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February 26, 2007

Oprah Keeps Saying This is the Year...

Grab yourself a Coke and a smile – this story is long.

Think about Sex and the City. Do you remember when Charlotte was trying to have a baby, hardcore. And she started in with all the hormone shots and the ovulation kits. All the while, her husband Trey MacDougal didn’t really get it, or understand her sense of attachment and intimacy and the personal private hell over the idea of not being able to have a baby. He made this cluelessness totally obvious that day he brought home that effing cardboard baby. Do you remember this episode? That Trey wasn’t a bad dude, necessarily. Just retarded and “accidentally” insensitive. Do you remember, after watching that episode, rejoicing in your womanhood, knowing you’d never run a game on somebody like that? But then going wild with your imagination, thinking about every guy you’d ever met or will meet or are currently with and what insanity he might come up with that you’ll have to excuse because it’s really a species thing?

Dude, I had a cardboard baby two months ago.

J’s sister was in a car accident. She’s okay, but has whiplash and headaches. J got the call about the accident while he was visiting me at work. Aha, you guys forgot I had a job. I totally do. Crazy times, I tell you. So we left my job, in two separate cars, and went straight to his sister’s house so I could help J’s mom with the babies.

J and his dad simply stayed out of the way during the bathing portion of the evening. After I got his niece out of the tub and into pajamas (we’re talking a good hour), J and I were ready to go home. I headed straight home and he had to go pick up our take-out dinner.

I got home 20 minutes before he did.

I walked in and when you walk into my house you’re in the foyer which leads to the kitchen so you immediately see the kitchen booth table thing. The table is usually scattered with the day’s mail, items from my handbag that I didn’t deem necessary for this particular day and other random things like guitar picks (which end up in the garbage because there are so many, so many) and headphones. This day, the table was cleared off but I could see a shining silver thing.

I lunged toward the table thinking, Who in the blue hell clears off the kitchen table only to leave a granola bar wrapper, blatant trash, behind? I don’t know about you, but when I walk in the door after work, I put on my house clothes (oh, the combinations) and I give myself 20 minutes to straighten up, do light housework and then I fire the candles up so I can relax before Oprah starts.

When I got to the table, I noticed it was a gigantic ring. Like, the size of a grapefruit. A simple silver band and big diamond held up in three prongs. Like, a big paperweight in the shape of a real diamond ring. It’s at least a pound.

My hands got all clammy. My heart started racing, literally beating out of my chest. I kept blinking, just staring at it before I even picked it up.

Keep in mind, I’m alone. J is still out getting dinner. I thought to myself, Oh okay. He planned it this way. HOLY SHIT I’m fixing to be engaged in this bitch. Could this be happening to me? Mom, Marlene, Coral – oh fuck, who do I call first? Will one know that I called the other first? Wait, I’m not engaged. Let’s just not call. Chill out. Relax a minute. Let’s think this through. Yes, talking to myself a mile a minute in my head.

At this point, in the span of about four seconds, I am sweating and happily nauseous. Like, oh shit, my whole life is about to change.

I have never really sat down to think about why being married would change my whole life. I say to myself, Would it?

It would step up my diamond game. That is a fact. The least important of the facts, yes. But don’t front like you don’t think about it.

It would decrease the amount of times that the random Pakistani fruit seller or the Nigerian cab driver or the 17-year-old pizza delivery guy with the muffin top would try to get at me because I’d have the evidence on my finger that I am no longer “get-at-able.” This would be true. Although, sad as it is, I am flattered and a part of my heart flutters when the obese man with the other-world body odor, or the septuagenarian propped up by the cane or the meathead with the dragon ball Z haircut makes a gesture to me that I, me?, that I am pretty. Why is that?

I know why. I believe that you are always the person you saw yourself as when you were most awkward. That person, for me, is the person I was between 8 and 23. Yes, that’s a long stretch of awkward but I always felt goofy, unattractive, clumsy, unnoticed, gross, too small with shitty knees and terrible chicken pox scars. Basically, every category that exists for not awesome – that’s how I felt. And I cruised through life forming friendships and relationships based on this personality (obviously, not my looks) that is an intense combination of both Shorty and Mercy. A bipolar kind of oxymoronic personality. She’s sweet and pretend-vulnerable because it works for her. He’s abrasive, hilarious and stank but in a good way. Anyway, this is why it is flattering when anyone, even Gary Coleman, finds me pretty.

