Ridiculous & Poorly Crafted but Earnest Ode to my Husband

I love you
You love me
We are each other's honeybee
How did I get so lucky?
Any other way would be calamity

You dumped your FBI dream for me
You listen to me whine about missing N.Y.C.
I promise to listen closely to you
When you talk about things you could do
I get upset when you're feeling blue

If you didn't choose a wife
If instead you chose the wild life
It would have been sad for me
But instead you're my precious lovely
Although our heights look disproportionately

I'm thrilled you are my "The One"
And I didn't wind up with some bum
You give me cuddles and warm hugs
I make us tea and steep it in mugs
You're addictive like narcotic drugs

When I play grabby hands
You display casual indiff-er-ence
You enjoy a pinch and tickle
While I like to eat a bread and butter pickle
And the commies like the hammer and sickle

You reach stuff on the high shelf
And never say, "Do it yourself"
Because you know I can't reach that high
And also because you're a helluva guy
We both enjoy super spicy stir fry

You fold the laundry so patiently
While I cut the chicken, you chop brocc-o-li
Sacrificing by getting onion hands
Says to me you are my manly man
After dinner, you help with pots and pans

You don't laugh when I say I'm writing a book
When you ask to read and I say don't look
You still have faith we'll hit the big time
We are great partners in crime
Gin and tonics have quinine

Some day our loin fruits will be very tall
Or perhaps like me they will be quite small
I'm not looking forward to labor pains
Because either way, they'll have big brains
With weird blood running through their veins

And about the fact that I am weird
That is how I was reared
I need to try and make you laugh
Or my quality of life is reduced by half
The data correlates on a line graph

It is just part of who I am
Like you know who often says, "BAM!"
Like Ricky Martin shakes his bon bon
Or how you tackle triath-a-lons
We like a show that has Cylons

Someday we will be old and gray
And we'll wonder how we got that way
We'll tickle each other on the belly
And blame the dog for all things smelly

I've gone on for far too long
If this were a show, you'd sound a gong

My 30-Day Challenge

I have 5 goals that are systematically intertwined with each other. I'm taking 30 days to concentrate super-intense laser beams of will onto these 5 things so I can achieve all of them and essentially CHANGE MY DESTINY. Yes. I said it. My destiny.

I don't mean destiny in the fatalistic sense. I'm in control of my destiny. I even get to pick it out myself, and it's up to me to achieve it. Clearly I'm making the rules up as I go. Whatever works. Okay, shake it out. Moving on.

So here are the goals, and then I will tell you what they have to do with each other.
1. Finish revisions of the novel to include the beekeeper plot line.
2. Keep the apartment neat.
3. Stop consuming crap; stop consuming too much of anything.
4. Exercise every day.
5. No TV.

Basically, the last four goals are dependent on each other, plus they are all going to propel me towards completing goal number one, which is finishing the book once and for all so I can get an agent and be on my way to getting published. Here's what neatness, junk food, exercise and TV have to do with the book.

When the apartment is neat, then it's easier to relax, focus and sit down to write without distractions. Instead of looking at neatening like it's a time suck or a chore, I'm reframing it as doing myself a favor. And when I'm tempted to let things slide, I will threaten to ransack the place, which ought to make me think twice about being messy. Plus, it's easy to use a messy place as a distracting procrastinating tool if I let it, which takes more time away from writing.

When it comes to consuming junk, if I'm putting too much stuff or the wrong stuff in my mouth, then the output isn't going to be so great. I'm not going to feel energetic, I'm probably not going to sleep too well, and I'm certainly not going to feel good physically. And isn't that handy -- to indulge, feel lousy, and then use my cruddy physical state as an excuse not to do something, whether that something is to eat well at the next meal, exercise, neaten, write or avoid TV. I would call that LAME.

On the other hand, if I eat healthy food that serves as solid fuel, I'm more likely to feel good, make better decisions and accomplish more, which will perpetuate the happy feelings. Feeling high on life (and oatmeal) will help me avoid getting into that cycle of turning to extra food for comfort while I sit on the coach and enjoy some good old fashioned self loathing.

