September 05, 2006

Marriage: A Seven Year Retrospective

Sept. 5, 1999: Got all dolled up, stood on my parents' front porch and got hitched.

Sept. 5, 2000: After spending a wonderful weekend in Memphis, I returned home to learn that a friend from an online message board had died the night before. She had cancer and was only 32 years old. She left a husband and a son. I can say so much more about this. So much. But instead, I'll let you read some of her own words, which her husband was kind enough to share on his blog a few days ago.

B. and I picniced on the hill in front of the art museum, but it didn't seem to matter much.

September 5th, 2001: I don't remember much about September 5th. I think we had another picnic - we're big on picnics in my family, seeing as our wedding was a picnic - follwed by drinks at our bar du jour at the time, which has since gone the way of the dodo. But I do remember September 8th, 2001. We had a big shindig back in my hometown, celebrating 117 years of marriage. You see, B. and I share an anniversary date with my parents and grandparents. That year was #55, #30, and #2.

In the front you'll find my mama, Granny Viv, my aunt, me and my closed eyes, and B. In the back there's my dark, swarthy father, Grandpa Chuck, my uncle, my cousin Travis and The Cuz.

My main memory of the day involves sitting outside with a childhood friend of mine, getting the dirt from our 10-year high school reunion. It happened the night before, and even though it was a mere mile from my parents' house, I couldn't be bothered to go.

Three days later, watching what looked like the end of the world, I kept thinking that I was so glad to have had my entire family together for one last good time, because surely there would be no more good times, ever.

September 5, 2002: Lo and behold, there were good times to be had. Specifically, good times had the weekend before September 5th. B. and I saw an amazing Springsteen show, followed by three nights in a knock-out suite at the top of the Renaissance. I'm forever spoiled because of this.

But on our actual anniversary, B.'s boss paged him at 8 PM and kept him on the phone until well after midnight for a problem that could have waited until the next morning. Thing is, the boss knew it was our anniversary, as B. had taken off early - with his boss' blessing - so we could have our annual picnic. This boss has a history of passive-agressive nonsense.

I left the house in a fury sometime around Hour Three of the phone call.

September 5, 2003: Ah, the pregnant anniversary. We took a drive along Route 66 and had dinner at a lovely little diner in St. Clair, Missouri, pop. 4500.

September 5, 2004: Because he knows what's good for him, B. whisked my post-partum depressioning ass away to a delightful bed and breakfast. I don't remember much after the in-room massage.

September 5, 2005: I don't even remember. So much awful shit was going on that I didn't even care because caring was wearing me out. But in retrospect, it made me rather astute. I hadn't read that blog entry in awhile. I think I should make a point of reading it at least once a month. Maybe during the full moon.

September 5, 2006: Clara Jane and I didn't leave the house. We ate peanut butter sandwiches with homemade peach jam for lunch. We read books and cuddled on the couch. She napped. I did laundry and dishes, sewed a little, sorted throught he cache of hand-me-down clothes that we brought home this weekend. I watched an episode of "Desperate Housewives". B. went to the sleep center to get his CPAP adjusted. We had black bean burgers for dinner as part of our current attempt to be vegetarians three days a week. They needed more Tabasco. Clara Jane played in the shower and the dogs licked spilled shredded cheese off the exposed subflooring in the dining room.

I think we've hit the point where the bad anniversaries and the good ones have balanced each other out. We've also reached the point where they're not novel anymore. B. didn't give me a card, and I'm not even bothered slightly by this.

Today simply marks time moving on, and that's enough. But since my friend who passed six years ago has been on my mind, I'm going to end with some of her words:

Life is remarkable. I really don’t think that it happens by chance. The thing is, there is a plan out there, you just don’t get privy to it. When you see the big picture, it’s really too late most of the time. What really has shocked me is how one sentence, one question, one desire or observation can alter your life. These life altering situations can happen and you don’t even realize what happened for years most of the time.

Appropriate, because during each of those anniversaries, I never thought I'd remember the things that I actually remember. There were gifts, cards, impressive dinners, and they're a blur. The things that stand out in retrospect are the things that seemed inconsequential at the time, or bothersome. Life, unlike a cute wedding on a front porch followed by a picnic for 120 in the back yard, doesn't go according to plan, but it always works out in the end.

Posted by Robin at 07:52 PM | Comments (12)

March 18, 2006

If You Like Your Other Son So Much ...

I'm so tired. I think it's because my brain is exhausted, both from the amount of knowledge imparted on me by my father-in-law, and from all the times I slammed my head into the hardwood floor.

