting to accidentally drop all our saucebowls. It's for our love, honey!
Since my wife's mutant power manifests in the form of Meganvision, a highly defined ability to see dust particles left behind by my mere mortal sweeping attempts, she gets to sweep. I generously fell on the garbage Seppuku sword since I prefer she not be hauling rotting garbage down 3 flights at night to a dumpster in an ill-lit city alley. We each wash our own clothes, asking nicely if we need to fill out a load if the other has some apparel they'd like to hitch a ride to cleantown. Cleaning the tub even has a ritual. I auger out the occasional hairball that breeds in the tub drain while she'll occasionally take care of the special cleaning our whirlpool tub requires. Overall our chore existence is pretty amicable. Now and again, however, evil strikes in the form of saucebowls.
Cleaning dishes has been the only area where we still have a back and forth relationship on who gets what and when. Generally we each keep up with loading our items into the dishwasher and running it. The real death to our matrimonial harmony comes when the saucebowls arrive. First you might see one or two. The lady will have some veggie potstickers and fill a side ramekin with some soy or other asiany-type sauce. I will maybe have some leftover chicken tenders and slam some BBQ sauce in a dipping bowl. Regardless of who starts the trend, we get overwhelmed by saucebowls. The things breed. Soon the sink has become a bio-weapons playground full of stagnant saucebowls all in varying stage of superflu petri-dish creation. Then the denial begins.
"I did dishes last."
"No, I did dishes last when I washed the thing near the thing after we went out to see the thing, remember?"
The argument starts off weak, then a few more days of fungal growth occurs in the dishes. Our yuck-pools have, by now, developed a latent early-evolutionary sentience and have begun plans for condo conquest. I'm not entirely certain if spores haven't been released into the air from the growths occuring in the sink, tainting our abilities to rationally just DO the damn dishes. Regardless of the cause, we begin to start targeting each other. Our dog becomes the intermediary for discussion as we refuse to directly tell the other person to do the dishes.
"Roxy, tell mommy it stinks in here from her stagnant saucebowls of death," I'll advise the dog.
"Roxy, tell daddy nothing smells worse than what comes out of his ass every 20 seconds," she'll inform the dog.
Eventually something snaps. Maybe the dog's boredom of our inanity does it. She'll go lick the floor somewhere more interesting. Maybe it's the fact that the other person disappears for a bit (usually the one who snaps does so when the other is working). Maybe God is a jester who has decided to get back to a normal show. Eventually one of us does the dishes. Someday, however, I know in my soul, the death of our marriage could lie in a saucebowl. This is why I'm plotting to accidentally drop all our saucebowls. It's for our love, honey!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Love is conditional.
My wife and I have come up against a topic a few times in jest that has stirred debate in the past about the depths of true love. In the movies, poems, stories or other fantasies of love we're taught that love is unconditional! True love has no boundary. I, callously, find this to be a big fat hairy lie on the wart of sentimentalism.
Love is conditional. Under specific conditions anyone can stop loving another person or thing for that matter. Love that Chilly Cheeseburger? The first time you find a large toenail hanging off the bun you may find that love quelched. Love your high school sweetheart? As soon as you walk into the locker room after the big game to find your cheerleader honey doing "sit-ups" on the JV coach you find the brick wall on the highway of endless amore.
Anyone who denies these truths has either A) never been truly in love or B) exists in a fantasy bubble-city filled with Meg Ryan and Hugh Grant clones. A recent discussion with my Ladylove brings forth the truth of this sage wisdom.
"If I became a vampire, would you let me turn you?" my wife asked after the completion of a True Blood episode.
"I don't know, honey. As much as I love you, I really don't hate the sun as much as you and I've tasted enough of my blood in this lifetime to let me know I hate the taste."
"What if I were a werewolf?"
"I'd totally let you shred and turn me into a werewolf," I replied hastily. "They get all the cool things with long life and immunity to diseases, plus I'd get an excuse to go psycho once a month like most women do!"
"If you turned into a zombie, I think I'd have to join you, because I wouldn't want to go on alone," my wife noted.
I informed my crestfallen wife that if she went zombie I'd crush in her skull and run.
