5 Things You Need To Know Right Now About Your Week. . .HURRY!

I don't really have any good list, I'm just always a sucker for a breakdown of important facts that promise to be succinct and small in number and hoped that you were, too.

I haven't been able to blog too much lately because I started a new job writing and editing for New Haven Magazine and it keeps me busy, like, too busy for the internet. Feel free to subscribe to read any additional opinions I may not have time to duplicate here. Hurry!

Also, my horoscope got me all paranoid and looking over my shoulder with a series of creepy daily prophesies that made me want to hide out. Who wouldn't be suspicious after a horoscope like this?

WHO COULD IT BE? WHO WANTS TO CUT MY SKIN OFF AND WEAR IT LIKE AN OVERCOAT?

I started looking for clues when it became very clear that I had enemies. Check this out:

The poo is crusted clear around the entire flap, if you can't tell. This is the product of aiming, for sure.

Then, my husband and I celebrated his birthday last week amid a growing rift in our marriage. 

Our toothbrushes have to sleep in separate beds. I gave him the ultimatum to either take care of that sticky blob of paste and spit, or move out. Occasionally, it jostled in the cup and would lean or tip into either the toothpaste or my toothbrush and leave a sticky spot behind. He chose to move his toothbrush out. We don't love each other any less, but every relationship has its ups and downs and I swear to god if that mush touches my junk one more. . . well, we've made it through the latest crisis and everything is fine, except he is sad about feeling old. I'm older so I don't have any sympathy at all, or anything comforting to say. Well, the comforting things I say are to comfort me, not him, like that he has more eye wrinkles than me and more gray hair. On the plus side, we have better health insurance and lower co-pays so we can seek medical advice for all of our old people back aches and suspicious "beauty" marks. 

Friday begins the annual Jewish celebration of freedom. My husband and I are hosting our second ever Passover seder this weekend so we've been doing lots of (a tiny bit, we're really behind) prepping and shopping and cleaning (I will have to remember to clean because I have an uncle with a cat allergy). The first time we hosted a Passover seder together, he proposed after. How will he top that?  

I've done more reading about Passover recently than in any prior years and a certain theme is sticking with me: what enslaves you and what frees you? When you think of the things that you feel a slave to, that bind you, constrict your life or temper your joy - a job you hate, a bad relationship, debt, obligations, a repressive government (shut up, tea party), addiction, or negative emotions like fear, anger, resentment, regret - can you envision being free of them and what that would look like? I floated the idea to my husband about doing a guided family meditation during our seder about this notion of being enslaved and envisioning our freedom and he implied it was a bad idea, and he implied it by laughing in my face. FREEEEDOOOOMMMMMM!!!  

I'm Concerned My Husband Is Ashamed Of Me

I saw him wince when I asked "is there a hashtag for a toilet selfie?" Maybe that was just because I was waking him up late at night to ask him? Sometimes those philosophical questions can't wait for the morning. I think he also gets embarrassed by my over-use of coupons.

We grew up differently. I always had a list of chores after school and ate my vegetables out of a can or frozen bag while he only lived at one address instead of 7, never had pets and nobody brought illegal fireworks to his family outings. His loss, right?

Today happens to mark the two year anniversary of our first major holiday together - Passover - which is significant because it's also the anniversary of the first time he proposed. Weren't we cute?

We invited friends to experience the true horror of a Jewish holiday that year: sitting around remembering things that happened hundreds of years ago while the food gets cold. The next day, he told me he wanted to get married. To me. I said it's cool if we never break up and he gives me jewelry to commemorate that agreement (preferably a watch), but marriage is a failed institution representing ownership and gender inequality and I did not wish to partake. I changed my mind a month later.

Getting married rearranged my life in a lot of really awesome ways and I didn't see that coming. He also censors me a lot. It's because one time I blogged about something some previous boss's wife didn't like and she sent it to all of his superiors and was like "MARK, IS THIS YOUR WIFE'S BLOG?" and he thought he was going to get fired and I thought that would probably be a good thing because who wants to work for jerks like that? Well, he does, so I have to shut my mouth a lot more than ever before. It's not easy. I'm really good at burning bridges. He also never bought me a watch. I'm a victim here, I've just realized! Corporations have more free speech rights than I do! If only I had billions of dollars, then I could do whatever I wanted. Sadly, my wallet only has about $6 in it, and that's not enough to even get me the kind of latté I like.

It's my leftover cash from taking some ESL students to an arts fair yesterday here in Philly. It was basically a street festival outside of an old prison in which cheap trinkets were sold on sidewalks and bands played at various intersections, but cars whizzed by and the streets weren't actually closed off and the few scattered pieces of art I saw looked like they were created in the Rec Room of an insane asylum. The students, a group of sweet young girls from South Korea, whom I dubbed The South Korean Volleyball League, were not impressed. After an hour of nothing more exciting than a dance troup doing the cha cha while wearing black body suits and fishnets with extremely visible giant granny panties poking out everywhere, they asked me if they could leave while I did not accompany them back. As in, they ditched me. I think it's because an unmonitored table of free food near some of the art bore some questionable looking deviled eggs and 3 giant pieces of fried chicken (only 3) and I ate an egg. I recognized the same look of shame and judgment that I sometimes get from my husband when I eat really old food he thinks should be thrown away. Well, maybe if he was better about cleaning out the fridge, we wouldn't have to argue about whether or not that fish curry is moldy or just full of green beans since neither of us can remember what we put in it last month when we made it. Hmmphff. Ha ha. My husband totally got fleeced in this marriage deal!