Two Thousanleven.

A week into 2011 and I am still working off my holiday hangover. No, this doesn't mean that I went on some kind of crazy drinking bender from Halloween through New Year's. If I had, I would probably be dead and you would have gotten some far more exciting blog posts (from when I was drunk, not some kind of creepy, post-death blog haunts). 

This hangover is the kind where I become bitter towards how holidays fall on the calender. How is it fair that we get three magical months containing Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas before crashing down onto the cold and depressing months of January, February, and March? Yes, each of these months has a holiday. A LAME holiday. Let's review:

New Year's. A whole lot of build-up with a minimal yield of excitement. You spend the whole night drinking and watching a ball on T.V. Then you finally get to do a countdown for the clock to turn midnight and...nothing really changes. Happy New Year! Now you get to date all of your papers and checks wrong for the next month and try to figure out if you are going to go with "Twenty Eleven" or "Two Thousand Eleven" and how to say the latter without it coming out as "Two Thousanleven." So many syllables. I think I'll just pick a time each day to get wigged out about when it finally hits. "Three! Two! One! Woo! It's 2:34 p.m.!" I don't see people getting annoyed by that at all.

Valentine's Day. It's only made for people who have a significant other and even then there is no guarantee you will get a good Valentine's day. (Though if other people's men are like mine and got them a wireless router for Christmas, they will be needing to do some Valentine's Day damage control. And Mark, I know that you will end up reading this. I love you and your gift to me on our first married Christmas of faster internet was, ah, beautiful and romantic. Just know that chocolate, jewelry, stuffed animals, and spa treatments are too. 'Nuff said.) Frankly, I can't fully enjoy a holiday I feel apologetic for knowing that there is such a strong movement against it. It's more like I Am Sorry I Am Not Single And Get To Enjoy This Holiday Day. And you certainly don't want to be that jerk that gushes on and on about how in love you are and your Valentine's Day was just perfect to a single or recently broken-up with friend who will just sit there and have one of those daydreams where they picture themselves strangling you like in the movies. It's a very precarious holiday. Very much indeed.

St. Patrick's Day. I don't get this holiday. You wear green and get drunk. I can do this any of the other 364 days of the year. And you run the risk of forgetting to wear greenand people continually pinching the bajeezus out of you all day. How is this even fun? Plus, we just stole it from the Irish and bastardized it like so many other holidays we celebrate here. Talk to me again when there are real leprechauns who take you across real rainbows to real pots of gold. Now that's a holiday.

I guess I should be appreciative that we have any holidays at all these months and take what I can get. It's not like May, June, or August have much going for them either. (Except August has my birthday, but that's become somewhat of a lame holiday as well.) But at least they are warm. Now I am just stuck inside watching T.V. But at least Grover likes T.V. too.

Beth on a Stick

Alright, enough of this holiday hiatus. I have officially survived, relatively unscathed and only minimally frostbitten. Let me tell you though, Chicago and South Bend are cold. And at a high of 25 degrees, I heard from multiple northerners that it was "surprisingly warm."

...WTF? Note to self: never live north of the Mason-Dixon line.

All in all, I had two wonderful Christmases- a faux one and a real one. My family and I designated December 18th "Faux Christmas," with Santa obliging to make a visit early and us going through the usual Christmas morning routine. We woke up and Dad filmed me and Kate like he does every year when we come out to see what bounty Santa hath brought forth that year. (Our geek-out factor has only diminished slightly as the years have gone by- we still run out and squeal "Santa came! Santa came!" I don't know if I should be proud or disturbed by this.) Then we open gifts and go through stockings, which now always include scratch-off lottery tickets but absolutely does not mean we are hillbillies with a gambling problem. We just support education. I also am going to be a scratch-off katrillionaire.

