Freezing My Effing Ass Off

My husband and I disagree about a countless number of things. I love olives. He hates them. He thinks it's okay to bring his Blackberry to bed with us. I think that's absurd. And like most couples, he's always hot and I'm always cold. What I didn't realize is just how far he'd go to keep it that way.

Now, by no means am I claiming sainthood. I admittedly cheat at board games. I will shove Aces down my pants when playing cards to ensure a win. And I will argue anything to the death, no matter how ridiculous, just to prove I'm right, even if I'm wrong (like the time I pulled out a five minute, bullet-pointed argument claiming it was Bruce Hornsby who sampled from Tupac and not the other way around.)  Quite the opposite is my Honest-Abe husband, T, who will insist on restarting a game when he finds out I'm cheating, even when he's on the same, (winning, wink wink), team. But recently, I found out that while T is the first one to stand up and admit to being wrong, he will employ the sneakiest of tactics to keep silent when he wants to keep things just the way they are.

For the last two months, as winter hit its coldest temperatures I've spent the majority of my time between the hours of 8pm and 11pm walking back and forth from the living room to the bedroom adding layer after unsexy layer of thermals, sweats, socks, hats, scarfs and burying myself under blankets.  I'll look up at T with sad eyes and whimper, I'm freezing.  He'll try to warm me up by giving me a big hug, but then generally jumps ten feet when my ice cold hands hit his skin screaming, "WTF!!  Your hands are so cold!"

Thinking to myself, "Yes. My hands ARE so cold. That's why I'm dressed like this," I usually give him a quizzical look and ask how on earth is the apartment this cold when we live in 700 square feet on the 14th floor or a large building?  Doesn't heat rise?  This goes on every winter and every night we get into bed, T wearing shorts and a t-shirt, me dressed for a day on the slopes. He drifts off only to open his eyes to shoo my cold hand off of his arm and I try to burrow into the bed like a mole in the hopes of maybe staying warm enough to sleep through the night.

Cut to two nights ago.  There we were doing the usual, I'm Freezing vs. Don't Touch with those Cold Hands dance when I finally sat up and said, "I really can't take this, can we call maintenance or something?"  T looked at me somewhat quizzically and I thought I must've actually had icicles hanging off my nose, but with that quizzical look on his face he said, "Why don't I just turn on the heat."

I looked at him dumbfounded.

"What?"  He responded nonchalantly.

Flabbergasted, I said, "We can TURN ON the heat?"

Silence.

I continued, "All this time, I've been under the impression the building controls the heat, but you're telling me, WE can turn on the heat."

Completely matter-of-factly he said, "Yeah, didn't you see me turn it off two months ago because it was so hot in here?"

I was stunned.  Not one to shirk sarcasm I just stared at him for 30 seconds then replied, "Haven't you seen me parading around here dressed like an Eskimo, not allowed to even brush your sensitive skin with my practically frost-bitten hands for the past two months because it's so COLD!?"  

I literally could not believe that for two months straight he'd watched me shake, shiver, pile on layers and lose the ability to cry because my tears were frozen and all he had to do was TURN ON THE FRIGGIN HEAT.

We went back and forth like this for a good twenty minutes, my voice rising, my analogies getting more and more absurd and with each ridiculous statement, T laughed harder and harder.  The only reason I didn't pick up the radiator cover and throw it at him is because nothing on earth gives me more pleasure than making him laugh that hard. Even when it's at my own expense.  

So as I sit here, freezing my ass off, I'm plotting revenge in my head.  It will be good and it will be bad and it will be funny.  But for now, as I think of the best ways to cause the most discomfort, I am desperately wishing he was home to show me how to turn on the heat.  

Our First Fight: The Good News is I'm Not Crazy

Last night, my husband of almost one month and I, met some friends out for drinks and in the middle of a Manhattan bar, danced to the Dirty Dancing classic, Time of Our Lives, not caring that at 28 years old we looked like the "old people in the bar." You know who I mean, the couple at the bar that after 4 drinks you have to go talk to because they're cool. Like your parents. But we didn't care.

When we got home, we stayed up way too late watching TV and talking excitedly about different things the way people do when they're getting to know each other. And when we finally went to bed, we said "I love you" with shit-eating grins on our faces and after the lights were turned off I asked him, "Are you still smiling?"

"Yes." He responded.

"Me too." I said and then drifted off to dreamland expecting to wake up the next morning in an episode of Leave it to Beaver.

However, when we did wake up this morning, T and UnPlain had replaced The Cleavers and Mr. Cleaver was cranky from staying up so late. Trying to be understanding given the fact that I'd be pissed off too if I had to get up and go to work while T got to sleep in after a late night, I rolled my sore-ffrom-dancing-ass out of bed and described in detail all of the things I was going to do around the house today, in an effort to let T know that I too was "working." Eventually he headed off to work and I started to get a move on my day. Things were fine until a few hours later when we spoke on the phone.

BAM. Our first married fight. Well, our first REAL married fight. I don't really count every time he gets pissed off and starts an argument after I start eating his food because I've finished my own. No, this was a real fight and it was over what most couples find themselves arguing about often, money. Not real money mind you, it was over a minor expense which one of us considers a necessity and the other considers a luxury (I'll let you figure out who's who).

But of course it spiraled into a bigger argument on our disparate views and the next thing I knew I was lying in bed crying while spewing out emails with lines like, "What's it like to know that your wife is crying because of you? I hope it was worth the X dollars," as fast as the predictive text on my blackberry would let me. Then shortly after I updated my Facebook to reflect that my morning was "ruined" driving the guilt stake just a little further in, I realized it was now 11:30am and I hadn't done a single thing on my to-do list (even though one of those items is now off my to do list thanks to the fight). So, I got up, got dressed and went to the gym.

