Category Archives: That Husband

Blank screens are depressing

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Important things have passed.

My oldest turned eleven on Friday. Sunday was Father’s Day.

I choose to write first about the day of fathers today, because we all know I don’t like to think about my kids getting older and hey Max, if you’re reading this in ten years….you’re 21, let’s go get margaritas.

 

So, Father’s Day.

My father has always been a force in my life.

Sometimes a force of fear – I mean, I still don’t know what would have happened if he ever found out about senior skip day. Or all the European alcohol. Or the (totally platonic) bed full of 5 terrified people after my first viewing of The Exorcist.

Now you know, Pop. I’VE CONFESSED.

Sometimes a force of ingenuity. I’ll never forget coming home and finding my very first car in the driveway – one that he traded a gun for – and thinking that no one in the world could ever get as much shit done as my dad. Did you ever read about that one guy who traded all the stuff on Craigslist and went from something crazy like a piece of gum to a Corvette? THAT DUDE LEARNED IT ALL FROM LARRY WILKES.

Sometimes my dad has been a force of inspiration – I know that any “some assembly required” project is no problem because I am a product of my dad. My dad could assemble and rework anything ever and make it not only functional BUT KICKASS. He had a scuba store in Corinth Mississippi, people. He can do anything.

 

My life has not been perfect. But I’ve never doubted that my dad would move mountains for me.

In that, I know that I am lucky.

I’m also lucky in that my children have fathers who – while neither of them are quite on the trading-firearms-for-transportation level – love them and would do anything for them. And do. They love kids that aren’t theirs in any way except me. They love where they don’t have to. Where most don’t.

Seriously. Some people don’t have that. I see it every day and it makes me ache with gratefulness.

So even though it’s passed and even though my dad might not read this, I’m thankful for the fathers in my life. I’m lucky and I never forget that.

From the dad who gave me life to the dad I share a bed with, I know every day that I am where I am because of you.

 

Thank you.

 

Seventy times seven – for my husband

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Tomorrow is our anniversary.

Seven years ago, we cut out of Ava’s second birthday, we drove the silver Expedition to Selmer, and we got married.

I was nervous and I wasn’t. Looking back, I wish I’d worn something at least a little bit pretty as opposed to jeans and a potato sack of a blouse.

We arrived, we did our paperwork, and then a woman used her husband’s book (prayer book? Book of civil ceremonies? What exactly was it?) and we said our vows in an empty courtroom. I remember she got all choked up and I couldn’t help but wonder why. Was she overwhelmed by how sweet we were? How I didn’t have an engagement ring because we were broker than broke – but we had sweet engraved silver bands? I wonder where those are now. I wonder if, seven years later, that lady still works at the Selmer courthouse. I wonder if she teared up at every eloping couple she saw – and I know she saw a bunch.

Not much changed after that. We lived in the same apartment as before. We didn’t go on some big honeymoon getaway. But I was a wife. You were a husband. And somehow that changed everything.

It’s so easy to lose sight of what we had such a grip on that day.

So easy to say that we weren’t thinking of much besides how we wanted to join a church and they wouldn’t let us while we were living in sin.

Looking back from where we both stand now, the fact that church was a very real issue in our union is….kind of absurd.

But what was real then is no less real now. I love you. I love you even when I don’t like you. I love you enough to say that I’ve spent seven years being yours – and while I may have done a lot of things differently, while I may have taken different steps along the way, my best friend is eternally bound to me in one way or another.

I will never be sorry that you became my future. I will always be yours.

I love that we have grown over the years. Together, apart, together again. So many things have happened. Seizures and surgeries, jobs and houses. Failures and successes.

We’ve had so many roads to travel. You’re the best company I could have asked for.

We make mistakes and we take each other for granted. We do everything wrong.

But we’ll make it. We’ll be okay. We’ll be better than okay because that’s what we do.

Thank you for the past seven years. For our little girl. For being mine. For being what I always know is there.

I love you.

