The marriage bed

My wife and I have a problem in the bedroom.

I've slept in more places than I can count--from five-star hotels to hammocks, I've seen it all. I've woken up on bare mattresses in houses I didn't recognize, in a bed with two other guys in New Orleans, and once or twice on a bar stool. I've slept on waterbeds, car seats, futon mattresses, and sleeping bags. For going on 12 years, I've shared these surfaces with the same woman.

My wife put up with my sleeping choices for a long time. I'm one who objects to change for the purpose of change. For the first few years of our marriage, we slept on a bed I bought in college from my then-bed-salesman buddy. He told me a got a "deal" on it, but I'm pretty sure I just paid enough commission for him to buy a dime bag. Regardless, since I dropped the cash, I figured to be buried with the mattress.

Several years back, my wife started complaining about quality of our sleeping surface. She begged me to actually buy a big boy bed. I fought her for months, but finally acquiesced after waking up impaled on a bed spring. It was time. The new mattress was perfect. I kicked myself for not giving in sooner.

The bed has served us well, as evidenced by the kid who runs around the house singing about the condition of his underwear and calling himself Mr. Incredible. Recently, though, superhero performances between mommy and daddy Incredible have been a bit off-kilter. As I said, my wife and I have a problem in the bedroom.

Across the fruited plains, couples will use this Valentines Day to celebrate the fruits of their marriage. Some might even do it with fruit. For many folks, this might be one of a few times they get it on all year long. Some of the more adventurous couples might get a hotel room, park bench, or back seat of a Chevette. Most people, though, will light a few Polo cologne scented candles, break out a can of Redi Whip, and head to the marriage bed.

I'm no engineer. My bedroom activity is more art than science. So, I don't know what's wrong. For whatever reason--excessive use, neglect, tectonic movement--the Mt. Otis bed is an unsafe place. The danger doesn't lie only in the freaky-freaky times. My wife and I can be sitting quietly in bed watching Alton Brown and, without notice, the mattress will fall off the bed rails and crash to the floor. When it happens during Good Eats, it's annoying. When it happens at other times, I almost feel the need to say, "I don't know what's wrong. This has never happened before."

There is a sound that perfectly describes the moment. While hard to put into words, imagine a trombone playing three descending notes of dispair. Wonh, wonh, wonnnnnnnnnh. If there ever was a picture of bad naked, it's me struggling against the weight of a giant mattress while trying to re-adjust the box springs in just such a way that the sleeping surface will not slip off the rails and crash to the floor.

The problem has been going on for a few months now. We tried everything to fix the problem. We employed our deepest knowledge of physics, our most spiritual pleas to higher powers, and--just once--called a shaman in to chant over our love nest. The bed would hold for days at a time. Then, at the most inconvenient of times, it would tilt, slip, and collapse like a house of cards.

My wife and I are adventurous to a degree. I mean, we've not yet joined a swingers club or anything, but we don't mind sleeping on a semi-dangerous surface. However, when the bed hits the hardwood in the middle of Good Eats, I stand a good chance of missing once of Alton Brown's witticisms. Nobody wants that.

In the spirit of Valentines Day, I trudged up to the bedroom this morning and wrestled the mattress and box springs off the bed frame (I was fully clothed this time). I opened my tool box, broke out the socket set, and prentended I knew what to do with with man-things. Thirty minutes later, I was jumping up and down on the bed, daring the mattress to collapse. It appears, for the moment, I have fixed the problem. However, with issues like this, the more you think about it, the bigger a problem it becomes. So, I'm trying not to think about it.

My wife and I made a deal for this fake holiday. No gifts, no flowers, no candy, no cards. We only plan to spend the evening together and, maybe, watch the decidedly romantic "Miller's Crossing" in bed. And I swear to Gabriel Byrne, if the bed hits the floor in flagrante delicto, I'm going to cry. Like a little baby.

Glory be

When my wife answered the phone, I let loose a string of profanity that made even her blush. This is the woman who uses four-letter words in job interviews and to describe puppies.

"What? You've been in a wreck?" she said.

