Beth's Contradictory Brain

Good Wife and Mom

Reading Sarah's post made me decide to write this.

Nerdstar and I were talking about "life" the other night at 3 a.m. and I said I felt like I hadn't accomplished a damn thing in the past ten years. Then, I thought to myself - well, other than be a good wife. And then she said, well, you've taken good care of me.

With the Army and Iraq and the moves and civilian jobs... it hasn't been easy. Even now we can't predict where her career will take us next. Although, it's looking like she might finally be getting out of the Army in the next few months.

And now - with Pinhead on the way, I finally get to do the one job I've been waiting over eight years to do - be a mom. I can't wait. And I think I'm going to be really good at it. And other than Nerdstar and my Mom, I don't think anybody really knows or understands this.

This Time It's After Death

I tried to see if I'd blogged about this before, but it seems I've neglected to.

Again, a few years ago during one of our trips to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, Nerdstar, my Mom and I were sitting around talking and got to talking about all the pets and when they die. There are several of my childhood pets buried in my parents' back yard - they've been in the same house over 35 years. Because we didn't own a house or back yard at the time, Nerdstar and I got to talking about how we'd probably just cremate the pets and keep them in little urns.

Nerdstar then comes up with this idea of having little "shrines" for the pets with their urns and pictures and such. I laughed and explained that while we might only have three pets now, over the course of our lives we'd probably have many more, and while three "shrines" might not be crazy, any more than that probably would. You should have seen the sad look on her face!

So we kept talking and out of nowhere Nerdstar says, "You're going to cremate me tomorrow?" I just looked at her and deadpanned "Yes. I'm going to kill you and have you cremated tomorrow. What the hell??"

We've joked about that a lot. But again, with her having had three family members die in three years, the topic of death and funerals and such comes up kinda often. It's finally evolved to where I've told her that I'm just going to get one great big urn for her AND all the pets. She loves the pets so much, she won't mind sharing one with them. And it'll be cheaper and easier for me.

(The funny thing is I'm older and more out of shape - there's no way I outlive her!)

Ongoing Jokes

Sometime early in our relationship we were having difficulties and Nerdstar told me: "If you ever want me to leave, will you just give me two weeks notice." So we joked for years about that.

Sometime in the past couple of years we started joking about me just killing her in her sleep, probably by putting her pillow over her face. (It's not as horrible as it sounds!)

One night in the past few months, due to deaths in the family being on her mind, she said she didn't want to die naked. Since we sleep naked that would put a dent in any plans to kill her while she sleeps. So I said, well, I guess if I ever suggest you wear some pajamas to bed you'll know it's not a good thing.

These days I just ask her if I should buy some pajamas when she's being evil.

UPDATE: Looking for something else, I found this in the archives. See, we have been joking about it for a while.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my Nerdstar Dorj Snuggle Bunny Cutie Pie!!

Wow. Ten. Years. That's a long time. It's been a crazy ten years, as you can tell from the post I did about all of our travels and such.

And it sucks a lot to not spend this day together. I'd bitch and moan about how much it sucks that we weren't together today, that we didn't get to go out and eat some great meal somewhere. But I got to thinking about all the other military families out there who go through deployments and crap like this all the time. While I've got a category over there called "military wife" - I don't usually feel like one. You know, that whole DADT bullshit. But days like today really bring home the reality of being a military wife.

I won't make my anniversary post a rant... sigh.

So, here's to my Army Girl :-) I love you and I'm proud of you. Food doesn't taste good without you. I'm not having any fun. There's no point in yelling at the tv with you gone. Having the bed to myself gets old fast. (Well, you know Little Man is happy having your side.) There's no one here to say "bed is great."

We've had a lot of adventures these ten years. I think the next ten will be even better.

10 Years

Thursday is our 10th anniversary. There's too much in those ten years to cover in one long post, so I thought I'd write a couple and see where they lead.

Up first:

Ten Years By Locations

Cities we’ve lived in: Austin, Kansas City, Johnstown, PA, and now DC.

Cities we’ve visited: Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Waco, Lake Charles LA, New Orleans, Biloxi MS, Raleigh, Atlanta, DC, New York, Piscataway NJ, Buffalo, Toronto, Seattle, Tacoma, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Colorado Springs, Chicago, Atlantic City

Military Bases Both of Us: Ft. Hood TX, Camp Zama Japan, Ft. Lewis Washington, Ft. Leavenworth KS, Ft. Belvoir VA.

Military Bases Nerdstar: Mosul Iraq, and somewhere in Kuwait.

Other Nerdstar Travels: Hawaii, Taiwan, China, Utah

We've got a big wall size map of the highways of America and have marked all the road trips we've taken. I love looking at it and seeing where we've been. I actually had to order a new one so we can color coordinate it better because now we're getting into re-driving places we've already been to. We travel together a lot better than we used to, but we'd still kill each other if we ever tried to do the Amazing Race.

Part of all that traveling though is also time we've spent apart. Mostly, but not exclusively due to the Army

16 months when she was deployed to Ft. Lewis and then Iraq.

3 months when she was in Camp Zama.

2 weeks twice she had AT in Hawaii.

Various weekends she spent in Houston with family.

1 week she went to Taiwan for her father's funeral.

This current 5 month stint for Officer Training.

Warning Labels

My Nerdstar should have come with some warning labels. (OK, I'm sure that can be said of any spouse.)

I always joke that if I'd been paying attention on the night we first met, well, things might have turned out differently. I wasn't really planning on keeping her forever, so I wasn't paying attention.

Anyway. Tonight over dinner she tells me about when she was little and would "get distracted" walking home from school and lose her way. Her poor grandma, with traditional Chinese bound feet, would have to come and find her. What distracted her? Puppies, kittens, the candy store, who knows what else. Thirty years later - she's still the same, easily distracted and lost. And when she's "lost" on her way home, most of the time she's been "distracted" by Whole Foods.

Dense

We've got a couple coming over for dinner and probably Wii games this evening, we've been emailing about snacks and such, then my dear Nerdstar comes up with this exchange:

the friend wrote: B likes nuts and I like anything that's
not bolted down.

I forwarded it to nerdstar.

nerdstar: What is bolted down?

me: "not bolted down" = not screwed down to something - or anything that's loose.

nerdstar: What kind of food is that?

at this point I'm laughing and shaking my head in disbelief...

me: are you being dense? it simply means ANY kind of food.... :-)

nerdstar: Yeah, dense.

as always, permission granted to blog this.

Fun

It's always fun when I'm trying to get ahold of Nerdstar and I call her cell phone only to hear it ringing in the house.

Too Much Work

I promised Nerdstar that if I ever kill her it won't be like this.

First of all, I sure as hell couldn't muster the energy to stab her over 200 times. I mean, after the first twenty or thirty I'd be all "fuck this, my arm's tired, aren't you dead yet?"

And I certainly wouldn't be dragging her dead body all over the place. What's that about? (I guess that was in a different version of this news story I read.)

Anyway. She simply asks that I smother her in her sleep.

DISCLAIMER: All posts about Nerdstar are posted with her approval - more or less.

For Syd

Syd's always asking "would you eat this?"

Well, tonight Nerdstar and I had a lovely dinner of spaghetti. I was finished and she had packed up some leftovers for her lunch. I sat down to watch some tv and she came over with a plate with the rest of the spaghetti - with some avocado chunks all over it!! YUCK!

Until she spent some time in Hawaii, she always told me avocados were tasteless and icky. Somehow she rediscovered them in Hawaii and now eats them on weird stuff, like spaghetti and scrambled eggs. Sigh. She was even feeding some to the poor dog last night. He would only eat it in very small slivers.

One Problem or Another

On our very first date, I was stunned at the amount of non sequiturs there were from Nerdstar. Conversation wasn't my top priority, so I let it slide.

Later, but still early in the relationship, I had her get her hearing checked. Her ears are fine, so apparently, like my Father, it's more a question of selective hearing.

Ok, that brings us to dinner tonight where I realized the two phenomenon just might be related.

me: Well, now we're both just going to have to use our work emails.

pause

her: Yeah, like all those meals we had after layoffs.

pause

me: What did I just say?

her: You said uh huh.

me: No, before that.

her: Uh, I don't know.

me: Exactly.