The thing is, I'm an idiot. My dear, darling spouse gave me an out. You see, he's been letting my in-laws believe that I have plans for the entire weekend, which isn't entirely true. I've got plans for Sunday evening involving a Wilco concert and an attempt to wedge my head into a bottle of Ketel 1.

About a month ago, B. warned me that his parents wanted to visit sometime in March or April. We discussed that March wasn't the best choice, since I already had non-negotiable plans during two weekends. Besides, April would give us more time to prepare, which means it would give us enough time to score enough horse tranquilizers to keep me under control during their visit.

Not two hours later, B.'s mom called, and I had the following conversation with her:

MIL: Did B. tell you that we'd like to come visit?

Me: Why yes, he did.

MIL: He said you were busy during several weekends in March. Which ones?

Me: The weekends of the 17th and the 24th.

MIL: Oh. We wanted to visit during the weekend of the 17th.

Me: Well, I'm sorry.

(Silence, in which my brain shrieked, "Why the hell can't she just fucking say, 'We'd like to come down the weekend of the 17th?' Is that so damn hard? Why does everything have to be a game of 20 Questions with this woman?")

MIL: (heaving a sigh so large that it probably knocked a foot of snow off their roof) Well, we really need to come down in March because by April our weather will be getting good and we don't want to come to Missouri when our weather's good ... we want TO ... COME ... IN ... MARCH ... BECAUSE ... WE ....*sigh* ... MUSTGETOUTOFTHECOLDANDSNOWANDBLAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.......

I don't know what followed, because at that point, I only heard a few small, high-frequency blips. My dogs, however, started howling and running headlong into the living room wall.

Once the dogs passed out from their concussions, I said, "Well, um, sorry."

"Well ... do you mind if we come down and not see you?"

Here's where the urge to tell her that nothing would please me more became so overwhelming that I had to administer the first self-induced head trauma of the spring '06 in-law visit.

"No. Fine. Good. Yeah. Sure. Here. Talk to your son."

Obviously, this was shaping up to be a fine visit from the get-go.

There has been one improvement. You see, my in-laws don't know how to tell time. Well, actually, they probably understand the concept and practice, but they have something against it. "We'll be there sometime after 10 AM" usually means, "We'll be on your doorstep at 7:38 AM, and will be perplexed when we find you in your pajamas. Why don't you act more happy to see us?" This time, B. talked them into using this frightening, contempt-worthy instrument called a telephone, so they might alert us to their arrival. And it worked! They called at a time that B. told them was acceptable - 8:40 AM - thus insuring that the one photo they take of me during their visit isn't one in which I'm in my pajamas, braless, with Medusa hair. No, the one photo of me from this visit involves me venting my rage on some unfortunate carrots with a 12" chef knife.

Anyway, back to why I'm an idiot. B. reminded me last night that his parents were under the impression that I was going to be busy all weekend, and he didn't say anything to correct this, giving me an out if I needed it. If they became too much, all I had to do was say, "So sorry, but I'm late. See ya!" and flee! I could flee at my own will! My husband is the best! Tell me again - when is Steak and BJ Day, because we are gonna have ourselves a celebration this year!

So why is it that, when my MIL walked in and asked, "So, what are you doing today?" I stupidly answered, "Oh, I don't know. B.'s the one making the plans."

She looked at me, confused, and said, "I thought you had plans today."

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Considering that she seemed rather disappointed that I no longer had imaginary plans, I figured it was just as well that I hang around them, my delightful personality making their visit bright and lovely. And by "delightful personality", I mean "constant scowling presence".

I've decided I'm going to play a new little game everytime I see my in-laws. Whenever they talk in wistful tones about B.'s younger brother, I'm doing a shot. This insures that, in a typical two-day visit, I'll have a sackful of hatemail from my liver halfway through the second day.

B.'s brother is a physicist, almost two years younger than B. He moved to Europe - first Germany, then Portugal, and soon to Austria - on our one-month wedding anniversary. I love my BIL, primarily because he choses to live on another continent. Believe me, it's better for everyone this way.

This is the guy who showed up in the middle of my first date with B., sat not five feet from me, staring at me without saying a word for over half an hour while his scary girlfriend tried to force-feed me spinach lasagna. "You should eat it! It was made by real Italians!" As creepy as they were both acting, I wouldn't have been surprised if the lasagna had been made from real Italians. Needless to say, that first impression stuck.

My MIL, she cannot shut up about her youngest son, not even in the presence of her none-too-shabby eldest son. "Do you remember how M. would rub the back of your head after you'd get your hair cut?" she sighed at my FIL today, apropos of nothing.

