out of Kadesh

Nashville Find-a-House-Trip-6: Day 1

Well, faithful Reader, we’re back at the Wingate in Brentwood. We didn’t reserve a room this time, thinking we could just run in, out of breath and at top speed around 11pm and demand a room out of the harried staff, all while touching each other inappropriately and hopefully smelling of cheap beer. If that didn’t work I was going to poke out my pregnant belly while Lance desperately asked “IS THERE ROOM AT THIS INN!?” Luckily the first scenario worked, and the checkout lady wanted to get us out of her sight as soon as possible, so I didn’t have to go all Mother Mary on her.

There’s a famous restaurant here in Nashville called “The Loveless Cafe,” known for their amazing biscuits and great southern food. It’s like Cracker Barrel on acid. I like to eat healthy, Reader, but if there is one thing I can indulge in, it’s the occasional good ole southern comfort food. I ordered the fried catfish for dinner, complete with biscuits, bacon-simmered green beans and hashbrown casserole. Lance had pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, and fried okra. Long about the fourth or fifth bite of catfish, my numb brain started working again and I had a realization.

Me: “You know, I don’t think I need to go to church tomorrow. I’m having a religious experience right now.”
Lance: “You probably don’t need to orgasm later either?”
Me: “Well, I’m a fan of multiples.”
Lance: “Want to get some banana pudding for dessert then?”
Me: “Why don’t we get it to go and I can lick it off your stomach?”
Lance: “Ew, because then it’d get all hairy.”
Me: “Well you can lick it off my stomach then. I mean I still have hair, but it’s not as dark so you won’t see it.”
Lance: “Sounds good!”

Nashville Find-a-House-Trip-6: Day 2

Lately I’m really impressed by simple things that I would normally take for granted. Maybe the pregnancy has heightened my sense of appreciation for human necessity. For instance, when I’m hungry, I’ve become increasingly aware that I can take care of that hunger by eating food. When I’m thirsty, there are any number of beverages for me to choose from. When I’m tired, I take a nap. When it rains or it’s really hot, I come into shelter and air conditioning.

I’ve been discouraged by not finding a house. Or rather, by finding a house but then the sellers don’t bend on their asking price, and we can’t reach quite that number. I’m scared that I’m going to have a baby in three months and we’re homeless. But then when I’m really hungry and I sit down to a big sandwich I have this revelation that the majority of the world lives in poverty, and finding a house is not even on their to-do list. Someone out there is hungry right now and can’t do anything about that hunger. Someone is sitting in extreme heat or rain and they can’t come into shelter. Someone thirsts but has no clean water.

And for all my worrying and despair, I have never known what that’s like.

The other day, my mom walked into the room and my dog started barking at her like she’d never seen her before. Bear in mind that Lucy has known my mom since she was a puppy, and we’ve been staying with my parents for two and a half weeks.

Today, my dog barked at the neighbor because she had the audacity to WALK OUTSIDE ONTO HER BACK PORCH.

Two bad qualities in dogs include, but are not limited to, insanity and unpredictability. Anyone else’s dog cra-freaking-zy? Or is it just mine?

(Here’s Lance trying to talk some sense into her. Good luck hubbs, GOOD LUCK.)

I know how much you’ve all been waiting for this post. Go get yourself a piece of chocolate so you can read it decadently. But if you’re squeamish you might want to finish it right now, before I start saying words like VAGINA and PENILE and INTERCOURSE.

The best way I can think to describe our sex life during the first two years of our marriage is “out of sync.” I say that’s the best way to describe it because the other way I’d describe it is “a disaster,” and I obviously can’t describe it that way on my blog. That’d be embarrassing.

