Category Archives: w/r/t love

Feb 14 2012

for ashley: lost for words

I may not always talk much, but I am a man of many words. Rarely do I have trouble stating clearly what I mean to say. Though of course sometimes I bury it in a footnote. But whatever.

The point is that I know how to say what it is that I want to say.

Which is why I’m so surprised today as I try to sum up how I feel about you. How I feel about my life since you’ve been in it. How I feel about our future, together. This is, after all, our last Valentine’s Day as an unmarried couple. As I’m sure you’re aware.

I’ve tried a dozen times to say it.

I’ve started and stopped.

I’ve done whatever is the blog equivalent of balled-up pages in the trash bin.

I’ve given up.

And tried again.

And all day there’s been one thing my mind keeps turning to, and it’s something that happened long before we met.

Back when I was 17 I helped deliver for a local floral shop one Valentine’s Day. All day I went from place to place with a car filled with flowers, arrangements and cards. I’d pull up to stoplights and drivers in the next lane would rubber-neck at my flora-filled Chrysler LeBaron. Each place I went to, the person who opened the door greeted me with curiosity that quickly broke into a lovely smile. Some people squealed with delight. Others gave me hugs. Most thanked me profusely, though I was not the cause for the flowers. I was merely the messenger. It was a really great day, collecting all those smiles and hugs and squeals. That sort of thing just stays with you and, over time, alters how you feel about just about everything.

And I guess the reason that keeps coming to my mind today is that’s how I feel every day. Every time you smile at me; every time you laugh. Every time you put an arm around me. Every time you tell me you love me. For the past few years these things have collected in my heart and have altered how I feel about just about everything. Except Journey. But whatever.

It’s not simply that my life is better with you in it. It’s that how I feel about my life – even everything that came before you – is better with you in it.

I love you, Ashley.

Feb 6 2012

for katharine: sickness and health

My friend Katharine got engaged yesterday. Today she posted this:

This reminded me of the Monday after Ashley and I got engaged.

This is that post.

I proposed to Ashley early in the morning on April 24, Easter Sunday. By early in the morning I really mean shortly after midnight because I wanted to do it on Easter Sunday yet I could hardly wait to actually do it. So like 12:01 AM. We stayed up late that night. She called her family and she and I talked about a lot of things before we finally passed out. The rest of that Sunday was pretty standard…except for her staring at her new ring all the time. We went to bed early because we had work and school the next day.

But at 4AM the morning after we got engaged, we were in the hospital.

Ashley’d woken me up a few times that night getting sick. Finally, she said she thought maybe she should go to the ER. And if Ashley thinks she needs to go to the hospital, it’s bad. We hastily got ourselves around and a short time later were in the ER. They hooked her up to an IV almost right away – they knew she was dehydrated before they knew why.

Like many nurses before her, the ER nurse had trouble finding a good vein in Ashley’s hand. One of the attempts caused a little bit of blood to trickle slowly down her hand until it covered part of her new engagement ring. Later on, Ashley would come to for a few minutes and apologize to me for that, for having gotten blood on what she said was such a pretty ring. But it didn’t matter, I said. It could be cleaned.

As she drifted back to sleep, her body finally calm and rehydrating, I pushed a couple of stools together, made a blanket of my coat, and slept a little bit. Around 6AM they sent us home. Turns out it was a virus making her sick. The doctor gave her a prescription to help control the vomiting and diarrhea, but the pharmacy didn’t open until eight.

We spent another miserable two hours at home. She was so sick that she was afraid to leave the toilet. But she was so tired she could barely keep herself sitting up. And so our engagement began with me kneeling in front of the toilet and giving her a shoulder to rest her head on while she was sick. She said it was really awkward and it sure as hell was. But it was also just what you do.

I called off work that day and Ashley didn’t go to class. I ran to the pharmacy when it opened and eventually her nausea settled. We both slept for a while and eventually were able to kind of joke about it: ‘Hey. Remember that time I proposed to you and you got sick?’ Hahaha. Hilarious to this day, right? So pardon me, Katharine, if I disagree with your statement.

