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Requiem for a Date Night
Well! Date Night was a great success after a patchy launch.
Possibly I should have not invited other people along at the last minute, that’s true, but without their presence we would not have ended up watching “So, you think you can strip?” (The first amateur male stripping competition in Perth) at the end of the night.
Details huh?
Okay, here’s a quick synopsis of the night:
Ben and Emma race home from work early, but traffic is insane and it takes Emma 1.5 hours to make it back (three times the usual). Ben tells Emma that they will be joined at dinner by a work mate and her “man bag” friend, who is gay, but that’s okay. Emma is secretly upset by this but gets ready anyway. Ben thinks things are going great. It’s time to leave (+5 minutes) and Ben is made aware that Dates don’t involve other people, but he recovers gracefully and our intrepid couple makes it to the restaurant before the other pair.
Dinner goes swimmingly, largely helped along by two bottles of very nice wine and a single glass of real, actually french, champagne. The food was fantastic as well, but they run out of time to try dessert. Dessert is reprised at another establishment, to great applause and general frivolity, until finally the group moves on to the nightclub. Almost. There is a quick dash back home to get a passport because a wallet was left at work, during which the young married couple discusses marriage and how much fun it is to be leaving early while the single folk stay on at the (probably) raging club.
They make it back in time to catch the judging of the first round of stripper hopefuls, drinks are appropriated and the show continues. There are terrible, terrible strip shows and some good ones, but generally it was great fun. Especially the part where one of the contestants, desperate for applause and probably drunk on all the screaming females, “accidentally” get’s his junk out and prances about the stage like he’s hung like a horse. He is not. No matter though, the crowd goes nuts anyway, possibly to make up for his.
The professional strippers who are promoting the show put on one of their own on. They are, of course, significantly better than any of the contestants. Judges announce the winner and our married couple, having had a nice dinner; fun conversations; and oddball (literally) entertainment, call it a night.
Perhaps we aren’t so “old” after all.
I just got hassled by a security guard for lying down on a big
circular seat while reading a book. Amazing!
Sorry mate, I know this is going to sound strange, but you can’t lie
down while on the seat. It’s okay to read the book, but you have to be
sitting up – Security guard at Enex100
How weird is that?
A lady walked past while this was going on and snapped a picture. I
asked her if she wanted another one, but she just smiled and moved on
(with Mr Guard escorting her away). Apparently I was causing a stir.
Fully clothed, no shoes on the material, nothing! Oh well, time to
move along I guess :-)
No news is good news, it seems.
Well, that’s not actually true, no news is a veritable playground for wild and crazy reasons why there has been no phone call yet. If we knew something, even that Emma has been unsuccessful, that would be better for her emotional well being. Sort of. At least, if we knew something then we would know what to do.
More specifically, I would know what to do. Not being able to help is something I have experience with, but consistently not being able to help is really difficult to deal with. In theory this is good practice for later – the next audition, the birthing room, the first time one of the kids falls in love etc – but right now?
It sucks!
12 more days isn’t that long, is it?
The simple steps to happiness:
- Feel.
- Simplify.
- Repeat.
The fine print:
Feel – We’re incredibly complex. No one is ever 100% happy or sad; or angry; or anything. How you feel right now is a mix of various emotions, in different amounts, that is constantly changing. This is the human condition. Be Human: dive in to these feelings and see them for what they are.
Simplify – What is causing each of these emotions? Where does the anger come from? The happiness? The fear? Allocate feelings to causes. Give them a weighting. Eliminate those that you no longer require or that, upon inspection, are not relevant. Focus on what IS relevant. Focus on what you want to be important.
Repeat – When you are able to simplify as quickly as you can feel; when you can focus on the feelings you have decided are important AS YOU HAVE THEM; then you will be content. Until then practise feeling and simplifying, feeling and simplifying. See? Your life is changing already!
The hidden (zeroth) step is: Exist – You are here. You are now. Without you none of this is possible. As far as you are concerned, nothing exists if you don’t either. Alternatively, a rock does not know it is a rock and therefore, to the rock, it does not exist.
I was folding away the washing today and I realised something wonderful:
This pair of blue jeans, slightly tattered at the bottom, was my favourite pair. They are a deep blue that has, in places, faded to a slightly grey/white. The fabric has a wonderful feel; solid and serious, as all jeans should be, but then underneath that there is a soft, almost velvety structure as they warm in my hands. Boot legged, like twin trumpets ready to play some kind of smooth jazz serenade, they fold very nicely and almost, almost perfectly fit within a triple fold.
Of course, once my wife puts them on, they get even better!
Image by NKPhillips (flickr).
Sometimes, a person you care deeply about will ask you a question.
It may be a simple question, it might even be a statement with an expected response; It doesn’t matter – it’s one of THOSE questions; the ones you have already talked about or that you don’t WANT to talk about. It’s a loaded gun with a hair-trigger pointing at a barrel of TNT.