I already explained how people got all “OMG VIRGINS GETTING MARRIED! I USED TO BE A VIRGIN AND THEN I GOT MARRIED TOO SO I’LL GIVE THEM ADVICE!” when they received our wedding invitation in the mail that said “Mr. and Mrs. Garland invite you to witness their virginal daughter, Megan as she weds long-time virgin, Lance. Join in our joy as two virgins unite virginally, as virgins.” (I promise it didn’t really say that. People just assumed. We could have been doing it hardcore in the backseat of Lance’s parents’ Pontiac every night, but for some reason no one thought that was possible. Thus, the multitude of sex advice ensued.) And all that wonderful advice sounded like this: “all Lance will ever want to do is have sex,” and “Megan will be bored by sex, but if she does it anyway, Lance won’t have to masturbate,” and “Megan, you’ll be in bed all the time, and you’ll really start to resent it,” and my personal favorite, “you’ll never have another conversation. You’ll only ever have sex.” (I swear I’m not making this up.) Essentially, everything we were hearing was that Lance was going to have a perpetual hard-on, and I would have to take care of it out of marital obligation. Language in all the books we read was like “when he comes home from work and she’s putting the finishing touches on dinner (…yeah.), he’ll be more interested in DESSERT if you know what I mean, and she’ll have to pause in her child-rearing, house-cleaning duties to supply a clean vagina for his penile use.” In addition, I learned that orgasms wouldn’t be as important to me and that I should not expect them every time we had sex.

It was daunting for both of us. Years later we discovered, through counseling, discussion, and deep introspection, that all this time leading up to our marriage Lance was being accidentally prepared to be some kind of sex-crazed animal, and I was accidentally preparing to be his tool, which means Lance was sub-consciously learning that he had to oppress his desires because otherwise I would be getting more and more irritated with him and would eventually turn into an ice-wife, and I was sub-consciously learning that if I didn’t brace myself and open my legs every time I saw my husband, he’d be unhappy with our marriage.

Pause to take it all in. Eat another piece of chocolate.

Now you may see where this is going next, but I certainly didn’t know we were in for two years of confusion, arguments, tears, and wounds that would take eventual counseling and therapy to heal. What happened is that I was so ready to have sex all the time, and Lance was so ready to fight his urges for my happiness that we ended up reversed. Lance was the one who was always too tired and I was the one who was all bitter and kept count of the days since the last time we’d had sex. Within the first year of our marriage, we often went two weeks without having sex, and when we finally did have sex, I couldn’t help thinking it was only because of a fight we’d had the night before about how long it had been. (And oh, how we fought and cried and fought some more, Reader.) I was devastated. I was convinced something was wrong with me. I felt starved for sex. I was also angry with Lance. Lance thought I was too aggressive, always initiating sex and getting hurt when he wasn’t in the mood. He felt sure the fault was with him… he felt abnormal, and always said, during our fights, that he just wasn’t “normal” when it came to sex. Do you know what that does to a guy’s ego? FUCKS IT UP IS WHAT.

The end of the story is that we had to see a marriage counselor to erase the bullshit we learned while we were engaged, the bullshit that brainwashed us into thinking we WERE a certain way. And when I say “erase” I mean “bring to light.” The truth is we still struggle with being in sync (a.k.a. sex not being a disaster). We’ve had to relearn each other in the non-general women-are-this-way, men-are-that-way sense. Me? I love sex. You won’t hear me complain about too much of it, EVER. Maybe I’m not like your “normal” woman, who hates lying on her back for 10 minutes while her husband has his way with her. I’m ok with that. To me, Lance proves his love for me by making love to me, which is something we could have learned about each other during our engagement instead of learning what we did.

It’s important for me to share this with you, Reader, because there may be someone out there who is like me and is learning to dread sex when you might actually love it. Or there might be someone out there like Lance who is learning not to make love to his wife when what she really wants and needs is for him to take her every chance he gets. I have suffered a lot of needless pain, and so has my sweet husband, for the things we were told before we were married.

Sex is awesome. It’s God’s gift to married people. Trust me, your relationship needs it. It’s glue that holds things together. Don’t listen to the stereotype about your sex. Don’t let someone else tell you who you are. Love each other well, and often.

And because you listened to my soapbox so patiently, here’s a bonus for you. Read this blog for tips on spicing up your married sex. Enjoy the position of the week!

Last night, Lance went to bed a little bit before me, so I was pleasantly surprised to find him still awake and reading when I followed him. I crawled up next to him on the bed and kissed him, and then I told him I was glad he was still awake and to stay awake for another minute while I went to the bathroom. And then, in the spirit of romance, he said this to me: “Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

…….

