What're you lookin' at? | Ramblings from a self-proclaimed yada yada yada...ist

Closer to Free

Geez, where have I been? You would think I have a full-time job and a family to tend to. Hmmm.

I'm working on a post about my high school reunion, but today is Luke's and my second wedding anniversary, so it's only right that I take some time to talk about marriage after two years in the trenches.

In the weeks and months before my wedding, I was a nervous wreck. I loved Luke and wanted to be with him, but I was also afraid. Afraid of having to negotiate who I was (long-time readers will remember how conflicted I was over changing my denomination), afraid of being a selfish wife, afraid that my ambitious nature would eventually clash with Luke's tendency to go with the flow. But second-guessing is a part of who I am. I keep one foot in the moment and the other on the fence, always looking for the first sign of trouble, searching for a sign that something is not meant to be.

But on May 12, 2006, standing in front of our pastor as the wind wrapped around our gazebo like a blanket, surrounded by family and friends, I believed our love was enough. I believed our future would be more than worth any hardships that came our way.

And there have been a few, the most significant one thus far being our decision to keep me at work and Luke at home. On paper, it was the best way to achieve all the goals we had for our family, but in my heart, I struggled. The weekend before I went back, there was a lump in my throat that would not go away, a proverbial devil on my shoulder that told me to be angry with Luke for not doing everything in his power to "let me" be a stay-at-home mom, to resent him for positioning me as Breadwinner, a title I never wanted.

I knew marriage would be hard, but only in the broadest sense. For the first time, Hard was tangible.

But I swallowed my tears and bit my tongue and became the person my family needed me to be. It wasn't easy, but here we are, two and a half months later, and there is a rhythm to our life that I never thought possible. Now I am completely sure it was meant to be this way, couldn't work any other way, and both our marriage and our daughter are better for it. It was only after saying good-bye to my preconceived notions of Wife and Mother and letting the good of our family take the lead that I found a level of fulfillment that couldn't have been achieved otherwise.

In the media and in our personal lives, relationships solidify and dissolve like snowflakes that stick to the pavement until the sun melts them away. And now, just two years into marriage, it's easier to understand why. I can't count how many times I've given Luke the cold shoulder over a perceived injustice, content to bask in self-righteousness, only to hang my head in front of him the next morning--unable to meet his eyes, tears running down my face--and stumble through an apology.

It's frustrating to rank second in the interest of the whole. It's embarrassing to say "I'm sorry." It's much easier to scrap the whole thing and start over with someone new.   

At our wedding, I thought love would be the glue that held our marriage together, but now I know it's commitment. Love is easy. People break up all the time and talk about how they still love their exes. Every person has traits worth falling for. But to accept their shortcomings? Forgive when they hurt you without keeping score and STILL be in love? Nothing is more difficult.

Or more rewarding.

When I was senior in college, in a class that placed my faith-based coursework in a wider context, my professor said something that really resonated with me. He said that with each choice you make, you become more free.

On the surface, it seems contradictory--when accepting one path, you inevitably say good-bye to another--but it's through the process of decision making that we open ourselves to advancement. My life with Luke is proof of that, because prior to our wedding, we were in a constant state of flux: should we say "I love you," should we move in together, should we tie the knot. Once we did that last thing, a brand-new set of choices lay before us, more sophisticated than those we contemplated before, but not as fundamental. Suddenly we were concerned with how to manage our careers, where we wanted to live, and when to expand our family.

These days, our jobs are chosen, for now. Housing will soon sort itself out. And we have the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. Now it's time to sort through the details, like saving for college and building retirement and bringing more children into the mix. I don't have to worry about whether or not we'll make it. The alternative is no longer an option.

Happy anniversary, honey.

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Visit Parental Discretion Advised to read about Kara's upcoming foray into cereal, my new parenting mantra, and the details of a very special Walgreens trip. You won't be disappointed.

Eavesdropping

You guys! You'll never guess what I heard the other day...

Scene: How should I know, I'm only three months old; Momma and Daddy staring at a big black box while Momma crazily waves a hand in front of my face:

Momma: Hey, look! Twelve Angry Men is in town! You know I did that play in high school? I was the guard.

Daddy: We can go, if you want.

Momma: That would be fun. Oh, yay! I haven't seen a play in forever.

Daddy: We'll have to get a sitter, you know.

Momma: Huh?

Daddy: You know, for Kara. You can't bring a baby to a play.

Momma: Oh. Right. Nevermind.

Daddy: Did you forget we have a child?

Momma: No?

Daddy: ....

Mommy! I am the love of your life! How could you blank on my smashing good looks?

It's a wonderful life

All is well.

Since my last entry, an incredible sense of calm and well being has covered Luke and me like a blanket, which has made these last couple of days the best ones since Kara's birth. I'll tell you about it soon enough, but for now, all I want to do is revel in how blessed we are and how thankful I am for everything God has given us.

Most of the members of my family have been too sick to make the trip to Indy, so it was extra special that my sister Ryan drove in from Chicago to spend Christmas with us. Newly married and desperately missing her army husband, who's currently in Germany awaiting February deployment to Iraq, a little baby fix was just what she needed to get through the holiday.

As for my own spouse, I can't tell you how mesmerizing it is to watch him with our daughter. He's so gentle with Kara, so enamored with her, and I honestly don't know what I've done to deserve such unconditional love and support. This last week has been the most exhilerating and terrifying one of my life, and he's been right by my side the entire time, holding me when I cry and telling me what a good job I'm doing when he's not washing bottles, refilling my water glass, and reminding me to take my pain meds. I couldn't ask for a better life partner or a more loving father for my baby.

I look at these two people and wonder how I ever lived without them.

Merry Christmas.

The title of my next post will be original, I swear.

Yes, I cried. Do you think I'm made of stone?

Don't worry, this post isn't in lieu of TLF, but I just had to share the beautiful surprise I received this morning at work.

This isn't the first time Luke's sent me flowers in a corporate setting, but it is the first time I've gotten them here, and I was completely floored. Aren't they pretty? They are so, so pretty.

I am one lucky woman. Thank you, honey!

He agreed to buy the biscuits, but the baby had to beg.

Luke: <3
Frema: <3 <3
Luke: Hi, honey.
Will you be late today?
Frema: Hell no. I'll be out by 5:00.
Luke: OK. We're having steak for dinner.
Frema: Yum. And biscuits?
The baby likes the biscuits.
Luke: We don't have any biscuits.
Frema: :(
Poor little baby, with no biscuits to eat.
Luke: Poor baby.
Frema: There, there, sweet baby. Don't cry.
Maybe Daddy will pick up biscuits when he drops off his dry cleaning after work.
Luke: Maybe if Mommy wants biscuits she should ask for them.
Frema: Maybe if Daddy cared about his wife and daughter he'd buy the freaking biscuits.
Luke: Maybe you should stop talking in third person.
Frema: Your mom posts in the third person!
Luke: My mom posts in the first person.
Frema: You make my heart hurt.

Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out

Scene: The Frema-Useless Clutter household. Luke is cooking dinner while Frema runs a vaccuum through the apartment for the first time since February.

Frema: Thanks for not minding that I stayed late at work today. Come five o'clock tomorrow, all I want to do is get home, make my spinach dip, and pass out in a gas-induced coma on the couch.

