Men, we're retarded that way, and it has sod all to do with you.

I would like the preface this with the emphatic statement that in no way has the woman in my life done anything to bring this little missive to light. It was probably mostly a combination of watching 5 back to back episodes of the UK version of Coupling and talking with a woman about her and her significant other.

If women could realize that the universe that is their relationship does not have them at the center, life could be so much less complex for guys. Now let's be fair, women are not the only ones who think they are the center of the relationship universe, but women take it to the extreme at times.

Relationships are binary star systems. The stars orbit each other and all the other issues/events orbit the stars (things like the planet of the first kiss, or the ex-girlfriend comet that shows up every 5 years). But the important thing is that there can be something wrong with the one star that the other has absolutely no control over, or responsibility for. They orbit each other, they affect one another, but excessive worry and attention often does nothing for that spate of excessive sunspot activity.

Here is what it boils down to. Women seem to get to certain points in relationships before their man, and if he doesn't come along smartly in line with their mindset, then he must not value the relationship as much as they do. As an example (and I must, due to my audience) be quick to point out that as an example, it is neither perfect, nor universally applicable. It is however true in the general case.

Women tend to realize that they want this relationship to last for the rest of their lives earlier than men. And men, well, they have two options. One, they may realize that you are feeling this way before they are sure what they are feeling, or two, they may realize the same thing. It doesn't really matter which comes first, because sooner or later, they are going to freak out. This is where the women in my audience (and let's face it, that's most of my audience for some reason) need to realize that this has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with you. (Where you means the female that is the other person in the relationship) The only possible way in which it CAN become something to do with you, is if you make it so.

This is where you need to calm the heck down and realize you are not in the middle of this relationship. The entire focal point of this relationship in the mind of the guy, is not, and SHOULD not be you. Read that again and absorb it. Now realize that you will totally forget it the next time something like this comes up. It's in your nature the same way what the guy is going to do is in his.

Now, the guy may realize that "hey, I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman". He may realize "um...I think she's starting to think about the M-word" It doesn't really matter, because at some point, they man must face, and answer this questions. "Am I ready to settle down with one woman?" Notice, the question is not "Am I ready to settle down with this woman?" It is "one woman". Now women, this is where you need to take a step way the hell back and let the guy work this one through. He may say things to you like "I've been thinking, maybe we should date some other people." Crazy stuff. Stuff he doesn't really mean. It's an outcropping of this set of thoughts that are repeating in his head.

"If I settle down, then it's just one woman. There isn't any possibility of more. No more first kisses, no other women to feel what it's like to snuggle up with. No more breasts to try out. I'm not sure I want to give that up." Now keep in mind, the past dating history of this man has absolutely NO relevance on this. They may have dated hundreds of women, had hundreds of first kisses and worked every possible relationship to see where it could go. Or they might have stood on the dating sidelines waiting for the coach to put them in, and not realizing that they are their own coach in a team of one. I myself had only dated one other woman when my wife and I were engaged and about three months from marriage. I was sure I was ready, enthusiastically embraced a life together and then all of a sudden found myself regretting the loss of opportunity to date other women and have these experiences. Let's completely ignore the fact that in the year prior to Megan and I dating, I hadn't made friends with one datable woman near my age. And mostly through absolute lack of trying.

But it had absolutely nothing to do with my wife. She could either let me sort through it, and give me smacks upside the head if I did things like suggest we date other people 10 months into our 13 month engagment, or she could smother me trying to make me forget about the other women and forcibly pull me with her into HER future. Fortunately, mine let me figure it out. A couple should walk forward into THEIR future (which is generaly both parties walking in the direction they think is right, being shocked to find that sometimes this differs, and then figuring out which way to go as a couple each time they hit one of these places). But when a woman freaks out and decides she needs to fix her male, she begins to forcibly drag him the way she wants things to go. She pulls him further and further down HER path with no chance for him to affect the direction. This makes him feel even MORE trapped and in fact sabotages her. Because if he tries to pull away and say "I'd like to go this way please." She takes this as him rejecting her, but he's just trying to walk the path together (At least at first). She's already threatened that he doesn't feel exactly the same way she does and so any attempt to deviate from her chosen path is seen as a sure sign that things are over.