Now normally, I would've stayed in bed escalating the argument to the point where T would consider leaving work to come home, take me out and save the relationship. In the process I would've gotten in some over-top and deep-cutting one liners that would further prove my sainthood. But instead, I went on with my day.

Maybe it's because I was three quarters in the right during this argument or maybe because just as I was typing the best low-blow I could come up with and BBM it to my husband I realized that, shit, he's just that. My husband.

He's not the jerk who hasnt' proposed yet. He's not the jerk who doesn't understand why the wedding is stressing me out so much. He's not the jerk that got mad at me for staying out until 5am with my girlfriends letting dudes buy me drinks (ok, he gets that one). He's not any of these jerks. He's the jerk I married. He's the jerk I will buy a home with one day. He's the jerk I will raise my jerk children with some day. And he's the jerk I will retire to Boca Raton, take up Mah Jong and drive a massive Cadillac that we "bump into things" with.

Feeling good about revelation, half way through my workout, I decided it was time to email T and clue him in that I'd decided the argument was over. As we apologized and "talked it out" over instant messenger, developing a plan of action to reconcile our disagreement, I thwarted off the anxiety attack that usually comes with anytime I realized I've matured even the slightest little bit. Then I stretched, cleaned myself up and headed over to Sephora to buy some outrageously over priced beauty product, spending more than I would've in the first place. Sucka.

The best part of all of this is I realized that, wait, I'm sane. I'm sorta mature. I'm acting like an adult and not the bat-shit, this-relationship-will-never-work/why-don't-you-plan-the-damn-wedding-yourself/don't-even-think-about-having-more-fun-than-me bride I was for the past year and a half. Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the fact that I have issues, that I take arguing to a whole new level and that I have more than once ripped off my engagement ring and slammed it on the coffee table for poignancy. This is part of my charm. It keeps things interesting and gives me something to crack up about with my equally-issuefied friends over brunch while T roles his eyes. But I do realize that it wasn't entirely me. It was the beast known as a wedding.

Now, there's nobody asking, "when are you getting engaged?" There's nobody saying, "You know, you guys should really be doing for your wedding." And there's no more, "How are we ever going to make it through this wedding."

All that's left is me, my husband and two rings on my left ring finger that I didn't feel like ripping off for effect this time.

Let's Talk About Sex Baby

While I normally like to entertain you with recounting the inevitable mishaps that occur as I try to go about leading my normal life, I was inspired yesterday to write a little commentary based on the topic of one of my favorite daytime activities.

When four o'clock rolled around, after running across the street for a fresh bottle of Malbec, I turned on Oprah and was greeted by an overly expressive, batshit-behind-the-eyes, loud-talker in a wig. No, I'm not talking about Oprah herself, but rather her guest of the day, former Evangelical Church Leader, Ted Haggard. In case you're not familiar with Ted Haggard he's the mega-church, right-wing, anti-abortion, gays-will-burn-in-hell preaching pastor who "fell from grace" in 2006 when it came out that he was buying both sex and drugs from another man.

As I watched Oprah trying desperately yet failing to be hard-hitting and non-judgemental, while of course learning something from the Pastor and his wife between lengthy commercial breaks, I started thinking about sex, sexuality and what's normal. His apologies, revelations, self-evolution and Invislign braces just confused me as he preached, and this is not a direct quote, "Deep down inside I DO want to bang dudes, but through therapy and my wife refusing to divorce me, I've made the choice not to." WTF?

Now according to Haggard, his homo-sexual acts were the product of mental illness requiring the help of a therapist. With that, I started to wonder if every barely legal skank posting photos of herself making out with her best friend on MySpace is mentally ill or as Haggard referred to himself, 'a heterosexual with issues.'

It wasn't until Oprah methodically brought the conversation back around to focus on herself that I became completely confused. As Haggard openly admitted to having 'homosexual inclinations' inside of him, Oprah responded by announcing she wonders what that must be like for him because, "as a heterosexual woman," she "does not know what it's like to have homosexual thoughts." Now, I know the majority of my straight male readers out there are not going to openly admit to even ever having the slightest curiousity about being intimate with another guy, so I'm not going to push that issue, but come on Ophs!! You're going to tell me you've never been curious to see what it might be like to play Tune in Tokyo with Gayle? I have to disagree.

I don't know a girl who hasn't made out with her best friend in the second grade, picked lesbian porn over the regular kind or enjoyed a trip to the strip club? Now, either it's just me and all the girls I hang out with are a bunch of Big-Ass-Lesbos or, contrary to Oprah's personal experience. getting the tinglies from a same-sex thought is pretty normal. Whether we chose to admit it or not we are all curious creatures especially when it comes to doing the nasty. There's a good reason it is the one topic we loath discussing openly with our parents no matter how old we get.

The only thing that irks me more than intolerance is ignorance. I'm equally annoyed by people who preach tolerance while they make certain to announce that they could never be affiliated with whatever taboo they are begging you to accept. So after one hour of watching Oprah (which consisted of maybe 20 minutes of actual show and 40 minutes of commercials) I'm left left being told that because my girlfriend "N" and I dry humped (before I even knew what dry humping was) and played kissy-face in the fourth grade I'm going to either a) burn in hell or b) I'll never be as good as Oprah, but luckily she sympathizes.

Discuss.

UnPlain Jane will return with frivolous tales of life as an Unemployed Apartment Wife shortly.