Now, I knew what she was talking about, when we lived in Austin, her and some of the people she worked with at various jobs were always getting laid off. There was a great Mexican restaurant with even better margaritas.

I also knew that she had mis-heard email for meals - because her brain is always thinking about food.

So what could have appeared to be a non sequitur was really just a case of bad hearing.

9000 Years

Ok, so it's only been 9 years - but we both swear it feels like 9000. Is that a good thing?

Today is our 9th anniversary and we're headed out to a nice dinner at Les Halles. We figure traffic and such shouldn't be too bad on a Wednesday night. We both kinda need new rings since our fingers have gotten fatter over the years. Maybe we'll finally pick something this weekend. I'm sentimental and hate to change mine. She still just wants a simple gold band. Maybe we'll look into sizing the ones we have.

So... 9 years. We still joke about and miss our days and nights in my little "ghetto" apartment back in Austin. The tough nights her cute butt hung over the edge of my little twin bed before she was so nice and bought me/us a full sized bed.

We've lived in four cities and I honestly couldn't tell you how many thousands of miles we've driven/traveled in these nine years.

She's made me into a food snob, which has also led to me being fat.

Everything is all her fault - and I think she's become ok with that :-)

It certainly hasn't been an easy nine years. But I do know life wouldn't be the same without my Nerdstar, Dorj, Snuggle Bunny, SnackMaster, Cutie Pie.

Happy Anniversary, Baby!!

Couples Meme

Found over at SassyFemme

1. How long have you been together? It will be 9 years the 23rd of this month.

2. Who pursued who? I guess I'd have to say I pursued her - I made her drive from Houston to Austin to "come and see me."

3. Do you wear any type of wedding/commitment ring? We've both had rings for a long time now, but we need new ones due to fingers getting fatter - just haven't found a cool jeweler yet. It's harder for her to wear hers being in the Army. I feel a little naked when I don't wear mine.

4. What was the hardest thing about learning to live together? Hmmm... I'm really not sure it was hard - maybe it was harder for her.

5. Who takes longer to get ready in the morning? OMG - she takes forever! At least twice as long as me. She tells me it's all about the moisturizing.

6. Do you usually eat breakfast together? Only on weekends.

7. Do you ever share clothes? Yes, and we could share more if I lost a few pounds.

8. Who does most of the cooking? We mostly eat out, but when we do cook we both cook, or I supervise and give instructions and she cooks.

9. Who usually takes out the trash? Nerdstar

10. If you have pets who usually does litter box or poop patrol? Nerdstar

11. Which one of you is more likely to answer the phone when it rings? We only have our cellphones, no landline.

12. Who's in charge of the remote if you're watching TV together? I am, but I try to share sometimes. But I tend to land on C-Span on the weekends, and she lands on VH1.

13. Who usually drives when you go out together? She prefers that I do, especially if it's dark, but it's probably close to 50/50. Although, we've found (the hard way) that when we're using the Garmin, it's better if she drives and I navigate.

14. Which one of you takes care of spiders and bugs that get into the house? I think that's pretty shared.

15. Facing the bed, who sleeps on which side? I'm on the right, she's on the left. I'm closer to the bathroom, but also get ran over by our boy cat more when he jumps on the bed.

16. Who usually checks the (postal) mailbox? Whoever gets home from work earliest that day.

17. If something breaks or goes wrong in the house, which one of you is more likely to either fix it or call someone to fix it? I pretty much fix everything - my girl's not so handy.

18. Who is generally the neater of you? Me, she's a total slob.

19. Who handles the checkbook/pays the bills? I do. We handle money completely different from each other - it's an issue sometimes.

20. What was your last fight/disagreement about? Me bugging her about getting offline and getting things done.

21. When you slow dance together, who leads? She can't dance at all, so we never have.

22. What do you love the most about your other half? Her cute little butt. Her love for family and pets. How she works hard to take care of me. Her absolute, undying, consistent love of food.

I'm never sure her answers would match mine.

Happy Birthday!!

To my Nerdstar!! It's kinda sucky having a birthday while dealing with death, but that's how life is sometimes.

Here's to more belly rubs, good food, fun trips, and NST this year!!

Happy Anniversary Baby!!

8 years. 8 very full years. I have no idea where I'd be, or what I'd be doing without my Nerdstar. Other than the snuggles, I'd say all of our travels have been the highlights of the past 8 years.

Here's to an even better 8 more years!! I love you - even if it's all your fault.

Sighs of Relief

It's a beautiful weekend and the packing is going along pretty well. With Nerdstar gone until Tuesday night, I've got plenty of time.

I don't know if she'll totally agree or not, but I think Nerdstar and I are both glad for a little time apart. Five days will be a longer break than I'd like, but...

With all the shit of the past two or three weeks it's been hard on "us". The upside is that we had a couple of really good conversations about everything. Not only have the past few weeks been tough, but I think the past four years have been tough. Tough circumstances for a relationship. Her year and a half gone with the Army to Ft. Lewis/Iraq, the moves to Kansas City, PA and now DC. My times of extended unemployment. What I think came out is that we have totally different perspectives and takes on the past four years, each blaming the other for different things. I hope we're starting to see each other's side a little better.

As always, I'm optimistic about the future. Things look really good for getting the job I want at the hospital. Hopefully we'll finish up the final peer interview this coming week and it goes well so we can schedule when I start orientation. My finally working again will go miles in relieving a lot of stress.

As soon as I find the cord for the camera to the computer I'm going to try to start posting more pics.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

To my cutest Nerdstar!!! And happy anniversary to Ramen dog - we've had him five years now!

We had really beautiful weather today! We took the motorcycle out for a spin. Then we got some steaks and stuffed mushrooms and apple pie and I cooked my girl a decent dinner. Can't ask for too much more.

Not Even Close

Nerdstar should have a blog called "Groceries - A Love Story"!

I don't know anyone else who not only fills a big suitcase full of groceries when flying back from Houston, but also mails two decent sized boxes back home as well. No, there's not anything close to resembling an ethnic grocery store around here, but still...

When I told her that I'm pretty sure she loves groceries more than me, her reply was "Well, I've know groceries longer." WTF? It's not even close.

That's my girl.

You should see her face light up when we walk into a really good grocery store. Or how I have to drag her out of even the lamest grocery store anytime we go shopping.

Happy Valentine's Day

To My Cutie Pie Snuggle Bunny Nerdstar!!

I love you! We'll get our dream life eventually!

East Meets West

Breakfast at our house this mourning...

I had the typical scrambled eggs, toast and bacon.

Nerdstar had a package of Ramen into which she added an egg and a little bacon, and a side dish of some sushi she picked up the other day.

I should have taken pics!

Nice

It's so very nice having a stay at home wife! It's a little strange to be the one getting up and going off to work while Nerdstar gets to stay home, it was just the oposite for so long. But I must say I'm kinda enjoying it, maybe even more than Nerdstar is! I think her favorite part is getting to go grocery shopping almost every day of the week.

So I just want to tell her I think she's a great wife doing a great job!

My girlfriend is so gay

From our morning IM:

i have a dream.....
where all men and women, gay or straight, bi or tri sexual
can get together, have beer and chicken wings over porn

and after that, i go to bed with the gf, on our flying bed

because we are islands in the stream, how can we be wrong

sail away with me, to another world

where we rely on each other, uh-huh

from one lover to another, uh-huh!

Bleh

Nerdstar made it to Houston today. Tomorrow they'll spend getting everything ready for the funeral on Saturday. Then she'll have a few days to spend with Grandpa before heading back to Japan on Wednesday.

It's frustrating not being there with her. But her family just really wouldn't want me there. And this just isn't one of those situations where you make waves and make points about things. It just seems wrong that she's going through such an important event in her life, and I feel like I'm only peripherally involved.

Not much else going on other than that. I'm ready for her to be home. Mostly because it sucks having to do everything by myself. As I've said before, I could never be a single mother. It almost takes more energy than I have these days to come home from work at feed the pets and walk the dog and cook some dinner. The only good thing is that at least there's no time table to deal with. I do it all whenever I get my butt up to do it.

Well, ok, and I really miss snuggle time!