But, seriously: Congratulations. I wish you and yer fella many, many happy years.

And that he never has to hold you up while you’re on the toilet.

But that if he does, you have the good sense to let him.

And again, congrats.

Jan 30 2012

sometimes i think time’s healing powers are highly over-hyped

One year ago today, our cat, L.G. Nermal, passed away. What’s remarkable it that, after all that time, I still feel incredibly sad when I think about him. Just picturing him there as he was dying almost brings tears to my eyes. In fact, writing this little post is proving to be just as difficult as writing this one was.

I don’t entirely understand why it’s still so painful for me. This isn’t like me. I understand and accept death and dying. This sort of thing isn’t the kind of thing I hang on to. Yet, there it is.

You’re still missed, Little Guy. I hope you can play out there, wherever you are.

Jan 24 2012

less than a million breaths away

“I’m talking about the individual US citizen’s fear, the same basic fear that you and I have that everybody has except nobody ever talks about it…Our smallness, our insignificance and mortality, yours and mine, the thing that we all spend all our time not thinking about directly, that we are tiny and at the mercy of large forces and that time is always passing and that every day we’ve lost one more day that will never come back and our childhoods are over and our adolescence and the vigor of youth and soon our adulthood, that everything we see around us all the time is decaying and passing, it’s all passing away, and so are we, so am I…

And not only that, but everybody who knows me or even knows I exist will die, and everybody who knows those people and might even conceivably have even heard of me will die, and so on, and the gravestones and monuments we spend money to have put in to make sure we’re remembered, these’ll last what – a hundred years? two hundred? – and they’ll crumble, and the grass and insects my decomposition will go to feed will die, and their offspring, or if I’m cremated the trees that are nourished buy my windblown ash will die or get cut down and decay, and my urn will decay, and before maybe three or four generations it will be like I never existed, not only will I have passed away but it will be like I was never here…That everything is on fire, slow fire, and we’re all less than a million breaths away from an oblivion more total than we can even bring ourselves to even try to imagine.”

That’s from David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, and it hit me rather hard today whilst I was eating lunch alone upstairs at work. First it was the bit about the gravestones, which we think of as the final reminder of our footprints on our place. Then that bit about the slow fire drove it in. Maybe it was the events of last night – really thinking about the other side of organ donation – I don’t know. But when I read this today everything around ceased to matter, to even exist. And all I can think about now is how precious little time we get here, and how even by that measure I get even less precious little time to spend with Ashley…and that comes at the expense of some other family who ended up with even less precious little time with their child than they could ever have brought themselves to even try to imagine.

And I am sad for them. And yet grateful. And while those two emotions mix readily in a person’s heart, it takes the mind significantly more time to catch up.

Dec 19 2011

ashley is home!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Woohoo!And, if I may presume to speak for the cats:

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!

Dec 12 2011

how – of all people – Steve Jobs has helped me feel a little less lonely

I wasn’t quite as familiar with Steve Jobs, the public figure, as some other people I know. I remember when we got our first computer, an Apple IIc+, in what must have been 1988, I sat down and dutifully read the instruction manual because I was an awesomely adventurous child. The manual mentioned that Apple had been founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in one a garage and that they named the company Apple because they couldn’t think of what else to call it. For a long time, that’s about all knew of the guy.

I learned much more about Steve Jobs after he passed away. Like many, many other people, I read Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography and, from it, have no problem describing Jobs as a man with a soul but no heart.

To have a soul is required, I think, to believe in things like poetry and music and change and the sheer force of one person’s will. Jobs did all of these things, and I can see his soul shine through my iPhone and iPad.

To have a heart is required, I think, to be kind, considerate, compassionate and honest. Having a soul is self-directed; having a heart is other-directed. At this, Jobs failed. He was a brilliant man with a brilliant vision and a brilliant passion, but let’s face it: more often than not he seemed to care very little for and about how other people felt.