Let me enlighten you ladies. The sure sign that things are over is when he no longer tries to walk a different path. When he's given up and is trudging like a young child behind his mother. Whether it ends after the marriage or before, he has lost interest in this relationship and you've done it to yourself. His actions to change where things were going showed he cared about the direction. When he no longer cares enough to try and change things, he no longer cares period, and it is only a matter of time before he realizes it.

Whew...that was very long, and convoluted, but I think there is truth in there somewhere. Let me know when you find it.

A departure from Sculpture

Rose_Cane_Bowl_2
Originally uploaded by Tegid.

Though not a departure from Polymer clay. This is my first semi-serious creation with a cane. A Cane is a cylinder (in general) of clay that has some pattern running through it. In this case, there are two canes, a rose cane and a leaf cane, you can reduce them in size, but keep the detail, which is why there are two or three colors worth here, and the clay was mixed with translucent, so you can see through it when there is a candle in the bowl.

It looks better when lit and in a dim room than when seen in daylight, for a couple of reasons, not the least of which being that the boundaries between the clay are quite visible. But it's only my first attempt.

Base with multiple leaves

Sculpture_Dan_Small_Leaves
Originally uploaded by Tegid.

This is the other version. I'm a little partial to this one.

My newest Sculpture

Sculpture_Dan_BigLeaf-Front
Originally uploaded by Tegid.

This was an attempt to create a commissioned piece for someone. I made two bases for this image, and I'll post the other one next. Whichever base the person doesn't choose, will be used by another sculpture.

Don't get too excited

So I'm really just posting some of my more recent sculpture work. (Look for me at a craft fair near me this summer)


This is the completed sleeping mouse, sleeping in his leaf.


This is my most recent, it's a basset hound, though I've been told he looks evil. Hopefully that will not be the case when I'm done painting him. This is what they look like unbaked though, for anyone that might have wondered.

I've got a headache, but it's okay.

Because after two and a half weeks of 60 hour pace (two weeks of roughly 60 hours and one week of 40 completed in 4 days) I'm done with the project.

I've also finished a couple of other projects in that time. So here they are...Well the mouse isn't finished, but it is better than my last mouse in terms of ear size etc. I'm not too thrilled with the actual shape of the bear's head, but he looks cute.

And people have offerred to buy/commission sculptures from me, so I'm psyched about that. More practice coming up. Without further ado:







Enjoy and post comments. And Ginny, you can live your carefree (relative) college existence and scorn me for not posting all you want. (Actually, that really just lets me know that someone reads my blog).

Bad Singing after Good Food.

This will be a boring entry. It's not that I don't want you to read it. It's mostly that I'm warning you ahead of time, so when you complain, I can point to the first sentence and say "See! I told you that before hand." But you are bound to read it now that you've started. Such is my sway over you.

First things first. I suck, because I know you were all waiting for me to write. This will likely be more frequent now, as my evening pasttime of the last month is now over. After a not very gut wrenching decision was made, I made my exit last night from that world, considerably less dressed than the way I entered it. (I gave away/sold/dusted(this means something in that world) all my clothes and items at the end to a friend, so both of my main characters ended up in their underwear. And for some reason, the females have a rather skimpy set of said underwear. I cannot imagine why). Another note is I realized how much of a dork I was when (well, okay we all already knew I was, but this just sealed the deal) I saw a shirt on Penny Arcade and immediately tried to think of other shirts that would use the same concept, but be funnier/better. And the concept is based around World of Warcraft's method of conveying the rarity of an object.

The shirt in question is the one that says "WTS [Wang]x1 PST" in WoW speak, that means "Want to sell one rare wang, please send tell (or private message) if you're interested."

So I started thinking of ideas like [Journey] which of course means "Epic Journey". And [Man] [Fate] which of course means "Common man, uncommon fate". Then I realized that these shirts would only be "cool" for an EXTREMELY specific value of cool, and that my friends is the definition of dorky. So I gave up on the idea. Especially considering that I'm no longer playing.

