The Mix Tape

There’s a great scene in the 1983 movie National Lampoon’s Vacation in which Chevy Chase’s character, Clark Griswold, accidentally jumps a guard rail and runs his family’s station wagon off the road in the middle of the Arizona desert.  After the car comes to a stop everyone jumps out and Clark’s son Rusty comes over to his dad and says “Wow dad, we must have jumped that rail by like 50 yards.”  Clark responds with “That’s nothing to be proud of Russ.”  Moments later Rusty walks away and Clark, who by now is on top of the car surveying the landscape, smiles and proudly says to himself, “50 yards.”

Well my 15-year wedding anniversary is next Thursday and I’m sorta feeling a little bit like Clark Griswold.  When someone mentions it I’m quick to say “hey it’s nothing, no big deal,” but secretly I’m sitting here and smiling thinking “15 years, not bad.” 

Problem is I have no real anniversary plans, and no present for my wife.  We had originally planned to “go big” and head to Mexico for a week.  Unfortunately my unemployment status derailed that plan as well as basically all our other plans, so now with just 10 days before the big day I’m left scrambling to come up with something “cool” that doesn’t cost a lot of money.

So I’ve decided to go old school here, and make a mix tape.  Well okay not a real mix tape as cassette tapes went out BEFORE we were married, but a mix Ipod playlist (boy how times have changed).  Back in the day I was quite the mix tape connoisseur, and a lot of that had to do with my long distance relationship with my wife (who obviously at the time was my girlfriend).  There was no e-mail or text messages or instant chats, etc, and since I was just a lowly college student, and didn’t have a lot of money, I kept in touch with mix tapes.  They were my way of saying “I love you and I’m thinking of you.” 

In the four years we were apart I must have made dozens of mix tapes.  Some of the mix tapes had actual themes while others were just songs she and I liked, but regardless of theme or what not each and every song that made it onto a mix tape had meaning. 

For instance here’s an actual sample of a few of the songs that were on one of the tapes I made her (I still have a few of them):

U2 – Trip Through Your Wires . . . Yeah barbed wire.

Police – Everything She Does is Magic . . . Especially that one time in the back of her VW Rabbit Convertible.  I haven’t seen flexibility like that since.

Rolling Stones – Let’s Spend The Night Together . . . We did our senior year of high school, got caught, and I was subsequently banned from her house for an entire year.  Yeah.  365 days.

Harry Connick Jr. – It Had To Be You . . . Well you or that brunette in my college psychology class. 

U2 – Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For . . . Whoops.

Peter Gabriel – In Your Eyes . . . This song made everyone’s mix tape after the John Cusack movie “Say Anything.”  When he held up that boom box and played that song outside his girlfriend’s window.  Well it was basically the most romantic AND coolest thing ever.

R.E.M – It’s The End of The World  . . . Foreshadowing?

Anyway, you get the idea.  So without further ado, My 15-Year Anniversary Mix Tape:

The Clash – Train In Vain . . . Because all mix tapes should have at least one Clash song, and this is as close to a love song as you’re going to get from The Clash.  

Talking Heads – Once Upon a Lifetime . . . My generation’s theme song.  No mix tape I make will be without it. 

Green Day – Time Of Your Life . . . Because I hope she’s had the time of her life the last 15 years.  I know I have.

U2 – Elevation . . . I’m convinced this song is about sex.  “A mole digging in a hole, digging up my soul now, going down, excavation.”  Oh I got your “mole” right here baby!  How you doing?

Blues Brothers – Everybody Needs Somebody . . . And central A/C, cable TV and Zebra Cakes. 

The Replacements – Within Your Reach . . . It’s just a great song.

Tom Petty – Learning To Fly . . . Because I’m still trying to figure out this whole marriage thing.  Be patient.

Warren Zevon – Keep Me In Your Heart . . . You’re always in mine.

The Verve – Lucky Man . . . On most days.

Matchbox Twenty – Look How Far We’ve Come . . . Hell I didn’t think we’d make it five years.

The White Stripes – We’re Going To Be Friends . . . Yeah, best friends.

Ida Maria – I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked . . . This goes without saying.

Moldy Peaches – Anybody Else But You . . . Because I wouldn’t want to do this with anybody else but you.

Happy Anniversary, babe.  Well 10-days early.

The Three Phases of Marriage

I will go to great lengths to get out of doing certain things.  No I’m not talking about a visit to the doctor’s office.  If I don’t want to go to the doctor, I just won’t schedule a visit.  Actually being in charge of scheduling your own doctor visits is one of the great things about being an adult.  Well, that and being able to eat Oreo’s for breakfast and Zebra Cakes for dinner without anyone saying anything about it. 

