25 Fascinating Facts about My Marriage

1.) My husband, John, aka Lovey Loverpants, is a Canadian citizen whose ethnicity is Korean. Therefore, he is a Canasian. I am an American and my ethnicity is Irish/Italian. Therefore, I am boring.

2.) I met my husband at a training program in college for Resident Advisors. Our first person-to-person conversation was about the camp where he had spent his summer. I told him that I wanted to work at that camp. The next summer, I tried to work at a camp, but my mother wanted me to stay at home for the summer and help her out. I eventually conceded and also worked at Bob Evans and as a tele-marketer and e-mailed with my future husband. Sometimes, in other words, it is good to listen to your mother.

3.) Whenever we drive through the FAST LANE on the Mass Pike and NY Turnpike, we say aloud, "Looooove the EZPass."
4.) When our refrigerator lacks the following, we become mutually cranky: soy milk, cheese, pita and hummus.

5.) When we were first dating, John and I went on a camping trip in the Shenandoah Valley in mid-March. The short version is that we got lost, we lacked adequate water and food -- oh, and a match with which to build a fire. We spent the night on the forest floor fending off frostbite. The whole night John said with chattering teeth, "I-i-it's o-o-okay if you br-br-br-break up with me." The next day, we went hiking again.

6.) John loves the mountains and I love the beach. Our dream vacation home would be somewhere with access to both.

7.) The way our families celebrate holidays is vastly different. This past Christmas was the first I had not spent with my family - whose celebration resembles the Griswold's - and I had to force myself to believe I had been orphaned in order to not wear a pouty face at my in-laws where we spent the holiday eating wasabi nuts and watching Korean dramas.

8.) My husband and I loathe when people say, "It is what it is."

9.) I have never treated my husband so poorly as when we were planning our wedding. He coordinated almost every aspect of it. My contributions were in the form of daily tantrums over not getting my way. I eventually thanked him for the most perfect wedding day ever. And apologized for going all bridezilla during the entire 9 months of our engagement.

10.) Our joint passion is rock-climbing. John became a convert because he loves physical challenges. I become a convert after John bought me some orange climbing shoes with monkeys.

11.) I worry that I will be the first one to die. I made John promise me that he will not become a recluse if this is the case.

12.) John proposed to me in his snowmen pajamas while cooking pierogis in his kitchen. I, in turn, shook. He never asked me to marry him, but rather said, "I want to marry you." I shook while saying, "I want to marry you, too." He tied a string around my finger because he did not have the ring yet.

13.) John always knows how much he has in his checking and saving accounts, as well as the balances for the bills that he manages. I am relatively aware, but am want to be off by a few...cents, dollars, hundreds of dollars.

14.) John uses far more hair product than I do.

15.) When asked a question, John responds encyclopedia-cly. He is more likely to explain how a clock is made when asked for the time, whereas I am more likely to respond with a highly embellished story about my first watch.

16.) We go to church every Saturday and typically find that our outfits match without any pre-planning. We are involuntarily disgusting.

17.) My biggest peeves about my husband are that he is mildly sloppy and makes inferences that are based on his own misunderstandings. His biggest peeves about me are probably that I am incapable of multi-tasking and that I continuously use the wrong utensils and tools for cutting and fixing things.

18.) One of the biggest surprises for me since getting married is that my husband will not wake me up even if I am lying on my stomach like a homicide victim in our bed and taking up all but a sliver of space.

19.) My husband calls me Furnace Ass because I radiate heat, even in the winter.

20.) We have traveled together to the following cities: Ann Arbor, Cleveland, Calgary, Chicago, Denver, London, Paris, Pittsburgh, Washington DC.

21.) I really miss our ability to stay up late and talk and laugh. We are old now, but we are careful not to become the people who wear socks to bed.

22.) Our DVR records the following which we will not watch without each other: "The Bernie Mac Show," "Everybody Hates Chris," and "Scrubs."

23.) Every year, we host a White Trash Weekend with our friend Walter. This entails, among other non-activities, spending the weekend in pajama pants, watching football and bad VH1 programming, and eating homemade wings. It is not possible to do these things with as much flair and gusto without our Walter.

