love

I’m home alone until Saturday night - Ben is in Las Vegas all week covering a fight. I thought it would be especially hard this time around since I would usually be at work every day interacting with friends and getting out of the house. I thought that this week I would basically be in solitary confinement for me, while at the same time, I would be getting picture messages from Ben of his overflowing buffet plates and of him posing with Hooters girls.

Instead, though, I seemed to have found a sure-fire cure for loneliness: extreme stress.

In my deep fear of not having enough freelance work to keep me busy and pay the bills, I got myself into a mountain of work. And if you don’t think it’s confusing to spend an hour writing about dry cleaning methods and the next writing about 18-wheeler spinal cord injury settlements and the next hour writing about auriculotherapy (look it up - I know I had to), then you would be wrong.

I thought I might spend the week wistfully sighing and conjuring images of our post-wedding winter cabin, complete with crackling logs and wine and snow falling silently outside. And no deadlines. Instead, though, I’m spending every single second worrying about how the hell one writes a joint venture business plan.

It’s a weird feeling - I constantly feel like I’m back in high school and about to take a test I haven’t studied for. The feeling of all of your brain cells lining up and preparing to bullshit to the fullest extent of their ability. Have I ever written about the herbal treatment protocol for smoking cessation? Of course I have! I’m a living, breathing copywriter, aren’t I? I can’t even watch TV or call my friends - I’m just constantly thinking on how I can possibly pull these things off and save my ass.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m enjoying the crap out of my new job. Sure, I might be a bit stressed and more than a little over my head, but on the other hand I’m doing stuff I love, I’m actually getting to make my own decisions and think and voice my opinions, and I wore a wifebeater without a bra all day.

I’ll tell you one thing, though: if stress is cure for loneliness, could a takeout chicken parmesan sandwich and a beer be a cure for stress?

There’s only one way to find out.

Well, that was easy. After a 30-second ceremony at City Hall, Ben and I are officially life partners. I can’t tell you that it feels all that different, but I can tell you that it feels good. I’m not comfortable with the whole “wife” and “husband” thing, but we’re slowly getting the hang of it - and, to my surprise, we didn’t suddenly fall into predictable gender roles or start having domestic disputes. At least not yet.

I thought I’d post a few pictures of the evening - although not nearly the full collection. I’m somewhat certain that you can’t spot the two mustard stains on my dress that I worked for hours to remove. If you can see them, please don’t tell me.

After the marriage itself, we ate cheese burgers at a local pub (it was, after all, our special day) and then walked over to our favorite hole-in-the-wall dive bar, Rudy’s, where many a man is drinking away their pension, no matter what time of the day it is and where every seat cushion is covered in a copious amount of duct tape. We then spent the night hanging with friends old and new and ended the evening with some take-out Chinese food. I couldn’t have had a better wedding if I were given a huge budget and many months of planning.

Still, we are planning a more official event in a year or two that will include our far-away friends and relatives. Until then, though, every time I have a $6 pitcher of domestic beer and an old hot dog, I’ll think about how much I love Ben.

There are more pictures located here. Ben obviously wrote the captions.

I’ll update again tonight with the terrifying adventure known as our winter cabin honeymoon/brush with death. It was really romantic, almost dying together in the snow.

Ben and I are getting married. To each other!

I know I haven’t really told many people, but I feel kind of strange talking about it - it seems a little private, not to mention that my least favorite beast on earth is the rabid bride-to-be. Don’t worry, I don’t want to talk about my dress or my date or my ring or my attendants.

Well - I suppose I will mention the date. We’re heading over to City Hall tomorrow, where we will be married in the eyes of the city clerk, our best friend Dan Brooks, God, and about half a dozen immigrants who are entering loveless marriages in exchange for a green card. After the ceremony, we’re heading to our favorite dive bar to celebrate with a few close friends.

Although we’ve been engaged for months now (again, I mostly didn’t know how to bring it up), we decided that this was the right time - why sit around in an emotional waiting room? We already live together, we already know we want to spend our lives kicking ass together, not to mention my health insurance runs out at the end of the month.

It’s been funny - whenever I tell someone about the upcoming wedding, they say that they didn’t guess that I was the marrying kind. And although I’m not always into some of the roles and connotations and history of marriage, I am very comfortable - no, I’m very elated - to marry Ben. I’m pretty sure he feels the same.

We’ll probably have a bigger, more traditional party/reception in a few years for all of our friends and family, when we’re more settled and when we have a greater need for flatware. Right now, though, this simply feels right.

