So what’s up now that she’s feeling better?  I HAVE A NASTY COLD!  Which means she wants to wait for me to feel better before we have sex.

“I’ve never heard anything about kissing and making babies,” I say to her.

“What?”  says my wife.

“We don’t need to kiss to make a baby, you know?”

“Welllll…”

“Trust me, it’s true, I’ve studied this topic a lot.”

She giggles.  ”I know it’s true, but still.  Why don’t we wait until you’re feeling better?”

“I’m feeling great!  I’m frisky!  I just have a cold.”

“I know that’s why we should wait.”

And here is a huge difference between myself and my wife.  She will wait for the perfect moment to have sex.  The kids are sleeping or at school, no one might stop by unexpected, she’s done all her work – house work and otherwise – she’s not talking to anyone on the phone, no one wants to talk to her on the phone, the weather is perfect, she’s in the mood, etc., etc.  There is a long list of priorities and conditions that usually must be met before she will have sex.  Jeesh!

I, on the other hand, will drop everything at any moment and go for a good romp anywhere in the house.  Who cares about everything else, Let’s have sex!  Priority #1.  And why not?  It’s fun!  It’s got to be the easiest way for a couple to have fun that I have ever known.  I really can’t think of anything easier, or better for that matter.

*ok, just as a side I need to point a couple things out:

1.  I love sex, but I am not sex-craved.  Ok, maybe I am.  But I do actually enjoy and do many other things in life, both with my wife, with others and on my own.  I believe when there are moments when we can have some privacy we should enjoy each other’s nakedness.  It’s not just about an orgasm, I seriously enjoy seeing my wife full of pleasure and being full of pleasure myself, and both of us being together.  There are so many different kinds of sexual experiences I have with my wife, but in those really special ones I feel absolutely transcendent and in harmony with her.  It’s really fabulous.  Of course then there are the times where it’s more physical, and sometimes, it’s just not that great at all, and then other times it’s just nice to smile at each other and say, “cool, we just had sex on the kitchen counter!”  All these different experiences (and many others) are necessary for making sex a wonderful, fulfilling and evolving activity.  Anything that doesn’t evolve on some level becomes bland to me.

2.  Let’s see, I know there was something else… well maybe I’ll think of it later.  Oh Yeah, i remember now…  Sometimes taking something OUT of the sexual experience can be as exciting as adding something IN to the sexual experience.  In other words, take something you normally do during sex, like lying dow, or undressing, or KISSING, or opening your eyes.  Take one of those away and you have a brand new very exciting experience.  I’ve had amazing sex with my wife where we haven’t kissed at all, maybe I’ll just brush my lips on her subtly, but no outright kissing.  IT’S HOT!

SO.  After a bit of a debate on the value of kissing in conjunction with sex my wife goes to bed.  I stay up and simmer.  As soon as I clear this cold she’ll probably start her period and there’s another 6-8 sexless days.  Ugh.

“… I mean you know we’re freakin’ crazy, give him a break.”

“Ha HA hA ha Ha.”  They share a laugh over this comment that is apparently very obvious to both of them.  (By the way the “him” is her friend’s husband.  My wife was telling her friend to give her husband a break because she is crazy).

Do you know the significance of this?  I heard my wife tell her best friend that she knows they are nuts, crazy!

I once said something to my wife that very remotely insinuated in a off hand way that she may be slightly leaning towards needing some assistance with her mental capabilities and she totally flipped out.  I mean ran into the basement crying and stayed down there for a good fifteen minutes until I came down and talked her into coming upstairs and at least to try crying in our bedroom.  Which she did, and then she sat quietly staring at the wall, and then after about half an hour more started speaking to me again.  I mean you would think I told her her mom was an android, or I have a twin who’s been taking my place every other week.  No, no it was far less dramatic than that.  You’d think maybe I told her she didn’t look good in the dress I got her for her birthday – come on, I’m not that stupid.  No, no here’s what I said.

“When I asked you to have sex with me you just laughed.”

“I did not!” she says.

“Yeah, you did.”

“I would never do that.”

“You did. You laughed.”

Cry run, cry, basement, cry, convince, bedroom, etc.