Luke: Do you want to watch Stranger Than Fiction? Then you can go to Blockbuster tomorrow and exchange the mailer for another movie while I'm in Michigan.

Frema: Nope, I've got the third season of Sex and the City, the first season of Murder, She Wrote, and the entire My So-Called Life series. My time is better spent on shows you won't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Wraps up vacccuum cord, proceeds to Windex the bathroom mirror

Frema: I can't wait to sit back and relax!

Luke: Do I ever force you to do anything?

Frema: No, no, I'm just excited about having some quality Frema time. You know, to do Frema things. By myself.

Luke:

Frema [hastily]: It's not that I enjoy it when you're away, but I still need to make the most of it.

Pause

Frema: You know I'm going to miss you, right?

Luke: Whatever.

Say A Little Prayer For Luke, Because He's Subjected to My Nonsensical Ramblings Every Single Day

Only thirty days into 2007 and already I can cross one of my New Year's resolutions off the list.

Luke and I, we'll not be paying off the car.

All this time I've been focused on eliminating the three-hundred-and-thirty-dollar monthly Cobalt payment from our vast array of bills, convinced that doing so would put us in a better position to buy a house. Financial advisors often encourage buyers to whittle down their consumer debt before applying for a mortgage, and if we could just "make do" in our one-bedroom apartment until next summer, the two of us could not only own our car outright, we'd also accumulate about ten percent for a down payment on a modest starter home. If we extended our lease to September 2008, maybe fifteen. As far as the whole baby thing (BAAAYBEEES), well, if the good Lord blessed us with one before we dug our heels into the confusing world of real estate, we vowed to make it work until our lease was up because it'd only be for a few months and Leigh wouldn't notice how cramped we were until she was ready to walk, but we wouldn't be in the apartment long enough for her to start walking because Hello! Our plan was to be in a house by then. So no worries.

(This "new" plan has, in reality, been in place since we got married, and yet I'm still inspired to rehash it once every three weeks or so, punching various numbers into my calculator and pestering Luke for his thoughts on what we can do save more more money, stressing how important it will be for us to choose a home that can be maintained on his income because that's what will enable me to stay at home with Leigh (or Lucy. Or Jillian. Or Nathan, because legend has it some women give birth to boys). And because Luke is used to my love for Rehashing Important Issues We've Already Covered In Excruciating Detail, he slips into his Devil's Advocate gear and reminds me of our salary differences and how difficult it might be to make ends meet with me out of the work force, all the while supporting our common goal to care for a child without forking over wads of dough to a daycare facility. Apparently we save all our fancy dance moves for the choreography of thought-provoking conversation.)

In order to get ready for the upcoming buying frenzy, we find ourselves drawn to the bookstore every few days, perusing the shelves for advice on how to select a home and how to pay for it without defaulting on my student loans. And every few days, we walk away empty-handed because I remember we still have my sister-in-law's copy of Home Buying for Dummies and Suze Orman's Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke, both of which have a wealth of practical information, and also because spending money on financial-planning books may not be the most sound financial plan. Anyway, while reflecting on some of Suze's gems, I recalled a scenario she described in which a young woman had several thousand dollars worth of credit card debt at an interest rate of twelve percent and a savings account that yielded an annual return of point-three percent at best. Why, Suze asked, why oh why was this girl socking away money at such a low rate when she could be using it to pay off the high-interest cards? "Use your head, girlfriend!" she said, wagging a literal finger as demonstrated by her flagrant use of exclamatory sentences.

And that's when it hit me: I was that young woman.

I don't know if I've ever shared this with you people before, but I have very good credit. When I bought the Cobalt in 2005, I scored a two-percent interest rate. Two percent! Over the life of my loan, I'll have shelled out fewer than four hundred dollars in interest to GMAC. Another tidbit you may not be aware of: the interest rate on mortgages? They are not two percent at all. In fact, they are the opposite of two percent, which is Frema-speak for triple. What the hell am I thinking, rushing to pay off a car three years early in order to save a few hundred smackers when we could be funneling that money towards a house, the cost of which will most likely pay for a bachelor's degree at a private college? Also, where did I get the lame-brained idea that we'd have any money to save once a baby enters the picture, especially since we plan to live on one income? My thought process was so faulty you'd swear I spent my free time drinking gasoline and then inhaling the fumes leaking from my ass.

Our new, "foulproof" plan: use our savings to get into a house sometime this year. Our lease ends in June, but if we need to, we can extend it for another three or even six months to make sure we're really ready. Once we're in the house, we can start saving to pay off the car. This plan allows us to properly situate ourselves as homeowners before the introduction of any offspring (BAAAYBEEES) into our family, which we both like. Not that there's anything wrong with apartment living. We love our little unit and have everything we need, but we'd have to make some major changes to accommodate the cohabitation of another person, even if that person's activity level will be limited to producing smelly bowel movements and sucking on my boob (God willing).

Now that we've got the financial logistics straightend out, we can devote our time and energy into my new favorite topic: Who Gets To Stay Home With The BAAAYBEEES?

It's no secret to the Internet that I want to stay home with my children, at least until they're in school. And even then, the idea of being That Mom, the mom who bakes cupcakes for snack time and volunteers for field trips and has dinner sitting on the table at five-thirty every night, stamps a smile on my heart, so I guess I just want to stay home. I have career aspirations, too, but I'm more than willing to put them on hold while Luke and I are in the early stages of building our family.

However, it's also no secret that by some divine twist of fate, I currently make more money than Luke, so much so that if our roles were reversed--that is, if I had Luke's job and he had mine--the question of whether or not we could afford to keep me at home wouldn't be an issue. We'd do without cable for another few years, and our dinners out would be reduced to an occasional extra-crispy chicken bucket from KFC, but it'd be managable.

In previous discussions regarding our previous plan, I would sometimes casually suggest that Luke consider being the at-home parent, and we'd both laugh, and he'd reply that he wasn't sure how he'd feel about taking a break from the traditional nine-to-five work force, and I'd breathe a sigh of relief because that meant it was OK to resign ourselves to a life of (temporary) poverty. If Luke didn't want to be a stay-at-home dad, I would never make him. But I still didn't want to pay for daycare.

That was all before this past Sunday, when Luke and I were out for breakfast and we let our collective gaze wander over to the table across from us, where a blond-haired, blue-eyed little boy who couldn't have been more than eight months old was blowing raspberries with Gerber's latest fruit-and-meat concoction, and Luke said, "Maybe I could be a stay-at-home dad after all. It would make better financial sense."

At that point, my head started to shake and my eyes bulged out of their sockets, but not before they reduced Luke to a pile of ashes with the deadliest, most evil If Looks Could Kill staredown in the history of the universe.

After I stopped banging my head into the restaurant's coat rack in an effort to permanently erase his comment from my memory, I let myself process the information so we could give the matter some serious thought. When I think about having to redefine the image I've made for myself as a mother, I want to grab Luke by the collar and plead with him to work two jobs so I can bring that picture to life. But when I think about what's truly important to me--the ability to enable our children's parents to serve as their primary caregivers--and I realize that THAT dream can still come true, I start breathing again well enough to remember this family is not all about me. And Luke is going to be such a wonderful father. Our children would be truly blessed to be able to spend so much time with him.

Right now, it's too soon to make any definite decisions. Individually we'll keep doing our thing, career-wise, and revisit the issue once we have a baby to stay home with and I get a chance to see how I hold up after a three-month maternity leave.

