Julie Pippert: Using My Words

If you're feeling a bit skeptical about the promise of Spring, please know it is here, and will arrive there soon. :) In fact, it must be nearly there since it's practically summer here, already: "The air's so heavy, It could drown a butterfly." (Grace Potter, Falling or Flying ) The Southern winds are prevailing, pushing back any north wind attempts to get through here, and cool and dry off the air. It's the hot and wet season, now. Just a quick raw photo, then, in case your weather isn't the same: Marriage and parenthood: are we all insane? The Impressive Clergyman: Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... [cut to Westley, Inigo, and Fezzik] The Impressive Clergyman: And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva... [cut to the trio again] The Impressive Clergyman: So tweasure your wuv. Prince Humperdinck: Skip to the end. The Impressive Clergyman: Have you the wing? [cut to the trio once more] ...

Oh the Joys wrote a blog post the other day called, "I don't hang out with your husband," which addressed opposite sex friendship after marriage. I felt it was a pretty straightforward account of the things you need to keep in mind about opposite sex friendship and marriage. I think most of us have had some experience of this going right, and going wrong, and have probably formed some opinions. In the case of the comments to that post, most people seemed to agree with OTJ, including me. Then two bloggers, Meno and Bob , wrote eloquent posts that elaborated on their point of view. I kept commenting to each discussion, and then decided I had enough to say to warrant my own post. Then I felt like it made sense to include my husband's voice equally. So I recorded a conversation between us about this, for your reading pleasure. The conversation is exact, conversational, and so hopefully you can follow it. It also unfolds interestingly. We began with my husband thinkign h...

If you ask my husband* when we met, he'd say it was in a doorway my junior year, his first senior year, when I was dating another guy. If you ask me when we met, I'd say it was in Astronomy class my freshman year, his sophomore year when he was dating another girl. The truth is, we did really meet in the Astronomy class, and we did actually notice one another. Just not in that way. He was dating a girl I knew. Plus, I wasn't shopping, or even window shopping, anyway. I had my hands full of plenty of boy troubles of my own. And at the time, whether it was due to that, or his boyfriend of friend status, there just wasn't any spark. In fact, I was sort of obnoxious to him. I did my usual teasing jokey schtick, but he got all flustered. I felt sort of badly about it, but before I could change the tone, his girlfriend and her roommate started teasing him. It will come as no surprise that he decided to never sit with us during class, and other than greeting his girlfriend, a...

I began dating my husband in college while he was still getting his first degree in architecture. The classes were geared towards preparing students not for the profession of architecture but for the lifestyle of architecture. They had things called "studios" that ran from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and so forth, you know, to help these students understand they were selecting a career that demanded your life. I met architecture students---including my husband who was dating my friend Lynn at the time---for the first time my freshman year. One of my good friends from high school was an architecture major, and my roommate (the second one, after the first one, recently released from the loony bin, tried to stab me) had a cousin also enrolled in the program. So between these people we were somehow sucked into the world of architecture. I should have known it would be my destiny, but I kept diligently dating engineers who had bright, well-paid futures. I always lived very near to campus (w...

"If I get the new Gwen Stefani album," said my husband, drooling only a little, to his credit, "I get unlimited CDs for $1.99." He waved his music club catalog. "Bueno," I said, not looking up from my muffin. "But I have to choose..." he said, a little perplexed. "I want the newest Diana Krall," I announced, "And maybe something else, I don't know," I said, making a grab for the catalog. "Uh uh uh," he evaded me, "I'm not giving up custody of this yet...have you heard any of this Amy Winehouse?" "I've heard of her, R&B, more my thing than yours," I told him. "You can't say that; I don't dislike any genre, just sometimes a lot of the artists in it," he protested. "Name me one R&B artist you like," I challenged. "Give me a second...okay Sade. I bet I can get a list of more if you give me a minute." I took advantage of his distraction to snatc...