“I am not crazy!” was the first complete sentence she said to me after she started crying that night.

“What?  I didn’t say you were crazy.”

“You said…”

“I said, you…” (are crazy!) “you…  Well you know what I said.”  I’m not chasing her into the basement again, “But you’re right you are not crazy.  I would never say that.”  (we are so not having sex tonight.  Jeesh.)

Silence and weird staring at each other, and eventually I go over and put my hand on her shoulder as I sort of sit behind her on the bed.

More silence.  Finally I say, “I just want you to be happy. That’s all.”

It’s true, too.  During all the silence and staring and weird stuff I was thinking in my head what can I say that’s real simple and expresses how I feel?  So first I thought about what do I feel.  Then once I figured that out I thought how can I tell her this real simply, with the least chance of being completely misunderstood.  That’s what I did.

I could feel the tension easing a bit.

“I want us to be happy.”  By the way the whole laughing-at-the-suggestion-of-sex thing?  That never gets mentioned again.  Ever.  And no, there is no sex on this night.

So how does my wife go from one extreme to the other?  Totally flipping out at a mild remark to admitting that she is cuckoo?

She doesn’t.  She is actually both these people all the time.  She can’t admit to me she’s insane.  And she can’t deny to her friend that she’s insane.  It’s all about who she is sharing her reality with.

That’s my best shot at explaining it.  If you have better please please please enlighten my befuddled mind.

Physically she’s recovering just fine.  After being in bed most of the last week, she is now up and about and even suggesting we get a babysitter and go out some night this week.  She had an ultrasound and several blood tests and her Doc said she’s clear to have sex and make babies again (woohoo).

By the way a note on ultrasounds:

You’ve all seen those nice movie shots of ultrasounds with the mom’s belly hanging out like a plump beach ball sized peach and the pretty little baby on the screen.  That all happens, but did you know they do a vaginal ultrasound?  You don’t want to know.  There’s a reason that’s not in the movies, and I’ll leave it at that.

The bonus of all this is I’ve had our bed to myself!  When my wife doesn’t feel well she sleeps in the living room for fear that either I will keep her up all night or she will keep me up all night, or both.  Having our bed to myself is a glorious luxury I’ll be sad to lose (probably tomorrow night).

I can’t imagine having a life in me, and then not.  You women sure have amazing bodies, and I really mean that – not in the hubba-hubba kind of way.  What your bodies do.  That is amazing.  I am both jealous and completely thrilled that I do not have such things happening in my body.

Did my wife just say that?

She did.

She said, “My girlfriend is having an affair.  And she deserves it!”

“What?”

“Her husband hasn’t even penetrated in years… “

“Woa!  That, I do not need to know.”

“Ok, but still,” she says, “She met a guy and it’s totally about having great sex.  She’s still with her husband, but when she’s with this other guy she feels like a woman.  Good for her!”

“Hmmm,” these are potentially dangerous things for my wife to say to me, it’s weird.  ”I really didn’t need to know about the penetration thing,” I tell her.

“Sorry.”

Why dangerous?  Because she is totally justifying my fantasies.  Meeting another woman – not a single bombshell, but a nice mom who’s in a loving committed relationship like me, but is just not getting all the sex she wants (needs?).  In my fantasy we create a pact around sex.  We agree to honor each other’s committed relationships, and we only help each other be happier in that relationship (is this real – no, it’s a fantasy) by having great and frequent sex!

And here my wife is telling me, ‘well if you don’t get it at home go find it elsewhere, that’s cool with me.’

Jeesh.

What the hell is wrong with her?

My wife might be on the couch, me by my computer, each of us working diligently, our ipods within reach.  It’s a constant back and forth.

“I went.”

tap tap tap tap tap.

“I went.”

tap tap tap tap phone call, hi, oh that’s awesome, ok, see you tomorrow, tap tap tap.

“I went”

I’ll even call her from work. Ring ring ring,

“Hey”

“Hey, I went”

“Ok, see ya”

“See ya.”

Or she’ll text me:

IW

OK

It’s fun.  My daughter is even getting into it (when she’s around and my wife says, “I went,”  I add, “Pee pee?” and my daughter thinks it’s hilarious – the joys of fourth grade humor!)