Which is why it’s so weird that I owe him a big thank you for helping me feel less lonely right now while Ashley is in Disney World.

Because she recently acquired an iPhone,(1) and because we share an iCloud account, I can hop on the Find my iPhone app at any point and see what she and her family are up to.

Okay yes. It’s a little creepy. Or at least it would be if she didn’t know I was checking her location. Granted, this isn’t precisely what Find my iPhone was meant for,(2) but yesterday when I had a quick look and saw that they were watching the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom…well, for a moment it was like I was there with her. There’s a part in the show that I find to be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. I won’t spoil it for you, plus there’s simply no way I could describe it with any real effect, but both times I’ve seen it, tears came to my eyes. And both times I’ve seen it, Ashley was with me. And right then, last night, just for a second, I felt what that felt like, instead of just feeling bored and vaguely sad. I felt Ashley right next to me, looking up in wonder. I could even picture her face smiling under the light. And for a little bit I felt somewhat less alone.

Then there’s Photo Stream. For those who don’t know, Photo Stream stores a copy in the cloud of any picture taken on an iDevice for 30 days. So, again, since Ashley and I share an iCloud account, I can see the pictures she takes without her having to send them to me. Photo Stream only syncs photos to the cloud over WiFi, so I can’t see her pictures until after she’s returned to their resort. The other day she took a picture of a gallon of chocolate milk. I have no idea why. Can’t even guess. But it’s exactly what I was looking for, exactly the kind of randomness that is Ashley.(3)

And of course, there’s FaceTime. I love Ashley’s voice a lot, but everyone sounds different over the phone. She says I always sound like I’m waiting to get off the phone, while I think she always sounds a touch put-off. But with FaceTime, Apple’s video-chat, I can hear her lovely voice, see her pretty smile and watch her laugh. That was the highlight of my day yesterday. There’s something about seeing someone, seeing the person you’re talking to, watching her react to what you say, seeing smallish movements of eyebrow and chin, that makes me feel a little less here and a little more there.

And it’s odd that this closeness has been brought about by one of the most emotionally distant people I’ve ever read about. It’s as though he wanted to connect everyone in the world with what they love – music, art, pictures – and the people they care about even though he himself had a hard time connecting with anyone. I’m sure he didn’t create FaceTime or Find my iPhone (though the books mentions that iCloud was something he wanted to make work), but you can believe not a thing shows up on any Apple device out-of-the-box that he didn’t know about and approve of.

He’s caught a lot of flack over the years for a statement he made at a company retreat way back in 1982: “Customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” But he was right. At least in my case. I didn’t know I wanted ways to miss Ashley just a little bit less until I figured out how to use Apple’s devices to do exactly that. And that’s what technology should do: bring us closer to whom and to what we love.

  1. 2011 will forever be the Year of Apple for us. Make of that what you will.
  2. Which seems to be helping porn stars find their stolen phones.
  3. I should point out that it’s only seeming randomness. She always has a reason.
Dec 11 2011

the down side of disney world

I’ve blogged before about how Ashley and I haven’t spent a great deal of time apart since we got together. Yes, we’re that couple. Annoying close. Remarkably paired. Pathologically joined-at-the-hip. Other couples either want to be like us or they vomit in their mouths a little bit when they see us. We try not to notice.

Not shown: me. Because I'm not there.

So it stands to reason that I would miss her terribly this week while she’s at Disney World with her family. Yet I severely underestimated the degree to which everything would be and feel so different. Instead of thinking, “I’m going to spend a week without my fiancée,” or, “I’m going to spend a week without my best friend,” I should have thought, “I’m going to spend a week without my right hand.” She’s such a part of me and my life it’s exactly like that.

Going to the grocery store yesterday was easily the strangest experience of the last six months. Not only did I navigate the store in a wholly linear fashion – my preferred method as opposed to Ashley’s back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth – and not only did I not talk to a single person, but when I was done the grocery cart had neither chocolate nor milk, two Ashley-staples. This realization, this simple, basic thing, brought home to me how different things were going to be this week. I almost cried right there at check-out-lane seven, which would have been awkward because everyone knows that if you want to cry you go down to check-out-lane nineteen.