Underpaid

Nerdstar and I have a running joke (that's true but funny) that I'm her spare brain. Well, I'm usually her own personal entertainment, too. And as such, I'm highly underpaid.

When she finally decided she was serious about wanting to go to Japan, I told her that I wouldn't tell her she couldn't go, but that I'd rather she didn't. I really didn't want to spend three + months by myself here in the boring Midwest. I told her that the chances were good she wouldn't even enjoy being there enough to justify this additional time apart, after we've already had so much. She thought it would be a good job opportunity, and that the extra money she'd be earning would be worth it to help us move.

Well, I was more right than I wanted to be. And she didn't even write half of what's been bad about her two weeks there so far.

And She's Off

Well, I dropped Nerdstar off at the airport this morning. I think she has what all she needs, but I wouldn't be surprised if she forgot something.

I can't say the time we had right before she left was great. She got in Thursday night and we had a decent dinner, got a few things done and crashed. I knew she had some things to get done yesterday, including all of her packing. But in typical Nerdstar fashion, it took four hours to do things on post that I had hoped would only take an hour. Then it took her about eight hours to get organized and packed. The only good thing about that was I got some organizing and cleaning done at the same time. There was going to be some sort of get together with some of her co-workers last night, but only one guy showed. It was cool to talk with him and all, but I think I'd prefer a nice romantic dinner the last night together before 105 days apart. After dinner it was more packing and such.

By the time we finally got to bed about midnight I was a little frustrated. I told her it'd be nice to have the kind of girlfriend who'd have planned ahead and planned something even a little special. In some ways that's unfair of me. We both know she's not the "plan something special" type, that's generally more my role. I think somewhere along the way I got tired of that role.

We didn't exactly fight, but just had one of our hard to have conversations. She explained how she's just having a hard time since we moved here. I don't know. I've dealt with depression and such enough to know that changing location doesn't usually change my brain.

So, it's six weeks until I fly over and visit. I don't think we'll get much time on the phone, but we're hoping to use the Gmail chat a lot. It's 14 hours later there, and that might work out so that when I'm getting home from work, she's at work in the morning and hopefully can be online. We'll have a better idea of things in about 48 hours. She doesn't even know anything about the barracks she'll be staying in - other than it's between the chow hall and the PX - which makes her happy!

Easier

Other than the unknown end result of Nerdstar being gone for 105 days, I think it's going to be easier not having her around this time. Mostly, it'll be a lot less stressful because I don't have to worry 24/7 about her getting blown up. That alone will make a huge difference. But I can already tell, having her in Houston these few days, that having a job is also going to make her being gone a lot easier mentally and emotionally. Over time I'll even get the house clean and organized.

Maybe it'll be good to feel both productive and independent. We'll see.

Bleh

I've generally refrained from writing about problems between Nerdstar and I. There are lots of reasons why. Sometimes it just seems unfair to her to write about it, sometimes it seems like it would take too much explanation, sometimes I don't want to admit things aren't all rosey. You know, stuff like that.

We had our 8th anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Neither of us even bothered to blog about it. Because we dislike life here in the Midwest so much, it's hard to find places where we enjoy going out to celebrate things like birthdays and anniversaries.

But while life in the Midwest does seem to be sucking the life out of us, I'm not as convinced as Nerdstar that it explains most of our problems.

We've had tons of conversations about trust and secrets and such since her viasco with her roommie in Iraq. Unfortunately, the whole mess is still an issue.

For me, I find I often come back to the theme of is good good enough? Yes, we live together well, we have fun, travel, enjoy hanging out. But I often feel there's a deeper level we're missing.

I know there for a while I found myself feeling trapt, through doings all my own. After I quit my job in Austin while Nerdstar was in Iraq, I never would have guessed it would be so hard to find another one. So I ended up being home alone a lot, depending on Nerdstar's income. There were times I think I would have left her if I'd had the means. After we moved up here I finally got determined to become more self sufficient. I'm not there yet, but closer.

I'm 38 years old and life just isn't as long as it should be. It's not that I think there's someone else out there. Or even that I think life would be better without her. It's just a re-occuring theme of wishing this relationship was better than it is.

I'm not sure I'm saying much that makes sense, or even what I wanted to say. But since I don't have anyone around to talk things over with, I figure I might as well put it out here.

Hey Baby

I just want to say how wonderful my Nerdstar has been in my "going back to work" phase. I must admit I've been quite the wuss. I come home stressed about this and that, and aching all over from having to switch from sitting on my butt all day to standing on my feet. And I keep acting like I'm the only one working all day and can't possibly manage to actually clean the house or other such nonsense as well.

And for the record - she actually made banana bread last night that's better than mine. Yummy!!!

Birthday Weekend

Happy Birthday to Nerdstar and I. I really like that our birthdays are a day apart, hers was yesterday, mine is tomorrow. She gets older before I do!

I can't say it was our best birthdays, but it hasn't been too bad. We're pretty determined to not spend our next birthdays in KC.

Friday night I came home from work and just couldn't stay awake. So it was a pretty dull evening. Saturday we went and had a good breakfast, then spent the day tooling around a lot of different stores and not spending money. We keep looking at lcd/plasma tvs and speakers for the iPod, but just can't spend the $$.

I kinda dropped the ball this year and didn't get Nerdstar any cool gifts. (I did get her a great t-shirt for Valentine's day - and our anniversary is next month.) But I did know just where to take her for dinner. So we had a nice dinner out.

Today we had to do laundry, but that was ok. Then we went to one of my favorite restaurants and then to Cheesecake Factory to get some cheesecake to bring home. Then we tried our luck at the casino - but had only bad luck. Oh well.

Like Nerdstar says, it's good enough that we're together and healthy!!

Huh?

I'm sure this won't seem funny to anyone but Nerdstar and I, but oh well. It's my blog...

Last night I was asking Nerdstar if she thought I'd make a better lawyer or therapist. (Don't ask.) She said lawyer and we talked about why.

Then I said, "Well, but the law is all about loopholes."

She said, "It's all about nipples??"

Me, "Yes, it's all about nipples!"

I won't bore you with the talk of nipples that then took place.

I can never imagine what kind of brain she has that comes up with things like that.

Impressed

You've got to go read Nerdstar's account of her first bike race.

I didn't actually see the crash, my view was obstructed by the slight hills. I just knew she came out from the area pushing the bike. I thought maybe the chain had come off or something and expected her to cut across the course area and call it a day. But she kept going, mostly pushing the bike. About ten minutes later she made it to the part of the course where I could clearly see her and the bike and saw that the handle bars were all askew. Yikes. That's when I knew she had crashed. Some guy finally helped her get the handle bars straight and she finishd her first lap. I think the other riders were on their third lap.

Again, thinking she'd at least finished one lap of the course, she'd call it a day. Nope. She half rode, half walked the course for a second lap and made it to the finish line.

I don't think I've ever been more proud. I would have probably cried AND quit after the crash.

I joked that she got more injured in the first five minutes of her first bike race than she did her entire year tour of Iraq. I also told her if she wanted to take up cross country running, there were races that didn't include running with a bike the whole way.

Not to mention, adding a bump to her already big head - well, that just seems redundant!

$$

Now that it appears my financial situation is changing, let’s see if I can manage to write about some things I’ve been reluctant to write about. It seems it’s easier to write about sex than money.

It’s been 22 months since I quit my last job. Ten months of that Nerdstar was in Iraq. A month or so on the road. Then the holidays. Then the move seven months after her arrival back in the states. Did I look for a job during any of that time. Yes. Vigorously? No. The time Nerdstar was in Iraq was harder on me than I thought it should have been, but that’s how it was. Then there was the uncertainty before the move.

Do I feel I have to make excuses for 22 months of being unemployed? Sometimes. I know Nerdstar’s sister and one of her friends from college feel I’m taking advantage of her. I feel I stood by her through some damn hard times.

But it’s been hard. For both of us I’m sure. (Nerdstar has her own blog if she cares to weigh in.)

We’ve also talked a couple of times about if things would be different if: 1. she was a man, 2. if we were married and/or 3. if we had kids. I think it would have, but how I can’t articulate.

We’re not into gender roles and all the associated issues. But I still end up feeling guilty for not holding up my end of this partnership financially. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t feel that way if I were straight.

