The first is probably the most important, and this is that my tv is dead as a doornail. Through no fault of my own, the TV propelled itself of its own volition to the ground, and for some reason Sharp Electronics doesn’t think that “that type of damage” warrants a free repair. So, I’m trying to find ways to keep busy.

This leads us to the second thing that’s going on, which is that I’m convinced Nanook is obsessed with gay animals. I have no idea why, i don’t think she’s ever said or otherwise indicated a particular fondness for animals that shack up with other animals of their same sex. Anyway, the moral of the story is I was bored this weekend and thinking about how much I think she loves gay animals. So I drew her a cartoon strip of the unrequited love a lobster, Joan, has for a wombat, named Mildred.

I was telling B Team I was creating such a cartoon, and she seemed not to understand why I would make my fiancee a sad, unrequited love-themed cartoon. Which I suppose is a valid point, but I’m still pretty sure that a pinchy, lesbian lobster trying to hook up with a soft, non-exoskeleton-wearing, possibly only bi-curious wombat is hysterical and poignant, because really – how could they make it work?!? 

When I think of those I believe have attained such success, I inevitably think of my favorite American novels and plays. I can’t help but notice that when I do this, the authors are prominently Southern, and the stories are frequently set in the South. During my formative years, the quintessential American experiences were portrayed by Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Dorothy Allison, Harper Lee, Alice Walker, Fannie Flagg, Carson McCullers, Toni Morrison, and John Kennedy Toole. And as a child, when I thought of going on an adventure I thought of one set in Mark Twain’s Missouri, when I thought of honor I thought of Atticus Finch, when I pictured vanity I saw Scarlett O’Hara, and when I started to think about falling in love it was with someone like Ruth Jamison.

And to an extent I still do.

These pervasive cultural reference points that emanate from the South and from the Southern perspective have a larger cultural and political influence than many realize. The cultural icons that we have all internalized give the South a certain mythological standing, and it grants the South a certain ownership of treasured Americana, though this ownership is easily morphed into moral authority and entitlement. An interesting thing happens when a place or a people come to feel that they are the embodiment of ‘America’ or ‘American,’ and it’s that they feel they have the right to tell others how to live, how to be more moral, more virtuous – more ‘American.’ Which is a cruel irony, because I can’t imagine Atticus Finch telling Scout that gay, consenting, loving adults deserved less dignity and recognition than anyone else.

My TV looks like this:

Nanook is doing something all the way up there:

So this is happening:

i celebrated cinco de mayo by depicting a polar bear dressed as a mariachi, with a curly mustache, and playing a trumpet – all the while getting a much needed tan in the arizona sun.

Trader Joe’s is always an interesting experience with B Team, because she likes to make a scene in the checkout line and encourage our cashiers to think we’re dating. She calls me ‘hon’ and ‘babe’ and I hate it so much because I get really concerned that people might think we are actually together. This usually ends in me preemptively telling people that we are just friends, which is always awkward.

We have different ways of handling things, I suppose.

Anyway, Trader Joe’s was going the way it usually does, and after B Team started saying something ridiculous about our joint spending accounts, our cashier lady expressed both curiosity and confusion at the nature or our relationship. All I could do was blush and shake my head and ask B Team to kindly shut the hell up, at which point she told our cashier about the time I hit her in public because she tried to demonstrate affection. Which is true and I know it sounds bad but it was 100% justified and she knows it.

Moving on, once we left TJ’s and were headed home, I asked B Team if she wouldn’t mind coming with me to CVS for my weekly check-up.

As I believe I mentioned in a prior post, I like to check my vitals at the suffocating blood pressure machine located next to the pharmacy at the CVS whenever I get a chance. My numbers are fantastic, by the way – but this weekend we attended an epic pig roast and I consumed all manner of things Alton Brown would frown upon, so I wanted to check my stats, stat.

So we got to CVS, and I sat in the weird machine and learned that my numbers are still good.

