Squoosh

I go through small lusty obsessions, and I know you do too. They come in phases, with some recurring themes. Like for example, when I was 16, it was all about Brad Pitt. I had a trillion Brad Pitt posters and I even bought the Brad Pitt Biography. Poo-Defensive-Jen and I got together one weekend and had a Brad Pitt Video-Fest, where we watched a whole bunch of Brad Pitt movies in a row. I remember watching Seven, and being scared out of my mind, but it was okay, because Brad Pitt was in it. Brad Pitt is always a recurring theme.

Other lucky winners of my favour have included Orlando Bloom, Christian Bale, and Matthew McConaughey.

Recently, the love of my imaginary life has been Patrick Wilson. He's not as showy-good-looking as Brad Pitt, and I think he's actually balding a little bit. At the very least, I think his hair might be thinning. But he's very goodlooking and sexy upon sexy. To make a long rant short, he's a good actor, and a good singer, and he's really hot, and it would be pretty awesome to be routinely pinned under him for no particular reason.

Now everyone is going to jump to Eric's defense. Go ahead, say it...

"Eric is a wonderful husband, and you are terrible."

"You should be happy being pinned under Eric! And if you're not, I'm sure there are people who would love to take over your job for you."

"Poor Eric, he loves you so much, and he's so good to you. And you are not good to him, look at you with your lusting after imaginary men who are balding."

"My name is David and I want Eric for myself."

To be honest, I was starting to worry that my big big imaginary crush was heading into Pathetic territory. And then yesterday, I went on a Patrick Wilson internet browse.

I Googled "Patrick Wilson" (I'm not going to lie, it wasn't the first time) , and clicked on random sites to see if there were any cute images I'd missed. Is that sad? I don't care, you're probably going to do it after reading this post to see what the big deal is. And there are message boards. So yesterday, I thought I'd read some of these message boards to see what they were all about. There was an "Official Patrick Wilson Love" board which sounded especially intriguing, so I went on to read...

And wow, I'm nowhere near as obsessed as these people. I felt instantly better about my big big crush. Because as much as I have a big big crush, I do not belong to a message board like that!

These people (women mostly, I presume) post passive aggressive comments that are designed to edge out other people in the competition of Who Loves Patrick the Most. Oh yes, they're on a first name basis with him. And they call his (sexy pregnant) wife Dagmara Dominczyk "Dag". Which really just creeps me out. One woman told everyone how she bought her husband an outfit like Patrick Wilson's in Phantom, and made him wear it. They all list how many times they watched Phantom of the Opera, both in the theatres and on their special edition dvd at home. You get extra special bonus points if you went to see him live in The Full Monty or Oklahoma!, and the people who have actually met him? They're super-cocky, and they get the most bragging rights, and everyone is endlessly jealous of them. They also abbreviate his movies and songs and make them into acronyms. So Phantom is 'POTO' and the song All I Ask of You is 'AIAOY'.

Yet nobody actually has the guts to come out and say anything like "I want him to violate me in ways that would make my father want to stick his fingers in his eyes and scramble his own brains." They say things like "He is squooshy. I would love to squoosh him". What does that mean? Obviously a thinly-veiled euphemism for "I want him to violate me in ways that would make my father want to stick his fingers in his eyes and scramble his own brains.", but I imagine because they all want to try to meet him, they're afraid that he'll know what they said. And the person who made the "squoosh" comment was 'playfully' chastised by someone who was probably pretty upset that this girl was thinking sexual thoughts about him, "Oh, you need to wash your mind out with soap! LOL"

But the best part was when one person proclaimed "I want him!!" Then someone jumped all over her and told her to get in line. Then everybody else chimed in to agree, and to announce their own presence in the line. Then they argued over who was at the front of the line.

My own lusty obsession pales in comparison. I might be silly, but I'm not that silly.

You're probably going to wonder how Eric feels about P.Willy. He's cool. He actually really likes Patrick Wilson himself, and agrees that he's a good actor, a good singer, and he's really hot. The only part he doesn't agree with is my enthusiastic assertion that it would be pretty awesome to be routinely pinned under him for no particular reason. Which is fair.

He's a good man, my Eric. And hot as hell himself. Actually, the ladies at work say that the only reason I like Patrick Wilson is because he's an older, blonde, singing variation of Eric. Not too shabby for Carol.

I will end with a spontaneous haiku.