I’ve been kicking her ass.  She came close once, but every other time we’ve played I’ve beaten her by a large margin.  It got to the point where I started to feel bad for her.  As we began our seventh game I decided I was going to let her win.  I started off strong and then fell behind and then started catching up.  I was doing a good job of staying close and showing enthusiasm about the game, all to make her feel this was for real.  I even threw in some good ol’ trash talk…

Meanwhile, outside of scrabble world… It had been about three days of me coming home late from work (finally done catching up from 10 days in Pittsburgh) and finding my wife practically passed out with no chance for sex.  So yesterday I planned it so I’d be home early and we could both be in bed at the same time all ready for “fun-time”.  Lo, I arrived home and hung around a bit, I chatted with my wife about this and that and watched her do some facebook silliness, and just at the time when she usually goes to bed I said, “I’m going to bed are you coming?”

“I can’t.  I have to do this research for Beth, we’re doing that presentation next week and I have to be prepared.”

“You have to do that now?”

“Yeah.  We’re meeting tomorrow to discuss what we’ll be talking about.”

“Your a pro on that stuff, you don’t have to prepare.  She just expects you to meet her tomorrow and be your brilliant self.”

“No.  She expects me to have done research.  I’m going to be up so late doing this,” sigh.  (Did she just sigh?)

“Did you just sigh?”

“I guess.  Yeah.”  (Jeesh, what have you been doing for the last hour and a half?! Facebook?  Chatting?  You could have gotten this all done by now and we could be having great baby-making sex!)

“Alright, well good luck.  I’m going to bed.”  Grrrrrr.  (Yes I really growled.  I do that when I’m pissed but am unsure how to express it.  It’s a very low guttural growl.)

Words with Friends Scrabble game. App for the ipod touch and iphone. Can also be used to relieve aggression.

At this point I walked into the kitchen and filled my glass of water to put by my bed.  As I set the glass down on the kitchen counter I saw my ipod, still and untouched.  I stood there for a full minute staring at the ipod, my glass in one hand and my other hand on the counter near the little music playing machine.  A big grin spread across my face (passive-aggressive moment here I come),

“I’m going to crush her,” I think and I grab my ipod, flip it directly to the scrabble app and look at my letters for all of 10 seconds before I throw down a 48 point move using only two tiles and spanning four different words, two on the double word square.

“I went,”  I say to my wife.

I can hear her fumbling to get her ipod and get the app started, I’m counting down in my head, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

“Oh, shit,” she says from the living room, “you’re beating me now.”

“Ok, I went,” she says.

“Not bad,” and ten seconds later I add, “I went.”

“36 points?  Jeez!”  I hear from the living room.  My smile is plastered to my face.  She doesn’t stand a chance.  I’m going to crush her.

At this moment I started feeling a bit like a jerk, but hey what am I gonna do?  Another 28 point move, and she’s feeling the heat.  It’s out of reach at this point so I go into the living room say goodnight and go off to bed.  I lay down in bed with the ipod and finish off the game, winning by almost 100 points.  I’m sleeping tight and don’t even hear her when she comes in to the bedroom.

Click here for an article about the amazing discovery:

Happy Fish!

350 Million years ago a small fish discovers sex

I greet most people with a smile, and am nice to a great percentage of the people who pass through my life.  I truly believe that we each live within our own universe and that our individual universe is what we make of it.  My universe is a happy place.  In my universe it is easy to see joy and humor.  it is easy to respect yourself and others in my universe.  In my universe there is a strong sense of justice and an abundance of forgiveness.  Even in the lowest moments there is an appreciation for life and all the feelings and experiences that come with it.  That is my universe.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always perfect, there are times when a smile is hard to come by, perspective gets lost in emotion, or I’m a jerk to someone – hey, everybody is an asshole to somebody, I don’t spend my time trying to please everybody (that’s hopeless, worthless, and no fun!), but I do try to be aware of the consequences of my actions and words.