Where was I?

In essence, being married, for me, is simply enforcing (by law and spirit?) the commitment we already have. I mean, I already live the life of a married person. There is no going out until 4 am. I never get to go out with The Gays anymore because they don’t leave the house until 11 or midnight. By that time, I’m knee deep in night cream watching The L Word on demand (again). I eat every meal with him. We watch all the shows together. We fold laundry together. Well, he does socks because he can’t be trusted with anything else.

If being married is…

sharing a home, getting actually angry about the fact that you’ve told him 90 times that when he eats oatmeal to please, please for fuck’s sake, put water and a bit of soap in the bowl so that I don’t have to scrub it to all hell later, knowing exactly how to position his body and the four pillows every night for maximum comfort and love, understanding (and just getting okay with the fact) that he will never change the toilet paper roll when it’s out, calling to confirm and re-confirm plans with his mother a) because I like her and I want to and b) because he’s simply too busy in his own world of all-encompassing work, listening to him tell you about his plans (that you already heard 8 times last week) to expand the dining room or experiencing a real true joy when he walks in the door from work and says you look really pretty or the house smells nice

…then I’m totally married.

He’s like this other part of me. We’re for sure a “we.” And that’s a big deal because I have always been an “I” and a “me” person. I wouldn’t accept his help for fear that it would hinder my view of myself as the woman that Destiny’s Child used to sing about (minus Bills, Bills, Bills). It’s hard to articulate, but the point is, if being married is finding nice compatibility with someone you actually like to hang out with who happens to be smokin’ hot and smart and have his shit together – then I’m married.

So J walks in the door and I’m in the den holding the ring, playing with it.

He’s got his hands full and he’s also on the phone. There is never a day that he walks into this house without being on the phone. Always working, always going. He’s on the phone and he looks up at me, while I’m holding the ring. And my face is like the face you make when they call your name as the winner at a raffle for something little but still cool like an iPod shuffle, but they didn’t pronounce your name correctly, but you think it might be you so you’re happy but you’re unsure, but that iPod would be nice. Yeah, that face, if you can just imagine it.

He smiles back at me and continues to talk on the phone.

I’m like, okay?

I follow him into the kitchen and I start taking out all the dishes, and signal to him that it’s time to wrap that phone call up. I am stank, and I don’t play that shit. There is no talking on the phone while we eat. I got things to say about my day. Don’t you have things to say about yours, that you want to be heard? Shit, I want to actually hear about his day too. He has crazy days, content and hilarity, for days. Like the time he came home and said that Lil Jon gave him his very own Crunk goblet. I’m still trying to figure out how to prominently display that thing. I mean, it needs its own glass casing, don’t you think? That’s a fucking piece of history, right there. Yeeeeeeeah.

I have decided in this moment to just not discuss the ring for fear of ruining the surprise. I am a big time surprise-ruiner. I have actually been called “surprise-ruiner” by both J and Coral, in separate unrelated events.

We eat. We watch Design to Sell. We fight over the couch blankets. Read: married. He sits on the bed and plays guitar while I remove my makeup at the vanity. It’s a typical night. Just me and J, hanging out. I just realized that when we’re here together, we are in the same room even if one doesn’t want to do what the other is doing. I will sit in the studio downstairs with him. I'll read a magazine while he stops, starts, pushes buttons, picks up the guitar, says “fuck”, writes parts of a song. And he will sit on the bed in the spare bedroom while I tweeze and examine my pores. I’ll sit on the couch while he scours the Internet for fish tank designs (fucking weirdo) or he’ll sit on the couch while I scour the Internet for Paris Hilton’s prescription for Valtrex (fucking weirdo). We are never apart.

Unless, of course, I’m in another room talking on the phone to Coral, about private matters like reminiscing on the time we were both super tan and super skinny lying about the beach in Brasil when the 9-year-old came up and stared at our – who am I kidding? -- her boobs for like, hella long, before we realized he was there. Man, we’re always reminiscing now that I think about it.