I was about to run my car off the road, but I hadn't crashed yet. Instead, I had just discovered that one of two listenable radio stations in G-Vegas (96.7 WBZT, The Buzzard) was about to switch formats. The jock sounded like he no longer need a strap and was promising that the big news was coming on Christmas day. Despite the fact that the station was biding the time in the interim by playing the Pointer Sisters, I knew what was coming. Indeed, I checked an industry message board when I got home.

Inspirational Top 40? When was the last time anything in the Top 40 inspired you?

I discovered demise of decent free radio as I drove around on one final Christmas shopping run. It occurred to me when I left that Christmas time would be a very easy time to engage in adultery. This morning, I was able to leave the house without telling my wife where I was going or when I would be back. When she called to inquire about lunch, she told me what she'd like to eat. "But that's probably not convenient to where you are," she said, obviously looking for a little hint. I didn't give it up.

When I got home with her sandwich, I told her about my adultery theory.

"I'm glad you've thought this out," she said.

Obviously, my attempt at holiday humor was lost. I really should get in the spirit of things here. And what better than Inspirational Top 40, right?

While eating my sandwich, I perused the news and discovered that Texas has gone and done it again. The legislature is about to impose a $5 per customer charge on strip club patrons. Now, I haven't been to a strip club in years (except to play poker, of course), but this seems a little more than unconstitutional to me. Like most sin taxes out there, the revenue from this one is going to a good cause--in this case to help rape victims. Still, it's really dangerous to start legislating morality, and further punitively taxing that which the lawmakers can't eliminate. The story linked quotes a constitutional expert as saying, "Laws like this would expose any unpopular industry to punitive taxes. It could be abortion clinics."

Well, that would be a really solid argument, but for the fact that many people who don't approve of strip clubs would probably be behind the taxation of abortion clinics as well. Perhaps a better way to test it would be to assign a $5 surcharge to listeners of an Inspirational Top 40 station.

Either way, I'm certain of this: The music in the strip clubs is better.

Faking it

These days, it's rare for the wife and I to go out for a good meal. Unless there is a shark hanging from the ceiling, a hostess with a packet of crayons, or a giant mouse running around the joint, we don't tend to go out for dinner as much as we did in the past. It's hard to enjoy a five course meal and a cup of good coffee while a three year old shoots drinking straw wrappers at the adjacent table.

Saturday, we were able to head out to a place recommended by some fellow bloggers. American Grocery sated our need for something above the traditional fare offered by places with kids menus. I had venison--so fresh and rare, I imagine it was plucked from the nearby woods that morning--in a fig demi glace. I also ate organ meat, but that's another story for a different day.

When time arrived for the dessert course, the wife decided on some homemade doughnuts stuffed with mocha cream. Though our friends were there, talking and enjoying saying panna cotta in a thick Italian accent, it was impossible to miss what started happening to the woman I married. With a touch of mocha cream on her lip, she let loose an ever so quiet moan. Her body shuddered. Her eyes may or may not have rolled up into the back of her head.

Yep, there it was. I privately raised my coffee toward the kitchen and thought, "My compliments to the pastry chef." I didn't learn until later that the pastry chef was named Susan. The implications and possibilities were boundless, but left for another time.

***

Anthony Bourdain once wrote about the--if not always sensual--sexual nature of cooking and eating. By definition, he contends agreeing to eat a meal cooked by someone else is a submissive act, one giving up any illusion of control. You open your mouth and let someone else slip something inside. It's the concession of power for the pure sensual pleasure of letting someone else do while you enjoy.

I like to be in the kitchen. It's a creative and therapeutic outlet. It is especially gratifying when, after a few hours with knives, herbs, and meats, I get to watch someone really enjoy the food. It is akin to the satisfaction of another creative and experimental outlet that takes place in another room in the house. A job well done is a job well done, if you you know what I mean.

Marriage can be a tricky thing, though. After years and years of eating the same meals prepared by the same cook, there is an unintentional routine and expectation that arrives at dinner time. My wife knows the meats, the rubs, and how long it's going to take for the meal to be finished. It's the type of thing that leads a guy to experimentation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, though, it ends with my wife slowly placing malformed rice noodles onto her tongue and forcing a "this is good, honey" from her abused mouth.

