From Bird and Jordan to lollipops and butterflies

Some changes in life are subtle. For example, I noticed I like olives on my Subway sandwich just the other day. I have no idea why, but suddenly it seemed like a good idea to ask for olives. Other changes can come out of nowhere and blindside you unexpectedly. That happened to me just the other day.

It happened while I was at work. First, let me say that while I'm at work, very little work ever gets done. In a standard eight-hour shift, the breakdown of how I spend my time looks like this:

4 1/2 hours of wasting time on the internet
2 hours for lunch
15 minutes of talking to my wife on the phone/30 minutes figuring out what just happened when I talked to my wife on the phone/ 15 minutes complaining with the married guy beside me about our wives, whom we just got off the phone with
30 minutes of what could loosely, in the whitest collar sense of the word, be described as work.

So, with a schedule that rigorous, you can imagine I have plenty of time for my mind to wander, leaving me susceptible to a stunning realization or two. Anyway, last Thursday, I was doing my usual time-wasting on the internet (endless cycle of sports websites, facebook, foodnetwork.com, and my email) when I got the itch to do some online shopping. I have no idea why I call it that because I've never bought a thing off the internet. Instead, I just use the internet as a menu for things I might want to buy in real life. So I end up just trolling around various retail sites, never actually buying anything. Basically, I'm the online equivalent of the guy who goes into Barnes and Noble once a week, sits and reads and a book for two hours, then leaves without ever making a purchase. I'm also that guy offline.

So, Thursday, I was in the mood to look at old sports pictures, jerseys, posters, etc. I get in this mood at least twice a week. I googled "vintage sports pictures," clicked on the first website that google suggested, and within seconds, I was on my way to not helping the economy. That's when it happened. I was minding my own business, staring at pictures of Muhammed Ali and Larry Bird and Michael Jordan that were so expensive that those three guys couldn't afford them, when my eyes wandered to the left side of the screen. There, in perfect order, this particular website had all the pictures and portraits and paintings in a row, all neatly categorized for my convenience and enjoyment. They were laid out by price, by style, by sport, you name it. They were also laid out by room. So if you wanted to decorate your bathroom with a picture of William "The Refrigerator" Perry, you could just click "Bathroom." All of my favorite rooms were there: Gameroom, Playroom, sports room.....And that's when I saw it. Down the page a little were these words: "Baby girl's room."

Uh oh.

Eight months ago, my daughter arrived. In those eight months, I've slowly but surely adjusted to having a third person around and once she started smiling and laughing, it was over. I'm like a chocolate lab in search of a tennis ball when it comes to making her smile and that includes buying her stuff. I believe that if you truly love someone, you can trick them into loving you back if you buy them enough gifts.

So there I was: A grown man, at work, supposedly with a job to do. To my left was another grown man doing his work and to my right, a third guy trying to do his job. In the middle of their diligence, I was just a 30-year-old dude staring at pages and pages of pink stuff. Yep, once i saw the link to Baby Girl's Room, I dove in headfirst. There were princesses and fairies and butterflies and I was entranced by the whole thing. If a gay guy had walked in and looked at my computer screen, even he would have said "Dude, that's just too gay." I didn't care.

On and on I went, wading through pages and pages of girly stuff, mentally marking stuff I can buy later. For a real-life equivalent, I was basically like an old woman sifting through racks of kid's clothes saying things like "This is precious" or "This outfit is darling." For the record, while looking online, I never said the words precious or darling in my mind. Maybe once. Ok twice.

And what's worse, every page just led to the next. So even though I started off with innocent wall decorations like posters and whatnot, within moments I was whisked off to lands of quilts with mountains of baby clothes as far as the eye could see. I was like Alice in Wonderland, if Alice was a 6-5, 240 pound white dude who blogs about embarrassing things in his life.

Ever since we found out we were having a little girl, decorating her room was one of my jobs. At the house we lived in when she was born, I decorated her room. Since we moved a few weeks ago, her new room has been lacking. We haven't gotten around to putting the decorative touch to it yet, but we'll get there (I don't know why she needs a room anyway, because she sleeps between my and my wife, farting in my direction all night long - When my wife's not looking, I fire back).

