oh to look like someone else. just for a day.

dear husband-to-be,

i'm afraid this will be a very serious letter. you see, i need you to understand something.

my looks belie who i really am. 

does that make sense?

i look like i would love to spend an evening at the opera. i would not.

i look like i might really like a swanky jazz bar. mmm...not really my thing. if you could find an off-the-beaten-path beatnik pub with some jazz on the side...that i could do.

i prefer a ball game to almost anything else.

i will always order a cheesburger. and i'm a cheap drunk. 

i laugh. a lot. out loud. at the most inappropriate of times. 

and when we go to the beach, you'll have to drag me out of the water at the end of the day. i will not be the one working on my tan. 

i look like i could be a politican's wife. and i could be. i could play that part really well.

but that is not the part i want to play. 

i am not perfect. i am a screw-up in the most glorious of ways. 

you see, i want to have a ping-pong table in the dining room. 

and i'll still climb a tree. or hurtle down a hill on a sled. 

i'm not the girl you think i am, when you first glance at me.

it's strangely frustrating.

but i refuse to change who i am to conform to what i look like. 

and if on that first glance, i come off as cold, it's simply because i'm shy and quiet and totally, madly in love with you. already. 

so please don't be intimidated by some idea of me. i'm flighty and i lose everything. and i'm funny. really, i am. at least, i think i am, and that's something, right?

and i still have this old-fashioned belief that the guy should make the first move.

so please, do. make the first move. 

you might just be surprised by what you find.

love, love, love,

the woman who is not the woman you first assumed i was (but it's okay, even my friends still make silly assumptions, and they've known me for a while)

keys.

when i was little and my mom came to pick me up from carpool, i would recognize the sound of her keys before she ever got to me.

and if i got lost in the store, i would close my eyes. and listen. listen, very carefully. and i would hear that faint and familiar jingle and relieved, i would bound towards it. 

she didn't get it. to recognize the clatter of keys? what kind of strange child had she born?

but i got it. a constellation of keys exists in this world of ours. each with its own unique musicality. some more familiar than others.

the other night, standing in line at the drug store, i heard a familiar key clink and looked up to find myself staring at the back of a stranger. 

and that's when i began to wonder. is that how i will find him? will i recognize the sound of keys before i've even met him? the sound of a gateway to a home we might one day share?

so i've started listening. i haven't closed my eyes, though. i'm keeping them wide open and living my life. but the sixth sense of this strange-child and would-be-wife is piqued. 

a trip to the store.

i remember being little. i remember my brother and i visiting a friend's house. it was early. very early. and we were little. very little. and this friend had a son. an older son. an older son who was still asleep. my brother and i could not understand this. how could someone sleep when there was a day to be had? our friend explained that one day we too would like to sleep in. 

i remember standing there. 

and hearing that. 

and being unable to believe it.

i remember my next-door neighbor on danbury drive was older. she had a pig as a pet. it would run around her yard. and her house. i don't think my parents much cared for this pig. and i remember my next-door neighbor would take care of me. and teach me things. and tell me things. 

once i asked her what she got for christmas. 

she said, clothes. 

i felt sorry for her. 

now i can never get out of bed. 

or have enough new sweaters under the christmas tree.

i'm not sure when it exactly it happened. when i started finding men in suits really attractive. was it the man? or was it the suit? was it that, in the suit, he reminded me of my father? was it that the suit became the talisman of stability? 

i think it was just recently. 

soon. 

soon ago? no, that doesn't make sense. 

not so long ago. 

it was around the same time that clothes took a backseat to home goods. 

ahhh, home goods. 

today i entered the clothing store. today i looked for beautiful pieces in which to wrap this body i am learning to love. and today i abandoned all skirts and shirts and sweaters and pinafores for the plaintive call of the home goods. 

wine glasses. 

and bowls. 

and candle sticks and books. 

and bowls. 

and it is there in the store today--in these things, yes, things, that i see my future. these are the things that will traverse the island of manhattan with me. these are the things that i will bring to our first shared apartment. our first shared house. the things that i will pack and unpack. and pack again. and pray remain intact. 

fingering the glassware carefully, checking for cracks or chips i see his face. on one of our many moves he will screw it into a look of consternation meaning only one thing, really, you want to save those? he will hate them. he will hate the candlesticks i will buy today. this only makes me love them the more. 

and in the wine glasses i see the future dinner parties. and the first evening we clumsily make love, our fear numbed only slightly by the wine. yes, these are the wine glasses--the co-conspirators in our mutual seduction. i see the moment when the four glasses become three become two become one become gone. shattered one night after dinner. slipping through our child's growing fingers. 

i don't know the moment i began to plan for the future. when men in a tailored suits and glass platters became more important than gladiator sandals or a young would-be-actor boyfriend. 

perhaps this is the precursor to the inevitable tick-tick-tick of that biological clock. 

all i know is... that i'm looking forward to making the memories that will give this dowry a value that knows no numbers. 

but...