We then flew out for the real Christmas with Mark's family, and by comparison to my usual Christmas celebrations it was fairly tame. The highlights included going ice skating (my butt and the ice got to be besties), going to Christmas Eve Catholic mass (I grew up Methodist. Catholicism vs. Methodism = similar cast, two totally different productions.), and several huge family dinner parties (I am such a charmer. They like me! They really like me!).

The sadness of being apart from my family really only hit me when we returned home the day after Christmas. Having to get back to work while they were just starting our normal trip sucked to say the least. However, to keep my spirits up, they created what we lovingly deemed Beth on a Stick. They basically took my pictures and taped it to one of the handheld fans we used as programs from the wedding. Kate periodically sent me text picture messages of all the fun things I was doing via Beth on a Stick. So rather than trying to describe it, I have decided to present some of the highlights. Enjoy.

Beth on a Stick : What I Did(ish) This Christmas

A Photo Essay.

...with lots of subtitles and punctuation in the title like real artists do!

On the car ride, gearing up
for the big trip.

Spending a little quality time with my cousins

Wouldn't be complete without
playing some cards

Ready to open some gifts!

My grandpa was highly amused
by my gift of a bathroom aid called
"Trap a Crap"

Got to add the last piece to
the jigsaw puzzle

Getting some wisdom from Grandpa

In Kentucky now with my
favorite rolls in the world

And the Beth was hung by the
stocking with care. Merry Christmas
to all, and to all a good night.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Our first Christmas season as a married couple has so far been a little on the anti-climactic side. Not to say it hasn't been nice, because it has. I don't know exactly what I was expecting- picking out a Christmas tree in a romantic montage with a great backing soundtrack, decorating it with the help of birds and our other little forest friends while singing a perfectly executed duet of "Baby, It's Cold Outside," playful snowball fights that induce passersby to throw up in their mouth just a little by our nauseating couple-y cuteness. Well, other than it being the south and not having gotten much colder than 50 degrees outside, I thought they were fairly attainable dreams. Ha.

So far it has been mainly the heartbreaking realization that while the people around me (including Mark) are winding down with finals and looking forward to the prospect of a whole month's break, the real world isn't split into semesters and if I want to have any kind of Christmas vacation I get to take unpaid time off. Woo.

We did have a nice time going to pick out a tree. I am ashamed to say that we did something that I have frowned upon and judged others for doing as far back as I can remember: we got our tree before Thanksgiving. We justified it by saying that since we were going on our trip to see Mark's family the week before Christmas, we wanted to have as much time with it as possible to get maximum bang for the buck. I hardly think I am on the same level as department stores and places like Hobby Lobby, who were fully stocked and pushing Christmas merchandise as I was running around getting last minute wedding things in July. I mean really, that is just blasphemous. But whatever way you look at it, we committed a serious holiday grievance and I can only hope that the Christmas gods will be understanding and one day forgive me.

The only snafu we hit was during the decorating process. We each had a few ornaments from our trees back home, and grabbed some gold ball ornaments from the dollar store (we keeps it real) to fill the rest of the space. We got the tree home and lit while Mark serenaded me, singing "Christmas balls! Christmas balls! I've got great big Christmas balls! Wrap them up like Santa Claus, I've got Christmas balls!"

Lovely.

I took a break and went back to our room to return a call from my granny that I was unable to answer as we were making about the 16th attempt at getting the tree straight in the stand. She and I got talking for a bit, and when I walked back out into the living room I came to a halt as I stood before a fully-balled tree.

"You..." I said breathlessly. "You decorated without me?"

"Just the ball ornaments!" Mark said cheerily before taking in the look on my face. "I got finished with the dishes, so I went ahead and did the boring ornaments too... are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said gruffly. "I'll be right back."

I then went into the bathroom and started bawling. My husband, God bless him, can be completely oblivious sometimes. My family is all about sentiment and tradition, to the point where we are some of the biggest cheeseballs you will ever meet. Mark completely didn't realize how badly he hurt my feelings by decorating our first Christmas tree without me.

