For the first time in almost four years of marriage, John slept on the couch out of anger. The funny part of this story?? He wasn't mad at me, he was mad at the dog. (For the record, it wasn't my dog who is a saint, it was my mom's dog who's staying with us for a couple of weeks!).

Last night John and I were laying on the couch and he was pouting because we were both bored. We went to the computer and pulled up on netflix queue and scanned through them...nothing was hitting the spot. I mused to him, "Today I was reading about the 10 Best Alien Rip Offs and..." he cut me off...
"You were reading that? I was reading that too!"
"Really? So weird! I don't even know how I got to the list" I said.
"I just love top 10 lists" John responded matter of factly.
"ME TOO!" I shouted a little too enthusiastically.

Then I grabbed his hand and did a little booty shakin' dance (which wasn't very little because my booty ain't so tiny) and we laughed, kissed, held hands and realized that even on something so vast as the Internet (wasteland) we still end up on the same sites.

Ah...true love.

I would find this funny even if I wasn't married to a man covered in Star Wars tattoos:


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Yesterday I had the idea that I would surprise my sex starved husband with a little nooky. I showered and prepped my bod and then pounced on him just as he was waking up. Pounced implies I had full control over my body and faculties but I'm fairly sure it was more of a "I fell onto the bed in a heap" kind of moment--I am not a graceful pregnant woman. I feel like an adorable mi nature elephant. I think I look cute, but I'm definitely lumbering. Anyways, we start having sex and it's not half bad. Then my hip pops out the socket for a moment...that wasn't fun or pleasurable and it's never happened before. I wiggle, it goes back and I go back to my business at hand. It pops again and I decide it's time to change positions. I'm guessing the leg popping business is the whole stretching of ligaments and whatnot in preparation for the baby. Whatever it was, it was loud and it was not hot! A few minutes later in this new position, John looks at me alarmed and says, "You're bleeding."
My heart stops.
I run to the bathroom and check myself. I am indeed bleeding--enough to be concerned but not enough that I'm screaming (yet). I don't think I'm breathing any more. In the next minute we debate what to do. We decide. Get to the car, call the doctor on the way to the hospital. We are calm. We get the new insurance card, the doctor's business card and phone easily, as if they were placed out and waiting for us. John grabs my license just in case I need it in the emergency room. He begins driving towards the closest hospital while I calmly place a message with the messaging service.
The doctor calls me back--asks me a series of questions which for some reason I cannot answer alone and must consult John on--how much am I bleeding? Would you say it's like my period? And bless him, he answers all the questions for me and I echo them into the phone. In an almost tired "I've heard all of this before" voice she tells us to go home--we probably just bumped my cervix which is delicate now. If the bleeding continues after an hour, head down to the emergency room. I pride us on the fact that we were both so calm and collect with the whole situation...I'm really just talking because I don't want to think about the next hour.
We go home and we try to relax. I head to the bathroom and check myself. Still bleeding. I put my head on the sink and begin to cry. And the tears don't stop for awhile. John talks me off the toilet that I probably would've sat on for the entire hour. I don't have any cramps, I don't have any pain...we have most likely just bruised my cervix like she said. I nod and wipe my eyes. John pulls Psych up on the Tivo and makes me laugh...he never watches my stupid show we me. He stays with me so that I don't go running back to the bathroom. In my head I'm trying to gauge whether or not there's been any more bleeding, I can't tell but I try to laugh at the stupid, easy jokes on TV. After an hour I go back and check and the bleeding has all but stopped. The crisis was averted, there was no actual crisis and now for the first time since the early days of pregnancy I am full of fear, doubt and worry*.

* I am feeling better now, but when I wrote the post I was feeling very fragile.

** It will also be a rare miracle if we actually have sex over the rest of the pregnancy, we're both feeling a little gun shy.

Something I don't understand about my husband is that he must use a different glass every time that he goes back for another drink. He must, the little drinking glass primadonna! Because how else can you explain two people going through 18 glasses (true count, as I loaded them into the dishwasher) and only one glass being used by me?

Mark my words people, I'm going to get him a sippy cup with his name on it.

This week two years ago I was getting ready to go to Vegas and marry a man I had known for only about 7 months but whom I was madly in love with.

This week one year ago, Johnny and I were celebrating our anniversary in Chicago by drinking our faces off...warm champagne did me in.

This week, we celebrate our two year anniversary, as I sit here, 19 weeks pregnant, and reading over the blog I realize how much the two of us have grown. This year we had to put our noses down and really try to kill off debt. But I think we managed to have plenty of fun together (although I'm sure John can't remember the last time he had fun with me...being pregnant has taken some of my fun quotient away...I've become more of a fat hermit if you will). So, here were a few posts from the year that reminded me that we will always be better together.

