My Straight Gay Husband October 25, 2009

The day where I was not quite sure what side of the bread my husband prefers to have buttered.

(Lunch at Italian Buffet.  Don’t judge me. I live in Texas.  Anytime I can indulge in food that didn’t have horns before hit my plate,  isn’t smothered in BBQ sauce, or is presented in some style of  ’chicken fried’ ; I jump on it)

Gay Husband: Oh, LOOK at all the carbs…

Straight Husband: ….oooh, ham!

ME:  I am going to have a major food baby after this.

Straight Husband:  Yeah, it sucks being a chick.

ME: I JUST said that earlier today at work!

Gay Husband: You make this huge sacrifice of your body. You get stretch marks, your butt gets wide and flat, and then the guy wonders why you’re not all pumped about sex…

Straight Husband: …so we just leave you for a younger, hotter, chick whose stuff isn’t all stretched out.

(Shopping)

Gay Husband:  That outfit is kah-yewt!

ME:  (blank stare)

Straight Husband:  What?

ME:  You just called me outfit cute.

Straight Husband:  Well, it is.  Your boobs are totally coming out of that vest… 

Gay Husband: …and like the way the jeans fit on you.  Are those slim fit?

ME: (blank stare)

Straight Husband:  What?

ME:  I’d say you’ve been properly trained. I like shopping with you now!  We can do whatever you want for the rest of the day!!

Straight Husband:  Anything? Can I put it in your ass??* 

ME:  Um, no.

Gay Husband: Why don’t you try those shoes? They have zebra and snake print together.

ME:  That’s just weird. When would a snake and a zebra ever hang out together?

Straight Husband: On those shoes.

*:  a reference to my both my unfortunate accidental anal experience in college, and his irrational fear that engaging in such activity could result in a kernel of corn mysteriously appearing on the tip of his pee-pee.

(During  football commercial)

Straight Husband:  We are NOT watching Dietribe.

ME:  You don’t even know what it’s about!  It could be something cool.

Straight Husband: I can tell from the title it’s another stupid DIET show.

ME:  What about the tribe part?

Straight Husband:  It’s probably a diet show about Indians.

(Random discussion when he realizes the state of Texas has no interest in telecasting the USC game)

Gay Husband:  I think I figured out why we may experience miscommunication in our approaches to sex.

Straight Husband:  I didn’t really have to do anything to get sex I was single.  I  remember I was at this club and the girl was making it pretty clear that if I fed her, she’s put out, so I took her to Denny’s….

ME: DENNY’S?  What, did the Jack In The Box 99 cent tacos not seem classy enough as  a pre- one night stand meal?

Straight Husband: It was like 3:00am and it was the only thing open!  And I was drunk.  So the girl goes to the bathrooom and another girl is walking by my table. I was concentrating on her hips to stablize myself , but she thinks I am looking at her so she stops and says ‘You were looking at the cat weren’t you’-

ME: The CAT???

Straight Husband:  I  wasn’t but I said ‘Maybe’, so she gives me her number!  Man, I had game back then.

Gay Husband: So, maybe that’s why I don’t get that it takes more than a pancake and a stare to get you going.

ME: I blame it on porn.  It makes guys think all they gotta go is ring a doorbell and say ‘Did you order a pizza?’

Straight Husband:  That reminds me of when I delivered pizzas….

Oh, that story is long and winding but confirms that my guy is certainly, concretely, indisputably straight.

 

Ess See Ecks August 9, 2009

If absence makes the heart grow fonder; then you guys must be ready to give me back my panties, sit cross-legged on a glass table, and kiss me over birthday cake (rest in peace, John Hughes!). 

