Functionality vs. Romance

So, Valentine's Day. That wonderful little double-edged sword of swoon and suicide. Being coupled up doesn't necessarily determine which side you're on, but I will say that after years and years of horrible disappointment and trying to pretend like I didn't care, the very year that I really honestly didn't give two shits about it was the year that The Gentleman landed in my life. Because we'd only been together for a short time at this point last year, V-Day was celebrated in a low-key manner with a very nice dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant the Saturday before the actual holiday, and the entire dinner was spent playing "Who's Having an Affair?" as we soon discovered that only much-older men take much-younger women out for a Valentine's dinner to upscale Italian restaurants the weekend before. Furreal, yo. It must be love.

I've come to feel that, in a relationship, how you handle things like Valentine's Day says a lot about who you are as a couple. Some couples genuinely don't care. Some go whole hog. Some have an imbalance of not caring vs. whole hog and the subsequent disagreements can be quite revealing. But all are unique to that couple and who they are together.

The Gentleman and I have worked out a system of romance that suits both of us: we mark special occasions with lots of delicious food and functional gifts. And booze. Duh.

For my birthday last year, I got a new phone. Which I badly needed. It finally escorted me out of the flip phone era into the smart phone revolution, where I can text, email, blog, check the weather, and stalk celebrities (life's necessities). That phone is never not within arm's reach and may very well become another permanent part of my body, like an electronic limb. The gift was thoughtful, necessary, exciting, and practical.

For Christmas, The Gentleman invited me to Jordan. Not wanting to be outshined by this incredible gift, I gave him a wallet. WHICH HE NEEDED. It is an awesome wallet that folds nearly flat, is a very nice anthracite color, and is made of recycled materials. FUNCTIONAL AND ECO-FRIENDLY. Honestly, I'm not sure who got the better deal, here.

For The Gentleman's birthday, I went a little above and beyond functionality and opted for adventure: using a complex system of bribery and secrets, I managed to score tickets to see "Book of Mormon" in New York in April. For practicality, however, I shall pay for our train tickets.

So, for Valentine's Day, we took this game of "practical gifts" to a new level of romance: I got him a new gym bag, as his old one was falling apart and smelled like a Rio junkyard after a hard rain; and he rebuilt my precious desktop computer.

Wait for the ultimate in Valentine's nerd-dom: we rebuilt it together. As in, he ordered all the parts, and then we had a nice little rainy Saturday afternoon activity of taking apart my computer and installing the new processor and RAM.

Try to contain yourself.

As if that wasn't enough, he polished off the gift with a Linux install. Which I am still trying to figure out how to use, but I'm assured that Ubuntu is going to change my life. Once I figure it out. PRACTICAL AND LIFE-CHANGING!

Say what you will - my old computer was very, very sick, and has gotten me through a lot in the past four years. It is now reborn, a gajillion times faster, and I actually know what the inside of it looks like now. It looks...wirey. And much less dusty now that we cleaned it. 

Now, onto the delicious food/booze part: 

The Gentleman is a member of a local wine store that awards you points based on the extravagant numbers of bottles of wine you purchase. Which can be a very, very bad thing (in that it reveals the extravagant numbers of bottles of wine you purchase) and a very, very good thing (in that you can score a gift certificate to a local delicious restaurant after accumulating enough points.) Because I contributed heavily to said purchases, it was agreed to cash in the points for said gift certificate and use it for a delicious Valentine's dinner. The weekend AFTER V-day this year, because who even celebrates V-Day ON V-Day anymore? (Read: who the hell can get a reservation?)

In years past, I eschewed Valentine's Day for being a complete and utter waste of time. Something dreamed up by Hallmark execs for happy couples to flaunt their relationships. The only fun aspect of the holiday seemed to be the little gifts and cards I got from my family, and having something to bitch about with my single friends. In 1994, I spent Valentine's day locked in the girl's bathroom of my middle school, crying because I had thought a boy had put a flower in my locker, only to discover one of my cruel ex-best friends had done it. It was a moment of humiliation when I approached the boy in the cafeteria certain he was about to ask me to be his girlfriend, only to have him laugh at me in front of an entire table of middle-school boys, rip the flower to shreds, and throw them at me. 

Sometimes it's really no wonder why I am the way I am. I mean, honestly.

And now? It seems like an excuse to do awesome things for each other, which we do anyway. The Gentleman probably would have rebuilt my computer anyway, and I probably would have gotten him a new gym bag. And we needed to cash in the wine points anyway. But why not? Why not do something nice for the other person that makes his daily life a little better? He certainly does that for me. Every single day. Rebuilding my computer is just icing on the cake. 

And whenever I send a text or check my email, and whenever he pulls out his wallet to buy me more delicious wine, and whenever he hauls his significantly less-disgusting new gym bag out of a locker, and whenever I learn how to navigate Ubuntu, we think of the other person. And think about how all of these practical things just make daily life run a little smoother, a little easier, and smell a little nicer. When the real reward for me is him and, I like to think, for him is me. And I'd rather have this every single day then an extravagant show of affection just once a year. 