This week I'm also having the fun of working 60 hours in 6 days. It's actually not as bad as it could be, but honestly, if it were for more than this week and next, it would suck. You basically have no time for life when you spend 10-12 hours at work 6 days a week. You come home, have dinner (which your wonderful wife prepares for you) and you go to bed. That's it. Not only that, but I end up so burned out from thinking and coding all day at work, that I'm just not mentally there to deal with anything more complicated than "what kind of beer do you want tonight".

But tonight we got to go out to dinner with some friends (I only put in 9 hours today, I kinda burned out a bit around the 40 hour mark yesterday too) and had a really good time. Enjoyed some Tex Mex (tasty, but very Americanized) at Tia's, including their Margaritas and Swirls (the Swirl is girly as hell, but I always get it, because it tastes damn good). Then we came back and play Karaoke Revolution on the XBox. I got it for my wife after she and I played at a friends house quite a while back. She kept saying how much she wanted it, so for the first time ever, my wife received two videogames (DDR as well) for her birthday, and she loved them. It was actually pretty surreal. See, I've always thought of video games as cool only for a certain (though much broader than the one I talked about above) value of cool. One that almost never included women. Sure I've gotten my younger sister into a few of the lighter games (Civ II, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital), and I've hopelessly addicted my father-in-law and brother-in-law to Starcraft, (well the idea of beating me, 2v1 at it) , but my wife wouldn't even sit down and try World of Warcraft. Oh well. Tonight we unlocked a bunch of new costumes, venues and even a new song. I sang a stirring rendition of "Wind Beneath My Wings" complete with a emotional fist clenching, and I think Michael Jackson spun over in his bunk bed.

But now there are even more people that want this game. My mother-in-law left the birthday party asking why they didn't have this game, and our friend who came tonight left thinking of purchasing it. Always fun to spread something. Speaking of which. If you haven't already, watch Battlestar Galactica (the remake on Sci-Fi Channel now). It's really good. It might prove to be better than Farscape, though probably not as good as Firefly.

So I finished baking and painting my rabbit.





Enjoy.

That's Not a Rabbit...

...this is a rabbit.


Unbaked, unpainted.


Don't Tell Me He Looks Like a Rabbit



I know the ears are a little big, but I'd like to see you do better. (Actually, you can, and I highly recommend learning how.) I made this field mouse here after getting the linked book, and highly enjoyed it. It taught me a whole bunch of new ways to think about using polymer clay, as well as quite a bit about painting. Things like dry coats and washes and such.

Though I might ask my older sister if she'll paint some of them, because she is WAY better at painting than I am. My younger sister is really crafty, but I think he painting will be like mine. She's really good at folky, solid-colors and shapes (very well done too), but I don't think realism is up her alley too much. Though I thinking when she comes home next, I should have her sculpt one of these guys, because I'm sure she can.

Anyhow, just wanted to show off. Enjoy.

The Much Belated Part II

...When last we left our intrepid hero, he had forgotten to buy frozen corn for his wife. Corn she would desperately need to make the soup with which to impress her female family members. The hour was late (1 am) and the situation dire. What would he do? Where would he go? What philisophical musings would he undergo? (Late at night. Alone in a car. A philisophical musing is implied.) Stay tuned to find out on.... Adventures in Husbandry (author takes a moment to look up Husbandry) -- scratch that. On....The Store Closed at Midnight!!!

Okay so now that I've set it up. Let's get to the necessarily anti-climactic story.

So there I was, in the parking lot of Shoppers. It was a brilliant stroke of...um, brilliance, the like of which is seen only in this generation's Einstein's and Rosen's. "We'll just stop at Shoppers on the way home. It's open 24/7. You can stay in the car, I'll run in and be out in just a minute." It was smooth, it allowed her to stay in the warm car, while I braved the elements and went hunter-gathering for frozen corn in the perilous frozen food department. She agreed (even thanking me for letting her stay in the car) and I dashed to the door. It was at this point that I discovered the first signs that my side of town is populated entirely by fogies. Old farts, boring people, whatever you call them, my side of town must be teaming with them. Shoppers closed at midnight. Being that it is about 12:53am give or take a minute, I knew that, through keen intuition, (I tried the door and it was locked, also the sign I read a moment later said they close at midnight) I would not be able to gather my frozen corn from this place. Rebuffed, I returned to the car, sheepishly admitting to my snug and warm wife that I failed in my attempt and that another avenue must be explored.

