Post Fifty-Five: The problems with marriage

It has been my experience that if you are married, there are going to be periods that you will wonder what the hell you have gotten yourself into. Fortunately, these periods tend to be brief, and things return to normal soon enough.

I am currently in the midst of such a down period: it stems from an event (which just kind of added on to general crabbiness on both our parts) wherein she forgot I was going to be doing something, then proceeded to get mad at me for not reminding her of what I was going to be doing. Of course, if the tables were turned and I forgot about plans she had, there is no way it would fly for me to try to say it was her fault for not reminding me. Nothing like consistency in the fairer species' mind (and mark my words: men and women are different species).

Regardless, things are starting to return to normal. But I still feel the need to vent, so I'm presenting a list I found online. Please, don't take it too seriously (particularly those readers (ha! I know of only one regular reader) who know me and my wife), but I figure that if any other "down periods" happen in the future, I can return to this post and smirk/vent.

Regardless, here are the problems with marriage:

You have to actually be nice to someone in your place, even when they're in your way, using your stuff and you just want to be left the hell alone.

You don't own anything anymore unless it's something bad. Then it is yours and only yours.

If you walk around naked all the time, you get made aware of everything that is wrong with your body and told to put it away OR you're constantly being pawed at when you're just trying to be naked.

You are now completely aware of what things you do that are completely weird when before you could live in complete ignorance and bliss. In order to do weird things, you now have to hide somehow in the bathroom, wait until they're away or go rent a hotel room for an afternoon.

Now there are two people to pick up after. This especially sucks if one of you is a neat freak and simply can't rest until everything is put away.

Another set of parents are around to tell you what to do with your lives, and to try guilt tripping you when both families have events planned and you can't make it to both.

There is always going to be at least one chore that both of you hate doing and therefore you'll fight over it, and be forced to list off ALL the things you do to try to force them into feeling guilty and doing the chore.

Your secret box of secrets now needs to be more cleverly hidden than ever before.

It's easier to tell people off and storm off in a huff when you don't have to pack up all your shit and find a new place to live.

There is now another person to remember everything you've ever done wrong and remind you about it. Even those things that you forget you've done and can't really verify that you DID do them are used against you for years. After awhile you are convinced they're just making up shit [this one holds special significance for me].

Existing purely on bread and peanut butter becomes wrong somehow.

They find out you're not all the things you had claimed to be when you were trying to get them to like you.

You have justify spending thousands of dollars on an entertainment system and hundreds of CDs where before you would just not eat for a few weeks to pay it off.

There is someone that knows what and asshole/bitch you are and they still stay around. That just seems like something very creepy is going on. Why on earth do they stick around?

If there is no toilet paper around when they go to the bathroom, it can only be YOUR fault.

It's always the smallest things that end up driving you insane about them.

You can't tell them off because for some reason you don't want them to leave, even those times you think you do.

You have to put up with their crappy taste in music/movies so they put up with yours.

There are moments you look at them and wonder what the hell you think you're doing with your life.

Listening to music in the car becomes a negotiation deal when you both have different taste in music.

You have to pretend to like their stupid friends and they have to pretend to like yours.

If you start a 'war' of pranks, you have to be ready to fight it for the next few years until one of you gets hurt. By that time it's a 'tradition' and who are you to stop a tradition?

Don't ask questions you don't want answered honestly. You will get an honest answer to "Am I fat?", along with dietary advice to alter the situation.

They know when you're lying to them after a while.

You have to replace older items with "nice" things. Apparently duct taped sofas aren't "nice".

You can't drive like a maniac without getting elbowed in the arm.

Finding private time to masturbate becomes more difficult and if you try to include them then you're 'bothering' them all the time [funny stuff here].

If you get up to get yourself a drink/snack, you now have to make two or at least ask them if they want any.

You will never again find YOUR underwear, just THEIRS.

When you're sick, it rocks because they have to take care of you. When they are sick, it totally SUCKS because you have to take care of them.

There is always a witness to your stupidity and someone to remind you of it the next day. (and the rest of your life)

You have to argue over what movie to see and can somehow never win because you can go see your movie 'next weekend' but by the time they agree, it's not in the theatres anymore.

Toothpaste tubes become a touchy issue.

For a certain week it's hell on earth for both of you in completely different ways.

Things you used to do that were cute are now called annoying and you're told to stop them.

You have to share the bed with someone after sex.

No matter what, you will always be wearing their socks, yet you don't seem to have any of your own.

You forget what being 'right' feels like because it all just degrees of wrong. They tell you they feel the same way, so who the hell IS winning here?

There are little notes around telling YOU where things go because it seems you've become braindead and NEED them. So you begin to write your own notes to them.

You are asked fifteen million times where their belt/hat/whatever is every day, and you never know. You've gone beyond even suggesting they put it in the same place each time because that just makes things YOUR fault for suggesting such a thing.