Yesterday in a Google chat with Molly, I joked that I've gone from being a Catholic singleton with SAHM potential to a Protestant working mom. It's a good thing Luke can cook or this whole "challenging myself to be a more open-minded person" thing would be such a waste of time.

Football and Churches and Ducks, Oh My!

First things first: Did anyone watch either one of the two AFC games yesterday? Because oh my God, the Midwest is having a collective heart attack: for the first time ever, the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts will face off in Miami at this year's Superbowl. While I'd never describe myself as a football fan---it took me twenty minutes to figure out what the hell AFC even stands for--but as a Chi-town native and current Hoosier resident, the anticipation over "the battle of I-65" has inspired me to save both the front page and sports page of today's paper in order to document this historic moment for my future offspring. Next thing you know I'll be wearing team jerseys and chugging copious amounts of Miller Light from a plastic hat. And I don't even drink beer.

It was a good weekend. I did file my work samples into three-ring binders and plastic sleeves and tossed out two garbage bags worth of trash and dusted and vaccuumed and almost orgasmed from the cleanliness of it all. On Saturday night, Luke and I rented Little Miss Sunshine and Snakes On A Plane. One of those movies had us guffawing and crying and celebrating the acting chops of one very talented Office actor. The other also induced tears, but for vastly different reasons. I'll let you determine which is which.

We also went to church.

Since the start of the New Year, I've been thinking a lot about how it's time for us to start searching for a parish of our own, one that provides a strong foundation for the core Christian beliefs we both share. With the Frema-Useless Clutter household currently subscribing to a complicated mixture of Methodism and Catholicism, our research revealed we might both feel most comfortable in the Episcopalian faith. We visited an Episcopal church together last spring and had a good experience with the Mass, though I was intimidated by the grand scale of the architecture. This time around, we chose a church in a neighboring town a little closer to home, on a Sunday when the streets were filled with snow and the plow trucks were nowhere in sight, but we made it, and our appearance was received in a manner similar to Howie Mandel at the Golden Globes, which is to say very, very well, or at least it would have been if I'd been stalking the red carpet.

Because of the snow, there were only a handful of parishoners in attendance, so we basically stuck out like sore, spiritually lost thumbs. We were bombarded with outstretched hands during the offering of peace and personally encouraged to take communion from one of the ushers. At the end of Mass, one of the priests invited us to have coffee and doughnuts in the church's kitchen, an invitation we originally planned to decline, so overwhelmed were we with all the warm welcoming, but the song in her voice was like an imaginary hand gently guiding our footsteps to the room where lukewarm Folgers and supermarket pastries awaited consumption, and soon we were visiting with other families, making small talk about the weather and how we found ourselves in Indianapolis.

All that to say we really liked the parish and plan on visiting again, though we still might check out a few other churches before commiting ourselves to any one place. I could feel those old feelings of sadness bubbling up inside of me again as I sat next to Luke in the pew, just like last time, at the idea of saying good-bye to the faith I'd grown in for so much of my life, and once again I reminded myself that the God I talked to and prayed to and wept with and thanked in the Catholic church was the same one waiting for me in this new Episcopal one, and I wasn't saying good-bye to Him, just worshipping with a new group of people who really weren't as different as I thought they'd be. At least, not in the ways that mattered.

After church, Luke and I went for breakfast and did some shopping. When we finally came home, we noticed this sight in the pond across from our unit:

We didn't think much of it until Luke peered out the window a couple of hours later and saw that the goose was still there, perched in the exact same spot. Figuring the poor thing must be stuck, we marched outside and tossed some stale bread crumbs his way, hoping the promise of food would provide ample motivation to free himself. When that didn't do the trick, Luke hurried upstairs to grab a broom with the intention of breaking through the ice with the handle. Before he could pierce the surface, though,the goose must've questioned the validity of our plan, because he made a clean break for the sky, leaving behind chunks of Market Pantry whole wheat bread as a tribute to his courageousness.

Since we still had three or four pieces of bread left, we circled the pond looking for other feathered friends with which to share our feast, partly against my better judgement. The ducks and I, we have a history, you see.

It started out calmly enough, with the whole flock keeping a respectable distance in the pond, perfectly content to eat crumb after crumb in the water, until they decided they needed to experience their snack up close and personal.

The farther away I walked, the braver they became. Which made me quite nervous. I hastily abandoned a half-piece of bread in the snow, hoping to distract them, but it only left them hungry for more.

I thought walking in the street would instill some fear, surely put them in their place. It didn't, those brazen bastards.

At that point, after many pictures were taken to document my fear, Luke (finally) came to my rescue. Thank God.

 

He makes it look so easy, doesn't he? Not scary at all!

And then the ducks blew him kisses of gratitude, and I began to feel a little silly.

But not TOO silly. After all, I did see Snakes On A Plane. For all we know, the ducks are just biding their time.

We Go Together Like A Horse And Carriage

Sent at 10:17 AM on Tuesday

Frema: Are you thinking of foods I hate?
Luke: Seafood, of all kinds. Cheese on sandwiches, but not on burgers.
Macaroni and cheese. Eggs.
Frema: Didn't you see the list I sent you?
Luke: No.
Frema: Those are already on the list.
Luke: I didn't get the list.
Frema: I'm looking at the copy in my Sent folder. I'll send it again.
Luke: OK
Frema: Did you get it?
Luke: When have you had Indian food? Or Thai food?
Frema: I haven't.
Luke: You liked the Japanese food you had at House of Kobe.
Frema: But I like beef.
Luke: You also liked the soup, and there are many noodles dishes you'd like, too. You just wouldn't like sushi. There's also a lot of Chinese food you'd like, too.
Frema: Well, what about stuff you know I don't like?
Luke: There are Chinese dishes not far off from the stirfry I make.
Since when don't you like burritos?
Frema: Have you ever seen me eat a burrito?
Luke: No. But they're pretty much closed tacos.
Frema: With beans!
Luke: Burritos don't have to have beans.
Frema: Then why can't I just have a taco?
Luke: I've had a lot of burritos with no beans.
Burritos are less mess, being rolled and all.
Frema: I can fold my taco.
Luke: They can have just about anything inside and still be a burrito.
They don't necessarily have beans to be a burrito.
But you wouldn't like a bean burrito.
Frema: OK.
Luke: Quiche.
Frema: Can you just answer my original question?
Luke: You wouldn't like quiche.
Frema: Oooh! Or any sort of pot pie.
Luke: But pot pies can be good if made right. They're pretty much stew in a crust.
Frema: But I don't want the crust.
Can I post this conversation on my blog?
Luke: Your mom posts this conversation!
Frema: I'll take that as a yes.

I've Got A Food Attitude

For as long as I can remember, I've always been a picky eater. If a food possesses a smell, texture, or physical appearance that's not to my liking, it's blackballed from my palette and never thought of again. When I was a kid, this posed a lot of problems for my mother, who cooked the majority of our meals, because she often wanted to prepare something that wasn't chicken, spaghetti, tacos, or pizza, and I didn't want to eat anything other than chicken, spaghetti, tacos (on flour tortillas only), or pizza. There were a couple of times where her "You're not leaving until you eat that!" directive meant me sitting at the kitchen table for hours, staring at yellow paint and wooden panels, the antique knick-knacks perched on top of the cabinets, or updated school pictures fastened to the refrigerator because I was too stubborn to take even one bite of her refried beans and she was too stubborn to let a nine-year-old kid break her spirit. One morning she threatened bodily harm if I didn't just EAT THE DAMN SCRAMBLED EGGS, so eat them I did. And then promptly threw up.

