What I Didn't Know before I Got Married

Among a few other unhealthy habits, I like to self-diagnose any and all of what ails me. I can't tell you how many times Craig has said, "Wait. Before you get on WebMd, just breathe and take some tylenol."  Then I tell him that if my internet research is correct, I've either got a tension headache, or I'm at risk for a major stroke. I either ate something bad, or I have an obstruction. My shoulder aches. Maybe I slept funny. Maybe it's a heart attack. You know, a backache is often a woman's symptom of a heart attack. You didn't know that? Good, you must be sane.

Hypochondriac? Sure. That's fair.  I can assure you that I get it honest.  It skips a generation.  This is just one of the many things that Craig has to deal with around here.  He came with his own unforeseen quirks too, though, but there's a strict no return policy.  I'd miss him too much, anyway. 

We didn't live together before we got married for a number of reasons and I'm really glad that we made that choice.  I read a study once that said that cohabting before marriage results in a higher divorce rate.  I think there are probably a squillion factors that went into those results that were unaccounted for, but it did make an interesting point.  It said that couples who share a home before they're married may see it as a trial run that can be abandoned.  Once you are married, if marriage means something to you, you just figure it out when things get a little hairy.  There are no trial runs and the author suggests that that mentality is hard to shake.  I think the less sunny way to look at that is to say, I'm gonna live with this person forever so I better figure out how to make it good for both of us or my head may pop off.  Plus, I think the wedding is so much sweeter when the couple has yet to learn what the other looks like two days into a stomach flu. 

There are things I've learned since getting married that I'm glad I didn't know.  It wouldn't have affected my decision one teeny, tiny bit, but I wouldn't have had the sense of humor to view them for what they are. 

• Contrary to what I feared, men don't really leave the toilet seat up all the time.  No.  In fact it's very rare.  Like only in the middle of the night when the temperature in the house has gotten to its lowest and you're not wearing contacts.  Even though it's rare, one moment of that blind hysteria is too much. 

• I'm allergic to white gold.  What, aren't your wedding rings white gold you ask?  Why, yes.  Yes, they are.  Were.  I now have a yellow gold set.  My swollen, welpy ring finger wasn't very attractive or comfortable.  While it was definitely a testament to my commitment level,  I didn't want to have a permanent wedding band made out of scar tissue. 

• An old container of leftovers in the back of the refridgerator turns into an Old West showdown over who's gonna throw it out.

• From Craig, I learned that all tools run on profanity.  So does college basketball.

• He's learned that a large pack of toilet paper isn't a once a semester purchase like at the fraternity house.  Actually, I'm not sure that he's learned this.  He's still eyes me suspiciously like I'm sneaking rolls out every few days.

• I've learned that when he says that we'll go soon, the game only has ten more minutes, that that means thirty minutes.  I will never understand time warp football minutes.

• Craig has stopped asking what I want to have for dinner the following night forty five seconds after we've eaten the current night.  He now understands that I will always want to look at the menu at the McDonald's drive thru, even though the menu has been the same my entire life and I always get the same thing.  How could such a person know what they want to eat in 24hrs?  Unless it's cupcakes. 

Status Update

I haven't posted much lately.  The old, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't blog anything at all.  That's where I've been, and honestly, where I still am.  I'm in the same boat as tons of other people, but it feels very personal and painful to me.  I still haven't found a job.  I was lulled by a lot of false hope and thought that I didn't need to be looking, that I was a few rubber stamps away from employed.  I was even being "trained," for whatever that's worth after volunteering for nearly a year.  Last Monday, I was told that my status was low on the priority list and that I should continue to be patient.   Long story short, I decided to take my toys and go home.

The first afternoon I cried and cried and felt sorry for myself.  Okay, I was downright morose.  I'm back at it, though.  I have to think that someone will appreciate the experience I have.  I have a fair amount for someone at this early point in my career.  I work hard and I would never, ever steal staples.  I want to work so bad and I have faith that the right opportunity will come eventually.

The hardest thing for me is the let down from where I thought I was.  I really, really loved the work I was doing and felt (and feel) called to do it, probably more than some who already do. I loved the people I worked with.  Leaving makes it feel like all of the sacrifices I made by volunteering so long weren't worth it.  Making matters worse, it's forced Craig to make a lot of sacrifices, too. In a lot of ways, more than me.  That hurts.

I'm past it, though.  That opportunity may still turn out to be viable, but in the meantime, I'm hustling like always.  I'm wallpapering the law offices of the Greater Memphis area with my resume.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.....