My wife’s universe has some of the same qualities as mine, but not any of the stuff about being happy or seeing joy and humor in the challenge and experience of life.  Definitely yes to the strong sense of justice and forgiveness, and a genuine attempt to be a person who lives with awareness, who is a good force in the world.  I think my wife would agree that there is a large portion of her universe that is filled with dark matter, unknown territory, a region of mystery and dread.  It’s not her fault really, she had some trauma in her childhood that affected her universe forever and she has both compensated and reacted to that in many ways throughout her life, and still to this day is equally at odds and at peace, angry, judgemental, flippant, sad, stubborn and sarcastic about these distant experiences.  They are her dark matter, “That’s why I have seizures,” she’ll toss out when the subject (rarely) comes up.  And for this reason her universe is a darker place than mine.  She will tell me that she has never truly known happiness, simply because she cannot, because that was taken from her, and the healing from that theft is too long for one life to handle.

I once told my wife that I was seriously depressed for a large portion of my college experience, she scoffed, “You have no idea what depression is.  You’re a happy person.”  She is a proud member of the I have been more depressed than you club.  Which probably explains why she is a psychotherapist (No, not a psycho therapist, a psychotherapist).

“What happens when two members of the I have been more depressed than you club get together,” you ask?

Good Question, and I have the answer!

I have friends who are severe sports fans.  Friends who send text messages like, “THE ___________ (insert sports team name here) ARE SO FUCKING AWESOOOOME!!!!!! THEY JUST KICKED SOME ______________ (insert any other sports team name from the same league here) AAAAASSSSSS!!! YEAH!!!  FUCK THE __________ (insert losing team name here)!!!!!*!*!*!*  You know, those friends.  It’s not all yelling and screaming either.  Sometimes I get an email that just says “6-0″ which at first looks like one of those text smiley faces, and then I realize it’s the win-loss record of friend’s team.  To put so much emotion and energy into something that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on anything at all, it’s totally and utterly meaningless.  What a wonderfully beautiful human thing to do.

But these guys, these sports fans who think they are so witty, dedicated and at times subtly sarcastic, who would go to a stadium filled with tens of thousands of people and yell at some small patch of grass or ice or wood, who would drink and whoop and holler until some timer ran its course, and then cuss and argue and gesticulate and analyze to no end what they just witnessed, these guys have no idea what it means to be with my wife and my very close friend, both members of the I have been more depressed than you club, these guys have no idea how to one-up in the “real” world.

Once they found out they were both members of the club this is the conversation that ensued between myself my wife and my friend, the three of us sitting in our front yard:

“Holy shit, like five years ago I was so anxious all the time I just stood in the shower all day and smoked cigarettes…”

“What would you do when the hot water ran out?”  I asked my friend.

“I dried off!  Heh heh heh, and then I would sit on the couch naked and read and read about all these diseases, you should see all the books I have about diseases.  Every disease you can imagine.  I probably know more about diseases than my doctor, I was so whacked out on anxiety I thought I was gonna die so I just stood in the shower all day and smoked cigarettes and read books about diseases.  Holy shit.”  And then they both let out a peel of laughter, and my wife kicks in,

“When my mom put in me in the mental institute because she thought I was going to kill myself I met this girl and she was so freaked out by everything she could barely talk, and I just stared at her and thought is that me or is that her, am I the one who’s so freaked out and can’t talk or is that someone else, and they made me take – (insert some medication here – called “meds” by those in the club – you have to say the word so many times, if you said “medication” you’d spend half your time saying that one word) – and it actually helped because then I would look in the mirror and I knew that was me but that girl still freaked me out I think she killed herself.”

“Wow,” says my friend, “What meds are you on right now?”

My wife’s face suddenly gets very rigid as she lists the three or four meds she is currently on.  Meanwhile I’m sitting watching this, thinking “I can do this.  I’ve never been in an institution or anything, but I can do this.  I’v never had meds but I see where these two are coming from.  I can do this.”

My wife suddenly starts with, “Do you ever just want to eat glass?”

“Oh my god!  You have that too?”  My friend says suddenly exhaling a puff of smoke, “There’s something about the texture…”

(I can totally do this)

“The smell…”

“It’s like I know it will rip my mouth apart but I just want to bite it and bite it and bite it…”

(I know exactly what I’m going to say)

“I can almost taste it…”

“Every time I see a piece of broken glass I just want to stick it in my mouth and eat it…”

(Holy shit, I’m going to blow them away with what I’ve got!)

