Five Years

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Five years ago today, I was single and D$ was throwing a birthday party at his house. To the shock and admiration of my best guy friend (who didn't know our backstory*) I go up to D$ and the following conversation ensues.

MWK: Hey. Um...are you doing to make out with that girl?** Because I want to stay here tonight.

D$: What? Really? Okay! (Or something like that. Whatever it was, he was clearly going to forgoe making out with said girl).

MWK: Cool. Don't get too drunk to fuck.***

D$ (looks down at red plastic cup filled with cheap beer): I'll start drinking water now.

MWK: (Saunters away to talk to gaping guy friend feeling very bad ass and good about herself).

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3 and a half years ago, we move in together. We impulse-adopt two kittens and D$ yells "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DEFY ME?" when I keep changing the way the toilet paper roll hangs up.

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Two years ago, D$ proposes in a blizzard in Wisconsin, before a John Prine concert. I yell "WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS??!" and forget to say yes until he reminds me that he is kneeling in the snow waiting for an answer. We celebrate after the concert with random hippies and cheap beer.

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Last year, we are still living together, planning a wedding. Life post-engagement is stressful in new ways and easier in ways that used to be hard. We snuggle the kitties a lot.

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This year. Today. Today we have been together for five years, married for 7 months (as of yesterday). We ditch out of work early and meet on the 2:30 bus to go home and take a walk together in the newly-discovered sunshine. D$ asks, "So when do you want to have babies?" and then almost falls down on the ice. We eat at the local pizza joint, gazing like lovestruck idiots over a mound of sausage and black olives. We face a world of uncertainty. We are in love. We are lucky. We are happy.

*This sounds interesting, but mostly it involves us getting drunk and making out over a series of months/years when we both happened to be single. It also involved D$ repeatedly trying to convince me to date him and me repeatedly saying "No, thank you" with varied levels of politesse.

**D$ had been flirting with some girl. To be fair, I had told him a few weeks ago that I didn't want to make out with him anymore. But I was not about to be beat out by some other woman. Unacceptable.

***We did not fuck that night. Please, I'm a LADY.

****Photo by me. My work had an event and was just going to let these flowers go to waste, so I brought them home to brighten our apartment. D$ asked if they were for him, for our anniversary. But they are clearly for me. And yes, that is natural sunlight, fools.

I love my alma mater

We just got a piece of mail from the small liberal arts school where both D$ and I went to college (and where we met).

I recently submitted a photo of our wedding to the "Class Notes," and they must have used that information to list us as married in their files, because they sent us one mailing addressed to both of us.*

This level of efficiency would be impressive all by itself, but. But! Not only are they proving themselves to be well organized and saving paper, but they put both of our names correctly (keeping my last name instead of assigning me his).

And! And and and and: my name was listed as Ms. MWK.

Oh yea that's right - I went to a feminist undergraduate institution.

*They also called D$ on Valentine's day to ask for money - apparently they were calling all the married couples that both went to our school. I think that is pretty freaking cute and sort of genius.

In other news

We found out that one of the kitties loooooves figure skating. Like, a lot.

This is a little snapshot of the action at our house this week*:

Cat F and I agree that Johnny Weir was robbed. Robbed!

*Whenever I post photos of our house I am embarrassed by how ugly it looks. When I buy a house I will NOT have white walls. Or goddamn mother f'ing exposed wires.

Aw, shucks

Thanks for all the support and congratulations.

Image from the best website of all time

YESSSSS!!!

D$ got the internship. I jumped up and down a lot in front of strangers, and did several stupid dances.

Thanks for the support, universe (and lovely blog-friends).

Image found by googling "Wheeee!" But now I can't find the site again to link to it. Sorry.

Today

Dear Universe,

Today, D$ has a second interview for the paid internship that is really important to him. And to me.

Today, my step-dad is meeting with a old client in what the whole family hopes will be a discussion about a job offer.

Universe, I know that terrible and wonderful things much bigger than my family happen every day. I know that in the larger global context, asking for jobs for two (relatively privileged) white dudes is selfish and short-minded.

But Universe, please. Please help both of these things go well. They deserve it.

MWK

The things we inherit

I talked to my mom on the phone for a while last night - li9fe of course aren't so easy for her right now. She is struggling with how my step-dad is handling their situation, which is far from a new scenario for the two of them.

My step-dad is woefully passive - this has been an issue for him for a long time. My mom is as in-your-face as you could possibly get, particularly when threatened.* She is also controlling and very opinionated about her way being the right way to do almost anything. So she is struggling not only with an insecure financial future but with a husband who isn't handling things the way she would. And it is starting to make her insane. Luckily she knows well enough to try and stay out of things; my step-dad doesn't need my mom bossing him around. He needs to work this through for himself. If he is going battle his conflict-avoidance the effort has to come from him, not my mom. She knows this, but she is also frightened and frustrated and trying to deal with all of these emotions without exploding.

