by Una LaMarche
Sample lyrics: I just don’t know what to do with myself / I don’t know what to do with myself
Message: When Jeff and I first hooked up in the spring of 2003, the album Elephant had just been released, so we listened to it pretty much nonstop, mostly while getting high and engaging in athletic sexual escapades. So it’s first and foremost a nostalgia track, attempting to encapsulate the helpless feeling of intense lust. But we also broke up for six months shortly after getting together, so it has a dark underside woven from many nights of me crying and eating entire boxes of granola bars until I was too gassy to button my jeans.
Jeff’s reaction: “Didn’t we bone a lot to this?” (Awww. He remembered!)
Track 2: “Teenage Dirtbag,” Wheatus
Sample lyrics: I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby, like you / Ooooh-ooooooooh
Message: I like obscure bands! There is more to me than Madonna’s Immaculate Collection!
Jeff’s reaction: “You made this mix for me, right?”
Track 3: “Rump Shaker,” Wreckx-n-Effect
Sample lyrics: I like the way you comb your hair (Uh!) / I like the stylish clothes you wear (Uh!)
Message: All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom. (Read: take your clothes off.)
Jeff’s reaction: Laughter. (Possibly a reaction to my enthusiastic passenger seat dance moves.)
Track 4: “Such Great Heights,” the Postal Service
Sample lyrics: I am thinking it’s a sign / That the freckles in our eyes are mirror images
Message: I lie in bed thinking about your irises and naming our future children.
Jeff’s reaction: Skips past song after one second. (I think he may have shuddered.)
(At this point I should mention that almost every song that gives me the warm fuzzies about Jeff turns out to be a song that Jeff hates. “Stay with You” by John Legend comes to mind—back in the summer of 2007 I had what I thought was the great and romantic idea to have a friend sing it at our wedding, so I sat Jeff down and played the song so he could okay it and gave him meaningful looks and held his hand at meaningful times, and at the end he just kind of went, “Eh.” In related news, Jeff is a robot.)
Track 5: “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” Deniece Williams
Sample lyrics: My baby may not be rich, he’s watching every dime / But he loves me, loves me, loves me
Message: You are not perfect but I love you anyway. You know what else I love? Footloose.
Jeff’s reaction: Skip (!) “This playlist is for the most effeminate man alive.”
Track 6: “Holding Out for a Hero,” Bonnie Tyler
Sample lyrics: I need a hero / I’m holding out for a hero till the end of the night
Message: No, I mean I really love Footloose.
Jeff’s reaction: Skip (!)
Track 7: “The Tower of Learning,” Rufus Wainwright
Sample lyrics: I saw it in your eyes, what I’m looking for / I saw it in your eyes, what will make me live
Message: I think about your eyes maybe more than is normal (see track 4).
Jeff’s reaction: Skip. “No.”
Track 8: “It’s Always You,” Chet Baker
Sample lyrics: Whenever it’s early twilight I watch ’til a star breaks through / Funny, it’s not a star I see, it’s always you
Message: I am sitting outside your bedroom window right now with a boom box, a Peter Gabriel tape, and maybe also some chloroform.
Jeff’s reaction: “Awwwww.”*
Track 9: “Cheek to Cheek,” Fred Astaire
Sample lyrics: I seem to find the happiness I seek / When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek
Message: I like either slow dancing with you or doin’ da butt. I wish the lyrics were more specific.
Jeff’s reaction: Smiles, hand on my knee.
Track 10: “Let’s Get It On,” cover by Jack Black from High Fidelity soundtrack
Sample lyrics: Let’s get it on
Message: Let’s get it on.
Jeff’s reaction: “Stop it, I’m trying to drive.”
The first birthday gift Jeff ever bought me was a glass head, the kind electronics stores use to showcase headphones. He worked at Pier 1 at the time, and he told me he got me “the weirdest thing” that the store sold. Keep in mind we had only been dating for a few months and he was presenting me with a head-size box. Ah, the red flags ignored by young lovers.
