A cranky, though underratedly handsome man named Ebepeter Scrooge sits in his office, going over his sitemeter stats by candlelight. His assistant, Ben Cratchit, enters. “Mr. Scrooge, it’s pretty cold in here. I mean, I look good in layers, but still.”
“Bah!”
it begins
or so
i’ve heard
with teeny letters
on a small
glowing square
really
T9Word-ian replies
to touchscreen
QWERTY desires
the buzzing of
the arrival of
the first
gently rouses
but
the words…
there is no
easing in
and so it starts
perfectly
timed
wonderfully
received
each missive
inspired by
and building on
the previous
if some words are
escalators
these are the
space shuttle
sucka
images of
dream-inspiring
legs around waist
around two am
the twitching hour
nails meet
back
mouth meets
fucking everything
big fingers having
a hard time
saying what they
want to say
i wasn’t trying to type “cumulus”
but they’re
more nimble
in other situations
promise!
and so it is
and so it goes
unspoken
(recently, anyway)
desire
finds the path
of not even
a little resistance
moments shared
from a distance
missing
cured
desire
fueled
further
thoughts of
the next time
pull forth
a wry smile
and now
sleep
Hiya, Future Wife.
A number of bloggers have been posting about the pros and cons of being single for the holidays lately. My only real thought was “It sucks not having someone to try to find the perfect gift(s) for.” But when I stopped reading each post, I stopped thinking about it.
Until yesterday.
I had (have, really) kind of an awesome story to tell. I thought “Oh, I have to tell–”
No one came to mind.
See, FW, the person would have to meet certain criteria.
1) Someone I feel comfy being completely sappy around. (VERY small group.)
2) Someone who’ll get it and be as sappy about it as I am.
3) Someone who isn’t going through their own stuff (good and bad) and doesn’t need a break from me bombarding them with information.
So I kept the story to myself.
That kinda sucks. So you should show up already, woman.
I was thinking about all of this before sleep last night. So, of course, I had a dream that I was getting married. I’m going to assume it was to you. But I never saw you. Not clearly.
I saw you from a distance. I saw that you’re a brunette.
I met your mom. She was very charmed by me. And lots of fun.
“Stanley” from The Office was there. He was cranky. He was less charmed by me.
We were getting married outside in my town. At night.
About two hours before the ceremony, everyone started calling my phone. “Where are you?” “Hurry up!”
I was stretched out on my bed, watching TV.
Everyone was losing their shit.
Finally you told them, “Let Peter be Peter. He’ll be here when it counts.”
Even in the dream I thought, “This chick gets me.”
Then I woke up.
It dawned on me that even once I do convince you to marry me (presumably this involves a tasty melange of hypnosis, blackmail and questionable judgment on your part), you’ll still have to figure out how to put up with me.
Be brave, little one.
So I decided to put together a bit of a primer for dealing with me:
– Peter knows that it isn’t his job to always fix everything. He displays this knowledge by saying “I know that it’s not my job to always fix everything.” But he’ll try. A little. He’ll let you vent, of course. And do anything you need. But he might try a little too hard to “help.” You might get mad. But he’ll just shrug and explain it’s just how he’s wired. You won’t like the reply. He’ll smile. And you’ll forgive because he’s oddly hard to stay mad at.
– Peter lives by a very specific code. Scientists gather that it was cobbled together from watching Clint Eastwood westerns and The Smurfs as a kid. There are no grey areas with Peter. And he feels VERY strongly about the code. Of course he’ll only tell you about each part of the code, after you somehow go against it. And then he’ll give you the “I expected more from you” face. This will make you want to smack him. While it is hard to stay mad at him, it is crazy easy to GET mad at him. He makes up for this in other ways. For example…
– Anything you want massaged, just put it under the Peter’s hands while he is watching sports/movies/The Suite Life of Zach and Cody/etc. He’ll barely notice. He will massage until you remove it. You’ll go to bed all blissed out and relaxed. He’ll wonder why his hands are cramping.
– Peters are not open-minded eaters. He once said, “I saves my adventurousness for the boudoir.” No. Really. He said that. In order to trick Peter into eating something “strange,” give it a more simple name. Like chicken kiev can be “chick and butter.” All cheeses are just “cheese.” And you should call any kind of starch that isn’t a potato… “potato.”
That’s enough for you to absorb for now. I think maybe I’ll make this manual a recurring series, within the recurring series of these letters to you.
Rock on.
Love,
Peter
she is
keeping you
at arm’s length
(partially)
so that
her hand is
just
on you
again
no
troop surge
is
large enough
to protect
the heart
and
control
the mind
you’ve both
seen
that
reaching out
she is
hoping you’re
not there
but
but
so very
relieved
when you
are
learning
that
you can show
who you
really
are
yet it
doesn’t mean
someone recognizes
it
you sometimes worry
that you have said
too much
admitted
too much
but
you didn’t stop
probably
couldn’t
fuck aloof
you know
you’ve played that
at a
hall of fame
level
no more
beauty is
beauty
hot is
hot
want is
constant
take
that
you hope
hell yeah
you hope
that
you made
some impression
that you
were
important
if
only for
a minute
’cause
really
otherwise
there’s just a
poor selection
of souvenirs
in
love’s giftshop
Many months ago, I woke up with an idea. And bedhead.
