Lawyerish

Everybody's Doin' It

Ok, my brain is goo and this thing is sweeping the Internet, so I cannot resist.  Since the theme is marriage, I would like to discuss something on that topic. 

On "The Bachelor" (I KNOW), Jason dumped Jillian (a cool and smart woman by all appearances, despite her participation in this gaudy trainwreck of a show) in part because he declared her "the ultimate friend."  She argued that you should want to marry your best friend, and that when you're 90, you want to look at your spouse and know you've spent your life with your best friend.

Jason, meanwhile, told her there "has to be more."  And then he went and stuck his tongue down the throat of a younger, perkier, former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.  While of course no one will argue that you should marry someone with whom you have a friendship but no romantic attraction, I have the distinct sense that Jason is banking almost entirely on passion/spark and tossing best friendship out the window. 

That, to me, is really misguided.  Because, dude, the spark does not last forever.  The spark is not going to get you to your 50th anniversary.  Her boobs are not going to look like that forever.  And if you aren't each others' best friends, what are you going to have as your foundation when you're older and saggier and less energetic?  Of COURSE you should be attracted to your spouse, and of COURSE you should keep romance alive throughout your life together.  BUT if you're picking a mate solely on a passion/spark basis, I think you're setting yourself up to fail.  Am I alone here?  Talk amongst yourselves!

What are your middle names?
Lee and Eric.

How long have you been together?
We started, erm, unofficially dating in late 2001, and officially dating a few months later.  Things were somewhat complicated, as I was -- ahem -- living with someone else at the time. 

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
We had met during my first summer in law school, but didn't really get to know each other then.  When I was a new associate, he came back to our workplace after working somewhere else, and his office was near mine.  We started hanging around a lot at work (we were both putting in some long hours) and then it sort of evolved from there.   

Who asked whom out?
It didn't exactly happen that way.  We had become good friends, and then after 9/11, he started accompanying me home on the subway (I was scared to go alone -- and by the way, it was TWO trains out of his way, which is kind of a big deal) and then maybe in November or thereabouts, we went to Pizzeria Uno after working late on a Sunday (I believe that was my suggestion) and maybe a month or so after that we went out for post-work drinks at Temple Bar and in the cab afterward, we smooched.  Drama ensued, but once the drama was over, all was well.

How old are each of you?
He is 40, I'm 33.

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Mine, even though he now lives thousands of miles away.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
I don't know.  I think we handle everything pretty well.  The adoption has been almost unbearable, but it hasn't challenged our relationship, just us as individuals, you know?  We don't take it out on each other.  And as much as I hate to trot out this cliche, it has made us stronger.

Did you go to the same school?
Nope.  He was in college when I was in 7th grade, which I love to point out whenever possible.

Are you from the same home town?
Not even close.  He's from a suburb on Long Island and I'm from a quaint little Southern town.

Who is smarter?
That's a subject of endless debate!  I think we're probably about the same IQ-wise, but if pressed I would say that I am quicker/more superficially smart (like crossword puzzle/game show kind of smart, which is pretty useless) but he works a million times harder than I do, and he is wayyyyyyyy smarter in terms of complex reasoning and deep understanding of stuff (especially legal stuff).  I tend to dismiss things or get frustrated if I can't understand something right away, whereas he'll put in the time and effort to wrap his head around it. 

Who is the most sensitive?
Well, we're both sensitive, I think, but not like sappy sentimental fools or anything.  I think we're equally attuned to each others' moods and feelings.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Gramercy Tavern, probably; it's our go-to special occasion place.  Ordering in, we mostly call up the Saigon Grill. 

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Vietnam.

Who has the craziest exes?
Neither of us.  Our exes are pretty much non-entities in our life.

Who has the worst temper?
That would be him. Although he gets angry REALLY FAST and REALLY INTENSELY but then gets over it in about ten seconds, whereas I am slow to burn but I stay mad longer.  I also tend to bottle up anger and then do the ice queen routine where I expect him to figure out what's wrong by ESP or something.  Which is super-mature.  I am working on it.   

Who does the cooking?
That is my designated household role.  Sometimes I get martyrous about it, but I really don't mind too much.  The Rachael Ray Big Orange Book is my friend, let me tell you. 

Who is the neat-freak?
Both of us.  Joe is big on using the hand-vac.  He also cleans up after dinner every night.  I think I would find it VERY trying to be married to someone slovenly. 