I go out of my way to avoid social gatherings and running “girly errands” with the wife.  If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 1,000 times, if you’re my friend you WON’T invite me to your wedding.  And if you do, chances are I’m going to try to get out of going.  Same with shopping with my wife for a new throw rug.  Don’t be ridiculous.  I’d rather she just kick me in the balls and tell me to stay home. 

So when my wife asked me to pull over to buy fresh strawberries just north of Port Washington, Wisconsin this past Sunday, I knew I had to act fast in order to get out of this “girly errand.”

First thing that came to mind was the fact that it was Father’s Day.  I could play the Father’s Day card and probably get out of pulling over for strawberries.  However my plan was to use the Father’s Day card later at night for something a little more important than fresh berries at some road-side fruit stand. 

Next, I thought about using the old “hey, I’m sorry I didn’t hear you” excuse.  As in literally drive right by the exit at 65 miles per hour.  “Oh, did you want to pull over?  Boy I’m sorry.  I must not have heard you.”  Unfortunately that wouldn’t have worked as there were signs for “fresh berries” at more than a dozen exits.  It seems to me that Wisconsin has cheese, fireworks, porn and fresh berries at just about every exit.  It’s really an amazing state.

So finally I did what I do best. . . I just came up with shit . . . and I told her that pulling over for fresh berries at some quaint, little road-side berry farm was not something you do in Phase 2 of your marriage, and we were in fact in Phase 2.  I went on to say that pulling over for fresh berries was more of a Phase 3 thing.

She called my bluff, and I had to explain.  This is what I told her.

It seems to me that marriage can be broken up into three Phases.

Phase 1 is the early part of your marriage.  You both are digging one another.  You’re most likely moving in together and doing naked Sundays (God, I miss naked Sundays).  You take in concerts with friends at small clubs and dive bars.  You bar hop because that’s what you do when you’re young.  You plan your future together.  You occasionally do naked Saturdays IN ADDITION to naked Sundays because, well you can, damnit.  When you start having kids the grandparents all offer to babysit because grandparents love babies.  You buy your first house and you have sex in the laundry room because your last laundry room was in the basement of your apartment building and even you wouldn’t have sex down there.  You hold hands a lot and there’s plenty of PDA.  You’re still boyfriend and girlfriend in Phase 1.   

Then you move into Phase 2 and things get a little tougher.  Of course you’re still very much in love in Phase 2, but the honeymoon is officially over, and you’re no longer boyfriend and girlfriend, but more like co-workers.  You’re working together to get through the grind.  There’s no more naked Sundays because Sunday mornings are now travel soccer games and house league baseball games and “family breakfasts.”  You still take in concerts with friends, but now you’re seeing U2 at the United Center in a friend’s corporate box.  Or you’re on the lawn at some outdoor venue sipping wine while listening to Sheryl Crow.  You bar hop because you’re trying to rekindle your youth.  The grandparents aren’t quite as willing to watch the grandkids as they’re not cute babies anymore, but rambunctious 10-year olds who like Family Guy and You Tube.  You buy your second house in Phase 2, and you can’t really afford it, but you buy it anyway because this is the house that you talked about buying during Phase 1.  You just planned on having more money by this time.  You don’t even think about having sex in the any room other than your bedroom.  After all why would you have sex in the laundry room?  Could be hard on your knees or your lower back, both of which hurt a lot more now than they did when you were in Phase 1.  You don’t hold hands anymore as your hands are busy clutching your Blackberry or iPhone.  There’s no more PDA.  You tell yourself that that’s the kind of stuff you did in high school.

But then right when it looks like you can’t take it anymore, you move into Phase 3.  Phase 3 is all about rekindling your love for one another.  The kids are older and starting to make it on their own.  You remind them to call before just popping in as suddenly naked Sundays are an option again.  You still go to concerts but you occasionally complain about the noise being too loud.  You become grandparents in this phase, and you love watching the babies.  You hold hands a lot.  You buy a winter house in Florida and invite the kids to come visit during spring break.  You talk about having sex on the beach but you never do.  At the end of the day, there are certain things that you just never do no matter what Phase you’re in.  And you pull over for fresh berries at quaint, little road-side berry farms in the middle of Wisconsin. 

The three phases of marriage. 

Of course my wife didn’t buy any of this, but we did get some wonderfully fresh strawberries on Sunday.  I of course, won’t eat them.  But everyone who tried them said they were great.