24.) We try to pray together every night.

25.) We are preparing to become parents to a Wee Lee in January 2008.

The distractions of the world

I love it when people write their own vows, especially people like my brother-in-law and my new sister-in-law who write beautiful vows with lofty aspirations that they will totally pin down like kites yanked from gale winds, because they're just so committed and wise in their young years that there's nothing that they cannot achieve together. My sister-in-law said one vow, with an unshaky, yet somewhat hushed voice that pricked my heart. She vowed to make their home a "safe haven from the distractions of the world." I was so convicted. Home should, afterall, be a safe haven from all of the world's ills. Diseases, menthol cigarettes, subwoofer stereos. Bad bad halitosis, noisy cement stirrers, athlete's foot. All those things. Not welcome in the home. And not so hard for me to keep out of our home. However, the word that rung loudly in my ear at the wedding was "distractions." How to keep distractions from entering the home and reigning supreme. Home, afterall, is a place in contrast to work where my adult ADD runs for 8 hours straight like a wild naked banshee from Mozilla Foxfire tab to Mozilla Foxfire tab. Home should be a place of rest, a place where the mind can rest, a place where the feet (sans athlete's foot) can rest, a place where the heart can be perfectly at peace. But, in reality, my home often looks like Borders meets FAO Schwartz meets Macy's Dressing Room. Newspapers scattered, clothes strewn, guitar totally in the way of my walking path. Distraction isn't even the word for it. My home is not a place of rest. It is a Jackson Pollock painting. I am agitated by its mess because I am thinking about how I need a clean workspace, but if home is in contrast to my workplace, then why should I need to work on a workspace in my home?!? I am not a messy person. My husband is mildly messy. He does not appreciate nice neat piles which form perfect 90 degree angles. He is not entirely to blame, though. It is my fatal attitude towards this mess, this mess which will never be remedied fully, that is keeping our home from becoming a haven of bliss. I know that I should probably subscribe to Flylady to solve all of my problems, but I understand that she sends many e-mails and if there is one thing that I can maintain as tidy, it's my gmail inbox. Flylady, begone. I know that this gripe is a perennial one, especially with women, especially ones who work full-time either as office denizens or as mothers, but this gripe is something that I never thought I would have with my own home. I want an intervention. I want The Container Store to come and bust down my door and organize all of my twisty-ties and cracked CD cases for albums that I am too ashamed to even sell at a garage sale because then people will know that I once listened to Toni Tone Tone, and pitch them or box them into nicely labeled transparent containers that will all be on shelving that is eye-level for me. I want this to be the Berenstein Freakin' Bears Learn How to Keep a Home Free of Distraction. I want change. I want clarity. I want home to be different from work. Only, I am of a mind that it takes a lot of work to make home a place that is distinct from one's workplace. And that is the thought that keeps me from ever being truly at home in my home.

Helping Hands

Some people might have questioned our odds of making it that first time I helped John move out of his dorm room. He was to drive me home to Cleveland on his way home to Detroit. John had just graduated from Small Liberal Arts College on a Hill and this heave-ho from Dorm Sweet Dorm was to be a permanent one. John, I should note, looks at a car like John Nash looked at window panes. In one glance, he sees geometric formulas align. He can pack a trunk so neatly and tightly, you would think he was following a directions sheet from IKEA. On this particular move, he packed every last milk crate, pizza box, and one shiny new diploma into his car. If Honda Accords could float, he'd have been ready for another flood. Evidently, it was the two-by-two that he had forgotten, though, for in the passenger seat sat his TV/VCR. Before I could make any jokes about Greyhound itineraries for a Sunday afternoon, he was raising his eyebrows, amazed that he had forgotten to factor his girlfriend into the cargo.

Out came the TV, placed back into dorm storage through the summer, to be reclaimed on his voyage through campus the following fall on his way to grad school in Boston.

That same TV still lives in Boston, and is still an encumbrance as that same strategic packer and his wife, no longer a mere passenger, but a student in the School of John Lee's Strategic Packing, prepare for their move from rental to owned real estate. This time, they've got help.

Good Bye, Sweet Rental

clustermuck

Hello Owned Sweet Owned
new homeski