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The rest of away

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It’s taken me a bit to somewhat process this past weekend.
(Side note, I’m watching Teen Mom 2 and this is the second one of these dumbass girls I’ve watched act like an invalid after her boob job. What the actual hell is the matter with me, watching this nonsense?)
Anyway, we spent the weekend at my first comic convention. I was prepared and not prepared – I mean, I’ve watched the documentaries and the sitcoms and read articles, nerds are weird. I know this.
But it was a good opportunity for the podcast, so I went. With Prozac. Prepared to network and schmooze.
While there’s lots to tell you about the weekend in general (like hello awesome food!, and being in the same room as Billy Dee Williams’ pee, and the time I thought I might see a man die and I acted anything but admirably), right now I want to focus on the actual event.
How it was stinky. Crowded. Germy. Confusing. And absolutely spectacular.

We had preordered our tickets (which was my first time ever to use Passbook on my phone, and I totally felt like the Jetsons with my virtual roboticket), so there wasn’t much of a wait to strap on some armbands and stand in line with pretty much every variety of person on the planet.

Seriously, this was as good as people watching gets. Costumes and pajama pants, stilettos and flip flops, and absolutely everything else imaginable. Spandex. Sequins. Feathers. Rubber. Metal. Cardboard. Want to wear some ears and a tail? Awesome. Top hat? Help yourself. Flippers with no other hint of a costume? Have some nachos.

And yeah, they stunk. Some of them did. Some of them smelled fantastic – particularly these two chicks who I’m fairly absolutely concretely certain were prostitutes. But they were all so… connected. It was such a community of all these people who mostly didn’t know each other. There was trust in so many iterations – from the toddler in his Iron Man outfit who won a sword fight with a Stormtrooper to the mom of two in her steampunk corset and bustle who didn’t give a shit what you thought about her cellulite. It was freeing just to be there, to be able to take in the attitude of acceptance.

And also…the talent. It was a grab bag of you-pick-it eeney meanie miney holy balls. I have never been in tossing distance of so much ability in my life. It was amazing and humbling and completely exciting. I still don’t really have the right words.

I am not and never have been what anyone would call a cool person. I’m not with it or hip or anything the kids like these days. And in theory, neither were these people, right?

I mean, according to the movies and high school and anything I ever learned from band camp, these are the punch lines, right? The nerds, the geeks, the people who don’t fit in.

Except these people were amazing. They were real and colorful and…themselves.

That’s it. That’s what it was.

There was no apology in any of this past weekend. No one was sorry for being whoever it was they wanted to be. It was open and obnoxious, and the most authentic experience I’ve ever had.

I met some amazing people. Made some connections I will treasure. Hopefully some of the people I met will take a turn to post here sometime soon, and I’m excited about that.

For now though, I’m still sorting through everything I learned this weekend. About myself, about my world. About comic books and zombies. About how lucky I am to realize that just because there’s no one like me doesn’t mean there’s anything to change about me.

***all photos used with permission, courtesy of Keith Reed, whom I found on the Twitters.

 

Away

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We’re here.

In Lexington, Kentucky (which is someplace I’ve never been, in fact I don’t think I have ever been to Kentucky at all, except Josh insists we drove through a million years ago) for Lexington Comic and Toy Convention.

Like I said before, this is totally out of my comfort zone. The conference hasn’t even officially started yet and already I can look out the window and tell I’m in way over my head. Stormtroopers and Wonder Woman and Batman. Et cetera.

I’m nervous and also about to pee myself from excitement.

We got here yesterday, spent some time milling about the town last night, and oh yeah Billy MOTHEREFFING Dee Williams shook my husband’s hand and patted him on the shoulder.

I died.

More later.

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Embracing the kook within

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Historically I have never been what you would call a joiner.

It's all too much, man. Too much work.

It's why I don't have friends. It's why I find my own things and bury myself in them. Hell, it's why this blog has not died a raging fiery inferno death – because I do it whenever I please and big middle finger when I don't.

But my husband, he's a joiner. He gets all up IN all kinds of shit. And he does it because he's good at it. I support that. How could I not? It makes him happy. Happy him, happy me.

So in a grand gesture of solidarity and total outside-my-comfort-zone-ness, I am donning my brand spanking new JustUsGeeks tshirt, hauling around my weight in purple bluish memefont flyers, and going to a comic & toy convention.

Yeah, that's right. You heard it here first.

 

But you know what's crazy? I'm excited. Like, stupid excited.

