Public Service Announcement

Dear friends and readers,

Many of you folks are intimate friends and family, and some of you found me in your internet wanderings. I welcome comments from all of you, but if you are one of my "real life" friends, please keep in mind that I refrain from giving Husband's name or showing his face to protect his privacy. I hope you all will do the same.

Thanks!
Molly

What I have in common with the Obamas:

If you know me, you know that lately I've been obsessed with the Obama family. Everything from what kind of dog they might get, to where Sasha and Malia would go to school has cought my attention. So, when I heard that Michelle Obama would be featured in the cover story of this month's Vogue, I ran to the store to get a copy.

I finally got around to reading it last night and was disappointed to find that it couldn't really tell me much about our beautiful new first lady that I didn't already know. It talked about how "real" she is, and what a dedicated mother she is, etc. What did catch my eye, however was actually a line quoted from a 1996 New Yorker interview with Barack: "

"I'm extremely happy with her," he told Mariana Cook in a 1996 interview with
the couple recently published in The New Yorker, "and part of it has to do with
the fact that she is at once familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she
knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also
a complete mystery to me in some ways.…It's that tension between familiarity and
mystery that makes for something strong, because even as you build a life of
trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or
wonder about the other person."

My best girlfriend may remember me saying somthing similar to this on late night on her family's front porch during the somewhat embattled early years my relationship with Husband. Husband and I had a hard time back then. We fought a lot, and I often found myself in tears and he found himself not knowing what hit him. I often asked myself why I stayed with him when he made me so upset sometimes. I found myself conflicted with my rational self telling me to ditch him and my emotional self telling me that I couldn't live without him. (This all sounds very dramatic, doesn't it? I don't mean to be so gushy.)

But why? How did I manage to fall so stupidly in love with a man that I have so little in common with--a man who just didn't get me, and I didn't get him either? That night on the front porch I realized that the question was the answer. The fact that Husband is such a mystery to me is what made him so enthralling. To this day, I tell people that I just don't get him, and I like it that way.

In the time since we've been together, Husband and I have each learned so much about how the other thinks and operates. I understand why Husband has chosen certain weird hobbies and that has helped me accept them. I understand why Husband doesn't like parties and other large gatherings of people, and I often go by myself. I also learned that he and I each have different ways of showing our love for each other. Now, the raging fights that we used to have on a regular basis are rare.

Reading over what I've written, I can see that I appear to be trying to sound like an expert on relationships. I'm really not, but I have decided that it was important for me to question why I chose Husband and why he chose me, and to question frequently why I choose to stay with him, especially when the answer seems the most unclear. To this day, I find that the answer is that I still havn't solved the puzzle.

Valentines Day

I had a big long post planned about how Valentines Day is a fake holiday invented by retailers to force men to give women gifts in order to get a piece of ass. I was going to write about how Husband and I haven't really celebrated Valentines Day except for when we first started dating and still had something to prove to each other. And then I was going to confess that even though I feel that way I still get a little disappointed when I see other women being wined-and-dined.

I was going to write all about all of that until I found the diamond earrings that Husband strategically placed in my path today.

Losing Control

This morning, I woke up having recovered from a particularly difficult day at work which led to a particularly happy happy hour. Dehydrated as I was from the three vodka-tonics I’d had the evening before, I groggily wandered into the kitchen to get some water. When I looked around I realized that I’d lost control.

There were dirty dishes on the counter tops, a pile of clean clothes on the couch waiting to be folded; miscellaneous papers, boxes, receipts, and a couple winter coats lying on the dining room table; and an air of general dust and untidiness hung about the room.

After all the hard work I’d been doing to keep my apartment clean, Husband finally pitching in, at some point in the last week I must have gotten overwhelmed and let go. I couldn't’t tell you exactly when I stopped bothering. I think it must have happened gradually. I probably gave up somewhere between being extraordinarily busy at work, and realizing I’d gained twenty pounds and declaring I would go on a diet.

