Spidey

Recently, I was emailing with a friend about those gigantic spiders that you see around these here parts. Some people call them writing spiders and some people call them banana spiders, but I just call them really scary. I hate how they aggressively bounce up and down on their webs when you come near. Anyway, it reminded me of this story:

Long, long ago, in a land far away, Thomas and I used to live in a big old converted Victorian. In a closet beneath the stairs, there lived a small boy with a lightning shaped--no wait. This was before I met that guy. In a closet beneath the stairs was the smallest bathroom in the land, and in the bathroom, beneath the foot of the sink, there lived a monstrous spider. He was very large, and very black. He never moved from beneath the foot of the sink, though I eyed him suspiciously whenever I had to pee. Finally, I mentioned him to Thomas, whose house it had been before I rather noisily and abruptly moved in with all my stuff and two unruly dogs.

Me: Did you know there's a monstrous black spider living in the smallest bathroom in the land?
Thomas: Oh, yeah. That's spidey. He's ok.
Me: Yeah, he doesn't move much.
Thomas: That's because he knows the rules.

Somehow, I was calmed by this, and I grew to love Spidey as I would a pet. He just looked at me blackly while I peed, and ate mosquitos and took up all the real estate. He was a fine, fine spider.

One day, we came home from the bar and Spidey was in the hallway.

"It's Spidey!!" I shrieked. "He's escaped the smallest bathroom in the land!"

I bent down to inspect him and to enquire after his health, when suddenly Thomas's foot came down and smashed my monstrous black spider.

Me: Thomas! What the fuck? That was Spidey!!!
Thomas: He knew the rules.

I still miss him.

Talented People Love Me

Thomas saved my life by giving me a wonderful, huge, flat-screen monitor, which could not have come at a better time, as my monitor gave out on Christmas Eve day, and we all know what happens to me when I cannot connect to the internet. Thank God that was averted.

Thomas also gave me the Harry Potter movies box set, which came in a little trunk that I can take with me when I finally get my Hogwarts letter.

Thank you, Thomas.

Two of my favorite gifts were things that people made for me.
Michelle made me the most amazing tablecloth:




My little sister-in-law Jessica made me the Potter Puppet Pals:



I'm humbled to know such giving and talented ladies.

Meme-Tastic

So, I'm stealing this meme from Gina because I like this meme and dammit I want to meme.

8 Random Things About My Wedding



1. Although Thomas and I are not beach people, and have never been to the beach together excepting the 3 times we took the dogs to the beach to cackle over how they try to dig to China, we got married on the sound at Wrightsville Beach. We rented two side-by-side beach houses and illegally had our wedding there. I freaked out the entire time that the police were going to come. No, officer. This is not my wedding. This is the family reunion we claimed on the rental forms. I would never have a wedding in a rental, particularly when I signed a special part of the lease that said I would not have a wedding here. Why am I wearing this big white dress? Because it's March! Doesn't everyone wear a big white dress in March?

2. I bought my dress on ebay. Several months before Thomas even proposed to me, I thought it might be nice to look at wedding dresses on ebay because, hey, you never know, and plus I am totally an insane stalker type who insists that you marry me immediately. I saw my dress and it was exactly the dress in my mind and only cost 200 dollars. I agonized for several days about whether I should just buy the dress and keep it in a box in the closet just in case. Then sanity won out and I stopped obessessing over the perfect dress for my imaginary wedding. But the day he proposed? Yeah, I bought that bitch.

3. My friend Michelle, who is awesome, and who arranged all 300 of the gerber daisies that I bought online, brought a fishing pole and some squid so that she could fish off the pier the day before our wedding. When she was done, she wrapped up the remaining squid and stored it under the railing of the deck where we all forgot about it until two days later when we tracked that horrible smell to its source.



4. I had my bride-zilla moment when my mother in law tried to have the cake delivery guy set up the cake on a table that was not the motherfucking cake table. Because I had a motherfucking cake table and that was NOT it. Still embarrassed. Sorry, Linda. And thank you to Kasey who listened to me seethe and never once pointed out that it was totally ridiculous.

