I know the truth -- people usually read weblogs for the bad news... the dramatic, self-absorbed observations of the chronically understimulated masses. I have none of that. Happy anniversary to us!!
Ten years ago today, Marc and I had our first of many first dates. And while things haven't always gone as smoothly as they did back then, when all that mattered was whose dorm room we'd be sleeping in that night, I'm glad we've ended up where we are. Which is not to say Connecticut, necessarily, where even the rich people are cold, but together, and sane.
Our first date was dinner at a restaurant called Yaffa, a restaurant which Marc later confessed he'd never really liked, and which was really too hipster-East-Village-junkieland for either one of us in 1994. I'd already noticed his tan neck and watched his gold necklace walk across that neck through several hours of classes. He'd already pointed me out to a friend as, "the girl in the Ernie-stripes shirt."
We'd been on lots of group outings, mainly orchestrated by me so that I could just be near him, and on that January 21st we'd just returned from Christmas break, where I'd been unceremoniously dumped by my high school boyfriend and he'd mostly cleared up a few former relationships.
When we came back from dinner, we made out in my dorm room for a while and he asked me to be his girlfriend. I'd assumed at some point during the making out that I already was, so I went ahead and said yes.
It wasn't the most sophisticated start to a relationship, but I was 17 and didn't really know any better.
Since then, when things have been good, they've been great. I have always felt like Marc makes my life good in a way that nobody else comes close to. We are more alike than we'd sometimes care to admit, but different enough that he's still the one person in my life that I've never felt I could completely understand. I can never figure out what to get him for Christmas. I still can't get why he wouldn't like the food at Yaffa. But we've always been able to communicate in a way that seems to confound our friends and families, some combination of dorky humor and creative frustration feeding our terrible jokes and silly fights and keeping us from ever being truly bored. When we spend too much time together, each of our abilities to communicate with other people suffers. It's like we need each other to finish our thoughts.
I love him so much that it makes me cry sometimes, even when I'm not pregnant. Happy sortaversary, shmegeg.
1. Complete Tomb Raider. Although I wasn't actually in the room when he finished, there was something about the hours he spent bathing in the glow of the TV screen.
2. Create spreadsheets. Somehow he has learned every keyboard shortcut known to man, and isn't afraid to use them.
3. Get dressed in the morning. For almost ten years, it has been boxers, t-shirt, another shirt, pants (tuck-in-shirts), socks, shoes, belt. In the summer and on weekends, there is usually only one shirt, and shorts instead of pants. There is always a belt.
4. Make pancakes. Bisquick, egg, milk, white mixing bowl, skillet, butter, whisk, and then ladle to pan. These days he also preheats the skillet.
5. Shave. Although the beard is nice, I miss the upper-lip-shaving dimple face.
6. Wire things. Whenever we've moved, our TV, stereo, speakers, computer, telephones, and alarm clocks are powered-up and ready to go before I would have even thought to unbox them, all while I'm still unpacking in the kitchen.
7. Pack the trunk. For a mechanical engineer, I have shockingly poor spatial analysis skills. Also included here are organize the Tupperware, assemble Ikea furniture, and preserve leftovers.
I have a crush on Anderson Cooper.
It feels so two-years-ago to say so, but Anderson Cooper is much funnier than Colin Quinn.
I just can't believe that CNN decided to put Anderson Cooper's new show, Anderson Cooper 360°, opposite Jeopardy!. At least I don't feel bad about giving up Tough Crowd reruns so I can watch Anderson Cooper's second half.
Because I'm so bad at the "and then we did this," type of story, maybe you'd like to go read Marc's version of last weekend, which mainly involved lots of traipsing about for live music.
I patently refuse to go to bed before 10. Refuse!
Oh, wait. Daylight Saving Time.
What I don't remember is what year it was. Maybe '99, or somewhere around there.
I also don't know how I managed it, but I got myself to Queens, and my friend Joe's car, and we had to go somewhere (somewhere I've forgotten).
