Last night.

Last night we drank a whole bottle of Makers Mark 46 in advance of a Flogging Molly (aka, Who Cares There's A Bar) concert, and in doing so discovered a delicious new drink. It's Makers, blood orange juice, and a splash of cognac. I call it Kentucky Sailor Sauce. I don't know why - isn't Kentucky landlocked? We drank a lot of bourbon that night, I have a headache. Leave me alone.

Best Sandwich Ever

Black Forest bacon, heirloom tomato, avocado and baby field greens on whole wheat toast. BLT&A? Nope, got it: BLAT-wich.

Ow

Last week I woke up with ridiculous killer eye-popping pain in my jaw.  I rode it out like an idiot until it was unbearable, and my cheeks were swollen up to Cabbage Patch Kid-like proportion.  Then I finally went to a dentist, and found out I have TMJ disorder.  Sometimes, people, the fact of diagnosis can be worse than the disease itself.

Because TMJ is not a genetic or viral condition - it's brought on by stress.  That means that I worry about sh*t so much that it is actually affecting my health.  AND I let it get worse by not seeing a doctor about it, so that I was on a fast route to grinding my teeth into little nubs, because I was too damn busy.  AND the muscle relaxers they gave me make me a friggin' zombie all day, even if I take them the night before, so now I can't even FIX the problem, because I have to WORK MORE.  What the HELL, life?

AND I can't eat crunchy or chewy foods.  What kinds of food are those, you ask?  Only the BEST kinds!  Popcorn, bagels, baguettes, pizza, gummy bears, steak tacos - basically all my major food groups.  So now I'm hungry, swollen, in pain, unmedicated, inflamed, stressed, and busy.  Killing it!



Haha Google image search TMJ = 80's mullet model.



For all you lovers out there...

I loved you first: but afterwards your love

    Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

    Which owes the other most? my love was long,

    And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

And loved me for what might or might not be –

    Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’

    With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,

         For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’

         Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

--  Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

Valentine's Day is for Schmucks (like me)

What a ridiculously fabricated lie of a holiday. That I LOVE! But probably only because I'm in a relationship, and because I just got these at my office:

Suck it, office ladies! See how desired and coveted I am! Someone loves me and has proven it with shrubbery!

How truly amazing it is that one's attitude can change so extremely and violently with just a little shift in circumstance. Witness!

Me five years ago: "Valentine's Day can kiss my a**. What a crock! Do people still srsly buy in to that Hallmark-induced red-splattered kitch fest? It's truly for the vapid and self-obsessed - those trying to prove to the world how their relationship is super *perfect* when really they will go home tonight and NOT have sex, having mutually consumed three bottles of wine, and one of champagne because they can't stand to be alone together *cuz it's a special night,* lying in their icy beds like beached manatees saying ohhh I'm just so tired me too, happy v-day sweetiemuffin! NO THANKS."

Me today: "Yayy I got flowers! Prettyyyyy! I love my fiance lalalalaa. Now we have a whole day mandating appreciation for eachother, which is great, cause now I don't have to worry about the other 364! Superrr convenient. Thanks, Hallmark!"

What is my point? Who cares - I'm getting lucky tonight! (or am I?) Just kidding.  A fancy Italian dinner, a dirty martini, an obligation because of sent flowers, another obligation because of the awesome massage certificate I got him - I mean, do the math people.  Cue Manilow.

Memories...

Yesterday I took a three hour nap and ate my weight in beef tenderloin with blue cheese-mushroom sauce.  Visiting my mother is dangerous to my health.  I love her, but she keeps Cheetos in the house and somehow maintains the willpower to leave them alone until I visit.  Mean.

I spent the day on her couch recovering from Saturday night's birthday bash for a friend at Bowl-O-Rama, while Oscar slept upstairs until 3:15pm (winner), having taken a bagel sandwich to the face and four Advil.  After bowling we had gone out downtown Annapolis to McGarvey's, where we actually first met.  It was wonderfully surreal to sit in the same chair (wearing a similarly low cut dress), drinking and engaging in merriment with Oscar just as I had four and a half years ago on the night of our first encounter, with very minor variations.  I suppose both of our brains have swelled, mine from law school and his from medical school, so our heads were distinctly huger.  His sweaters are nicer, and his jeans are more expensive.  I am definitely paler, since now I spend most of my time under florescent lights looking like this guy.

Other things are different - there is a newly introduced desperation and mania in our nights out, knowing that the time spent as FREEDOM is transient and woefully short, that in between conversations we will return, unconsciously, to the acknowledgment of a crushing workweek hanging just overhead, and that we hear in the pause between Journey songs an urgent and petulent voice of Responsibility over and over again.  There is now, interspersed with the boozy merriment, a sort of distracted, repetitive look thrown toward a certain future, where awaits regret, exhaustion, and fuzzy-headed attempt at effort.  Which, of course, is where I am right now, eating an eight dollar sandwich in front of my computer in my office with the door closed, wishing I could fast forward to the next cloud break of a weekend, and do it all over again.  Fun life.

