Monoguilt

Dear friends and loved ones,

Before you come any closer, know now that I am a biohazardous agent of the mononucleosis virus!! 

Not that I would have ever known it.  I feel fine. But the husband, well, he’s fallen prey to my pathogens, and the doc says it’s probably because I was walking around all diseased and stuff without ever even knowing it.  Meaning while planting kisses I was actually planting vicious painful destructive bugs straight into my husband’s innards. Scary thought, no?

Inadvertently causing suffering is something I’m sort of good at. And it’s the best way to make me feel the worst kind of guilty.  Like when I snuggle up to Kendon when I haven’t had socks on for two minutes and instantly he turns into a frozen icicle and can’t form coherent words for… well, at least a few seconds. GUILT. Or like that time my companion at the missionary training center was so miserably constipated from cafeteria food and I happily gave her my anti-constipation pills for a good week before looking down and reading the label “anti-diarrhea.” DOUBLE GUILT.  Or the time I found a sick gecko in my air conditioned office and hurried him outside where he could get some nice, warm healing sun and… shudder… how did I get on this subject?

The point is, I kissed my husband as an expression of love. And it turned out to be a kiss of death.  Death being a metaphor for a swollen throat and sleepy demeanor.  I’m feeling guilty.

But admittedly – and this is just between us – I’m loving the extra snuggle time. 

My little sickie bug (pictured left.)
P.S. We are dogsitting the cutest little punkin on the planet. More soon!

  

Sickiversary

Kendon and I have been married for a year.  A YEAR.  So to celebrate 365 days of still liking each other, we got all dressed up and reserved our own private table at Beni Hana’s, where Ramon from Mexico gave us the most spectacular display of dancing shrimp and juggling knives and onion volcanoes that a person on their first anniversary could ever possibly hope for.  We held hands under the table and tasted garlicky meat off each other’s plate and reminisced and gave each other presents.  Besides the fact that neither of us announced it on Facebook, I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what a first anniversary is supposed to look like. 

These festivities came and went over a week ago.  Oddly enough, though, today is the day I feel like I truly understand what it means to be married for a year. 

That’s because today I’m the opposite of all dressed up.  In fact, I bear a striking resemblance today to the creature from the black lagoon… minus the fangs and with a bathrobe instead of green teutonic armor.    Currently I am stopping after each sentence to make my now-customary fog horn sound into a dwindling roll of toilet paper, creating a pile of snot rags that is creeping steadily up to the ceiling.   I haven’t combed my hair in two days, my lips are cracking off my face, and I rotate at night between being feverishly hot and ripping off the blankets, to shivering so hard that our room shakes and pictures fall off the wall.

Oh yeah. And the husband still finds me sexy.

Over the last few days, he’s remained by my side through three Disney movies and several chapters of Ender’s Game (our post-Harry read-a-thon).  He’s made me soup and bought me medicines.  He tucks me in and massages my sore muscles and forces me to gargle salt water.  I’ve started to call him Nurse Bagley, but then again, a mere nurse would not go so disgustingly far as to steal slimy kisses in between foghorn blasts. 

So that’s how I know what first-anniversary love feels like.  It’s a feeling that the tallest onion volcano could never hope to replace.  It’s the kind of love that really does endure in sickness and in health. 

So while I avoided Facebook on the anniversary, today I would like to publicly express to the Internet that I have been married for a YEAR to the kindest, bravest, most disgusting man on this good planet.  (I had to throw in the last one.  Seriously.  Only a grossy would want to kiss THIS on the mouth.)

Oh, and in case you're interested, here's some photographic documentation of our actual anniversary:

We are in love.

Can you find the onion volcano among the shrimp and raw beef?

Ramon was a good chef.  We're thinking of adopting him.

Guess who I made this for as a happy anniversary gift? (Hint: It was not Ramon.)

An oldie for the kids

I'm getting stupider. Can't. Think. Stuff. Write. So instead I'm posting an old story that I wrote months ago. It's mostly true. I submitted it to a thing. They hated it. Maybe you won't.

I woke up with a start to the most horrible smell on earth. I sat up, sniffed, and felt the night's collection of mucous jiggle loosely in my nostrils. Putting my hand up to my cotton-stuffed right ear, I grimaced and remembered. It was me.

The ibuprofen hadn't been sufficiently dulling my ear infection pain, and a woman from church had told me to press half an onion up to my ear. I don't eat vegetables, and I especially tend to avoid onions. I skip over them as ingredients entirely, in fact, on the rare occasions I open a recipe book. Still, something about the boy's locker room odor and the tear-jerking fumes made my friend's remedy almost logical. Pressing a disgusting vegetable against a disgustingly painful part of my body seemed completely natural. So I had called my husband and, for the first time in our marriage, added a vegetable to his list of things to pick up after work.