So by the time you read this, Josh and The Guv and I (Catch that? Did you? Yeah, I said my name and his name but not Lucy's name. More on that later.) will be tooling off toward Kentucky. Or, well, Friday morning. So whenever you read this in relation to Friday morning. Because I think I'm going ahead and publishing this tonight.

 

See it? It's already happening. DARING.

Wish me luck!

Beating heart

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It took me a long time to realize that I had completely the wrong idea about love.

I had always thought of love as a blanket that wrapped me up, held me tight and refused to let go. A place where I would arrive after a full out sprint.

I have a lot still to learn about love. Listen to that. I sound fifteen.

There’s the love I have for my kids. For my family.

Then there’s the love I have for the person I chose to spend the rest of my life alongside. The cure for all the misconceptions I had – good or bad. The person who loves me when I am most unlovable and who stays in my corner through it all.

I’m not Cinderella. He’s not Prince Charming. There’s no castle or pumpkin or fairy godmother. It’s not what I expected when I was eight – or even twenty.

But it’s spectacular. It’s worth whatever I have to give. It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done and it’s the only work I hope never ends – because while I was wrong about what I expected, instead of a blanket I have a tapestry. A constant work of connects and effort so hopelessly complicated that it can’t be anything but beautiful. A marathon instead of the sprint. Something I never expected but worth more than I ever dreamed.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Of boobs and smartphones.

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Since 2007 when I left behind my BlackBerry Pearl for an outrageously expensive device called an iPhone, I haven’t really looked back.

Well, that’s not true.

I tell myself that I embrace change, that I’m flexible and open to new things and cutting edge and all that. Truth is, it’s all a lie. I mourned MySpace like a close personal friend. I stayed with Xanga until it started growing cobwebs. And when I made the leap from BlackBerry to iPhone, I hated it. It was delicate and I was going to drop it, I knew it (and I did, several times). It was so much new to learn. But I did. And I jailbroke and hacked and felt very Sandra Bullock in The Net. I got so comfortable with the iPhone that I kept getting them when it was upgrade time. Where I previously got a completely different phone every time I was eligible (tiny Nokia, anyone? or what about the Razr when it was a thing?), I got into a groove where just enough changed but not everything.

And in the meantime, the rest of the free world did pretty much the same thing.

So I had the same phone as everyone else. Big deal.

And then Josh started his podcast, and in among the episodes we got the drift that maybe there were different phones we could be into. Maybe we were missing out on some great stuff because we were so comfortable in our expensive glass shell.

Then, thanks to Craigslist, this happened:

slide-1-whiteMy first Android phone.
I liked it, really I did. The screen was sharp and clear and BIG, the camera wasn’t bad, and the weather was right there so I could see that it wasn’t raining nearly as much as I wanted.

It was a lot to learn, but I was excited about it. I learned about Android rooting and hacking and sideloading and all kinds of stuff.

But I missed my iPhone. I still had an iPad, and I missed how everything synced together so flawlessly. I thought that would go away and soon I would love this phone and OS just as much as I did my Apple stuff.

Just the opposite happened. The more time I spent with this phone the more I absodamnlutely hated everything about it.

I felt like a baby. A spoiled brat. Which I suppose I am, but if I know exactly how to fix a problem WHY WOULD I NOT DO IT?

So, this. And all was right with the world.

The end.iphone-5-thin-side-640x353

And now for something completely different.

I am a girl, and I have boobs. The question of feminism and bra-wearing is one that I have never understood, really. I mean, I don’t think it’s sexist that I don’t want to be all flopping around willy nilly. No one is using me as a food source at the moment, so let’s REIN THOSE SUCKERS IN.

But in the 20+ years that I’ve been wearing bras, it’s not something I have ever particularly enjoyed.

I’ve heard just like everyone else that some outrageous percentage of women is probably wearing an incorrectly sized bra. I remember that episode of Oprah. Just like everything else in life, though, I just assumed it did not apply to me. How stupid would I have to be to be wearing an illfitting undergarment EVERY. SINGLE. DAY?

However stupid it is, turns out I am just that amount of stupid.

bbreddit

I am a member of a community called reddit where everyone has something to say about absolutely everything. It’s fun times. The community itself is as big as the Interwebs, and it’s broken up into smaller sections called subreddits. The subreddits encompass…well, everything. From beers in the shower (r/showerbeer) to pictures of awesome abandoned stuff (r/abandonedporn) to, yes, how to properly fit a bra (r/abrathatfits). So after I read some stuff about how my bras were probably all kinds of wrong, I set about proving them wrong by measuring myself. Angels would sing in the key of 38D, lo and amen.