5. My best friend Kasey flew in from Maine to be in our wedding, and her husband Andrew pressed the buttons for our music, because Thomas had done so for their wedding 6 months earlier, even though she didn't know him at all then. But I guess that's more about her wedding than mine. Kasey was a godsend, of course. She always is. But she helped me string the gazebo with 8 hundred thousand pieces of ribbon that barely show in the pictures.

6. We walked down the aisle to Depeche Mode's "Somebody." We walked back up the aisle to Tony Bennet's "The Best is Yet to Come." This is totally indicative of Thomas's and my completely different taste in music, and yet, it was lovely.



7. My friend Mary married us, which was very cool. We had our ceremony in a gazebo at the end of a tiny pier, so all our guests were on land and could barely hear us. Mary was having trouble projecting, so I whispered to her to just talk like we were at the bar on a Saturday night. When she upped the volume, her voice got very flat and she delivered some very lovely sentiments about Thomas and me in a very loud and affectless voice that made me giggle until I nearly cried. I giggled through our entire ceremony. Mary did a wonderful job. I'd ask her to do it again in a second.

8. Our wedding favors were fake mustaches. Thomas and I collect them. We really wanted a vintage photo booth with a box of costumes that people could put on, but that would have cost more than our entire wedding, so we went with a polaroid and fake mustaches. I was peeling them off every available surface for days. My friend Jennifer put one between the legs of a very fancy ballerina sculpture. Yeah, I had to peel that off in front of my dad.




Bonus:
For our honeymoon, Thomas and I just stayed on in the house we'd rented for the wedding. It was very convenient because then he could still drive into town for order day at the store, and we could invite tons of people over all week to hang at the beach and help us eat all the food. The day after our wedding, after we'd finally gotten everyone to leave, we sat down to watch VH1, because we have no cable at home and were feeling sadly behind on I love the 80s. We snuggled up together on the couch and settled in when suddenly the power went out. Thomas got up to look out the window and see if the other houses on the street had power, which they did. Suddenly we heard the elevator (the house had an elevator) coming up. We both panicked like no two people have ever panicked before. Thomas ordered me to get a knife, but I couldn't find one in the dark. I'd heard horror stories about the sites of weddings getting robbed for the presents and I was seriously in a condition.

There was no one in the elevator, of course. It just returned to its home floor when the power went out. A call to the power company confirmed that the whole street was out--what we were seeing were the houses across the sound. We still laugh at ourselves about that.

Thanks to Gina for the help with getting through NaBloPoMo--check out her side project at Teeny Manolo.

Into the Home Stretch

There are some hard truths for NaBloPoMoers at Schnozzfest. And those hard truths made me laugh very hard this morning before going to work. And look, now you know what I did this morning before going to work--so I'm already ahead of this blogging game. Watch me go!

Today was my last day (I hope) of teaching the middle school and the elementary school simultaneously. By this afternoon, my feet hurt badly and I was most short tempered. At one point, I looked up at a kid who thought he was talking behind my back and while grinning, I said, through my teeth, "I've taught 2 full classrooms simultaneously for 5 days now. Could you cut me some slack?" He went back to work, God bless him.

Writing continues in dribs and drabs, though I feel lucky to be writing at all. Where does my time go, oh sucking internet box? And why is my computer screen flickering lately as if in a portent of death?

Thomas's store's 15 year anniversary celebration is this weekend, so I'd like to take time out to say that I'm so proud of Thomas. He opened a business before I could drive a car and it's still here and going strong. My husband rules. Fanboy rules.

Thankful, but I Still Wish I Could Gleek

So, I've spent this fine Thanksgiving morning looking up the word "gleek" online. I just woke up today thinking about gleeking, and wondering if that was a universal term, or if I could find any diagrams explaining exactly how to do it because I've always wanted to.

And now, for our scheduled Thanksgiving post. I am thankful for:

1. My husband, who puts up with my insanity, laughs when I make hideously inappropriate statements, does the dishes every day, remembers to vacuum, doesn't beat me about the head with the vacuum when I forget to vacuum, takes care of me, loves the dogs, shows up whenever I need him, is always supportive, lets me retain enough of my private self to keep me from going insane, orders 3 pizzas so I won't be without, gets my sense of humor, keeps me laughing, watches Regis and Kelly and doesn't mind when I tease him about it, and provides me with the best life I could have possibly hoped for.