Hey Patrick you're so
Fine, you're so fine you blow my
Mind, hey Patrick. Squoosh.

Good Wife/Bad Wife

We're now almost seven months into our marriage and I'm wondering, how am I scoring on the Good Wife/Bad Wife meter? I really wanted to be a Good Wife. I would feel pretty bad if I ever overheard someone saying to Eric "Shit dude, you've really got a Bad Wife."

You know who's fault this is? It's my friends. My childhood friends are always so quick to defend Eric in everything, and I start to wonder how Bad of a Wife I have to be for my friends to turn on me at the drop of a hat. I'm talking about friends I've known so long, we may as well be cousins.

Like perfect example, my post yesterday about the soup. I wrote what, one sentence about Eric having non-satisfying poo? And my friend Jen, who I've known since before we both had braces, messaged me on MSN almost immediately with "I don't think Eric will appreciate you talking about his poo on your blog."

Completely unprovoked.

Anyway, it turns out that Eric really didn't appreciate me talking about his poo on the blog, but he's okay with it because he loves me and knows I like to talk about poo.

See, it's crap like this that makes people think he's so very good to me and I'm not good to him. I'll bet Eric could strangle a retarded person in front of my friends, and they would go "Aww. Eric's so good with his hands."

Here's what happened from yesterday evening to this morning. I will divide the story into alternating categories.

Why I Think I'm a Good Wife:
When Eric got home, I had timed a nice pasta dinner to come off the stove just right, because I knew he was hungry and was craving pasta. He had just enough time to change out of his work clothes before sitting down to a kiss and a delicious meal. I also brought him a beer, because I know he likes it when I bring him beer. It makes him giddy.

Why I Suspect I May Be a Bad Wife:
I started strongly hinting that he should do the dishes about 3 minutes after we finished eating.

Why I Think I'm a Good Wife:
Eric wanted to watch the Olympics after cleaning the kitchen, and I wanted to read my book. So as a compromise, I decided to read my book on the couch next to Eric while he watched the Olympics so we could be near each other, despite the fact that the tv noise is distracting.

Why I Suspect I May Be a Bad Wife:
I ignored Eric when he tried to talk to me about stuff on the tv. I wasn't watching the tv. Why did he insist on having conversations with me about the US snowboarder when I wasn't watching? Finally, he got the hint and said "I guess I should stop talking to you while you're reading?" And I said without looking up "Yeah, you really should."

Why I Think I'm a Good Wife:
After I finished my book, I went to have a shower and get ready for bed. I've been exhausted lately and my main goal every day is to get to bed early. But then Eric got worked up and started complaining and whining. He complained that I hadn't spent any time with him at all, and he wanted me to watch figure skating with him so we could discuss the individual performances. I felt pretty helpless at this point, because what are you supposed to do when your hetero husband pulls a big-eyed face and guilts you for not watching figure skating with him? My hands were tied. So I had a quick shower, and came out just in time for Plushenko. Together, we watched as Jeff Buttle won the bronze. Eric was happy again, and we kissed and snuggled down into bed together and went to sleep.

Why I Suspect I May Be a Bad Wife:
This morning, Eric sat on the bed after his shower and tenderly stroked my hair.
Husband: "Wake up, sweetie-pie..."
Wife: (wakes up, suddenly not so helpless, starts shouting) "I don't know why the fuck you made me stay up last night to watch figure skating!! I am so GODDAMN TIRED!!!"
Husband: !!!!
Wife: (shouting, near tears) "All I've wanted all week is to get to bed early, I am on my PERIOD! I am BLEEDING between my legs, and because of YOU I've been sleeping late EVERY NIGHT!"
Husband: "I'm sorry, Carol. I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do to for you?"
Wife: (sarcastic) "Yeah, you could have put some gas in the car for me yesterday!"

Oh yeah, that was another thing, the gas light had come on, but I hate going to the gas station, plus the car was frozen from the freezing rain. So I had driven the car home to thaw in the parking garage, then suggested that Eric go to put gas in the car last night sometime during Weir's long program. He didn't want to, and I guess I was bitter about that.

I guess the the question is "Does this good stuff compensate for this bad stuff?"

As a visual example, does a bride who looks like this:

make up for the fact that the same bride can look like this:

I will end with a spontaneous haiku.

Do good wives awake
Swearing like ill-groomed diseased
Whores? O, I fear not.