I think it was Westchester. We had to get the tickets, and then we had to make it back to the stadium for the first pitch.
But before we could go in, we had to find Kerri.
First we had to deal with the traffic, going up and coming back. Everybody knows to stay off of 87 on game day, especially opening day. It was before the cell phone revolution, but Joe had a beeper and used it well that day. We crawled up the highway.
We got to Westchester and pulled into a development. Joe ran inside; I waited in the car.
We crawled down the highway. The electronic reminder that someone was ready to begin the same journey from the other direction punctuated the conversation. We had no way to call back without sacrificing valuable road time.
I remember it being hot, although today is cold. There was some sun, and maybe some wind.
We finally got within walking distance of the stadium and Joe decided to leave the car in one of those places where you shouldn't leave your car. One of those places where, as you walk toward the street, some undesirables will offer to watch your car for twenty bucks.
Joe laughed them off.
We reached the stadium and found a payphone. We called Kerri's office, but she had already left. We had no meeting place, no meeting time. We picked something obvious: the big bat.
We tried the phone again, this time staying within view of the bat, and this time reaching her officemate. I spoke to him idly about our botched plans while Joe went back to stand in the bat's shadow.
Kerri called her office. I don't know why. I stayed on hold while my new friend filled her in on the other line. When he came back, we parted ways amicably. I wished we had a fourth ticket for him.
When Kerri finally appeared at the bat, we quickly marvelled at how we were all able to find each other. We snaked through the crowd to the bleacher seat entrance.
At the beer stand, we watched Yogi Berra throw the first pitch on closed-circuit. I think it was Yogi, and that we discussed having missed the Joe DiMaggio years.
We climbed the bleacher steps and found three seats together, behind two girls who looked like they should have been at school that day.
There were two fights in the bleachers that day. The girls got some frat-looking boys to buy them beers. Joe talked about first meeting Solmi, and how he thought he might ask her out. I stepped in mustard. Kerri talked about layoffs, about leaving jobs behind.
Somehow, we made it out of the stadium. The car was still there.
"Love will get you killed more than anything else in the world," said one investigator.
- NY Daily News - Local - Scare at Svetlana gym
Over dinner at the mall food court:
Kate: A little girl just sat down over there with her hot fudge sundae, and her, like bookbag, and left them on the table while she went into Journey to look at shoes. All the Bronx must have finally pissed out of me, because three months ago I would have stolen all that stuff, but now all I can think is, wow, this mall has a Häagen-Dazs?
Marc: I just want to go pee in it.
There is some serious man-despising going on near my little corner of the web. Post-Valentine reality checks, sudden unexplained breakups, and cryptic why-oh-whys are all I read these days, it seems.
Luckily, everything here is still a-o.k. Or at least, we're not fashioning angst-ridden anonymity for random consumption by passers-by.
Snuggle yourselves up in those thick covers, kids. Spring'll come soon enough.
"There are going to be times," my mother has said, "that you will just have to smile and nod. You will feel your head shaking up and down, and you will ignore the rattling that the action causes. You will be shaking to loosen the blood clot intent on stroking out your common sense. You will feel an ounce of brain juice make the snotty transition to spinal fluid: useful on physical impact, but dripping with knowledge lost. Your heart may ache, and your skin could fall clammy. There will be a piercing ringing sound within the room, rendering you deaf but not affecting your offender. The tiniest of hairs will be righted, straining away from your skin as if you have licked each finger for insertion into ten different light sockets. Your bowels will clench. And just as you feel a scream burp up from your lungs and enter your throat, you will inhale the sticky, musty air that hovered about your moistened lip seconds before. As you exhale that same air minus its healing eight protons and eight electrons times something like Avogadro's number, you will feel your lips tighten into a smile, genuine or more likely manufactured, and you will notice that you continue to nod, with or against your better judgment."
I am, of course, paraphrasing.
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