Just another day in the life

I’m sure there are people who literally blog about their everyday life.  Like a diary.  Like a journal.  They probably post some sort of new blog everyday regardless of whether they’ve actually done anything on that particular day worth blogging about.  I’m not going to do that.  I promise.  If for no other reason than a daily blog about what I’ve done on that day would be nothing more than a grim reminder of how pointless my day has actually been.  I know how pointless most of my days are.  I don’t need to share that with others.

HOWEVER. . . . if I were going to do that (and remember I’m not) here’s what my daily blog would look like.

Monday, January 11, 2010 –

Alarm clock went off at 5:30 AM.  Hit the 10-minute snooze bar nine times (that’s right, nine times, what, is that a problem?).  Got out of bed at 7:00 and drove to the YMCA.  Lifted weights for an hour.  Almost curled as much as the 70-year old man who was one weight station in front of me.  Showered and went downtown to meet my superintendent to do a production check on one of my construction jobs.

While on site we ran into one of our field guys who I had never met before.  After he and our super exchanged handshakes I held out my hand and introduced myself.  He took one look at me and said “you’re too clean” and then he proceeded to bend over, pick up a handful of dirt and dust and who knows what (remember we’re on a construction site) and threw it at me.  No joke, the dude threw a handful of dirt at me.  The last person to throw dirt at me was Katie Amos.  We were in the 2^nd grade.  I had just knocked her off the swings. 

From there I headed back to the office.  On my way in though I decided to stop for lunch at Panera Bread.  I had the paper with me and figured a nice lunch alone with my sports section sounded pretty good.  It’s about 20 degrees outside and I just left a pretty cold job site so a bowl of tomato soup should hit the spot, and since there’s a Panera Bread on the way to my office, well why not.

I’m not sure when it hit me that there was literally NOT A SINGLE AVAILABLE SEAT in the entire place, but it was definitely after I had opted to eat “here” as opposed to carrying out.  Not a single seat in the place.  Totally packed.  So I’m now standing there with a tray of tomato soup with a newspaper folded under my arm.  Just standing there.  All by myself.  Me, my dirty coat and my bowl of tomato soup.  You know there’s no place to eat at Panera Bread if you don’t get a seat.  There’s no counter, there’s no bar area or anything like that.  You order your food to go or you find a freaking table.  There’s no third option.  So I just stood there holding my soup as I tried to keep flakes of what looked like asbestos from falling off my coat and into my soup.  A table eventually opened.  It was a long wait.

Finally got into the office and said “hi” to my office mate (yeah, I share a windowless office with another guy – and a young girl who works Monday-Wednesday-Friday).  It’s cramped.  My boss likes to call it “cozy.”  Said “hi” again when my co-worker did not respond after my first hello and that was a mistake as he proceeded to yell at me (yeah, yell – I’m 38 years old and I was yelled at today – well, and someone threw dirt at me, too) for taking down his 1980’s Mega Death poster that he had on the wall.  I tried to explain to him that I did so because the young girl (she’s 24 – I was a freshman in high school when she was born – I can call her “young”) who also shares the office with us, and has a desk that faces the wall where this poster hung, complained to me last week.  So last Friday before I left, I took the poster down and put it on his desk.  He went ballistic, telling me that I have no respect for his things, and don’t appreciate how much time he spent decorating the office (while I haven’t put up a single thing in the office, I wouldn’t necessarily call the Mega Death poster “decorating”).  I actually started laughing at one point because I thought there was a chance he was just messing with me.  He wasn’t, and my laughing only infuriated him more. 

About 30 minutes later I got a call from one of my clients telling me that the huge job that he had agreed to give me last week was now going to go to one of my competitors.  This is despite the fact that I had already secured special pricing from my material vendor and had my submittals approved by the General Contractor.  Hell, I didn’t even know my client was still shopping the price.  But I’m out.  So I called my wife and asked her to spit out the champagne that she and I drank in celebration this past Saturday. 

Left work a few hours later (my office mate did not say “goodbye”) and drove home.  My iPod died halfway through U2’s Beautiful Day (that’s true and strangely ironic).

Walked through the door and my youngest son immediately started to complain that his new indoor soccer shoes had not yet arrived and his practice was in one hour.  My older son was complaining about sore hands, as he apparently spent the entire afternoon playing drums on Rock Band.  He also tells me he needs money for a field trip tomorrow.  My wife leaves on Friday for a girl’s weekend in Vegas (I’m thinking The Hangover – Girl’s Edition).

It’s January 11^th.  354 more days in 2010.  I promise not to write about them all.