I overheated my soup

Campbell's "Soup at Hand" was 3 for $5 yesterday at Loblaws. We were at Loblaws because Eric complained that he hasn't been making satisfying poo all week, so I suggested we go to Loblaws and buy oranges. My entire family, immediate as well as extended, has believed for decades that if you have trouble pooing, you need only eat an orange, and poo will come racing out. My brother once couldn't poo for over a week, and then he ate an orange and had a huge poo within two hours. We went on a ski trip with my uncle's family last year, and they brought oranges with them, and we were all required to eat a minimum of one orange each night. If you ate two, you were loudly praised.

Anyway, back to the soup. I had never tried it, but my co-worker said they were good. We happened to be checking out the soup aisle, and I saw the 3 for $5 sign. Priced normally at $1.99 each, I had abstained from purchasing them, because almost all Campbell's soups contain msg, and $1.99 for 284mL of msg soup was not a good deal in my books. $1.67 for 284mL of msg soup is more like it.

I stopped liking the cream soups awhile ago, so I got three of the "Chicken with Mini-Pasta" soup. Just now I went to microwave it for the prescribed 1 minute and 15 seconds. We have a really ghetto microwave at work, with a turn dial. I have never had any experiences with a microwave that wasn't digital before starting this job. So I kind of had to estimate, and ended up microwaving it for more like 1 minute and 40 seconds. I took it out and stirred it with a stir-stick like they say you should, to make sure your soup is uniformly hot. But it didn't seem hot enough at all. So I put it back in the microwave, for an extra 15 seconds, like the container suggests you do if your soup doesn't seem hot enough. Except that this turn dial doesn't go to 15 seconds, you have to put it to at least a minute before it does anything. And so I just turned it to 2 minutes, and counted to 15 myself. Then I took the soup out and stirred it again. And it still didn't seem hot enough. So I put it back in the microwave and just let it run the full two minutes. By the time I took it out, I had microwaved my 284mL of soup for almost four minutes. It was starting to get kind of frothy on the top. But honestly, the soup really didn't seem that hot. I might have put it in for longer, but someone else had come into the servery and wanted the microwave (she also had Campbell's "Soup at Hand", in "Creamy Tomato").

So I took my soup back to my desk. And that's when I realized my soup was too hot. Way too hot to put to my lips and drink from the sippy cup mouth slot. I would have burned off my lip-skin. This is why they don't want you to heat it to near-boiling temperatures, because it's meant to be drunk from a sippy cup mouth slot, not aired out in a big wide soup-plate, and blown on in a soup-spoon before being slurped with lots of air to help cool it down. It has now been 25 minutes since I got back from the servery, and I'm still too scared to drink my soup.

Nothing is happening

The complaints are pouring in.

"Carol, there's nothing new on your blog."

"If you're not going to update your blog, don't put it in your msn name it's very misleading!"

"Carol, you're too hot for words, how do you do it?"

All are valid comments. So I promised to post something new...and I have nothing. Nada. Nothing is happening in the Life of Newlyweds. Last week, I was kind of down. With my 26th birthday coming up, I haven't been in the best of moods, and I'm convinced I haven't done enough growing. But who wants to write about that?

Last night, I made a giant lemon cheesecake. It must have weighed 10 pounds. I use the people at work as guinea pigs for my culinary adventures, and they all said it was delicious. This means that they couldn't detect the arsenic, which is what I was hoping. Success!

Also last night, Eric did some laundry, including my new Victoria's Secret robe. Then he hung it up to dry on top of our existing robes behind the bedroom door. Who does this? Our existing robes therefore became damp.

This past weekend was Chinese New Year, and for the first time, I was responsible for giving out cash to people. This is a barbarous practice inflicted on newlyweds, for the Chinese are a cruel people. See also 'foot binding'. Only I never had to do that.

My highlights are growing out.

I'm not sleeping well, and the new hairdryer we bought likes to savagely suck in the ends of my hair and not let go, causing me to have to pitifully pull them out, snapping each strand apart, the acrid smell of burning hair hanging like death in the bathroom air. We need to return that piece of crap.

My left knee hurts.

Eric started spelling it "nasagna", which I find cute. My Wusthof knives are heaven to use, it doesn't matter what I'm cutting, it feels like I'm cutting a peeled hard-boiled egg.

And that is about it. I will end with a spontaneous haiku.

Winter makes me ill
Inwardly my soul vomits
Eric cleans it up