We didn't struggle a lot over food after that.

As an adult, I've continued to sustain my body on a limited menu. I still love chicken, spaghetti, tacos (actually, most forms of beef), and pizza and eat 'em at least once a week. I love barbeque ribs and ham and bacon and cheeseburgers and potatoes in any form (read: french fries). I enjoy whole kernel corn, green beans, onions (required for Outback's Bloomin' Onion), sugarsnap peas, cheese, and various types of fruit. Dessert items rock my socks off.

The following foods will only find themselves on my plate if I'm dead:

• Seafood of any kind
• Eggs (Ah, memories)
• Macaroni and cheese (The smell is unlike anything I've ever experienced)
• Macaroni noodles (You know, because of the mac and cheese thing) and other "thick" pasta shapes
• Oatmeal (Tasty to-go bars don't count)
• Sauces with a non-tomato base
• Beans (Unless they're in chili, and even then I pick them out)
• Whole mushrooms (Chopped up on pizza is acceptable)
• Tuna (Except in tuna cassarole)
• Salami
• Burritos
• French toast
• Avocados
• Salad (Because I hate lettuce)
• Sour cream
• Mayonnaise (Except in my spinach dip receipe)
• Custard
• Cranberries
• Cottage cheese
• Tapioca (Thanks for reminding me, Bdogg!)
• Quiche
• Tiramisu
• Any sort of pot pie
• Omelets
• Indian food (Too afraid to try it)
• Most Chinese food (Though I do enjoy orange chicken)
• Most Japanese food (Unless it's beef fried rice, and I still pick out the egg chunks)
• Select meat-and-cheese combinations (Shredded cheese on tacos is delish; sausage-and-cheese croissants inspire my gagging reflex; meats with cheese stuffed inside of them are also gross. Cheese does not make everything better, people!)

I'm sure there are others, and there are a few exceptions, but them's the biggies. Any dishes outside of my love/hate radar are tolerable, I suppose, but why bother with them when I can get my taste on with something I one-hundred-percent enjoy?

My contentedness with not trying anything new never bothered anyone until I started dating, and it didn't bother ME until I started dating Luke. Our relationship has always embraced a liberal dining-out policy, meaning an oil change is reason enough to flock to the nearest Applebee's, so this topic comes up all the time. I usually go for American grill or Italian-style restaurants, while he's interested in trying out the little Thai place across the street from Wal-Mart. If I suggest a place, it's usually to satisfy a specific craving. Outback equals Bloomin' Onion. Ted's Montana Grill (my new favorite place) means a bison cheeseburger and fries. Don Pablo's? Steak quesadillas. (Another instance where I sanction the marriage of meat and cheese.) I'll go anywhere you want, but you can bet your mother's life I'll ask for a burger, ribs, or chicken strips, and that's after I guilt you into ordering the dip.

For Luke's sake, sometimes I want to throw caution to the wind and just try a crab leg already. I know he'd take greater pleasure in our meals out if I took a more open-minded approach towards food. He also gets sick of my wrinkled nose and "Oooh, I don't like that, how can you eat that?" comments every time he takes a bite of something that didn't originate from a cow.

But what if I don't like the crab leg? Am I going to shell out eleven ninety-five for another platter? Stare at my entree forlornly until it's time to pay the bill? My daredevilism could very well come back to bite me in the ass.

This evening, Luke and I are going to the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday. (Twenty-seven, thank you for asking!) It will actually be the culmination of a series of food-centric events held in the honor of my departure from my mother's uterus; the shenanigans started on Sunday, when we went to Ted's for dinner, and tonight Luke's making tacos, after which we'll visit the Factory for their to-die-for cheesecake. (I refused to try cheesecake until college because I thought it was literally a blend of cheese and cake. Like, American cheese. If that's not reason enough to loosen up, the only reason my passion for spinach dip exists is Luke's hankering for it on our first date and my unwillingness to rock the boat.) Our first visit was in December, when I feasted upon their brownie sundae concoction, a miracle because they also have banana cheesecake, and usually when I'm ordering a dessert I always go for the banana option. On that night, though, I could SEE the sigh in Luke's eyes as we considered our options, and I thought, "Oh, what the hell."

Because I subscribe to a strict "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy, I think I want the brownie sundae again. Or the banana. Or maybe I'll ask the Internets for their opinion.

Here is a link to the Factory's menu. While I wish I could say I'll go with the majority vote, I'll probably just do whatever I want. Nonetheless, feel free to de-lurk and offer a suggestion. I promise to think about it really, really hard.

Edited to add: I just re-read this entry and realized I listed my age as twenty-eight years old. I am only twenty-seven. Apparently "counting correctly" isn't on my list of ways to celebrate my birthday.

Romantic Comedy My Ass

A few weeks ago, Luke and I rented The Break-Up. And to my surprise, it was actually about a break-up. Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn played a couple who'd been together for a couple of years, bought a townhouse, and communicated so badly they were ready to call it quits.

The movie sat with me for a couple of days in an uncomfortable sort of way, like I'd just removed my glass from the adjoining wall of my neighbor's bedroom, listening to intimate conversations not meant for a stranger's ear drums. I've always been bothered by couples who argue in public, because those arguments are just that--intimate. They provoke frustrations and anger, assign hurt and blame, raise every doubt you've ever had to the surface. It's a miracle anyone ever makes it to the altar.

Luke and I are married six months today, and I think a lot about what it takes to make a relationship work. Who could blame me? Not a day goes by that somebody isn't breaking up, in Hollywood, at work, even in my own circle of friends. Each pairing starts out in faith, with hope, in love, and yet they allow one of those emotions to die in its sleep.

I think a lot of it is due to laziness, simply because it's so easy to be selfish. I've exnayed walks in the park to catch up on soap operas; frowned upon one of Luke's video game purchases after spending a hundred dollars on new clothes; ditched Victoria's Secret lingerie for the comfortable fabric of an oversized tee shirt. I'll let the entire evening pass in a quiet stew, answer "Nothing" when he asks what's wrong, only to unveil my anger at the exact moment he wants to turn off the lights for bed. I'm often guilty of neglecting and disrespecting the very union I swore to God in front of family and friends I'd put above everything else.

But God understands I'm not perfect, and so does Luke. He sees past my shortcomings in the same way I overlook his (most of the time--I'm still not a fan of the water puddles that form around the bathroom sink after he washes his face). In this first year of marriage, I believe we're learning how to see the forest for the trees, realizing no matter how bad a situation might seem in the moment, it'll only count for a small part of our life together, and each bad spot has to be approached with the confidence that it's going to get better. No more peeking over the fence for greener pastures, no more entertaining the "what ifs." On our wedding day, we promised not to give up on each other, and that means having the guts to answer tough questions, to rise above the monotony of the day-to-day, to cop to all of your hang-ups and admit you can't always be right. I'm sure many people who get married are incompatible from the very beginning but are too proud to admit it until later, while others could've made it but were too intimidated by all the work they'd have to do to fix their problems.