A few years later, when we were living together, I returned the favor by purchasing ten polystyrene mannequin heads for Jeff on eBay. He was going through a phase with his photography wherein he was obsessed with taking pictures of two things: raw meat and mannequin parts (again: red flags). I thought about getting him some steaks, but that seemed unromantic. Luckily, he loved the heads. He stored them in our office closet along with our mullet wigs and Christmas ornaments. Without fail, every December when I went looking for tree lights I would startle upon finding ten white faces staring out at me. It was like living in the movie Cocoon.
In those salad days, we let a lot slide. I turned the other cheek when he hung cow eyeballs from a tree for another “project” and forgave him one night when he compared my pubic hair to one of the Little Rascals; in turn, he accepted my idiosyncrasies, such as my habit of getting tipsy and rearranging furniture, my compulsion to hoard and wear his boxer briefs when I ran out of clean underwear, and my tendency to occasionally throw out dishes when I didn’t feel like washing them. Over years of dating, we cultivated our intimacy until it was so bizarre and specific that it all but guaranteed no one else would ever want us.
For example, there’s a scene in one of our favorite movies, National Lampoon’s European Vacation, in which Chevy Chase’s Clark W. Griswold is counting ballots in an ad hoc election for “president” of the family. “That’s two for Clark,” he says with a smug smile as he reads the last vote. I’m not sure exactly when it started, but at some point around the four-year marriage mark, every time Jeff had more than one bowel movement in the course of a single day, he would emerge from the bathroom with a swagger and proudly announce, “That’s two for Clark!” This on top of our already established sign language for having just pooped, which is to raise both arms in the air like a football ref calling a good field goal. We are truly ruined for all others, so we have no choice but to work on the marriage we have.
Before we had a child, Jeff and I didn’t fight very often, and when we did it was over things like which was lamer: engaging in an America’s Next Top Model Fantasy League or watching MythBusters while playing Internet war games. Literally the biggest altercation we’d had in years was over an incident in which Jeff had moved an errant Tootsie Roll from the floor of the kitchen. It wouldn’t have been a big deal except that, unbeknownst to Jeff, I had seen the Tootsie Roll on my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth and made a mental note to eat it on my way back to bed.
Dramatic reenactment. Or, reendrawment.
I was so excited in the bathroom. What could have been rote activities like washing my face, examining my neck for new wrinkles, or poking floss at the inch-wide gaps between my crumbling teeth were elevated to new heights of enthusiasm knowing that I had a chewy little brown morsel awaiting me en route back to the boudoir.
But when I finally returned to claim my prize it had disappeared. I began to experience symptoms of what my fifth-grade self might have referred to as “a titty fit.”
“What did you do to my Tootsie Roll?!” I wailed to Jeff, who was standing in the bedroom shirtless and displaying unmistakable boom-chicka-wah-wah eyes.
“Um, what?” he asked, backing away ever so slightly.
“I saw a Tootsie Roll on my way to the bathroom and I was going to get it on my way back! I made a mental note!!”
The boom-chicka-wah-wah faded, replaced by a look of abject terror last
seen on the faces of passengers aboard commercial towing spaceship Nostromo when a shrimplike alien burst through John Hurt’s chest cavity.
“The Tootsie Roll on the floor?” he asked.
“Um, duh.” I am well versed in the art of foreplay.
“I put it back in the bowl full of Tootsie Rolls in the pantry.” For the record, he said “bowl full of Tootsie Rolls” like they were all the same.
“But I was going to pick it up! I made a mental note!!!”
“Why didn’t you pick it up then?”
“BECAUSE I WAS SAVING IT!!!!”
“For what?”
“AS A REWARD!!!!”
“For . . . peeing?”
“FOR BRUSHING MY TEETH!!!!”
“That . . . makes no sense.”