After some hemming and hawwing (which, if you've never seen me haw, count yourself among the blessed of this Earth) a plan was struck. I would drop my wife off at our wigwam, which was a very short distance away. After this, I would go forth gathering and hunting again until such time as I found my prize. I knew for a fact, that in the worst case, the Shoppers across town was open 24/7. But that was a 35 minute round trip. I began with the closer stores.

After striking out at the first Giant within a three block radius of my wigwam, I began to feel hunger. I decided that a source of fast food must be aquired to satisfy my late night hunger brought on by my exertion. I didn't not quell in fear at the concept, since I knew that both Burger King and Taco Bell, purveyers of fine meat filled products, have a drive-through which is open late.

Alas, not in Old Fartville (not to be confused with Old Farts Ville which has a rather stale and foul odor) where apparently open late is universily defined as "open until Midnight!!!" After thus striking out in my search for nourishment, I continued to the other Giant, bypassing the Wal-Mart, which I knew to be lacking in most food items (and have subsequently learned was closed anyhow), there also lay another Taco Bell. Surely a restaurant on a major road would be open later. I learned to my chagrin, that while this was true, it was only open until 1am, and this time had passed nearly a quarter hour before. The Giant was also, unsurprisingly, closed at midnight.

Undismayed, I went to the other Shoppers on my side of town, only to be greeted by a similar refrain. It was at this point, that I resigned myself to travelling across town, and I proceeded to do so. (After stopping nominally to check for frozen corn at Sheetz, but in reality to buy a chocolate chip cookie, iced cream sandwich. Actually it ended up being pretty disappointing.) Across town I drove first to the Taco Bell, which was on the way anyhow. On this side of town, late night means 4am. In fact, both the inside and drive-through are open until 4am. Deeply nutritious food in hand, I drove across the highway to the Shoppers where I quickly found my corn and gathered three bags of it.

Three bags in hand, virtually alone in the store, I journeyed to the register. The lone open register. To find another employee, cart absolutely full of groceries checking out. All I wanted was three bags of corn. In the end, I simply waited for her, rang up mine and left. I arrived home almost exactly at 2am to much thanks from my wife. But I realized. I had moved from my swinging bachelor days, truely into my adulthood. I now live on the old, boring, staid side of town where if you're up past 9:30, you must be up to no good. It's the only way to explain it.

And the Answer is...Not Me

So Jefferson, the person most likely to not write anything for months has complained because I haven't written anything in awhile. Funny. Actually though, I've had something to write since last Monday night. You might ask why, but the wise ones among you will save your breath and realize I'm going to tell you whether you ask or not.

So I want you to imagine with me if you will. Imagine your wife is tired and worn out from the holidays. Imagine that she is prone to making lists of things to do that are always too long. Then imagine that you see something on the list you can do instead of her, and as a good husband, you offer to do. Now in this particular scenario, she trusts you enough to do said task and sends you on your way.

In this way we find ourselves at Shoppers (a grocery store) and due to lack of foresight happen to have no method of marking off the list in hand. Being the clever engineer that I am (all of you are for the sake of this mental exercise, as clever of an engineer as I am. ) I decide to make little tears in the paper next to the items I have gotten. This works well and I return home with all the items Megan needs to make soup for her female relatives the next day. I am victorious, a wonderful husband, and have enabled her to do something (that I am not allowed to do) while I was away.

So then Megan and I go to her parent's house to enjoy the evening. But really, I'm going to play Starcraft against her father and brother. See, I gave them an old copy I had sitting on my shelves, and they have since that day, dedicated themselves to my destruction by their hands. (Keeping in mind of course that it will be two on one, and that I haven't played in literal years. ) I manage through one ugly game and one very pretty, slaughter of a game, to defeat them twice. It is now slightly after midnight, and we head home.

On the way, Megan begins to query my deep pool of culinary knowledge (hey! Stop laughing! I can cook. No, I mean it, I can cook!) for guidance on preparing her soup for the next day. She asks, "Should I leave the frozen corn out overnight so it is not frozen when I put it in the soup? Or should I not worry about that?" To which my reply is not, as you might think "Leave it out overnight" or "don't worry if it's frozen, just pop it in the microwave for a little while when you get it out." No my long lost readers. My response is "I didn't buy frozen corn."