So, sitting there at my computer, it hit me all of a sudden. My whole life to this point has been very simple. All it takes is some sports, some video games, maybe a steak or two, and I'm happy. Two years ago, if someone asked me to go baby shopping or anything similar, I would have faked a heart attack to get out of it. Yet here I was, lost in a fog looking at the computer like always, only I had drifted away from my familiar sports surroundings and instead I was lost in a land of lollipops and butterflies. Where did Michael Jordan go? Where did that black and white picture of Larry Bird go? When did these sports heroes of my past get replaced by Winnie the Pooh and Tinkerbell.

The answer? Eight months ago. And I couldn't be happier.

Value meal

I've been cooking lately. I never thought that I'd type that last sentence, but oh well. Since I rarely go outside anymore and I let whatever I watch on television influence my life dramatically, I became hooked on the Food Network and then decided to start trying some things myself. I started out simple - brinner (breakfast for dinner), burgers, fried stuff, etc. before eventually branching out.

Now, I said all that simply because anyone that has ever met me knows that I'd never have gotten the culinary itch (culinary itch - great band name) unless I was trying to show off. But, since I got married, I've been racking my brain thinking of ways to help out around the house that didn't require any heavy lifting, handiwork, or anything involving physical activity. Cooking fit this bill perfectly. It helped me contribute occassionally to the family and more importantly, it impressed my wife and bought me at least 3-4 hours of goodwill each time.

But slowly, as I cooked more and more and tried different stuff without burning the house down, I began to get a little braver in the kitchen, branching out to stuff I'd usually only eat if I paid $20 bucks for some foreign guy to cook it for me in a terribly-decorated chain restaurant.

Which brings me to last night. I found myself in my local grocery store, fascinated by the fact that the guy cutting meat in the back is the guy from some awful local TV commercials, I decided to buy some mahi mahi and some scallops and see what I could do with them. As an aside, I think mahi mahi is a very snooty sounding fish. I'm sure they're fine fish, but it just sounds like food that only a jackass would eat. Once I got my mahi mahi and scallops home, I looked up a recipe on the internet (I know, as it turns out, the internet is not just for forwarding funny emails or looking at pics of old girlfriends on facebook). I pan-fried the fish, then used some lemon juice and yada yada yada. Like most of my meals, midway through the process I got bored of cooking and decided I really didn't want to eat this dreadful-looking fish.

Of course, once my wife caught a glimpse of the meal I had prepared, she was both impressed and excited. We sat down and ate, with her enjoying it immensely and me simply biding my time until she left the room so I could find something real to eat. It's not that I didn't want her to know I'd be eating something else, it's that I felt incredibly stupid planning my next meal immediately after eating 16 dollars worth of fish.

So, as my 32-year-old wife who has the sleeping habits of a 68-year old often does, she and my daughter went to bed shortly after dinner, leaving me to my second meal. Yes, immediately after throwing my leftover fish over the fence to the neighbor's dalmation, I raided my kitchen, eschewing expensive fish for:

- 6 bags of snack-sized cheetos.
- 1 can of chef boyardee beefaroni
- 1 totino's combination pizza
- 3 packaged rice krispy treats.

The cost of my post-16 dollar fish meal? About $2.50. So, it appears that I can add dumbass to my title right after the words "Rookie husband"

Or at least maybe rookie chef.

Is there anything else on?

I've given in to certain facts about my marriage. There's the fact that I won't be able to have many pets due to my wife's allergies, there's the fact that I'll never be comfortable watching an R-rated movie in front of my wife (She likes movies, but whenever the language gets excessive, she gets a look on her face like someone near her has just passed gas) and I have have come to grips with the fact that the most exciting decision I get to make everyday is which color Ford Taurus to take to work.

So, yes, in my short time as a husband I've made some concessions and a few minor changes. There are some things about me that'll never change however, some more embarrassing than others. I'll always watch sports for an average of 6 hours a day, seven days a week. That won't change. I'll likely always play video games, even as my quickly disappearing youth slides further and further into the rearview mirror. Sure, as a 30-year-old man, that is slightly embarrassing, but video games are an escape that I just don't wanna lose. Plus, the thought of me cussing at the TV while trying to save the princess on Super Mario Bros. when I'm in my 70's amuses me.

But, perhaps the most embarrassing habit that I will never give up is one that baffles my wife (and most people that know me),and that is my complete and total fascination with watching professional wrestling. See? Told you it was embarrassing. Still, I can't get enough of the stuff. I started watching when I was about five and I still watch today and I will probably watch 20 years from now. Don't look at me like that, lots of people watch it. Sure, 99 percent of those people are 12 years old or younger, but I can deal with it.