And then B Team sat in the chair… AND HER PULSE WAS TEN POINTS LOWER THAN MINE!! I don’t know why I took that as a personal affront, but I told her we weren’t leaving until I measured my stats again – this time without my sweater on so the machine could more accurately suffocate my arm. I don’t know why I needed to be weirdly competitive about this, but I made her move, took off my sweater, and sat down in the machine and made it measure me again.

Apparently B Team thought this was funny, and decided she needed to take a photo of me acting like an ass, so she asked for my phone.

And this is where it gets dicey.

I gave her my phone and she took a photo. Sadly, on my phone the only way to look at the most recent photo is to go through all the old ones. Which is what she did to try and find the photo of me getting my arm suffocated. And as it dawned on me she probably shouldn’t be scrolling through my photos…

she found something that was not, necessarily, for her eyes, and  started freaking out. i also started to panic because i didn’t want to move because moving and/or talking can tamper with your results on the blood pressure machine, so i was getting simultaneously embarrassed and angry and concerned that my results wouldn’t be accurate but i couldn’t move! and she just kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!!’

and then I started laughing so hard I began to cry, which obviously confused the machine, which inevitably refused to measure my blood pressure, and said all my vitals were ‘error…error…error…’

I know, I know. She is so adorable it makes me want to vomit all over myself, and I’m incredibly lucky and honestly can’t believe my good fortune. However, to offset just how nauseatingly romantic and wonderful this whole experience has been, I want to assure you that it has been balanced by just enough of my awkwardness and social dis-graces to make it palatable to friends and family.

To wit, I would like to tell you a little bit about the time I proposed to her several days ago.

Part 1 – The Proposal, aka ‘Wife Me Up?’ aka ‘Let’s Make Honest Women Out of Each Other, Eh??’

It was Friday evening and Nanook was flying into Dulles and I was so excited. I’ve known I was going to propose for months now, and since she had told me she had already purchased a wedding dress, I was 94% confident in my chances of proposal-related success. Nonetheless, I wanted it to be a surprise and epically suave and romantic. To achieve such lofty romantic heights, I got a lovely hotel room, decorated it with flowers, candles, food, booze, and all manner of ‘will you tie your boat to my dock’ type-stuff. The plan was to pick her up from the airport, return to the hotel, and then earnestly look into her eyes and tell her how much I love her, and ask her if she would do me the honor of taking my hand in marriage.

That was the plan.

A possibly relavant aside at this point is to mention that apparently I reckoned that for this particular night to be magical and successful, I needed to maintain proper levels of hydration. So, while I was decorating the room and watching a British murder mystery to steady my nerves, I drank a lot of water. A lot.

Then I raced to Dulles to pick her up. During the drive to the airport it became apparent that my bladder had reached maximum capacity, but I refused to park and pee at the airport because that didn’t sound appropriately romantic for the occasion…so I let the situation fester.

Once we found one another and we left the airport, I acted all nonchalant as I drove us back to the hotel – aka like I had no notion of proposing and like I was decidedly not going to pee my pants. But by the time we got to the hotel and I opened the door, I knew I was in trouble. Because once I opened the door to the hotel room and she was greeted by the sweet sounds of my epically romantic playlist (that brilliantly combined Natalie cole, d’angelo and dave matthwes band – nbd), the smell of dozens of fresh flowers, and a beautiful display of wine, candles, and appetizers, she understandably wanted to turn around, gaze lovingly into my eyes, and talk. So she began to gaze at me, lovingly and beautifully and whathaveyou, and said some things that I honestly don’t really remember – because all I could concentrate on was how I was going into this marriage with what was sure to be a serious bladder infection due to my inability to pee at regular and proper intervals. I got really ancy, and shifty, and I’m sure she thought the question was coming. So I opened my mouth, unsure of how to say just what I was thinking, and she got quiet, and then…

I told her I really needed to use the restroom.

It was decidedly not the suavest way to enter a proposal ever, but when I did finally return from the washroom, waited an appropriate amount of time between a bathroom visit and an important life event, and asked her the big question-

she said yes!!! AND I’m pretty sure I don’t have a bladder infection – so I’m fairly confident that we are entering into this union as prepared as we could have hoped for. now all i have to do is work on being less of a neurotic asshat, and we’re all set!