Now here you might be thinking (as was my wife) "So what kind of corn did you buy? Canned? On the cob?" You give me far too much credit. The answer as any guy reading will know is, I didn't buy any kind of corn. I missed it on the list.

Part II will come later as I quest for frozen corn at 1am.

Can You Stop the Room Please? I'd Like to Get Off

Whew! I'll be really happy when the holidays are over. It's just so tiring, and I'm not even doing that much. So much angst over things that don't matter in order to have the perfect holiday that doesn't exist. Oh, and my stomach isn't feeling so good. On the bright side, if it feels like this in the morning, it might be enough to keep me home from work. On the not so bright side, it will feel better.

So I've started playing World of Warcraft again.

Now anyone familiar with the world of computer games (not Video games, that's a different genre) will be aware of this title. And many will scratch their heads for a moment and wonder how exactly I could have stopped considering the game was only released a month ago, and they extended the free trial date a few days. This is true. But I never played the game at release. I played the game before release in the stress test and the open beta. Then when it cost money, and Megan said she felt it had been bad for our marriage (it was and is a time sink, but it was worse since I had a very limited time to play) I stopped. And I had almost beaten the cravings, when a friend at our Christmas Party (that deserves capitalization, any time you need a steam cleaner afterwards, it gets proper noun status) gave me a present which looked like a game box, wrapped in an EB bag (a very nice one too) and then told me it was "non-committal". Well, the cravings return and the game becomes almost tangibly needed.

A verbal agreement to agree when play time was appropriate and no plans to extend my play time past my free month later, and I'm in Azeroth. It's fun, and I've hooked up with a friend I played in the open beta with and we are running around similar haunts (though with different characters) havng fun. Unfortunately for you my dear reader, this means fewer updates and more tired me for a month. I'll try and make sure I don't completely neglect you, so as to lose your interest, or your polite pseudo-interest. Meanwhile the Crooked Bird has flown it's coop and you might considering seeing what he has to say.

You Know It's a Party When...

There is a streak of puke running from the couch to the bathroom.

Well, that really isn't the part of the party we like too much. And honestly, I think it's about time to grow out of that kind of partying. Well for me and mine at least. I'm not saying there isn't something to be said for mind modifying quantities of alcohol in this man's party. But I've learned to give my limits much wider boundaries. And also to be fair, the puke producer was not drinking particularly heavily and is a good friend that I have no wish to embarrass. Several of us, older than he currently is, have had much bigger messes to clean up after. Sometimes puke is positively easy to clean up in comparison to issues that have been raised amongst friends.

In that category, I believe this party went swimmingly. No apologies for assinine behaviour or friendships that require mending. Just the rental of a steam cleaner and the liberal application of club soda. I felt bad that I had a committment very shortly after waking up at 2pm and was unable to assist in most of the cleaning up. I can't honestly say I was upset to miss out on the cleaning, but I did feel bad. Fortunately there were those wonderful people that stayed behind to make sure my wife did not have to do all the work on her own.

The party itself, just short of the throwing up, (which fortunately I did not witness, but unfortunately was not there due to my wife suddenly feeling crappy in a headachey/sore throat kind of way) was quite a lot of fun. All kinds of people came from family, long time friends, ex-roommates and family of ex-roommates, co-workers, ex-co-workers (just wanted to do the two hyphen thing), and people my wife knows from work. (Also an aspiring UVA student. Go HOOS!) There was much food to be had. We provided a ham and everyone brought some kind of sweet or appetizer as was doled out by my lovely and organizationally talented wife. I have now scored beer and cider that should last throughout the rest of the holiday season and well into the next year.

Not only that, but I can now torment Jefferson with rumors of photographs of several attractive women posing provacatively for the camera. Not only that, but piles of women surrounding various males present at the time. He's got to be sorry he didn't make it out here...again. One of these days he shall see the photos and realize that he's an idiot and that his life should revolve around making is way out here to spend time with those of us he knows so well through phone calls and IMs, but has never seen in person as they sway through the party evoking the thought of Angel era Cordelia. But at least until I finally get the wedding gift he has promised me for over a year (I didn't really expect one, but he insisted it was coming over a year ago) and has just now finished, I don't think he gets to see any of them. Unless of course I decide to post one of my friend just to show you all what a pimp he is.

