She is not dead but sleeping...

I'm reading a book called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. (Don't judge me. It was on The New York Times' bestseller list. Which I didn't realize when I bought it, even though it says so at the top of the front cover. I randomly picked it up at the bookstore and thought, "Hm. This might be an interesting example of creative nonfiction.") It's surprisingly funny and definitely interesting.

I had a doctor appointment today to see about my head, which feels like it's stuffed full of heavy, soggy cotton that leaks out my nose and eyes. I wondered if taking Stiff with me to a medical appointment was just too macabre. I decided: No.

But then I saw my makeshift bookmark, one of those annoying perforated ads stuck in magazines. I always seem to have a few lounging around, waiting to be made useful as impromptu drink coasters, notepads, or bookmarks. This one just happened to be for The Sleep Number Bed.

Even more disturbing is what happened when I ran a search for the book's subtitle in The Times' book archives. The results page included an eBay ad for "Human Cadavers." Apparently you can get more than the image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast nowadays. (Not really. When I clicked on the link, eBay found 0 items matching my search.)

A House Divided

	Jenn	James
Bacon	Crispy	Flimsy
Chocolate	Dark	Milk
Coffee	Leche, no sugar	Negro, extra sweet
Cola	Coke	Pepsi
Bread	Multigrain	White
Décor	Eclectic	Traditional
Coolant	Open windows	AC
Fabric Softener	Downy Liquid	Bounce Sheets
Work Style	Multi-tasker	Single-focus
Life Style	Spontaneous	Routine
Internal Clock	Night Owl	Early Bird

In the last post, I mentioned that my husband and I are a house divided. This whole idea started as a joke about the little things: I like my bacon to snap when I bite into it while James likes to rip off a floppy piece and gnaw away. While not a vegetarian, I do love my veggies. And while not strictly a carnivore, James would be happy eating red meat all day every day. It turns out that these opposites aren't so bad. For example, I eat the carrots and broccoli out of his Chinese food and he doesn't bat an eyelash. And although we usually won't share each other's bacon, we won't steal the other person's bacon, either. In other words, we don't compete for the same resources.

But we've realized that our differences run deeper. In some aspects of life, we're polar opposites. He likes routine, lots and lots of pre-planning, and tends to be an "all or nothing" kind of guy. Me? I like to mix things up and will jump into a project just to get started, even if I can only accomplish part of it now and part of it later.

This causes some serious problems when we try to do things together, from cooking dinner to choosing furniture (we have different tastes there, too). And don't get us started on doing projects around the house. We can end up infuriated and exhausted before we begin.

Is it really true that opposites attract? Maybe on a certain level, but I think that to maintain a close relationship, two people must share a basic worldview and core beliefs. Despite our differences, James and I share a vision for our future as individuals and as a couple. We want to live life to its fullest and fulfill our God-given potential in a way that helps others and betters the world.

We're still trying to figure out how to do this in the midst of our differences. The ironic part is that sometimes we argue for a long time only to realize that we actually agree on the end result or main point. But I take comfort in knowing that we're both reaching for the same goals and are committed for the long haul. We're working on using our differences as a source of inspiration and learning instead of frustration. I'd like to think of us as Yin and Yang.

Years ago -- long before I really understood how true this is -- I developed a theory that love is more than something that happens to you. Love is a choice. We may be a house divided in some ways, but our love is a series of choices that unites us.

Photos: Photography by Melinda, 2001

Understanding Light

"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:5)

photo by Jenn, boutique north of Pittsburgh, PA

The short winter days grow longer. There's more light in my life in general these days. I feel like I've been sleeping for years and am just starting to wake up again to love, beauty, magic, comfort, adventure and so much more. But darkness has a way, doesn't it? A way to seek out the cracks in the light and push its way in. I'm still scared of the dark. Even more so since I grew up and realized that there is darkness visible and invisible. It's the darkness that others can't see that hurts the most.

Everywhere I turn lately I find common themes: have the courage to admit what you truly want, put it out into the Universe, try your best to go in that direction, and believe that good things will come. Sometimes you don't even have to believe; just wishing is enough. I've seen it here, there, everywhere, and again, once more, and even here. (I'm not sure what my word of the year is, but it may be Pentecost. I haven't committed my Mondo Beyondo list to paper yet, but it's brewing and I'm getting up the courage.) I was feeling happier, more focused, and more enthusiastic than I had in ages.

Then last night I admitted that I'm terrified that it will all come crashing down; that certain life circumstances will overwhelm me with sadness, loneliness, bitterness; that the depression monster I keep so secret will drag me under the bed and devour me.

So I threw an embarrassing fit of despair this morning. I did my best to ruin the whole damn day. But for once, thank God, the light is pushing out the darkness.

This Just In: My Husband is a Bastard

James: Local-TV-Anchorwoman was in the store again today with her three kids.

Me: Yeah? She's there a lot.

James: Her husband's phone wasn't working.

Me: Oh.

James: She called me a bastard.

Me: What?! She's Local-TV-Anchorwoman! She can't do that! What happened?

James: She asked me if we have kids. I told her that we're enjoying it just being the two of us right now.

Me: Okay....

James: And she said, "You bastard!"

Laundry Day

Thursday was Laundry Day. With capitalized letters because we were running out of handy things like towels and underwear. I usually do a load of laundry here and there -- it's a luxury of working from home. But I've been in a funk lately and have slacked on my housekeeping duties. Which leads me to this slightly embarrassing, but mostly amusing, tidbit: For the first time ever, I think, I had absolutely no clean underwear to wear. Not even the ugly ones that are all stretched out, or the ones that are just a little ripped at the seam, or even the ones that are maybe just a tad too tight. No undies at all. So what did I do? I dug around in a dresser drawer and found my swimsuit bottoms. Because I needed clean underwear to go to the bank and I couldn't wait for the laundry to be done. I don't remember the last time I actually wore them for swimming, but today they worked just fine as gutchies. By some definitions, swimsuit bottoms are underwear:

Some clothing is specifically underwear, while some is also used as swimsuit (if made of suitable material), and both T-shirts and some shorts are suitable as underwear as well as outer clothing. Suitability as outer clothing is, apart from outdoor or indoor climate, largely a social and sometimes even a legal matter. One of the criteria for shorts not to be suitable as outer clothing may be that it has a fly that avoids exposure of the genitals just by an overlap of cloth, without buttons etc. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwear)

Even though my swimsuit bottoms could be worn as outer wear, I chose to wear pants when I went to the bank. But as I sat there asking for a refund of the $70 in fees that they had wrongly charged me, I secretly knew that at any moment, I was ready to go for a nice refreshing dip from the waist down. If the occasion so arose. Which it didn't. But still. It's good to be prepared.