4 wine glasses 

4 glass cups

2 candlesticks

all for under $52

(including tax)

from Anthropologie

a dowry indeed

he will know where to find you

Micaela of dolce vita (one of my very oldest and very dearest blogging friends--she's from Texas too and we're kindred spirits we are) brought the following chunk of poem to my attention:

taken from "At North Farm"

by John Ashbery

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,

At incredible speed, traveling day and night,

Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents,

   through narrow passes.

But he will know where to find you,

Recognize you when he sees you

oh Micaela, you know me so well. Perfection, the poem. 

and so all i can say is, okay,

images via vi.sualize.us

that's what she said...

"a man has to find a good woman, and when he finds her he has to win her love. then he has to earn her respect. then he has to cherish her trust. and then he has to, like, go on doing that for as long as they live. until they both die. that's what it's all about. that's the most important thing in the world. that's what a man is, yaar. a man is truly a man when he wins the love of a good woman, earns her respect, and keeps her trust. until you do that, you're not a man."

Well, technically he (Gregory David Roberts) said it in his book, Shantaram. The book is a veritable treasure trove of quotes. But this is the one that stuck with me.

Can you tell I've been thinking a lot about love lately? Must be all those peonies in my love corner.

 And  then, he (husband-to-be) will learn to love my feet. All size ten of 'em.

dear husband-to-be,

I hate noisy eaters. And heavy breathers. 

Just so you know.

Love,

your doting and delicious wifey-to-be

'tis the season.

I knew it was time to leave NY when I witnessed a near fight. Let me set the scene for you: It's my last day at the department store job. It's also the Saturday before Christmas. I'm on my lunch break. There are very few chairs and a very many people. Two older women approach one table at the same time. One sits. The other stares incredulously before declaring that she was there first and thus entitled to the table. The demander wins the fight only when she begins lobbing "Merry Christmas"s like ammunition. 

It was amazing. Try it. "Merry Christmas" is one potent insult when spoken with just enough vim and venom. 

So now I'm in Houston braving the department stores here. And after milling and seething through today's crowds at Memorial City, I'm left wondering...what recession? That is until my mother reminds me of the story she saw on the news of a 52 year-old-man who lost his job and was thereby forced to take work as a janitor and apply for food stamps. They showed his fridge on the news. He had nothing in it. And he had eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner the night before. 

My mom told us it would be a lean Christmas this year. But let's be honest I'll never really know a lean Christmas (well, I don't want to say never because things can change in a heartbeat, but to a large degree, it's doubtful). But I fear my mom still thinks my brother and I measure Christmas by how many presents are under the tree. We don't. I couldn't really care less. Yes, yes, sometimes I get obsessed by the little things I've asked for, but it's more about knowing I've been heard. Knowing someone's listened to what I had to say or that they've thought about me. It really is the thought that counts. Cliche, but so true. 

While perusing the stores in Boulder over Thanksgiving, cousin Brian pulled a Christmas card off the rack. It said something to the extent of Christmas: Celebrating the Birth of Santa Claus. It was meant to be funny (well, satirical), but the funniest (or saddest) part was how long it took  Brian and myself to figure out the joke. It seemed like a statement. A true statement. I may not be a very religious person, but I'm quite sure that the spirit of Christmas was nowhere to be found in that mall today, or in the little cafe on my last day of work.  

So here's the thing. I'm okay with a person celebrating Christmas because of the birth of Santa Claus. So long as we're clear on what Santa Claus is:

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence . We should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished...Is it all real? In all the world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

So, let me say I'm thankful for him and Him. And the grace and love and faith that both bring into my life on a daily basis. And guess what? Those things don't require gift wrapping.

On a separate note: 

      Addendum to yesterday's post. 

Let me be clear about this...I loathe Speidi. With everything in me. Well, not everything...because that would mean I actually care about the two of them and I don't. Word to the wise: Heidi, when you tell everyone about your wedding and feel the need to justify it by describing the night-before-tequila, something is amiss. And Spencer when she answers your question in the courtroom by saying, "I shouldn't have to tell you..." she's right. She shouldn't have had to tell you. Get your head out of your ass.

(Dear blog-spot-lover I'm sorry I've just sunk to new lows by blemishing your facade with Speidi ranting, but I had to get it off my chest.)

And in other news....

Dear husband-to-be,

I know I said I'd mary you in the rain, but this would be mighty fine too...

Saw it on A Cup of Jo's blog, but check out the originals here.

An open letter to the man I'll marry...

Dear Husband-To-Be,

        Just so you know, I owe Rob our first born child. Why, you ask? Because he helped my lug about 50 lbs of pure table from 55th to 80th street, on the subway (my idea). It was maybe the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I've got bruises all up and down my arms to prove it, not too mention a free pass from the gym today as I sweat enough for three solid days of cardio. 

      Across 55th to 8th. Up 8th to 57th. Enter Subway. Descend two flights of stairs. Waddle across platform. Descend more flights. Waddle some more. Then ascend two flights. Get on train (easiest part, mind you). Exit train. Ascend yet more stairs. Then into my room it went. Hardest thing. Ever. This, this is why Rob gets our first born.

Love,

your doting and delicious Wifey-To-Be