There, dear friends, lies the rub. If cooks are the dominant types, they like to believe they have done good, that they have given pleasure, that their toil and art served some greater good. They like to see animated pleasure, and in its absence, at least like to know they have gotten your tastebuds off. For some folks, it's enough to hear, "This is good." Others, like me, like to really believe it.

Indeed, the routine and familiarity of marriage goes both ways. I generally know whether my wife is enjoying something or merely tolerating it. I use the word "generally," because, despite really enjoying the process of pleasure, I am never 100% confident.

That's right. I never know for sure if she is...faking it.

***

A home eater has to walk a very thin line when dealing with a semi-confident cook. Being overly critical of a meal or the one who cooks it could result in a complete loss of confidence that turns into tentative cooking (a tragedy in itself) or a complete abandonment of the kitchen altogether. However, being too careful about the cook's feelings and feigning enjoyment is even worse.

Let's go back to the bedroom (he says as if we ever really left). I think we can all agree that it's pretty clear when a man is satisfied. Moreover, it's not the hardest thing in the world to accomplish that goal. Give him a big enough burger and a basket of fries, if you will, and by and by, he's going to walk away happy. A woman, however, is a fine diner. Something from the drive thru just ain't gonna cut it. Furthermore, figuring out whether the lady's epicurean needs were met is as difficult as reading a french menu through a napkin. She may have acted like she enjoyed it, but there is always a lingering doubt as to whether she enjoyed it.

There are times, of course, when it's pretty clear. Saturday night, as my wife's mouth slacked and she shimmied in her chair at the taste of the mocha cream, Susan the Pastry Chef had obviously scored one for the good guys. Down the table, however, I couldn't get read on how much pleasure Cheryl was getting from her goat cheese gnocchi. Her husband probably knew whether she enjoyed it, but I was at a loss. When she shared a piece with me, I felt a familiar tingle in the good places, so I had to assume Cheryl liked it as well. She said it was good, but I would never know if she was faking it.

We go to restaurants because there is no commitment. The chefs are the pros. You can usually assume you're going to walk away satisfied, but there is no risk of hurt feelings if you don't like the food. You're only out the cost of the meal, rather than the potential hurt feelings and marital strife of not liking your partner's cooking. What's more, when the server asks if everything is alright, you can fake it without longterm consequences.

At home, though, faking it is the worst possible temptation. In the face of a sub par meal, efforts to make your cooking spouse feel good about what he's prepared can only lead to one thing: more sub par meals. As it is with the time spent in the martial bed, a marriage beset by gastronomic dissatisfaction is not one you want to lead.

So, friends, when you feel the urge to say, "This is a good meal," when, in fact, you'd rather have had KFC, just don't do it. Faking it is the path to a lifetime of of wishing you'd ordered takeout and a couple of items from the Adam and Eve catalog.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to run. This is the first night in nearly three weeks that I'll be able to go to bed with my wife and I have to make a stop at American Grocery for some of that mocha cream. I wonder if Susan the Pastry Chef has plans?

Doing the Nasty

My wife and I haven't been sleeping together.

For the past few nights, I've slept on the couch or in my office, curled up under an old blanket or with some random pillow that just doesn't feel right. At the moment, my relationship with the wife is such that if I see her, I walk in the other direction. If she dares enter a room with me, she knows she'll get nothing more than a finger pointed in the other direction. I barely have to speak to her anymore. She knows to get the hell away from me. And, try as she may, she can't bring herself to speak to me either.

Strep throat will do that to you.

I don't think I'm breaking any martial vows by telling you my wife's tolerance for pain is equivalent to a three year-old who knows doting adults are watching. She'd rather suffer years of water boarding than stub her toe. Of course, she is also the only member of this family to drop a seven pound weight out of her crotch, so I can't say too much. However, if I were going to say too much, I might say that she handles the pain of strep throat...well, I guess about like anybody else handles the pain of strep throat. I, for one, can't remember ever having been afflicted with the illness. My mom, ever the champion of the Mother Class, insists I did have strep as a kid and likely handled it pretty badly. She also tells me that it feels like someone took a heavy grade sandpaper and snaked out your esophagus. My wife just says it hurts worse than any sore throat she's ever had.

