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.  

My Newest Facebook Friend

The other night, when T and I were out to dinner with a couple of friends, my BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) pinged with an urgent message from my best friend that read: "Your mom just requested me on Facebook!!!" Faster than I could order another glass of wine, I switched from BBM to my mobile Facebook and there it was, glaring at me, "Mama UnPlain would like to be your friend."

Cracking up, I hit "confirm" and turned to my friends saying, "Oh my gawd...Mama UnPlain is my new Facebook bestie." Immediately, I navigated the Facebook App on my Blackberry to the "Write on Someone's Wall" option and posted the phrase, "Hey Hook!" on Mama U's wall. Hey Hook is a phrase my mother has been shouting to my best friend and I every time we walk in the front door of my parent's house since the time we were about fifteen. Hook is short for Hooker and it sounds hilarious in my mother's Strong Island, NY accent. (For the record, my grandmother prefers to call us Ho's instilling in us an even greater sense of self-esteem.)

The morning after, when the vino wore off and I checked my Facebook to see if Mama UnPlain had updated her status to reflect that she was having a hot flash, I started to think about if I really wanted my mother having the same deep insight into my life that I give to my close, personal Facebook network. You know, like people I haven't seen or spoken to since the fifth grade. I delved deep into thought and contemplated if I wanted to take the time or the effort to create a "limited access" friend list leaving my mother with the same online persona I would provide to my employer or clergyman (if I had either of those.)

But when I really think about it, my Mama UnPlain (well both Mama and Papa UnPlain) are cool and have been especially since I entered my twenties (which I'm scarily inching closer to exiting.) They've reacted calmly to all my little fender benders over the years, calmly made sure I paid my fine after the police issued me a citation of public nudity after one night at the beach, and more often then not will indulge in a few cocktails with their adult daughter not complaining when my friends think they're being quiet at three in the morning. So what's the big deal about my mom perusing a few pictures of me wearing a handkerchief and calling it a dress or reading friends comments about my threatening to drop kick a cab driver/bartender/priest for not giving me my money's worth?

But then I thought a little further about the real negative affects Mama UnPlain being on Facebook could have on my life. First of all, our already three times daily phone call habit would increase with every status update (which is constant thanks to Facebook for Blackberry - I'm just short of updating, "UnPlain Jane is taking a piss). Furthermore, Mama UnPlain would no doubt be contacting me, my husband and my best friend every single time she logged on, not to comment on whatever was on our page, but to ask yet another question about how "this interweb site works." You may think I'm lying, but this is the same woman to who I am STILL trying to explain that that tying "JCPENNY" into a search engine is NOT the same thing as going to the JCPENNY website. So when I say, Mom, go to Google. What she does is type the word google into her MSN search that automatically opens when she logs on and then insists that she went to Google, but it doesn't work.

As I thought about the zillion other reasons this was a bad idea, my phone rang. I saw it my was my mother, so I picked it up and said, "Mama UnPlain!! What is up with you and Facebook?!"

"Oh UnPlain," she replied. "Your aunt and I don't even know how the hell we got to that Facebook thing last night. I just wanted to see the picture you told me about." At that point I realized I didn't have to change a thing life would remain the same. It would take her another year to figure out how to get back and by that time she'll have forgotten her password.

Dating

When we woke up this morning, my husband T rolled over, exhaled an ungodly combination of raspberry, mango and tequila into my face and then scratched himself. He got up, sauntered into the bathroom to do what we all do after a long night out on the town. Through the bathroom door, I heard him fart and before the look of disgust could spread across my face, he chuckled at the sound of his own flatulence and somehow I was charmed. I stretched out, smiled and thought, "I love him so much." I burped loudly, rolled over and waited for him to come back to bed so we could tell each other how cute (read: disgusting) we are.

This situation is nothing out of the ordinary. We've been together for five years and there are few boundaries left between us. For better or for worse, we pick our noses in front of each other, we force each other into Dutch Ovens and we've most recently forayed into the mysterious arena of belly-button lint (a fascinating phenomenon.)

However, this morning was different. It was different because instead of waking up, warm and snuggley, in our own bed, in our little apartment where no one can see us, we woke up on an air mattress in the living room of the apartment that our friends D & K share as a couple. They were just a few feet away sleeping with the bedroom door open, in full ear shot of anything and everything we said or did and knowing full well that they would not be spared a smell or sound that emanated from us, we continued on with the same comfort level that we would've if we'd been hungover and disgusting in the privacy of our own home.

We finished the morning with a cup of coffee, a four-person-revolving-door visit to the john, and the unabashed devouring of the first bagel I've had in over a year. As D & K kindly drove us to the nearest New Jersey Transit stop, my husband shamelessly insisted that if we didn't make it the train, they'd be driving us all the way back to Manhattan in much the same way he would half-jokingly coax a ride out of one of our family members. It was at this moment, I pulled out my travel-pack of Pepto Bismol chewables and asked if anyone else in the car was churning the kind of butter in their stomach that I was. Just then, I started thinking about just how long we'd been "dating" this couple and how the relationship had evolved.

We met D & K sometime around 2 and a half years ago through mutual friends and bonded instantly over the fact that we were both "JewTalian". A few weeks later we saw each other again and bonded over the fact that we all like champagne. Lots of it. It wasn't long after that that we ran into each yet again and had the first of what would be many dance-offs at our mutual friend's wedding. Things just clicked and somewhere along the line, one of us suggested that we get together, outside of the mutual friend's celebrations to, ya know, have dinner or something. After four two many cocktails, the next thing we knew we were having our first sleepover when D & K came into the city for our first official "date" as a couple.

The morning after was slightly awkward as is any "morning after" the first time a Saturday night date turns into a Sunday morning, "can I get you breakfast?" Fortunately, when you're a couple dating other couples, the day after the "third date" doesn't require an STD test or Plan B. What it does involve is staying in bed just a little longer than you normally would, not sure when you should go out into the living room where your new friends are sleeping on your air mattress and when you finally do, odds are they've already silently snuck out leaving you an adorable note and letting you know they had a great time. That's how our first morning after with D & K went and shortly thereafter we were making plans to visit them in New Jersey.


Slowly, but surely, you start to bond. Just as two single people bond over their likes, dislikes, random coincidences and shared bad habits; when you're dating another couple you start to bond over the same things. Take D & K for example, as we got to know them we realized we shared some:

Shared Likes: Wine, Drunken Hugs, Guitar Hero
Shared Dislikes: Running out of Wine, Passing out Too Early; Mean People
Random Coincidences: Being "Jewtalian"; Shared Zodiac Signs
Shared Bad Habits: Sneaking Shots, Starting Ridiculous (but-totally-justified-at-the-moment) Arguments with Each Other, Giving Customer Service Representatives an Attitude.

Unlike a date between two single people, a couple date lacks the prospect of sex (unless you're dating at the Burning Man). In fact, a couple date generally lowers the chances of anyone having sex since it usually involves an ungodly and unsexy amount of food. It also usually ends in some rendition of "Oh my gawd! He does too!" and "She gives you shit for that too!" So by the end of the date you feel fat, drunk and too annoyed at your significant other to even think about quietly banging one out while your newly acquired couple-friends sleep no more than 30 feet away.

Dating other couples generally leaves you hungover and having spent too much money without the promise of sex, diamonds or someone to split the rent with. It almost wouldn't seem worth it, but when you wake up one morning with dragon breath, diarrhea, and only a vague recollection of why you told off that cab driver/coat check girl/bartender as a team, it's nice to know you can walk twenty feet, fart in unison and turn to your friends to ask, "what the hell happened last night?!"