What Possessed Me

Quick - what's better than a baby sloth?

Valentine's Day:

Fauxhawk: OK, so the flower idea didn't work out.

P: Hmmmm...OK.

Fauxhawk: But what if I got you something you'd like SO MUCH better?

P: Better than flowers?

Fauxhawk: Yeah.

P: You mean like a baby animal?! Like a baby sloth?!

Fauxhawk: We'll see.

 

Several hours later, before we ate too much at the indoor picnic Fauxhawk prepared and conked out on the couch at 9pm, he did the big reveal.

 

It wasn't flowers.

It wasn't a baby hamster wearing legwarmers.

It was, quite literally, the scent of our honeymoon.

 

 

Through a series of emails with a nice man in Positano, Fauxhawk tracked down the one store in New York that sells the gorgeous bath and body products developed by Le Sirenuse, the hotel where we spent our honeymoon. Just sniffing the fabulous packaging brought me back to a place so heartbreakingly beautiful that I cried when our car pulled away.

Which reminds me - I never told you about our honeymoon, did I? 

 

P.S. Yes, that's a chair covered in muscles with an upside-down lampshade screwed to the wall. Some people have unusual ways of expressing their creative urges. You can direct all questions to Fauxhawk. 

newfragile yellows

This morning I woke up to the scent of

and the sight of

and felt grateful for

This little house makes me so happy.

I haven't been feeling myself lately. I seem to be in a constant state of struggling and flailing and questioning and doubting. I am easily dispirited and discouraged. I feel tired all the time.  Someone very clever told me that it's All Very Normal and Part of a Process of Growth and that I am Making Excellent Progress after a Period of Stagnation. So that's good, isn't it? I wanted to tell you why I haven't been around here much - and also to reassure you (in case you are like me) that everyone in the blogosphere isn't living a Fantin Latour existence. Lots of us are thrashing through quicksand half the time.

I think I may have a Royal Wedding Hangover. I woke up at 5am yesterday to watch the festivities and wept all the way through. It touched me, a year (almost to the day) after my own wedding, to witness a beautiful girl marrying a handsome boy. It felt that simple to me. Love and hope are infectious. 

I am thinking about this poem today:

i have found what you are like

the rain

             (Who feathers frightened fields

with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind

and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of gren thrilling light

                                        with thinned

newfragile yellows

                           lurch and.press

--in the woods

                        which

                                  stutter

                                           and

                                                 sing

And the coolness of your smile is

stirringofbirds between my arms;but

i should rather than anything

have(almost when hugeness will shut

quietly)almost,

                      your kiss

- e.e. cummings

 

With love and hope from your faithful servant,

P.

 

Even more questions (Fauxhawk edition)

 

Blind Irish Pirate said:

I need a story as to how you and FH met.

The Hawk and I met on the internets. His profile was ridiculous - he spent the entire time talking about pheasant smoothies and dung huts, while I had spent hours obsessing over every (witty, poignant, yet breathtakingly upbeat) word. I can't remember all the details, but it was definitely the profile of a serial killer. Which was refreshing because I'd already met a whole bunch of dudes who liked yoga (instant disqualification) and one guy who liked robots, and I was striking out. It's not as though I wasn't totally flattered when "I Have an Eight Inch Cock" sent me a wink, it's just that I was looking for someone literate and mean-spirited and impossibly handsome. Did I mention that Fauxhawk's picture was weird? Like, almost demented? Anyway, we met up at a bar and he was literate and mean-spirited and impossibly handsome. Then we had Thai food and talked about the time I almost got sold into sex slavery and about the time he almost got busted by the narcs for smoking tobacco on the street. We had an awkward half-hug goodbye and I bolted over to a friend's house to jump around with excitement.

Amber was also interested in hearing about Fauxhawk:

I'd love to hear more about you and fauxhawk. Just because it seemed like you got engaged - which we'd all kinda been expecting - and then pre wedding the focus was on hilariuus wedding dress incidents and very few 'so, um I'm getting married WTF, I need to talk about that'. So can you give us any insight into that married/changing relationship/family fuck ups side of things. Which maybe you've written in sn APW graduate post in which case why the fuck isn't it up yet. That is all. Yiurbligging bringsme much typo filled joy.

You know, that's a really interesting point. You're right - I didn't write much about my feelings about getting married. With the exception of this post, I was almost entirely focused on getting through the (mostly horrible) process of planning a wedding.

I didn't have wedding jitters. I wasn't overwhelmed by the idea that my life was about to change. It's not that the Hawk and I didn't have knock-down, drag out fights, because we did - we had lots of them, more than we would have liked. And it's not as though we didn't have unpleasantness with his parents or mine. There was plenty of unpleasantness to go around. And then there were environmental factors: I got a new job that was incredibly demanding. Fauxhawk got laid off. Then I was pissed when Fauxhawk got a new job that worked him 100 hours a week during a time when I needed him the most. We were both pissed off by the hard lines our parents drew and the strong opinions they expressed. My dad had open heart surgery and a ton of complications. Fauxhawk's dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and couldn't come to the wedding. It was not a happy time for us, and it took it's toll on our relationship. At one point I was so fed up with everyone and everything that I fled to a friend's house, where I camped out for a weekend.  I questioned everything, and it was scary. That was my breaking point. It signaled to everyone to nod politely and back the fuck off. Things got better. 

But despite all the difficulties, and aside from that weekend during which my resentment burned with the intensity of a thousand suns, I never questioned whether or not I should be getting married to Fauxhawk. We had already gotten that out of the way by the time we got engaged. Over the course of five years, we've had periods of misalignment. We broke up, got back together, broke up again, got back together again, broke up once more, and then, finally, after an agonizing period of negotiation (see archives June - September 2007 for the blow-by-blow), decided that we really wanted and needed to be a couple. We talked about marriage. I wasn't ready. We moved in together. I still wasn't ready. We took the issue off the table, got on with our lives, and created a good life together. At some point I knew that I could do this - that I wanted to do this. There wasn't a moment of realization - it just happened organically.

 

emmie gemmie asked: 

are you trying for children?

Yes, I would like a baby panda, please.

Kate! wondered:

wait! who's funnier: you or Fauxhawk?

I hate to say this, but I think he's funnier. I find this particularly annoying because the Hawk always wins the tanning competition and now he's winning the Funnier Person Award and I don't even think he's trying, which is even more annoying. Yeah, so, thanks for causing a permanant rift in our relationship, Kate. 

Images via Aubrey Road, Bloom Magazine, Vera.