Worn Out

It's been a long week, and as much as I'm looking forward to tomorrow night, I am just not getting anything done in that direction tonight. I'm exhausted and need to sleep. I've been working on a job that should have taken me 35 minutes for about 3 hours. And I'm not done. It wasn't hard, still isn't. But I just can't focus. I'll be back tomorrow with photos and a party report (Well maybe not until Sunday morning).

Where the Cookies are Fresh, and the Dinner Reheated

Onward with more party prep. I must confess that at this point 90% of it has not been done by me. But I did make a batch of great Chocolate Chip Cookies tonight. I'd take a picture and post it, but that would just be cruel if you aren't coming over on Saturday. (Jefferson, you are always welcome)

But what with Megan (that's my wife) working today, and myself as well, we had leftovers for dinner. Good leftovers, Megan made a very tasty dinner last night that we consumed the remainder of tonight, but still, it was slightly amusing that the cookies were fresh and the dinner was reheated. (Oh, and I don't make roll cookies...only from scratch)

So I've come to realize that we have no sayings for having to make an agonizing decision between two really good options. There is no "between a soft pillow and a comfy chair", or the even better "wads of cash and life of comfort". No, its "rock and a hard place", "up a creek without a paddle", or the cultured (though I'm not going to spell it correctly, so obviously, not so much in my case) "between Scylla and Charibdis". We have many inventive ways to say life sucks, far fewer to say life is awesome.

I find hicks are slightly better at this, even if their sayings make no sense. "Ate smooth up" being one that I know means very good things, but just makes absolutely no sense in any English Language kind of way. Or "six kinds of awesome," that makes sense, but it's fairly plain and mostly just a slighly clever way of saying "really awesome". I think we need a phrase that explains that I have two great options, but I can only pick one. Unfortunately, we never will, because when that happens, we turn it into a bad thing.

"Oh my God!! Woe is me! I must choose between a party with my summer friends or my lifelong, all-but-two-weeks-of-the-year(when I'm with my summer camp friends) friends. This sucks." I'm sorry, no it doesn't. It has it's negative aspects (mainly if you don't chose your all-but-two-weeks-of-the-year friends), but it's a positive conundruum. It's being stuck between Pecan pie and Pumpkin pie. Or between riches and fame (well, okay both of those have real drawbacks, but the world feels they are both great things to have).

We spend so much of our time focusing on what is negative in our lives, that we begin to believe the entirety of our life is negative. The positive moments seem so fleeting, and the negative seem to drag on into eternity. In reality, it's merely the weight of choosing between negative options that causes us to spend so much time thinking and worrying over them. Positives are light and momentary burdens that feel not like burdens at all. If you remember your childhood, most things that seemed like negatives were easily turned into positives.

Can't go outside to play? That just means you can build a fort with chairs and a tablecloth.

Lose your toy? You pick up a stick and have more fun with your sword/cane/gun/baton than you ever had with that toy.

You get in trouble and are sent to your room? You don't spend your time thinking about what you did, no matter what your parents tell you to do. You spend all your time thinking about how great it will be to be able to leave your room again.

Now sometimes life is really hard, and you HAVE to make those tough choices, but let's spend a little more time thinking about the light at the end instead of how deep the hole we are in happens to be. If you're already on your way out, why look back and keep reminding yourself how tough it was to be there. And if you are on your way in, stop and think before you take your next step. Find a friend and see how to get to that light.

Wow that got all sappy and melodramatic, but it's what I feel right now. And I'm not feeling negative, I'm feeling positive. But it is idealism to think that we can always be stuck between the cash and the fabulous prizes.

Party Time is Coming Soon

So in a few days, it is time for our Annual Christmas Party. Boy is there a lot to do (more since my wife is planning it, so all kinds of things have to be done that don't really have to be done, but she's convinced herself are essential. (ohhh yeah, I'm gonna catch grief from this))

Let me escape from the parentheticals and run down how this is going to play out.

First, she is going to read my this and feel upset and indignant at me. She will convince herself that I just don't know what I'm talking about, and don't really understand all the things that need to be done to get a party ready.