Playing hooky... from work to snuggle.

First sex tape together... perhaps some of the angles weren't so flattering, but it was still fun.

The endless game nights in the effort to stop giving the bars all of our hard earned cash...obviously, the game nights didn't stop me from drinking myself silly.

Turning normal Thanksgiving leftovers into a sexperience...

We all learned that John's a sock monster...

Before April, we played all the drunken wii that's fit to be played, although the post doesn't reflect that, we played drunken wii all the time.

Now we're pregnant , probably our biggest growing experience together...especially me, I really miss my waist.

If nothing else from this post, I've learned that I've been a pretty bad blogger this year because I know we did some pretty hilarious things this year but they're all still in blogger drafts. I promise to try and do better--there are some real gems in there.

oh my, I've never had such a shiny new toy as the new iphone. Words can't express how much I love it. I bought a matching set for John and I for our impending anniversary...and now I fear we'll never talk to each other again because we'll be too busy playing with our gizmos.

PS. A matching set requires being in line twice...for a total of 4.5 hours. That's true love right there.

My new nickname for John is, "dork without borders"...
It's kind of like doctors without borders except he doesn't wear a labcoat, treat people or wear a stethoscope...
Mostly he acts like the biggest dork around (but he really doesn't...I just need someone to pick on).

But this comes from a woman who was previously calling her husband, Dorkus For Realius...um you know, a play on the name Marcus Aurealius. What? I did a report on him in 5th grade and I never forgot him. All of this leads me to believe that John probably calls me things under his breath and when I'm not around.

"I'm bored," he says and grabs his guitar. I sip quietly on my Mimosa (going with our dinner themed dinner) and curl my feet under me, settling down in a comfortable spot in the couch. I listen to him play and sing a random selection of songs; often replaying several chords over and over until he has them just right--they sounded right the first time, but I'm not even which song he's on now. The dog runs back and forth between the two of us with a dozen socks in her mouth (why the hell won't she play with anything besides MY socks?? It's been this way for four years and yet I still wonder). She's not sure what to do, she wants to give John her socks to throw, running close to him with them and then trotting away while looking back at him. She seems in awe of him. She's not alone in this. The guitar isn't even his intrument of choice...it's just "something he picked up on his own," he usually says in apologetic way, to somehow explain why he seemlessly moves from one song to another, figuring out chords in his head. I've never quite understood the apologetic undertone to be honest, I think he's pretty amazing.

He should be bored more often.

John and his brother once told me the best story in all the land...I want to tell it to you because I love you ever so much.

When they were very little they went to a private Christian school which was very strict. John's brother went to the bathroom, but the little guy realized that he was too late, the worst had happened---he had pooped in his Spiderman underoos! So like any smart five year old, he took his undies off and he decided to hide them behind the toilet because there were kids milling about the sinks and he didn't want to walk past them to throw the underwear out in the trash. Little man cleaned up as best as he could and then he went back to class, sighing with relief that he had escaped complete and utter embarrassment...

Not exactly.

I'm not sure what this school's motto is, but it seems like it might be "We love to humiliate our students in public" because the offensive underwear were found and instead of just being thrown away, they were placed in a baggie and labelled "Exhibit A". All of the students were called to the auditorium and the teachers explained in horrifying detail what had happened. They raised the baggie of Spidey undies and said, "Does anyone know who these are?" And quickly John raised his hand and yelled, "They're my brother's!" And then total embarrassment ensued. Over the weekend, John and his brother were transferred to public school, imagine that! John claims that the whole school was going to be punished over the infraction while his brother claims that John just surrendered the information with glee. I'm not sure who I believe, but I know which one I married and I'm going to make sure that my dirty laundry is all placed in the proper receptacle. The man's a whistle blower and no one is safe. I call him Deep Throat just so I can see him squirm.

My husband is OBSESSED with this song! He heard it on the radio and couldn't get it out of his head. So what does he do?? He downloads it as his ringtone, makes me listen to it on YouTube and then figures out how to play it on the guitar. Granted, all of this occurred within the first fifteen minutes of him coming home. According to my mom, I was considered the "Disco Queen" as a toddler to the disdain of her friends (my pigtailed self would squeal with delight with anything Donna Summers and Diana Ross) but I believe John is the true Disco Queen of the family. For serious, this song might be my bete noir:



Is he serious?? Sadly kids, I think he is...the truly tragic part? He's 29, been in numerous punk rock bands, loves all the same music that I do and is a virtuoso with the bass-- but I think it's just a sham--I think he was made for disco. To be sure, nothing good can come of this. What's next? People seriously don't know what they're getting into when they mumble the words, "In sickness and in health" now do they?