Yesterday her doctor, in spite of a "false negative" strep test, diagnosed my wife with a "nasty throat" and sent her home with some antibiotics. Where normally I might be a bit intrigued by the concept of a spousal nasty throat, in this case, I was willing the believe that the doctor--again, in spite of a negative test--was likely right. And even if she wasn't right, I still wasn't going to go anywhere near my wife.

Now, in normal cases, I'd be a real fucking hero about all of this. If it meant I had to lick said "nasty throat" to prove my love for my wife, I'd do it. I have a fairly decent immune system and only get sick once or twice a year. This time though, I can't afford to take any chances. I'm getting ready to go on an eleven day international trip, during which I figure to be working 16 hours a day or so and traveling on every mode of uncomfortable transport you can imagine (aside: there should be a law that coach must be described as "coach" and not "tourist class" or some other "class." Coach is coach and it means it will suck, no matter how you look at it).

Before the "nasty" diagnosis, I was avoiding close contact and deep high-school-style kissing with my wife. Now, she gets me in thirty-second shots (that's enough snickering from the peanut gallery). That is, I pop into the bedroom to bring her water or broth and noodle soup. She takes it, rasps something that sounds like "I love you" or "I wish you were dead" and crawls back under the covers. And me? Well, I'm Mr. Mom for a while. See, my kid's pain tolerance is better than my wife's, but he's still only two. And with me getting ready to hit the road, the wife can't really afford to give the kid Nasty Throat.

And so now, as the kid naps and I pound through my work-work, I realize I'm unshowered, unshaven, and generally disgusting. I've slept about 12 hours out of the last 72. I actually feel okay so far. However, if this continues for much longer, I'm going to have to see about finding some home remedy for the Nasty.

More on the upcoming trip to come. The kid is stirring and I need to wash myself.

Friday Mental Massage: Cave love

"Don't sleep too late," my wife said. "It's cave-sleeping weather."

She closed the bedroom door, leaving the brand new memory on an infant-fresh day. That was quite a moment, I thought, though no one watching would've noticed.

The tone in her voice wasn't accusatory or chiding. It was the voice of a girlfriend who had to run off to work while her boyfriend stayed in bed after a long night of lovemaking.

In truth, we'd gone to bed early last night. She'd drifted to sleep on my shoulder while I read a fairly hilarious George Saunders story. It was humid and warm when we went to sleep. This morning, there was a cold spring rain making noise on the roof. It was, in fact, cave-sleeping weather--the kind of sky that makes a bedroom darker and a blanket warmer.

Early days in our relationship, the wife lived in a gorgeous place that backed up to a small forested area. Her bedroom was on the lowest level and enjoyed all-day shade. Some days, we'd stay in bed all day long, two young lovers in their college cave. We'd laugh when we realized it was 5pm and we had yet to start our real world day.

When the weather gets like it is today, our old instincts take over and it's hard to get out of bed. We remember what it was like to spend the day exerting energy only on each other.

Real life, of course, doesn't allow for such selfishness. There are jobs, kids, bills, errands, and a host of other responsibilities that make us get up and get on with the day. It's the life we built and a life we love. I don't think either of us regularly pines for the old days to the degree that it makes us regret giving up the hedonistic times.

This morning, though, I saw just a hint of my old girlfriend. When she left me in bed to get on with real life, she had a glimmer in her eye and a smoke in her voice that made me remember what she looked like a decade ago when she would slip out of our little cave on her way to work.

Tonight, our babysitter will be here at 6:15. We have reservations at one of the new, hip, trendy places in town. After that, we'll either go catch a movie or just come home and watch something on TV. Tomorrow, real life will start again at the break of dawn and we'll do it all over again.

And I'm not sure either of us could be any happier about it.

