Your Definition of Love

This is a hard one! This requires deep thinking and pontificating! Hold on, let me have some beer.

...

Okay, that's better.

Trench and I have been married three years, but have been together for ten total. We met when we were 23. A mutual friend introduced us, not thinking that we'd get together, she just had a party and we both happened to be there. The minute he walked in the door I wanted to know him. He was wearing a beret and a kimono and used big words (what can I say? I've always been a sucker for a large vocabulary). He made a Gamera reference (cuz he's a geek) and I started talking to him about Mystery Science Theater 3000 (cuz I'm a geek too). He fell for me, but I just wanted to be friends because I was too busy chasing after boys who looked like rock stars. But I was never going to be happy with a rock star. I could give a fuck how big someone's record collection is, but a bookshelf filled to bursting makes my heart go pitter pat.

What's love like after ten years? No one cares about long term love. All the love stories are about falling in love. All the love songs are about falling in love. When a TV show finally gets their star-crossed lovers together, the only interesting thing they can think to do with them is break them up so that they can get back together eventually. Being in love is boring. A couple who has been together for years obviously never has sex and bickers all the time and longs for an affair with some hot young thing. How can you not be bored out of your skull after ten years?

The simple answer is by falling in love with your best friend. One of the reasons why I decided to try dating Trench was that it occurred to me that dating him might actually be fun. How many times do people think that? And it has been. We make each other laugh on a daily basis. We like doing things together. We get cranky if we go too long without a day off together. We get happy when the other one comes home. We fall asleep holding hands. It's been commented on that for a couple that's been together a long time, we're still as affectionate with each other as if it was year one.

It's not like problems don't happen. They do for every couple. But although it's common to hear that "relationships are work", I don't buy it. It isn't work to be with Trench. If your relationship feels more like work than play, you might want to re-evaluate.

Because of the longevity thing, I can't help feeling like an old crone, shaking my head at the young whippersnappers in love. One thing that drives me a little crazy is when people decide that they're in love in a week. To me, love is a trust that is built up over a long period of time. Anything before that is infatuation. So it isn't uncommon for me to give a derisive, "No you don't!" when friends attempt to cry on my shoulder because the guy they were dating for a month just dumped them and "I loved him!" No, seriously, you didn't, you'll be fine in a week. And get off my lawn!

That isn't fair of me, though. Because I knew right away that Trench was the guy. And now he's home so I'm signing off so I can hang out with him.

Your Music

I got into music...really got into it...at about 15? 16? It was the early 90's and suddenly it was all Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, the Cure, Liz Phair. I felt a connection I'd never felt before. And it was all played by outsiders, for outsiders. No one in my tiny high school was ever interested in talking about books, but I could finally connect with people about music.

At 18 I started dating First Love. He was a punk rocker. I'd listened to some punk through friends before, but he took me to shows and we spent every weekend seeing bands at the Fireside Bowl. The soundtrack was suddenly Dead Kennedys, the Descendants, Face to Face, the Boll Weevils, Apocalypse Hoboken. Because my mom raised me feminist, it was important to me that I also listen to punk by women too, so I got into Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Babes In Toyland and other riot grrrl bands.

After the big break up, I discovered I couldn't listen to punk anymore, it reminded me too much of him. (This isn't the case anymore...a lot of it is on my ipod now.) It was the late 90's, and I started listening to British bands, not to mention the bands I'd fallen in love with at 15 like the Cure and the Smiths. This all led nicely to my gothic phase...Peter Murphy, Siouxsie Sioux, Rasputina (still my favorite) and Switchblade Symphony. I wore lots of black and learned how to show off my cleavage, and even if I looked depressed, I was happier and more confident than I'd ever been.

Sometime after college the goth phase fell away, although I still wear a whole lot of black. I listen to mostly British bands. I still love 90's britpop like Blur and Pulp, and I named my cat after David Bowie. I adore music with a sharp wit (the Indelicates), smart lyrics (the Decemberists), and a gorgeous female voice (The Gossip). I notice I like most of my songs fast-paced. Don't get me wrong, I adore Radiohead, but I never got into shoegaze, I'll take the Long Blondes over Slowdive any day. Although I like Slowdive. Just not love. I blame the punk music...I still need my music to have a fast beat.

Your Parents

They're pretty badass. My parents have the love story that was never supposed to work out. My dad was the drummer for a band called Wayne Cochran and the CC Riders. To give you an idea of what kind of band they were, Wayne Cochran was known as "the white James Brown". My mom and her friends followed them (but don't call them groupies), and she and my dad started dating. They had an unplanned pregnancy (*waves*), and got married. It was very low key, my mom was in her disco dress and my dad wore his cowboy hat.

When I was four we moved from Florida to Chicago to live with my grandma. My dad stopped playing music and got into selling computers. My mom got a job, went to college, and built herself up in the company. I like to tell people that my mom raised me Feminist more than she ever raised me Catholic. Mom went for jobs that the men in her company never expected her to apply for, and she got them because she likes to work and likes being in charge.

My dad was fired from his job after 9/11. After trying to figure out what to do next, he discovered the answer was easier than he thought...music. He started teaching drums to kids, and started playing in bands again. We saw him playing recently at a beach themed bar out in the burbs, and he let a few of his students onstage to play along. His original band has reunions once every couple of years.

I'm very lucky to have incredibly supportive parents, who still look ten years younger than they are and danced to britpop at my wedding. They can drive me crazy the way that parents do sometimes, but when I hear horror stories of pushy parents from friends, I'm always relieved that I lucked out the way I did.