Update

Remember when I wrote this?:


Dear Mice,



Our intentions may not have been entirely clear with the blue pellets in the black plastic trays. They were not intended as offertory morsels. It is clear to me now that you enjoy, nay, prefer them as a tasty treat. Evidently, they give you vigor and a sense of purpose. While I envy this new found pep in your teeny step, knock it off.


Again, the plug in with the flashing light was not purchased to guide your way in the dark of night to whatever you are after. It was supposed to emit frequencies to irritate you into moving to greener pastures, or at the least the neighbor’s house. I hear they have a veritable rodent buffet over there.


I will be more direct. Leave us alone you tiny terrorists.


From this point forward, I will view your droppings as open hostility. If you do not comply immediately, I will insist that you pay your share of rent and use the toilet. Additionally, you will be expected to perform adorable tricks for company.




Please be aware that this notice takes effect immediately.


Laura “Mousekilla” Locke

Well, apparently they were summering on the coast because they are back and mocking my efforts again.

A Little Perspective on a Thursday

This morning I woke up in a little bit of a funk.  Not a bad mood, exactly, but not feeling my usual self.  Yesterday wasn't the best at work and I was still ruminating on my job prospects and why I went to law school and why, of all the millions of ways my DNA could've sorted itself, it chose to give me hair that is, let's say, spirited.  At the half way point of my commute I went from unenthusiastic to irritated.  Every light was out in midtown and traffic was heavier than usual  because of a fire a few streets away.  You and I know that when the lights are on the fritz, everyone is supposed to treat it like a four-way stop.  In Memphis, it's a gladiatorial show down of bravery and brawn.  I have neither.

I got to work and everything was fine and my mood eventually improved.  I completely forgot about the traffic.  During a break, I checked the local headlines.

Midtown Memphis power outage caused by squirrel this morning

By Kevin McKenzie
 

Perspective comes in many forms. 

This Doesn't Reflect My Taste in Music (Much)

Craig is rarely wrong.  It's a very annoying trait, but he really is right about things most of the time.  I don't mean big decisions.  I'm talking about things like word spelling, which street something is on, math. You know, the little stuff.  He's right so often that when we differ on something, I usually to defer to him.  My version of things can be a little fuzzy. I tend to fill in the details of reality as I go.  I focus on what I think is interesting, and not necessarily what's important.  I've mentioned this before in this blog, but I truly believed until a few years back that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was called The Abomidable Snow Man. I'm sharp at work, but in the rest of my life, it's a little more Harold and the Purple Crayon as far as minor details go.

Because of his sometimes irritating habit of being right, it can be very funny when he's not.  Song lyrics are one thing that he's flubbed a few times.  Once, in the car, Steve Miller Band came on and he was singing along.  It took a few bars for me to realize what he was saying.  More importantly, what he wasn't saying.  "Big Old Jet Airliner" went a little something like, "We don't Carolina."  Huh?

I mess up lyrics all the time, but I mess up all kinds of things.  I even have the awkward underappreciated talent of changing the words to songs intentionally, a la Weird Al.  If I'm ever drugged up for surgery or otherwise out of my mind, ask me to sing my song about a manatee to the tune of "Iron Man."  Anyway, my goof ups aren't funny because they're expected.  Or, maybe that's exactly why they're funny?

Moving on.

 Yesterday we were driving home and Craig was humiliating me being funny by blaring Huey Lewis through our neighborhood.  The Heart of Rock and Roll (as in The heart of rock and roll is still beating) came on, and I kid you not, The Ambassador of Endless Trivia and Spelling Extrordinaire was loudly singing, "Because the heart of rock and roll, the heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland."  Again, huh?  Carolina, Cleveland.  I'm not sure why he thinks geography is such a common theme, but it cracked me up.  I've obviously made him self-concious about it, though.  One day he was singing to himself the Paul Simon Song, "Slip Sliding Away."  The line goes: "He said, "Delores, I live in fear.""   Once I got close enough to hear, I heard Craig sing, "Delores, meh meh meh me-eh."  It was to the tune.  I'll give him that. 

As a final note, I should mention C's defense to his Huey Lewis mix up.  He said that he wasn't really wrong because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is, in fact, in Cleveland.  Other than the fact that the song predates the Museum, I think that's a pretty good counter argument to the facts staring him in the face.  Maybe he should be the lawyer instead.

Craig and his brother from another mother, Joe.

A Blog Post About Privacy. Irony?