All of this hullabaloo paired with my new job also explains the lack of updates - for example, today I spent hours and hours writing copy about personal injury lawsuits while also trying to get a stain out of the dress I want to wear tomorrow. I’ll try to post a few pictures tomorrow, but then we’re off to a wintery cabin in the Catskills where we will spend the weekend sitting in front of a fire, staring into each other’s eyes, and drawing up our initial divorce papers.

…Okay, okay, I’ll post a picture of the engagement ring. My aunt, who knows much more about these things, helped me find it and I love the thing.

Valentine’s Day falls into a very specific set of unfortunate holidays I like to classify as Days You Very Well Might Receive a Gift Or Card From Someone When You Have Nothing To Give Them In Return. Other holidays that fit into this category range from Christmas (”No, you shouldn’t have!”) to St. Patrick’s Day (”No, you really, really shouldn’t have.”)

These people might be friends, co-workers, acquaintances, neighbors – all with cellophaned cookies or candy hearts or, God Forbid, valentines. They hand you your gift, look at you, smile, and then comes the uncomfortable interminable moment where they figure out you don’t have anything for them in return.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I love getting things. But I’m also a somewhat cheap, very lazy, utterly unorganized person. I am not the girl in your office who arrives on Valentine’s Day in a pink sweater with individually wrapped and labeled homemade chocolate-dipped strawberries for everyone on the floor, possibly along with some kid-themed cardboard cut-out valentines like the kind you used to fill out in fifth grade. I’m more like the girl in your office who can’t even remember the name of the front desk secretary who has worked for the company for thirty years. Like so many other things in my life, it’s not because I’m mean, it’s because I’m stupid.

That’s why I prefer get-together and party-based holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Halloween – holidays that focus on things like food and patriotism and goblins. Holidays that involve everyone you know gathering together and really celebrating. Sure, you have to bring something to the party or dress like a sexy janitor, but you don’t have to remember to give something to every single important person in your life, on the risk of forgetting someone and hurting their feelings. At this point, days like Christmas or Valentine’s Day really stress me out — there’s too much preparation and too many weird social rules to remember.

Lot s of times, it even seems to me that Valentine’s Day has devolved to the point that it’s not even about making the person you love happy, it’s simply about not disappointing them. More and more I see men sweating out V-Day like it’s some sort of romance gauntlet that they must survive without doing any serious damage to their relationship.

Other times, I feel like women almost torture their significant other by making men do uncomfortable things to prove their love: go to a fancy restaurant in uncomfortable clothes or buy something that they don’t know much about, like flowers or jewelry.
And it irks me to no end when people ask me what Ben did for me for Valentine’s Day. Would you ask me what he did for me on, say, Tuesday? Because on Tuesday he came home with a bottle of wine and a frozen pizza because we’d both had rough days. On Valentine’s Day, we don’t have anything planned (thanks for not asking).

But this isn’t about how good or bad my relationship is or about one-upping one another. It’s about changing the face of Valentine’s Day – maybe toward something more turkey- or firework-themed? Don’t be surprised when I don’t have raspberry-filled heart-shaped sugar cookies for you when hand me yours, but also don’t be surprised when you and I have a really wonderful Fourth of July together.

Entering our gym yesterday, Ben and I noticed a new sign taped on the door advertising a Valentine’s Day Sale in which you could get your sweetheart a membership and some private sessions for a reduced cost. We both thought this was odd and probably a bad idea - but assumed that it was an isolated case of a bad marketing idea. But - low and behold, my friend Brian also saw a similar sign at a different gym in a different borough.

I can see it now — men making this mistake all throughout New York City: “Hey honey! For Valentine’s Day I got you that gym membership that you’ve never mentioned you wanted!”

Now, don’t get me wrong: I can envision a situation in which this would be an acceptable V-Day gift. For example, if your girlfriend or wife already has a membership at said gym and the membership is about to expire, and if your girlfriend was also untraditional enough to want something practical for Valentine’s Day instead of, say, a pink talking stuffed dog.

However, for the most part, I think that this is a BAD gift idea for a woman on the most romantic of fake holidays. Why not just sit her down on Valentine’s Day and explain to her that you are no longer physically attracted to her? Why not just take out the middleman and break up with her?

Lord knows I’m no expert on women, but I’ve watched enough Lifetime Original Movies to understand that whatever you give her on Thursday better 1) be pink and heart-shaped and 2) not imply that she needs to put in some time on the treadmill.

Or have we misinterpreted this V-Day gym membership sale entirely? Are you supposed to get a gym membership for yourself, so that you improve your looks and stamina for your partner? I think that might be a little too abstract. Maybe we should stick to flowers and boxes of chocolates.

