SECRETS OF A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE REVEALED!

Okay, so maybe not. But today is my second wedding anniversary. I think that’s pretty significant. Upon reflecting on the two years thus far, I’ve realized that our relationship hasn’t changed. Sure, it’s become a better machine, as we’ve come to understand each other better. But, I still see us as the giggly newlyweds of September 18th, 1999. We’re just really happy being married. Why? Well, I guess we kind of like each other.

It’s a shame that so many married couples try to dissuade young couples from the union. Judging from conversations you hear from “veterans” you’d wonder why anyone would ever get married at all. “Might as well give up your freedom.” “Get to know your friends now, because she’ll make damn sure you’ll never see them again.” “Just don’t lose your independence.”

Newsflash: If you are truly worried about any of these issues, you aren’t prepared for marriage.

What I think my wife and I have been successful at is our ability to work as a team. We know what each of us is bringing to the table and we work it to our advantage. Sure, we have arguments over money or property or cleaning the house, but that’s natural for anyone who lives in close proximity to one another. At the end of each night, we’re still together as a unit. And we like it that way.

It’s hard to believe it’s been two years. It’s flown by, and I’ve been happier than hell. Granted, I could use a 65 inch HDTV ready Plasma Television (ahem), but aside from that (and the fact that I could also use a professional grade digital video camera) I think I’m pretty pleased with the relationship. (Could also use a combination DVD/CD/MP3 open region player.) We’re a good match.

One thing I’ve learned (Could use a G4 Mac to help edit those videos) about us is that we’re compatible. (Speaking of compatible, I wouldn’t mind Final Cut Pro for the G4. That would help with non-linear editing.) We gel on everything. Even when we disagree, we know that our combined experiences will get us through it.

I think we have an advantage too. When we started dating, she had a daughter. That put a pretty serious tone over the relationship. I couldn’t very well light-heartedly date a woman with a child. Essentially I would be dating both of them. Any decision I made regarding the relationship would also affect the little one. Their lives depended upon each other.

The point is, before we proceeded to any step in the relationship, we considered the impact. If we had a serious relationship and it didn’t work out, how would that affect the kid? Tough questions. Luckily, I fell pretty hard for both of them. Despite the fact that they both pile things, instead of putting them away. (Whack! OW!)

So what are those secrets that I alluded to? Well, if you want a successful marriage, consider what we do. No matter what sort of day we have, no matter how busy, we still convene to the couch for a little while. We sit close, often holding one another, and consider our day. We talk about our lives. And we talk about the future. But most of all, we hold each other. Sometimes you just need to shut up and let the love wash over you.

Honestly, I’ve never been happier (a custom build home theater would help me found out if I’m at the happiest state of my life). I’ve married a wonderful woman, and am thrilled about the next 80 years.

I look forward to our children growing, our retirement and the day, when I’m sitting in my wheelchair sucking down oxygen, that I get to chase my lovely wife around our retirement community while the nurses yell at me to consider my heart.

I guess they just don’t understand that it’s my heart that I’ll be chasing.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

Phrase your wife really doesn’t care to hear: “When you turn the stereo on in the basement, you get perfect sound in the upstairs bathroom!”

How do you plan for a birth? One would assume that you could assume one of two things. 1. No matter how much you plan, you cannot prepare for that actual moment, or 2. you’re an idiot.

We’re currently writing our Birth Plan for when my wife is in labor. Which is to say, we’re deluded. We’re under the assumption that the hospital will look at our plan and say, “Wonderful! You know, we get so many couples who walk in here off the street and just want us to do everything, but you! You even thought of nipple stimulation, thank god!”

No, they’ll probably just laugh at us and say; “We understand that you want a relaxed atmosphere with no interns, no yelling and no time constraints. We also understand that you want no drugs. You do realize that ‘no yelling’ and ‘no drugs’ contradict each other, right?”

Birth plans are part of the Bradley Method of childbirth. It is a document that we create, in conjunction with our OB, to state our wishes for every stage of our hospital stay. It’s helpful because we have a written proof of our wishes, and it won’t all fall on me at the moment of birth. “THIS ROOM SMELLS LIKE CHICKEN! WHY DOES THIS ROOM SMELL LIKE CHICKEN? I TOLD YOU THE ROOM SHOULD NEVER SMELL LIKE CHICKEN!??!?!?!?!”

But it also gets us talking about some very important issues, such as episiotomies, breastfeeding and more. However, I’m not sure how helpful I was in certain situations. Below is a transcript of the conversation my wife and I had about major points in the birth plan. I hope to move back into the house sometime this week.