Timeless

Greenville, South Carolina is one of those places you'd never go on a whim. Ten years ago, if you'd asked me to find it on a map, I maybe could've pointed within 400 miles of the Greenville dot. When I describe it to friends from London or Amsterdam or Madrid, I say, "You've heard of Atlanta and Charlotte? It's halfway between those two cities."

Greenville is more than that, though. I always tell people who ask, "I ended up in Greenville by accident and never left." That's basically true. In TV news, when some one offers you a decent job that is better than the one you have, you take it. If that job is in Anchorage, Glendive, or Greenville, you take it. That was what happened with my wife and I. She was offered a job. Then, by virtue of her talent and her employer's desire to prevent me from working for the competition, I was offered a job. We moved, married, bought a house, had a kid, and called Greenville home.

A few of you have been here, either for the wedding or for Bradoween. You've seen bits and pieces of why we stay here. The city is vibrant, the climate is comfortable, and the people are slightly more forward-thinking than the rest of the South.

It was in this environment that we packed up our new family-mover and went to the downtown park along the Reedy River. It is probably the most beautiful place in the city. It's green, flowered, waterfally, and generally among the most comfortable places to spend an afternoon. Yesterday was a pre-St. Pats day Irish festival. Thousands of people were out, drinking Guinness, listening to Irish music, and eating Irishy food. I had the kid, the wife, and this laptop in tow. Sunday is a rough day for me work-wise and I couldn't afford to be without the 'puter. The park has wireless access, so, well, it worked out. As the band played and my kid danced, I climbed about 80 feet up a hill and got online. Where everybody else was holding a beer or their child, I was sitting on a rock with a laptop on my knees.

If you're a frequent laptop user, you know it's uncomfortable to wear a watch and type at the same time. My watch is not an overly expensive one, but I love it just the same. It was a gift from my wife. One night, I'd stuck one of my kid's stickers on the back of it. I do things like that to make me feel closer to my kid when I'm away.

I slipped off my watch and put it at my side while I finished up ten minutes of work that couldn't wait. As I completed the task, the band started playing a good song and I looked down to see my wife. Eighty feet below me, she held my son in the air and spun around in the sunshine. I slapped my laptop shut and ran down the hill.

I dodged my way through the crowd, ignoring the jokes from a poker player I know about whether I was playing poker online in the middle of the park. I threw my laptop in the kid's stroller, grabbed him, and danced like we were in our living room and the whole city couldn't see me acting like the idiot I loved to be. The song ended and I walked my son down to a small tributary of the river so he could get dirty.

Daylight Saving Time had come early and I marveled at how beautiful it was outside at 5pm. Wait, was it really 5pm? I pulled up my left arm to check my watch...the watch I'd left sitting on the hill.

I handed the kid to my wife and ran back up the hill. As I suspected, my watch was gone. I spent ten minutes vainly searching to see if the watch had rolled down the decline or gotten buried in some dirt. Nope. Gone.

For reasons I couldn't fully understand, I got mad, then sad, then generally surly. I wondered how long it took for one of the people on the hill to pick up my watch and put it in their pocket. I wondered what they would think when they looked on the back of it and saw the tiny Christmas tree sticker.

My arm has felt lighter ever since, and my heart conversely heavier. I could go out and buy the same watch today, but it wouldn't mean anything. It was a gift. It was a private symbol of my child's innocence. It meant something to me.

I remember a time in the north of France a couple of years ago when I was sitting beside an exceedingly wealthy man. We were both on laptops and both removed our watches to type. Later, we went to a bar and he realized he'd left his watch behind. He sprinted back to where he'd left it, likely because the watch cost more than I would make in four months. People value watches for different reason, I guess.

The past three months have marked some pretty odd changes in my behavior and personality. Perhaps the most evident change is the length of time it takes me to lose patience for something. For as long as I can remember, I have been the most patient person I know. It took a lot to rattle me. It took a great deal more to make me mad. Recently, the smallest of things have sent me down a path to such insane tilt, I barely know myself. If I'm being honest, it's pretty fucking scary.

I've worked pretty hard to attribute the personality change to something specific. I've looked at my lifestyle, my family, my job, my finances...everything that can affect one's personality. While every one of those areas has seen need for improvement in one way or another, I can't really lay the blame on any one of those things. Even putting them all together leaves me wanting for that one vital missing link to explain what's messing with my head.