Before she went to Iraq, when we both went through times of employment and unemployment, we split most things 50/50. The exception being food bills – my girl eats at least twice as much as I do. When she was being deployed, we consolidated everything to make it easy to pay all the bills, and “just in case.” I used up my savings and such paying “my” bills as long as I could.

Now, as I mentioned in the last post, I joke with Nerdstar about being her indentured servant. Like I’m somehow responsible to pay her back for the past 22 months. But will I really feel any less bothered by the whole thing a year from now? I guess I hope so.

Mood Killer

I've often written that Nerdstar loves food. I've even confessed that sometimes I think she at least thinks about food a lot more than she thinks about me.

Well, last night we finally get into bed and I'm starting to make out with my girl and trying to make her feel good when she says, out loud, "chicken pot pie". HUH??

Now, my girl isn't one to "talk" during sex, and I sometimes wonder what's going through her mind. I'll wonder no more!

Picking Anniversaries

In light of Weese's anniversary post, Suburban Lesbian was prompted to write about how gay couples choose an anniversary date - you know, since we don't really have wedding dates to go by.

Because it really was our first date, that ended up lasting the whole weekend, that kicked things off, we ended up going with that date for our anniversary. If gay marriage is ever fully legal in this country, I figure we'd do the official ceremony on the same date, to keep things simple. Fortunately, it's in late April, a nice time of year.

In the comments someone stated that straight couples who live together for several years before getting married have a hard time answering how long they've been together - from the dating date, moving in date, wedding day date. Most couples I know say something along the lines of we've been together X years and married X years.

Bleh

We had a pretty quiet weekend. We thought it would be fun to go watch UT men's baseball play KU. Tickets were only $6 each, and it was just about an hour drive. It was fun. Something to do. And there was funnel cake involved.

I think it's safe to say that Nerdstar and I really aren't enjoying living here. We both feel like aliens or we're in the Twilight Zone. And it's just hard to express and explain why, because there's not necessarily anything concrete behind the feelings.

And we're having problems between us. Sometimes I'd like to write more about them here, but it just seems like it'd be too hard to really write about all the intricate details. There's just no way to explain it all. But moving up here hasn't turned out to be the great new beginning we were looking forward to. Was it a mistake to take the job up here? I don't think so. We just couldn't have imagined how weird we'd feel living up here. Unfortunately, that and other things are making us feel further apart instead of closer together. Is it just a long rough patch to get thru? Maybe. Hopefully.

Six Years

This weekend is our six year anniversary. Wow. I don't think either of us thought we'd make it this long. It's been a hard six years in a lot of ways, but we laugh a lot, and that makes things better.

We're in a new phase in our relationship and our lives, one I think is going to be a hell of a lot better than the previous ones.

I love you, Baby. You're my Nerdstar Snackwell. You're my heatmachine snuggle bunny. Thanks for hanging in there with me. I really would be lost without you.

Finally

I finally understand, with great clarity, why it is Nerdstar keeps me around. I am her second brain. Her original one gave out some time ago, so it's a good thing she found mine in time.

Humor

I think the hardest thing to convey thru my blog is my sense of humor. And that's also true of Nerdstar. I've long thought that it would be hysterical if we could tape some of our bedtime conversations and link them on here. Maybe once we get settled in I'll look into podcasting and see if it's easy enough for us to manage.

I also think it's a shame neither of us is brave enough to try an open mic night or something similar. I've been composing a short joke set in my head.

In the meantime, you can catch the jist of a couple of things we found funny on her site today. The first one came up on evening she went to play poker with me and we were talking with another lesbian couple I've gotten to know. What was funny to me was that the first couple of times Nerdstar went to hang out with my while I play poker she was pretty quiet and not very social. Boy, when she opens up, she really opens up! That's one of the things I love about her, I literally never know what she's going to say next!

Lucky

Is there anything harder in life than relationships? And yet, they're really the only thing in life that matters. Nerdstar and I are almost six years into this, and yet it never seems that long, except when it seems like it's been forever. There were a lot of nights when she was in Iraq I imagined life without her. Hopefully I'll never know the reality of it.

Thank you for writing this.

Bad Memory

My girl has such a bad memory I could tell her what I got her for Christmas and she'd still be surprised when she opened it Christmas day!

She says it's good to have a bad memory - it makes every time feel like the first time :-)

The Rest of the Story

Nerdstar wrote this Food Entry.

I'm here to tell the rest of the story. Little did I know when we hung up the phone after her asking what sounded good for dinner, just how much food she'd bring home! She left out the steamed veggie dumplings and a rice cake in addition to the onion pie. And that's just from CoCo's. From Rudy's there was the delicious brisket, but there was also smoked sausage, bread, creamed corn, and potato salad and root beers.

Now, out of all of that I ate a two little brisket sandwiches, 1/3 of the onion pie, two bites of sausage and one of the root beers. The rest was all hers!! Hence, "pig!" She might not have eaten it all in one sitting, but she ate most of it before going to bed.

We've been watching Invader Zim - she's totally Gir when it comes to food! I wish I could post the couple of clips of Gir, like when the pizza delivery guy shows up and Gir says "I Love You."

I swear she loves food more than me.

Shared Hobbies

I've written a couple of entries on relationships, but this post by another Beth is right on.

But I’m also not sure why you’d want to be with someone who didn’t like to do any of the things you like to do. I’m not sure why you’d want to date someone active and outdoorsy if you just wanted to sit on the couch and watch television. I’m not sure why people who love books marry people who don’t read; I don’t get why there is even a phenomenon of men who love the outdoors but have wives who won’t camp. What on earth brings these people together in the first place?

Do you and your love share hobbies or use them as time for yourself?

I'm pretty big on shared time and hobbies. That was part of why it was hard for me to get out and do things while Nerdstar was deployed, most things, especially like traveling or going somewhere new, I would rather wait until she was back home to do them with me.

What's The Frequency, Kenneth

No, I'm not that far behind in my news blogging, I thought up the title and post while on the road about two weeks ago, and decided to go with it now.

Yes, I'm going to talk about sex, or rather, I'm going to ask my "old married couple readers" to.

Nerdstar asked how often I like to have sex while we were driving around somewhere and we talked about the factors for both of us that go into whether we have sex or not on any particular night. (I'm not much of a morning sex person - too funky.) It's far too often that we fall into bed at the end of the day and are just too tired. It doesn't always help that Nerdstar can fall asleep within two minutes of her head hitting the pillow. While we both love snuggling, it shouldn't be a substitute for sex.

I have to admit our sex life had gotten routine before she was called up to active duty. So far, since her return, we're not so boring, even if long days on the road weren't very conducive to being in the mood.

As for preferred frequency, hmmm. For me every three or four nights works. I think it'd get routine if it was every night. Nerdstar says every other day would be preferable. Of course, not every night is an hour long love fest, sometimes a good quickie hits the spot.

So... do you have sex as often as you'd like? If not, what contributes to it not happening? Do you have sex as often as you did the first year you were together?

Relationships

Well, she's finally done! We're going to hang out in Seattle again this evening wtih her friend from college. Then tomorrow we drive down I-5 to Sacramento to stay with a friend of ours there.

I've been thinking that it would be really cool if I could persuade all of my regular readers to participate in a discussion on relationships, I know most of you are either married or have been together for years.

During all of our months apart, Nerdstar and I both had lots of time to really think about our relationship, if it's the one we want to have, if we're fully committed to it, and how to make it better. For me it was sort of the idea that well, we're apart for a long period of time, if one of us isn't sure and wants out, this is a convenient time for it. Even after five years together, the answers weren't automatic. There were times I had what I think is close to pre-wedding jitters. The wow, is this really the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, am I certain there isn't someone better, and life sure is a long time.

Nerdstar says she knew from our first weekend together that I was the one for her. I took a little longer to be sure.

What I'd really love is a cross-blog discussion of making life committed relationships work. One thing Nerdstar and I totally lack is role models for this sort of thing.

You can email me your response if you don't have a blog and I can post it here. If you answer on your blog, let me know and I'll post all the links, and comments are always good. Who knows, maybe we'll start a "carnival of relationships".