Q: How long do you want to labor at home?
A: Do they have cable at the hospital? I think that would help me make the decision.
Q: If I have to have an episiotomy, I would prefer to do it without anesthesia.
A: You’re nuts.
Q: How do you feel about circumcision?
A: Well, what’s the trend? I don’t want the little guy to have a funny looking penis.
Q: Do you want to cut the cord?
A: Do you want to see the contents of my stomach?
Q: What should we do with the placenta?
A: Never speak of it again.
Q: I want a squatting bar in the delivery room.
A: I’ve wanted one of those for years.
Q: I don’t want the baby to have any rubber nipples, including a pacifier until its happy with breastfeeding.
A: Good. Accept no substitutes for real nipples.
Q: Do we want a mirror to be able to see the birth?
A: Sure. You can use it to see if I’m still breathing when I pass out.
Q: Are you bringing an extra pair of clothes in case you get hit when my water breaks?
A: Hit? You mean I could get hit with it? No one told me this in the beginning. If I had known this, I may have gone to bed earlier a certain night a few months ago. No one told me at it was projectile!
Q: What alternatives to drugs are we using?
A: Hey, you’re the one committed to this drugless birth. I’m going to be stoned out of my gourd.
Q: Is it too late to get a new coach?
A: Yes, if you want one as understanding as me.

You know I’m excited about this birth. I’m just terrified of the biological implications of this whole thing. There’s blood, fluids, stretching, sometime TEARING (no bodily process should involve tearing), and a whole host of complications that could complicate things for both mother and child (God forbid).

The further I get along in the birthing classes, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I wonder, “Isn’t there an easier way than this?”

The answer is “no.” But if men were in charge of birth it would last around six minutes. And you could read the paper the whole time.

INTERCOT: National Day Of Prayer & Remembrance

A few updates today. Different thoughts about different issues written yesterday during a day of remembrance.

I still want to tell the story of Intercot and the community that encompasses. Proof that an online community can be a true community.

Above is John's new front page. It should be noted that John, the Intercot webmaster, has done an amazing job of keeping this online community together and focused. He stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Disney community and is a shining example of a compassionate human being.

After all the planes were grounded on Tuesday I suddenly realized how I viewed the sky. As a traveler I see it as small. An avenue to get me to where I want to go. But Tuesday, driving home from work, I did not see a single plane. There was no traffic in the sky. It was huge.

And it was quiet. I’ve never realized the ambient noise the planes that constantly flew overhead made, and how I had become accustomed to it.

But that’s not all that was quiet. Driving, with my window open, I never heard the thump of teen-aged bass. Drivers weren’t gunning their engines. There was no yelling, no kids screaming in the neighborhoods. There was a strange calmness. Most radios were tuned to talk radio. Sporting events were cancelled, Brownie meetings, malls were closed. People were staying inside to listen to the news. Would they find any hope? Glean any good?

No. There was little, and there remains to be little.

Wednesday night, after it seemed all hope was lost, I wearily trudged to bed. I had a lot on my mind, as does everyone else. It was a nice night, so the windows were open. I lay in bed, trying to calm down my mind so that I may relax and fall asleep.

I finally began to drift off. Then my heart was seized with an icy shock. There was a jet in the sky. The unaccustomed silence had been sliced with a familiar sound. But now it had a new context.

Our airport hadn’t been reopened yet, so I felt a moment of fear. The sounds I was hearing was clearly a jet with its flaps up, slowing its forward velocity in preparation to land. And it was big. It was a military jet, to be sure. But it sounded huge. I don’t know where it was going, or what it was doing, but I have an idea I’ll hear more in the coming weeks and months. And, I have a pretty good idea that I’ll know exactly what they’re preparing for.

Yes, it seems we are at war, though no enemy has been declared. No enemy is known right now. The biggest enemy is fear. And this war is nothing we’ve ever experienced. It may be long, protracted. How many countries will be involved? How many neighbors will be asked to risk their lives?

Will we ever recover? Will our lives ever be the same? No. But we must go on.

Because there is no nation to target, people seem to want to point fingers as a racial group. Arab-Americans. Muslims. Please, do NOT attack Arab-Americans. They are here to escape the terror that we are now experiencing. They too want to live a better life. They, too, are Americans.

These terrorists, bastards that they are, no more represent the religion of Islam than David Koresh represented Christianity. They no more represent Arabs as a whole than Hitler Milosovich represented the whole of the Slavic people.

Think straight. Look in the right direction. Please.

So what can you do? What can we do? Donate money of course, blood, time. Focus whatever spiritual feelings you have towards good will and a world of peace.