"Do you remember when M. was four and he told us he wanted to be a palentologist when he grew up? Later he said he wanted to be a scientist. He didn't want to limit himself."

On and on and on it went. I'm sorry I didn't come up with my game idea sooner. If I had, by lunchtime today I would have been staring at my burrito, slack-jawed, possibly drooling, and uttering one of my all-time favorite sentences: "Duuuuuuuuuuuuude. I have no idea what I'm eating!"

It's all well and good that she's ever the proud and loving mother to M. I can understand that completely. But Jesus. Don't prattle on about the fabulousness of one child, sharing all the tales of his childhood precociousness when you've got another son sitting right there! You know, the son who's not an ego maniac. The one who's brilliant and successful in his own right, but has struggled his entire life to feel like he's good, worthy and smart. The son who worked for motherfucking NASA, for shit sake. Maybe it would do him some good to hear how smart and cute he was when he was little. Or to hear stories about him that don't embarrass him, because those are the only stories she ever tells. Over and over, every visit, the stories that make B. blush and make me sad that she refuses to show the same pride in him as she does M.

I'd like to think that, perhaps, when she's around M. (which isn't often; he rarely comes stateside and they've never went to visit him), that she regales him with stories of B.'s greatness and knocks him down with his own embarrassing stories. But I've seen them together, and I know that's not the case. It makes me want to punch her in the gut. Not that it would do any good, not with that damn fanny pack she wears all the time.

This makes me feel better: back in 1990, my family was vacationing in Niagara Falls. I was 17, and none-too-thrilled that my mom had jumped on the fanny pack bandwagon. Granted, that wasn't the most embarrassing thing Mom ever wore on vacation. That honor goes to the condor shit hat she wore in New Mexico three years prior.

We were having dinner at Pizza Hut and while my mom was at the salad bar a couple of young fellows walked by her and she overheard one of them saying, "What the hell is that thing? A cyst?" To which we all - my mother included - laughed so hard that we probably burst any real cysts residing in any of our bodies.

I can't imagine my MIL laughing like that if someone refered to her fanny pack as a cyst. Still, every time I see that fanny pack I hear the words, "What the hell is that? A cyst?", and I thank my lucky stars that I come from a family whose collective sense of humor is much larger than its sense of shame.

Otherwise, the day was fine. Clara Jane, as I've said before, makes a great buffer. We always have something to talk about. I also kept myself busy making dinner and knitting while we "visited", which is really just sitting around while my FIL tells us how the world is, was, and should be. Obviously, partaking in a hobby during these interludes is wise. I finished the second boobie scarf. The auction will hopefully start Monday, so get those bidding fingers fired up.

I do have to say, one thing in particular cracks me up about the boobie scarves. When I've shown them to women, they always have to look for a second before they realize it's boobies. Men, though, they know. I was on the opposite side of the room from my FIL with the scarf piled in my lap. He stopped talking - a miracle in and of itself - and said, "What is that? It looks like boobs!"

Settled down there, Cowboy.

Posted by Robin at 09:07 PM | Comments (7)

March 14, 2006

Emotional Housekeeping

Here was my horoscope for today:

Your emotions are stretched as far as they can go and your thoughts are running helter-skelter all over the map. Still, you hold on to your enthusiasm, even if you haven't reached your destination. However, there is no payoff in being overly self-critical. Even if the possibilities are overwhelming, cautiously set another round of goals.

Darn tootin'.

Clara Jane's back home from her visit to Tornado Alley. I have never in my life been so happy to see her, except for that time, when I was in labor for 32 hours and she was whisked off to NICU for, oh, six hours, without me. While I was nervous on Sunday, the full force of it hit me once she was back. I've forced myself to stay busy tonight to spare her from being smothered by the sudden overprotectiveness that has come over me.

I'm still doing some emotional housekeeping, and I'm sure I will be for awhile. Today I caught myself getting worked up regarding some people I'm not fond of. Ridiculous! If I'm not fond of these people, and there isn't something binding me to them - bloodlines or a paycheck, for instance - then why the hell am I wasting my time on them? No more.

I got conked on the head with a big light bulb the other day: I make friends easily, but I suck at keeping them. At first the thought depressed me, but now, not so much. Maybe it's because my adult life has been in constant upheaval. Or not, because really, show me a 33-year-old who hasn't been in upheaval for roughly 15 years. There aren't many.

Maybe I'm not willing or able to make myself vulnerable enough to build the kind of bond that lasts. Or maybe I make friends with poeople who don't have that skill.