In The Break-Up, I'm not sure what kind of couple Gary and Brooke were, but I know it broke my heart to watch them fight, because their issues were so real, because they never took a step back to examine the big picture. What was probably a good thing ultimately failed because they were each too concerned with proving their point. Which they did.

But at a pretty steep price.

But the very next day, you gave it away.

While driving from Chicago to Merrillville tonight, Luke and I decided to search for the radio station Lost A Sock advertised as already succumbing to the seduction of St. Nick-inspired holiday merriment. Three tracks in, on came Wham!'s "Last Christmas," one of my favorite seasonal songs of all time.

"Maybe I'll add it to my playlist for the "Hello? Is It My Cheesy Love Song CD You're Looking For?" Internet Swap."

"What are you talking about? This isn't a love song."

"Are you kidding me? Anything relating to the loss or celebration of the warm and fuzzies is more than worthy of the coveted ballad label. When I was a kid, I'd keep this song on repeat for hours."

"My condolences to your childhood."

Bringing Stupid Back

After more than a week of soup, spaghetti, and take out, yesterday I decided to prepare an actual meal. "Pork and vegetables" was originally slated for last Monday, and since the main ingredients had already been purchased, pork and vegetables it was.

With a few dishes under my belt, the whole cooking thing is becoming much more enjoyable, thus making it easier to navigate through each step. It took just twenty minutes to cut the potatoes, slice the carrots, and "wedge" the onions, and according to my Pillsbury cookbook, the whole sensuous ensemble would be ready in the same amount of time it would take to recap the AMC episode of the day. Just stick the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat to verify it cooked all the way through, and the triumph of another successful dinner would be mine.

True to Pillsbury's word, the time went off just as Zach and Dixie's murder trial came to fruition. Hurriedly I ran to the stove, eager to show off my mad housewifery skillz to a husband who graciously launders ninety-eight percent of our clothes, and became dismayed to find the face of the meat thermometer glued to the top of the oven. "Oh, well, at least the meat is done!"

"What do you mean, 'At least the meat is done?'" Luke jumped up from his seat on the couch in time to see me extract a now-ruined thermometer from the pork's caboose. "You're not supposed to cook that with the food!"

"But the book said to stick it in the thickest part of the meat!"

"Yes. AFTER it's done cooking!"

"Then why did they include it at the beginning of the directions?"

Luke: Bangs head against wall, wonders if this incident provides sufficient grounds for divorce.

Frema: Doesn't blame him.

In Which I Learn My Hairdresser Is A Racist And My Brain Isn't Worth The Paper My English Degree's Printed On

Or, I'm Not So Sure The Second One Comes Off As Well In Print

Scene 1. The Salon That Must Not Be Named Because I Don't Care to be Sued, Thursday.

After weeks of split ends, Frema chances a second visit to Magda for a simple trim. (There's also about two months and three inches' worth of outgrowth, but Frema will continue to ignorance its existence until her bank account is sufficiently funded to handle emergencies unrelated to car insurance.)

Magda: So, do you live around here?

Frema: Yes. My husband and I like this area so much we'd like to buy a house here. We've even started neighborhood-shopping.

Magda: Well, it's a great place to live, except one thing. The schools in this township are horrible.

Frema: Really? I hadn't heard that.

Magda: Oh, yes. The kids get good grades and all, but there's a lot of blacks.

Frema (eyes widening): Excuse me?

Magda: This area used to be primarily white until about fifteen or twenty years ago, when blacks and Mexicans started moving in.

Frema: Well, that doesn't sound like a good reason not to send my kids here. (Notices shears poised above her tender, Hispanic scalp and chuckles nervously). I'm from Chicago. I actually enjoy diversity.

Magda: Good for you, hon!

Frema: Head explodes.

Scene 2. Frema-Useless Clutter Apartment, Sunday.

After several hours of AMC recaps, the VCR is turned off to reveal a news report about this plane crash.

Broadcaster: Forty-nine people were killed, including a couple that was married only the night before.

Frema: Oh my God, that's horrible!

Broadcaster: Yes, isn't it? In other news, Indianapolis saw more rain than it would've liked this past weekend...

Frema: Well, that was a crappy sēgue.

Luke: What?

Frema: A sēgue. You know, a transition?

Luke: You mean segway.

Frema: No, sēgue, with a long "e" sound. People on the Internet use it when they're going from one topic to another.

Luke: The hell?

Frema: Do I need to spell it out for you? (Spells it out for him.) There is no "way" in that word.

Luke: Starts to laugh while he makes a run for the dictionary. Minutes later, Frema stares in disbelief at the pronounciation key.

Frema: Well, shit, what do you know.

Luke: You really thought there was a long "e"?

Frema: I even said it that way on the phone once. Just last week, in fact.

Luke: Clutches sides, gasps for breath.

Frema: I'm an asshole.

Mr. Wife

Exciting things are happening in the Frema-Useless Clutter household as Luke prepares to go back to work full time and we begin to contemplate a day-to-day schedule that accounts for the two of us plugging away for The Man from eight to five.

While I couldn't be happier about the benefits this will bring to Luke's confidence and our quality of life, I'm also a little nervous, because for the past eleven months, I've enjoyed immensely the benefits of a stay-at-home husband, whose duties have included but not been limited to packing my lunch, cooking my dinner, washing my clothes, and rubbing my feet while I'm sprawled on the couch, one wrist fastened to my forehead in an effort to acurately portray an individual trapped in the throes of corporate agony, the other balancing a bowl of ice cream on her belly while simultaneously grabbing at the VCR remote just out of reach on the coffee table, because forty-five minutes of soap opera folly is the only way to convince me to go towards the light.

What? Isn't every husband's turn-on enabling his wife to watch AMC in her sweatpants while licking melted dairy off her chin?

On Wednesday, major changes to my Paris Hilton way of life are sure to take place. And I'm glad. Since starting my job last summer, I've been struggling with how to make the best use of my time. Working in Rensselaer, I lived a stone's throw from the college and stamped my proverbial time card at 4:30, which meant I could get home in enough time to savor the last twenty minutes of 90210 on SoapNet. Now I have an extra half-hour tacked on to my work day, and with it a half-hour commute involving highways and traffic and alternate routes, and if I leave at 5:00 on the dot, I can expect to walk through the door at 5:30, but sometimes I'll stick around to wrap up some e-mail or tweak the layout of our quarterly client newsletter and suddenly it's 6:15. Then I get home and it's time for bed. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to stimulate my brain, clean the grout in the bathtub, and make the world a better place to live in by explaining to Luke just how it came to be that Erica Kane's thirty-five-year-old abortion procedure produced a healthy baby boy.

Maybe the retiring of Luke's SAHH status is just the motivation I need to re-evaluate my time-management skills. For the first time since he moved here last September we'll have the "normal" schedule I've dreamed of, and I intend to make the most of it. First order of business? Adding some much-needed time to my afternoon. Because my responsibilities aren't directly related to or influenced by production, my boss couldn't care less about how I log my hours, so the plan is to start my work day at 7:30 and leave by 4:30, thus arriving home at 5:00 and having six hours of unadulterated leisure in which to occupy myself as I see fit. Seeing as I normally crawl out of bed at a quarter to seven and am pertetually fifteen minutes late to work, this will prove a bit of a challenge, but I made it on Friday without any problems, and even though this morning wasn't as successful, I was still turning on my computer by 7:45, which is close enough to 7:30, so there you go.