I had tried the magical cure last night, trying to ignore my watering eyes, the smirks from my husband, and the onion juice that ran down my neck. My mind had been taken off the ear pain and onto that awful smell momentarily, kind of like how biting bullets makes men in war movies think less on their legs being amputated. I buried my head in my pillow to escape the lingering odor pervading our small studio apartment. It was soaked in onion smell.

I looked over at my husband, still sleeping peacefully, then down at my slobber-soaked t-shirt and the pile of crinkled toilet paper on our nightstand. I had always thought newlywed women woke up in freshly ironed, silky lingerie, smelling like Coco Chanel, waking their husbands with a minty-fresh kiss and breakfast in bed. I grimaced again, then coughed, successfully stirring my husband and the phlegm that was stuck in my throat all night.

He opened his eyes. "Hey, onion girl," he said, sitting up. I had always thought newlywed men woke up and said, "Hey there, gorgeous woman of my dreams."

"Ha, ha," I replied. "Will you get me some pudding?"

"No pudding for you," he said, hopping out of bed and opening the fridge, which stood a foot away from our sleeping quarters. "Pudding is a dairy product. It will make your cold worse."

"It is not a dairy product!" I countered in my deep cold-induced rasp. "It's just a pudding product." I pointed at the snack pack of chocolate vanilla swirl on the top shelf of our refrigerator. "I'll have one of those, please."

He shut the fridge after downing half of our milk carton. "Nope."

Hm, I thought. Aren't newlywed men supposed to give their sick wives everything they ask for?

I blew my nose several times as I watched him get ready for work from my spot on the bed. He quickly ate two bowls of the Life cereal I had purchased a few days before but wasn't allowed to eat, threw his dishes in the sink, then slipped on his navy blue polo shirt with the Chem-Dry logo in the corner. "Bye, dear," he said, kissing my cheek. His breath smelled like cereal. "Have a good day at school."

"I don't have class on Tuesdays," I responded in my man voice. But he had already raced out the door.

I called in sick for work and spent the afternoon staring at class reading assignments and mindlessly surfing the Internet. I couldn't figure out the speakers on our desktop computer, so I watched several silent YouTube videos before deciding to knock back some Nyquil and get some sleep. At around four o'clock I was awakened by my phone ringing. "Hey, honey," said my husband's voice on the other end. "I'm on my way sleivlsal welfkwe..." My grogginess was making his voice more and more distant. He was on his way home, I guessed. "OK," I mumbled.

"See you in lodkobil faleivil," I could hear him saying from the top of a giant purple building. Must stay awake for 10 more seconds. I knew the drill. He was off work and would be home in an hour. For now I wanted to explore that purple skyscraper, which was starting to shoot giant onions from its rooftop like fireworks into the sky. "Love you, bye," I mustered, and rolled back over.

I woke up with a start. Our computer's screensaver was the only light in the room, the only sound the hum of our refrigerator. I reached for my cell phone, lying next to me on my onion-scented pillow. It was 8:30 p.m.

The laughing wallpaper photo of my husband and myself stared at me as I speed dialed his number. I took it five months ago, minutes after he proposed. Despite the threatening sound of thunder earlier that day, we had gone to our favorite spot up a Utah canyon, where he popped the question and we danced and kissed in the biggest rainstorm of the summer. We're both soaking wet in the photo, and mascara is smudged in odd places on my face. These details become invisible, however, against how in love we look and how big we're smiling.

I redialed his number once, twice, five times. Each time it went straight to the brassy recording of his professional voice: "Hi, this is Kendon with Great White Chem-Dry..." I stood up too quickly and dizzily wondered what to do next. In the darkness I started to wash my husband's breakfast bowl, then quickly changed my mind and started sorting laundry. The half onion from the night before still sat on our kitchen counter, mocking me, and in disgust I hurled it into the trash, glass plate and all. I heard the plate shatter as it hit the bottom of the bin, and redialed my husband's number.

I raced barefoot outside into the chilly night, across our empty driveway and into the street. It was completely void of any vehicles, most especially Chem-Dry utility vans. My stomach growled and my eyes began to water. This time, however, my tears came from fear and frustration, not fumes. I wanted chicken noodle soup with extra vegetables. I wanted my husband.

It was 9:13 p.m. and approximately 4,000 imagined scenarios later when he walked through the door. The smell of carpet cleaner and sweat that accompanied him was more beautiful than the finest 300-dollar bottle of Coco Chanel. "Where have you been?" I sobbed, and tried to wrap my arms around every inch of him. "I called you," he said, attempting to pat me on the back and balance four bags of groceries. "But my phone ran out of batteries on the way home. I had an extra job on the other side of the island tonight, and I stopped after work to buy us some food."

He pulled my chin up so he could look at me, then wiped at my now free-flowing tears with his thumb. "I was so scared!" I said, trying to sound angry, but knowing this misunderstanding was entirely my fault... and a little bit Nyquil's. I looked deeply into his half-laughing, half-sympathetic brown eyes, grateful that I wasn't a widow. Grateful to belong to this nearly-perfect man.