The idea was to combine some of my favourite word doodles (at the time) with cool pics.
I mentioned to Ashley that I had no eye for design. She told me that she did.
Hook. Bait. Chomp!
Somehow I convinced her to take my words, combine them with pics I tracked down and make it beeeeyootiful.
I was feeling pretty smug.
Then Ashley showed me the first couple of pages as a mock-up.
I was feeling pretty smugger.
And then Ashley disappeared to Europe for four months.
She was “finding herself.” “Experiencing life.” “Being happy.”
She was being selfish is what she was doing.
She finally returned home.
I didn’t mention the project. I’m bossy, but I’m not pushy.
Or I’m pushy, but not bossy.
Or I’m pushy AND bossy but not a communist.
Something.
This morning I woke up to a message from Ashley. It mentioned “e-mail” and a “present.” I logged on and…
It was our project!
I hope you enjoy it.
And Ashley rules!
Eventually.
EDIT TO ADD: HUGE thank yous to all the photographers who graciously let me use their amazing images!
What’s that?
You didn’t love it?
Huh.
OK. Well…
Way to ruin an intro.
Jerk.
Whatever.
With even cuter pics.
Hey, lady.
The Monkey was here yesterday. Out of the blue she said, “Do you have a measuring tape?”
I was getting a snack for The ACN (who wanted to have a picnic in front of the TV) but stopped and turned to look at her. “Why?”
“I feel tall today. I want to check it out. Everything seems so… small.”
I blinked a few times.
Then I got her a measuring tape. I mean… You feel tall, you gotta find that shit out, right?
It turned out that she is 5′1 1/2″.
Crazy.
I used to carry that twerp everywhere.
A couple weeks ago she called me “old man.” That’s a far cry from when she was three and told me, “Peter, you are the most precious boy in the world.” And when she was little, put her arm around me, and said, “You know how much I love you? FIFTY!!!”
Since she’s almost a teenager, I don’t think we’ll be going back to those days anytime soon, Future Wife.
Then she asked how tall I am. I told her.
“Can I check to make sure?”
Then I realized, I’m not sure I’ve ever had my height measured. I’ve basically been guessing for decades. I mean, I knew the ballpark, but it is very possible that I bought into the hype my high school basketball coach was putting out there when he’d lie about the team heights in tournament programs. He wanted to make us not sound like a group of short little frenchmen.
I stared worrying that if I was a half inch shorter than I thought, I might cease to feel Peter-like. I love round, even numbers.
Who would that short dude be?
Ack.
Buuuut the little shit asked, so I went along.
And it turns out…
I’m a legit 6′4″ in socks.
I was more relieved than I expected to be.
Yesterday evening, after both twerps were gone home, I grabbed the laptop and plopped down on my bed. I planned on cranking out a blog post. Possibly this blog post.
But I was tired. I watched football. Gchat windows flew open all over my screen. (I was briefly very popular last night for some reason.) And the comfiness of my bed started sucking me in.
There was a time out in the football game, so I started flipping channels. Serendipity was starting.
I decided to watch a couple of minutes.
So, yeah, I watched the entire thing.
My unabashed (well, faux-abashed) love for girly movies and girly music is pretty well-known here on the blog, so you might already know about it.
Assuming you’re reading this.
And, really, I’ve convinced myself that you are.
I have no idea why I think that.
But, if you are reading, you are either:
1) Thinking “Dude, I don’t know… That’s a lot of “poetry” and short fiction pieces about throwing women around hotel rooms.”
or
2) Just reading and refusing to speak up because you are a bit of a pain in the ass.
If it’s #1, you should just get over that shit and love me for the goof I am.
If it’s #2…
Actually I can totally see it being #2. I’d be very surprised if my future wife wasn’t at least a little bit of a pain in the ass.
Opposites attracting and all that.
My friend told me that other day that she thinks I should start a blog just for these letters to you. I worried that people might get sick of reading them. A risk I am running already by posting them so frequently. But then I realized I only care what you think about them.
Still, I think it would have been kind of cool if I had started a new blog just for them and wrote them anonymously. You know? Posted one a week or so, and left some email address in the “About” section for you to contact me.
I love the idea of serendipity (see what I did there?) leading you to that blog.
And to me.
Crap.
Kinda late for that anonymous thing now, eh?
Althoooough… You never know.
You’re probably thinking, “There is no way he has such an ego that he thinks that people — some of whom have never read his writing — will automatically recognize his style.”
Uhm…
Have I mentioned how pretty you are today?
Shhhhhhhh.
Love,
Peter
So I’ve been munchkin-sitting since Wednesday. We’ve had fun. And she’s kept me busy.
Very busy.
She also likes playing tricks on me.
Yesterday, around 1 pm, I decided that it was too late in the day for her to still be wearing pjs. She disagreed, but not too aggressively.
When I went to change her, I looked at the clothes I had put on her the night before.
Uncle Pete: Are these jammies?
ACN shakes her head “no.”