Oh, and also, Snap is totally preggers. I'm allowed to tell people that now. That baby is gonna be all kinds of awesome. And blonde.

Damn, we're old.

Happy Valentine's Day, Glitteratis. I heart you.

Snap's Murried

So, Snap is all married to Sweet-T. No one objected, no one fainted, and everyone showed up on time. Win.

Truly, though, it was a LOT of fun, as you'd expect any wedding with Snap to be. We were fortunate enough to rent a beautiful house with a bunch of like-minded party people ("In the time we've been standing here chatting, you could have had two beers," was one of the first introductions to the weekend). This is crucial for Wedding Fun- locating and sticking with the partiers. Now, in instances past, I myself have been said Designated Party Girl. But given that I was a bridesmaid, I felt the need to be on somewhat good behavior. This doesn't mean alienation from the partiers, however; it means alignment, stealth, and multitasking. Bridesmaidly duties come first, but if you do it right (and I've had some practice), partying can quite easily come in tandem.

Every bride is beautiful, let's face it, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that Snap was breathtaking. I don't know how it's possible to look sexy in a wedding dress (aren't brides usually described as demure? Blushing? Beautiful?) but damn if Snap didn't WEAR that DRESS, if you know what I mean. Pippa Middleton had nothing on this.

At one point over the weekend, someone asked me if I'd ever thought Snap would get married first. I responded that I had never really thought about who might get married first; only that from very early on in Snap and Sweet-T's relationship, I knew they were going to get married. Sometimes you just know. And with them, I just knew. I think everyone did.

I think the only part of the whole weekend that actually saddened me was the knowledge that it would fly by, and Snap and Sweet-T would be back on a plane to San Francisco. And then maybe I'll can catch them at Christmas next year. The one part of the whole deal that chokes me up is that Snap had to move 3,000 miles away.

I guess I need to plan a trip to San Fran.

Also "murried off" last weekend was Catalano. It was heartbreaking that I couldn't go to her wedding, but, well, Snap got the request out prior. How it's possible that I had two such good friends from different circles get married on the same day in 2011 is beyond me. Oh, well. At least I got to go to Vegas for Catalano's bachelorette.

Wedding fun is over for now, work is back in full swing, and it's running, running, running in anticipation for the Survivor 7-miler in June.

Oh, and Lee is turning THIRTY next week. Let us not forget this crucial and important fact. OLD. In a couple of weeks, I will be a mere babe at 29, but Lee will be THIRTY. OLD.

Summer's on it's way....

Because...Whatever....Um...Yeah.

When she moved to San Francisco, Snap gifted me many things.

Among them, her collected library of photography from grad school which approximates somewhere around five thousand prints. I'm sure all those lovely friends who helped me move a few weeks ago were thrilled to see all the boxes of Snap's Lebenswerk amongst my neverending possessions.

Also in this treasure trove, however, and entrusted to me are her middle and high school diaries.

Snap has asked me to give a toast at her wedding.

The potential here is just staggering.

In other news: getting settled into luxurious new house with luxurious bathroom all to myself and luxurious stairs (that don't scare the hell out of me with steepness and narrowness) and a luxuriously large kitchen and other luxuries. How luxurious.

In other news: Vegas with Book Club in two weeks.

In other news: 80 degrees tomorrow? Yes please. Although this authenticates the rumors flying about that there will, in fact, be no spring this year. We will transition directly from damp, bitter, 40-degree disgunstingness to direct summer with high humidity and pounding heat. Lies, I had thought, but apparently my opinion was not solicited.

In other news, Pandora has been very good to be lately. Although a friend of mine recently pointed out that NO MATTER WHAT genre/band you have, Pandora will ALWAYS throw in the "Over the Rainbow" cover by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole'. It pops up on my Indie Boys station (Kings of Convenience, Andrew Bird, Belle + Sebastian), my Friday-night Katy Perry Station (which apparently Bruno Mars and Far East Movement hijacked), and even snuck its way onto the Christmas station I had running back in December. It's like the Kevin Bacon of covers. It finds its way into everything.

"Totes Inappropes..." Bachelorette Mayhem

Fifteen years ago, Snap and I were frenemies who dated each others' exboyfriends. After finally realizing in high school that we actually loved one another quite muchly, we stalked each other online through college via now-antiquated LiveJournal. We both attended grad schools in the south and bonded further over Academia and the fish-out-of-water acclimation we both endured moving from the mid-Atlantic. Post grad-school, we shared a lot of heart ache over terrible jobs, terrible boyfriends, terrible bills, and terrible car problems.

Last night, we donned pink furry mustaches and glittery sashes and bar hopped through downtown Annapolis for Snap's bachelorette party. In May, she'll marry the best dude for the job. And, somewhere around 2am in a dark kitchen over some quite-delicious greasy pizza from that place downtown where we both worked at various times in high school/college, we re-enacted the history of our friendship for the entertainment of other old friends and soon-to-be-family members. We recited old diary entries, dredged up first kisses, and acted out the moments that were linchpins in our shared histories.

Fifteen years, and you're still my most favorite bitch, Snap. And you damn well better believe I am bringing middle school diary material into my speech at your wedding.