2. My family. Here is my favorite quote about family: "What I am, I suppose, I am either because of or in spite of them, which amounts to the same thing. [...] And in this world, you can't ask for more." William Goldman. I have a wonderful family and they support me in whatever crazy idea I'm bent on pursuing at any given moment. And they seem to actually like me, which is awesome, given that I actually like them, too.

3. My friends. I've been blessed over and over again with the kinds of friendships that keep you afloat, no matter the circumstances. I sometimes wish I could freeze time, and preserve my roster of friendships, as it is always changing and I have trouble accepting that as the way of the world. But I have my one constant truth (Kasey, I'm thankful for you) and the rest can swell and recede and I will just enjoy bobbing in the waves. Friendship is the thing I value beyond everything else in the entire world. I hope that I'm growing into being a good friend. I have excellent role models.

4. My dogs. Thank god for both of them. I've never loved any two beings so selflessly and completely. And at 8 years together, it's my longest running relationship. And also you should see the adorable way that Gertie's nose is twitching in her sleep right now.

5. Fiction. Both writing and reading. I don't think about that enough, how much my life is enriched and made valuable by reading and writing. Without books, I would starve.

6. My students. Without my kids, life would be boring, and who needs a boring life? But really, I think I would be deeply afraid to have children if I hadn't spent the last 5 years with some of the most fun and genuine, loving and smart kids on the planet (or in the city of Wilmington, at the very least).

7. The internet. Which doesn't fit the theme, but let's just go with it, shall we? Seriously, I do not know how anyone wrote anything before the internet. How many times did I pause what I was doing to type: "define: saturnine", "latin root for hair", "medical term for freckle"? And then just the things from my personal life: "Why isn't my turtle eating?", "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Symptom", "How to Gleek." And of course, the internet gives me LOL cats, Harry Potter fansites, and you, my lovely internet friends. And I am always thankful for you.

214

Is the lucky number of today. 214. More than twice the length of my master's thesis. Which took 3 years to write. This has taken 3 weeks. What is up with the universe?

This whole process is causing me to have to eat a lot of my words. I have always been seriously against the notion that stories come from some other universe that the writer somehow taps into and "channels" the characters onto the page. The whole, "Sorry Hannibal is so gross, but that's just what he did and I had to write it," school of thought. Are you a writer or are you some sort of clairvoyant?! I used to say.

Uh, some sort of clairvoyant it is.

This weekend, as I approached 200 pages, I got overexcited and forced a scene that wasn't totally together. I kind of knew it, and then I read a really interesting article about love stories, and how once the main characters are finally together, writers tend to lose their minds briefly, and everyone falls out of character and does insane stuff, or suddenly the writer forgets that sitting around thinking about feelings is not the same as having a plot.

So I thought about it, and I knew there was something not so excellent about this scene and I got up in the morning and rewrote it. And it still wasn't right. There were things I had liked about the original version and I was trying to preserve them which just wasn't going to happen. Kill your darlings, indeed. So on the third try it came out well, and took the story in a direction that I had hoped for but had not yet figure out how to do...so that was nice and put me back on track. I'm messing with some epistolary stuff now...

This is the most fun I've had in years.

In other news, I talked to my friend Jennifer this weekend and she reported that she is reading Wonderful Tonight, the Patty Boyd story. I asked her if I could borrow it when she was done, as I am a huge Beatles fan and very interested in some of her story and lots of her photography.

But the whole point of this story is that Jennifer always likes to tell me that she has read one book in her life and that it was Helter Skelter. Causing me to make lots of jokes about how once you've read Helter Skelter, you've read everything. Everything else is just a rehash. So it's kind of great that she's lending me a book. Even though I'm not reading right now, which is still really weird to me.

