Blanket apology

I said that I would stop apologizing for not posting (even though I should be apologizing) so I won't apologize for that.

But I owe y'all another kind of apology.

I am really sorry that I am soooooo bad at keeping up on everyone's blogs and leaving comments. I have been particularly allergic to the Internet lately and my Google Reader is bursting at the seams, but really I've never been very good at this. I am thinking about you guys, and wondering about your lives and all the big stuff you have going on. I am going to try harder to be a better part of the little community that we are all trying to build. It is important to me, even if I am bad at showing it.

Selfish

Fashion the Grouch

D$ is defending his dissertation in January. This means that, starting about a week ago, he has been deep in the throes of Physics Brain 24-hours a day. He works all day, thinks about work all evening, and several nights this week has ended up sleeping on the couch because he can't stop tossing and turning and thinking about physics during the night.

Now it is clearly my duty to be supportive here. The man has worked hard and is almost at the end of a really important goal. He deserves all the support I can give him. If the roles were reversed I would be visibly stressed, probably crying regularly and requiring a lot of care from D (meals, tolerance for bitchiness, etc.). D$ would supply these things abundantly.

Buuuut D$ doesn't get stressed like that. He doesn't get grumpy and still makes most of our meals. In fact a friend was in town last night and we all had dinner that he helped make. The only thing that D$ requires is that I tolerate his total distraction about everything in the world (including me). Unfortunately, being tolerant is not really one of my virtues. Neither is patience.

We've had several conversations where I talked and talked and he basically grunted in response. I think I actually caught him purposefully looking away from my naked body when I was getting in bed the other night. (Either that or he simply didn't notice, which, hello, that is worse!)

In my heart of hearts, being ignored like this makes me batshit insane. "Why am I invisible? Is he bored of us? Is my naked body boring? GAHHHH PAY ATTENTION TO ME! "

Obviously that response is totally unwarranted and childish and I'm working to keep in under wraps.* In fact, after I post this I am leaving the house for the day so that D$ has the space to work and I don't run the risk of bothering him every hour (which I will unfailingly do).  Part of writing this is to remind myself that a) all of this is simply a symptom of the upcoming dissertation defense and b) no my marriage is not failing and c) seriously, self: get over it and be supportive already.

I can do that...right?

*Except for, you know, posting in on the internet.

Heart of Darkness

So I was going to write about what happened over the last two months.

"Oh, you mean how you and D were blessed with incredible luck and achieved everything you had been hoping for for years, and then the minute you got it you turned into a miserable fire-breathing wench?"

Yea, that.

I don't really know how to start. We drove across the country in separate cars (me with the kitties and D with the moving truck). I contemplated killing the cats. As I implied before, moving really took my mind and heart away from me in a completely unexpected way. I thought that once we got to Portland that things would be better. And they should have gotten better, but I got worse and worse. I got worse and worse despite the fact that I was working at a job I really wanted, living in my hometown that I loved, and starting a new life with my completely rad husband. I mean, WTF, self?

I know I know, bla bla bla I was going through huge transitions. Moving across the country, starting a new job, living with my parents. But so was D. Except it was maybe worse for him because it was he was living with his in-laws (although they are amazing as in-laws go ifIdosaysomyself). D was going through all of the same transitions and he was being how he always is: pleasant and helpful and patient and never a burden to anyone. He was getting up an hour early to walk my parents' dog, for chrissakes.

It sounds weak and spoiled to say the main issue was not having time to myself, or living with my parents, but I do think that was a large part of things. I was working ten-hour days with an hour commute on both ends of the day and when I came home there was always something: grandparents in town, friends in town, apartments to look at, I had to buy a car.* I dog-sat for a severely traumatized dog that took a half-hour of coaxing to go outside and went to the bathroom inside several times. I went to a friend's beachhouse for the 4th of July holiday even though I knew that I should stay home and rest - we ended up having to sleep on the floor in a hallway and I came home tired, grumpy and out-of-it enough to get a flat tire in my new car while pulling out of a Dairy Queen parking lot. Not once in over a month did I come home and just hang out with D, or read a book or, as you may have noticed, browse on the Internet or write.

Instead of realizing that I needed to find a way to spend some time alone I just kept going, until I completely stopped being able to handle things. Really really stupid things. I yelled at D when I was stuck in traffic and he tried to give me directions over the phone. If fact I yelled at D for everything. I freaked out at my step-mom because she said the downstairs of the house smelled like cat litter. I pouted around the house like a teenager, only worse than when I was a teenager. My step-mom took me aside to ask if something was wrong or if she and my dad had offended me. D finally told me, after weeks of giving me hugs and hoping I would improve, to "stop being a jerk to me all the time."