Yesterday, as I steamed about the lost/stolen watch and elbowed my way through downtown to our favorite little Mexican joint, I couldn't put my finger on it. It took until just a few minutes ago for me to finally admit it to myself.

I'm scared.

I've spent the past decade putting my all into my job. Although I've had better jobs than most people I know, living a life that is defined by your profession has its drawbacks. What's more, I think a great deal of my purported passion for my jobs has been a way to hide my fear of actually trying to...well, okay...be what my friend Wil calls a capital "W" Writer. There. I said it. Again.

I think I have determined that I'm letting time fly by as fast as I can because I'm afraid if I slow down, I'll realize how little I am actually doing. This afternoon, I watched my kid (just two and half years old) put on an entire play with a couple of dump trucks. There was a plot and everything. It was improv. The kid breaks my heart and I can barely write about him without tearing up.

My wife and I have occasional discussions about how we're becoming more summer than spring chickens. Ten years ago, we had our lives ahead of us and could afford to be bohemian and lazy. Now, it feels like each month slips away a little bit faster. We've managed to succeed on a lot of fronts. We're financially comfortable. We have a beautiful son, a home, a dog, two cars, and very little debt. It is the American Dream...which we managed to accomplish in spite of ourselves.

As much as I want to be mad at whoever is wearing my watch today, I can't help but accept the blame for leaving it sitting there to be stolen. I was trying to balance my obligations to work and family and failing miserably at both. Sometimes I get so caught up in trying to make sure I am doing what I am supposed to do that I leave some of the important things behind.

Acceptance, I'm told, is the first step.

True Romance

With each passing year, the Valentines Day expectations around Mt. Otis get smaller and smaller. Mrs. Otis respects my disdain for the holiday. I humor her attempts to make it relevant. This year, we worked together. Instead of buying useless gifts for each other, we went out for a nice meal last Friday night, had some drinks, and came back home to watch "Snakes on a Plane." You know, lovey stuff.

Part of the deal on spending a nice little sum on a meal and $3.99 for SoaP was that we wouldn't buy gifts this year. In the past, I did a lot of the roses and other romantic crap. Mrs. Otis bought very thoughtful gifts (just two months off of Christmas, my level of thoughtfulness and creativity is usually still in the wane). And so, no gifts.

Last night, I was at my local Men's Club. And by Men's Club, I mean room full of boys (ages 17-70), thousands of wagering dollars, and a new cocktail waitress who obviously forgot to tell her breast augmentation expert when it was time to take a coffee break. In this room were discussions of true romance. One man--gold chained and overweight--spoke of divorce, or after a few drinks, the donkey shows he'd seen in the Far East. Other men would speak reverentially about their wives in between mad cussing fits, driven by poker tilt and general rage.

It was around 8pm when Stan walked in holding a red five gallon bucket. Stan is a genial guy, rarely swears, and acts a lot like that older uncle who always gives you a chocolate bar when you see him.

"Oh, jesus," I muttered. I like Stan. I really do. But, this was a little much.

In the bucket rested about 20 dozen roses of varied colors.

"Just in case anybody forgot," he said with a smile. Thirty-five people looked up and pretended to dismiss Stan's entrepreneurial efforts. "Just $20 a dozen," he said.

Stan is not a late-night guy, so I was surprised to see him stay past 1:30am. Even more surprising was the line that formed around him around 1:45am. He was selling and selling fast.

I couldn't decide which was correct. Was this of a bunch of forgetful, unromantic, painfully inept guys? Or was I watching these usually tough men turn a little soft. Before I could figure out which, I was buying a dozen white roses and a little red balloon. Just because I thought they would make the wife smile.

I guess it was pretty clear. We may act like a bunch of tough guys who talk about Far East sex shows and try to wrap our head around the concept of double-D breasts on a 105 pound girl, but deep down, we're romantics. Or something like romantics, anyway.

"Be sure you put them in water before morning," Stan said.

Love comes in many forms...and sometimes it comes in a five gallon bucket.