Fast forward to a few hours and nasty little fight later during which I fully brought the dramatics, making a case about how this instance was just one in a series of instances that were indicative of a larger problem with the way Mark does things (blame me having a lawyer as a dad- always trying to make my case beyond a reasonable doubt). It was not one of the prouder moments of our fledgling marriage. Finally, exhausted, we chalked it up to having always done the holidays completely differently in each of our families. Neither of them were bad or wrong. They were just different. We each just needed to be more understanding of that and patient with the other one while we adjust.

When all was said and done, the tree is rocking and our apartment is all decked out and fab. Mark even surprised me yesterday by putting up a bunch of blue icicle lights in our room. It is not quite at the point where my family's house in Canton is, which looks like Christmas itself came in and vomited joy and magic all over the place. (Mom is on Christmas crack. No joke. Another rare but addicting drug- decorating your entire house with Santas, snowmen, pictures, lights- anything cheerful you can get your hands on. An intervention has been staged.) But it is hopefully the start of our own little tradition, which is still going to be great.

And we also dressed Grover up like Santa. I sat him on my lap and told him that my one wish was for him to stop waking me up every morning at 7:00 by pawing at my face.

Texting and Blogging with Molly

Well, Mark and I successfully made it through our first big holiday of married life, handling it very diplomatically by spending two nights and each of our parents' houses. And my family actually made (most of) the Thanksgiving meal, which anyone who knows the Johnsons knows that is truly a sight to behold. For some reason, the cooking gene skipped my mom and ever since I can remember, she has simply not been interested in being one of those dash-of-this-dash-of-that, Food Network-watching, new recipe-trying kind of people. We have probably been to every restaurant within a 25-mile radius of our house. Whenever there's a new pizzeria opens, we'll be there. Whenever there's a new Chinese joint, we'll be there. Whenever there's a grand opening of a sandwich cafe- well you get the idea.

So this was a far cry from our normal routine of escaping down to Gulf Shores Beach, Alabama in order to avoid having to cook. Our desperation to dodge home-cooked meal-making transcends state borders. It is truly sad. But really, who can pass up the opportunity to have Mahi Mahi and turkey in the same meal? Nonetheless, it turned out pretty well, and I contributed macaroni and cheese that I made from scratch right down to the cheese sauce. I kicked Kraft's ass and I kicked it hard. I twisted Cheesasaurus' little mascot arm until he cried uncle. It was fantastic.

Another thing I love about being home is getting be around a dog. My cats, though slightly annoying at times as we all know, are my darlings. But my dog growing up was one of my BFFs, and when she died in February it devastated our whole family. Right after our wedding, my parents and Kate got a new dog named Molly. She is a stocky flat-coated retriever mix, which basically means she looks like a Golden Retriever that got dipped into black ink. She is extremely sweet and definitely has her quirks, one of which being the fact that she settles for no less than two walks per day. While our old dog became a nervous wreck at the mere sight of a leash, you mention something about a walk and Molly goes nuts, leaping in the air with such a great vertical that Shaq would even be jealous.

And then there is her other major quirk: she only goes to the bathroom while on her walks. She never wants to be let out to go in the yard, and if you try to go out with her she just sits and stares at you until you give up and take her inside. While out on her walks, she also feels the need to stop and sniff everything, peeing in about a dozen spots along the way. Molly also uses this time to have a little, uh, "extended personal time," if you know what I mean. So Mom and Dad load down with a plastic bag and butt inspection gloves every time they walk her, and often make fun of each other about who had the misfortune of having to take care of Molly's little souvenirs.

The first night I was home for Thanksgiving, Mom came home with Molly from their evening. When Dad asked how things went, she said, "Well, Molly did some texting and some blogging tonight."

Kate and I looked at each other, confused.

"What do you mean she 'texted and blogged'?" I asked.

"Well, we decided that when she pees in all those places during her walk, it is like her equivalent to texting with other dogs," mom said merrily.

"And blogging is just what we say when she poops," Dad said frankly.