Public Service Announcement

Number one reason I am finally admitting that I need glasses, and probably should get contacts: I have no peripheral vision.

I have been holding out for the past three years, thinking I could get away as a mere recreational glasses user. Hey, I'm not getting old, maybe I'm just really trendy! Hornrimmed glasses are so hot right now. It's not like I am an actual nerd, spending 12 hours a day staring into a computer screen doing legal research. It's nerd-chic, right guys?!

No. My need is very real, and I'm coming clean. I was sent a very clear signal tonight that, probably, there is a great evolutional need for the sense of vision, beyond just making sure your food isn't rotten, or watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

The signal was received loud and clear, in a moment of "eureka!" that struck me as many of these moments do: in pursuit of Mexican food. I happened into my neighborhood Chipotle (or Chippies, for those of us who frequent), ravenous, after a rigorous workday of, again, staring at administrative regulations for 12 hours, (admittedly pausing occasionally to *quickly* glance at kitten videos). It was seven thirty, I had just endured one and a half face-punching hours in traffic, and I'll be crystal clear that I was not on the top of my game. But those football sized burritos sang to me from the darkness.

So I'm in line, pondering my burrito future (so many glorious options, and why god why did they have to start putting the calorie amounts up there) and I have that glazed over, moon-faced, starved-since-three expression. I am halfway through the sacred burrito-selection assembly line of wonder when I become aware of another human on my right. But remember, I have no peripherals. So shadowy man-like entity with no face approacheth, and it could be my brother or Jack the Ripper for all my beady, bespectacled rodent eyes can tell. Unfortunately, it was neither. After ordering the largest burrito possible with all the fixin's I go to my right pocket for my moolah and realize that I have been standing next to That Guy I Went To That Dated Party With In College And Probably Made Out With But Promptly Avoided Him For The Last Two Years Of College Out Of Embarrassment And Since Have Forgotten His Name Because Who Keeps Track Of That Shit What Am I Supposed To Keep A List Of All Potentially Awkward Encounters Now?

I meet his eyes and he morphed into a full human. It's too late. He probably saw me when he walked in and witnessed the whole hugely grotesque burrito ordering sequence (extra sour cream, what the HELL is wrong with me??) thinking I was ignoring him. Because I have no peripherals with my effing glasses on, I had no heads up whatsoever, no extra four seconds to magically conjure up a name-face recognition, no time at all to permit the kind of adrenalin-induced flight autoresponse I normally go with. Just straight up mortified panic. I don't know his name. It's already weird. Getting weirder by the second. If I keep staring, he will know I recognize him. He probably has a clue already from my deer eyed, sweat beading dumb head.

I turn my head. Mutely, I hand my card to the cashier and collect my garbage bag full of burrito. Thank god I did not have the peripherals to witness his expression as I power-walked out of that place like a housewife with that swishy, ass-wiggling contained sprint like a little fat kid trying to be first in line at the snow cone stand at the pool but the lifeguard just yelled at him for running. That was me, running away from my weird awkward past. Wow, I've come a long way.

Yay for lists!

I've been thinking a lot lately about relationships.  Obviously, I can't deny the Debbie-Downer-ness of my previous post, and neither can I defend it.  The reality is that I get overwhelmed and dramatic, perhaps to a degree one might term "batshit crazy," when I should be grateful, excited and what - exhuberant?  I'm getting married for Pete's sake! 

When in a relationship, it's really easy to get lost in your own head, to the point that you forget someone else is living right beside you.  We are selfish creatures.  We walk out of our house and forget that the other lives an entire life apart - like that tree-in-the-forest riddle.  If we aren't there, who's to say it makes a sound?  The perception of our world is necessarily and absolutely one dimensional, and has been our whole lives, so of course it's difficult to accommodate another person schlepping alongside.  It is against our nature to conjure substantial and constant empathy for someone else, especially when they live with you, you see them every day, and they do the most annoying things. 

Here's the kicker:  these things we call relationships are not immortal.  They're more like plants.  One day, you forget to give it water and it's droopy, sad, and gray.  I know; I've killed a lot of plants.  I killed a cactus.

So this morning I got mad that Oscar wouldn't walk the dog, even though I got up an hour before him and would be at the mercy of suicide-stage traffic, and I was super bitchy.  I felt really crap-tastic about it, and about life in general.  Realizing that attitude to be counterproductive, because I just kept feeling crappier, I got into work and decided to write down a list of his best attributes that are included in the reasons for which I will love him until I breathe my last breath.