Furthermore, when I came home from walking tonight, stinky and dripping with sweat, I opened the door and smelled fire. I started to yell for Thomas, until I noticed that the fire in question was candles and that the dining room table was set with a tablecloth and flowers and wine and that Thomas had made me a lovely romantic dinner of lobster bisque, salad, steak, zucchini and shrimp. With strawberries for dessert. And everything matched and he used all our lovely dishes. And the flowers--they were bright red spider gerbers, and I couldn't have picked a better vase for them myself.

So all is well. And that is all until my next page update. :)

Happy 33rd Birthday, Thomas!

The reason I look like there's a heavy object squashing me down in this picture is that the man who was taking it said that he couldn't see Jon behind me, and so I wanted to duck down without looking fat. As you can see, the results were excellent. Heh.
There, that's better.

I know every June/July my blog turns into Gilbert birthday picture extravaganza, but bear with me just a little longer so that I can wish my lovely husband a happy birthday. I love you, hon.

WE FEST 2007

I'm back.

This weekend was WE FEST in Wilmington, a totally DIY art/music show that lasts all weekend. Thomas was on the board of it, and so we have been recieving CDs from bands for the last couple of weeks. We'd been listening and developing favorites and went into WE Fest this year with a vengeance.

Here were some of the highlights:



Second Dan, an awesome band from New York that has a very driving, melodic, "Old Radiohead" kind of feel to it. They were my favorite from the outset, and I was very excited to see them Friday night. On Saturday, they did a show from Thomas's store's parking lot, which is what you see here. They were awesome people, and very enthusiastic just to be heard and get their music out there, even if it meant playing in the sweltering parking lot of the comic book store. Initially, we had intended for them to do an acoustic set indoors, but since all the other stores in the strip mall were closed, we decided to go ahead and do the whole thing outside. It was awesome. And the awesome was compounded by the fact that the whole time we felt like the police could show up, a la the concert from Apple Studios.



Chris Cubeta and The Liars Club was another great band from New York. I was really impressed with these bands who drove all night to get here in Memorial Day traffic to play for free. What incredible, talented people made up this band. Thomas arranged for them to play a pre-show gig at Lula's (our favorite bar downtown). I was not a believer in this idea, as Lula's is tiny and I thought it would be too crowded...too loud. As usual, I was totally wrong and it was brilliant. I'm hard pressed to say whether I enjoyed them more plugged or unplugged. Excellent lyrics, vocals, harmonies, and seriously, some of the nicest people I've met in a long time. They sound a bit like the Counting Crows.

Other highlights:

The Sammies (The song "Falling Out" kills me).
Olivia and the Housemates (Very nice horns--a bit of a ska feeling to it).
FilthyBird (Awesome girl vocalist: Grace Slick meets Robert Smith).

I had a great time all around and consumed enough beer to fell a small elephant. Today I feel moody and silent because of it.

I kept thinking throughout the festival that I'm so proud of Thomas for getting involved in these things and grateful to him for bringing me out of my shell about them. I would have never, ever gone to WE Fest without him and I had a wonderful time.

I also thought a lot about the fact that although sometimes the ticking of the biological clock in my ear drowns out all other noise, I'm glad to still just be the two of us, going to music festivals and getting drunk and staying out all night.

Odds and Ends

So, I want to blog, but not much of note has been happening.

Today is the start of Free Comic Book Day (Weekend) at Fanboy, so Thomas has been absent and/or frazzled all week. I've been lazy. I re-read A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel and remembered how very much I like it. I rejoiced that Beat Box Blake was not kicked off of Idol. I drank some wine.

I went back into my old archives and discovered that some old IHOKians did, in fact, come to find me, but that I never noticed as it was last July. I've unearthed some old pictures of some of these people and have been reminiscing, but only with myself, as I have no way of getting in touch with these fine people.

Gina posted a prom retrospective prompting me to want to write about the prom, but I'm saving most of my crazy prom pictures for my birthday next month. But here are some funny ones, just to tide you over.





Please note my perm (top) and recent baldness (bottom).

All in all, I went to 7 formal dances at my high school and although they were as horrifying as formal dances can be expected to be, I would still go to one now. There's a great element of camp, and also I like to dress up and then make fun of myself later. Thomas and I started dating when my friend Michelle held an 80's prom for her birthday (5 years ago this weekend, incidentally). I still like to tell people that Thomas asked me to the prom.