"Let me see if I get this straight," I said slowly, completely affronted. "You are using the term blogging to refer to dog feces? Which would therefore mean you are equivocating my blog to poo?"

"Hmm, I didn't think of it that way," Dad replied with a smirk.

"It's not funny!" I retorted, trying to look pains and not crack a smile, because let's face it. It was kind of funny. "What. The. HELL?"

So now I have to come up with a completely new name for this because I inevitably keep thinking about poop every time someone asks me about my blog. I mean, how hard can it be to change the name of a long-standing and well-respected form of internet communication? Oh, who am I kidding? Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your twisted sense of humor. I hope Molly wrote you a nice big blog tonight. ;)

I Got Here As Fast I Could!

I really freakin' hate Mondays. Nothing good ever seems to happen on Mondays. In fact, my experience dictates that Mondays go out of their way to serve up a healthy dose of sadness and despair, and sometimes are feeling a little more aggressive and administer a nice Monday Morning Ass Whooping. Last Monday, I got my ass whooped: I got my first speeding ticket.

I had to make a trip to a nearby town first thing in the morning to visit a car dealership for my ad sales job. We all know how much I loooove car salesmen (ha) and trying to sell an advertising to a salesman is tricky. It's a total game of who can make the biggest power play (ultimately it is me, as I am the one who has boobs) and on a Monday morning I was certainly not bringing my A-game. I was driving down the road, busy feeling sorry for myself and dreading going to the second car dealership, when I came around a bend and saw a cop car in a parking lot on my side of the road.

It was one of those moments where you just instantly know you are screwed. He didn't waste any time whipping out behind me and turning on those dreaded flashing blues. As I pulled over, the first thought I had that didn't contain a large string of expletives was, "Ohmigod, you have to start crying." I proceeded to think of everything sad that I could, but nothing. I watched a middle-aged cop get out of his car, hike up his pants, and saunter over to me.

I had always imagined what I would do if I got pulled over for speeding. One option was to blame it on female issues in the hopes of making the cop so uncomfortable that he just had to let me go on my merry way. The other front runner idea was to blame the high speed on trying to get to a restroom due to digestive issues. It would take a pretty heartless person to not sympathize with that, right?

But nope. I completely choked. He went through the standard procedure of spending an absurd amount of time asking me stupid questions and taking my license back to his squad car to spend as long as possible sitting there with his lights on so that everyone passing by knows that he means business. After waiting for what felt like a million humiliating years, he strolled back up to my window with ticket in hand.

And I burst into tears.

I could tell Officer Monday Morning Ass-Wooping was totally thrown as he came back to someone he had left fairly composed now blubbering like a headcase. He explained the ticket to me as I thought to myself, "Dammit, tears! You couldn't appear just a little earlier? Fat load of help to me now, you bastards."

As he handed me that cursed piece of paper, he gave me this awkward look and asked, "Are you okay, m'am? Are you experiencing some sort of personal crisis?"

I looked at him blankly, biting my tongue as to not say, "OF COURSE I AM EXPERIENCING A PERSONAL CRISIS! YOU ARE GIVING ME A SPEEDING TICKET YOU IMBECILE!"

But I just shook my head and he peaced out pretty quickly. And fittingly, now that the waterworks started there was no turning it off. I pulled into a gas station parking lot to cry and sulk, then thought I had reached a point where I could call my dad.

"Dad, you are going to kill me," I said before bursting into tears again. (Really, the female issues thing may not have been too far from the truth.) Luckily he wasn't too angry, as he pointed out that now that I was married I got to pay my own fine. Fantastic.

Fast forward to Saturday, when I visited Canton and was riding in the car with my parents while ironically enough discussing my speeding ticket debacle.

"You know what I should have done?" I joked. "I should have just let him walk up and been like, 'I am sorry officer- I got here as fast I could!"

Not five minutes later, we turn a corner to a cop car just waiting to catch some prey.