At the end of it all, we had a huge blowout over my anniversary present, of all things.** We fought for two days and we both were less than mature. To give you an idea: on the second night of the fight I thought it was very mature of me to call D an "arrogant mother-effer" under my breath instead of screaming it at him.

And then...and then I snapped back to senses. I bought Daniel a card and a porcupine finger puppet and propped them up on the sink to say "I'm Sorry." I talked to him about how I craved time to myself. We moved into our new apartment. Things haven't slowed down since then - we are only half unpacked because we went out of town the weekend after moving in, actually - but I am getting better at knowing what I need and then making sure I get it. On our weekend trip I built in time for D and I to do our own thing and stay somewhere comfortable. This most recent weekend we didn't make any plans and spent the whole two days furniture shopping and apartment arranging. One night last week we actually cooked dinner together and then ate it while catching up on episodes of The Closer*** and we both agreed it was the best night we had had in weeks. Lucky for me, it turns out he still wants to be married. To me.

I can't say what exactly caused me to be so horrible for so long, except that it was everything and nothing. I do know that getting our own place has helped and that being protective about a) time to myself and b) time with D has really helped. Being overworked and not having my own space doesn't excuse how I acted, however, and I still have to come to terms with how relatively easy it was for me to treat the people around me so poorly. For now I am focusing on preventive medicine - making sure to get enough sleep and saying no to nights out or weekend activities that will ultimately stress me out. I am also trying to recognize the symptoms and stop them before they get bad so hat I can put myself in check before I start swinging my negative emotions around the room.

So there you have it - my feeble attempt to work through That One Time That I Was a Jerk for A Month. Potential moral: porcupine hedgehogs solve all problems. That, or: for the love of God if you are being a jerk all the time go be by yourself for a while and/or see a freaking doctor.

*Oh dear god, so terrible. Car-shopping made me want to punch people and cry and stomp my feet. I actually did two of those things, come to think of it.

**It is a long story that will not translate well to Internet. But it wasn't about jewelry or anything stupid like that. It was about something else stupid.

***D loves Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson (Kyra Sedgewick). Sometimes he will sigh and say "Oh, Kyra, apple of my eye." This is okay with me because I love Fritz - that man is definitely in my top 5.

Self-Care, Schmelf-Care

You know what is really good to do?

Eat a piece of chocolate cake EVERY NIGHT at 9:30 p.m. right before you go to bed. It is even better to use the extra frosting to slather the whole side of the piece, so that no bite is devoid of frosting. This adds extra health factors.

You know what else is really good to do? Sleep in instead of going to the gym three days in a row. And then go out for Jucy Lucy's*, french fries and cheap beer with your husband even though you are so bloated from your lunch that you have to do the "try to fart" dance in the car on the way to the restaurant. (Bonus points for making your husband think you are leaning over to cuddle him when really you are just trying to get your ass higher in the air).

The best thing to do, though, is after all of that to go home and binge-read WPM blog archives until after midnight, resulting in feelings of not-worthiness and another morning where sleeping in wins out over exercise.

Oh - it is also best to do this one week before you have to fly home for a wedding that will be attended by many long-legged sorority girls who will have better outfits than you.

This is guaranteed to put you in a good mood ladies. Guar-an-teed. If by a good mood you mean fat-feeling and self-loathing, that is.

* For those of you not in the Midwest, a Jucy Lucy is a hamburger that is formed around a chunk of cheese. So the hamburger is cheesy from the inside out, resulting in the most delicious, cheesy- oily goodness that man has every created.

Five Years

-----------------------------------

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).

-----------------------------------

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.

-----------------------------------

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.

-----------------------------------

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.

----------------------------------

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.

Aw, shucks

Thanks for all the support and congratulations.

Image from the best website of all time

Hear. Hear.

I did that terrible thing last night, where you start Facebook stalking someone who you sort of know and then decide that your life is totally meaningless? Am I the only person who does that? Long story short: This girl I know, who for the record seems like a very cool person, has apparently been traveling the world for a Foundation, making important videos of some kind in places like China, Kazakhstan, and Kenya, and looking at her photos made me feel like a speck of dust.

But then, because of APW of course, I read this on Offbeat Bride:

Time spent bitching could be time making yourself smarter and stronger and more awesome.

Exactly. More appropriate to my case would be "time spent feeling bad about myself and bitter about other people's successes." But also bitching. I do a lot of bitching.