"Hey, onion girl." The way he said it made me feel sexy, even though I had just soaked his t-shirt in tears, day-old mascara, and a little bit of snot. "I bought you some chicken noodle soup." How do newlywed men always know exactly what their wives need? I got butterflies as he leaned down and kissed me, both of us soaking wet from my body fluids. I didn't smell onions anymore. Details had become invisible.

Fridays

Today is Friday. Fridays are overrated. I am frying in my living room like a smelly lobster in a pot, except lobsters don't have ears. Lucky lobsters.

My double ear infection has kept me in the house all week. Never jump into dirty rat-pee waterfalls after an ear irrigation, then try to learn boogie-boarding in an angry ocean right after. Nature and my own stupidity have forced me to wear cotton balls in both ears for days. Like a stuffed lobster.

The thing about Fridays is this: anything worth doing should be done as soon as you feel like it. That's how I feel. That's why I don't wait for Fridays. The problem: by the time Friday rolls around everything worth doing is already done. Yet every week I look forward to Friday. And every week I'm disappointed. Last Friday I deep-cleaned my house -- buttery microwave, moldy bathtub, offensive fridge. I also did laundry, which I hate even worse than discovering three-month old leftovers. Friday makes me a masochist.

Not that it's Friday's fault I get excited. Friday didn't ask to be a novelty, to be put on a pedestal like that. It just happened to be at the tail end of school and work weeks, which for some reason made it special, which for some reason makes us anticipate it for six days a week then wonder why we did that when it comes around again.

I liked Tuesday, when I got a free meatball sandwich for being at work at the right time, or Wednesday, when I made friends with a Korean girl in my class and afterwards we talked about our goals over mango smoothies. Monday was a backyard bonfire and Reese's cup s'mores, then staying up with sympathetic friends as I cried over ear pain. Sunday was watching God work through another person, giving her strength and words to say what we all needed to hear. Thursday was a looong, delicious nap after curling up with my new favorite book. (Baby No-Eyes, Patricia Grace. Brilliant.) Saturday was the fateful hike that ended in an ear infection, but that was worth it because I met fantastic new friends. Also I was in the jungle: my favorite! Now here I am at Friday again, sweaty and full of cotton.

Here's to anticipating the other days.
And to not being a stuffed lobster next week.

Earigations

After being half-deaf for some time now, I made an appointment at the campus health center yesterday as an alternative to learning ASL. It was a relatively painless process -- kind of an awesome sensation, really -- a syringe that sprays water into my ear and lets nasty brown chunks of wax out into a kidney-shaped tray waiting below. The experience, however, brought me back to a day a little over a year ago that involved a dear friend. It is with her permission that I share this story. Actually... she has no idea.

Rachel -- then Sister Richards -- was my LDS mission companion. It's a rare privilege to get to serve in the same mission as your best friend. Even rarer and more privilege-y is when she gets to be your companion. We lived together in a small, quaint Lithuanian town called Siauliai when one morning Rachel woke up without her hearing. A regular part of a missionary day is talking to people, and my friend was getting frustrated as she found herself approaching strangers, not being able to hear them, then having them walk away in confusion when she couldn't communicate with them. Finally we decided it was time to take medical action.

Lithuanian hospitals are very... Soviet. What many have found is that if you don't need antibiotics when you go in, you will most certainly need them when you come out. Instruments are rusty. Doctors don't have fancy light-up tools to look in your mouth but rather duct-taped flashlights to hats on their heads. Dark, moldy, paint-chipped walls surround rooms with squeaky beds and dirty windows. People don't smile, and who can blame them? It was thus with much trepidation that we -- and especially Rachel -- stepped into the Siauliai hospital waiting room.

A dirty old poster hung on the wall and dust covered the painted floor when we walked in. Rachel got more fidgety as we sat and waited our turn to learn our fate and destination. "3rd floor, Wing C," said the pink-haired woman behind the counter when we told her our problem. To get to 3rd floor, Wing C one must walk down a long, very dark underground hallway. It is painted green. There are metal doors leading to other wings as you make your way through the "cave," as we called it, labeled "radiology," "dermatology," and "podiatry." I swear I saw an especially large grey door labeled "morgue."

When we made our way to the "eye, nose and ears" department on 3rd floor, Wing C, Rachel was pale. Her eyes gave away the fear that she would walk away from Siauliai hospital as a female version of Van Gogh (an irrational fear: Rachel's a terrible artist). We sat outside the door, waiting for our turn to enter the mysterious "eye, nose and ears" office. Finally we were let out of the green, dirty flourescent-lit hallway into a bright, fresh, well-lit office. Two cheerful women in clean white coats greeted us, looked into Rachel's ears with an instrument my family doctor in America would use, and chatted with us as they worked. Then one of them used a shiny, legitimate-looking instrument to remove a big ball of wax from Rachel's ear. No one got deadly infections. No one lost any limbs. Nothing in the room was rusty or even smelled weird. The sun gleamed through the big windows. It was incredibly anticlimactic... just like this blog entry. The end.