You see, approximately 11 months ago we signed a lease for this place because we were desperate. It was May 2011, and B Team had recently decided to relocate from her Georgia peach plantation where she did naught but sip sweet tea and recite lines from ’Gone With the Wind’ all day, and join me in the condo I was renting in Alexandria.

Sadly, by ‘join me’ I mean she squatted in my kitchen for five months.

The squatting scenario wasn’t even the weirdest thing about that situation. I had rented the apartment “furnished,” which meant that all non-sitting furniture seemed to made entirely of glass, most of the walls were completely covered in mirrors, and there was a very large rotating circular bed/chair in the living room that I believe was intended solely to pleasure your apartment guests atop of.

And while this was initially an exciting change of pace from the minimalist Scandinavian decor i grew up with, it became frightening fairly quickly. Unsurprisingly, we ended up breaking the lease in Alexandria to move to our current place. And that move went really, really badly.

On Saturday, the day of our move, we found out that we were not allowed to move on weekends, that there was a $100 deposit to use the service elevator, and that the condo association wanted the deposit signed in blood. Also, the woman working the front desk told me that moving trucks were not allowed to park on the premises because they looked tacky. I asked if the movers we had hired could park in the loading dock out back? She said ‘No,’ and that if I did she would have to “make some calls.”

So I told the movers to park in the loading dock out back, and figured we would somehow trick building security into not noticing that we were moving an entire apartment down one elevator trip at a time.

When the movers finally parked in the back by the loading dock, I, in my greatest feat of lesbian accomplishments, jimmied the loading dock door open and we started moving all of our shit.

However, at some point our cover was blown, and the front desk lady discovered we were moving AGAINST THE RULES. She was hella pissed, and expressed her grave, scientifically-based concerns that our moving was a fire hazard. She tried to get my attention numerous times to tell me to stop. She called me. She texted me. She sent her husband up to try to talk to me. But it was when she started sending carrier pigeons up to my apartment to tell me to stop that I finally put on my ‘I used to watch Matlock face’ and waltzed downstairs to confront her. I talked for almost two hours about ABSOLUTELY nothing, and refused to let her get a word in edge-wise. I talked about a wide variety of injustices that probably were not incredibly relevant to my present predicament – I talked until B Team texted me that we had gotten all the shit in the truck. at which point I tipped my hat to her, said she was right, and I would cease and desist all my activities. She was exceedingly grateful and got back to not worrying about fire hazards.

I don’t know if there are any lessons here about breaking your lease or employing some strategic thinking to something like moving per se, but I now remember that I love Matlock, so I think this has been helpful to talk through.

And I am under the impression that this has become tedious for people.

For example, last weekend I was in Canada. I was enjoying the sights with Nanook, and being my charming, engaging, girlfriend self, when at some point I reached up to scratch my nose. However, when I did this, I noticed my nose was a little tender.

So I started pressing on it really, really hard.

And then decided it really, really hurt.

Then I reckoned it was broken, and maybe I should lie down.

Later in the day I looked in the mirror and realized that the cause of the tenderness was the result of nothing more than a tiny blemish, and I promptly apologized to Nanook for causing such a scene.

She asked if this type of over-reaction was typical behavior for me.

I said ‘absolutely not.’ I emphasized that I just like to explore all the options for possible injuries, lest I overlook one someday and end up turning into a walking goiter because I played fast and loose with my symptoms.

This is probably also a good time to mention that I tend to exaggerate the amount that I do not exaggerate. As in, I knowingly exaggerate all the time, but I tell people that rumors of my tall-tales are overblown. Now, some may call this lying, but I call it being a good storyteller.

Back to the anecdote I was trying to tell you. After I discovered my nose wasn’t broken, I was still pretty sure I would get away with my little ‘I never, ever exaggerate unless it’s really hilarious’ fib for at least a few more months.

