Ten Years

Ten years ago today we met. I already wrote about that day here, but ended that post with my date taking a cab back home.

I'll never forget, the next day, seeing Honey sitting outside the tube station waiting for me (even though I was early). We sat outside a bar, across the street from the Dublin Castle and then we went to see Swingers. That's our movie. We continued walking in Camden for a while and I asked her if she wanted to come over and watch TV. I swear that's what I meant, too. I just figured she was fun and it would be fun to watch King of the Hill with her.

We then listened to music and didn't talk much. Then "Broken Heart" started playing and Honey started to cry. And I said, "I'm going to regret this," and I kissed her.

I've tried to analyze this moment for the last ten years, and historians will continue my unfinished work, but I'm still not sure why I said that or what made me kiss her, just like she's not sure why she started to cry.

Did my kiss have anything to do with subconscious male chauvinism? Did I think she wanted me to kiss her because of some kind of male fantasy of a weak female saved by her superhero man? Did her tears make me feel stronger? Was my kiss meant to save my princess? That bastard Jung made me think about that. I read Man and his Symbols and realized maybe I didn't kiss her because I was a sensitive man but because I was an arrogant pig like the rest of them.

But I can leave all of that for the historians. Whether she cried because the idea of going back alone to America was breaking her heart or because on King of the Hill Bobby was forced to smoke an entire carton of cigarettes doesn't matter today. And whether I kissed her because I wanted to save her or because I wanted her to save me is also meaningless, after all. Because now, ten years later, the love of my life is smarter, funnier, and more beautiful than ever, and I've had the best ten years of my life, and our best days together are yet to come.

And she's pregnant, too, which is really cool. And more than likely, I'm the father.

Happy Birthday, Honey

It was my American girl's birthday today. I got her some presents, nothing too crazy. It's a joint account, after all. Girlie stuff, like bracelets and earrings and a necklace and a thing people with hair use. She needs to feel like her normal self again, now that people start treating her like a would be mother and all that. She's used to men looking at her boobs but now they all stare at her belly, which must feel strange and foreign. I think.

Then I got her some stuff from her favorite candle-and-soap-and-lip-gloss-and-other-stuff shop. This earned me a few extra points because that place has always been a bit too much for me, too scenty and candle-y and perfect. She asked me later that night how I was doing there so I told her I made a joke.

--"Oh no, what did you say?"
--"The saleswoman was trying to help me but I couldn't find anything, so she looked at some cookbooks and asked if my wife liked to cook, and I told her, 'I don't know, she hasn't tried it yet.'"
--"Why did you say that? I cook."
--"Yes. But I couldn't miss a joke opportunity like that, right?"
--"I guess not."

So I met her at work and we walked to Camden Yards in time for the Cal Ripken Jr. bobblehead giveaway. And the Orioles won, which makes the day even better.

So, happy birthday, Honey. I know you don't read this because you think it's weird that I write my thoughts instead of saying them, but just in case you happen to read this, know that when you're asleep I'm downstairs thinking about you, and know that you're more beautiful and sexy than ever and that I appreciate you and respect you if you cook or if you don't cook and if you like my jokes or if you like me in spite of them, and I hope you had a good birthday and my only true wish in this world is to be there with you next year to celebrate another one.

Anyway, before I ruin the mood with the next video, just a happy birthday to my niece and a happy birthday to Shelli. And of course, congratulations to Susie.

Last year I talked Honey into going to a lame bar downtown but when we got there I surprised her with tickets to see Robert Schimmel. Or maybe it was two years ago?

So What's New in My Life?

It’s funny how you live your life and go with the flow or sometimes actively pursue goals as if you know what's good and bad, and you move from one place to another and buy things and leave things behind, and you love and you hate and you attach a meaning to everything, and you go to school and learn to think only to find out you know nothing, and you smoke and you quit and you smoke and you quit and you smoke, and you grow a beard then shave it, and even a mustache for a while, just for fun, and you get slightly older each day, funny how that works, and the pieces of the puzzle, and pardon the cliche, start coming together only to form a greater unknown.

And now you're in your mid-30s thinking you've established something. You’re married and you have that house, and you have the doggies and more books than you’ll ever read (but not in a pretentious way, you’re simply a slow reader), and finally a stable job and you have the closest thing you’ve ever had to a schedule, and you sit back and relax and think you’re finally in control.

But you never really know when something amazing is going to happen.

A Life-Changing Moment

On my twenty-third birthday, five months after I left the army and six months before I was supposed to start University, I received two postcards in the mail. One was from a friend on a trip to India, the other from a friend who moved to London, both telling me I had to join them. I remember holding the two postcards, one in each hand, rereading them and trying to make up my mind.

One postcard described sitting on top of mountains in India watching the sun rise, feeling lonely and complete. The other friend wrote about insane parties and new friends and about a band he had started and about being a part of the London music scene.

A month later I moved to London. I went to the parties and met the new friends. I learned to play bass guitar and joined the band. I dyed my hair purple. I found myself in the first ever “Reclaim the Streets” demonstration, and just before the police came, left to get my ears pierced. I called my parents and told them I wasn't coming back. I went to Glastonbury Festival and saw the sun rise over the green hills. I fell in and out of love. Moving further from the city and forced to commute, I started reading on the Tube. On a trip to Amsterdam, sitting alone in a coffee shop, I wrote my first short story. I danced in a cage in Heaven club, and made out with drunk girls in Camden Town. I found out things. I sat in a room and listened to Mogway and Beethoven and stared at a world map, watching the oceans move slowly with the music until morning came and the world stood still. I met my American Honey and here I am in Baltimore.

What if I chose differently? And maybe even if I had chosen to go to India rather than London I would still be sitting here, with my Honey sleeping upstairs, struggling in her sleep to stretch her legs because Buddy and Ginger are so goddamn needy. Maybe I didn’t have a life changing moment on my twenty-third birthday because no matter what, I would have been sitting here at this exact same spot, writing this exact same sentence.

The Dublin Castle

While the singer went inside to talk to the promoter and give out our demo tape, I stayed in the pub and had a pint and a cigarette. Suddenly an American girl looks at me and asks if she could sit next to me. It was early afternoon and there were a lot of other free tables, so obviously she made a conscious decision to sit with me and talk to me and have a drink with me because I was cute or whatever.

However, when she tells the story, she didn’t even see me, but had already made up her mind to sit at the first empty table. She came to check out a band she read about on Time Out, and she was early and uncomfortable so she ordered beer even though she hated beer, and she sat at the first empty table, determined even when she found out the table wasn’t empty because she had already made up her mind and was self-conscious and had to sit down before she exploded, and the young man sitting there looked harmless enough.

She had just finished college and was taking time off before starting law school. Now, a few days earlier I put an ad for a roommate in a local store and at the bottom I wrote, “Law school students need not apply.” I’m not proud of it; it’s just that you get to meet so many of them and they’re all the same, going to law school because it’s a good, solid, respectful job, and most of them don't think for a second who they really are and what kind of world they want to live in.

But she was different. She wanted to go to law school because she sincerely felt that even though the world was in many ways a bad place ruled by bad people for bad reasons, anyone can make a difference, large or small in other people’s lives, and for her law school provided the opportunity to make the world a better place.

I was in love.

Later that evening my date showed up. Anyway, the three of us went for a walk by the canal in Camden Town, and we told jokes and stories, and then my date took a taxi back to the hotel and I married the American girl and moved here.