“That’s so weird, I thought I was the only one.”

“Oh my god, I love glass.”

Then without a pause I say, “For years, when I picked up a knife or a scissors or anything sharp I would see myself stabbing my eyes out and every time I would have to pause for just a split second and remind myself ‘that’s not cool, don’t do it.’”

There’s a long pause.  My wife looks at my friend, my friend takes a couple drags on his cigarette and as he snubs the butt out on a rock by his foot he says, and these are his exact words, “Dude.  Everybody has that.”

I was totally denied membership.  I tried several more times but my confidence was already shattered, I had no chance,

“Once I was sitting on the ledge at the top of a six-story parking garage.  I was just sitting there at night and and I saw a cop pull into the entrance, you know, six stories below me, and like 3 minutes later he’s pulling up right behind me and he says, ‘you need to step down from there sir.  Towards me.’

“He said ‘towards me’ so I wouldn’t step off the ledge and fall six stories. (I paused here for dramatic impact, but from the look on their faces it’s not working)  So I did and he checked my ID and I asked him what was wrong and he says ‘You can’t sit there.  You might jump.  You need to leave now.’  and he got in his car and drove away.”

“You never would have jumped,” says my friend.

“What were you doing up there?” my wife asks.

And I’m forced to say, “I was writing in my journal.  I just needed a quiet spot,” which was true, but completely unimpressive to the club.  As I sat there wondering what I needed to say to these two to prove to them that I know what it’s like to be depressed my wife continued on,

“When I didn’t leave my house for 11 months I was so scared I could barely look out the window, my mom would walk with me half way down the block and back and it was the most terrifying thing I have ever done…”  by the time she finishes I convince myself the club is for “screwballs” like my friend and my wife who fail to be happy in this world, it’s for people who can’t fully let go of the past, it’s for people who haven’t overcome their greatest fears, people who can commiserate over the misery of their lives, and I realize, That’s not me.

The realization makes me more comfortable with my wife.  I realize she needs the competitive atmosphere of the club, where I would rather enjoy the happiness that I have now and appreciate the now-ness of it.  It is not a judgement in any way, only a realization of who needs what.  My wife is still processing her childhood and I am processing my now.  My childhood and family were loving and wonderful, hers a nightmare.

Are you wondering what the “brief incident” is?  I haven’t told you yet.  First I had to show you the multiverse.

A BRIEF INCIDENT

I came home from work early, at about noon and I was hungry for lunch.  I opened the fridge and saw there was a piece and a half of my wife’s home-made pizza (we have pizza night once a week with pizza she makes from scratch).  I grab it, heat it and am about to eat it, when I wonder, “Is she going to be pissed that I ate the last piece?”  Pause.  ”Oh well.”

In that little pause I thought, “I’m hungry and this is all there is to eat.  If I split it there’s barely enough for either of us, but if I eat the whole thing at least I can hang on for a couple more hours.”

Yum!  My wife makes amazing pizza.

A bread dough my wife made. Not pizza dough, but similar.

Well, you can guess what happened when my wife came home 30 minutes later.

“Did you eat all the pizza?”

“Yup.”

“How could you eat it all?  I was saving that for myself.”

“How was I supposed to know that?  There was barely enough for one person.  It was like a little snack.”

“I can’t believe you ate it,” she dropped her bag on the floor and just stared at me.

“It’s all there was.  I was hungry, so I ate it.  I don’t get why you’re so upset.”

END

“Hi sweety…”  and burst into tears.

He cried close to a minute and then handed the phone to my mom who was able to tell me what I already knew.  Every time I feel pain or sorrow it turns out to be for my dad, who is in deep mourning for his mom.  I find little emotion inside me that comes directly from my Bubby’s death.  Why is that?

I know I am not cold hearted.  I am confident in that assertion.  I feel for my father.  So why do I not feel pain or sadness or grief at the loss of my Grandmother.  Many answers come to me:

1.  I am protecting myself.  I know that pain, sadness, grief, guilt are all emotions I could be feeling now and none of them are particularly pleasant.