On exercising every day, that's a multi-headed monster. It's a sleep thing, and it's also an energy thing, plus it affects my mood and my motivation levels. If I'm working out, then I'm sleeping better at night. When I sleep better, I have more energy and I'm in a happier place. When I'm happy, I'm more likely to make decisions that will benefit me rather than punish me.

See consuming junk for an example of a punishing decision that can result in a bad mood, which perpetuates consuming more junk, and thus keeps the bad mood going when I look down and ask what the heck I've done to myself. Take in junk, output is junk. That can lead to more punishing, which leads to Jabba the Hutt-ness, which leads to not finishing the book. It's all one big set of dominoes.

Conversely, when I exercise regularly and eat the right things in the right portions, then I am already on the right track to continue making helpful decisions, like revising the book and keeping the apartment neat. If I have energy and I'm in the right frame of mind, I can accomplish an awful lot.

Why would I stop watching TV? First of all, I have to watch an awful lot of TV for my job. My quota is met by the time I come home at night. I realized lately that the only reason I watch it at home at night is because I like to sit close to Steve while he watches it, and it has nothing to do with what's actually on TV. That said, TV could ruin my life if I let it. Bold statement, I know. But if I'm watching TV in my spare time, then I'm not finishing the book. I have research and writing to do. I can just as easily sit next to Steve and enjoy his companionship while I do my reading and take my notes while he watches. I don't need to be tuned in as well.

TV also definitely affects the amount of food I'm eating and how messy the apartment is. If I don't clean up the kitchen and then have a book to pick up when we're through with dinner, then it's very easy to busy my hands with the activity of continuing to shovel food into my face. And as you know already, that leads to self loathing and the destruction of my destiny.

So that's it! Food, exercise, TV, neatness and the book. Piece of cake.

The Cucumber Incident

Fitness has nothing to do with age. I figured that out yesterday morning during my bootcamp class.

As usual, I had my butt kicked up and down the pavement by these two old broads who are out there for every class, giving it 380%. They use heavier weights than anyone else, they run farther and faster and they are equally trim and jacked.

Watching these women beat me every time creates a recipe that is made up of one part demoralizing, and two parts motivating. It certainly shows that I have a lot of work ahead of me, and if these ladies’ fitness levels are any indication, then at least I know I’m in the right class.

The really good news is that I don’t have to worry about getting out of shape as I get older. Those two trash that theory. I’ll tell you what, those two could break chairs over your head while chugging a stein of brew.

Another item of note (please ignore that these aren't actually items of note and nod politely. Yes, that's it. Thank you for humoring me) is that I ate a pound of cucumbers yesterday.

I was disproportionately concerned that my farmer's market cucumbers would go bad before I ate them, and so I made plans for them. Muwhahahahaha.

For lunch number one, I had cukes in a salad of Greek yogurt, lemon, cayenne and parsley. Self-inflicted solo cuke eating contest number 2 involved soy sauce, rice vinegar, all the ginger in the world and cilantro. I had to do it twice, because cuke salad number 1 ended in a kind of fantastical disaster reserved for bad comedies and world wars.

You know how when you go to stab a piece of food on your plate, but it refuses to be impaled, and instead gets compressed by the pressure of your fork and becomes spring-loaded and then makes a dramatic escape? Well, that happened to me, only this harmless-looking piece of cucumber went on a yogurt-sauce fueled kamikaze bombing mission.

I was so splattered with it, that my first reaction was to laugh, but a second later I felt the cold wetness saturate my clothes and it wasn't so funny anymore. The incident quickly became an icky emergency. I leapt from my sauce-covered chair and threw my clothes in the washing machine. And then I had to turn my attention and wet towel scrubbing power to the chair and the rug. My one regret is that I didn't record photographic evidence before dismantling the crime scene.

Following all of this, I figured it was done raining for the season, thus the perfect time to reinstate The Outdoor Home Office™ so that my chair could dry out. Glad something good came of the cucumber incident.

I'm Married to Gisele Bündchen

This weekend was weirdly exhausting considering we didn't do a whole heck of a lot. Steve and I had planned to go out on Friday night, but when all was said and done, we opted to stay in and make ourselves burgers. Lights out happened fairly early.