Me: Ok, I know I have a big butt, but, do these make my butt especially big? (turning and shaking it like I own it...which, unfortunately I do).

John: It looks juicy.

Me: Gross! OK, so it looks especially enormous...whatever, I'm too late for work to change/hide my ass.

***walking out the door together for work***

Me: I see you staring at my ass, knock it off douchebag! (Yep, that's my term of endearment)

John: I like to look at butts and I look at butts all day long, deal with it!

Amazingly, this did not make me feel better about my ass but did make me wonder about John since he works with mostly men.

I woke up this morning to find that I had written a note to my drunken self to remember. Apparently, spelling is beyond me when drunk...also, I must've been quoting John:

Living with a woman is like [living with] a salamander
I just don't get it, but I do amuse myself.

Last night I was feeling an inordinate amount of love for John before he came home...like seriously, I was radiating love, lust and everything I've ever felt for him. I even sat down and made him a "mind-map" of all of his awesomeness of the year. I saw it on a website as something someone could do as a cute thing for Valentine's Day, I decided just to make him one yesterday (You've never felt creative freedom until you've purchased 50 blank greeting cards with matching envelopes...I make EVERYONE homemade cards and I feel like an artist again).

Today, I realized that I went out with him for the first time two years ago last night...had I really known, aside from the psychosomatics I would've made us tacos!

John, I love you.


Everyone else, I'm sorry I made you throw up in your mouths.

John recently accused me of being a random and unnecessary curser. For example, yesterday I said to both John and the dog, "Get your heads off my damn pillow!"

The dog looked hurt and stunned but John seemed fairly unfazed. He simply said to me as he shifted sheepishly back to his own pillows (he has like 20), "Geez, it's like being married to Charleton Heston with your random cursing!"

For the rest of the day all I heard was, "Get your hands off me, you damned dirty ape!" and "Frankly Melina, I don't give a damn!" Go ahead and roll your eyes at him, I know I did.

I can't even believe that I'm married to a man who's never heard of Emmit Otter's Jugband Christmas! Believe me when I tell you that I'm mostly a grinch and that I have very little holiday spirit (due to a brief stint in retail) but I will forever love Emmit.

I think our neighbors had a cigarette after we were done the other night. Perhaps it's the 5am workout regimen or maybe we are just two randy people, but last night kept me distracted all day thinking happy rosey thoughts about John...I am literally staring off into space thinking about him. Which leads me to a question that Gooseberried had, how did I know that John was the one for me? It was because of what I saw hidden in him...the stuff he was trying to make sure I wouldn't see, but it's hard to see how I got to John without knowing where I was before that.
Stop reading here if you've been with me over the past few years, it's just a rehashing of old events.
Some people have been reading this blog since the days that I was stalking Derek (the poor boy that worked at the bar up the street from my house whom I focused all my drunken affections on in a truly humiliating fashion that made this blog possible!) But to those of you who haven't been reading through the long haul here's a brief summary of what happened:

1. I fell in love with a boy when I was 25 (I went to college with him and loved him from afar the entire time). We dated for a while (after reuniting randomly in a graduate school class) then he broke up with me telling me that it was "too soon", because he ended his seven year relationship to be with me. Heartbreakingly he added that he just wasn't in love with me...although he had said it enough during our relationship for me to believe it. Six months after breaking up with me, he met his future wife and married her within the year.

2. A sad fact, I wasn't truly interested in a single man until I met John; it sounds cheesy and phony but it's the absolute truth. Yes, I dated here and there but I didn't get over Chris for years. It was a ridiculously long time for a fairly short relationship and I didn't do anything about it (like call him or anything), I just felt sad and broken for many years. Which is what caused #3.

3. I decided to harden my heart and just sleep with whomever I felt like it. It was fun, most of the time...occasionally it got messy but I was pretty good at separating true affection and sex...with my buddies T and Chelle by my side it became almost a sport for us and it filled our weekends pretty nicely.

4. I met Derek and I knew that he wasn't interested in me, so it was silly and safe to focus all my "love" on him because I wasn't going to get my heart broken...then I really kind of liked him. He still didn't like me and I was the drunkest stalker you could find! The blog posts are pretty funny but fairly embarassing to go back and read (Dec 04-Aug 05 I think). Looking back, I don't think I really would've liked Derek all that much if I knew him a little better than I did but it was a pretty fun time until I got depressed that he didn't like me (weird little things we do to ourselves, huh?). John likes to make fun of me because he and Derek went to high school together and were friends. I blush a lot when his name comes up.