Second, she is going to talk to her mother about it and get confirmation that she is right and that all this stuff needs to be done. As she is her mother's daughter, the things she thinks are vital, are often the things her mother always tagged as being vital. So for this example, I'm going to lose the "appeal to a higher authority"

Third, she will confront me and run down her list of things that have to be done before the party. Most of the items will need to get done, but will not involve long periods of time or anguish unless you are her. What she will not do is list all the innane and unimportant things that will absorb her entire conscious being at about 12:30 on Friday night when we are laying in bed and I'm mostly asleep. At this point, she will start to tell me "how little she got done today," followed by what she has to do tomorrow and how she has no idea how it's all going to get done. Then she will trail off and I will almost fall asleep again. At which point she will start talking again and this will repeat for the next 25 minutes.

I must take a brief pause to explain this last portion, or I will give you a misleading picture of my wife, and perhaps give her a complex. Neither of which I wish to do. My wife is one of those women who grew up with a mother and sister that liked to recall their entire day to each other. We're talking just to the level above when they swallowed and breathed. Not only that, but they have no trouble telling the same story to three or four people one right after the other. The concept of "no, is too much, will sum up" is so foreign to them that they aren't even sure it is a valid concept.

So if we have not spent much time talking since I've gotten home from work (for whatever reason, maybe I was playing a computer game, or we watched a movie together... doesn't matter what, but we couldn't talk being the outcome) then she just is not biologically capable of just falling to sleep without at least telling me a little bit about how her day went. And a little bit could encompass four stories, including how she dropped the knife twice while buttering her toast. (well okay, it could include almost anything, but that as she can't eat toast, and doesn't really like butter on things). It's a biological imperative, I just kind of wish she would succumb to it slightly before I'm about to pass from consciousness.

Fourth, she will fail to realize that if she assigns me a bunch of these tasks, I can have them finished in a much, much shorter amount of time that she can. The only problem being, that means she isn't the one to do them. And as my wife has a slight case of terminal perfectionism (which comes with a whole boatload of control issues as you might imagine) this can cause a problem. Not only does she not want to give up control because *gasp* other people will be affected. She also cannot accept that the job can be done in that much less time than it would take her. The fact that I can is mostly due to a) not being a perfectionist b) being a realist as to what is necessary and c) I can commit my complete focus to the task at hand, whereas her being female (normally this non-single mindedness is a gift), as well as her illness make this almost impossible for her.

Not only that, but my mother and her mother have both volunteered to help her get ready. We're fine. There are things to do, but none of them are so large as to be insurmountable. The dining room table needs cleaning off. It won't take that long if we move the stuff and sort it later. Even if we don't, most of it just goes back in boxes. Honestly, she's great about not just moving stuff, but actually putting it away, but it's almost a sickness. Sometimes you have to just move things, but she's pretty much unwilling to ever consider the shortcut. I'm too often willing and eager to take it. It works out well to put us together, but on some things she just doesn't even SEE the alternate course as an acceptable option. (ie leaving for a trip. We are 5 hours late leaving and we are going to get there at about 3am at this point. She hasn't emptied the cat's litter box and hasn't vacuumed the main floor (so we can come back to a clean house). The cat's box has to be emptied (I'm just finished loadng the car, I'm not sitting around) because you can't leave them for three days with a dirty litter box. But it's time to cut and run on the vacuuming. My wife? No, she comes in as the car is just finished being loaded and says "Okay, I've just got to vacuum and do the litter box, and we can go." Cooler heads prevailed and the cats were taken care of and our friend actually ended up vacuuming while we were away when she came to check on the cats.)

I love my wife, and I am excited about the upcoming party, but she always makes these things into the world judging us very closely on our performance, and as such, it's alway a huge deal to get ready.

Work is Where the Big Chair Is.

So I was at work until about 9pm tonight. Partially it was a cop out from going to Karate because my co-worker who makes me feel guilty for not going didn't either, and besides, the doctors trip yesterday left me about five hours short on the week. So I worked 11 hours today and started catching up. I also have a lot of work to do. But less than I did yesterday because one of the really high ups cancelled one of my tasks.