My Dearest Restroom Companions,

I am grateful to you for all of the "Good mornings," "Hellos," and "Hi theres" offered from the stalls.  While I cannot express to you the level of discomfort it causes me, I even appreciate the sentiment behind the questions that require response, "How are you?"  "Are you an attorney?"  No one could ever fault you for a sunny disposition.  Try as I might, I cannot reciprocate.

To avoid further restroom avoidance on my part and the medical issues that will surely insue, allow me to explain my comfort level with restroom banter and what I feel are reasonable parameters.  First, it is my firm belief that the walls partitioning off stalls are not merely for visual privacy.  We all know what's going down next door.  Instead, they are there to provide some fiction of solitude, similar to one's own personal facilities at home.  This is where you and I seem to differ.  Evidently, you think the space above and below the walls is there to allow for some real get to know you time.  It's like speed dating.  For friends.  On the toilet.  Well, I could not like it less.  Maybe I'm uptight, and maybe I'm just a bit unfriendly, but that is one place I will always be at a loss for words.

Where I can be more sociable is by the sinks, or at the door, or on the sidewalk, or really anywhere beyond the inner sanctum of the stall.  We can talk about your shoes, your dog, your heart murmur, your wayward son, your dinner plans, your no good husband, or the man outside that may or may not be Sean Connery.

I tell you this so that I won't be misunderstood.  I will continue to offer only the weakest oh, hi or complete silence in response to your salutations if they are offered from behind the walls.  I will continue to wait you out and stare angrily at your shoes because revealing myself to you is not an option.  Then you would know, for sure, that it's not a deaf person you are speaking to, but that overeager whatshername with a complicated relationship with the common printer.

Yours certainly aren't the gravest of public restroom sins.  I can't even begin to understand how someone could do the unthinkable in a public restroom.  I would sooner commit hari kari.  All the same, please accept my neuroses for what they are and, if you would be so kind, accomodate them.

Signed,

Yes, that's me who opens the outer door of the restroom, sees someone else is in there, and quickly leaves, turning the corner to avoid discovery.

Photo from: http://fascistsoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/bite_me_toilet_3001.jpg

Fall

Just as I have learned to like squash and taking naps, I have also learned to love and look forward to Fall.  Until recently, I always entered into it with a vague feeling of anxiety and a sadness over the loss of long summer days.  I awaited the impending doom of an insurmountable test that never came to be.  Every year of school was more similar than not to the year before it, but I was a sucker for the threats of my teachers, "You just wait 'til next year, this'll never cut it." "If you think this is hard, wait until you have to diagram a sentence, learn long division, algebra, SATs, AP history, college term papers, senior projects, civil procedure, appellate advocacy..."  I bought it hook, line, and sinker and found myself anxious each August as the syllabus ominously foreshadowed what would surely be the year I failed out of school.  Of course, I never did and I always ended up happy and adjusted into my new class, managing my assignments just fine.  Unfortunately, the anxiety was never quite enough to keep me from losing track of the notes I'd taken and end up with wads of undoubtedly important paper in the bottom of my bag by the end of October. Along the way, I found things to like about Fall like new school clothes and supplies; and later, sorority parties, house decorations, recipes to try, but I would always have traded those for a few more weeks of my beloved summer.

I don't know what exactly has changed. It might be ending my lifelong career as a student, or maybe it's, and don't tell Craig, a passing interest in football.  Probably not, but it's possible.  Maybe it has to do with living in a part of the country now that actually has Fall.  On the Coast it's more like, Warm, Muggy Hot, Still Pretty Hot, and Three Weeks of Cold.  You can never put your t-shirts up.  I have spent Thanksgiving in 80 degree heat, followed the next day by a hard freeze.  In any case, I find myself actually looking forward to this change of season.  This time last year I toyed with the idea of a positive attitude, but decided against it.  This year, I'm all in.  I finally get why people say that Fall is their favorite time of the year.  Personally, I will always be partial to Spring with it's technicolor green, mild breezes, and mardi gras, but I think I may be coming around to Fall as being more than the harbinger of chilly short days. 

This past weekend, I spent the labor day holiday on a lake with Craig's family.  I spent as much time as I could in the water.  Growing up on the Coast and with an avid swimmer for a Dad, I spent many hours somewhere between pruned and waterlogged.  It's been several years since the last time I had the chance to dive in.  It was almost baptismal to float around with my ears under water, hearing only my breath and the gurgling of the lake.  We woke up, after spending the night on a screen porch, to a cool Autumn morning.  I am so glad I was able to have one last lazy summer weekend, but I'm looking forward this year to the leaves' third act.