Back to the gigantic ring. Losing focus.

I went to bed that night with stars in my eyes. I could hardly sleep. I kept thinking about that commercial where the lady wakes up with that diamond necklace on and is all surprised while her dude is just laying there next to her pretending to be asleep. I have visualized every way to Sunday how this shit might go down and how I will craft it into a bite-sizeable story that I will tell 98 times that next day to anyone that will listen. I imagine Mercy crying on the other end of the phone as I recount the story. I imagine yelling at Shorty for not telling me when J called him to formally ask. I imagine telling Coral the story, while she interrupts and asks me to repeat what I just said even though she totally heard it, she just wants to hear it again and get us both all riled up to the point where we are essentially screaming the story, that we both know, to each other.

“Then he did what?” she’d yell.

Then he fucking took the ring out!

“Then he fucking took the ring out!”

Yes!

“Then what happened?”

Then I started fucking crying dude.

“Then you started crying!”

Crying!

“Like crying oh my god I can’t believe this is happening or like bullshit tears, like I don’t know what’s happening.”

No man, like fucking fucked up holy shit is this happening, ugly face crying.

“Then what! HURRY UP! So we’re crying.”

We end up “we-ing” everything for some reason. We scream too. Loud. Unless it’s something we want to scream but don’t want others to hear. Then, we hang up and text each other in all caps and then call each other back and speak all cryptically about the topic at hand. Lots of umhmms and yup, for reals. And it would go on and on like this for probably about THREE hours. No exaggeration.

All these thoughts are going through my head that night.

One day passes.

Two days pass.

Three days pass and now I’m needing another opinion because I’m a strange combination of eww, pissed, happy, anxious, disappointed.

I got to my friends’ house. H & M’s house. It’s the same house, no, not the store.

They had some guy friends over this day. So we’re all on the couch talking about people and things and food. I take the ring out of my bag and I pass it around. I am telling the story.

The dudes are like, “That’s so fucking sick!” Like, all excited about it. Like, don’t be mad Melissa. This is like amazing. Keep us posted, please do. This sounds awesome.

And the girls are like, “Um, I don’t know. This is the cardboard baby. But maybe you shouldn’t be upset. We all know how crazy J is.”

And then somehow we end up in a conversation about all the insane things this boy has ever done and that conversation is everlasting. He’s a real crazy person. Love him to pieces; however, he is a real crazy person. We sometimes say “eccentric” which translates to fascinating. Did I ever tell you about how, when he was in second grade he did this drawing called, "That's Fucking Bullshit" where the two pieces of ... you know what, another time.

Anyway. After getting several opinions, I was just more confused. I could not stop thinking about the stupid ring.

I left H & M’s house, and I drove home with the ring on my lap, as if by osmosis, I would come up with an answer that satisfied me. What, exactly, would my question be? What does the ring mean? Really, what’s the deal?

That night, after my shower, I got in the bed and J was already all hugged up on the pillows watching Blade Trinity. If it wasn’t Blade Trinity, it was Underworld or any of those completely insane loud vampire movies.

I said, “Volume.”

I say this every night when I get into bed. It’s on some Pavlov’s dogs shit at this point. He reaches over, grabs the remote and turns it down. I get all situated in the bed and the second I’m comfortable, I lurch up and go, “So what’s up?” I’m looking right at him, looking at the TV.

He’s like, “Chillin…”

I’m like, “No seriously, what’s up?”

He goes, What do you mean?

I’m like, What’s up with the ring?

He’s like, The ring?

Uh, yeah. The ring.

Oh shit, the ring!

Yeah, the ring.

I’m half smiling, half um…

He says, It’s not that serious. Don’t overanalyze it.

Don’t overanalyze it?

Yeah, it’s not that serious.

Not that serious?

Melissa, no, it’s not that serious.

How so?

It’s just this ring I found.

You found?

I bought, I mean.

So you had a plan to find this particular ring and you bought it?

No, not a plan really, but it’s not that serious.

Help me understand.

Dude, you’re going crazy for no reason. It’s not that serious.

Explain it to me so I can understand.

I saw it at 7-11.

I’m sorry, where?

It was at 7-11.