It's partially my fault because I've gotten a bit behind on my current task. But partially it's the fact that they keep adding tasks to me at the last minute, and there just isn't time for them. I am also not the only person by far to have a task killed. Quite a few were cut and I was just one of them. So I'm trying really hard to have my current task done by tomorrow and to be on schedule or ahead for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile the comments about my awesome chair have died down. See, years ago, we worked across the street in a different building. Same company, just different building. They realistically decided we didn't really need that building and consolodated us, but that's not really part of the story. There were a couple of young guys working some IR&D tasks (that's pronounced eye-rad and means Internal Research and Development). They were at the point of their project that they were starting to show it to all kinds of high ranking customers, and so they got really nice digs, including fancy chairs.

Apparently they got a bunch of them, and never needed them all. Ever. They even had trouble because they had too many for their space. So the guy in charge told me if I wanted one I could have one. Of course I said yes and he wheeled down a high back executive pseudo-leather chair. Now we don't have bad chairs for the most part. They are actually pretty comfortable and solid. But this chair is very nice and looks really important. So for months, people would walk by and say "Where did you get that chair? Look who's important now" etc. But to this day random people who I swear have seen my chair before, will stop, stare, and comment. And they always ask me where I got it.

I just tap the side of my nose and say, "I've got gnections".

They alway stare at me like I'm crazy.

Cuteness That Should Be Subject to Trafficking Laws

I was looking through the photos Mike took at our place on Saturday while we were working on the tree trimming and I found this one. I cannot believe how cute my cat is.

Being the Other Person in a Room.

In case you thought you were going to escape with just a short post tonight, you are a foolish foolish person. Though even my wife looks at my posts and decides she just isn't going to spend the time to read them.

My dear friend who got me in to blogging, and in no small part lead to my wife starting her own, is giving me a hard time for bugging him about watching Buffy, and also about not posting his reviews in a timely fashion. He gives a passable excuse about a final in some graduate level databases class he's been using as an excuse all semester. But I just think he needs more encouragement from people who aren't me. Go see what he has to say about season 2 so far and bug him to tell us more.

In more subject related news. I just spent the afternoon in what is a quarterly event for my wife and I. We went to her doctor and talked about how things are going. It's highly unusual to spend any significant amount of time in a room with only two other people, who are discussing a topic I am personally very interested in, and not be talking a lot. Oh sure, polite people do this all the time. Non-6'6" people might be used to this as well. But I am not. It's uncommon for me to be somewhere, interested in a subject, and the least frequent speaker. This is good practice for me. Generally I'm that guy, the one who answers the question in class when everyone else is too cool to raise their hand. The one that if a meeting is going to conclude with no question asked, asks the question everyone else wants to ask, but assumes would be rude.

So when I sit in that room and I merely provide alternate perspective or fill in information in a supervisory capacity. It's a change of pace. I think I do okay, though you could definitely ask my wife and see what she thinks when she gets up from her nap. It can be rather fun at times though. It's like a bad sitcom. The doctor will ask a question and my wife will give an answer that is not entirely in keeping with the truth of the matter. It may very well be her perspective on the situation, but in these cases, it is my solemn duty to either shake my head in an exaggerated way or nod it similarly to catch the doctor's attention and convince him that my wife is full of crap.

Apparently this is a common phenomena. That being the case, I feel better committing the sin of disagreeing with my spouse. Wait, that's not a sin, it's disagreeing with my wife. It's perfectly okay for wives to loudly and agressively disagree with their husbands in public, but God forbid a man do the same thing. Untold furies of hell will lash out at the man that makes that mistake. But apparently a doctor's office is a place where this universal constant comes unravelled. I think they must make the room in a Faraday Cage of sorts or something, in any case, the laws of relationship-time do not seem to apply the same way inside that office. And I have experimented, it doesn't matter if the door is closed, cracked, or wide open.

This must be in correllary to the good advice law. Any good advice from me to my wife will be derided and considered foolish or misled. The same advice, if uttered out of the mouth of either set of parents is sensible and wise council. At least I get to think to myself that I told her so. Hmmm, I'm thinking I either have to write another six paragraphs to ensure my wife never reads this entry, or I should just stop now and hope she reads it while groggy and doesn't quite realized that we're out of that protected space that is the doctor's office.