Don't Give me Tin

Tonight I am washing my ears with Mary Lambert. You know her. She's the pretty, red-haired femme from Seattle. The one that belts the chorus to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's Same Love. Her. Her lyrics slice through my skin like a knife. They're raw.

I haven't touched this blog in well over a month and not because I haven't wanted to. I miss it. I long for it. It's my therapy, but with school and uninvited home repairs it has been a distant friend. I miss you, friend. I'm glad I found you tonight.

So tonight I sit here doing my homework. I have two finals papers to prepare for next week. I thought Mary would sing me through them. Instead she sang me right to my blog. Thank you, Mary. Nothing like distracting a girl.

I'm here and so much has happened in the last month and a half. My son turned one, started walking, and began destroying the house. My daughter is four, but has accelerated to the level one swimmers. For the first time ever, she is the smallest in her class. My kids are growing leaps and bounds. I can't keep up with it. It's daily, this growth. I can't imagine missing a day or a week or month or more of that growth. My Sara is well into her RN position and she loves it. Not only does she love it, but she excels at it. And me? Well, I'm just humming along through school and working and trying to hold it together. Here I am wishing I was okay at mediocrity. It would make the tasks at hand much easier to tend. I would maybe have chance to breathe.

The deepest breath I've taken in the longest while was just last Thursday. Sara and I celebrated our ten year anniversary. Ten. Whole. Years. Do we have to start over with the counting when we get married? That just seems cruel. Anyway, I came home from work last Wednesday. I was planning a candle lit dinner on the front porch for the two of us. We would indulge in some sushi and a nice red wine. She would be surprised to find out I took Thursday off to spend with her and the kids. It was going to be lovely. Was...

There was no candle lit dinner. There was wine. There was homemade bean tacos. They were excellent. It was nice. Our porch was in the process of being repaired and wasn't quite finished. Plus it was a bit chilly, so that kind of put the kibosh on the whole thing. Meh. It's alright. We had really good wine, and really good tacos, and really good company of each other and my sister. It was nice.

So Thursday rolls around and, truthfully, ends up being a huge pile of shit. I wish there was a more tactful way of saying it. There isn't. The porch guys finished up the porch. No more dry rot. People can now stand on it without the fear of dying. Buuuuut, our main sewer pipe began leaking. Not only is it leaking, but it is leaking from the second floor bathroom. Fucking nasty. Annnnd, not only is that main pipe leaking (which we temporarily fixed by not using that toilet), but both bathrooms had the shittiest tile work ever done on them and it is all cracking. In short, both bathrooms need to be gutted and redone and perhaps we may cut open the kitchen ceiling again to fix some more plumbing.

I resolved Thursday afternoon to the couch crying and trying with all my might to get the numbers to work in my head. Sara showered while I did this. When she finished she arrived back out in jogging shorts and a shelf-bra tank top. She was wearing make-up. When I asked her why she was wearing make-up, she told me it was because she wanted to look beautiful. I don't think that woman knows how beautiful she looks every single day to me. She told me, practically begged me, to go shower. Reluctantly, I did. I didn't want to though. My wallowing was comfortable to me.

I showered. As I was toweling off, I hear Sara outside the door. She tells me she has to go pick up my sister. What the hell? My sister, who has been staying with us, was downtown with a friend. Perhaps they got in a fight? Sara told me she was taking Kaz and bolted. I exit the bathroom and see my sister's friend in the kitchen holding Kaz. Apparently there was a baby hand-off at some point. There I was, in all my glory, my hair still dripping wet and my towel barely hugging my body. I asked him (my sister's friend) what was going on. He shooed me upstairs instead. I suppose it would be more comfortable for him to explain if I had clothes on.

I entered my bedroom. On the floor were two packages and my cell phone. Still buck ass naked I dropped my towel and phoned my wife. I ask her what is going on and she prompts me to open the packages. I oblige. The first contained a short, but elegant black dress. I saw the dress at a store recently and fell madly in love with it. There was a note with the dress that said to put it on and proceed to the next package. I did, still on the phone, and now holding back tears.

The second package contained a pair of sandals. They could be elegant or casual. That night, they were to be elegant. There was a note with these too. It said to put them on, leave our babies with my sister and her friend, and meet her (my wife) downtown. I had hung up the phone by now and was scurrying to the bathroom to slap on some make-up and perfume. Good thing I shaved my legs when I showered.

I drove downtown, a measly ten blocks away, and met my wife. At some point she managed to get all dolled up herself. I later learned she did this in her vehicle somewhere on the college campus. I don't know why I find the image of that fiasco sexy, but I do. I definitely do.

She took me to Cena. We had a table for two in the back. She took me out for a nice elegant dinner and a shared pitcher of sangria after a terribly shitty day. She took the day and wiped it clean. She made me feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet. She made me forget our disasters. She executed just what I tried to execute the night before. She followed up dinner with dessert at the martini bar. She made sure I was the center of the world. I made sure she knew she was and always will be the center of mine. It was lovely. Happy ten years, beauty. You still make my heart burst.

Tonight I'm listening to Mary Lambert. She sang me right to this blog. I ought to listen to her more often, but tonight I best be getting back to my homework.