One pitfall I'm noticing already: Getting up an hour earlier means I'm hungry an hour earlier, so for the last two work days I've been eating lunch at 10:30. I'm assuming this is generally frowned upon.

Because Enough With The Damn Shoes Already

I don't know what why, but ever since the wedding, I've had a hard time maintaining any semblance of consistency with this blog. I went from hourly posts in the days leading up to Luke's and my nuptials to semi-weekly paragraphs about whether or not to converse with coworkers when I pee. I love to write here. I want to write here. For some reason, though, it's hard to sit in front of the computer screen and arrange words in a way that best represent what I'm feeling. Thanks for continuing to bear with me.

So it's been one week. A lot has happened in just one week. For example, last Friday the two of us embarked on a three-day, two-night camping trip to Indiana Dunes State Park, part of the state's national lakeshore, with Samantha and Dan, where we hiked, smored, swam, and slept. Well, they slept. That first night I spotted two Daddy Long Legs at the foot of our sleeping bag and thought I would pass out from the fear that one of them would crawl into my mouth if I dared to shut my eyes. The next morning, I woke to find a spider tangled in my blanket. I actually shouted "Eeek!" loud enough to pull a few chuckles from the campers next to our site.

That night, I was so paranoid about letting in more of God's creatures that I refused to leave the tent, even to use the Port-A-Potty twenty feet away. The pain in my bladder was so strong that it thankfully knocked me out into uncomfortable slumber.

(On a side note, while everyone ELSE was snoozing away, I did manage to devour eighty pages of Not Without My Daughter, a paperback my sister likes to make out with every couple of years or so and I'm assuming keeps stashed in her Buick Park Avenue in case she's ever stuck in traffic as a passenger in her own car. I ended up taking the book home and finishing it by Monday night.)

In other "me" happenings, I've been reading a lot again, as evidenced by my devouring a four-hundred-and-twenty page book in the span of two days. I've read all the Christopher Pike books I found at the half-priced bookstore, a Sweet Valley High Christmas special, and on a lighter note, some thoughtful religious debate. Two Mondays ago I delved into another nonfiction piece, Morgan Spurlock's Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America, penned by the guy who digested one month's worth of "McFood" and lived to bring his tale to the big screen. The timing seemed about right, considering my latest attempts at healthy living, and when I checked out the book at the local library, I was feeling pretty confident about all things nuitritional.

Today I'm in the midst of chapter ten and pretty much want to throw up. A delightful excerpt follows:

Beef factories are models of waste-not want-not efficiency. Filthy, disgusting, and disease-ridden, maybe, but terribly efficient. Very little of one of these cows is discarded. Leftover bits and pieces are scooped up, ground together, and fed back to the cows. And then those cows are ground up and fed to you.

Other fun facts about the dangers of current American eating habits:

• By 1996, boys and girls consumed twice as much soda as milk. As of September 2004, nine million American kids between the ages of six and eighteen were obese.
• Obesity-related illnesses will kill around 400,000 Americans this year--almost the same as smoking.
• Diet and obesity have been linked to increased risk for breast, colon, endometrial, esophageal, and kidney cancer.

Read this book. It'll change your life. At the very least, you'll glean new insights into the case of the old woman who won a mega-bucks lawsuit against the Golden Arches by claiming her coffee was too hot. (Turns out it really was!)

Finally, I suppose there's one more piece of news you ought to know about. A piece of news that is about to change our lives. A piece of news that will eventually mean savings and houses and babies and maybe even a new Web site.

Luke has a new job. He starts next Wednesday.

He's not disclosing much detail on his own blog, so I'm going to respect his wishes and keep the jobspeak to a minimum. Know it's a very good job, full time, in his field, with room for advancement, and he actually had TWO positions to choose from because he's just that good. And this opportunity couldn't have come at a better time, as we were literally *thisclose* to charging next month's car insurance renewal to our Visa card.

It's been a long time coming, and he so deserves this. I'm so thankful God thinks we deserve this. Or maybe we don't. Maybe it's like what Lost A Sock said when revealing her own husband's new career move, "When your prayers begin to be answered you know that you must be damn lucky, because there are lots and lots of people with the same prayers and the same work ethic. And you have to keep yourself in check, and go above and beyond your norm to pay it forward, because experiencing good times comes with the responsibility of sharing."

Whether due to grace, grunt work, or chance, we're more than willing to share.

Who Could Ask For Anything More?

Because of my recent raise at work, Luke's and my life has become relatively more comfortable. An extra hundred smackers every two weeks is nothing to sneeze over, and we decided to celebrate with dinner at the Outback on June 30. And Cheeseburger in Paradise on the ninth. And Bahama Breeze on the fourteenth. And Bub's Burgers the next afternoon. And Steak 'n Shake on Sunday night. Plus spontaneous trips to Barnes and Noble and Sephora (more on that next time). And as of yesterday, a Two-Adult Household YMCA membership. When balancing our checkbook last night, I was shocked to realize how much money we'd spent on pretty much nothing (except for the Y, and the Sephora purchase really was a necessity, but I'll get to that another day. One topic at a time, people!)

It was about a year and a half ago that I became more aware of money and the fact that frequent shopping sprees at New York and Company weren't going to pay off my car loan or release me from the thirty-year shackles Sallie Mae has cuffed to my ankles. Luke and I were talking about the future more often, and it suddenly hit me that houses and babies and family vacations all came with a price tag, and I was finally at the stage in my life where I needed to start making the proper financial accommodations. I was working at Saint Joe at the time making under thirty thousand a year, in all honesty a pretty good salary considering rent was under three hundred a month and my loans were content earning interest in the Land of Deferment until I graduated from DePaul. So I continued to live it up, financing a 2005 Chevy Cobalt after last year's (first) car accident and the subsequent totaling of my beloved Cavalier; by the end of my tenure at the college, I still hadn't saved a penny, as there were no match options for retirement-minded employees under twenty-five and I wasn't confident enough to select funds for a Roth IRA.

Moving to Indianapolis proved to be the push I needed to shape up my finances--a little. For one thing, my rent was almost three times higher and the cable bill jumped up a whopping twenty bucks. For the good of my grocery bill, I canceled the latter at the end of the trial run and learned a good lesson about separating needs from wants. I finally opened up a 401(k). Things were a little tight, but by that time Luke and I had agreed to live together in sin and assumed we'd experience only a couple of months of downtime until he secured full-time work in the city. Once he landed his job, we said, life would finally begin.

(That rumble in the sky you just heard was God laughing his @$$ off.)

September is fast approaching, and with it comes Luke's one-year anniversary of quitting his job at the Rensselaer Republican to come and be with me. With it I'm reminded of how much Luke and I have learned about ourselves, our relationship, and our heart's desire. It's a fascinating process, to whittle away the material fluff and figure out what you really need to make it in this world. We didn't talk about it on the Internet, but at the beginning of the year, Luke interviewed for a reporting position with a small weekly paper on the outskirts of Indianapolis. Because we'd learned how to live on my income from the lab and occasional checks from his temping gigs, we knew any job he accepted would make a huge impact on our lives. We'd bank all of his checks to cover a twenty-percent down payment on a house. Replace his '93 Lumina with a car that featured a fully functioning driver's-side door. Baby-make to our heart's content. I was barefoot and pregnant and living in a two-story brownstone before he was even offered the job.