As far as my wife goes, she tolerates this habit about as well as any rational woman would. Routinely, she stays out of the den on Monday nights to allow me complete calm as I watch grown men in their underwear pretend to fight. Her words, not mine. Still, even though she is fine with this little diversion of mine, she occasionally tries to push through on those Monday nights, gritting her teeth and watching the show with me while I sit there enthralled like a golden retriever watching a tennis ball. Inevitably, her silence will break and she'll try to start a conversation, and since I'm a complete idiot, it never goes well.

Her: Who are these guys? Do you like these guys?
Me: (Mumbling incoherently).
Her: They look like they work out a lot. Would you work out that much? Those clothes look ridiculous. Why did he do that? That didn't hurt.
Me: It's not supposed to hurt, it's just supposed to look like it hurt.
Her: It looked stupid.
Me: No it didn't.
Her: Yes it did. What are they doing now? It looks stupid.
Me: It's not stupid. See, the midget isn't tall enough to punch that guy with the mohawk, so he's standing on the ropes to make them even. And since the guy moved, the midget just fell on his face but it's ok because the other midget was there to catch him....
Her: Is there anything else on?
Me: You always do this. I watch this every Mon.....See? The midget just lost and I missed it.
Her: Whatever.
Me: Whatever.

And that, friends, is a glimpse into one of my great escapes. Perhaps one day I'll outgrow it, saving myself from such awkward situations with my wife in the future.

But I hope not.

What language barrier?

My wife teaches Spanish at the college level, which means two things: A) She's much, much smarter than me. And B) She can talk to other people without me having a clue what's being said. I actually don't mind B sometimes because it's much easier to zone out and not listen to a word she says if it's in a different language.

That being said, when we're out in public, I find her bilingual skills fascinating. Whether it's finally finding out what the people in the line at the grocery store are saying behind my back or helping me understand some of the shows on Telemundo, she comes in quite handy.

Her language tools are particularly helpful when we go out to dinner. Whenever we go to a mexican restaurant, she knows it's her responsibility to handle all communication with the waiter. It's not because I'm a snob or because I don't want to talk, but basically, it's because that I'm from the deep south and occasionally I sound like it. So I get very self-conscious when trying to say my order to a spanish-speaking waiter. There's nothing I hate more than watching a waiter quietly giggle as I struggle to say the words chile relleno. Before I met my wife, my normal method of ordering was to hold the menu up and point at the words instead of saying them. Silly? Yes. Childish? Yes.

Once I figured out that she was the answer to this problem, I couldn't have been happier. The barrier between myself and my waiter gone, I was now a happy man – that is, until I realized that her talking to someone while knowing I'm clueless presents its own problems. Now, instead of being self-conscious about my butchering of this waiter's native language, I'm paranoid that the waiter or my wife is saying something about this goofy white guy sitting across the table from her.

Her interactions with waiters generally fall into two categories:
A) The waiter seems impressed that she can speak the language and is genuinely excited to be able to carry on a real conversation and the two share a good-natured talk that even makes me smile, even though they could be talking about caterpillars for all I know.

B)The waiter seems impressed that she can speak the language and immediately becomes infatuated with her, only taking occasional breaks in the conversation to shoot a quick glance at me to let me know what a bastard I am. Once their talk wraps up and our food is ordered, he leaves, but not before giving me a look that says he's trying to figure out which bodily function will be performed on my burrito.

Needless to say, Option B happens much more frequently than A. When we first started dating four years ago, I was intimidated by my wife's ability to speak multiple languages (she also speaks french and a little japanese). Now, after getting used to it, I'm still very much intimidated by it. But, like most things in our marriage, I've learned to deal with it.

Mostly by zoning out.

Here we go

I love my wife. Always have. And I love waking up every day and spending it with her and now, my 8-month-old daughter. Quite simply, it's a great life.

However, as with all good things, marriage is not without its tiny quirks and foibles. And by tiny quirks and foibles, I mean giant spirit-crushing, life-altering waves of change that crash into you during your first year of marriage like a drunk sorority girl crashing onto her friend's loveseat at 3 a.m.

Even though every man that's traveled this road before warned me about the first years of my marriage, I felt like I was prepared. I was ready, I was confident.....I was toast.

So I guess I'll use this blog as a chronicle of the pitfalls I go through on a daily basis. Hopefully it'll be entertaining, but if it isn't, oh well. The internet is big and there are plenty of options.