Maybe I'm just an asshole.

Whatever the reason, I catch myself getting annoyed with people and then with myself, but the annoyance goes away rather quickly. There's an upside to all of this that's making it a lot better: it's bringing me closer to B. and Clara Jane. Maybe I've spent all this time trying desperately to cultivate friendships so I can have emotional connections, support, and all that other chick lit crap, when really, I've already got it right under my roof.

I'm also realizing that I've got that connection and support - cheesy as this is going to sound - within myself. You're going to laugh when I tell you this, because it sounds so silly, but buying that damn iPod was one of the smartest things I've ever done.

I know I've mentioned before that, when I was a kid, I spent hours and hours sitting on our front porch swing with my Walkman and a huge stack of cassette tapes. I could sit on that swing, zoned, lost in my music, for days if they'd let me. If the weather was bad, I'd sit on the edge of my bed, unconsciously bouncing to the beat. I was always getting in trouble for wearing out mattresses and banging the porch swing into the side of the house. I couldn't help it; I'd get so lost in what I was listening to that I would be completely ignorant to what I was doing outside of my headphones.

B. and I spent last Saturday night in a hotel downtown. We sat on the cushy king-size bed and played hand after hand of 3-13 while we watched the lightening and rain from the 15th floor. Around 11 PM, B. went on a wild goose chase for a pizza (don't ask), leaving me in the room with my iPod for half an hour. I set it to shuffle, and the first song to play was the nine-plus-minute live version of Bruce Springsteen's Rosalita (Come Out Tonight). Oh, how the side of my parents' house suffered because of that song! I haven't heard it in years, but it was always one of my favorite Springsteen songs when I was heavily into my headphones.

By the time the second verse started I was bouncing on the bed, my cheeks hurting from the smile on my face while I gently bounced along. By the time I got to the line about papa saying he knows that I don't have any money, there were tears in my eyes. I felt like I'd come home.

So this is what it feels like to be me. I'd forgotten.

It felt great, returning to this piece of myself that had been gone for so long. I didn't realize I had lost it; I thought that piece of me lived on with my general music geekitude, but I was wrong. That's only a tiny part of it.

As great and whole as I felt in those moments, it was nothing compared to the horrible crash that happened later that night. I didn't expect the frailty that would come with it, not until I found myself in that big hotel bed at 3 AM, sobbing with such a force that my eyes remained swollen well into Monday. I'm still not sure what brought it on, whether it was for the lost innocence or the found innocence. It felt like grief, like I'd lost something, although I'm not sure what. I think maybe I was grieving because I'm once again changing and in upheaval. Even though I know I need to leave things and people behind and I know it's for the best, it's still hard to admit that things didn't work the way I'd hoped, that I failed, that people I loved failed, and that I'm once again entering unchartered territory.

Even though the terrain is new, Bruce will still be with me. But this time, so will B. and Clara Jane, and for the first time in my life, I'm sure I'll do just fine.

Posted by Robin at 10:53 PM | Comments (8)

March 05, 2006

Frugal

The outpouring of love and concern during my recent unfortunate absence is staggering, really. Much heartfelt gratitude to those of you who emailed or called to express concern. All three of you.

I did a lot of thinking over the past few days, because what else was I going to do between hours of coma-like sleep and innard-escape episodes? A girl can only stare at the weave of the fabric on her pillowcase for so long before before something goes traipsing across the fevered expanse of her brain. Really, this was a good time for me to get solidly nailed by the flu bug that's been floating through my system for weeks, because I had a lot of things in my head that needed organizing. Granted, I would have preferred to do the mental housekeeping without the 1:30 A.M. Screaming Devil-Pukes, but oh well.

The first one big thought thing is good. Really good. March 10th is a magic day. It's the day that B. and I will finally become financially solid. Not rich. Sweet lord, no. But some things have aligned, and suffice it to say that we're going to see several large debts shimmy into the sweet, sweet black. "Goodbye, Motherfuckers!" you'll hear us cackle, waving title deeds wildly in the air.

This has been a long, long time coming. We live pretty frugally, really, and I've come accustomed to the odd looks, even eye-rolling, that comes with it. I get asked all the time why I don't have an iPod or a laptop, or why, until recently, I used a five-year-old digital camera that used floppy disks for memory. Because new toys cost this thing called money, that's why. If we hate our neighborhood, why don't we just move? Becuase, like the toys, it requires that money thing once again. That's also why I patch my jeans, buy most of my daughter's clothes from Target clearance, only cut my hair two, maybe three times a year, own one six-year-old vehicle, cook most of our meals from scratch, utilize the hell out of our incredible local library system, and haul ass to get to the zoo early in the morning before they start charging admission for the good parts.