Don’t forget to brush my teeth?

Ok. Let’s discuss this. Is my breath really that bad? Because seriously, it would have to be like ten tons of hot dog shit smacked you in your face for you to BRING UP the fact that I need to brush my teeth, therefore risking not getting any tonight, right? I mean who needs to be reminded of this? What am I, four years old? I’m sure every once in a while people can be oblivious to the need for fresh breath, like that horrible coworker that smells like coffee-scented sewage and talks all close up in your face. But I’m betting nine times out of ten people KNOW when they need a tic-tac. Trust me, when my thoughts are sexy ones, the first thing in my mind is minty breath (followed closely by deodorized pits and shaved legs).

I think I should start a marriage advice column on this blog. Seriously, send me your questions! We’ll use my life as the first example. Guys, if you want ANY sex in your lives, here is my advice to you. Don’t tell your wife to brush her teeth after she kisses you, and DON’T FART WHILE YOU ARE MAKING OUT.

Who’s next?

We didn’t find a house. We looked at 12, and there wasn’t ONE that we want to live in. What’s the deal?

The first house had an apartment upstairs that needed complete renovation and had a leak in the ceiling. Second house was a frat house – I could barely breathe in there or walk around for all the clothes everywhere. Third house had no floor. Fourth house already had a contract on it. Fifth house was right next to a railroad. Sixth through twelfth were in the ghetto.

I don’t believe I can explain how incredibly frustrating this is. What are we supposed to do? What if we never find a house? What if we have to move into an apartment, then we find the perfect house like one month later after we’ve spent lots of money and time on the apartment?

Where is Blueberry going to live y’all? I keep hearing he can’t stay in my uterus forever…

Well we’re here, step 2 of the 900 step moving process complete. And we’re relatively in one piece, although my lower back clearly wants to rip my torso from my butt and legs. Yesterday and the day before yesterday we packed our apartment and loaded all our crap into a U-Haul. Tonight, we unloaded the U-Haul into a storage unit (in the rain) and then I ate my face off at PF Changs.* Tomorrow we will look at 10 houses. Thursday I will crawl into bed and not come out until we close on a house or I go into labor, whichever comes first.

Some updates…

Weight gain: 23 pounds. Friday the doctor told me I’ve gained too much weight for how pregnant I am, and asked had I been eating more? Exercising less? (Yes, and yes.) She told me the extra calories I need could really be obtained from a glass of milk. Later, over biscuits and gravy, I contemplated this.

Blueberry: He’s supposed to double in size this month but I’m only supposed to gain like 10 more pounds, wtf!? Also he kicks me a lot, and I love the reminders that he’s in there hanging out. He seems to like Chinese food.

Location on the map: Knoxville, Tennessee. We’re staying with my parents until we find a place to live in Nashville. Our pets are locked in the back room. That howl you’re hearing? That’s my cat.

Meals over the last three days include: Papa John’s, Lost Dog Cafe (another pizza place) Arby’s, Dogfish Head (a brewery that serves everything with an abundance of cheese), and Wendy’s. No I do not know where that 23 pounds came from.

Average speed of driving from Arlington to here: 60mph.

Time it took to drive from Arlington to here: 12 hours.

Time it took to drive from Arlington to here: 12 hours. Yes, I know I just said that, but I don’t think it really sunk in for you, Reader. It needed to be said again. That is four hours more than it normally takes, if that helps you understand why you needed to hear it again.

Reminder that it was all worth it: We got to Knoxville at midnight and stiffly got out of our three-car entourage, and I looked up and saw stars. They were so beautiful and bright. I poked Lance, who looked up and said “Oh, hi! So there you are!”

*Special thanks to my family, who drove up to Arlington for the first time ever, and Lance’s beer buddies who always keep him out way too late, who all selflessly helped us pack the truck, and to our good friends Amy, Daniel, and Lee, who helped us unload the truck tonight. (Did I mention it was raining?) Without all of you, we’d still be in Arlington, Lance lifting heavy furniture piece by piece onto his back while I, curled up in a corner, rocking and hugging my knees, would be weeping and gnashing my teeth. Special special thanks to Lance, who is a complete and total rockstar and decided to move here with me even after I shouted neurotically at him for like four days in a row. I’ll thank you properly as soon as I finish writing this post. Finally, thank you my God, for answering all my prayers and providing everything (and everyone) we needed. You made this so much easier than I could have imagined or hoped for and I am so grateful.