5. After Derek left for school, I put myself on a Man Ban, and decided to get my head straight, heal my heart (finally) and move on with my life without sleeping with ex boyfriends, friends or strangers. I did pretty well. I avoided temptations left and right. I fought the urge to answer booty calls and I just kept chugging away in my self-prescribed celibacy. All I can really say about that period of time was that I kept the grocery store in business with all the batteries I was purchasing for my vibrator.

6. In a chance meeting right before Christmas, John was in town hanging out with his friends. T, Tony, John and I ended up staying up all night and I thought he was cute...in fact, I was thinking of calling off the Man Ban that night...alas, he dropped T and myself back at my house--but, he had my number if he wanted to use it.

7. I fell off the Man Ban bandwagon on Christmas Eve...it was uneventful, but I thought I deserved a present.

8. John sent out a mass text on New Year's Eve, I responded to it and then we started flirting via myspace and texts. Somehow, I talked him into meeting up with me in the city. He lived there, I pretended that I went there all the time. From there, we basically started dating because drunkenly I asked him if he wanted to be exclusive on our "first official date". What can I say? I'm ballsy when I have whiskey in me! Although things were far from perfect. For instance I didn't know that he was still talking to his ex-girlfriend/girlfriend (I'm not totally sure if they were broken up or not because they had this crazy long distance open relationship), and him wanting to celebrate the single life with his roommates. I could tell that he liked me and I was terrified because in under two months, I had fallen for him. But why?
He made me laugh. That may be the most cliche reason in the book but he did things just to make me laugh. He was intelligent ( I was notorious for ending up with men who weren't bright and I would just end up mocking them and just being plain old mean to them). When he was with me, the entire world just seemed to fall away and he would focus solely on me (like the days where we would spend the whole day in bed, laughing/having sex/listening to music etc)...he still does this. I was smitten with the city life, even though I'm two years older than John I felt like I was just a little kid when I went down to see him--I felt sophiticated. That doesn't have anything to do with John persay, but I'm sure that it had something to do with the early days of liking him. I just liked him. For the first time in my life I wasn't scrutinizing anything or picking him apart, saying the things I did and didn't like about him, I liked him completely. I think that was big, particularly for me.

9. But there were roadblocks in our romance. Everything seems (and is) peachy in our relationship now, but John got cold feet and broke up with me. He wanted to "date" (aka screw) a waitress. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't just throw in the towel on him and deem him an asshole...which is the way he was completely acting at the time but I really think I understood why he was doing it. I saw his fear as he was pushing me away, I saw that he was in love with me too even if he didn't know it himself (uggh, that sounds like the stuff that bad romance novels are made of)...but maybe I was just hoping, I'll never know because I decided to do something about it. I went to the city and made a stand...albeit a drunken, piss myself kind of stand, but a stand nonetheless.

10. And after that, we were engaged by the end of May and married by the end of July in Vegas. Everything has been very easy for us, we've straightened each other out, helped each other prioritize our lives. Together we are everything I thought we could be, perhaps more (again it might sound like a line or cheesy but it's the truth). To answer your question in the comments Michelle, I'm not exactly sure how I knew, but somehow there were enough clues there for me see that I wasn't giving up on him without a fight.

Hopefully this post didn't bore anyone and gave some background without having to go back and read the entire archives.

Posting has been minimal because a) I'm a little lazy and b) we are prepping for our second Thanksgiving together! For the second time we're gathering both of our families at our little home. It's an amazing feat that our families seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly all contribute items until we have absolutely everything we need. John has consulted with his TV girlfriend Nigella Lawson and found a recipe for his turkey brine...I'll be the first to admit I had no idea what brine was, nor did I recognize half of the spices and herbs that he placed on his shopping list. But now after seeing the madness that is a tupperware storage container filled with turkey and his assorted spices, I understand.

John is giddy with the responsibility of his very first turkey. He's a rare breed of man that I've married; he seems to be perfectly happy to be cooking while I am perfectly happy to watch him. I firmly stand by the rule that I will never cook anything that has a body cavity still intact. Gross. I will instead contribute a spinach and artichoke dip that never fails to please, it will be promptly on the table for consumption as soon as our hungry guests arrive. Mom will bring a ham because she knows that her princess finds turkeys alarmingly too large to eat (don't ask me what my deal is, I can handle chickens but turkeys are just too damn big to eat!! Weird phobia of big birds I suppose). John's mom will contribute pies, greenbean casserole and probably two or three surprise items while his sister will be making scrumptious mashed potatoes and lasagna (God bless the Italian side of my new family! More food options for me!) Everyone chips in and everyone makes something so mouthwatering that I may have to run out and buy a pair of elastic waist jeans, you know that I'd rock them...um no, I don't suppose anyone really can rock them.