Seven Eleven, you say?

Dude, the 7-11 by my new office is sick. They have everything.

Apparently.

…

It’s quiet now.

He says, “I don’t want you to overanalyze this.”

I respond, “I know. I heard that part.”

I’m visibly upset. Duh. I don’t know if it’s the fake ring as much as it is the disappointment and the level of insensitivity. Or both. Shit, I don’t know. I’m in it so I can’t tell what the direction of the emotion is. It’s just not awesome. I'm crying.

“I didn’t think you’d be this upset. Honestly, I didn’t want to be that predictable dick that takes his girlfriend to the jewelry store and lets her pick her own ring. I really wanted to get an idea of what you liked. So it’s like, look at this ring. Do you like it?”

I say, “But that ring is fake.”

He says, “I know. But do you like the shape?”

And in my head I am screaming. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. Especially not now. No.

“I like the prong thing. But it’s missing the diamonds on the side. And I like oval, I think. Or round. Shit, I don’t know.”

I can’t think. I’m upset.

It’s quiet again.

Now I say, “So you didn’t think this shit would backfire? Like, tell me the thought process. How did this idea get into your mind and then NOT get shot down immediately? Help me understand it.”

I’ve found that dudes aren’t really trying to explain why or how they came across a stupid idea. They especially don’t want to explain why or how the stupid idea got to the point of actual execution. I’ve found that they really truly don’t know. They just don’t know. All the women in my life were like, “It’s not malicious. He just didn’t know. I understand why you’re upset, but he’s a guy. Guys are stupid.” I mean, they could have all said it in unison. It was unanimous.

He and I discuss for a long time. But it’s more apology than explanation. He really feels bad. I mean, really what more can you say when your girlfriend says that’s a stupid idea that had me walking on sunshine and now I’ve basically jumped into a volcano? The extremes are off the chain, you see.

I stopped thinking about it for awhile. I just shut that part of me off, crawled out of the volcano of sadness and concentrated on Turks and Caicos.

J and I spent my 30th birthday there. I felt young and pretty and by default, because everyone there was 50 and up, I had the least amount of cellulite. I also had on the smallest bikini. They all wore tankinis and sarongs and full-on sundresses. I know I’m supposed to be all pro-age because Oprah said so, but that’d be undoing 30 years of calculated manipulation and brainwashing. I was basking in my “youth” at this old people resort. I mean, there were varicose veins for days and I felt straight up SMOKING.

I loved my birthday gift of Tiffany box blue water and white sand and eating and eating and eating and watching Anna Nicole news. It was relaxing. J and I spent a lot of time talking and walking. Relationship talking, intense emotional and nice relationship talking. Then, we went home.

He threw himself back into work. He’s in the process of moving his business as he’s outgrown his old building. I’m proud of him. I chose the paint color and some of the furniture. And I threw myself into exfoliation. Dude, I got sunburn for the first time in my life! This peeling is so terrible. How do you fair-skinned folks deal with this? I mean, it’s awful.

Cut to February 24.

We have dinner plans with another couple. Read: married. J is on the phone giving them, I assume, directions and he snaps his phone shut and tells me they just hit some traffic so we need to kill some time.

He pulls into the gas station. Like always, he jumps out of the car and says, “You want anything?” I almost always say yes and send him on very specific candy shopping missions. He almost always comes back with half the order right, half the order wrong. Which is a blessing because I’ve discovered some delicious sour candies in the process. But today I was tired and said I didn’t want anything. Plus, I had eaten 9 snickerdoodles at work that day. Yes I did and I don’t care what you think of me.

He’s in the gas station for hella long. We're in the rich people part of Long Island. They call this the North Shore. Al Green is playing on the iPod. I check my makeup in the mirror, look around the gas station to make sure no one is getting shot (dead serious -- doesn't matter what neighborhood you're in, guns don't discriminate), lock the doors, spritz my face with this replenishing oil, get out my little lotions and start moisturizing my hands, turn down the seat warmer because my butt is now on fire and then I lean back in my seat. J’s taking forever today.

He comes back, pulls on the door. Looks in the window at me like I'm a weirdo. It’s locked. I unlock it and he pops the trunk. Throws some shit in the trunk and gets back into the car.