"Oh, dad," I said as the cop pulled behind us with his lights on. My dad let loose of several of the expletives I had gotten to know so intimately just a few days beforehand as he pulled into a parking lot. Apparently it was the PoPo's lucky day because we were not alone- he had somehow managed to pull two cars over. He walked up to our car.

"Sir, do you know what the speeding limit is on this road?" he asked.

"Thought it was forty-five," my dad said defensively.

"No, sir, it is thirty-five miles per hour. Even if it were forty-five, you were still speeding."

I wasn't sure what move my dad was going to make- profuse apology? Disbelief? But he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sorry!"

"Oh, man," I said as the cop visited his other catch. "You are in trouble now. Now what were we talking about? Safe driving?"

Too soon. Dad was not amused.

We waited that everlong period of time while the cop does whatever he does, and finally he approached again.

"Sir, today I am going to let you off with a warning, but pay attention from now on," the officer said. My jaw dropped. After my dad made a little we're-totally-cool-now-because-you-didn't-give-me-a-ticket small talk, we finally continued on our way.

"What the hell?!" I said angrily. "How is that even fair? I can't believe you got off with a warning after totally giving him 'tude!"

"Well, I, unlike you, have not had a speeding ticket since 1984 and am not twenty-two," my dad said, spirits considerably lifted from a few minutes beforehand."Good day, isn't it?"

Hmph.

But It Means We're Passionate!

Last Wednesday was Mark's birthday. Because he is a few years older than me, during our relationship I tried to take every opportunity that I could to remind him that he was almost 25, which was halfway to 50, which was almost dead. Well, this birthday he actually turned 25 and I woke him up with a card expressing that I certainly was not going to remind him of his proximity to being an old geezer. I'm nice like that.

When I got to work, I hopped on the computer and of course the stalker feed had a list of all the people who had wished Mark happy birthday on Facebook. Now, recently Mark and I went to see The Social Network at the movie theater, which is basically the story of how the guy that started Facebook is the biggest asshat in the world and we should be ashamed of ourselves for making him a gazillionaire. Or at least that is what I got out of it. Also that Justin Timberlake is still extremely good-looking. So the fact that movie isn't enough to make me give up Facebook Crack (Oh, yes. Diet Coke is just a gateway drug compared to Facebook Crack.) makes me squirm a little on the inside every time I log on.

But that morning, I automatically typed in my obligatory "Happy Birthday, Husband of Mine!" message on Mark's wall, hit send, and froze. I already saw Mark earlier in the morning and wished him a happy birthday. And I was going to see him that night to celebrate his birthday with him. He was already very much aware that I acknowledged his birthday and subsequently wished him good tidings...so why did I robotically feel compelled to wish him a happy birthday on Facebook as well?

Maybe subconsciously I thought that if people looked at Mark's list of Happy Birthday wishers and saw that my name was conspicuously absent they would think, "Wow, that Beth sure is a horrible wife. She can't even take a moment to wish Mark happy birthday on Facebook, and therefore we can naturally draw the conclusion that she obviously doesn't love him." No, it does not make any logical sense, but how logical can we be if we are addicted to something where we can take care of virtual farm animals, find out which character from Twilight we are, and stalk an ex's new love interest all in one sitting?

I am certainly not going to bash Facebook because it does possess a lot of qualities of merit. Positives: reconnecting with old friends, getting the word out about an event (or a blog!), sharing funny videos or stories. This is the purpose of Facebook for me. But it does come with Negatives: having to involuntarily find out tidbits of information that people mistakenly think are important about themselves (i.e., what they had for lunch, how much they love their significant other, what song lyric they decide to be mysterious and vague with by putting as their Facebook status, etc.), risking your parents and/or other family members becoming your Facebook friends (Love you guys. I have nothing to hide.), getting invitations to fifty things a day that you don't give two shits about.