B. and I made some decisions about seven years ago that led to this way of life. They weren't bad decisions; they were smart decisions made because we'd learned from the bad decisions we made before we met each other:

1)When I moved to St. Louis, I didn't want to continue with my previous career. I was so incredibly lucky that B. was willing and able to support us while I went to culinary school (and paid for it in full), started my company (with no loans), wrote, had Clara Jane, quit my regular writing job, and closed my company. We would have been richer, financially, had I stayed in my career, but the rest of our lives wouldn't have been as happy. If that means living down the street from the dune buggies, so be it.

2)We opted to buy a house we could actually afford, instead of one that made us look good. If that means we have more used car lots than Starbucks drive-thrus in our neighborhood, so be it.

3)No matter how badly we wanted something, over the past five years if we couldn't pay in cash, we didn't get it. No new debt. In five years. Yeah, it would be nice to have a laptop of my own instead of occasionally borrowing B.'s work one, but guess what? It hasn't killed me. Didn't even injure me.

This is starting to sound like some Suze Orman financial lecture, and that's not what I want. I'm not qualified to write that, not by a long shot. I'm just trying to say that, after all these years of sacrificing instant gratification, we're about to reap the benefits. From this vantage point, I can honestly say that I'm glad we chose this particular path because, let me tell you, it feels good. What we have is ours. We paid for it. Our mamas and daddies didn't pay for it. The bank didn't pay for it. We did it. We earned it. We deserve it. That feels better than any cute $50 shirt purchased on a whim ever felt.

The funny thing is, in the past week B. and I have both had several attacks each where we've panicked about money. Thoughts of, oh God, what if we made a mistake? What if there's some big bill we forgot? My stupid cousin lost her house a few months ago because she's an idiot and forgot about her mortgage, even though they lived in that house for 15 years. Seriously. Forgot the fucking mortgage. We don't have any mortgages we're not aware of, do we? No? Are you sure? We're relishing this last little bit of paycheck-to-paycheck adrenaline before it - God willing - becomes a thing of the past, something we look back on as a part of our salad days dues-paying.

I was emailing a friend last night, and I wrote about paying a visit to my neighborhood Aldi's last week. I hadn't been there since last September. In fact, I'd forgotten about that incident, the little family in front of me who couldn't pay for their groceries. But it came rushing back to me in the store last week. As I looked around at my fellow shoppers, filling their carts with 25-cent cans of soup, this thought crossed my mind: "After this week, I never have to set foot in this store again."

And I stopped cold. I don't want to be that person. I don't ever want to think that, because my wallet's a little cushier, I can buy the priviledge of not seeing poverty. I don't ever want to forget what it feels like to watch a family putting back food for their child because they can't afford it. I don't want to forget what it feels like to give the grocery bags I brought from home to the elderly woman in line behind me so that she won't have to spend money on her own. I don't ever want to take my lucky, blessed situation for granted. To do so would be a disgrace to people whose situations aren't as good, and a disgrace to the work B. and I have done to get where we are.

It's funny how this - I hate to say sudden, because it's not sudden; it just feels sudden after years of gradual progress - financial solidity is changing the way I look at everything in my life, especially people. I'm suddenly seeing parallels in how people treat money and other people. When I was broke, I was always more than willing to fling money I didn't have around for friends and acquaintences, or on crap for myself that I really didn't need. It wasn't until this afternoon that I understood why - so I would at least look like I had money. Likewise, I threw my affection around. Dated guys I probably wouldn't have dated otherwise, stayed in sick friendships, and spent of myself until my soul was broke. But the more love I show, the more likely people will believe that I'm loved in return. The more likely I am to believe it myself.

Hello. I'm that friend that you call when you need a place to crash. Or need to rant. Or to be entertained and amused. Or need a recipe, a restaurant recommendation, tickets to a concert or a housesitter. I'm the one who'll lend you books, lend you time, lend you money for lunch. I'm the one you call in the middle of the night because you know she'll answer the phone, no matter how late it is, the one who will open her entire thorax for you, if it might make you feel better about yourself or give you a chuckle.

I'm that friend who fell off the face of the world and you didn't notice until you needed something.

My financial frugality served me well. Now it's time to start exercising some emotional frugality. Stop shoving 20s down the pants of disinterested strippers, and invest them in those who will give me a real return.