See? We have conditions on our love. I'd join my gal for werewolvery, most likely hit up a life of lightless blood-drinking, but when it comes to being a mindless meat-machete it's game over! I guess I could say I would kill my zombie-bride out of love because I couldn't bear to see her in such a horrid state (nothing cool about zombies, kids), but that'd be lying to you all. The conditions of my love are set pretty high, though, so I feel like I'm on pretty good ground.
Love is conditional. Under specific conditions anyone can stop loving another person or thing for that matter. Love that Chilly Cheeseburger? The first time you find a large toenail hanging off the bun you may find that love quelched. Love your high school sweetheart? As soon as you walk into the locker room after the big game to find your cheerleader honey doing "sit-ups" on the JV coach you find the brick wall on the highway of endless amore.
Anyone who denies these truths has either A) never been truly in love or B) exists in a fantasy bubble-city filled with Meg Ryan and Hugh Grant clones. A recent discussion with my Ladylove brings forth the truth of this sage wisdom.
"If I became a vampire, would you let me turn you?" my wife asked after the completion of a True Blood episode.
"I don't know, honey. As much as I love you, I really don't hate the sun as much as you and I've tasted enough of my blood in this lifetime to let me know I hate the taste."
"What if I were a werewolf?"
"I'd totally let you shred and turn me into a werewolf," I replied hastily. "They get all the cool things with long life and immunity to diseases, plus I'd get an excuse to go psycho once a month like most women do!"
"If you turned into a zombie, I think I'd have to join you, because I wouldn't want to go on alone," my wife noted.
I informed my crestfallen wife that if she went zombie I'd crush in her skull and run.
See? We have conditions on our love. I'd join my gal for werewolvery, most likely hit up a life of lightless blood-drinking, but when it comes to being a mindless meat-machete it's game over! I guess I could say I would kill my zombie-bride out of love because I couldn't bear to see her in such a horrid state (nothing cool about zombies, kids), but that'd be lying to you all. The conditions of my love are set pretty high, though, so I feel like I'm on pretty good ground.
Monday, June 8, 2009
She's a Lucky Girl...
In most things in life, I consider myself plagued by abysmal luck. I've never won a game of Bingo, I rarely luck out with a great parking spot or fast checkout lane, and I don't even bother playing the lottery. I have come to accept the fact that in a past life, I committed some terrible crimes against humanity that I now have to pay for in this life.
Or, perhaps, all of the luck in my life was focused on one main thing, one event that changed my life irrevocably for the better: meeting and falling in love with my husband. Not only that, but he fell in love with me back. For both of us, since that first 14-hour marathon date over five years ago, there has been no one else.
Our relationship is not perfect. There are ups and downs: some more up and some more down than others. But this is how love works; you don't move through a relationship in a linear fashion. You don't love each other the same from one day to the next, or even steadily more or less from day to day. Love evolves and changes from day to day, month to month, year to year. There are fits and starts, bursts of love and bursts of anger. Some days it's easier to accept the other person just as they are, and some days you want to scream if you see that same tick one more time. An overwhelming majority of the time I'm happy or content in my relationship and in life with my husband. That's what counts.
Here, I will chronicle the dichotomy: the bursts of love and joy I have with my husband, and those times when I wonder how we ended up together in the first place.
Or, perhaps, all of the luck in my life was focused on one main thing, one event that changed my life irrevocably for the better: meeting and falling in love with my husband. Not only that, but he fell in love with me back. For both of us, since that first 14-hour marathon date over five years ago, there has been no one else.
Our relationship is not perfect. There are ups and downs: some more up and some more down than others. But this is how love works; you don't move through a relationship in a linear fashion. You don't love each other the same from one day to the next, or even steadily more or less from day to day. Love evolves and changes from day to day, month to month, year to year. There are fits and starts, bursts of love and bursts of anger. Some days it's easier to accept the other person just as they are, and some days you want to scream if you see that same tick one more time. An overwhelming majority of the time I'm happy or content in my relationship and in life with my husband. That's what counts.
Here, I will chronicle the dichotomy: the bursts of love and joy I have with my husband, and those times when I wonder how we ended up together in the first place.
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