this is what happens when your wife has a blog

"My love for you is like a pine tree. It is always in bloom."

"Did you hear that on a movie?"

"No, I just made it up."

"Why?"

"So you'd actually write something nice about me on the internet."

so... we did it

I feel like I owe it to Husband to give him props for all the support he's given me in the past few months, a dark period known as LOOMING COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS/PhD APPLICATION MADNESS. In our house, we recently lived through a perfect storm of crazy, nearly four months of tears, screaming at laptops, and pacing in front of the mailbox that finally came to an end yesterday afternoon. For any graduate student, two most horrific times in your life are applying for your next program (a process I compare to standing naked in a room full of admissions officers who are poking you with sticks and telling you that you are not good enough) and taking your comprehensive exams to finish your current program (for me, this involved writing 37 pages in three days and then defending those 37 rambling pages to my unhumanly brilliant profesors). Unfortunately for me (and really, who am I kidding, for Husband), these two events happened simultaneously. Thus, the crazy.

I know its hard to believe that I would need emotional support during something like this because I am such an even-tempered, rational person, but I can honestly say that for me this has been one of the defining moments of our marriage because I don't know that I really knew what it meant to be someone's partner until Husband taught me what it means over these past few weeks. His support has been unflinching. Sometimes I imagined him standing outside our house with a shotgun to keep Those Mean People away from his wife because SHE HAS HAD ENOUGH and just needs a break already. He brought me Taco Bueno and took me to get ice cream and massaged my head when it ached, and if you know me, those things are the equivalent of a million dollars plus a really good hair day.

The real low point came a few weeks ago at my parents house. If you know me well enough to read this blog, then you probably know this story already. Even so, I feel the need to put this out there because I think sometimes we have to admit our vulnerabilities. That day at my parents' house, I had what I believe was my first clinically-diagnosable panic attack. I still had no idea if I would get into any PhD program and I was swamped with work for my exams, and then I found out that I needed to have yet another procedure on my toe which would involve NEEDLES IN MY TOE. For some reason, this new development exceeded the amount of Things I Can Handle and I absolutely lost it. I was crying hysterically and having trouble breathing and leaning over the toilet because I thought I was going to vomit, and then Husband was there. He pulled me onto the floor in his lap and held me against his chest and took long, slow breaths. Once I was breathing evenly, he just held me like a child and let me cry. I had never felt so completely torn apart, but I had also never felt so completely loved.

Thankfully, it got better in the following weeks. I was offered a spot in a PhD program with great funding and a department full of people I really like. Last week, I wrote that crazy exam over three horrific days, and yesterday I officially passed my examination defense. I called Husband on my way home and he told me to get home quick because he was on the driveway and ready to celebrate. When I got home, I actually found him streched out on the bed, and while he claimed to just be tired from his day at work, I understood that on some level he was exhausted from weeks and weeks of holding me together. I climbed into bed and burrowed into his chest and asked, "babe, are you excited its over?". His face buried deep in the pillow, I heard him offer a relieved little "Yay!".

And then, we celebrated.

cheeky little bugger

I may have mentioned here before that one of Husband's favorite pasttimes is Provoking My Wife. Apparently, its always good for a laugh. In the early days of our marriage, I could never understand why Husband would bring up subjects that I considered sensitive, and continue to beat that horse until I collapsed, breathless from all my screaming.


In his defense, when I say he brings up "sensitive subjects," I'm not referencing Western apathy toward genocide in Africa; I mean those really important social imperatives, like "cooking is women's work" and "careers in the liberal arts are meaningless." The really impressive thing, though, is that even though I should know that he does not hold any of these views, he convinces me so thoroughly with his delivery in that moment that I seriously feel the need to argue with him. Loudly.


Eventually, I learned to notice, mid-rant, that he was smirking; after hitting him a few times, I could go on with day. At least this way, I only spent about half the energy I would have exhausted in CONVINCING him that teaching is a profession that is completely devalued.


Even better, I have finally reached a zen place where I can recognize his scandal-mongering for what it is and refuse to respond. Like Ghandi. Or Yoda. I had been doing really well at rejecting his games until this past week when we were visiting his parents. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but Husband, his mother, his aunt, and I were all sitting around talking about laundry. [I know, right? You WISH you partied with us.] And Husband said, AND I QUOTE, "Yeah, I never have clean laundry. If I want clean clothes, I have to wash them myself."

