Day 001: I’d Rather Stay Married [Anniversary Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. No, actually, a woman is more like a beer. First you have the skin, then the sweet sweet innards. It’s Saturday, September 19, The Year After Two Thousand and Nineteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 61˚ & Pantone 18-3943 and somewhere, somebody is trying to upload photos to Facebook. It used to be so easy. You wake up hungover on a Friday morning and upload an entire album from the night before. By the time you finish making eggs, all of the pictures of you disheveled and sweaty are on the internet for the world to see. But much to this person’s chagrin, it’s not that easy anymore. After years of being ignored, the Facebook Photo Album Interface has developed a mind of its own. Pictures will randomly get deleted or moved or turned upside down. Acquaintances from Middle School will get tagged at random, because really, doesn’t that out of focus person in the background look like them? The sentient program keeps ruining the album willy nilly as the person screams into the ether. And me? Obviously, I can hear Rachel screaming from the other room. But I’m having a hard enough time navigating the cumbersome and unnecessary changes to the WordPress Editor. The real lesson here is that Web Applications, much like the ones we love, should not be taken for granted. I also have some things on my mind.

– We did it! Woo! Bet you didn’t think we would do it, did you, Mom? In your face! Yeah! Rachel and I have successfully survived a whole year of marriage. It seems like the time flew by. It also dragged like hell. It also moved at the pace that time usually moves at [60 seconds per minute, or 60 SPM]. We ate food, we slept, I walked on the outside of her, we did all of the things that we would have done anyway, but we did it in a fashion that merits praise. It’s a huge self esteem boost. Take what I’m doing right now, for example. I’m typing with 2 fingers while watching live horse racing. Doesn’t sound very special, right? But what if I was to tell you that I was also married? Exactly. Clap away, fuckers. I’m pretty extraordinary.

– Top 5 Things That I Learned In My First Year Of Marriage

5) It’s really fun to say, “I’ll have to ask my wife”
4) Rings will always be cool to play with
3) Getting married voids your health insurance tax credit
2) I can also buy flowers for myself
1) She doesn’t like ham. This is probably something that I should’ve known years ago, but I was reminded of that this morning and it seems like news to me

– This list took me over 45 minutes to write. That’s not because it took me that long to reflect, but rather because the new WordPress editor is that much of a clunky piece of shit. For some reason, you no longer have the ability to create a single space after hitting enter. Because duh. Nobody in the history of writing has ever wanted a single space after hitting enter. The new WordPress editor isn’t for writing, but rather for making spam blogs with plenty of space for advertisements. This paragraph used to be much better, but after I wrote it, WordPress decided to delete it and erase the draft. I am at my wits end and hopefully it won’t affect the tone of the rest of this piece. No guarantees. While I struggle to make this application do basic things, Rachel is having the same issues with her Facebook photo album. So that’s how we’re spending our day. Yelling into our laptops from different rooms. This is a very on-brand day for us.

– Here’s a story that you’re surely sick of hearing: when I first messaged Rachel on Tinder, instead of saying hi, I spewed out a nonsequitur about my desire to get a tattoo of former Dodgers manager, Tommy Lasorda, getting hit in the nuts with a football. Within 8 months, she helped make this tattoo a reality. This morning, she upped the ante tenfold:

Get yourself a wife that is willing to pay a 92 year old stranger to make a video for you.

– In all honesty, being married is easy as hell. Not once in the past year did we have to worry about our relationship falling apart. This is probably because the rest of the world fell apart instead. When you’re dealing with the apocalypse, it’s really easy to not focus on the small shit that married couples bicker about. Oh, you forgot to lock the door? That’s fine, at least you didn’t lose your job. The shower mat might be crooked, but at least it’s not flooded from a hurricane. Can’t agree on what to watch on TV? That’s fine, because at least we’re not dying for a debilitating disease! I might’ve forgot to replace the toilet paper roll, but at least the city isn’t on fire.