I loved shopping for that hideous dress. I had my mom fed ex me my crimping iron. Thomas got me a corsage so big it actually dwarfed my boob. It was awesome.

Items of Interest

Yesterday at the grocery store, I knocked over a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. It exploded all over my shoes. I squish-squished Mountain Dew all the way home and now I don't know how to clean my shoes. Do you think I should just put them in the washing machine? I had to wear new shoes to work today and now I am blistery.

I am preparing questions for those requesting interviews, but you guys need to make sure I have an email address to mail them to. Please use my "contact me" address to send your current email. Even if you think I have it. Cause I don't. I'm trouble like that.

Thomas and I went with Kathy to see this awesome Korean monster movie called The Host. They got me to agree to come along by describing it as a cross between The Royal Tennenbaums and Godzilla. Somehow I misunderstood that to mean that it was The Royal Tennenbaums, with super-special crazy re-dubbing, and was kind of dissapointed to learn that it was not, but I should not have worried. It was great fun: funny and with really remarkably good CGI. Highly recommended.

2 years

Every once in a while, something comes out of nowhere and changes your life. It could be a job offer, a dog with great big eyes looking at you from a cage on a Sunday morning, a new friend. For me, it was Thomas, who came when I wasn't looking for him, and who has taught me every day that love has a million faces and a million moods and that I don't need to be any one thing for him to love me.

Two years ago on this date, I married the best man that I have ever known. A man with so much drive and motivation, so much interest in the world--he brings success to everything he touches. Thomas's passions are so varied and so intense and it makes everything interesting. From Jazz to Forteana, he's taught me so many things, and while some of those things became passions for me and some didn't, it's always a fun ride. Thomas has the greatest sense of humor--and he gets my totally weird one. One of the best things I can say for us as a couple is that we have always laughed well together.

This anniversary is important to me because my first marriage didn't make it this far. We split up 2 weeks before making it to the 2 year mark. By that point, daily living was difficult and a future was impossible to imagine. My greatest fear in marrying again was that I would find it just as hard, that there was something in the institution that squashed and mutilated love into a tool that quickly wore out its usefulness. Yet, as Thomas and I have approached this anniversary, I've felt somehow easier with myself and him and our life than ever before. Yesterday morning I woke up early and paced the house in the morning sunshine thinking in total pleasure and amazement, this is my couch. This is my rug. This is my dog and my wafflemaker and that is my handbag. This is my life here in this house with this man and there is nothing I ever hoped for that was better than this.

Happy Anniversary, Thomas.

Soon, You're Just Going to Think I'm a Wild Animal

Ok, so the heat still isn't fixed. The poor repairmen have been trying all week, which I guess is what you get for living in a 95 year old house. When we first moved in, the stove was broken and it took almost 2 months for anyone to figure out how to fix it.

Oh, my wonderous landlord, though you deal with my issues promptly and thoroughly, if you sold me this house these things would be my problems.

See, despite the seeming 2 weeks it takes to fix anything around here, I love this house with a fiery passion. To me, this house just speaks my name. But sometimes it tries my patience, none the less. Last night, while waiting for Jennifer to come over for dinner (and oh, we'd bought beads and mod podge and all our spring seeds to start in trays! I'll blog about that tomorrow) Thomas tried to plug in one of the space heaters left for us by the repairmen and we blew a fuse.

And in our house, that's literal. Thomas was driving all the way across town to buy a fuse while I searched the house with a flashlight for a phone that wasn't cordless so I could call my guests and tell them to wait.

In slightly unrelated news, I seem to be developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in my left hand. Having it is sort of like have allergies for the first time. I used to disdain allergies and consider them to be wussie. Now I feel the pain.
Quite literally.

And so, it seems as if everything around me is just slowly disintigrating. First my ovary and now my left hand. The heat and then the power. DAMMIT!

It all reminded me of the house we lived in before we moved here. The city line running into that house often got blocked--it wasn't our fault, there was just something wrong with it--so periodically we'd have to call out the city to dig out the pipe and leave raw sewage in our yard to deal with. YAY! One day that happened on our birthdays! And we were giving a party! In the backyard!