The first topic I'm curious about is not so much how you knew your love was "the one", but the idea of pre-wedding jitters - or any panic you had when you realized you were committing yourself to them for the rest of your life. Was it easy or hard to make that commitment, was it easier for one of you than the other, is it easy to keep that commitment?

Don't make me list your names and ask your thoughts :-)

Love you like the plague

I got a phone call from Nerdstar early this morning. That was great! They've had a lot of problems with the servers, so we didn't get to have our afternoon chat yesterday. Things are moving along for her return home. I know that in a week our communication will be down to emails and whatever phone calls she can make.

As we were winding down the conversation I asked, "How much do you love me?" She said, "Bunches. Like the plagues in Egypt." Huh?? I cracked up. Then she added, "Like the nuclear bombs over Japan - powerful with lifelong affects." I just about lost it. I said, "Your love is like the plague?" "Yeah."

That's my girl.

Earning It

Once again Nerdstar earns the Nerd part of it.

cinchsack: okay, i have to confess
bethlyn327: ok
cinchsack: do you really want to know this?
bethlyn327: might as well
cinchsack: you are going to roll your eyes
bethlyn327: probably
cinchsack: ok...
cinchsack: i purchased "The Best of Christopher Cross" on Amazon
bethlyn327: omg
cinchsack: "sailing, takes me away from where I always heard it could be...."
bethlyn327: i should disown you for that
bethlyn327: omg
bethlyn327: that's horrible
bethlyn327: i'm going to put it on the blog
bethlyn327: just what a nerd you are
cinchsack: "if you get caught between the moon and new york city...I know it's crazy, but it's true"...
cinchsack: yes, and the best of joan jett and the blackhearts
bethlyn327: at least she's gay
cinchsack: hahahaha
cinchsack: supporting the cause
bethlyn327: that's right
cinchsack: she's not like ellen gay
cinchsack: not funny gay
cinchsack: ellen's not that funny either
cinchsack: i think i could be funnier
cinchsack: but i have stage fright

Interracial Musings

This post is a bunch of thoughts that aren't necessarily well formed, but oh well.

One aspect of my life, and my relationship with Nerdstar, that I haven't written much, if anything really, about is being in an interracial relationship. It's just not something I spend a lot of time thinking about, although it is something I am aware of.

Growing up I dated all kinds of guys. From the valedictorian, the band president, the boy next door, too many blue collar guys, drug dealers, bad boys, church boys. The guy my parents wanted me to marry but really just should have adopted was Hispanic. My freshman year in high school I started it off by "going with" a black guy. You could say looks weren't important to me, or you could say I just wasn't picky. Both would be accurate. Maybe that, along with so many other things, was why I wasn't too surprised when I found myself attracted to another girl just before my senior year.

Anyway. I guess that's just to say I've never limited myself in my dating life based on looks or ethnicity. Because of my close relationship with Joe, the Hispanic guy, and then my brief relationship with a black guy early in my dating life, I knew the inherent problems of interracial relationships, but that's where being naive was really helpful. None of it sank in.

My relationship with Nerdstar is the longest and most serious I've ever been in. I couldn't have known less about Chinese, Taiwanese, or Asian cultures before we met. (She's Chinese, grew up in Taiwan until she was ten and then grew up in Jersey.) It's been fascinating learning about her life, and really, even more so about her grandparents' lives. I have written about how difficult things got and probably will be in the future for her and her family regarding her relationship with me. For this post that is neither here nor there.

What brings all this up, of course, is watching the Olympics. I pay a lot more attention to the teams from China and other Asian countries. The other day the US women's indoor volleyball team was playing China and it was weird (yet way cool) to see a woman on the Chinese team who looks a little like my Nerdstar. It made me totally aware of how few Asian faces there ever are on my tv or movie screen. Being with Nerdstar has literally broadened by perspectives, and it's pretty cool.

Maybe it would seem like a bigger deal if we lived somewhere other than Austin. But it's a very live and let live kind of city where I don't think we ever even get a second glance. I know on our first road trip when we were driving thru the South I told her we should be careful, we'd definitely stand out there. But even that was thankfully uneventful.

We always joke that Nerdstar is a bad Asian because she's bad at math and not driven to rule the world. Although, she tells me on a regular basis that the Chinese will take over the world just by population and immigration soon.

When we have kids, hopefully soon, all of this will become even more interesting. But as this post is long enough, I'll write about that another time.

Awww

I am cracking up. Yep, my Nerdstar can crack me up from about 8000 miles away. Not one to be known for her romantic capabilities, she has totally outdone herself and sent me a cd she burned of songs just for me. Tears and laughter I tell ya. Who even knew some chick named Brigette Romanek covered Love Will Keep Us Together??

I love you, Baby.

5 Years

Wow. Happy Anniversary, Baby! What a crazy five years it's been. From that first night filled with non sequiturs to this current long time apart. It hasn't always been easy, and we haven't had the best of luck, but it's all been better with you.

You're my Nerdstar Snuggle Bunny snacker extraordinaire! You've stuck with me and put up with me and made me laugh and taken care of me.

I love you. Here's to the next five years being much, much better.

Happy anniversary!

Hi again, long time no see, this is nerdstar and I just wanted to say happy anniversary of 5 years to my lovely porn queen, the love of my life, Beth! I don't know what I'd do, or where I'd do it without her! In this world where people are sometimes cruel and just plain weird, she gives me such shelter from all that icky stuff!
Even though I am in Iraq right now, I still am feeling as blushed and "innocent" when I think about her, and cannot wait to get back to her and the kids!
I just wanted her to know that I love her very much, and just wait until I get back home!

Small Sample

It's hard to explain just how much Nerdstar's life is all about food, or how random our conversations can be. This is just a small sample of our IM in the wee hours of the morning:

bethlyn327: i'm so ready for you to be home
cinchsack: I am ready to be home!
bethlyn327: so we can travel around
bethlyn327: Vegas, NYC
cinchsack: yes
bethlyn327: and anywhere else you want
cinchsack: cake town
cinchsack: cheese city
bethlyn327: nerd
cinchsack: heheheh
cinchsack: that would be so nice!
cinchsack: ice cream mountain
cinchsack: pizzaville
bethlyn327: i'm so glad you fantasize about food and not other women!
cinchsack: you should know that by now
cinchsack: you and food
cinchsack: food and you are on the top of my list
cinchsack: of course, you are on the very top
bethlyn327: it'll be a month of nonstop food and sex when you get back
cinchsack: that's right!

Huh?

One of these days I'll find an easy way to record and post a conversation between Nerdstar and I. It would be so revealing. In the meantime, this is a recreation of part of our dinner conversation last night:

me: going on about Anne Rice's new book

her: Speaking of reading, well, this has nothing to do with that, but...

me: huh?

Lucky

At my core I’m a stay home, snuggle, watch movies, snuggle, read, snuggle, take a drive, kinda girl. It was always my goal to find someone and settle down. I never liked going out, meeting people, trying to impress, be impressed. Not enjoying smoking and drinking makes it all harder.

I started “going with” boys in middle school, and never spent more than two weeks without a boyfriend until I met my girlfriend. I’m sure I’ve written before that after she and I finally split up, I didn’t date anyone for at least seven years. There were a couple of one night stands in there somewhere, man did those suck.

Then I discovered the internet and chat rooms. Can you say addict? Yes, I can. I had an 8 to 5 job. I’d come home from work, login, make a quick dinner while chatting, and chat almost all night. A couple of times I was still chatting when my alarm went off to get up and go to work. Can you say sleep deprived? Yes, I can.

I’d spent the seven or so years prior to this having only Christian friends. They were fantastic friends while it lasted. I’d also spent that time very determined to not be gay. It was with fear and trembling I went into my first lesbian chat room. It was also exciting as could be to meet all these smart women and get to know them by their words and wit.

That’s how I met my Nerdstar. (The hookup story is over there – Nerdstar and I.)

(Now to get to what I originally intended to write in this post.)

I can’t say that I ever really, truly expected to find someone to be a homebody with, who would stay with me, put up with me, love me. And honestly, I certainly wouldn’t have thought that Nerdstar was the one when we first got together.

I don’t know how apparent it is on this blog, but I’m a little on the crazy side. I can’t begin to imagine how hard I am to live with. Hell, I get sick of me sometimes. And I don’t think Nerdstar could be any more different from me if she were an alien from a different dimension when it comes to things like emotions and communication and such.