As such, I was able to jump out of bed Saturday morning and go for a 5-mile run/walk with Sita and a few of her friends. It took a while, as my work-out partner and I were aptly suited to each other and talked faster than our stride ever took us. After we got back to Sita’s house, our group walked to the nearby farmer’s market in Arlington.

I bought some tomatoes and cucumbers and went home to make lunch out of it with some fresh basil stolen from a plant I’m holding hostage. I added chicken, mozzarella cheese, a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of garlic salt. Heaven.

Then Saturday afternoon, I went down to the pool to do some reading for the research I’m behind on. I had this schedule in place that would have had me finish all my research so that I could begin adding the beekeeper plot to my book this week. However, last week’s work “schedule” – if you can call it that. More like last week’s work explosion – made my research hit the back burner behind sleep and hygiene. So I decided to catch up Saturday by soaking in the pool with some books. I'm one of those people who will get books wet and write in them. I know, it's terrible. I think I'm still rebelling from the nuns who taught me that books should be handled with velvet gloves.

After a while, I came up to the apartment to get some sunscreen as a burn may have been blooming. Steve was holed up inside doing work and grumbling enthusiastically about the suckitude of it all. I stayed inside to cheer him up. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were drinking amaretto on the rocks and wondering what to eat for dinner.

Options started out free and open; we could go here, there or anywhere. We narrowed down our target to pizza. But then where to go? The Italian Store for take-out where the pizzas are huge and the guilt is huger, or the Lost Dog Café where we like to sit over a beer for Steve and a wine for me and chat about life.

As the night wore on, inertia took over and we opted to order delivery from Pizza Hut. Sigh. The choice was depressing and soul crushing, and we were in bed in a pizza fog by the 9 o’clock hour. Steve implored me to prevent us from such a contemptible choice again. I promise.

Sunday was a big day of stuff that adds up to nothing remarkable in the end. I wanted to swim some laps, soak in the hot tub and then read some books poolside, but the clouds were too discouraging, so I abandoned that plan.

Instead I cleaned up the apartment. It looks nice now, which makes me feel like I could potentially have people drop in on me without my having to invent some bizarre excuse like, "You just caught me coming off a year-long creme de menthe bender. Please dust the balls of newspapers, stray cats and Dorito crumbs off the couch and make yourself at home."

I also bribed myself into personal grooming by taking a nice, hot bath. Which means I don't have to tell Steve that I would have shaved my legs, but bandits broke in and stole my razor. That never works. Neither does saying that razor weevils ate my razor. I kid. We haven't even been married a year yet. I still shave regularly. But sometimes a bath convinces me to do it with feeling.

After my bath, but before I went to the grocery store, Steve came home from his golf game all grumpified and depending on who's telling the story, he may or may not have been rude to me. All I know is I asked to see his new haircut and he sneered at me like I was picking a bar fight. That means I went to the grocery store grumpy. When I came back from the store, we were both less grumpy, but he was still nurturing his grumpitude. So I asked why his panties were in a bunch. He said, "My panties are not in a bunch."

I said, "We're going to have to start calling you Gisele Bündchen on account of your bunched knickers." He laughed. He tried not to, but he laughed once more. Then he resumed being grumpy.

I asked him, "Do you need medication for your brains?" He laughed again. Success! For the moment.

By 8 o'clock Sunday, the kitchen was cleaned up and the coffee pot was laden with Colombian beans and the timer set. The only thing left for a Sunday night was reading books under the covers.

Bronchitis Anyone?

In case anybody's wondering where I went off to, I've been conducting terror drills by hacking up a lung within 30 yards of my targeted victims.

I'm back now. I went to my bootcamp class this morning, and I kind of felt bad for the other ladies who had to listen to me cough following some sprints. We were outside and I kept a wide berth, plus I'm on day four of anti-biotics so I'm not worried about infecting anybody, but still. I know I don't sound like a sweet melody with this cough.

It's a good thing I'm feeling better, because this week at work we're having an all-hands and they're flying in people from all over the place, since our team works virtually (a high-tech term that means "from home") and so it will be interesting to meet some of my co-workers whom I've never laid eyes on.

In other news, I still suck at golf.

As for the book: I'm surrounded by all my research so that I may begin on my novel revisions in July. I have an awful lot of reading to do in this last week, but it should all be very pleasurable. Bees are interesting little fockers.