Except they were right, and the angels were singing more along the lines of 36H.

So that’s the tale of how I got a boob job just by changing bras.

keep calm and wear a bra that fits

Tomorrow’s post is about boobs and smartphones.

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Been a while, yes?

A lot of times when I don’t post for a while its because I got out of the habit. More times it’s because I just flat have nothing to say.

I said as much on Twitter yesterday, which drew a response from the lovely Leslie in the form of this comic from The Oatmeal.

I’ll leave you with that.

I should make it a rule to drink beer.

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Because even ONE makes me want to ramble write.


Saturday we had INTENDED to go to Tishomingo State Park with Dan, the kids, Amanda (omg my India Afar Amanda is home did I not tell you? Lucy adores her. It’s meant to be. She has to stay here forever) and her baby boy. It was a spectacularly planned event, one which which had been talked about for at least a week.

And guys, we just don’t do that. We don’t plan shit. Ever. Because as soon as we do, we get lazy or just generally turned off by the obligation of being somewhere and we ruin it.

So we went. The three Steens in one car, everyone else in the other.

We all arrive (we were a little late), and we proceeded to eat a sandwich picnic at one of the tables. I was SO excited. Josh had rented specialty camera lenses for his big boy camera, and I had my new point-and-click. Like a boss. We were READY.

Then, Lucy (who had refused to take a nap) started screaming.

Seriously it was like Jigsaw’s puppet and the squeally pig from the insurance commercials mated and the product was my child. Not only was it an impossibility to walk across the swingy suspension bridge, the whole idea of taking pictures was laughable.

I should have known.

So we came home. Basically we drove like an hour to eat some turkey sandwiches at a picnic table.

Sunday we redeemed our photography yearns, and went out to make lots of pictures.

Happy Monday.

written on Saturday/Sunday night, I would NEVER drink this early. Unless it was a mimosa. Or champagne and it was important. Or no one was there. Don’t you judge me.

 

Love and hate – a birthday manifesto

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Dear husband, today is your birthday. To celebrate your 29 years on our planet, I have arranged a list for you. Things I love about you. Things I love about us. Things I also hate about you and us.

With love.

Part One, Hate.

I hate that you leave all your socks on your side of the bed where I forget to look until there is suddenly a mountain of smelly socks peeking over the mattress.

I hate that you have pretty curly hair and I DO NOT.

I hate that you are so tall that you can find things in the cabinet in two seconds after I have spent thirty minutes tearing pots and pans out into the floor.

I hate that you are so young. Twenty nine. Damn you. Your thirties are coming.

I hate that you can work all the PhotoShop nonsensery and I can do it no more than I can speak Greek.

I hate that I cannot even begin to play you in basketball.

I hate that I cannot stay mad at you for any time. It’s totally unfair.

Part Two, Love.

I love that you are my best friend. Full Stop. Everyone says that they married their best friend, but I don’t think everyone knows what they are talking about because we are on the wavelength.

I love that you (at least most of the time) listen to my opinion. You let me ramble with my psychoanalytic babble and my drawn-from-the-air opinions and what’s more, you agree with me lots of the time. Maybe you’re just pretending, but it’s the shit.

I love that when you cook, you ignore that I don’t like things like mushrooms and onions and weird shallot things and you put them in anyway – but you make them big enough to pick out because you want me to enjoy what you’ve made.

I love that you wait to watch our chef shows until we can watch them together.

I love that you hold onto things you love – like cooking, basketball – and you make a point to do them just for you.

I love that you have friends. I envy that because I don’t have go-hang-out friends, but I love that you do.

I love that you can argue with people like car dealers and bank tellers and people who are trying to sell things for way too much. It’s a strength you have that I lack. I admire that in you.

I love that we have so much more to go.

I love that you are supportive of things l love.

I love that you are mine.

 

So today, though it may not be the birthday you will remember always, I hope you can stop a minute and realize that today is a big deal because it brought me you. Years before either of us knew. I love you so much. Thank you for being everything.