We still have to kill time.

I had told him earlier that day that there were some new chairs in the window at this one store. He’s super into modern furniture. Me too, actually. Two of these are now in my den. Couldn't you just die!

And so he pulls into the parking lot of this store, hops out of the car and is looking in the window. He motions to me to come out and look. I rolled down the window and said, “Hell no. It’s too cold.” And I rolled the window back up. He motions for me again and I just look at him through the windshield and shake my head hell no. At this moment, I am like, This fool is really window shopping. Who does that?

He gets back into the car. I lean over and put his seat warmer on. He leans back in his seat, and starts small talking me. I do find his behavior a bit non J like, but I have been in a stank mood all day so I don’t mention anything.

He starts in with, “I talked to your dad today…”

I said, “Really, what’s he talking about?”

He’s like, “Shorty’s about to single-handedly put Apple out of business. He said he’s mad that his computer keeps crashing.”

He then breaks into impersonation and we are rolling, cracking up. It goes something like, “Man fuck these people, I tell you. I’m gon' tell e’rybody I know don’t buy no Apple computer. Shit is fucked up man.”

My dad is this insane so I’m not thinking this conversation is that crazy. Plus, J and my father, oddly enough, are kindred spirits. They both like bowling. They are both short (sorry J) and kind of angry. They have similar taste in music. As a matter of fact, my father recently said he’d like to go to USF and get his music degree which really just means he badly wants to learn how to play the guitar. What the degree has to do with anything, I don’t know. But J’s a guitarist and my dad has always been excited about that. “Oh shit, you play a instrument?” he said to him when they first met. Yes, “a” instrument. Proudly, I corrected my dad and said, “Many instruments, daddy.” And Shorty said, “No shit?” But it was all lovingly and I guess you had to be there. Oh, and they have similar mannerisms. I always say I have found the Jewish version of my father, and my sister is always like, “Isn’t it scary?” and it’s really just true.

Then J said, “He also said he’s not really trying to babysit no bunch of kids.”

I was like, “Duh, like I’d leave Shorty alone with my babies.”

So J said it again, “Yep, he’s not going to babysit.”

I say, “Okay? Is that really what he said?”

J’s now smiling ear to ear. A smile I have never really seen. Like, a crazy up-to-something smile. He reaches into his pocket, and I think nothing of this because in his pocket is where he keeps his nervous papers. I’ve told you about his nervous papers here.

He pulls his hand out and proceeds to, in the driver seat of his car, get on one knee. I’m looking at him crazy. I have not yet seen what’s in his hand. His head hits the lights and I’m laughing, but still not understanding. He says something like, “Yeah, he said after we get married, he’s not really trying to babysit…”

I’m looking at him crazy and suddenly, tears are streaming down my face. Quiet, warm tears wreaking havoc on my freshly applied Benetint.

He goes to grab my right hand and I go to hold his hand but instead he grabs at my fingers and starts putting this ring on my finger. This fantastic ring. This ring that is not to be believed. This crazy ring.

At this point, I have stepped out of my body. Gracefully floated to the side of myself and I’m just looking at me looking at him. I am now hovering above my body watching myself get engaged. He’s talking for a full three, four minutes (a long long time), but it’s Charlie Brown’s teacher. I hear words, nice words like “take care of you” and “I love you” and “I’ve been there for you” and “You are so…” all kinds of things I can’t even really hear. He’s talking for a long time. The warm tears are still streaming down my face. I am silent.

I’m looking at the ring, looking at him. Looking at the ring, looking at him.

Finally, he covers the ring which is on my right hand and neither of us knows this is wrong until later and he's like, “Do you hear me?”

I nod my head. I have no words. I don’t have the words. I’m just in shock, hovering above my body watching myself have no words. It’s really hard to explain.

I lean into him and give him a hug and I wet his face with tears and bronzer. I am just nodding. We’re hugging and we’re kissing and I’m still not here. I am still not in this parking lot, in the front seat of this car, listening to Let’s Stay Together, looking at how cute his face is in this moment.

And so we’re engaged.

Just sit with that.

After I got back into my body, I just keep staring at him and demanding a bunch of answers.