Posted by Robin at 08:30 PM | Comments (18)

December 20, 2005

My Flying Saucer

My flying saucer, where can you be
Since that sad night that you sailed away from me?
My flying saucer, I pray this night
You will sail back before the day gets bright

My flying saucer, fly back for home
You will get lost in the universe alone
My flying saucer, end all my fears
Sail back tonight, love and kiss away my tears

My flying saucer, I pray this night
You will sail back before the day gets bright

I've been thoroughly addicted to this little song - "My Flying Saucer" - for the past 24 hours. Words by Woody Guthrie, recording by Billy Bragg and Wilco. I've been listening to this CD - Mermaid Avenue, Volume II - for years, but for some reason this song lept at me yesterday and it won't let go. Which is fine with me.

I love nothing more than a good song about missing someone.

Of course, when Clara Jane's visiting her grandparents, I miss her, but it's rarely the painful, gonna-wilt-if-I-don't-see-her kind of missing. It's more of a vague, something's-not-right feeling. The former feeling always makes a few surprise appearances, though, always when I least expect it. Like last night. I had spent an hour knitting with Angela, then hit the grocery store.

It was after 8 PM and the store was fairly deserted. Normally, I love this. I don't remember a time when I didn't love going into a grocery store, alone, late in the evening. When I was in college and living with far too many roommates, I often did my grocery shopping in the middle of the night. I liked the solitude it provided. These days, being in a grocery store at a time without other customers, and without a tagalong parked (often whining) in the cart just doesn't happen. So I reveled a little.

About 3/4 of the way through my shopping I thought, "Wow. This is great. But I'm really looking forward to going home, getting into my pajamas, and snuggling on the couch with Clara Jane before she goes to bed."

And then I remembered. She's not there.

There was no reveling during the last 1/4 of the shopping trip. Instead, I thought about missing. I thought about the song I'd been listening to all day, and the longing and sadness in its words. Sweet little words that I won't hesitate to teach Clara Jane sometime soon, if only to make her stop singing Walt Whitman's Neice". Musically, it's jaunty and jangly; sadness disguised.

I've always thought that missing someone is the most powerful emotion. Not the most important; the most powerful. It's not love that makes us do crazy things for another person. More often than not, it's missing someone - or the fear of missing someone - that leads us to do the crazy and brave.

When I wrote about anxiety and panic last week, I wrote about the intense fear of loss that dictated so much of my life. It wasn't the loss that scared me the most; it was the belief that I might miss the lost one so terribly that it might do me in.

Once, I missed someone so much that I left my career, a town I loved, my friends, and my entire life to pack up and move to an unfamiliar city with no job and no money, just because I couldn't live with that feeling of missing someone anymore. The fear, uncertainly and sadness that came with leaving everything I knew was intense, but not nearly as intense as that feeling of missing someone.

In the ten months that B. and I lived in different cities, there were only two weekends when we weren't together. The first was during the first month. The second, Christmas, but we followed it by spending a week together. During that week we took measures to make sure we'd never miss each other again; we bought our house.

I think a lot about those ten months, of falling in love with 120 miles of interstate between us, of counting days every single week until we were together. There's an intensity that comes with that degree of missing someone. This week, it's been seven years since that last weekend we spent apart, but I can still feel that intensity. The feeling of finally arriving at his apartment every other Friday night, after the work week, the drive and traffic. Walking in the door and into the arms of what I'd spent five days missing. It's so intense that I can still remember the smell of his apartment and the smell of his skin. I can feel the relief that would wash across the muscles in my shoulders as soon as I arrived.

The sickening way missing him made me feel was matched only by the comfort of that first moment of reunion.

Every Sunday night, before we'd part, we'd spend an hour or two in bed. Not necessarily doing anything (although that wasn't uncommon) other than spooning together, trying to stockpile a bit of each other to counteract the anticipation of missing. When we moved in together, we swore that we would continue this little Sunday night routine. We'd turn off the TV, drop whatever chores needed to be done, and just stockpile that affection and contact. I think we did that the first week we lived together, and that was it. It just wasn't necessary anymore, not when we were finally able to spread the affection over seven days a week instead of two and a half.

While there was a lot I hated about being apart those ten months, I wouldn't trade it. Missing B. made me see very early in the relationship how important he was, and how living my life without him just wasn't as good as living it with him. We didn't get the chance to take each other for granted. It forced us to really get to know each other in a way that we probably wouldn't have if we'd been in the same city.

But truth be told, sometimes I miss the missing, just a little.