But the best thing I can say is raise your children to reject hate. Teach them tolerance, understanding. Teach them to be good human beings and not to embrace beliefs that preach pain, hurt and hate. Teach them that human life, above all, should be cherished.

Horrible people will always exist. We cannot get rid of them. But we can teach our children that the world doesn’t have to be a horrible place. That they don’t have to accept this sort of terror. That they can rise above horrible acts and show the world that peace can be achieved through understanding. That you can accomplish amazing things without the need to shed blood wantonly.

Grief. Anger. Fear. Disbelief. Shock. After the images, stories and information we’ve all learned over the last few days those words just don’t seem to have the power to convey the mixed emotions all of us are feeling these days. It feels as though the world we put to bed on Monday night will never awaken again. We now have a world that looks similar, though scarred, but it feels different.

No words can express how we all feel. Or what we don’t feel. The images we have seen over these last few days, the death, destruction, the fear, will never leave us. As our children grow, what we have seen will become a distant memory. Yet, we will never forget the moment we learned that an airplane hit the World Trade Center. And then another. Then the collapse. Then another. And the Pentagon.

It felt like a full-scale attack. One event after the other. It kept happening more destruction, more death. More pain.

There is no precedent for this attack on the American people. People have compared it to Pearl Harbor. To Oklahoma City. But those are only similarities. Those events were different. They had different circumstances.

The point here is that the people of America have been attacked. Not the government, not the Armed Forces, but the people. You. Me. Our children. Any one of us could have been in that building. The people who have died were doing no more than earning a living. Getting their morning coffee. They committed no crimes against the world. They made no contribution to America’s foreign policy. They did nothing more than hope they could make a living, feed a family, get home that evening to whatever sort of comfort they had.

The people on the planes were going home, on business trips or vacations. There were families on those planes. I’ve even heard that one plane had a group of elementary school students who had won a National Geographic trip. They were with their teachers. That morning their parents kissed them goodbye, felt the sharp tinge of pain thinking they were sending children off alone into the world. They were loosening the strings of protection. As those kids stepped onto the plane, that sadness was mixed with pride. “My child has achieved something. My child has done something good.” They are now mourning their children.

Why? For what reason?

The point is, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon touches us all. Not because of the national significance, though there is that, but because of how close it comes.

How many people did you know? Did they get out? Even if you didn’t know someone, you know someone who does. Or someone who was close, or had a close call.

The sheer amount of human life that was lost may never dawn on us. One senseless death is difficult to deal with. Two, doubly so. 100? 600? 1000? 5000? It seems unfathomable.

But the dead and missing are beginning to get faces and stories. But they are only sketches, highlights, moments. Brief lists of accomplishments, family. It’s all we can handle. Only short stories, not full novels. Were we to know more, the complete destruction may be too much for us to handle.

But ask yourself this question. How many children are waking up without a parent? How many husbands and wives are going to bed alone? How many brothers and sisters out there are desperately searching the hospitals and crisis centers in New York and Washington for missing loved ones? How many are on their knees now, praying that there will be some miracle and those rescue workers will find their loved ones. How can they give up? They need to hope. Hope allows us all to survive.

There may be as many as 5000 dead. But there are millions wounded.

Not going to be much of an entry today, though I've got a big one for tomorrow. I've been watching the events around the attacks unfold and have been stewing over them. I was upset at my place of work as, I feel, they treated the events as a local event. Not a national, or global one. No information was shared. No comment was made, except late yesterday to let us know that only our colleagues were unaffected. And then today, there was some rhetoric.

Not that I can fully blame them. Nor can I say their reaction was wrong, per se. They did what they had to do as a business, and in a way, it's admirable in the face of the global circumstances. They didn't allow terror to infiltrate the way they worked. However, they could have allowed compasion to enter a little more than it did . . .

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to write about the amazing part the Internet played in this whole thing. Particularly my favorite site, Intercot. And, more importantly, how its webmaster and the community banded together. Virtual or not, a huge group of Internet users were together to share information, comfort one another and try to understand what had happened.

To be part of it was amazing.

Talk to you tomorrow, more or less. Tonight, reflect. And help me find the words to explain to those callous few who don't understand why I should be so affected by these events.

Why? Because I am human. New York, DC, America. Human. Families were torn asunder and lives were ended. That is enough. Enough.

Support freedom

In light of today's events, I'm not doing a real update. I'm too . . . sickened.

Rather, I encourage you to hug your loved ones. Be thankful for what you have and revel in the love you have around you.

Life is fragile, and can be shattered at any moment. Be thankful for it. Before you go to bed tonight, look at the stars or the moon. Watch your kids sleeping. Pet your dog. Find a bit of beauty and serenity in the world and hold on to it.