2. I am repressing my emotions.  Same as #1

3.  I am saving my energy to support my father.  I like this one, and it is what I kept telling myself (and my mom) when I was out with my kids to see my Bubby before she died.  I paid close attention to my sleep schedule and made sure I ate plenty and had lots of energy should my Bubby die and my dad be in deep grief.  She didn’t die then, but I was ready.

4.  I don’t care.  As cold as it sounds this is still a possibility.  Maybe I have driven my emotions away with logic – something like this:  We all will die, grief is caused by loss (not death), if I do not attach myself to anything in this material world then I will not feel loss when things are no longer there (this could apply to a car or a grandma, a dog or a job, a wife or a favorite pair of pants).  I don’t know about this one.  On some level I do try not to be attached to the material world, but on another level I enjoy all that life offers.  I cry and laugh, I feel many emotions throughout any given day, and I love my kids, wife, dogs, computer ipod, cameras, etc.

5.  I’m a guy.  Guys don’t cry.  Yeah, yeah, could be, but I’ve had loved ones die before and I cried, I missed them, and I was sad.

6.  I didn’t know my Bubby as well as I thought I did.  I realize only now that I never really got to know my grandmom in that grown-up kind of way.  When my Zady (grandpa) died I felt like I had grown up and gotten to know him in a whole new light.  I felt like I started to see him for the person he was and not just “my Zady.”  He was his own person with his own life outside of my universe.  I don’t think I ever experienced that with my Bubby, she has always been to me what she was when I was a kid, “My Bubby.”

7.  She’s been old for a long time.  It’s not a nice thing to say, but she has been.  It’s been a long time since my parents have been able to focus fully on their lives.  My mom and dad have dedicated much of their time, energy, emotions and money to care for my Bubby over the last 5-10 years.  It wasn’t until she entered Hospice nearly a month ago that I began to think, “Wow, my parents will really be free to do what they want, now.”  I felt a bit guilty about that thought, but I live in reality and I don’t like hiding from thoughts just because they are not necessarily appropriate.  Of course I never said that out loud, but I thought it, and that’s ok.  In some ways I feel relief that she has died.  The last month and a half have been torture both for her and my father.  Bubby and Cooking have always gone hand in hand.  Wether it be a small lunch for two, or a grand dinner for the entire family, Bubby was the one who cooked and fed us all.  Ask me or any of my brothers or cousins and the first thing that comes into our heads when we think of Bubby is food.  She stopped cooking over ten years ago.  That was when “My Bubby” died, when she stopped cooking.  Ever since then I have struggled to create a new connection with her from 1500 miles away and it hasn’t happened.

As a side note on #7 I must say that I am extremely proud and inspired by the dedication my parents showed to my Bubby.  Along with, “I want to be able to support my family,” one of my top motivations for working hard everyday, running my businesses and doing all the work I do is that I want to be able to care for and support my parents in their old age.  They have shown me that “Family” extends on both ends of the generational boundaries, so my kids will need my support, but my parents will too.  I pray that I am capable of caring for my parents as well and better than they have for their parents.

As a side note to this whole post: My wife is very saddened by Bubby’s death.  I think it’s that emotional muscle again.  She is always ready to feel some emotion for someone or something.  Her emotional muscle is firm and ready for action at a moments notice.  Here she is full of expression for all the emotions you would expect someone to feel for their Bubby’s death, for their husband’s grief, for their father in law’s anguish and grief, for their 9 year old daughter’s not-wanting-to-talk-about-death confusion and such, for all the help that our friends are offering us in this time, etc.  She is a well greased emotional machine.  Jeesh, I should not have said my wife is “Well Greased” now my mind has totally gone elsewhere…

In Conclusion:

Different people react to death in different ways.  I have drawn a diagram of the affect my Bubby’s death has on people and how that affect ripples out into society through each of us that are close to her, spreading out to people we barely know until the whole of society absorbs it.  I think I’ll call it the “Emotional Ripple”.

The "Emotional Ripple" My Bubby's death is felt most strongly by those closest to her - Two sons and daughter. Then comes her friends, myself and my cousins, then cousins wives, kids, and close friends, and the ripple slowly works its way out into the broader society, which eventually absorbs it.