But then he was offered the job, with a starting salary so low you'd think THEY thought he'd mistaken them for McDonald's. Factor in an hour round-trip commute on a car already on its last legs for a position he wasn't crazy about to begin with, and we found ourselves questioning just how badly we needed that money.

Luke thought about taking it. I could see it in his eyes that he was restless, that he hated temping, that he wanted to feel useful, even though I felt like I was the one taking advantage of him and his willingness to cook and launder and run errands in addition to conducting a job search, an involved activity in and of itself. In the end, though, he didn't, and every time we get down about not having a house and not being as ready for kids as we thought we were, I remember that our current situation is not a result of Luke's inability to find a job. Rather, it stems from a passionate belief that we don't have to settle for someone else's estimate of our self worth. It's OK to say thanks but no thanks, to set our standards high and hold out until they're met, because life is about more than driving a nice car and living in the suburbs and being debt-free. It's about being able to sleep at night knowing you made choices that honor your dignity as a human being. We wanted that money to enrich our life, but we didn't need it. We needed a roof over our heads, adequate health insurance, retirement and medical savings accounts (nothing screams "I love you" like "Please take care of Mommy and Daddy because we're old and sick and broke"), and one car that doesn't require major repair; we needed to get married to seal our commitment and take care of each other the way God intended. With a little planning and a lot of grace, we made all of those things happen. When Luke received his Anthem card in the mail last month after going ten months without any coverage at all, I felt like the last pieces of our foundation were finally cemented into place. We have nice clothes and good food and a little bit of savings and the means to get into better physical health. We have our family. Most importantly, we have each other, and I truly am so thankful to share each day of my life with this man I can at long last call my husband. Everything else will come in good time.

Meanwhile, if we choose to honor our dignity every once and a while with a Bloomin' Onion, ain't nothin' wrong with that. What do you think the insurance is for?

In Which God Swaps My Dreams For A Baby With Free Quesadillas And I Accept With Open Arms

Things Frema Has Done Today

1. Splashed around in the pool
2. Enjoyed a refreshing walk at the nearby park
3. Caught up on three episodes of AMC
4. Indulged in a complimentary lunch from Don Pablo's that actually started out as a complimentary dinner

Yeah, you read that right. Yesterday Luke and I decided to have a gloriously greasy "last-hurrah" meal out on the town in order to celebrate having the necessary funds to pop for a joint membership at the local YMCA, which we haven't done yet but will on Monday, but yesterday was when we had our tour and saw the plethora of fitness classes and machines available and there was much excitement about getting back into shape so I could stop crying about how much fuller my face looks in the picture I took for my EOM bio. I mean, we. Whatever.

Anyway, Don Pablo's. Because Luke loves Mexican food and I knew some chains offer spinach dip as cup or bowl options, and it wouldn't really count as an appetizer because cups only cost $3.79.

We arrived at the restaurant around seven and knew to expect a wait. So we sat on one of the benches near the entrance and watched hungry people harass the poor hostess, one of whom would approach her every six minutes to peer over her shoulder, showering her with man breath and spittle, to ask "How's Cal lookin'?" in such a gruff tone of voice you knew he had to be a smoker. The third time that happened took place directly before she announced our table was ready, and we took great pleasure in tossing back possible answers on behalf of the poor hostess, answers like, "Cal's lookin' to get a foot up his @$$ if he doesn't step out of my happy place!" It took all my restraint not to high-five Luke as we were seated in a booth on the outskirts of the dining area.

Two eventful things happened during the course of the evening. The first was that we got a free dinner as a result of the waitress's perception that we waited too long for our food, which, it wasn't that long, seeing as it was Friday and all, but we're not the type of people to squash an opportunity for a fellow human being to pay it forward. (Or turn down a free thirty-dollar meal.)The second was when, in all the excitement and possibly Luke's irritation that he didn't order that margarita after all, he stepped on the heel of my flip-flop and broke the strap. That's three dollars my mother will never see again. We were able to temporarily repair them with medical tape obtained from my car's first aid kit. (I knew it was good for something!)

He said he was sorry, but he didn't help his case any by admitting to his hatred for the damn things, so the jury's still out. I told him a trip to Payless may be the only way to make things right.

Apparently our good karma is sticking around for the entire weekend, as we have plans for tonight and tomorrow with friends of ours (OK, Luke's friends, but I'm working it!) to do things. In the same city we live in. That don't involve the highway or toll fees. This is the life.

In other words, I'm feeling much better.

All Talk

Because after the big ole stink I made about wanting to wait to start our family, I thought I was pregnant this week. I was crampy. Gassy (and there's been no spinach dip in almost a month!). I've gone to bed the last couple of nights with painful headaches, and there have been fleeting signs of nausea, and there was that one time last month....

I thought I was pregnant and I was excited.

So we bought another pee stick, despite Aunt Flo's visit two weeks ago and the fact that I have a very recent negative already under my belt. This one produced a second negative result, which reduced me to crying just like the baby we don't have.

Luckily, Luke knew immediately how to remedy the situation:

"Want some ice cream?"

Proof enough he's the smartest man in the world.

Thirty Days in the Marital Office

During the first weeks following Luke's and my wedding, I felt like a fraud thinking of us as husband and wife; our marriage was too new, too innocent, to be valid. Just like Jello has to sit in the fridge for a few hours before it'll assume its permanent shape, so must our relationship undergo the same process.

While I wait for time to mold our union into something less liquid-y, I think a lot about what it means to be a good wife. As a person, I thought my scorecard was pretty good: close family and friends, good job, nice car, strong belief in God, desire to make babies and improve the state of the universe. As a girlfriend, well, I patted myself on the back for that, too, taking pride in my salary for sustaining our livelihood and my unconventional attitude for letting it happen. I thought bringing home the bacon meant I was an equal contributor to our household. It was as if Ward Cleaver had staked his claim on the new millenium.

Since we've been married, I've been reading a lot of books, including one called Lies at the Altar: The Truth About Great Marriages, written by Oprah's new Dr. Phil, Robin Smith. The book uses a financial checks and balances metaphor to drive home the idea that just like a savings account, a marriage won't survive if you withdraw more than you deposit. It then challenged readers to transcribe one week's worth of their marital credit history.

My deposit? "Stayed up late to view wedding photos." Cuz, you know, I'm the breadwinner and need my beauty sleep. But even that doesn't really count, because a credit is described as something one spouse does for the other without complaint, and there may have been a "But I'm so tiiiiired" whine involved.

My withdrawals? "Didn't cook dinner." "Didn't do laundry." "Asked Luke to run boxes over to Goodwill." "Asked Luke to run to the post office for stamps." "Asked Luke for a foot massage."

Looks like Fifth Third isn't the only one who gets to harp on my @$$ for insufficient funds.

I think about how lucky I am to have Luke in my life and it hurts to breathe. Every morning he gets up to pack up my lunch. He begins his e-mails with "Hi, sweetie," and ends them with "I hope you're having a great day." He'll make a Wal-Mart run at 11:30 on a Thursday night because I forgot to buy contact solution on my way home from work. He never complains that the only dishes I make involve spinach and cheese, and when we go to sleep, he holds me as close as I'll allow, which usually isn't much, as my limbs have a mind of their own and need to be free in the event an urgent head scratch or toe stretch is required. He tells me often how proud he is to be my husband, and then I recall responses to simple requests like rubbing his temples to alleviate a headache and I'm embarassed. I can't rattle off the characteristics that comprise the perfect Eve to Luke's Adam, but I know what he's worth, and I fail to make par. My husband deserves better than eye rolls and sighs that imply my "allowing" him play Nintento DS before bed provides sufficient grounds for sainthood.