Yet, the best part of yesterday was just talking with her all day. She’s not great at feedback, but she’s the best at not making me feel crazy. There’s nothing like being loved unconditionally. I know I don’t appreciate the full extent of how much she loves me. But I’m learning. I’m also learning that there’s something wrong with me emotionally. I have no idea whatsoever how or when those things will improve. But it’s amazing to know I have someone in my life who’s not looking to leave.

Sometimes it’s scary being 35, being in a relationship for over four years, and thinking, wow, this is it, barring really, really bad things happening in my life, I won’t go thru that whole process of meeting someone new and falling in love and all that “exciting” stuff. I know men talk more about things like that, but I’m sure women feel that way, too.

I’m rambling, but my point is, I’m damn lucky to have my Nerdstar.

Driving Around

Nerdstar had the day off yesterday so we decided to take a drive up to Mt. Rainier. We weren’t able to drive to the top because the road was washed out, but the drive we did get to make was just beautiful. It was a mostly sunny day, the leaves are changing into their fall garb, so driving thru the forest with the sun coming thru the trees was fantastic.

For most of my life I’ve longed to spend some major time in a small cabin by a stream in the mountains, or at least a forest, somewhere. One of my favorite books is The River Why by David James Duncan. Other than having one of the best ever boy meets girl scenes, the main character arranges to live his ideal schedule – composed of fishing about 21 hours a day. It’s all set in this part of the country and it just draws me in.

Nerdstar and I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time driving around this country together. Fortunately, it’s something we both enjoy. It’s such a beautiful country. I’m always so curious about people who choose to live in the different parts of it, what they do for a living, why did they decide to live there in particular. Especially yesterday driving thru the forest and seeing the log cabins. I was so tempted to find someone to talk to about being able to live here.

At the very least, every time we take drives like this one, I’m tempted to find the nearest RV store and just load up the pets and hit the road, finding temp work in whatever city we end up in until we’re ready to move on. But, for now, we just can’t do that.

Family Hell

It's almost 2 a.m. and I'm writing this from Austin. Nope, things didn't go as planned the past couple of days. I tried to get Nerdstar to go to Vegas for a couple of days instead...

About 7 p.m. her uncle pretty much told her I had to leave right then. I tried to get her to just come with me, but she wanted to stay and fight it out with him some more and talk with her grandparents. My girl doesn't cry very easily or very often (unless My Dog Skip is on) but this whole ordeal had her in tears. Worse than that, it made her sick to her stomach and she didn't eat.

Fortunately for me the traffic wasn't too bad and the Cubs/Marlins game on the radio kept me entertained.

She called right as I walked in the door. Apparently, for reasons that neither of us can begin to imagine, her uncle has decided that in spite of over four years of a pretty damn good relationship, it's suddenly become completely unacceptable to her family. Uh, huh?

I'm not too upset at all of this. It's not like I was close to her family or they were ever really nice to me or accepting of me. But Nerdstar is really upset. I told her I don't see how this really changes much - her and her sister and still close (well, close as they've ever been), she can still talk to her grandparents anytime and go visit them when possible, she just won't deal with her uncle and his family anymore. That's not a big loss.

But the point that's hardest to let sink in is that they're not rejecting just me - as they seem to think they are - they're rejecting her. They just can't get it into their heads that this is a real, committed, loving relationship.

Ugh. I think I'm too tired and this is still too surreal to really talk about coherently.

Gay interracial relationship hell

I’ve always been color blind when it comes to the people I date. When I was dating boys in high school, it was a pretty diverse bunch. Black, white, Hispanic, Indian, valedictorian, blue collar, boy next door (literally), band president. Just about the only thing those boys had in common was me. Then my senior year that diversity started to include women. As I get older, I find more and more diverse types of women beautiful.

But my parents also always told me that you don’t marry just one person, you marry their entire family – sometimes unfortunately so.

One of the top three or four issues Nerdstar and I have dealt with from day one is her family. Until I came along, her grandparents were the most important thing in her life. She wants very much to be a good granddaughter and take good care of them.

I’ve mentioned that her grandparents don’t speak English, and I certainly don’t speak Chinese. (I can’t even pronounce the sounds much less learn the words.) Needless to say there’s not a lot of communication between us. The rest of her family speaks English pretty well.

But it’s not really the fact that I’m white and don’t speak Chinese that causes so many problems, it’s the fact that I’m not a man.

Even after over four years together her family pretty much refuses to acknowledge and accept the nature of our relationship. Her grandmother frets all the time about who’s going to take care of Nerdstar when she’s old, how is she ever going to have kids, etc. And I can understand that. I wouldn’t expect my grandparents to really get it if they were that old either. Although, my remaining grandmother seems to really like Nerdstar.

Now that I’ve finally met her sister, things are much improved on that front. It was really hard for her sister to become comfortable with our relationship.

But this weekend things have gotten completely out of control with Nerdstar’s uncle. He’s being all pissy that Ramen and I are here in Houston with Nerdstar before she has to fly back to Ft. Lewis on Sunday. He told Nerdstar Thursday night that she is free to go back to Austin with Ramen and I and then just come down before she has to fly out, or Ramen and I can just leave. It’s not even his house – it’s her grandparents’ house, and they don’t mind that I’m here.

It’s a complete lack of respect not only for me and my relationship with Nerdstar, but also for Nerdstar herself. Even her sister agrees with that. It totally pissed me off and hurt my feelings. I care a lot about her grandparents.

Poor Nerdstar has pretty much always felt like she’s being pulled between her family and me. I’ve learned it’s usually not a battle I’m going to win and had gotten to where I’d just let her come down here for a weekend every so often without me to spend time with them. But now that she’s only on leave for a short amount of time, she’s having to make the most of that time.

She’s supposed to talk with her uncle again tonight and take a stand and tell him to basically shove it up his ass. I’ve also told her this is as much her fault as his for not making it clear years ago that I’m here to stay.

I guess seeing her family with her sister’s new husband also showed the discrepancies. The only difference between him and I is that he’s a man. He’s not Chinese and doesn’t speak the language.

We’ll see how it all pans out over the next couple of days. I offered to go ahead and go back to Austin today or tomorrow, but Nerdstar said no.

Evil Girlfriend Part 928

Yes, it's sad, but true. I have an evil girlfriend. The last thing we said Wednesday night was that she'd call when she got up on Thursday, then she'd go get her new glasses and then head for Austin. Yeah, right. She totally assured me she'd be home by the time I got off from work, and that she'd come by work and get the key. Uh, sure.

I spent all day looking forward to her and Ramen walking thru my office door. Did that ever happen? NO

Then I came home thinking there would at least be a message on the answering maching saying she'd gotten a late start but was on her way. NOPE.

She didn't have a cell phone to call from the road because she'd given it to me for my drive last weekend. That's why it was important that she call before leaving. Sigh.

She finally walked thru the door about ten after 7 - over two hours later than the latest possible time she was to be here.

Nothing new. It's like this every time. That's why she's the evil wench!

The upside is she's going to clean the entire house for me!! It doesn't pay to be evil to me :-) As I sit here surfing all my favorite sites - she's scrubbing the kitchen counters, cleaning the oven, going to mop the floors, then it's on to the bathroom - hehehehe. (She reads this and groans!)

Grandparents

For the second night in a row, it's midnight and I'm awake. I keep thinking eventually I'll get really tired and won't have trouble falling asleep. Maybe, but tonight isn't that night.

I'm not crying right now, I think I'm too tired for it. My poor Nerdstar got word a couple of weeks ago that her grandmother has inoperable stomach cancer. They also found a lump somewhere on her grandfather and tests were/are going to be run for him. She wasn't really too worried until the last couple of days. But it's looking like it could be months to live for both of her grandparents instead of years.

There is nothing more important to Nerdstar in this world than her grandparents. They helped raise her and she's always been close to them and has always wanted to take care of them. So these illnesses couldn't come at a worse time - with her being on active duty. She's going to try talking with her commander and see if there's any way she can come home and take care of them.