1.  He's handsome.
2.  He's kind.
3.  He's tall.
4.  He's bright.
5.  He's caring.
6.  He's funny, and makes me laugh all the time.
7.  He has great hair.
8.  He's the most intelligent person I know.
9.  He's ambitious, and sets high standards for himself.
10.  He has beautiful eyes.
11.  He tastes like truffle when I kiss him.
12.  He wears cologne just because he knows I like it.
13.  He is warm.
14.  He holds me tight.
15.  He is eager to please me.
16.  He likes dirty vodka martinis.
17.  His favorite movie is Tombstone, which is adorable.
18.  He listens.
19.  He is reasonable and logical.
20.  He holds my hand.
21.  He does the dishes because he knows I hate it.

Trust me, I could go on... but just engaging in the exercise of writing this list brings to the forefront of my mind all of the fantastic, superlative, one-in-a-million pieces of this guy, and I feel calm, grateful, and infinitely stupid for even getting mad this morning.  I should send him this.

Sorrow, thy name is love

Anticipation has got to be the worst state of human existence.  Particularly when, as now, the event to occur has such potentially devastating implications for the future.  What future?  My future, my almost-husband's, and ours together.  That's three, not two.  That has been the most illuminating realization borne of this process:  by welding our lives together, we have created an entirely new being in "us."  "Us" is a thing on its own; "us" exists as a new reality.  "Us" can thrive or perish.  

I became aware of "us" in the context of likely the biggest and most important decision of our (future) marriage, aside from the obvious decision to get married.  We are making the rank list of ENT programs, in order of preference, that will be submitted and eventually determine where we will live for the next 5 years of our lives.  For those of you unfamiliar with the idiotic process, after medical school, one does not simply get a job offer.  That would not be special enough.  Instead, you apply to all of the programs you'd like to attend, they may or may not offer you an interview (for which you must pay airfare, hotel, transportation, etc.), and then you make a list from 1 to however many interviews you get, in order of preference.  The programs in turn rank you, alongside all of the other candidates to whom they gave interviews, and you both submit the list to a computer database.  The computer database organizes your list, their list, the list of every medical student in the country, the list of every medical program in the country, and produces a mathematical algorithm.  On March 16, 2012, every medical student in the country will sit in the auditorium of their respective schools, and hear their name called in front of their peers and family.  They will walk onstage and receive an envelope containing the name of the program with whom they have "matched."  Cue happy face/sad face/celebration/suicide.  Bam.  For five years.  As soon as you open that envelope, you have entered into a binding 1-year minimum contract with that particular program.  

I am in the uncomfortable position of side-liner.  My future is tied to his, and to that damn rank list.  I get a say, of course, but ultimately, his professional career is at stake.  He wants to rank #1 a program in California.  I want to rank #1 a program in New York City.  The reasons for why we have our choices are many, and all are valid and important.  Individually, the validity of each reason is rendered irrelevant by the fact that we ultimately disagree.  I feel fucking sick just saying it.  

Where is there room for compromise?  How do we compromise?  And what are the consequences for the "us"?  Either way, one of us is disappointed, embittered, saddened.  One of us feels trampled, betrayed, alienated.  The other feels guilty, selfish, tyrannical.  Technically, one will win, but in any case, the "us" loses, its future tragically threatened.  I've been so blindsided by the reality of how fucking precarious the existence and longevity of "us" truly is.  I'm so naive for believing that we were different, that our love was stronger than average and would be sufficient to overcome such obstacles.  But it is so easily broken!  I can see how it happens without consideration.  I can see the seed of resentment planted, the initial hope and effort eventually strangled by the reality of disappointment.  I can see the blame, the bitter accusation, the dashed dreams and pain of resignation.  I really can understand how people can get there, and for the first time I see in us the potential.  

How to decide on a course of action?  Shall I be honest?  I assert my choice, I steamroll him, and I get what I want; but I lose a part of his trust.  The seed is planted and resentment grows.  He won't ever forget how I took away his dream of success, his chance at a top tier program;  how I put myself before him, and my needs before his.   He blames me whenever thinks of what he gave up, silently and subconsciously cursing my selfish resolution.  Shall I bend to his choice?  I leave my family, move to the suburbs, give up my dream (which used to be our dream) of living in New York, and I go with him.  I am alone constantly while he happily pursues his choice.  I become desperate to make it work, but whenever I feel sad, lonely, or uncomfortable, my subconscious reaction is to curse him.  I become depressed.  I don't want him to see it, don't want to disturb his happiness, but I keep sinking, knowing he can't pull me back up, because it's not enough, we can't change it now, we're stuck in a cycle of blame and hurt.  

In either circumstance, the "us" suffers.  No matter who wins, we lose in the end.  Neither of us can change how we feel, and neither can we prevent the future from coming.  I choke up when I talk to him about it.  He probably thinks I'm crying because I want my way.  But in truth I am so scared of losing him, and so scared that the breakdown of  "us"  is inevitable.  Impressing upon me for the first time is the reality of how hard our marriage will be, and how stupid I am for thinking I understood that before.  Can two people, each having a strong will of their own, ambition, and desires, ever truly compromise?  And what does that word even mean?  Does a successful relationship require one person who compromises, and the other inflexible?  I truly hate ending with questions, but I can do nothing but anticipate...