On a related tangent...
Tonight is Thanksgiving Eve, two years ago tonight I met John for the first time. Typically on Thanksgiving Eve, I hit the bars with a vengeance and pay for it the entire Turkey Day...this year I am proud to say that I told John that I would cart his ass around town to the three local bars so that he can catch up with all of his old friends. He surprised me by saying that he really wasn't interested in going out. Then because we are both awesomely exciting, we took naps...he's still snoring over there so who knows if he'll change his mind after he wakes up recharged. You can read about previous nightmares/Thanksgiving Eves here and here and here (there are other more exciting posts but I can't find them...check the archives). Somehow I managed not to write about how I didn't wake up until 2pm when the first guest arrived last year...yes, my husband thought it would be best to let me sleep it off. I woke up with an elephantine hangover and suffered a thousand comments about how I looked a little under the weather. I vow to look at least alive for tomorrow.

I am completely thankful for John, Frankie, my mom and her boyfriend, my entire new family, Baby G, my friends, the Internets and all of you who read my sporadic ramblings. Have a great holiday and give a smooch to the person you love.

But... I DID plan, and I still failed.

John's been getting hit hard this week by his grueling commute so I had a great idea! I was going to sneak down to the city, buy him some flowers on the corner where he often gets me some. I was going to send him a text a quarter to five alerting him to the fact that I was waiting for him downstairs and then, "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong" would play and I would pick him up and carrying him...he'd take off my officer's cap and....wait, that's the plot from An Officer and A Gentleman. Anyways, he'd come down and I would give him his flowers and take him to dinner and the movies so that he could avoid the commute home and we'd go home when the traffic was long gone.

Well...I had a meeting after work today. That meeting was supposed to last 45 mins. It last nearly two hours and I just got home. Surprise spoiled. And I feel bad. I will try to romance my husband again sometime soon.

It's so tough now that I'm blocked from work. I can read blogs but I can't blog. I get this amazing idea and then I forget it because...well, I can't blog from work. So we'll have to settle for some quick updates and I promise just to start writing my stuff at work and then transfer it later so that none of my witty thoughts get lost.

What to do When There's Nowhere to Poo

John and I have been renovating our upstairs bathroom since June. We made the conscious decision not to work on it until we have money for it so that we stop racking up the credit card bills...that means that we only have one toilet in the house that's working. The other night, that toilet's seat decided to pop off. John eloquently put it, as I perch on it precariously, "We're running out of places to poop around here!" and he's not kidding!!! Luckily, I got paid yesterday so I'm buying us a new seat to place our seats on this weekend.


The Master Quoiters

This weekend, we will be participating in another "friendly" quoit tournament. Last time, it was just over six gazillion degrees and we were hungover/trying to stay hydrated and we were knocked out of a double elimination with a one two punch. This Saturday, after I proctor a fun five hour test known as the SAT, we will once again try to hold our own...or at least beat one team!! Go Team Awesome!!! (that's our team...and our name? Well, it's a little ironic because we kinda far from awesome).

BCT

Bitches Coming Together (the girls I work with) will be holding another meeting on Monday, this time the theme is October Fest. I'm literally drooling in anticipation for good German beer and potato pancakes...oh, my poor thighs, they hate me.

Sexy Time

I'm still trying to decide if we're ready for a baby. Some days I totally am, and then some days I look at my bank statement and think, "Yeah dude, it doesn't matter if you're ready, your money really isn't." So yeah, I think I'm ovulating this weekend and for once instead of being jealous of all my pregnant friends (you know who you are!! Cr, Chelle and Tash!!) I'm ready for a lot of sexy time with Johnny...with no thoughts of conception whatsoever. So, prepare yourself, brace yourself...do whatever you have to do John, because in some of the immortal words of Ice Cube, you will be putting your back into it! I'm just sayin'!!

Savings and Loan

John and Melina are trying to be good little boys and girls by avoiding the bars at all costs so that we have a little spending money rather than breaking even every week (don't fear, John's stacking away lots o' cash towards retirement too...and I, well...at least I have a pension...). It's going to be rough to stay out of thitwbar, but hopefully we can manage. The first weekend is always the hardest. Hey! You try turning down anywhere from 6-15 of your closest/drunkest friends when they come begging you to head up to a bar that's a block and a half away from your house. We may have to turn off our phones, lock our doors and sit in the dark.

And yeah...that's what's going on in my neck of the woods.