Simple Man

I don't talk about my husband much here except tangentially, partly because he doesn't really like me to, but also because I don't like to. He's my best-kept secret, and like all good secrets, it's probably for the best if I don't go on about him overmuch.

But today is his birthday, so I'm making an exception. (Also, I didn't get him a present yet, so ... here you go, babe.)

I have said before, and I will say again, how lucky I am for having my husband for a partner and spouse. I will shout it from the hills, the treetops, the dunes, the cliffs, wherever -- I am so damned lucky, and I know it. Literally my only complaint about my husband, the only "real" one, is that I have absolutely no complaints. He is one of those rarest of specimens: a true and good and simple and uncomplicated man, a true and good and simple and uncomplicated person, someone I am proud and honored and thrilled to be able to swear my allegiance to, someone who still drinks the same beer he drank in college.

That's not a backhanded compliment, either: that's high praise, coming from me. I am a cynic and a drama queen and a neurotic overthinker and a compulsive oversharer and kind of an asshole, and I honestly believe that there is nothing in the world more wonderful, more beautiful, more perfect, than having something or someone in your life who is true and good and simple and uncomplicated. And he is mine, all mine.

We have known each other for 20 years now. More than half our lives. We were children then, college sweethearts, and we have grown up together. He and I have been through so much in that time: graduations, mortgages, unemployment, infertility, adoption, marriages and divorces of dear friends, deaths of pets and grandparents and parents -- he has been my rock and my happy place through all of it. He'll still slow dance with me if "our song" comes on at parties, at receptions, in the middle of the mall. He still kisses me goodbye every morning before work, and he still kisses me goodnight every night before bed. True and good and simple and uncomplicated.

He softens my edges and quiets the voices in my head. He washes the dishes, folds the laundry, makes the bed, sets the alarms, fixes the computers, changes the litter, stops the insanity. He encourages me, holds me, woos me, reassures me, laughs with me but never at me. True and good and simple and uncomplicated. He is my Benedick, my Han Solo, my Sundance, my yin, my constant. Without him, I am nothing. I am because we are.

And we are because he is. Because he is everything. It's a lot of power and a lot of responsibility, but he is just the kind of man who can handle it. True and good and simple and uncomplicated.

Happy birthday, G.

I Am The Worst #SorryNotSorry

MY GOD. I am terrible at blogging, which is probably why I'm never going to get a gajillion dollar book deal like Lena Dunham or Aziz Ansari. (Also, they're talented, and I'm ... whatever I am.) You could sue me over the lack of updates, but remember that I'm a broke-ass graduate student with basically NOTHING except a 12-year-old Volkswagen with 185,000 miles on it. Good luck with that.

Pretty much everybody else in the entire blogosphere (is that still a thing, even?) is doing back-to-school posts this week, but Shae doesn't start school until the Wednesday after Labor Day -- next week -- so I'll take this chance to let you know what we've been up to since mid-July when I posted last, and then I'll put up first-day-at-her-new-school pictures when they're taken, and then I'll probably forget I even HAVE a blog for, like, eleventeen weeks at a time. Again.

I mean, I went back to school this week -- my last semester of classes before student teaching, I'm scared, hold me -- but Shae is basically off having adventures with assorted relatives until next Tuesday. Yesterday and today she's with my mother-in-law, getting unauthorized haircuts and mani-pedis and stuff like that, while I'm freebasing caffeine because I'd forgotten how INSANE it is to get up at 6:00 in the morning and got to work and then go to class until 9:30 at night and THEN try to drive home without crashing into a cornfield/cow pasture while driving through the dark, quiet Butter Valley. That is a long-ass day, people.

But, you know, honey badger don't care. Tonight we're going to see her for a very short while before we shuffle her off to the next volunteer, who has been threatening for months to take Shae fishing. That ought to be interesting, because my kid has the same attitude about creatures with fewer than two and greater than four legs that I do (i.e., ewwww!). Then tomorrow night she'll be staying with my parents, who have a tent in the backyard and hopefully gallons of DDT, because the mosquitoes love my kid this year.

I miss her desperately, you know. And I'm so very, very jealous.