Category Archives: Family

Why I’m Thankful for Hitchhikers

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Family, Growing Up, Love

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This year, along with my family, what tops my list of Things to Be Thankful For is hitchhikers. Intergalactic hitchhikers, to be specific, as memorialized in Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

As a few people know, about seven months ago I got engaged to, by my estimates, the coolest person in the world. What fewer people know is that Douglas Adams is a large part of the reason why this came to pass.

Back in 2004, I was in a summer theater production of Grease: The Musical Watered Down for High School Productions But Retaining the Message That You Should Change Yourself to Make People Like You. My talented and beautiful sister, Elisabeth, would come home every night complaining about her dance partner, who apparently had two left feet so bad it was a miracle he could walk straight. Fortunately for all players involved, the kid who was playing Eugene flaked, and the director decided that Andrew’s adolescent klutziness and comedic talents might be better suited to play the school nerd than a dancer in the chorus. Lizzie was happy because she got to dance with someone better, and started chatting with Andrew more. The topic of program bios came up, specifically the “crazy” quotes some people include, and the following conversation ensued:

Elisabeth: One year, my sister put “So long and thanks for all the fish” in her bio.

Andrew: Nice. That was actually my least favorite book in the series.

Elisabeth: Wait, you’ve read those books??

Andrew: Yes…

Elisabeth: No one reads those books. You need to talk to Jessica. She needs someone she can talk about books with.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So this year, I’m thankful that I’ll have dinner with the most wonderful family I could ever hope for, I’m thankful my pecan pie looks and smells good coming out of the oven, I’m thankful that I’m in a year and a half of adventurous wedding planning before I get to spend my life with the guy I love more than anything, and I am thankful that one night, young Douglas Adams wondered if intergalactic hitchhikers would need a travel guide, and unwittingly set things in motion to make me happier than I knew I could be.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Games to Play After Dark

31 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Books, Family, Reading

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One of the awesome benefits to quitting my TV habit is that I’m finally tackling some of my backlogged reading list. I grabbed Sarah Gardner Borden’s Games to Play After Dark on a whim. It had a neat cover, and the back seemed suspenseful and vaguely reality-TVish.

You'd pick it up and read the back, too.

The novel chronicles the marriage of Kate and Colin, whose initial drunken encounter after a party turns into a whirlwind relationship, wedding, and suburban migration. The cracks start as mildly kinky sex games–she likes her hair pulled or her butt smacked.

From there, the story gets dark, but the gradations are so subtle that I almost didn’t catch what was happening. Kate’s father dies, for example. Colin wants her to talk about it, but she’s still in a state of shock and unwilling to talk. So instead she invents an elaborate story about taking the neighbor down to the laundry room and screwing his brains out while Colin is at work. So Colin, meaning to snap her out of it, throws her in the shower and turns the cold water on.

Even when she started volunteering at a shelter for domestic abuse victims, you are on her side, easily assuming their situation is completely different, black and white, while hers is justified as a rough patch, or an overreaction. It’s hauntingly subtle, and absolutely perfect. I was glad that Borden avoided the typical ending of having Spouse A (usually the woman) triumphantly walk out on Spouse B. I realize that’s the feel-good thing to do, but I can’t help feeling like it’s often a bit of a cop-out. Games to Play After Dark gives an ending that’s not quite happy, not quite dark, but honest.

Big News

20 Wednesday Apr 2011

Posted by in Family, Growing Up

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The way that I know I’ve moved out? This year, my mom put me on the list of people who are responsible for bringing something for Passover. I got pretty low-key items: I’m in charge of providing the parsley and the matzah (also, my mom asked me something like six times if I’d gotten the curly parsley, not the flat kind). Still, matzah meant I brought the Afikomen, which is a critical part of the Seder, so I’m feeling pretty pleased!

But even knowing that every time we dipped parsley in salt water, we were dipping something I’d contributed paled this year in comparison to what I got to say. The best part about Passover this year was that I got to share some fantastic news with my family: I’m engaged!

Sooo, that’s the reason I’ve been quiet here for a bit. I haven’t been able to stop smiling for the past two weeks, and I definitely wasn’t going to be able to write a proper post without the news slipping out. Um, yes. I’ve definitely started planning our wedding already, and I get all blushy and giddy and absolutely silly about this, which I’m thinking is what I should be, considering I’m still slightly surprised when I look at my hand and see this glittery thing sitting there :).

Here’s what I’ve learned about the wedding industry so far: it is terrifying. It’s not the enormity of it that scares me the most (although the fact that I’ve read novels slimmer than Bride magazine is a wild thought), or even the money factor (news, for those of you who have never heard of getting married: weddings in the U.S. cost, on average, as much as a year’s college tuition. A year’s tuition at a private college. Out of state.). What scares me the most is that popular sites talk about weddings using the language of a performance. I did a little summer theater in high school (incidentally, how I met the fiance), and what I gleaned from that experience is that if something is a performance, than typically at least one person involved is acting. Not a good start to a marriage.

So what I want to promise said fiance now, before the stress of flowers and DJs and caterers and other accessories to this moment kicks in, is that I will not forget why we are here. We will not have a perfect day. We will not have a perfect life. We are not perfect people. But we believe we are right for each other, in every imperfect moment of the rest of our lives, and that is more beautiful than any cake or dress. I love you always.