Statements

I did this awhile ago, but I'm doing it again. The following is a list of things I've said about my job recently that I never could have pictured myself saying before I was employed there.

"Yeah, the sewer backed up into the therapy area. Again."

"Oh, put your shirt back on. Wearing a shirt is not that oppressive."

"Did he just drool on my head? I hope he didn't drool on my head."

"So you smelled alcohol on the substitute teacher's breath? Like, how drunk was he?"

"Was that a gun?"

My job is so fun.

Another wedding rant

Last night I was highly amused because Mike has an addiction that matches mine. I buy bridal magazines, he watches wedding TV shows.

On Tuesday he used his DVR to record three hours' worth of "Whose Wedding is it Anyway?" a show that follows couples through the process of planning and having their weddings. In order to make it interesting TV they pick couples whose weddings are needlessly expensive, complicated, or controversial.

It's pretty awesome.

Anyway, Mike watched all three hours while doing schoolwork yesterday and came away with the superiority you feel when you know you're sane and the rest of the world is crazy.

"One of them had a $10,000 wedding dress!" he said to me. "She's been planning her wedding since she was three! Another one wanted a Jewish tradition at their wedding even though they aren't Jewish. It was called a chupah, but the guy kept mispronouncing it as chalupa."

"Chalupa!" I laughed. "That's the Taco Bell food!"

I think that nowadays weddings have grown to absurd proportions. When I was growing up your wedding was considered to be the most important day of your life. Now people think it's the most important day of everybody else's life too. They talk about dazzling your guests and giving them keepsakes so they can remember the day forever.

I got keepsakes at my friends' and family members' weddings. I've lost them by now. I remember their weddings, of course, but what I remember better is sitting with Meghan and Jen while we studied for Comps in grad school, whipsering with Erica as we lay in our shared bedroom in my first apartment, playing hide-and-seek with my cousins at Christmas, making up stories with my sister as we played with our plastic horses. Weddings are happy, sure, but I hope that my wedding can be just one happy day in a long, long series.

Try explaining that to the people around me. Mike's parents are fretting about getting a limo and appropriate wedding favors. I was prepared to take the bus and give my guests nothing. My mom wants to take a class in flower arranging so we can make my bouquets. I wanted to just tie a ribbon around a bunch of plastic flowers and call it a day. I want my wedding to be like a good funeral - a celebration of the participants' lives and relationships rather than a solemn occasion in and of itself.

No chalupas are necessary.

"Does this make me look fat?"

I've been gaining weight recently. I think it's a combination of stress, overwork, and the fact that I find unhealthy foods to be really, really enjoyable.

Last night I was hanging out with Mike and lamenting my new weight gain. Now, this can be a touchy subject for most guys. When your woman says, "I'm fat!" your response can go one of two ways.

1. Denial. This may be the most intuitively appealing method of dealing with the "I'm fat," statement. She thinks she's fat, just tell her she isn't, problem solved, right? Nope. If you deny it you run the risk of having her yell at you for being unsupportive. Also, if you do it unconvincingly or while staring at her newly-acquired cellulite, the result could get ugly.

2. Affirmation. So your girl knows you love her and find her attractive, what's wrong with admitting that you've noticed her new pudge? Oh gosh. Everything can go wrong. Even if a woman knows she's put on weight, she doesn't want to hear it from someone else.

So there's really no good way to handle it. I have a friend who asked her husband if she was fat on two seperate occasions. He denied it the first time, and affirmed it the second. The poor bastard got reamed out for both. I felt bad for him.

Mike, however, is masterful at dealing with things like this. He let me ramble on for awhile, assured me that he thought I was still pretty, and when I was done he said, "Yeah, I've gained some weight too. If you want, we can start going for walks more often."

And then we took a walk through an awesome public park.

Skillful!

Take notes, boys.

Weekend Update

This weekend was a nice one. It's almost the end of the semester for Mike, so in an effort to help him out and to spend more time together, we decided that I should spend the weekend at his apartment. We hung out Friday and Saturday evenings, and he worked on school stuff during the day.

On Saturday I felt pleasantly domestic. While Mike worked on his projects I grocery shopped, did the dishes, and cleaned his living room. Even though I don't really like cleaning and cooking, the knowledge that he was working hard on his projects while I was in the next room working hard on mine was very pleasant.

The only bad thing about this weekend was that it's that special time of month and on Saturday afternoon I became alarmingly hormonal. Things such as the sound of the cats blinking or the direction the dust was traveling through the air became profoundly irritating. I either get mood swings or cramps, so this week won't be painful for me - only for everyone around me*.

For all you Democrats out there, I offer you this little gem. If only...if only.






* Not really, I hope.