I'm so sad for her. We've talked a lot about her grandparents and them dying in the past four years. And I've dreaded nothing more than this. I've always thought that they'd die within a short time of each other. They've been married for 70 years. They're both over 85 years old. Yet, it's absolutely no comfort - or at least very little - that they've lived long, full lives. I'm amazed they have lived such long lives. They were born in China in 1913 and 1916 (I think). They escaped China to Tawain and eventually her family immigrated to America over the past twenty years or so.

I'm also sad because I'll miss them. They don't speak English, and don't always know what to make of my relationship with Nerdstar, and certainly don't understand the way I eat, but I think they are the cutest little old couple.

It's funny. I always think my emotions are very evident in my face. So I was kinda thrown on Monday, when I was pretty sad for all kinds of reasons, to have one of my coworkers say that I must have had a good weekend with Nerdstar because I looked happier this Monday that most others. Uh, nope, but thanks for playing.

Anyway. We can only wait and see what the next few weeks bring.

Life is a bitch, but death is a cruel bastard!

Rebuttal

READ Beth's entry below first!

Hello, this is Nerdstar, aka "Evil Wench", let me just give you my version of the story. Yes, I was late but I had forgotten that Beth did not have the key to the house. I had some pay problems that I needed to take care of at the reserve unit, and it was really important that I touch base with the people who could take care of my problems. I am so terribly sorry that I made Beth wait in the heat!!!!
Dear God, forgive me!!!!
At least my intention is and was never evil!!!

My Evil Girlfriend

Nerdstar made it home safe and sound yesterday afternoon, on time even. She was nice enough to do my laundry while I finished up the work day. (The evil part comes later!) Last night we had dinner at Kirby Lane, a decent restaurant, but not fantastic. She likes the hummus and grape leaves and that sort of thing. I had forgotten why I call her my heat machine, I've never known anyone who put out so much body heat!! In Texas in the summer, that's not a good thing.

Today I was tempted to kill her. I worked a half day today, she had an appointment with a Chinese herbal doctor about her weird skin conditions. The appointment was at 9:30, she had plenty of time to be home by 12:30 so we could go to lunch and be at our hair appointments by 2:30. I snuck out of work early, came home, no Nerdstar. Ok fine, she had fifteen minutes before she was actually late.

Problem one, she has the only house key and it's 100 degrees outside while I'm waiting for her.

Problem two, I don't have access to a phone to call her and find out where the hell she is. She has a terrible habit of wandering off and showing up at least an hour after she's supposed to. It's gotten her in lots of trouble before, it got her in trouble again today. (Here she would inject that she's always in trouble.)

About 1:15 I decide it's possible she's dead somewhere due to a car wreck and I guess I should find a payphone and try to get a hold of her. (She's notorious for not answering her cell phone.)

It's now an hour after she's supposed to be home and I get her on the phone. She was up at the local military post working on some paperwork.

That's nice and fine - except that it's 100 fucking degrees and I'm starving!!! Not to mention I'm livid! I don't have a short fuse, I just have one that's very hard to extinguish once it's lit.

I grab a quick lunch and she finally makes it to the haircut place. We both got really cute, short haircuts. Except with my curls I just end up looking like a twelve year old.

We went to see American Wedding, it was ok. Then we had dinner at Pappadeux.

I've told her she's lucky to get dinner at all - and she'll be even luckier if I don't make her sleep on the sofa. Those are the two worst punishments I can inflict - no food, no snuggles.

Evil Wench is her nickname second only to Nerdstar.

For my Girl

Man, I didn't end up getting to sleep until almost 4 am. So, about 3 am I left my boss a voicemail saying I wouldn't be in today. I slept until about noon and have spent the day straightening up things around the house, watching tv, buying new sheets, you know, those kinds of things. Much better than being at work!

My only comment on this whole Arnold for governor thing - all of the newscasters are having way too much fun imitating his accent!!

Nerdstar thinks that my praise of her was a little too short. So...

Nerdstar is so wonderful. She has the most handsomest of feet. Her dedication to me is rivaled only by her love of the pets and her love for food. She has talents I can't specify on a family friendly website - but trust me, talented is a mild word for my girl. Nerdstar is a snuggle bunny extraordinare! I am so thankful that her "five more minutes" has lasted over four years. Simply put, my life would suck more than bearable if I didn't have my Nerdstar in it!

Sleep

Yawn. Well, I left work at 11 this morning and came home and slept all day - it was very nice! It's tempting to just call in sick again tomorrow. But, I'm sure after more sleep tonight I can make it thru work tomorrow. Two more days and then it's the weekend. I can make it two more days.

I mailed in my application for substitute teaching yesterday - hopefully they'll contact me about orientation this week or next. I think it would help my brain a lot to know I've got an alternative to the job I have now. It might give me the courage to go talk to our office manager about everything. I'm such a complete wuss!!

I don't think I've mentioned lately just how wonderful Nerdstar is. Sometimes it's hard for me because she's not very emotional or always good with expressing how she feels. But I know she loves me very, very much and would do anything for me. More than that though, she puts up with me! Trust me, you have no idea how hard that is! She's not good at helping me make decisions, but she supports me in whatever I want to do - even if it's be a complete lazy bum and quit work and live on her paycheck :-) And as much as I know her being gone is hard on me, it's at least as hard on her - probably harder. She has to be with people she doesn't always like very much 24/7. She has to sleep on a cot with a sleeping bag in very old barracks with no a/c. She knows that the worst is still to come.

Yes, I know this situation isn't permanent, but man it sucks in the meantime.

Home

Traveling is such a mixed bag. I like flying because it makes me feel all grown up. Even better, you can be across the country in a relatively short amount of time. Well, if everything goes according to plan it's a short amount of time! Yesterday, however, it was over 12 hours. Four of which were spent sitting in the Phoenix airport. I got lucky though, I was really hoping that at least one of my flights would be overbooked and I could volunteer to take a later flight and get a travel voucher. Sure enough. Luckily, I got to take a non-stop flight from Phoenix to Austin instead of going thru El Paso, and only got home an hour later. Now, that didn't get me in bed until after midnight, but that extra hour also got me $344 on Southwest Airlines. Very nice.

But that much time in airports and planes just meant way too much time in very close proximity to the general public. And most people are just dull and dim. You knew that already, though, didn't you?

My time in Seattle, Tacoma, Ft. Lewis, etc. was really, really nice and relaxing! It was great to spend carefree time with my girl. Saturday we just hung out, went to the bookstore, drove around the base. We ended up in Gig Harbour for the evening. We looked at all the boats moored there and had a really nice dinner at Spiro's pizza and pasta place.

We talked a lot about "the future." We still don't have any info on how long she's at Ft. Lewis, where she goes next, or when she'll be back home. So much depends not really on how long she's gone, but on if any of this leads to her getting a job as a linguist for the military either active duty or as a civilian doing contract work. The biggest problem with her being active duty is us not being able to live together easily. But if it does lead to a job, then that's what our future plans will be based on. Which will make it all a lot easier! On the other hand, if in six months or a year she's home with no job leads, we're free to do whatever we want.

What's hard is knowing what to base that decision on, especially in this job market. Do we take our chances and move to the Northwest with several thousand in the bank but no job lined up? Do we stay here in Austin where we'd probably have better luck buying a house because of my job here? Do we throw caution to the wind, buy an RV and tour around the country for six months, a year?

I'm not really tied into the whole idea of buying a house, and therefore being locked into having to have a job that pays X amount of money just to have that house. Maybe if I'd ever been able to settle on a career it would be different. But it just doesn't look like I want to be a career woman. Law school has been very tempting for the money and such it could provide down the road. But I think the price in the meantime is too high. I don't feel like giving up the next five to ten years busting my ass for the chance at more security later. I'd rather live in a small little house and have my time as my own.

Nerdstar wants a career more than I do. I'd love to see her as a linguist. I think we'd both rather be poor nomads than be in some soul sucking 9-5 for long.

Who knows what the future holds. These days I'm learning to relax, lighten up, take it all in stride.

Rambling

Just when I was getting bored with the Angel first season dvd, Faith shows up. Yum. What draws me to her more than to Buffy is the bad girl struggling to be good, to be redeemed.