Unfortunately for me, as luck would have it, the following Tuesday night I got a little drunk and decided B Team and I needed to eat a ton of refined carbohydrates smothered in sugar and salt and such. But you see, the thing of it was that – and I swear to the flying spaghetti monster this is true- B Team and I don’t drink anymore, and we eat mighty healthy. So this was pretty abnormal behavior for us. Unsurprisingly, I woke up on Wednesday convinced I was dead, and stuck in some sort of horrendous limbo for people who had committed the most serious of gastrointestinal sins. I was on the bus to work that morning, trying not to vomit, and I realized I had probably contracted malaria.

I don’t know why. I know malaria is a mosquito-borne illness, there are relatively few cases reported in the US, AND I’ve been inoculated, but I thought I should text Nanook and tell her I was dying anyway.

She took the news chillingly well.

I thought maybe she was just putting on a calm façade so that I didn’t get too scared about my imminent demise, which was really selfless of her given all the emotional trauma I was sure she was enduring.

So, I thought it would make her feel better later in the day when I discovered I had probably been bitten by a tsetse fly on the bus on my way home from work, and had thus contracted human sleeping syndrome. I figured it would make her feel better because I was pretty sure the sleeping syndrome would literally beat the malaria out of me, and maybe my immune system would be so confused that it would go Rambo on the collective infectious diseases’ asses, and I would heroically survive.

I thought Nanook would be both relieved, and impressed. However, this was not the case. She texted me back saying a friend of hers was confused how I could ‘beat the malaria I never had.’ To which I replied that neither her nor her non-MD friends could prove I DIDN’T contract malaria earlier that day. To which she completely ignored me for the remainder of the evening.

What was I talking about? Oh, yes. The faux-hypochondria thing. The whole point of this is to say that when I was 8 years old, I was CONVINCED that I was going to spontaneously combust. It’s all because I watched Unsolved Mysteries one too many times, I have a lightly over-active imagination, and would lie awake at night in my bed and concentrate on trying to discern if any of my limbs felt hotter than the others – because that was the sign I was about to be engulfed in flames and I needed to jump into my shower.

Which isn’t so much a story with a traditional ‘end’ as it is a detail about my life.

You’re welcome.

laurence as an errol flynn-esque swashbuckler. which would be hilarious if you were born in 1917.

Maybe if I had some more friends in their twilight years, we could all sit around and watch M*A*S*H together, the way the kids these days get together and watch Jersey Shore. We could make a drinking game out of it! For example, we could drink every time Radar gets made fun of for being short, or every time the doctors run out of penicillin. Then we could start talking about how Korea was the real war, the war that started it all – and how we miss republicans like Ike.

M*A*S*H is absolutely my favorite TV show of all time, followed closely by Star Trek: The Next Generation. My favorite TV moment ever was when Roseanne made a MASH reference, because it made me feel like it was hip to like M*A*S*H. It’s possible that I misunderstood the hip factor involved in watching Roseanne, but, nonetheless, I was super excited. My second favorite TV moment of all time was when there was a Roseanne/AbFab crossover special – which brings me to another benefit of having older friends.

I would have people who enjoy watching old British serials with! Like ‘Are You Being Served,’ and ‘Bless Me, Father.’ I actually think old people would really dig me because, given my most recent haircut, my style icon appears to be Dame Judi Dench circa her ‘As Time Goes By’ years.

i really have no idea why my memes of famous women i admire get so aggressive.

Speaking of old British women being my favorite type of women, I also love Agatha Christie. I work with a wonderful lady who understands my fondness for the author, and we exchange books and DVD’s, but it would be so much more convenient if my regular friends knew/cared who she was. For example, anytime B Team ‘discovers’ something obvious, I tell her she has pulled ‘a mighty fine Hercule Poirot.’ Which is hilarious, but she never laughs.

It would also be nice to have someone to go with me when I get my monthly check-up at CVS. You see, when I pick up my vittles from the pharmacist, I make a habit out of getting my blood pressure taken at that weird arm-suffocating machine. As of this weekend, 116/68, which was much better than the dude with a cane who got his vitals measured right before me.

There’s no real conclusion to this rant, because old people are allowed to just trail off, and it’s cool and we all get on about our business. So. Go get on about your business and start watching M*A*S*H [it’s on TVLand literally every day] so we have something to talk about next time we hang out.