I then gave Jeff my best if-you-want-to-see-boobs-tonight-bring-me-my-goddamn-midgie eyes. And, because he was and is a good husband, he put it back on the tile for me. I now realize that watching your wife pick up and then gnaw on a Tootsie Roll she finds on the floor after a temper tantrum is not generally an aphrodisiac. But I think at this point, Jeff takes what he can get.
So that was then. For years we had the time and energy to spend arguing over who ate or moved whose secret hoard of junk food, or whether we should get stoned, have sex, and then watch the Planet Earth episode about seasonal forests, or get stoned, watch the Planet Earth episode about seasonal forests, and then have sex. Now, we high-five when we both remember to buy toilet paper.
Having a child, for our marriage, was sort of like reversing The Wizard of Oz so that instead of stepping off the broken-down porch of the farmhouse and into a candy-colored world of endless possibilities, Dorothy gets bitch-slapped by a Munchkin and thrown back up into the eye of the tornado. I want to stress that it is not like this for everyone, and that we both love each other, and our son, to an extent that is possibly not healthy. But we were a straight, codependent line that was forced to become a triangle, and so we had some . . . growing pains. As such, our fights these days can be roughly divided into five categories.
1. Whose Life Is Worse
Have you ever seen the show Queen for a Day? Unless you were born before 1950, the answer is probably no, so let me briefly recap: On this TV show, women would compete to see who had the most hardships, and an applause-o-meter would decide which one of them won. These women would break down sobbing while describing their destitution, hunger, crippled children, etc., but only the saddest one would win a new dishwasher and get to sit on a throne during the credits. Isn’t that so fucked-up?
And yet, Jeff and I have been playing a heated game of Queen for a Day for over two years, except our lists of hardships include things like “chapped nipples” and “can’t smoke pot in the house.”
2. Who Is More Tired
This is sort of a continuation of Queen for a Day, but with added bouts of dramatic narcolepsy. Oh, Jeff, I see you’ve face-planted onto the sofa at seven p.m. still wearing your coat. Hm, interesting. Excuse me while I just fall asleep on the toilet while brushing my teeth with a tube of diaper rash cream. Your move, Rip Van Winkle.
3. Who Is Less Interested in Sex
At some point, especially when sharing responsibility for a small child, even the most passionate of lovers will begin to find the idea of sex too exhausting to consider. But since no one wants to shoulder the blame for a carnal flameout, I have found that it becomes a game of chicken to see who can disgust and/or avoid the other person more.
“I’m horny,” I’ll announce, applying acne cream while absentmindedly picking the gnarled bundles of hair off my fleece sweatpants.
“You want a piece of this?” Jeff will yawn, gesturing to his body with his eyes closed. He will invariably be wearing old boxer briefs and a T-shirt he got from the busboy at the Indian restaurant down the street, which is hand-illustrated with a Sharpie.
“Totally, but I forgot to shave.” I turn and wink at him, trying to ignore the Pretzel M&M’s scattered across his chest. “I hope you like stubble.”
“Rrrrowr,” he growls. Then, a pause. “I’m gassy.”
“I bet you are, bad boy. Did you eat Chipotle for lunch again?”
Burp. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. But then get ready, ’cause you’re in trouble.” At this point, he can hardly move.
“Why don’t we cuddle for a while, set the mood?”
“Mmm-mmmm.”
Within seconds, we are asleep on opposite sides of the bed, happily at a stalemate.
4. Whose Turn It Is to Comfort Our Child in the Middle of the Night
It’s hard to summon the neurological clarity to fight while asleep, but Jeff and I do a pretty good job. Something about a child’s inconsolable wailing jump-starts the brain’s Blame Center, I think.
“The baby’s awake,” Jeff will groan.
Swimming up from the depths of my slumber, I cannot comprehend this sentence. “No, he’s not. He can’t be awake. I just put him down.”
“Well, he is. . . .”
“Baaaaahhhhhh Fuck. Fuuuuuuck. Fuck everything.”
At this point, Jeff usually rolls over and plays dead, and I am forced to resort to bribery.
“Can you go? I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”
No response.