So here I am, back where I started at the end of 2008: fat, in frumpy jeans, a tee shirt, and fleece pullover, hair a mess and pulled back into a ponytail, and sitting in a messy apartment.
But, as I repeated so many times in Mr. Thomson’s high school drama class, “Yes, yes, I am hemmed in on every side, but don’t imagine all my battles lost.” I’m determined to get back in control. This weekend I will get my apartment shining again, and in the meanwhile, I’m going to continue following the diet I started last weekend, and one day I will live within 30 minutes of my office and all these things will be 100% easier.

Dawn-til-Dusk

Tomorrow, for the first time since the holidays, Husband and I will each have a day off from work at the same time. To make this even more exciting, neither of us have the obligation to go visit anyone. We get to spend the day together.

And I have no idea how we'll spend it. We talked about going to the movies, but that's only going to take up two hour or so. Maybe we'll just stay home an revel in each others' presence.

I'm so excited!

Wisdome of our Elders

My grandmother, whom I call Mockie, is the poster child for "Better Homes and Gardens," or any other housekeeping tome. Her humble single-story home in Georgia is always immaculate. The garden bursts with perennial flowers every spring; tantalizing scents drift out of her kitchen; and the woman literally vacuums the floors every day. (Am I the only person who thinks that's nuts? I had a roommate once who insisted on vacuuming every day, and I'd be like "um...you vacuumed yesterday...")



Mockie is also the matriarch of a very large extended family with four generations living today. She and my grandfather (may he rest in peace) raised four boys who grew up to be the kind of men you would be happy for your daughter to marry (just ask their mothers-in-law!)



I recently asked her (along with a few other women who have influenced the woman that I have become) how she thinks a homemaker can relate to the Feminist movement. "When I was younger I probably was not ,or did not think of myself as a feminist, there was no such thing at that time," she told me.



She married my Grandad in 1948, a time when America was still rejoicing over the end of the hardships caused by World War II. Women who had joined the workforce while their husbands and sons were fighting in Europe and the Pacific were now returning to their traditional roles as homemakers. "I loved your grandfather, always thinking that if he made the living it was my duty to do my household responsibilities: washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, and rearing four sons."



I've just finished reading the first chapter of Betty Friedan's iconic manifesto, "The Feminine Mystique," where the author describes how women of this era did not feel fulfilled by homemaking alone but were unable to voice their trouble, thinking that their feelings were unjustified. It is possible that my grandmother felt this way too. She said that she sometimes felt resentful when my grandfather spent his weekends away from the house playing golf, leaving her to look after the boys for a sixth and maybe seventh day that week. "But as the boys grew . . . we began to join him, swimming and picnicking."



"Now I realize that I probably evolved as a feminist," Mockie said, "When our son's married I made it plain to them that as long as their wives worked, and contributed to the income, it was their responsibility to do their part in the household duties and the rearing of the children. "



Husband and I do work together to maintain our home. In fact, recently as I've been making more than my usual effort to keep our apartment tidy, he has been more eager to help out.



Husband and I have only been married for a few months, but we are already learning what Mockie told me about marriage: "It is not easy. It is not always perfect, there will be good times sometimes not so good, but the good outweigh the bad. It takes a lot of working together to make it work."



She finished by telling me that she is "no authority on marriage," but I think the almost 60 years that she and my Grandad spent together speak for themselves.

He deserves a medal.

Today is Tuesday, normally Husband's day off. He had to work on his last day off which was last Wednesday, because of heavy traffic from the inauguration. Today, he was called in to work to fill in for a coworker unable to get to work in the snow. That means that today will be Husband's seventh day at work without a day off. If he continues to work as scheduled, he won't have another day off until Saturday.

That's ten straight days of work!

If Husband's supervisors do not reward him for his unfailing work ethic and dedication, I will personally punch them in their respective faces.*





* = empty threat