In half tears, I’m like, “But how did you do this?” as I hold up the ring, this fucking insanely amazing holy shit this is mine?! ring.

He’s like, “I just picked it up at the gas station…”

Tears streaming more now and I take the ring off and I’m in disbelief thinking about 7-11 and I’m confused and dizzy, “So wait, this is fake too?”

He’s like, “NO NO NO NO NO…” and he’s smiling.

And girl, the ring is real. It’s so real. I’m tripping off how real it is!

Turns out, his jeweler, who lives in Manhattan had to come to Long Island to see his mother-in-law. His mother-in-law happened to live right near the place we were headed for dinner. When J was on the phone, he was cryptically giving directions to the gas station where he’d meet the jeweler. He was not supposed to have met this jeweler this day. They had both had plans for him to go into the city to get the ring, but it was just kismet or something that it turned out this way, on our way to dinner.

The ring was burning a hole in J’s pocket.

The moment we were engaged, I blurted out, “I didn’t think this would be happening to me today…” which I honestly believed this would never happen to me this day. I had no idea. I was so surprised. I so knew in my heart and in my guts that I would be with him for another year, two, three even, before this happened. I just thought we’d ride or die like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. I really thought we’d be kinda hippie-ish and just be together and be one of those couples that everybody just assumes is married because they’ve been together so long and you never see one without the other and they start to look alike and like the same clothes. Like that.

And he said, “I didn’t think this would happen to me today either.”

So he just did it on a whim. And I got to thinking, either he knows me so well, he knew I'd never get out of the car to look at furniture through a window in the cold, thus giving the iPod time to get Al Green's Let's Stay Together before he got back into the car. OR, he really wanted me to get out so he could really get on one knee.

I inquired about the attempting to get on the knee in the car later and he was like, "I just didn't want you to have to leave that out of the story that you girls tell and shit. I'd rather do it and feel like a dick than not do it and you say I didn't do it..."

Either way, I love him. So bad! (My niece used to say "I love you so bad Auntie" which is where I got that from.)

I've thought about all the scenarios and connected all kinds of imaginary dots. The truth is, it probably all really happened without a plan but looking at it in hindsight, it had no choice but to all fall into place this way. It's the theme of our relationship. Not to get gross, but when I met him 7 years ago, I had no idea that that day I'd met my (OMG) husband. He was just this random guy (really random) that I went into a little business with. He was sitting there with a fish tank and a stapler, a new businessman, talking crazy to me which I understood because I talked crazy too. Years would go by, 48 states apart, and I would meet people, hang out with people that he knew or worked with along the way, not knowing that I knew him. We'd always been connected in strange ways. I even bumped into him at Baja Fresh in California one time when he was there working. I was with someone else. He was with someone else. All these chance encounters, all this random history and now I'll be watching my father go down the Soul Train line at my wedding with this person. WOW.

After the engagement part, we were talking and he was CRACKING me up. I won’t say he’s not romantic. He is, but in his own way which is really endearing and hilarious.

He was like, “You know, I’m not that chooch fuck that goes up in a hot air balloon and jumps out with a banner 'will you marry me?' attached to my back and shit. You know, that’s just not my style. It’s not us, really. I just always knew I’d marry you and so it’s like, I had to do it today when I had the ring and everything.”

I said, “Aren’t you in shock? I am!”

And he’s like, “Dude, I always knew it was you. It’s me and you, man. It’s just right.”

If you knew him, you could hear his voice saying it and you’d know he’s such a mush.

I said, “And what did Shorty really say?”

He’s like, “He really said, ‘Yo, I’m not really trying to babysit no bunch of kids, you hear me. I got my own problems.’ But he was laughing. Me and your father, we’re alike. I told him I’ll shoot him straight, just like he shoots me straight…”

And J speaks in analogy, but in a very musical way. Like, he uses music terminology to express himself emotionally. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

But he said a bunch of musical stuff about our relationship, and how we’re going to work on it to make it grow. He said we would “compress the dynamics” which I took to mean something good, even though it makes absolutely no sense to me. But that’s J.

So yeah. That’s that.

(Press play.)

Posted by melissah at February 26, 2007 11:35 AM