Posted by Robin at 09:25 AM | Comments (12)

November 09, 2005

36 Years Ago Today ...

B. came into the world, borne to a woman who may or may not have named him after Neil Diamond.

In spite of that, I fell in love with him anyway.

B., I love you. I love who you are. I love growing old with you and watching your soul emerge more with each passing year.

The fan club meeting is scheduled for 10 p.m.

Posted by Robin at 09:30 AM | Comments (8)

October 27, 2005

Mushy

I've never been a romantic. Really, all that mushy crap makes my skin crawl. I think it was a cruel trick of the universe that I gave birth to my daughter the day after Valentine's Day. Not sure why the universe wants her to suffer for my distaste of all things cutesy-utesy, but whoever said life's fair, right?

Lately, though, I'm mush. I'm jello. Moreso than I was when I was in the first throes of my relationship with B. (or any other relationship, for that matter). Why?

Because one of my friends is teetering on the verge of that big romantic abyss.

In watching things play out with her, I keep getting flashes of what it was like seven and a half years ago, the last time I was in her position.

The first date: We'd been talking for a month. It was Memorial Day and on the spur of the moment, I decided to come to St. Louis. I called him and said, "I'll be in your neck of the woods. If you want to get together, great. If not, no biggie."

We spent ten hours together that day.

The first kiss: During that date we were driving through the Central West End. The day was gorgeous - sun shining, warm breeze coming through the car windows. We were sitting at a stoplight at the corner of Lindell and Kingshighway when I turned to B. and said, "So, are you ever going to kiss me?"

His face turned crimson as he smiled and leaned towards me. "You got red lipstick all over me," he laughed as we parted and the light changed.

The first full night together: It was the following weekend at my apartment in Columbia. We had dinner at my favorite winery, overlooking the Missouri River from a bluff at sunset. Soft-shell crabs with lavender-scented creme brulee for dessert. I had a terrible cold, and I also felt like we were moving too fast, so nothing happened that night. We just slept spooned together.

When I knew I was ten off-ramps beyond the point of no return: Sitting in his apartment the day of our first date, freaking out because his brother and his brother's creepy girlfriend had shown up, unannounced, and didn't have the social graces to realize they were interrupting. I was thinking about leaving, just getting up and walking out the door, when I looked at B. and saw the look in his eyes, the look that said, "For the love of God, I am so sorry." And something in my brain said, "Don't leave. You're going to marry this guy."

Was it love at first sight? No. But deep down, I knew there was something different and that my life was going to drastically change.

I had made a rule three months before I met B.: I was going to take a break from dating for six months. I was coming off several years of really bad behavior. Lots of fun, but upon turning 25 I had realized that the good times weren't doing me much good in the long run. I decided I was done, at least for awhile. No dating. No sex. No making out. No nothing.

I spent the first three months of our relationship telling B. that we weren't dating, because that violated my rule.

My friend? She had a similar rule in effect. We talked about the rule last night, and how it seems silly on the surface. But really, I think our silly rules forced both of us to really think about the guys involved, what was at stake, and what we wanted.

I've told these stories about the beginning of our relationship so many times that they roll out of my mouth without their meaning registering in my brain. They're just tales that make up the quilt of my life, things that happened in the past, feelings that have long since morphed into something different. They've manifested in getting dinner on the table, raising our daughter, and making sure the cable bill gets paid. Not exactly the type of stuff that causes that tickle deep in the belly that runs electricity to every finger and toe.

Watching my friend fall makes me miss falling.

I fell in love with B. a second time, in the days after Clara Jane's birth. She was several days old, and I was completely shredded from the experience. Physically, I was destroyed. Emotionally, I had never felt more vulnerable . And I had never felt more protected than I did when B. was taking charge at the hospital.

My memories of the hospital are sketchy, but I will never forget one particular night ... Clara Jane was sleeping, all the visitors were gone, and the nurses were letting me be, for once. I remember crying to B., clinging to him. I had never wanted another human being to be so physically close to me in my life. I promised him at that moment that things would be different when we left the hospital. I was going to be more loving, more giving, more expressive with him. I wasn't going to continue being mired in the banalities of life.

That leaf stayed turned for about 48 hours. Not because I didn't want to do as I'd said, but because life ran over me. We let life run over us.

I don't know what's going to happen with my friend. I don't know if this is just a passing fancy or if this is her B. Hell, part of the time I'm not even sure what the future holds for my relationship. The past year and a half have been anything but mushy. I've spent a lot of that time wondering if our marriage was going to survive, and convinced that the answer was no. There were times when I was sure I didn't want it to survive.