Your First Love

Really, must I? It's not that interesting a story. Girl meets boy. Girl and boy are into each other for a couple of years. Girl and boy grow apart and break up. Girl and boy try to be friends. Girl finds out boy "overlapped" their relationship with another girl. Girl sends scathing email and they don't talk again for years. The end.

We did attempt being friends again years later. Trench and I had been together for five years, and I discussed it with him before contacting First Love. We hung out a bunch of times, and it was fine. We had definitely gone down different paths and I knew that any romantic feelings I had for him were in the distant past. Then we (Trench and I are five days apart) had a birthday party, he showed up already drunk from a street festival and made an ass of himself, hitting on all the girls and trying to start fights with all the guys. That was the end of that.

I had a dream about him recently. It was just a snippet in the middle of a dream, but I was in a fast food place with Trench and First Love was working behind the counter. He saw me and apologized for what happened, saying how he knew he had been an ass that night and that he was sorry we stopped being friends because of it. It was nice, and I woke up feeling...not closure because the book closed on that a long time ago, but feeling like I had finally gotten an apology and could remember him well. First Love, wherever you are, I hope that life is good.

Introduce Yourself

Technically I have a small introductory post at the beginning of this blog, but it never hurts to re-introduce. I'm a Chicago girl, living in my very first home that I own with Trench, husband of three years and paramour of a whole ten years. I have two antisocial cats, and no plans to have kids. I love reading, writing, knitting, taking long walks and traveling. I like to cook, but I'm only good at one pot meals, not really anything in the oven, and I don't bake at all. I love Halloween and dressing up, and I can be convinced to put on a costume at any point in the year. I don't like to exercise, but I love yoga and am trying to make it a point to do it much more often. Trench and I like to decorate our living spaces with wild abandon, in lush colors with as much artwork as we can hang and unique touches, but our wardrobe? Mostly black. My biggest faults are that I can be lazy and I'm a big ol' procrastinator. I originally went to school to become the next great American writer, and when that didn't pan out (hey, it still could someday), I went to cosmetology school and became an esthetician (someone who does facials and waxing). I'm currently working for a makeup store that specializes in waxing. I feel like I'm nearing the end of that career path, but when my friends start having daughters, I'll be there with skincare advice and to wax unwanted hair when they hit puberty. I dabble in what some might call "flakiness"... I believe in energy and balancing chakras and feng shui and homeopathic medicine, but I have a very dry and snarky sense of humor, so I don't take anything too seriously. I will stop whatever I'm doing or talking about if someone with a cute puppy walks by. Or an ugly old and grizzled dog, it doesn't matter. Sometimes I tend to over-think and analyze everything to death, which can get me down, but in the end I always believe that everything will turn out all right.

national november blog month

Yes, it's true, I completely suck as a blogger. Well, not completely. I keep meaning to post. I even have a few entries that are fully formed in my head...I just haven't managed to type them out. To break this, I'm going to try NaNoBloMo this month (does anyone else think that sounds dirty?). For those who don't know, it means that I'm going to post something every day for the month of November. To help me along, I'm going to use some prompts that I stole from someone, who stole them from someone else.

Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – Your music
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your hobbies
Day 07 – Your oldest friend
Day 08 – A precious item
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – An inspiration
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – Your mode of transportation
Day 14 – Where you live
Day 15 – Something you love about yourself
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations

"You look good wearing my future"

This week I watched a couple old favorite movies on Netflix. The first one was a very old classic...Adventures In Babysitting! Unfortunately I watched it at home with Trench instead of at a slumber party with girlfriends, where it would have been more fun. Trench only saw it once when he was a kid. My bff and I watched it about 95 times when we were in the sixth grade. We thought that Chris (the babysitter) was the coolest girl in the world, and I desperately wanted her hair. I still enjoyed it, in a nostalgic sort of way, but man did it ever not age well. Or maybe I'm just old enough to notice terrible writing, fake looking backdrops and the whitest blues song ever filmed. Though I really think that someone needs to dress like Sara, the Thor-obsessed kid who is being terribly babysat, for Halloween.



Then last night I watched Some Kind of Wonderful. In some ways, it's like a poor man's Pretty In Pink. In other ways, it's more satisfying because Mary Stuart Masterson's character, Watts, is every bit as cool as Duckie, possibly cooler because she's more tough than pathetic, and she gets the guy in the end. And the guy is Eric Stoltz, who I always had a crush on in pretty much everything he's ever been in. His character, Keith, is soooooo dumb, though. Aw, poor baby has a dad who really wants him to go to college! How terrible for him. "That was your dream, not mine!" Let's see what you say about that in ten years, sweetie. Then he blows his college money on diamond earrings for his dream girl, even though he's fairly certain she's only going on a date with him as a joke. Argh! Someone punch him in the face! He convinces his dad that he should trust him, and his dad is stunned by this logic and agrees. Oh, John Hughes, it's like you're holding up a mirror to the way reality works. And the most beautiful girl in school? Is Lea Thompson. No offense to her, she was pretty damn cute in her day, but it's obvious the director wasn't able to get Molly Ringwald for the role. The director also wasn't able to afford any type of soundtrack, except for the song "Miss Amanda Jones" by the Rolling Stones. No Psychedelic Furs in this 80's flick. But still? It is a satisfying ending, with the most beautiful girl in school turning down the love interest so that she can be alone for awhile and find out who she is, while the incredibly cool, quirky girl who drums and wears ass-kicking boots and has a star tattoo on her neck gets the boy and the diamond earrings.