In my last post I mentioned that I was “prepared” for childbirth. I want to clarify: I only meant that I have a vague understanding, because of “A Baby Story” on TLC, that there is pain involved. I don’t believe there is really any way for me to prepare myself for the experience of pushing a human being out of my vagina, but I do plan to take a childbirth class when we get to Nashville, which should help me employ techniques for dealing with the pain of having my cervix swell to the size of a dinner plate. I hear a lot of breathing is involved. Hopefully I will hyperventilate and pass out, wake up, and suddenly have a beautiful baby in my arms. No I’m not in denial.

HOWEVER.

Labor pains CANNOT be any worse than the pain of PACKING UP YOUR BELONGINGS TO MOVE THEM INTO A STORAGE UNIT 700 MILES AWAY. (I just know you women out there reading this who have had children are taking your earrings out and getting ready to jump through the screen and kill me. I welcome you to my office. After you’ve killed me you can help me pack my desk.)

This morning Lance and I poured ourselves some packets of oatmeal. We don’t have milk for cereal, my typical Breakfast of Champions, and of course it would be silly to buy half a gallon because we couldn’t drink it all before Sunday. When we leave. Forever. We poured water into the oatmeal in our (only two that haven’t been packed) bowls, and reached up to push open the door of the microwave… and then realized that we already packed the microwave.

Yesterday I reached into the cabinet for a glass and realized I had already packed them. Extra sheets for my sister to sleep on? Packed. Wii for her to play while I’m at work tomorrow? Packed. DVDs to watch? Packed. Kitty for cuddling? Packed. (Just kidding. Although when my landlady came to inspect the apartment on Tuesday he decided to take a giant poo in his litter box the MOMENT she stepped in the door, and as Lance adminsitered CPR on her I seriously thought about packing him right then.)

You know what’s not packed? A bucket of nail polish in the bathroom. Clothes. Shoes. Extra purses. Silverware. Our guitars. The DVD player. (Yes, the DVDs are packed. The DVD player is still out to tease us.) A chalk board hanging on our kitchen wall. Cans of food. The linen closet (minus the sheets). A single throw pillow. The contents of our coat closet. Baby gifts. What I’m trying to say, Reader, is that I’m crap at this. I can’t stand packing an entire box of glassware only to realize I have one glass left that won’t fit into that box. So I just leave that box open, hoping I’ll be able to manipulate the remaining glass into the box at a later date. Or maybe I’ll accidentally break the extra glass. Or maybe I already did. It was an accident. Don’t tell the hubbs.

So because I suck at this, we have like a dozen boxes just open and sitting in the middle of the floor, half packed. And once I seal a box with squeaky tape and write labels like “KITCHEN GLASSWARE MINUS ONE DAMN GLASS WHICH IS IN SOME OTHER DAMN BOX SOMEWHERE” in black magic marker, I go to move it to the pile of boxes in the living room and realize I can’t pick it up. So in addition to the dozen boxes open in the middle of the floor, there are two dozen boxes SEALED. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR. Lucy just stands in one spot all day and all night, surrounded by sealed and unsealed boxes, looking confused and walking around in circles, trying to find a way out.

And since I already mentioned my vagina in this post I don’t feel so bad telling you that I’ve been so incredibly stressed out about all this that I’ve had the runs since Monday and they have been exponentially worse today. And to all you women with kids who are all giving me the three snaps in Z-formation right now, you should know that my lifelong struggle with IBS is the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced, adding even more merit to my argument that childbirth must be comparable to packing.

So excuse me, I have to go downstairs to the bathroom again. While I’m in there holding on to the sides of the toilet for support, can you please bring me some more boxes?