Who is more stubborn?
Oh, man. We are BOTH stubborn as mules. Again, in slightly different ways, but we can be so hard-headed.  One of my most charming qualities is that, when someone tells me to do something, I immediately want to do the exact opposite.  I thrive on spite.  So that's fun for everyone.

Who hogs the bed?
Neither of us; we pretty much stay huddled on our sides of our barge-sized king bed.  I do miss cuddly-sleeping, but I have the dog curled up next to me so that's something.

Who wakes up earlier?
Joe, sometimes by HOURS.  And I get up at 6:30 during the week, 8 on the weekends; it's not like I'm in bed til noon. 

Where was your first date?
As mentioned above, our first out of the office interaction, though it wasn't really a date, was at Pizzeria Uno.  So romantic.  Our first datey-date, I would say, was to see a show and then for dinner at Gramercy (hence it being Our Place). 

Who is more jealous?
Neither of us.  What would be the POINT of being jealous?  We're married; we took vows, and we intend to live by them. 

How long did it take to get serious?
Not that long, especially considering the circumstances.  We got engaged in August 2002.  He wanted to lock it up, man!

Who eats more?
He does, but, uh,  not by all that much.  Eeek!  He also eats about 50 times faster than I do, which is scary because I eat pretty quickly.  AND he eats healthier than I do.  I feel like one day that's going to catch up to me...

Who does the laundry?
Our cleaners.

Who's better with the computer?
I AM!  He does not have the patience.  Although I am not saint-like in my patience either (see: hysterically crying while on hold with RoadRunner tech support). 

Who drives when you are together?
I do.  I LOVE to drive. 

Fluff (and GMILH 61-80)

Have you ever heard of whoopie pies?  I had not, until maybe two weeks ago when Allison mentioned them.  When I Googled the term and saw that these cookie/cake hybrids (why call them "pies"?  O vagaries of American English!) were basically like giant soft Oreos, and that Marshmallow Fluff was involved, I knew I had to make them ASAP.  And what better time to try such a thing than Valentine's Day? 

(Is there any worse term in the world than "making whoopie", by the way?  It's not as smarmy and gross as "making love", perhaps, but it's awful in its own right, and always calls to mind a bunch of terribly unattractive Newlywed Game contestants with Flowbee hair and garish synthetic clothes.) 

This is a dessert that requires a warning label; the chocolate of the cookie/cake part is so intense you could end up in the emergency room, and the filling is so sweet it almost turns your mouth inside out.  But together?  Ohhhh, mama. 

If I drank milk qua milk (i.e., if straight dairy milk did not cause a digestive rebellion of epic proportions, and if soy milk were not so eh in terms of its drinkability (fine on cereal or in a chai latte, not so much on its own)), I would have the world's biggest glass of it sitting right nearby, because every bite of whoopie pie (sorry, I still feel very silly for calling them that and cringe a little whenever I type it) could use a nice swig of ice cold milk to wash it down.  I think if you're not a milk drinker, a small dollop of ice cream on said pie would be the way to go. 

Also, the recipe yields about 8-10 manhole-sized whoopie pies.  They are HUGE.  And while I have very little trouble putting down a chocolate chip cookie the size of my head, these bad boys are far too rich for one person.  We split one and even so, I thought I might not make it to the end.  So I would recommend either making them smaller or share each one with your family and friends. 

I am realizing that 90% of what I write about these days has to do with food, and that's largely because (1) the Situation that Shall Not Be Named still has not been resolved (although it is potentially nearing a resolution, we have literally no idea if it will be in our favor or not) so there's nothing to say about that; (2) work has been, and apparently will be for the foreseeable future, insanely busy, leaving me little time to have anything happen that would be blog-worthy, other than cook and eat; and (3) the only extracurricular activities I engage in the moment are running and 30-Day Shredding, and I'm quite sure you don't want to hear about that.  So in the meantime, you get to have me blather on about food.

Of course, in this case, as with the Girl Scout cookie ice cream, I think it's worthwhile; or at least, it is if you go and make some whoopie pies after reading this. 

Oh!  Also!  Marin asked if the last item in my most recent installation of GMILH was a hint -- and the answer is no; the reference to my taking a leave of absence was to something that happened a few years ago, when I took a leave from work to study acting and try to write and that sort of thing, but after a couple of years of a lot of defeat and disappointment, which I have previously discussed, I ended up going back to my firm.  Sigh.