And now we're watching my friend, remembering how sweet that first tumble was. But it's also a reminder that we'll never have that again. I'm sure that's what brings many relationships to an end, the whole "I love you but I'm not 'in love' with you." Which is bullshit. Like I said, I'm not a romantic. As great as that 'in love' feeling is, it can't sustain a relationship.

I had a thought a few weeks ago: B. and I are in an established relationship. We've been through hell and back a few times. We've fought, we've loved, we know each other backwards and forwards. There's no risk. Which sounds boring.

But you know what? There's no risk. I know I'm not going to get hurt. He knows he's not going to get hurt. So what's stopping us from falling whenever we want? I can throw myself off the roof with the confidence that he'll be standing below to catch me.

Posted by Robin at 05:21 PM | Comments (10)

October 05, 2005

B.'s Fashion Corner

Every weekday for over five years, B. has spent 80 minutes a day - 40 minutes each way - riding the city bus and train to work and back. So many perks to public transportation: we were able to eliminate one of our vehicles, it's cheap, it's good for the environment, and it provides B. with some extra time to snooze or read, activities that are frowned upon while driving. Of course, it also provides him the opportunity to have fellow passengers remove his monthly Metro card from the book he's got propped on his chest while he's asleep. But that's only happened once.

My favorite part about B.'s public transporatation usage, though, isn't economical or environmental in nature. It's purely aesthetic. You see, some days B. comes home with fashion advice he has culled from his fellow passengers. Today, I'm thrilled to report, is one of those days.

"I saw this woman on the train," he said. "Built a little bigger than you. She was wearing one of those white things that are off-the-shoulder ... I don't know what they're called. But it was off the shoulder. I was behind her and I could tell that the fabric was sort of see-through ... sort of ... made from mottled, see-thruy stuff. And when she turned around, it was really obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra. Her boobs were about a foot long and down to here," he motions to his waist. "She could have put one over each shoulder."

This is why I don't buy fashion magazines. I don't have to, for I have the best, most comprehensive fashion resource sleeping next to me every night. Bet you didn't know that the B. stands for Blackwell, did you?

Posted by Robin at 04:56 PM | Comments (6)

June 24, 2005

Holy crap

This is the scene a few blocks from B.'s office. He's safe and on his way home, hopefully missing the rush of the evacuations.

With the air quality being shit today, I can't imagine how anyone in the area is able to breathe at all right now.

Posted by Robin at 04:13 PM | Comments (7)

June 19, 2005

Happy Father's Day, B.

Clara "Daddy's Girl" Jane and I love you very much.

(Clara Jane later celebrated the holiday by smacking B. in the right testicle with a board book.)

Posted by Robin at 09:48 AM | Comments (6)

May 12, 2005

Jarts™

Editor's Note: This post mentions Jarts™ because I happened to see some in an antiques store. If I had wanted Jarts™, I would have purchased those Jarts™. So, if you're selling Jarst™, don't try to sell them to me. Also, this isn't ebay. If you want to sell your shit, post about it on ebay, not on my blog.

Last Sunday, while exploring downtown Belleville and plotting which house we're going to invade and take over, we wandered into an antiques store and found a set of lawn darts, still in their original package for $50. Even better, we also found a set of Jarts™, never used (I checked the tips for blood stains and gray matter) for $75.

Today B.'s department had their annual picnic, or as I like to call it, "You'll Have Fun and Team-Build or We'll Fire Your Fucking Ass Day". They played softball. Personally, I think it's cruel to make a bunch of computer geeks who rarely allow sunlight to cast upon their skin to play softball. But I also think it would be really funny to watch, which is precisely why I'm never invited to attend these picnics.

Anyway, at dinner tonight - which wasn't interrupted by any recounts of the latest episode of "Cops" - B. said this to me:

"I was thinking during the picnic that it's too bad I didn't buy those Jarts™. That could have been a lot of fun."

"Until someone put an eye out," I said, filling my mouth with a huge bite of Cobb salad. If there is anything better in this world than bacon and blue cheese in the same dish, I haven't found it yet.

"Well, if you've got a Jart™ in your eye, you shouldn't worry about the eye. You should be much more concerned about keeping the back of your head attached to the skull!"

Or laughing so hard that you choke on a big mouthful of bacon and blue cheese.

Tomorrow's goal: a dinner in which no one gets shot at, gets a Jart™ tunnel through the skull, or chokes to death on bacon and blue cheese. Wish us luck.

Posted by Robin at 07:39 PM | Comments (3)