I spent yesterday just lost in my own projects: cleaning the house and recording music. I only emerged around 7PM because I was hungry and to run out to her parents’ house to check on their dogs. This is what my life before her was like: me endlessly flitting about, tinkering on this project and that project, wrapped up entirely in my own stuff, only recognizing the outside world when it intruded.

So yes. I miss her. Terribly. Intensely. Perhaps even pathologically. It’s going to be a long, sleepless week.

Oh yeah. Did I mention that? Here’s the most perverse part: I have a huge bed all to myself and I cannot – cannot - get comfortable. Even when I try keeping to my own side I miss the weight of her. The cats’ Occupy Her Side movement is going strong but their collective weight doesn’t equal that of Ashley, even though one could use a bit of a diet and another one is like the Michael Clark Duncan of cats. I’m encouraging them to set up tents and a library, not because I don’t want to be the man here, but also because I’m hoping the weight will be more like Ashley’s. Their #occupy movement, unlike some others, will be fairly successful I think, because it seems all they want is freedom to sleep without being accidentally kicked or squished. If they keep to her side – and I’ve officially designated it as theirs – they’ll be as comfortable as can be. But me…I just can’t find a space I’m comfortable with.

Because the only thing that really comforts me is in Florida.

She took one of my shirts with her, so she could have something near her that smells like me. From this I assume not only that I don’t reek of boiled cabbage and that no one’s ever told me, but that the scent of a loved one can be comforting. Nature – fickle wench that she is – has removed this option from me. For me the sense most closely tied to memory is my hearing, and one of the things Ashley took with her when she left was her voice. And yes she can call…but it’s far different from the almost constant auditory input of Ashley’s prattling on and on and on and on. This makes it sound like a bad thing, but I knew even before she left that I would miss it. Imagine the world without music, especially now, during the holidays. Everything is cold, quiet, still and without memory.

If the Happiest Place on Earth is in Orlando, its polar opposite is right here, without her. I’m glad it’s only for a week.

Oct 19 2011

834

Ashley has a conference to attend tomorrow and to prevent having to wake up at 4AM for the drive she and some of her classmates will head down there tonight and stay in a hotel room. While this does lead me to imagine various lesbian-porn scenarios, it also brings into sharp focus that in the last 834 days we have spent exactly one night apart.

That’s just slightly more than 0.1%.

I’d like to tell you that I’m going to do all sorts of awesome things while I have the night to myself. I’d like to say that I plan on downing every millilitre of alcohol in the house while watching football on three different TVs.(1) I’d like to tell you I plan on watching every version of The Thing that has graced American cinema screens in the last 60 years. I’d like to tell you I plan on eating nothing but potato chips while playing survival-horror video games stark naked, that I’ll plug my guitar in and turn it up to 11 and jam along with the stereo at eye- and ear-popping volumes, that when she comes home tomorrow there will mysterious pieces of clothing strewn throughout the house and even the cats will be hungover.

20111019-144110.jpg

Or she'll walk in on a scene like this.

I’d like to tell you I’m going to man-it-up so hardcore that Chuck Norris himself would nod to me…from the other side of the street.

But the truth is I’m going to miss her terribly. And I probably won’t sleep all that well.

It’s a good thing I turned in my Man Card years ago.(2) I’d be forced to surrender it tonight as I cry myself to sleep.

  1. My brother really does this on Saturdays during college football season.
  2. Traded it for season tickets to the opera and three boxes of Tic-Tacs. Wasn’t using it much anyway.
Oct 8 2011

soup de vivre

She said this: “I wonder if there’s anyone else out there. Lucky, like me. Who is more amazed by her fiancée every day and is glad they’re getting married.”

We made a joke of it, or, really, of my response. But all kidding aside, when someone says this about you – and ostensibly merely because you made some good soup – it makes you a bit more honest.

And it makes you smile.