Here's the next-to-the-last selection from the list of 100 great things I've already done (aka Great Moments in Lawyerish History): 

1. Losing myself in a character and a scene in acting class
2. Laughing loudly with my mom and her sisters
3. Lighting a candle in the dark hush of Notre Dame Cathedral; hearing a boys' choir as we wandered into Westminster Abbey
4. My dad and his coworker regaling my mom and me with stories of their many travels over dinner in Paris
5. The Parisian waiter who could not believe we didn’t want to try the couscous
6. Hearing my dad’s story of the shower cord incidentfor the first time in Amersfoort, Holland
7. Eating ham and cheese on a baguette the size of a baseball bat at the foot of the Eiffel Tower
8. The moon shining over the cathedral in the Barri Gotic, Barcelona
9. Shouting “bloody hell!” on the streets of London with my friend Mo during spring break, first year of law school
10. High tea at the Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong
11. Speeding past shimmering, impossibly green rice paddies on a motorbike in Vietnam
12. Any and all game nights with family and/or friends
13. Entering the Big House for the first time freshman year and almost being flattened by the cheering
14. Rowing so hard I broke the oarlock; misty mornings on the Huron River; gazing up at the stars after a brutal crew practice
15. Beating Georgetown and UVA at Eastern Sprints and tossing the coxswain into the Potomac
16. Doing crossword puzzles with Grammie, curled up together in Dad’s Eames chair
17. Running out to the motorhome in my nightgown to snuggle with Grammie and Granddad
18. Feeling the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ripple with the impact of tens of thousands of running feet; getting my second wind as I hit mile 22 in Central Park; conquering that one last hill to the finish line of the New York City Marathon
19. Sitting at the top of the stairs every Christmas morning, breathless with anticipation
20. Long chats with my mom or Allison at the kitchen table of our apartment, looking out at our bird’s-eye view of the block

PSA and GMILH (41-60)

I have a public service announcement:  Edy's Special Edition Girl Scout Cookie Ice Creams are now available (for a limited time!) in your grocer's freezer.  You need to RUN out and get yourself some RIGHT NOW, before they take them away (sob!). 

The Tagalongs flavor made my knees buckle, and tonight I will be having the Thin Mint variety for the first time ever.  Mmmmmm...Thin Mints.  There is also one made with Samoas, which I think is most people's favorite Girl Scout cookie, but which always eluded my enjoyment as it contains coconut -- I am not a fan -- so I'm guessing y'all would like that, too. 

I am perhaps a shade too excited about this development.  How did I not try these before?  How many years of my life have been frittered away without this delicious treat?   

And by the way, if you combine a scoop of the Tagalongs with a scoop of Loaded Butterfinger?  Oh.  DEAR.  The heavens open up and choruses of angels sing and you are surrounded by Care Bears and rainbows. 

I'm having a little trouble not bolting to the fridge and hoovering down a whole carton right now. 

There's not much else to share at the moment, so I will bore you with another installment of Great Moments in Lawyerish History:

1. “Studying” for our Crim Law exam at the Around the Clock diner; taking a break for White Russians at Pageant
2. Walking up Fifth Avenue on Museum Monday my first summer in New York; wandering in and out of museums for free; seeing a dad hoist a little girl in a tutu up on his shoulders
3. Giving a group of subway singers $10 for their rendition of “Country Roads”
4. Being asked for directions for the first time on a subway platform, and knowing how to give them
5. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge
6. Watching the fireworks after the NYCB performance in Saratoga
7. Sitting in my wedding dress on our hotel room couch, opening envelopes and drinking Champagne
8. Seeing Miles for the first time; holding him as he pawed at my face and wriggled
9. Crunching through leaves in Central Park; running on a carpet of yellow leaves on the Bridle Path
10. Riding horses until our asses were bleeding in Belize, then watching Joe fall off a slippery rock into the freezing cold water
11. Skinny-dipping in a chilly lake in the moonlight
12. Sitting in the back of the station wagon in our sleeping bags on long family road trips, playing trivia games and listening to books on tape
13. Swimming across the bay to the neighbors’ dock in Springfield
14. Standing in wet bathing suits and towels, licking fruit cups by the basement freezer at my grandparents’ house
15. Learning to waterski, first with land training and then behind my grandparents’ red motor boat with a rebuilt engine from the 1950s
16. Parasailing in Cozumel
17. Driving a bright yellow Volkswagen Bug convertible
18. Seeing the Law Quad at Michigan for the first time and knowing that’s where I would go to college (even though I really wanted to go to Princeton)
19. Sitting in Oxford Books during a thunderstorm, sharing a cheesecake brownie with Dad
20. Snow swirling around me as I slogged toward the subway, grinning from ear to ear, the day I left for my leave of absence from work

Signals

Did you know that Casey Kasem is still on the radio?  I about ran off the road today when I heard his voice coming across the airwaves, counting down songs and playing requests (though not long distance dedications, sadly) as if it were 1984.  If someone had asked me beforehand if I thought he was alive or dead, I'm not sure I could have said with any certainty one way or the other.  In fact, I probably would have gone with dead.  Wasn't he, like, 80 back when we were kids?  And didn't he marry like a 23-year old bimbo when I was in junior high? 