[!!!!!!!!!!#&!&$*!%*!&&@**@!*#!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Again, I knew he wasn't being serious. I knew he was just playing Provoke My Wife. But he said this IN FRONT OF MY MOTHER IN LAW. Could I possibly let MY MOTHER IN LAW think that I wasn't taking care of her son? That was a low blow, even for Husband. He KNEW making this kind of statement in front of his mom was the one thing that could set me off. The inner battle raged on as I fought to keep my expression neutral. You know, breezy.

"Wow, she is going to kill you."

"Look at her face. Its turning purple."

"I can't believe she's not yelling. Seriously."

[Breezy. I'm breezy. BE ONE WITH THE BREEZY.]

"I usually have to vacuum and clean the bathroom, too."

And that was the day the breezy died.

Pillows, a follow up

"Husband, I want my pillow back. You stole it, and I want it back."

"You gave it to me."

"No, I didn't give it to you. YOU STOLE IT. You KNEW my neck hurt when you tried to give me your pillow. That is MY pillow. MINE. Motha! bought it for me right before I left for college. She and I bought it. TOGETHER. So, not only are you stealing neck comfort from me, you are also stealing A MEMORY."

"You gave it to me."

"I DID NOT. I realized one night that my neck hurt, and that you had taken my pillow. I made you give the pillow back, but you only stole it from me again. This happened again and again, the stealing and the reclaiming and the complaining and the stealing and the whining, and despite my best efforts to annoy you into leaving me alone, YOU KEPT STEALING MY PILLOW. Finally, out of sheer exhaustion, I just stopped making you give it back. I gave up. You wore me down to my last shred of dignity."

"Right. You gave it to me."

not exactly taking one for the team

Husband and I really hate going to the grocery store. Its just a pain. In fact, I don't know anyone who actually likes going to the grocery store. Anyone? Seriously? Does anyone like it?

Because of our intense dislike of shopping for groceries (which makes sense for me because I just hate shopping in general, but Husband? The cover model? He who shops for fun? What's up with that?), we usually put it off until the last minute. For us, the last minute is late Sunday night after our Life Group. So, a few nights ago, we found ourselves, once again, trudging to the grocery store.

Sometimes we use the "divide and conquer" method to get ourselves out of there more quickly; Husband will gather his lunch-packing essentials while I take care of produce and dinner items. Well, Sunday night at the last minute I realized that I needed an avacado to serve with our tortilla soup.

"Will you run back and grab an avacado?"

"I don't know how to pick one."

"Really? Its really easy. I'll teach you. You just gently---"

"I'm sorry. What I meant was 'I don't want to'."

you don't find honesty like this everywhere

"Will you get the gum out?"

"Sure. Here you go."

"I meant get the gum out for you."

"What?"

"Your breath is gross."

[Silence.]

"Husband, you are SO lucky God gave you such a pretty face."

"I know. I think He gave it to me for our marriage. To help me survive."

in which I play a game, but he wins

Husband and I went to the movies a few weekends ago, and I was really in the mood for lighter fare. We'd been on a string of Oscar movies (Doubt, Rachel Getting Married, Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire) and I really just needed to LAUGH. Because seriously, Oscar movies are not funny. So, to counteract all the socially-conscious, deep-thought-inducing films we'd recently seen, we decided to see He's Just Not That Into You. If you're not familiar, this film is based on a recent book that essentially mocks all of the horrible things women do in relationships. Because, you know, all women are sad and desperate and want nothing more than to cling to the hope of finding true love with whatever schmuck crosses their path. But I digress.

SO, in the spirit of the film we were about to see, I spent the car ride annoying Husband with all kinds of cliche "woman" comments about our "connection" and our "chemistry" and how he "really gets me." It really didn't help that I'd just finished watching a season of The Bachelor, so I had a wealth of material to draw from. I made sure to answer any of his comments by telling him how attractive he is and how he's everything I'm looking for and to fall into high pitched giggles with little to no warning. You can imagine how much fun this game was for him.

He tried at one point to turn the discussion to something more serious by bringing up a moment from Slumdog Millionaire. (As if that would stop me.) We were listening to the (amazing) soundtrack, and he tried to talk about the moment from the film associated with the song we were listening to.

"This is when he sees her on the platform at the train station."

"AWWWWWWWWWW! BAAAAAAAAAAABE! This song is so beautiful. Its the sound of a DEEP connection between people, you know? I hope that THIS is the song you hear when you think of me."

"What?"

"When you think of me. There should be music. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabe! Don't you hear music when you think of me?"

"Ummm, no."

"WHAT?!?! Baaaaaaaaaabe, you don't think of me EVER!"

"I'm married to you. What else would I think about?"

"And you miss me when I'm gone. Like, REALLY?"

"Of course I miss you when you're gone. Especially when there's no food."