But I digress.

We got used to that situation and began to be able to sense it coming and call the city before the sinks stopped draining and the toilets stopped flushing. But one Friday at 5 o'clock it caught us completely off guard. There was nothing to be done; the city was closed. So we went to our friends' houses and to the bar a lot so as to be in proximity to bathrooms while we waited for Monday to arrive. But at night, right before we went to bed...

all four Gilberts: Thomas, Meg, Gertie and Gonzo, would go outside to pee.

Unfit for Human Life

My best friend, Kasey, lives where it is very, very cold. So cold that when I asked her on the phone the other day what the weather was like there, she answered, casually, oh, it's 2.

2.

And that's pretty warm for there. I check her weather every morning along side my own (as if I need to verify for myself daily that someone I hold dear was crazy enough to leave the state of North Carolina for the frozen wilds of Northern Maine) and it's not unusual to see -13.

Dude.

A couple of years ago, I sent her a down-filled robe for Christmas. Her husband asked her why I felt the need to ship her that monstrosity and she said, "Meg thinks I'm cold." And I'm like, Kase, I don't think you're cold, I know it for a fucking fact. Because that is just not fit for human life. If you stayed outside too long, you would die.

And that's just not ok to me. Much like the temperature of my house right now.

Last night at 1:30 am, Thomas woke me to tell me that there was something grievously wrong with the heating system and he was going to have to turn it off. I sat there, totally unable to comprehend this for a moment. I said, "Um, you know it's 22 out there, right?" And drat his responsible self, he pointed out that it is better to be cold than to burn the house down. I just don't need to hear that kind of logic at 1:30 am.

So, now it is 30 something outside and 52 in my house and I think my hands are seriously going to fall off.

What I wouldn't give for that down-filled robe right now.

Yes, I Eat Out of the Trashcan

So I've been enjoying this post by Lauren about dropping the love bomb.

I wanted to reply with a story of my own, but I actually don't remember the first time that Thomas and I said "I love you." We discussed it last night, but all we could come up with was, "Maybe it was at Lula's?" Sad.

(P.S. I just ate fake chocolate. It took 17 minutes for my body to figure it out. Uh oh.)

What we did remember was a very funny incident from the first couple of months that we were dating:

I eat a lot. I mean A LOT. I really think I could enter food eating contests and win. This is not something that I generally like to reveal to my significant other right off the bat. It does not seem feminine to reveal that you could eat 3 times the meal that he just put away.

So one night, Thomas brought home food from Checkers. To the best of our recollection, it was chicken fingers and fries. I ate my portion nicely (or at the speed of light, depending on your perspective) and waited while Thomas picked at his food in a leisurely manner. Finally, it appeared he would eat no more. Would I reach over and eat the food? Should I request the leftover food? Should I clear the table and eat it on the way to the kitchen? These and other options I pondered while Thomas put his uneaten food back in the Checkers' bag and threw it away. THREW IT AWAY!

So I did what any self-respecting person would do. I waited until he left the room, got it out of the trash and ate it.

Except he came back and caught me at it.

Thereafter, we were at a gas station and Thomas was going in. He asked me if I needed anything and I said no. He asked if I was sure. Yes, I said, I'm sure. He walked toward the gas station and stopped at the trashcan, pointing at it and looking at me as if to say, "Anything from in there you want?" Bastard.

To this day he'll still tease me about it.

Further Proof that Thomas Loves Me and Wants Me to be Happy

I will have them all. Oh yes, I will have them all.

Five Shot Friday!

Look out! Last night was 5 Shot Friday.

Earlier this week, Thomas and I were watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother in which Ted takes five shots in a row. Instead of feeling like, Oh God, What a Horrible Idea! We felt like, Hey, That Looks Like Fun. Hence, Five Shot Friday.

No one was actually brave enough to slam five shots in a row (the shots being offered were tequila, after all) except Thomas who completed the whole mission and did not vomit, pass out, or behave strangely afterward.

I did manage to wreck my New Year's Resolution on Five Shot Friday, which was "don't eat anything you are not supposed to eat for 30 days." I don't think there's any way that I can spin the pizza and a half I ate last night as something I was supposed to eat. However, it did nicely to combat the tequila.