So we talked, and I tried to be helpful. But mostly it made me think about D$ and I and yesterday's post.

I hate it when my mom acts controlling and self-righteous and I've seen how damaging it can be when that behavior goes unchecked. But I am, if nothing else, my mother's daughter. I am controlling and opinionated and generally think that people should do things the way I would do them. And, surprise surprise, I spend a lot of my time struggling not to project that behavior onto D$ (failing more than I would like). A lot of the stress of our current situation has come from this; from my struggles to respect and appreciate D$'s ways of working, thinking, and planning instead of jumping all over him for not doing what I would do.

At least I recognize where it comes from. At least I can see how this affected my mother and her relationships. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to use this information to help myself let go a little, to recognize that my way is not the only alternative to the highway.

*I am also sort of a nut job when threatened, although I am more of a nut job when someone I love is threatened. There are many examples of this, but my favorite is when I was in sixth grade and tried to beat up an eighth grade boy on the bus for calling my sister fat.

Okay, only sometimes am I an awesome wife

I'm starting this without not really knowing where things are going, so bear with me.

Life as been a little tough at our house in the last few weeks. Both of us are stressed out. D$ is looking for jobs and trying to figure out if he should graduate, I am working and schooling and job searching. And all of this without knowing where we are supposed to be looking for work. I've applied for awesome jobs in D.C., where neither one of us wants to live, simply because they were too good not to try for. D$ is this close to getting a paid internship in my hometown for the summer but neither one of us can even think about it for fear of ruining things, and even then it would only solve half of our problems. And then there is all the stuff with my parents, which is sort of a dark cloud that we don't talk about (except when I am editing my step-dad's resume or cover letter which I don't mind saying is not at all fun).

As a result, we've both receded a little into our own spaces. To be clear: I think it is okay for us to recede a little - we both need to work through some of this on our own and I know it is important for us to have our own space and handle things in our own way. But the flip side of this situation is that our tempers have also been short. I want attention and affection and I interpret his video-game playing (which is part of how he recedes and relaxes) as avoidance and ignoring me. This makes me grumpy, which of course makes attention and affection difficult. Which makes me grumpier and him confused and grumpy. And so it goes.

I'm not saying the situation is dire: last weekend we spent almost the whole weekend together and had wonderful evenings on both Friday and Saturday (including a really nice date on Saturday night). But we are both on edge and it seems to take way less than normal for one of us to snap at the other or get offended by something that would normally make us laugh.

I'm not saying that we're in any kind of trouble. D$ will be home from rehearsal soon* and I'm pretty sure we'll snuggle on the couch and maybe have sex and things will be just fine. We'll go to dinner with friends and come home and probably catch up on the episode of Project Runway we missed and all will be well.

But I'm feeling a little wistful: the stress of jobs and parents and school and work isn't going away anytime soon. I'm worried about the need for solitude and the short tempers and -

well I guess I'm just saying I'm not sure what to do about it.

*D$ is in a sketch comedy group. Yes - physics and sketch comedy. What?

I am an awesome wife

D$'s birthday is coming up soon. As has been mentioned before, we are both huge fans of my hometown basketball team. They will be playing the Timberwolves soon and, and since the Timberwolves are not so good, their tickets are very reasonably priced. As in: two-for-one discount on tickets for My Team vs. Timberwolves.

So, you know, I called back and made that shit happen.



See that liiiiitle yellow box next to the court in front of Section 126? That is where we will be sitting. Row 1, seats 1 and 2. Oh, and that line of white and purple boxes along the court to our right? That's the visitor's bench, baby. We'll be spitting distance from our team.

We are both so excited we might actually die. Good wife points: officially scored.

Best. Beyonce. Parody. Ever.

Okay, so I know I've been lazily posting videos and quotes this week and that does not a blogger make. But this put such a huge smile on my face that I had to share it.



Via Jezebel, of course.

Hmm

I've never really liked Jessica Alba all that much before, but then she said this:

There's this mentality that you need the big dress and the big day - the day every girl gets to be a princess. I didn't agree with any of that. This tradition of obeying your husband like he's your king? It's a load of crap. Love and honour, yes. But you should love and honor yourself too, and all your friends.


Okay, Jessica. You win this round.

And even in the midst of difficult things

there will always be...



For this of you that don't want kids or don't care about babies, sorry. But that shit makes both my uterus and my lip quiver. I actually saw this preview in the theater a while ago but a friend just re-sent it to me and it reminded me that there is always something beautiful out there to celebrate. And sometimes that thing is a goat drinking from a baby's bathwater.

Kittie Revolt

This is what happens when you leave the new bag of cat food out.

Even when there is a bowl of fresh food sitting right there.

*Sorry for the bad photo quality. The camera still hasn't recovered from being dropped.