Of course, I should mention that Ben and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day - or we do, but only as a joke. I think last year we went to the grocery store and bought one of those giant heart-shaped cookies together and then ate way too much of it while watching TV. It was kind of gross.

I stupidly didn’t realize that weight issues are probably right up there with politics and religion when it comes to sensitivity, feather-rustling and strong opinions. (This is probably not the time to mention how much I hate musicals. Yes, I even hate Rent. Yeah, I know. Is anyone still reading?) And while I think it’s okay to talk about these hot-button issues (probably even vital to communicate these issues to one another) a blog probably isn’t the best place to do so - certainly no where near as good as talking to people face to face.

And doing just that this morning with my cube-mate Liz, we had a pretty great conversation about how the best way to express your opinions on touchy subjects is to talk from your own experience (and also about how depressing basement gyms can be).

So - I’m going to drop the weight part of the issue and talk a little about something that I feel strongly about that I don’t think I expressed well yesterday, this time talking a bit more about myself.

I’m very wary of self-love and confidence and acceptance. I know that sounds weird. Nannying over the last eight years or so, I’ve seen a trend of telling kids, especially girls, to love themselves no matter what, to be confident, to trust your feelings. To laugh at all of their jokes, to praise and support everything they do. I’ve also read it on a lot of magazine racks - be yourself! Love yourself!

And, to a point, this is great. So often, our culture tells us that we aren’t perfect and not good enough and women are being asked more and more to be everything - have children, have a career, still look perfect, etc. It’s a lot of pressure and, besides that, it’s just plain impossible to be everything to everyone.

But has the pendulum swung too far? Sometimes I think so - that the line between loving and valuing who we are (and we should all, down to the very last one of us, be loved and valued) and knowing when there are parts of you that you don’t love and that you can change.

As corny as it sounds, I think this goes back to the framed needlework art that probably hangs in one of your aunt’s bathrooms: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

My own struggle has been with shyness and social anxiety. It’s in my genes, it’s something wrong with my brain, it probably had a bit to do with my environment growing up, and it’s part of my personality. Now, while I can’t change the way my brain works, for whatever varied reasons it works that way, I can change the way I think about it and the way I act. Just like any other struggle, it never ends or gets easier - I can only understand it better and work with it.

My mom helped me with this a lot growing up (when I was younger I couldn’t even make phone calls) and as I’ve gotten older I’ve read a lot about it and gotten some help. I still have to force myself to do things (call people, attend parties, act normal in meetings, meet the parents) but the experiences and relationships I get from pushing myself and deciding to simply be uncomfortable have been more than worth it.

So is my social anxiety something I can’t change and should accept, or is it something I can work on? I say, even if I’ll never be “normal,” even if it means I might cry a little before I can ask someone to the movies, I’d rather end up in the movies with a new friend than alone in my house, not crying, having “accepted myself.” Just because shyness is an innate part of me doesn’t mean I have to like it. If anything I hope it’s made me more outspoken than someone who doesn’t worry constantly about social situations.

On the other hand, there are things I can’t change, like my diminutive height or laughable breast size. In these cases, I have to put away any dreams I had of being a basketball center or a successful stripper and come to terms with it. I mean, at least I can jog without a sports bra.  

But going back to the original argument, I wonder what would have happened if, while I was growing up, my mom (who also struggles with shyness, although you’d never be able to tell) taught me to love myself exactly as I was. Would I still have forced myself to join the improv troupe in college or try out for a spot in the opinion section of the newspaper - two things that I truly valued and enjoyed? Would I even have been able to follow my dream of becoming a writer?

And I think this links back to self-criticism and self-doubt. I think they are integral in being open-minded and improving yourself. It was hard reading some of the responses I got yesterday, but a lot of them had good points in them. Yes, it wasn’t any fun to beat myself up about what I had written or to admit to myself that I had not considered certain aspects of my argument, but it’s a lot better than blocking out the criticism and saying “I believe what I believe and I love myself.”

Perhaps it’s just as important to teach our daughters to listen to others as well as listening to their own hearts and to teach them that it’s just as important to accept the constants in life as it is to fight for anything they wish if they have any kind of a fighting chance.

Ben and I often talk about how it will be important in our futures to always be a little uncomfortable. To keep pushing ourselves and to question everything.

Settling with every aspect of who you are today is a very comforting thing to do. And here I am filled with a lot of self-doubt and even more self-criticism. But it’s these doubts and criticisms that will, hopefully, keep me thinking, keep me refining the way I see the world, and keep me moving forward.

And, I swear to God, my next post will be a light-hearted collection of humorous observations about life.