“Jeff?”
“I think he’s hungry.”
“No, he’s not. You’re being an asshole.”
After a few of these incidents, we transitioned to a family bed, which conveniently killed two birds with one stone, as having a child sleep between us ensures we can never have sex again.
5. Whose Emotional Response to Stress Is Correct, aka Who Is More of a Sociopath
Picture Ramona Singer from The Real Housewives of New York City after two bottles of wine and a wasp sting interacting with Buster Keaton and you will get a sense of how Jeff and I complement each other emotionally. Sample dialogue:
Me: I am having feelings.
Jeff: . . .
Me: You are not validating my feelings.
Jeff: . . . ?
Me: Now my feelings are that you are a dick. On top of my original feelings.
Jeff: I’m sorry?
Me: What are you sorry for, being a dick or not supporting me emotionally?*
Jeff: . . .
Me: [collapses in sobs]
Jeff: I love you?
Me: Why would you say that to me right now??
Sometimes I feel like we’re one of those cutesy news stories at the back of People magazine, about how a tiger cub and a tortoise have become best friends at the zoo. The pictures are always adorable, but then you’re, like, This cannot end well. It goes against nature. What will happen when they grow up, and one of them eats the other? And then, through the gloom, there’s that little optimistic Jiminy Cricket voice that chirps, Y’know, maybe love really does conquer all.
The jury’s still out, though. I might decide to eat Jeff one of these days. He’s got this really delicious Chipotle musk going on.
I was going to end this essay with a new, incredibly meaningful mix tape for Jeff, but when I asked him if he knew any good songs that could be about marriage, he suggested the made-up titles “I Love You, ’Cause You’re There” and “Are You Dead Yet?”
So instead, I’ll make up a ditty of my own: “I Love You Because.”
A few weeks ago, Jeff discovered my supersecret time-saving method of shuffling to the bedroom from the bathroom with my pants around my ankles.
Allow me to explain:
If I’m about to go to bed and stop in the bathroom to pee, knowing I’m going to take my pants off anyway when I get into my pj’s, I don’t pull them back up after urinating, choosing instead to scamper the four feet or so into the bedroom in a compromised state. Amazingly, somehow, this dart of shame was like Halley’s Comet, and Jeff had never seen thi
s, and when he caught me he burst out laughing.
“Do you love me anyway?” I asked.
Jeff just looked at me and smiled. “I love you because,” he said.
So, what do you know? Ten years later, romance can still catch us with our pants down.
A BRIEF SERIES OF ONE-ACT PLAYS BETWEEN SPOUSES
Once upon a time in marriage, probably not that far away . . .
Me: Are you okay?
Jeff: [grunt]
Me: Is there something on your mind? You look like you have feelings that need to come out.
Jeff: [silence]
Me: Do you need to make an emotional fart?
Jeff: [laughter]
Me: Just let it rip. Like a heart fart. A ffheart!
[Long pause]
Jeff: He who felt it, dealt it.
Me: It’s weird, when I used to think about having a baby, I never thought about sharing it with someone else.
Jeff: [immediately] I get the top half.
Me: No, that’s not what I meant. I just never imagined being able to relinquish control to another—
Jeff: Okay, I get the front half.
Me: Stop it, we are not dividing the baby. I’m talking conceptually.
Jeff: Fine, I get the head and extremities. You can have the torso.
Me: I feel like I apologize too much.
Jeff: [side-eye]
Me: I’m serious. I’m always saying sorry [Ed. note: often deservedly]. Can we come up with something else I can say, that still means “I’m sorry”?
Jeff: [after zero seconds of hesitation] Poop stain.
Me: Oh. Um. Ha-ha. Okay. I was thinking something more inside-jokey and less skidmarky, but okay. What about you?
Jeff: [side-eye]
Me: You should have to say something when you’re sorry, too. Something you would never normally say.
Jeff: Fine. What?
Me: You have to say . . . Rachel Zoe.
... and they never apologized to each other ever again.
