the rose of kiev

My girlfriends like to bother me about when Dave and I will have a baby. Their eyes light up at the thought of having a small wriggling creature to play with...and the ability to give it back to me when that creature diarheeas down both chubby thighs. So for anyone wondering when that blessed event will even begin to be a possibility, here's a checklist of things to look for: 1) 2 college degrees hanging in frames on the wall. Emphasis on framed , not just received. Just because the tassel's on the other side of the hat does not mean we are suddenly in a hurry. 2) A diminishment in my present glee every time I refill my Ocella prescription. 3) A time when our sink spends more time clean and empty than as a neon-moldy scientific experiment. 4) A clear floor, when we would no longer have to hike over the hills and dales of laundry baskets and bookbags. At this point, we'd have to stack the crib on top of the hamster cage. 5) A trip to the grocery store that isn't determin...

Marriage is: Like Popping Zits: After an hour-long conversation in the car with Dave, I realized the relief I felt after talking everything out was the same feeling I have when I drain a big pimple. This is the grossest and most effective way I can illustrate what marital conflict is like. Everyone who's endured adolescence knows the different classes of pimples: the surface whiteheads, the simple but deeper blackheads, and then - The MegaZit. It hurts,  it's bright red, it's perched on the tip of your nose, and  you have to wait 3 days before it's ready for you to do anything about it. And the more potato chips and HoHo's you ingest, the more frequently and grotesquely do you break out. But think about it: there are the "whitehead" moments, where you ask each other nicely to please stop leaving cups all over the living room because it's irritating. Then the "blackhead" arguments, at which point you have to talk through your annoyance and a s...

One of my favorite things about meeting and talking to people is that each person is a doorway to a very specific set of passions and interests you've never ever seen combined in one person before; and one of my favorite things about friends is that you get to walk through that door and experience their passions with them. And, when it comes to my handsome husband, this past weekend I found myself walking through the doors of Veteran's Memorial into a gymnasium-sized room to a now-familiar sight: a gun show. I am fully aware that this room full of people is a very specific stereotype, sometimes one that is jeered or even feared, and I'd like to show you the humor and the faces of a place like this. I have been to many gun stores and gun shows since the start of my relationship with Dave, so many that I'm beginning to recognize the dealers' faces as we walk past them. That's no small feat, since all gun shows have at least a hundred displays on folding tables str...