Uncle Pete: Are they long johns?
ACN gives Uncle Pete a “What century are you from, Jim Bob?” look.
Uncle Pete: Do you normally wear these under your clothes?
ACN: Yeah.
Uncle Pete: What didn’t you tell me?
ACN: Tee hee hee.
So I’ve spent the past day feeling like quite a dork. I’ve been telling people the story. The ACN has been smiling.
She has another set of the “long johns” so I put the shirt on under her long sleeve T today.
A couple hours ago, my sister showed up to pick up the twerp. She looked at what the ACN was wearing and said…
“Why is she wearing her pajama top under her shirt?”
I was holding the twerp in my arms, I looked at her and asked, “Have you been fibbing to Uncle Pete all along?”
“TEE HEE HEE.”
Hiiiiiii, you.
Since I made a mail-order bride joke yesterday and was taken seriously, I figured it was time to write to you again.
So Christmas is almost here, eh?
I’m not ready for it. I think I was pretending it wasn’t coming for a while. Last Christmas was such a heart-wrenching clusterfuck for my family. I’ll tell you about it sometime.
I’ll be putting up a tree with The ACN in a few days. That’ll probably help get me in the holiday mood a little. I’m not into Christmas music, so that doesn’t do anything for me. I’m especially not into Hanson Christmas music, despite what you may have read on Twitter.
Are you on Twitter? It sucks.
My family loves playing Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton’s Christmas album. Though I’m not sure if they really like it, or if they just like how much it irritates me.
Probably a lot of both.
A few years back, I even made The “Ultimate Christmas CD” so we could listen to something decent.
It was full of the classics. Some Sinatra and John Lennon and Elvis and Springsteen and a bunch of other awesome.
They played Kenny & Dolly instead.
I’m already looking forward to Christmas shopping for you, FW. I loooooooove that. I’ll have a draft e-mail year-round where I’ll stick ideas and links for things you might like. On a rainy night in mid-July you might mention a book you loved when you were 12. I’ll take note of that shit.
And every year I’ll try to come up with one gift that you can’t just buy in a store. Something very unique and just for you. Something that will hopefully make you “Awwww.” Something that will remind you of why you put up with me.
Maybe.
I’ll add to the list often. I’ll rank and re-rank the items.
And when I finally — FINALLY — decide which items to get you, I’ll buy them too early and by Christmas will have talked myself into wanting to buy you more of them.
You’ll reply, “Oh yeah?”
“Yesssssssss.”
“I’m intrigued an–”
“No hints!!”
“You brought it up.”
“NO HINTS!”
“Okay. Fine. What are we doing for dinner?”
“I really love what I bought you this year.”
And then you’ll walk away.
My family may torture you during the holidays too. Many years ago, my mom, sister and I ran out to pick up some presents that were being hidden elsewhere, and left my then-girlfriend home to supervise my father.
Five minutes after we left, he got a gleam in his eye. He went to the Christmas tree and grabbed two presents. “I have an idea.”
She was scared.
A few hours later, when we started to open gifts, we began to see what his idea was.
He was laughing so hard he was almost crying when I opened a pair of women’s gloves. “Switched… tags…”
My girlfriend just shrugged as we each opened A LOT of gifts that didn’t belong to us.
Future Wife, there’s a reason why I’m like this.
I’ll also do things to irk you. It’s time you make peace with that.
I’ll tell you “It’s part of my charm!” And hopefully often enough that you’ll believe it.
If you don’t, I’ll try my classic “Shhhhhh” move. For some reason, I think that a gentle shushing will make you forget my misdeeds. I have no idea why. It doesn’t really work, of course. But sometimes the sheer ridiculousness of the attempt will disarm.
I also try to kiss my way out of trouble.
And speeding tickets.
Merry Christmas, lady.
Love,
Peter
There are very few things that I won’t agree to if you tack a “sometime” on the end of the request.
“You should watch New Moon with me sometime.”
“You might need to give me a kidney sometime.”
“You should let me tie you to a hotel bed and work you over with a ping pong paddle sometime.”
Those would work. Hell, the last would would work without the “sometime.” You know what I’m sayin’? Yoooou know.
*Peter makes “call me” hand gesture*
A while back Jenn asked for a guest post. Sometime. I agreed. And gave it as much thought as Godzilla gave the people of Tokyo.
“What’s on TV tonight? Did I just step on something?”
Or as much thought as Tiger Woods gave his family.
[I hate cheaters. HATE. So I am pissed off on that level. But, also, a tiny voice on the "Dude" side of my personality is all "Man, you are the greatest golfer EVER. You have more money than Bob Saget. Your name is Tiger! Your wife is like a dream wrapped in a fantasy, slathered with cutesexy! And you are pulling chicks that I could get. Come on." You were thinking it too. Don't lie.]*
Anyway, Jenn called in her marker, so she got a guest post.
You should go read it. And leave comments. Unless the comments have nothing to do with how adorable I am. Because, really, what’s the point of that?
Oh. And there are pics of me as a little dude.
* I was going to leave that part out because I think it makes me sound like a complete jerk. But then I shut off comments anyway, so you can’t tell me. Hee hee.