I think I've said before that Nerdstar is kinda like my sedative - in a good way. But every once in a while I'll flash back to all the years I felt bad and unredeemable. Ironicly enough, most of that time was when I was most involved in church and trying to seek God. I tried so hard to let God fix all those things I felt were dark and unfixable. I struggled with why all my efforts and longings to be "whole" weren't enough.

And at the height of that struggle, I fell in love with a young woman named Caroline. And for the first time I felt no guilt about loving someone. Of course, that friendship ended up being a complete disaster. But it changed me.

This was about five years ago. I still don't understand a lot of it. It was then that I decided to change everything in my life that could be changed. I went from office work to waiting tables, I quit church altogether, and I decided to be the selfish one.

Then, just over four years ago, I met Nerdstar. And even with the depths of my selfishness, she stuck around. She was (and is) the nicest person. And she has put up with so much.

During these four years, the depression has lifted, the struggles are gone. Nerdstar is very even tempered, and I'm more like that than I used to be. But while she's been out of town, I've been trying to come to terms more with the deep underlying anger. And thru all of it, I'm still drawn to want to know who God really is. But I'm also determined to not be sucked in or judged or controlled by religious people.

Sometimes it's hard because no one in my life now knew me five years ago. I don't feel like I'm very good at explaining all the changes I've been thru. And I don't have someone to be that sort of mirror.

Part of thinking about all of this also comes from lunchtime conversations at work. I've worked there almost three years, and yet most people there don't really know me. They have an image of me, but they don't know all the things that go into making that image - or how that image differs from reality.

I'm sure this isn't making a hell of a lot of sense. But this site is all about my contradictory brain - and this is what's in my brain tonight.

Awww

My girl can be so sweet!! She knows how much I live for chocolate. So, she sent me some cookies and a gourmet brownie mix from Biringer Farms. I guess she ran across their store in Seattle and had them ship them. :-)

Amazing Race 4

Woohoo... Amazing Race 4 starts tonight. I like this show even better than Survivor. Nerdstar and I have done some traveling. About six months after we met, we did a month long road trip thru the east coast - from Austin to Toronto and back. It was a fantastic trip, but it was hard. I'm good with planning and maps and budgeting, but it's just hard mentally and emotionally being on the road. So there is not a chance in hell we'd ever do such an endeavor on national tv!! It wouldn't be pretty!

Late Night Convo

One thing that would give the most insight into my brain and my relationship with Nerdstar would be if I could post just one audio file of a conversation we have just before falling asleep. But that would mean finding a way to record those conversations and then being tech savy enough to post an it on this site. (Which means it'll never happen.)

Last night I was all ranting about Buffy and how I think the end of this season is going to piss me off. I think they might be intending to set up a spinoff instead of coming up with a way to end this series in a fanstastic way. And if that spinoff in any way highlights Dawn I'm going to be seriously pissed. Not only should that character never have existed - did Buffy really need a little sister? I think NOT - but that character should have beed dead several times over!! I hate Dawn! I don't think any other character on any other show has annoyed me just by their mere presence the way this one has!

Then I went on about how it was interesting that the two shows I watched last night, Buffy and 24, both threw out their fearless leaders. Weird.

Which, of course, led to a rant about Hillary Clinton and how much I hate her and think she is Satan incarnate and how I just might not be able to stand SIX more years of her being around. I mean, it's not like she's got the balls to run in 2004 against Bush. So we'll have to wait until 2008 for her to get her ass kicked - hopefully by Condi Rice. And since I still had Buffy on my mind, I could only picture a bleak future where Hillary actually wins the presidency and how it would end up looking like any of the horrible apocalypse that never quite happens on Buffy. Imagine just after the swearing in Hillary revealing her true form - with horns and hoofs and such, and the sky turning dark and all the usual evil takes over the world fanfare. I'd put my money on that scenario.

What does Nerdstar have to say in these conversations you might be thinking - unless it's remarks about food, she's usually just laughing at me.

Happy Anniversary Baby!

It's been four years. Wow. And what a crazy four years it's been. We've lived in three places. I'm on my fouth job, and you, well, we've lost count! You're on your third car, I got a motorcycle. We started off with just my Silly cat, now we have Little Man and Ramen - just a small part of your third world special dream!

Thru it all I'm so glad I've had you around. You make me laugh. And you take care of me so much more than I deserve. I don't know what I'd do without my Nerdstar Snuggle Bunny. I love and appreciate you more than you know.

Upate: Awwwww.... I just got the most beautiful set of tulips and a little box of Godiva chocolates delivered to my office. My co-workers are so jealous :-)

Nerdstar's bday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my one and only Nerdstar, the cutest and best snuggle bunny a girl could have!!

Last night the rodeo was fun. I didn't realize that Terri Clark = dyke night at the rodeo, but apparently it did. That was cool. But the middle age drunk women sitting behind us were completely obnoxious! I never understand people who go to a concert only to talk to their friend at high volumes all the way thru it.

Today is also the one year anniversary of us having Ramen. And as Nerdstar always tells me, life is better with pets!

Bored and Boring

I once had someone tell me that being bored wasn't a good enough reason to do something - I told her she was dead wrong! I mean, if we could delete all the things that get done in this world out of boredom - would there really be much left??

That said, yes, I'm bored out of my skull at work today. This following a boring weekend at home - which was very nice.

Friday Nerdstar surprised me with a very sweet card, a little box of chocolates, and a necklace and earring set with my birthstone. I am very lucky to have such a sweet snuggle bunny! We had a nice dinner at new to us restaurant.

Saturday we took Ramen to the park to run around. He's such a cute dog and it's fun to watch him run at full speed - very elegant. Then we took him to get a bath because he stunk very, very badly!

The rest of the weekend was spent reading and watching tv. Bored and boring.

V Day

Happy Valentine's Day! It's a beautiful rainy, stormy day here in Austin. I'm suffering thru another boring day at work. My gumpiness is at it's lowest levels of the week, and since we're heading into the weekend, that's a good thing!

Tonight I'm taking my girl to dinner. The way to her heart is absolutely thru her stomach!!

A little good news. My office does the customer service side of the standardized testing, but next door they do the scoring of the essay part of the test. It's not a permanent job, but Nerdstar has been hired to do some scoring staring the third week in March. It's a ways off, and we hope something more permanent comes up before then, but at least it's something!

We're trying to take the whole "run for your lives" aspect of the media with a grain of salt. While walking Ramen the other night we were talking about meeting places if for some reason we really couldn't get to our home. But really, unless you have family close, where else would there be to meet? If it's really all gone to hell in your city, it's not like you can meet up at a landmark or mall or something. Her family is in Houston and mine is in Dallas. If Austin is fucked, Houston and Dallas probably are too. My parent's don't have cell phones or email. Her grandparents don't either, and they don't speak English. Those sorts of details would make it all rather tricky if the big bad happened in Texas. So, we know where to head when, will probably pick up a radio that you crank up, but really, us city folks just aren't really well suited for survival stuff.

Girlfriend School

If there is no such thing as girlfriend school - there definitely should be!

I've said before that the fact that Nerdstar never dated anyone until she met me (at age 27) has some great advantages to it. But there are also some notable disadvantages. She never really learned all the details that make up romantic life, you know, like saying "I love you", hand holding, little love notes left to find.

We joke all the time that she's really just a twelve year old boy, unfortunately that means she has a twelve year old boy sense of romance, communication, and foreplay.

So we've decided that she needs to go to girlfriend school for a week or month or so. :-)

Because while you'd think that having a girlfriend for almost four years would be schooling enough, I seemed to have failed her.

Cartoon

This cartoon is Nerdstar and I. I'm being all intellectual, and she's all about the food. It's the Jan. 30th strip.

You might not know

Something you might not know from reading along is that I cuss like a sailor way too often. For some reason I try not to here in my blog. Maybe I think it seems impolite to cuss here.

Something else is that I can be quite a demanding bitch with Nerdstar. I try not to be, but I just can't help it. Especially when I'm tired and cranky from moving, and stressing over the paying two rents, and trying to make plans for getting everything done and for the holidays, and she just isn't always very helpful or very good at even communicating schedules and possibilities and wishes and anything else. Sigh.

Oh well, at least I'm good at apologizing and explaining why I'm such a bitch and trying to work out solutions.