And you would like to say, “Look; can’t we just move on from this? I understand that you are scared/worried/annoyed/embittered/angry/afraid/negative about this but I thought we resolve this last time and wouldn’t it be nicer if we could spend our time together enjoying ourselves and looking at the good things we have going here; especially since we only have a short amount of time together.”
But you’re running late/in a hurry/a little tired/not paying attention and you say something like;
- “Sure…” or
- “Uh huh…” or
- “Do we really need to do this now?” or
- “Whatever you want.” or SOMETHING…
And then it hits you. Both. The Emotional Tsunami smashes into you and sweeps the relationship over all the old rocks you carefully avoided/re-arranged on the way to where you were and BLAM! You’re having an argument. Possibly The Same Argument you have had before.
Wonderful.
So, how can you avoid this?
Every. Single. Time. You are asked a question; tell yourself this;
This is going to take about 30 minutes. Do I have 30 minutes to spend cleaning up whatever happens so that I can continue as if it hadn’t – because THIS IS GOING TO TAKE ABOUT 30 MINUTES TO CLEAN UP.
Then answer the question the person you care deeply about asked you. If you spend less than 30 minutes dealing with whatever happens after that. You are ahead. You have SAVED yourself time.
If you expect it to take 30 minutes you will change the tone of your voice; you will change the attitude you bring to the answer; you will craft your answer more elegantly, with more care and attention than if you approach it from the “I’m in a hurry” mentality.
It will not take 30 minutes when you spend the time, up front, making an effort to care about the two of you, rather than having to bring yourself to that point AFTER you have had a disaster. Both of you will feel better and you might, just might, have answered That Question for the last time.
Don’t count on it though :)
Image by aeshaw90.
One of the most asked question I hear these days is
“How’s married life treating you.”
It’s a multiple-part answer.
- Married Life is awesome!
- it’s not any different from the life that we had before getting married, really, other than that now we are married.
- there is an elusively mysterious feeling of certainty that I have become aware of that I find is inextricably linked to being specifically married to Emma. I like it, but it’s still quite weird – like I have eaten a particularly satisfying relationship cake and now I am laying on a metaphorical couch enjoying the view of the same cake, un-eaten.
- I am now aware of the times i am wearing the ring and when i am not wearing the ring. Meaning that the ring has changed the feeling i have in my hand (finger specifically) to such an extent that I am neither comfortable with it on or off, but I am aware of it’s status almost all the time.
- when Emma does something nice (make dinner, jokes around, looks pretty) I find that it has an intrinsic goodness to it that previously wasn’t available. Conversely, negative actions don’t have this magnification effect, which is interesting and good.
- thinking about the future is less about what i want to do and more about what we will be doing; in a year; two years; ten..?
- I tend to say “my wife” as often as possible, sometimes inventing ways to add it to the conversation.
I checked with my gran to see if these things were all “normal” and, while I didn’t get a straight answer, she seemed very pleased with them all the same. We must be doing something right!
This honeymoon of ours has been quite an adventure. For Emma, returning to Singapore was more than a little emotionally loaded and for me, well I tend to get caught up in the “is this really worth that?” comparisons.
On the last night of our holiday, we found something so dreadful, so over priced and that it’s turned full circle into hilarity. Hotel 81 Rochor in Singapore is, without a doubt, the worst place we have stayed ever. Why, you ask?
The tiny room contains:
- a leather bound matress with latex sheets that don’t actually cover the matress if you tuck them in (we had to make the bed ourselves)
- The toilet has a shower over it – so to have a shower, you actually have to dodge the toilet bowl.
- The (two) windows are cut in half by the walls of the room and have been filled in with green glass, we can’t figure out how to open them – the view is probably spectacular.
- The pillows are covered with transparent disposable pillow covers – like interfacing fabric.
- And the entire floor seems to be washable tiles with a grip pattern.
It’s so bad it’s good; you know? We have survived the night in a hostile environment and it’s brought us closer together. Our desire to have a good time has won the day.
I think this is a really good result for our relationship!
Okay, maybe I have been a little annoyed with how some (unplanned) things have turned out.
But at least we know for sure that we are never doing the resort thing again for as long as possible. Blurk! to your canned music and over-priced “activites” designed to give us the minimum level of excitement for which we have to pay extra for!
I want my beach shack!
Oh how I thought this was going to be a good idea only to self-sabotage it into some silly mid-adventure.
Time to snap out of it!
It’s all done and dusted. We’re hitched. We’ve flown the coup. We, the undersigned, are in this together.
The wedding, photos and reception were fantastic fun – you should have been there. The conversation; the speeches; the dancing; the bride; the groom; the guests; all perfect.
And now, sitting in a donut shop under a staircase in a shopping mall in Singapore, we are falling asleep.
Perfect :-)
This is my Now. What’s yours?