Things I Never Want to Hear

I'm in the bathroom yesterday and I'm brushing my teeth with this new Arm and Hammer toothpaste that we got because it was on sale.

I yell to Thomas, who was in the other room, "I hate this toothpaste!"

He yells back, "I know, it tastes like shrimp!"

Things I Love Most About my Husband

include that he brought this home for me:


I know that you, too, are dying to color Easy E.

It's Friday

Not to be a total walking cliche, but THANK GOD. This is one of those days you don't really count on when signing on for NaBloPoMo. I'd factored in that I would be away for Thanksgiving and would have to blog from my parents' house, but I figured that would just give me an excuse to take pictures of the SEVEN pies my mom makes for Thanksgiving and that would be cool.

But today, I have to go celebrate my brother in law's 30th birthday, so Thomas and I are heading to Carolina Beach in about an hour. Mmmm...first oysters of the year...

Speaking of which, the other day, Thomas and I were in the car, talking about these nice girls we met who are our friend's neighbors. She refers to them as "the gaybors." Anyway, we were talking about how we'd like to have them over for our next party. As fall is approaching, we've been eagerly looking forward to oyster roasts. So I knew what Thomas meant when he turned to me and said, "Do you think they eat oysters?" But I still almost peed myself laughing.

One Year Ago Today

The weather suddenly turning cold always makes me nostalgic. I read somewhere that people who are grieving often have sudden bouts of acute sadness during season changes. Our memories are so often triggered by feelings and smells that at the season change, we are suddenly bombarded with memories of the year before.

I keep feeling as if this fall is an anomaly--has there ever been fall in Wilmington in the six years I've lived here? Don't we always go directly from flip-flops to winter coats? And yet, last year, when we were moving into this house, I can distinctly remember being cold, in fact wearing my winter coat, while we hauled our stuff around.

A fine day, our moving day last year. Rainy and freezing. Thomas and I were shuttling things that we really wanted to move by hand from house to house in his truck: the records, some glassware, etc. Around 6 o'clock, both of us exhausted from working a full day and then moving, and sick of driving around in the rain, we decided to give up for the night. I went inside to call my friend Jenn (we were going to borrow her truck that evening) to let her know that we were going to quit after all, when suddenly, the most deafening boom I have ever heard shook the house. My first thought was: earthquake. My second thought was: terrorist attack. Everything was moving. I screamed, "What the FUCK was that?!" into Jenn's voicemail and hung up.

I looked at Thomas. He looked grave. He said, "I know exactly what that was," turned and walked out the front door. "What?" I said. "What???"

I walked out to see that his truck had rolled down the hill and smashed into the side of our (soon-to-be-ex) rental house.

It's times like these when you really get a good sense of whether or not your marriage is going to make it in the long term. These are the moments you didn't count on when you said, "for better or for worse," and this was the first moment of real disaster since we'd been together.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but Thomas is a total neat-freak. He can't leave the house without wiping down the counters and doing some last minute vaccumming. And he's particularly particular about the car. So although I could tell that the car probably wasn't totalled, I knew immediately that his brain was about to explode. DAMAGE!! TO THE CAR!! AND THE HOUSE!! AT ONCE!!

I didn't know what to do or say. I knew that if it were me, I probably would not want to be touched or consolled, so I sprang into "let's get the car off the house" mode. Together we pushed it up the hill and began to survey the damage.

Damn, were we lucky. The car came within an inch of shearing the electrical box right off the side of the house. As it was, the cover was torn off, but we were able to replace that easily. Thomas's truck lost a headlight and part of the front bumper and had a pretty hefty gouge running down the whole right side of the car. Also, some minor crunching.

At that point, our kindly neighbor Doug came over to see what happened. Thomas hissed at me through his clenched teeth, "Not now. NOT now."
"Okay," I said. "Okay, okay," and summarily led Doug away.

We stood out in the rain for about 45 minutes until Thomas could speak again. Then I was able to put my arms around him and we stood there for a while longer, holding each other beside the wreckage, and I knew my marriage had legs.