A good reminder to keep myself working on Project Good Attitude.

suckage

A brief list of things things I hate about not being on vacation anymore:

1. Writing Cover Letters
2. Having to be nice to D$ when he edits said cover letters
3. Not being able to drink in the middle of the day.
4. Cat hair. EVERYWHERE.
5. Consistently failing to get up on time to exercise and then feeling guilty all day
6. More guilt, based on the fact that it is 11:26 a.m. on the SECOND day I am supposed to be working, and I have yet to do any work, preferring instead to read blogs, pretend to write cover letters, and internet-shop.
7. Realizing what an arse I am for being ungrateful about a job that allows me to work at home, in my PJs, with my husband (who I am currently annoyed at for editing my cover letters, which is totally unfair because he is doing so out of kindness. A fact that renders me even MORE of an arse-head).

I did it, y'all

I cooked dinner two nights ago. Yes, this is a fairly large event in our household. During our wedding I actually vowed to Daniel that I would cook dinner once a month, but I’ve already screwed that up (unless you count making burritos, which really only happened once and barely counts as cooking anyway).

Wednesday night I found myself without a class to attend, excessive homework to do, or any other obligations. Due to my being a jerk about dinner the night before and my campaign to have a better attitude, I decided that I should pull my weight and make us dinner.

The only problem is that I honestly don’t know how to cook anything. I spent all Wednesday surveying my grad school friends about easy recipes, stressing out, and searching on the internet for easy ideas that could turn my thawing chicken breasts into something delicious. I tried to look on Smitten Kitchen, as the hubs loves that blog, but I quickly remembered that that blog just makes me bitter and insecure.

So I ended up googling “chicken spice rub,” making up my own rub since I didn’t have all of the ingredients suggested in the first search result, and going from there. D$ was enlisted to purchase wine and set the heat on the burners.

The result: delicious, if weird-looking, chicken couscous.

Was I totally proud of myself? Yes.

Did I cook in a teddy and an apron? Obviously.

Now I feel sheepish (baaa).

So as you all probably already know, Meg has asked a whopper of a question today.

Q: Your Marriage: What do you want, what do you fear? Or, What kind of marriage do you want to have?

I was going to try and answer here, but that felt like cheating off of her to make my own blog post (I have total fears of being an asshole on the Internet without meaning to). And I was completely unsure how to answer.

But the question comes at a good time for me because, as noted, I've been in a total funk about my life lately, and I'm realizing how ridiculous I was acting. I went out with a bunch of friends on Saturday night and realized that two of them are going through either separations or divorces right now. One of these women is the most friendly, engaged, and all-around good natured people I have ever met- and I realized as we all celebrated and danced that she has been that good natured and friendly and fun to be around while her marriage is in crisis. And I, who have nothing to complain about besides an obnoxious supervisor and too much homework, have been a scowly pain in the ass for weeks. When I got home that night I grabbed the hubs and took him to bed. And then later told him that I felt like a spoiled brat and that I will try and realize how damn good I have it (in all things, not just my marriage).

But...I have to think more about Meg's question before I commit anything to writing here.

Keeping me sane is teamwork, indeed.

It has been a rough couple of days. On Thursday I was hideously frustrated with school, and then I went to my yearly lady parts appointment and my [totally rad] doctor was fully pregnant and due in two weeks. And there were all these happy pregnant couples sitting in the waiting room. Long story short, I got back to school and emailed D$ to say "I want to drop out of graduate school and have a baby." Which obviously isn't a very fair thing to email one's new husband, but he responded by saying (over g-chat) "Dude let's just get preggers" before pointing out that a) I wouldn't be "big and round" until after graduation time anyway so I couldn't justify dropping out of school and b) we could just get a Slow Loris instead. We compromised; I will stay in graduate school and we will try to find a Slow Loris that I can put in little outfits.

Then, yesterday I stayed home from school to finish a job application that I had already spent hours on. Hours, people. The application was due at midnight last night and I had planned on having it done by noon, only to have the site reject my application over and over again for several hours in a row. I tried really hard not freak out; I took breaks, ran errands, repeated mantras about not wanting to move to that city anyway, and occasionally slammed my first down on the desk repeatedly. I held it together and had basically resigned myself to not applying for the job until D$ got home at around 6, when I started to lose it again.

But then my husband, my dear, sweet, large-brained, computer geek husband sat down and went through every damn text box in that damn application to figure out what was going on. And he fixed it. And I danced around and told him I loved him about twenty times, and I felt like a normal person for the first time in three days.

And then we walked to a bar to say goodbye to a dear friend, and lest you think the hubs is perfect, I should tell you that while walking he accidentally hit me in the head with our umbrella at least five times.

D$ would like you to know

That not only did I go to a restaurant for brunch while he went to the laundromat, I went to his favorite restaurant. oops.

I mean, really

This morning, D$ got up early to help me clean (including vacuuming the cat hair off the couch), then went to the laundromat and did our laundry while I went to brunch with a friend.

And then later he made me dinner. Tofu curry, to be exact.

Someone please remind me of all this next time I am mad at him for something stupid.