– From the second we got married, we immediately became antisocial hermits, because we finally had a legitimate excuse to do so. Since you probably haven’t heard from us in a while, here’s a memory from every month in the past year:

October – After spending a day at the DMV, we decided to be “frisky” and bought a bed. After only a month of being married, we were already embracing our dull adult-ness.

November- Rachel woke up to find me watching Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman fight Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone at WCW Bash At The Beach ’98. She watched it for 90 seconds and stated plainly, “This is…not good”. At that point, I knew that my WWE Network subscription was a mistake and probably just a phase I was going through to cope with the Dodgers losing. But as the days went by, I watched the Attitude Era in order and by the time I got to King of the Ring ’98, she was hooked. I don’t know when or how or why, but at some point, I accidentally turned her into a wrestling fan. And it wasn’t a phase. We’ve spent most of the past year watching wrestling.

December- Sticking with the theme, Rachel gave my cousins and I the best Christmas gift ever. She took us to a goddamn Smackdown taping. It was the first time any of us had been to a televised Wrestling event and it surely won’t be the last. Unless, you know, apocalypse.

January– As if watching wrestling wasn’t enough, she took on another one of my hobbies. She actually wrote something for BFD. And it was really damn good. If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and read it. If you already have, do yourself a favor and read it again. It’s much better than whatever’s left here.

February– While waiting for Ween to take the stage, a coked out hippie asked me where my wife was. Taken aback, I told her she stayed at home because she hates crowds. But how in the hell did he know that I had a wife? It wasn’t until hours later when I realized that I was still wearing my “Just Married” pin on my hat. Midway through the show, I found a link to a live stream and sent it to Rachel. We listened to the rest of the show together, albeit miles apart. When they played “Ocean Man”, she marked out because they were playing a song she actually knew. It was nice to enjoy an event together, in the fashion that we both preferred. The wonders of technology.

March- I blocked most of this month out of my memory. There was a lot of emotions, fears, bad vibes and intermittent video game playing. But no matter how bad things got, I knew that she was safe at home, waiting for me to join her.

April- We spent the whole month playing Animal Crossing.

May- We spent the whole month playing Animal Crossing.

June- We spent the whole month playing Animal Crossing. Rachel left the apartment for the first time in 3 months. I was much more nerve-wrecked than she was. I drove her to the doctors, where it was determined that she would be done with her maintenance chemo. The next stop on the parade of fun was the Medicaid Office. She handled all of the business on her own while I struggled to find parking. She even got chummy with the desk clerk. I was about to drop her off at home when I realized that there was actually a parking spot out front. And of course, I faltered at parallel parking. After a couple of minutes of failing, Rachel sighed and said “let me fucking do it”. We switched seats and she parked that car like an absolute boss. Let it be known that with only 40% of her vision intact, my wife is still a better parker than me. The whole day was like a fever dream. I had never seen her more chipper, confident and more like herself in two years. Needless to say, I cried a little.

July- Baseball came back and so did her job and a renewed sense of normalcy. Morale was high.

August- We bought a new couch. Some real adult shit.

September- I did something really stupid and Rachel was mad at me for a good 72 hours. It was a weird feeling and not one that I could recommend. When it was all said and done, apparently we had a thing called a “fight”. I hear that it happens a lot with couples, married or not. We don’t really do that ever. I guess we’re just lucky or really good at being together. Probably both.

– Top 5 Meals That We Consistently Ate This Year

5) Rigatoni with butter
4) Taco Bell
3)  Semi-mediocre diner food
2) The same empanada place every Thursday
1) The same Italian place every Friday

– I really am a lucky guy. I somehow found somebody that allows me to be myself with very little consequence. She compliments so many of my deficiencies and I do the same for her. And some days, I just sit in awe at how beautiful she is. After 4 years, I’m still crazy about her and that’s something that I don’t plan on changing any time soon. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve wasted enough time writing today. I’ve got to go watch some trash on Youtube with her.

– Try this trick over the weekend: get married and stay that way for a year.

Have a marry weekend, everyone!

– TeeCoZee