In other, related news, Ryan Seacrest is grating even when you can't see his face.  He is definitely in my list of Top 10 Most Annoying Celebrities.  (See also: anyone from "The Hills"; Kathie Lee Gifford; anyone named Kardashian; and Jessica/Ashlee Simpson). 

Since I don't drive much I don't have many opportunities to listen to the radio, so when I spent almost 10 hours in the car in two days this weekend (going to and from a certain adorable friend's baby shower -- which I can sincerely report was well worth all that driving) I had some catching up to do.  It seems I have not been missing much.  Three states' worth of FM stations offered the same playlists of frantic dance tracks  ("Ifyoulikeitthenyoubettaputaringonit/Ifyoulikeitthenyoubettaputaringonit"; "My LIFE (my life) would SUCK (would suck) withOOOOOOUUUUT YOU") and that Jason Mraz song over and over and OVER again. 

It was enough to keep my mind occupied, though, for many hypnotic hours of highway coverage and I will confess to singing along (loudly and very, very badly) to whatever they were serving up for much of the trip.  The best mix of today's hottest music wasn't quite enough, however, to prevent me from (1) getting involved in a minor road rage (or road taunting, really) incident and (2) getting hopelessly lost multiple times (thanks, Google Maps!  YOU SUCK). 

Let me ask you this:  If you're in a line of cars -- say, at a toll booth -- and you've been sitting in said line for ALMOST AN HOUR while it basically stood still because people kept driving further up the line and then FORCING THEIR WAY IN, would you let someone in front of you who was doing just that, brazenly CUTTING THE LINE as though they're more important than all the drivers who had patiently been waiting for HALF THEIR LIVES to get up to the damn toll booth?

Apparently, I would not, as the driver of a maroon Dodge Caravan and his wife and children learned when they tried to zoom past the whole line and get in front of me, just as I was FINALLY a few cars away from paying that blasted toll and getting the hell out of there.  They sidled up and tried to nose their bumper in front of me, but I edged my menacing white Corolla up until I was almost in the next car's backseat, and I sat there shaking my head in case my position was not clear enough. 

The guy did not take it well.  He managed to get behind me, and when I got to the booth (HOURS LATER, it seemed), rolled down my window and handed the attendant my ticket, Mr. Maroon Caravan LAID on his horn, leaned his head out his window, and yelled, "HURRY UP!  HURRRRRRRY UUUUUUUP!" at me.  So I slowly got my money out and leisurely accepted my change and calmly put it in my cupholder -- then considered asking the booth attendant for directions or pretending to drop something so as to delay things more -- and then I held up my hand in a one-finger salute in my rearview mirror and sped off as fast as my rental car would go.

Naturally, they caught up, roared up alongside me at about 80 mph, honked about a million times, and took off.  I didn't look over, but I am sure there were obscene gestures being made, and/or possible mooning. 

It was all verrrrry dignified.  In my defense, at least I did not have children in my car, so it's not like I was setting a poor example for anyone.  I was a little surprised at myself, at how INCENSED I became by the whole thing.  For a moment, I was tempted to drive after them and continue the mutual harassment, but thought the better of it. 

I also think there should be some kind of hand signal code for drivers, because I would have liked to convey at the outset, "Uh, no, you are not cutting this line when I've been sitting her for half my life, you prick", more precisely.  You know, explain WHY I was not letting him in.  Because I'm sure he would have thought it was perfectly reasonable and would then have waited his turn like everyone else. 

It also occurred to me as I continued on the Mass Pike that with my luck, the Maroon Caravan family would turn out to be guests at the very same baby shower to which I was headed.  And that would be quite awkward.  Happily, they did not show up at the party, and it was lovely and fun and full of sweet, soft pink things that make you go "awwwww" and clutch at your heart area and marvel at the fact that a few short weeks from now, your dear friend will be an honest-to-goodness mother.  AND Casey Kasem is still on the radio.   Life is so weird sometimes.