I’ve been away pondering the blogosphere rules. There appear to be some no-no, off-limit, gone-to-far, universally untouchable topics. I mean, you can go on and on about anal sex and post photos of razor burned cooters, but one naked baby photo sends folks into a tizzy.   And it’s the same for relationships.  It’s okey-dokey to publicly filter through your ex’s faults, flaws, and foibles; but there is some titanium shield of shame guarding spouses.  With the exception of the banal toilet seat shift and chunky milk incidents, of course.  But I’ve never been married before. I have no idea what is normal married people shit and what are spinning red DO NOT ENTER sirens, so this has been plauging me for a while. I’ve been afraid that once I started typing, I’d forget a boundary and turn a blip into a bomb. So at the risk of TMI and violating vows, propriety, sanctity and trust; here goes…

The Hubster and I haven’t had ess see ecks in…well, I’ll just say awhile. Long enough for even a first-wife to know that it’s not normal. 

I know it’s beating a dead, alcoholic horse to keep referencing my relationship with my mom as the catalyst for my deficiencies and drama, but it’s a pink tazmanian elephant in my bedroom.  My goddaughter, at 8, is more confident, intelligent, self-assured, and ready for life than I am at 34.  And I 100% credit that to her parents being there. For leading by example, not just words.  She sees her parents hug and kiss and argue and plan and value and compromise and respect and equal and fail and succeed and get up and persevere.  My mom was there to occupy space but not be anything other than a stand-in. An understudy. A placeholder for the parent any kid should have. There were no mother-daughter rituals. No “us against the world” moments.  No ladies lunch when I started my period.  Motherhood was on her to do list somewhere between oil change and the next child support payment. 

My model for relationships was a bit…different.  Mom had an affinity for much-younger drug peddling felons. Whether they found her or she found them, there was always 1 or 2 lying around.  Even at 6, I knew there was something not right about the relationships.  Because they were all the same.  Fit, too-young, jovial, attractive, unemployed, ex-cons, who cooked, played video games and had tons of  “friends”.  Mine was overweight and fiercely obsessed changing it, divorced, sad then happy then sad, didn’t have her own friends, didn’t do anything outside the home, had no communication with her family.  What I learned was that there was an exchange.  A quid pro quo of sex, companionship, drugs, and money.

I learned that if I touched and opened and took off and kissed, then I’d get companionship.  Delivering indiscriminately got me stuff.  So I answered the call at midnite, on some everyday night when she was gone and I was home alone.  When someone I didn’t know called and asked my name, told me my voice turned him on, and said things that would make the johns on To Catch A Predator blush.  But if I listened, he’d keep calling.  My mom wasn’t there to ask who I was speaking with in the wee hours the next 2 months. Nor did she insist on greeting the person I was going to the movies with that night.  She never asked why subsequent boys took me to movie theaters outside of town or she would have known that I learned they would take me out again if I loosened buttons on my shirt. Had she been there to have a talk about birds and bees or that anything on my person being precious and saved, maybe I would not have done it with the engaged guy whose only boundary was mouth-kissing.  Or the one who’d always wondered what it’d be like to fuck a black chick.  She may have clued me in that drinking made the little voice in my head screaming to ‘run and get out’ quieter, but it would also make me someone who could ess see ecks with my roommate’s guy.  Or be able to lie with the one that called at 2am and pretended he didn’t invite me to his soccer game the next day.  Or pick the first person I saw at the house I drunkenly wandered into.  Or the 2 different people on the same night at the same party. 

Then I got married and realized I’ve done ess see ecks the wrong way for FAR too long.  My experiences in sobriety, intimacy, and an expression of anything other than love were few and far between.  But after 8 years, the pendulum swung the other way.  My ess see ecks was pointed due correctness. And stayed there for… well, I’ll just say awhile.  And it sucked for both of us.  For the person whose rules changed without preparation or warning; and for the one who carried the anger.  I guess the answer, for me, is there should be a balance.  An ess see ecks trailmix.  Somedays are drunken, bucknaked, sexytime debauchery; others are candles and locked eyes and satin sheets and flower petals.

So here we are. After the draught.  Close and smiling and ready to see what the next 8 years bring. With the husband who was there all along.