Last night, after shutting off our computers, my husband and I dragged ourselves into the messy kitchen for a good cleaning. It was late, we were tired and it had been a trying day with the kids. As I scrubbed the dinner dishes, and he scrubbed the table and counters, instead of talking about the big stuff (read: the children), I vented about a writing project I am working on. My husband offered several suggestions, to which I said nothing. Finally he said, exasperated, "Well, of course, I've given up you taking any advice from me. I'm not even sure why you ask." And somehow my irritating situation had shifted focus, turned into something else, and got lost completely. I said, "You know what? When I talk to you? I think there is a misunderstanding about what I want." He said, "Sometimes I think all you want is sympathy ." I said, "You say that as if it is a bad thing." Empathic failure. In the above conversation, you could so easily switc...

Edited: Post in haste, repent in leisure! I do not know how or why I neglected to do so, but I did not include the linnks to Gwen's blog or her post that inspired this one. I mentioned it, and had the text for the links all set, then just didn't do it. Sorry Gwen! In my head I've been working out my own answer to my Hump Day Hmm question (due next Wednesday, so my expectations are very high) about "what if I shut down into a coma twenty years ago?" So I keep reminiscing about life and all it held in 1987-1988, which happened to be a lot. And then Gwen goes and fires up the grill with the hot spark, "I wish sometimes that the very wise and talented people who write so openly about real parenting would write that same way about marriage." Then she relates a story about crushes, and asks what we think . You know what happens to me when someone asks me what I think : I share. I met my husband for the first time in 1988. That's a few years back, and a ...

This has been an action packed weekend---I'm not even sure how to start, so I think I'll do a little timeline. I like a linear organizational challenge. Friday night (when the weekend really begins) We had a contractor out to price the repair work we need to do on the house. This process took 4 hours instead of the projected 2. That was the first bad sign. The second bad sign was the quote: Basically, we need slightly more than $30,000 to do what we need to do to the house---not what we want to do but what we need to do. We both looked up at the ceiling when we added up the final tally, while the contractor stared at us, stuck in our shock and dread. I don't know why I looked up; appealing to God? Hoping for pennies from Heaven? I think my husband looked up to choke back the sobs his eyes wanted to pour out. I don't know. You'd have to ask him. The contractor talked to us about the financing his company offers, and we said we'd investigate all avenues, but bo...

My husband and I did it up all right. We were friends first, dated for a while, moved in, got engaged, got married, committed five years (which turned into more, inadvertantly) to our mariage, and maintained our romance . Every anniversary we took a bonding trip. We promised this to each other. We did romantic (Paris), wild (canoeing through Costa Rica), and Special (10 year anniversary trip back to our honeymoon spot). When we had kids, we promised to Keep It Up. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! At first, after all that infertility (which our marriage survived! and was the stronger for!) we were So Ecstatic to have a baby that neither of us ever let loose of her. The three of us were Attached At the Hip. Always. Okay truthfully, my kids spent the first two years of their lives attached not to the hip so much as to the boob. That meant about five years of pregnant and nursing body. That meant a lot of hands off, mister, I'm all Touched Out. Then we decided to sacrifice the second income so we had a...

I award this: to Good Times by Gwen at Woman on the Verge because it blurred through so many complex issues so eloquently and intriguingly, I kept going back for days to read, re-read, ponder, and consider. If you haven't read it, do. If you still aren't convinced: beginning with a brief "book group" like discussion of The Poisonwood Bible , Gwen outdoes Kingsolver with her own, personal essay about being raised abroad as the daughter of missionaries. I didn't even wait for the Perfect Post call. Before I even commented, I sent the link to MommaK. Thanks to MommaK and Lindsay for the Perfect Posts. *************************************************************************************** After my Confessions of a Not-so-Fatty McFat on Friday, Bones put the screw to me with this question: I want to point out a double standard, and then ask whose double standard it is. I'm honestly not sure. It is so perfectly okay for boys to have a big ass and a Buddha belly...