The cat/dog seems to like the other person, and you don't want to upset the cat/dog by killing them [funny, funny stuff here].

The first time you tell a story they think it's funny. After a few years, they've heard it a million times and now roll their eyes every time you open your mouth. So you start making things up to seem more interesting and they just shake their head.

You can't always point out odd things they do because they will simply tell you something odd you do. Each time you do this, you realize that you really ARE odd.

There are times you get bored with hanging out with them. You have nothing new to say to each other and just want to be left alone for a bit.

Their stuff sucks and your stuff rocks.

Post Fifty-Four: Slayer Show

Went to the Unholy Alliance Tour in Dallas last Saturday. My brother and a couple of his friends from Aggieland made the trek, and we even made it on time.

As a side note, what is it with people who reside in College Station and their tendencies to get lost? My brother got lost on his way to our niece's first birthday party (no real surprise there, since he does this regularly), and his friends traveled beyond downtown Fort Worth before realizing something was amiss. Oh, well. No harm, no foul.

Anyway, as a first-time attendee to a Slayer show, I expected much more deviltry. Araya actually came off as a nice guy. As my brother said while we were discussing the show, "He has a nice smile." Not the evil blood-drinking Satanists you kind of expect judging by their album covers. Maybe the fact that one of their 10-year-old daughters was standing on the wing of the stage toned them down.

And their show was kind of short, too. Think it was about eight songs, mainly a run through of some of their greatest hits, plus their new one, "Cult." They were off the stage before 11:00, and no friggin' encore. Not that it matters: we were all pretty friggin' exhausted by the time they wrapped things up. I must be getting too old for this shit.

However, Lamb of God and Mastodon simply killed. They were great, and the new stuff (particularly "Redneck" from Lamb of God) was heavy. I highly recommend that anyone who has the chance to go see them. And Children of Bodom were hugely entertaining, too. Check out their latest album, Are You Dead Yet?. As for Thine Eyes Bleed . . . well, nice job on their manager's part getting them on this bill.

Post Fifty-Three: We Are Winning, DAMMIT

You may not believe this, but we are kicking the shit out of the insurgents in Iraq: we are winning the war. Not that pinkos and the media want you to believe it. They'd rather trumpet the most recent deaths of American soldiers.

Text of a document discovered in terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hide-out. The document was provided in English by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie:

———

However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance for the following reasons:

1. By allowing the American forces to form the forces of the National Guard, to reinforce them and enable them to undertake military operations against the resistance.

2. By undertaking massive arrest operations, invading regions that have an impact on the resistance, and hence causing the resistance to lose many of its elements.

3. By undertaking a media campaign against the resistance resulting in weakening its influence inside the country and presenting its work as harmful to the population rather than being beneficial to the population.

4. By tightening the resistance's financial outlets, restricting its moral options and by confiscating its ammunition and weapons.

5. By creating a big division among the ranks of the resistance and jeopardizing its attack operations, it has weakened its influence and internal support of its elements, thus resulting in a decline of the resistance's assaults.

6. By allowing an increase in the number of countries and elements supporting the occupation or at least allowing to become neutral in their stand toward us in contrast to their previous stand or refusal of the occupation.

7. By taking advantage of the resistance's mistakes and magnifying them in order to misinform.

* * *

In general and despite the current bleak situation, we think that the best suggestions in order to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces into another war against another country or with another of our enemy force, that is to try and inflame the situation between American and Iraq or between America and the Shi'a in general.

Post Fifty-Two: Clerks II

Damn, Rosario is looking hot:

Post Fifty-One: How to get me to drop a series

Well, I picked up the latest issue of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man yesterday, and I'm out. That series has seen its last purchase from me.

I was already pissed that the writers were bringing back Uncle Ben: has there ever been a character that had a more profound impact on a literary character than Ben on Spider-man? Or the entire Marvel Universe, arguably? "With great power comes great responsibility." This goes beyond a personal effect on Peter Parker. This is Marvel mantra. This approaches the level of the Commandments in the comic-book world. Yet the brilliant writers cheapen Uncle Ben's death and the profound effect these words had on Parker for a meaningless storyline.

But to top it off, the writers went and revealed that this little series involves all sorts of alternative timelines, cosmic intersections, and all sorts of other bullshit. This alternative universe crap is unendingly confusing, and cannot help but totally screw up the continuity of not only Spider-man's character, but the entire Marvel Universe.

One only need look at the shambles that the DC universe is in thanks to various writers' creations of alternative universes and worlds. DC's continuum is a mess: how many friggin' Supermans do you need? Let me answer that for you: ONE. That's all you need. It's one Superman, one Batman, several Green Lanterns (there's actually a reasonable basis for that), one Wonder Woman, and one of any other hero to tell any number of stories about.

Well, this has been a disjointed, poorly written rant. I'm going to end it and go watch the Mavs beat the Heat (knock on wood).