Last night, I picked up this book that’s been on my nightstand called Sheet Music. It’s by a Christian doctor of psychology about marital sex. Lance and I bought it the first year we were married and read through it together and we both really enjoyed it, but last night I was reading it and I wanted to throw it across the room. The distaste it brought me was so strong that this morning I hauled it out to the trash. I was wondering why, in the shower this morning, it made me so angry to read it again last night when I didn’t seem to mind it at all the first time I read through it four years ago. Then I remembered the first book about marital sex Lance and I read together, The Act of Marriage (when I type this, there’s a DUN-DUN-DUUUN sound of doom that plays all around me…), and realized I must have been coming off the depression of that one to have found such an inane bunch of dribble so helpful.

I’m getting ahead of myself… let me go back. Lance and I were both virgins when we got married. (Did you hear that!? It echoed like a car salesman on an indy car commercial: VIRGINS, VIRGINS, VIRGINS!) Let me clear the air – I know this is probably “well, duh” to some of you and “what the fuuuuck?” to others of you, which are the main two reactions I got while we were dating and engaged, too. Without going into tons of details I’ll just say that Lance and I both had our reasons for remaining virgins and they were both the same and different. Anyway, it just so happens, Reader, that when people realize that two virgins are on their way to marital bliss (or torment), loving and well-meaning family and friends start popping out all over the place with sex advice and book suggestions. So you listen to all this advice, thinking you’re preparing yourself. And worst of all, you get books like The Act of Marriage (DUN-DUN-DUUUN) and you read them together.

The Act of Marriage (DUN-DUN-DUUUN) (pause to say I’m not bashing this book alone… just books like this one and Sheet Music and What Every Man Wants/What Every Woman Wants… there are probably hundreds out there that I’d burn if I could get my hands on all of them… but I’m ahead of myself again) has a couple of chapters detailing what to do, oh ye moste innocent virginal babes, on your wedding night. OH the infamous wedding night. (In My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding the mother says to the daughter “Greek women, we may be lambs in ze kitchen, but we are tigers in ze bedroom.” Help.) Let me save you $10.50 by telling you what this book says. A, B, and C must all be accomplished before D (“insertion”) is attempted. There will be no climaxing on such a horrible night as this. The wife, after showering of course, should come to the bedroom expecting the most painful and awkward night of her life. The husband, in turn, should expect the most awkward night of HIS life, and be prepared to feel like a rapist while his bleeding new bride screams in agony.

Don’t get me wrong, Reader, I’m glad I knew that intercourse would be painful the first time. I was prepared for this. Just like I’m prepared for the pain I’m going to experience during childbirth and after, when I’m taking care of a little tit-sucking leech. But I was prepared for a long, uncomfortable, embarrassing, disappointing, excruciating, daunting first night with my new husband wherein one or both of us would end up locking ourselves in a closet or running home to mommy when we first laid eyes on the big, bad genitalia. The book I read and the advice I heard had damaged me this much. (Coming in Part II is how much all the bullshit we inhaled damaged Lance too, but I didn’t know it at the time because good little virgins don’t talk about things like that. WTF.)

So the wedding comes and goes, and we’re in the car on the way home and we’re totally ecstatic because holy shit, we’re married! And we’re heading to OUR apartment! Which we will live in together! And we’ll have the same bed! We get home and I shower all the birdseed and hairspray out of my hair and we eat some leftover wedding food together and we talk and then here we are, in our apartment, headed to our candlelit bedroom to CONSUMMATE OUR MARRIAGE DEAR GOD. You’ll never believe me when I tell you this.

It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t scary. It was slow and peaceful and lusty, and yes it hurt but only for a little while and I wonder if it would have hurt as much if I hadn’t been all tense and waiting for THE PAIN OH THE PAIN. I actually hardly remember the pain because I was so happy and in love and Reader, I wouldn’t have traded my virginal wedding night for anything in the world. I wouldn’t have done a single thing differently except thrown away that fucking book and plugged up my ears when people started giving me advice about how painful and horrible sex would be. AND I EVEN CLIMAXED, EAT THAT OLD GUY THAT WROTE A STUPID BOOK.

Part II of Roggendorff Sexellence is coming soon. It’s important, I mean really important, so I don’t want it to be at the bottom of this really long post so you don’t even see it.