It's a good thing we'll be together the rest of our lives. I already have a lot to make up for.

An Easter First

I didn't go home.

Originally that was the idea, even though Luke and I hadn't figured out how it was going to work, because this was also the first time we've been together for Easter. Before he moved in, our roles in each other's lives during the holidays were constantly being negotiated. The first year we dated, I was a senior in college, and I remember us saying our good-byes as I prepared to leave town for my week-long Thanksgiving break. There he was, holding me, telling me he loved me, and then suddenly wishing me a wonderful gobble gobble with my folks back home. I remember standing with my arms around his shoulders, trying to blink my tears away before he had a chance to see they even existed. I was hurt because I'd assumed we'd be together, even if only for part of the day. Same thing that winter. It was Christmas Eve morning and I was moping at the kitchen table, trudging through the first Harry Potter and not feeling particularly impressed (anyone else agree that one kinda dragged?) when Luke called to talk about his activities for the next couple of days. Only after my shrill "Aren't we going to SEE each other?" was any kind of game plan established. The early days of a relationship are so hard, when you're with someone but have no real claim on his time. You've made a commitment, but it's delicate, one with lots of love but no track record, one that has yet to prove itself worthy of superseding all others.

As we became more serious it became more important to work our relationship in on major calendar boxes, but it was still difficult, as my roots were in Chicago, and his in Merrillville, a good forty-five minutes away. Plus, I worked for a Catholic college that was very generous with its vacation schedule, which included "soft" holidays like the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Good Friday AND Easter Monday (and I left why exactly?). Luke was a reporter and thus had to be at work more times than not, so while he could get away for an afternoon with his parents, anything more than that wasn't doable. I often left family functions early to see him in Indiana and then drive back to enjoy the last few hours of the day with him at his apartment.

Once he moved in with me, everything changed. Holidays were no longer about fitting into a greater familial whole; rather, it was about re-evaluating whether or not our individual traditions were conducive to the new life we were making for ourselves. This year, we were all gung-ho about making the drive up north for Easter, even though Luke was tired from working nights and I was tired from going to bed at twelve-thirty because he was working nights. By Thursday night, we were both ready to drop and decided it might be better to simply stay put. It's a big step for any couple, to say what you have in each other is all that's necessary for a successful holiday. I'm proud we were brave enough to make it.

But the weekend wasn't family-free. My sister Ryan and her boyfriend, Jason, stopped in on their way to Chicago and slept over to avoid the rain and hail that seemed to remain about ten miles ahead of them. They also brought along some special guests.

Meet Bunny, Whose Official Name Is Sox But Is Only Referred To As Such. Ryan fell in love with him as he was hopping around her apartment but tried to tell my mother, who was afraid of catching Rabies or other stray-animal diseases, that she rescued him from Bloomington's National Wildlife Society. On Friday night she explained that she attempted to pass him off to a local animal shelter but was informed Bunny had been away from his mother too long to survive on his own. She's taken that as her free ticket to indulge him in carrots, lettuce, and Cheerios.

Spades, our second non-human houseguest, is Jason's dog and was actually adopted three days before he was scheduled to be euthanized. As you can tell from this picture, he's a frisky fella, and fond of the biting, but neither Jason nor his wrist seemed to mind. I also feared he might be fond of Sox, but Spades was content munching on the pepperoni slices from our late-night pizza.

Saturday and today passed by in a sort of peaceful blur. There was breakfast at my favorite pancake house, a trip to the zoo, two mediocre movies (the latter redeemed only slightly by the two glasses of wine), a walk on our favorite Indy trail, and an Easter service at a nearby Episcopal church, which laid the foundation for another first: receiving communion outside the perameters of Catholicism. Standing in line waiting to partake, I felt like a virgin all over again, only it wasn't my sexual innocence I was losing. It was something less tangible, less able to be defined as right or wrong. I knew Protestants invited all baptized Christians to take the Eucharist and Catholicism restricted it to those baptized within its church. But what about "away games"? Were Catholics allowed to participate with other churches? And did these rules even apply to me, a heathen who dared to think salvation could exist for a Catholic in the walls of an Anglican church? Was my soul clean enough to receive the host at all?

The closer we got to the altar, the harder it was to keep my legs from shaking. But I couldn't turn back. I can't explain it any better except to say this was the only way to validate my recent choices and revelations regarding spirituality. How could I say all denominations were equal in the eyes of God but refuse an invitation to his table because I was afraid of being chastized by a religion I didn't fully embrace?

I'm glad I did it. I cried from the minute I left the altar to the moment my knees bent to pray, but I'm still glad. It freed me in a way my Idiots' Guide to Christianity never could. For the first time, I was taking my relationship with God into my own hands.

I may not have gone home, but in that moment, home came to me.

They Don't Cover This In Pre-Marital Counseling

I don't know what Luke and I were thinking, dedicating so much time to piddly matters like our family's religion when there were clearly deeper, more life-altering subjects bubbling just below the surface. I discovered this last night, while perusing through our DJ's song list and realizing my future husband was serious when he said there would be no "U Can't Touch This" at our wedding reception.

Before we even started dating, we knew our musical tastes weren't a hundred percent compatible. He liked They Might Be Giants and Beth Orton, while my CD collection suffered from chronic Boy Bandism--NKOTB, Hi-Five, N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees; you know, the essentials--with recurring bouts of Cheesy Pop and Early Nineties Rap, the kind of rap my sixth-grade friends jammed to while their parents were at work, the kind of rap that earned me a week's grounding when it was found pulsating through my boombox. What can I say? George and Lyn were not big fans of directives like "Let me lick you up and down 'til you say Stop."

Anyway, now that I'm old enough to control the dial on my CD player, I often find myself drawn to stations that highlight tunes from my early years, banned and non-banned alike. And this has naturally influenced the types of songs I consider DJ-friendly. I mean really, people, who wouldn't want to Ride The Train and be Dangerous on the Dance Floor while ingesting large quantities of alcohol and very scrumptious cake?

Apparently Luke, who is of the mindset that our reception should feature mostly contemporary music, even though "My Humps" is the only current song he knows, and THAT is only because I have a passionate love for it that defies all logic, reason, and hatred for the phrase "lovely lady lumps" (though Fergie does deserve props for her mad use of alliteration, and YES, Samantha, that is the same Stacy from Kids, Incorporated). He thinks "The Perculator" is just a coffee attachment, and if that's not good enough reason to sport a paper bag over my head with the words "I Don't Know This Man" when we're out in public, he's actually banned the playing of "YMCA," only the biggest dance staple to feature homosexual, role-playing, culturally diverse men in the UNIVERSE. Next thing you know he'll be telling me that "The Macarena" wasn't a movement at all but in fact a presidential conspiracy to encourage the shocking and gratuitous use of The Elbow. You know, because elbows are needed for the bending of the arm, a motion that plays a critical part in getting one's hands from the head to the hips.

Is there any hope for us? Also, what songs get your feet moving?