The biggest downside is that Facebook has propelled us into the Too Much Information Age. Unbeknownst to many people on the World Wide Web, there is such a thing as oversharing and people are getting ridiculous with it. The most recent example I can think of ended up launching me into a tirade of a whole different nature. One of Mark's friends had a convoluted status on Facebook about how he loved his girlfriend but at the same time hated her as well, but that was all okay because it meant they were passionate about each other.

Okay, first and foremost, you really don't need to be displaying your relationship drama over Facebook. Contrary to what you may think to be true, no one cares. If they do care, they will engage into some kind of meaningful interaction with you to find out how things are going with you and your boo and convey that they are emotionally invested in your problems. You know, like a text message saying "R U & sally doin ok?"

Second of all, I don't know where people get the idea that if two people are dating and are ripping each others' throats out every five seconds, it means that they are "passionate." Newsflash- it actually means you are delusional and the rocking make-up sex afterward simply indicates that you are horny. Not passionate. And it makes me passionate about wanting to smack you in the face.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to put the fact that I have a new blog post on my Facebook status...

That Thing Called Compromise

I don't really know where the hell October peaced out to so quickly, but now we are into November and quickly nearing the holiday season. Being that this is the first holiday season Mark and I will spend together as a married couple you would think that I would be all aglow with that newlywed aura, eager to send people Christmas cards with vomit-inducingly cute pictures from our honeymoon and plotting how I can get us into matching Santa hats or Christmas sweaters at every possible opportunity.

Yes, I am thrilled that we are about to spend the holidays as husband and wife for the first time. But marriage and compromise happen to be besties, and that is especially pertinent for us at the holidays. This particular compromise involves me deviating from the holiday tradition I have had with my family every year of my life and spending Christmas with Mark's family in Southbend, Indiana.

Don't get me wrong- after meeting many of Mark's family members for the first time at the wedding I am looking forward to spending some quality time together without the smile continually plastered on my face and the bulk of our conversation being me thanking them for coming to the wedding all the while thinking, "Oh my gosh, what did they say their names were??"

I have just had a routine for the last 21 years that has been both comically and comfortingly consistent. More often than not, it is the only time I get to see my extended family during the year and the predictability of the week-long trip to Kentucky (mom's family) and West Virginia (dad's family) comes all the way down to knowing what stories are going to be told about us when we were little. (A few highlights being the time I dropped my stuffed bear in the toilet and when my Grandma spent hours putting my hair into hot rollers only for me to hate it when I came out looking like a cross between Shirley Temple and a poodle who stuck its paw in an electric socket. She, however, thought it was precious and doesn't hesitate to remind me that it is her favorite hairstyle I have ever had. I was also five. She needs to let it go.)

Mark came along for the ride last year, and the fact that he survived and still wanted to marry me is a testament to his character (or a lapse in his sanity) and the reason why it is my turn to be the outsider on a new family Christmas. So my response has been to throw myself into the new set of plans headfirst and try not to think about how sad I will be when I stop to really think about it. But that is just how being married goes. It ain't no Burger King and you can't always have it your way.

Speaking of compromise, shortly after I wrote my previous post about my downstairs neighbors I ran into the guy as I was leaving for work in the morning. He was shirtless (and no Taylor Lautner, mind you) and rummaging through the girl's car. I pictured several scenarios, all involving me being really sassy and putting him in his place and one even involving me going all hot warrior chick on him and kicking his butt, before finally saying in a resigned and polite voice, "Excuse me. I have been hoping to catch you- I was wondering if you might be able to straighten your cars in the parking spaces. It's been raining nonstop and the last few times I have come back I haven't been able to get a close parking spot."

He looked at me for a second before shrugging and saying, "Sure."

And sure enough, when I got home both of their cars were neatly aligned in parking spaces and have been ever since. True, it may have had something to do with the fact that I had also gotten Mark to go to the landlord that morning to let him know about this problem and later finding that everyone in the building had received a note saying to be courteous and not take up two parking spots. But as far as I know, my last resort of patience and communication solved the problem. Who would have thought that kind of junk actually works?