Love and Marriage

Marriage isn't like herpes or plastic surgery. You can get rid of it. It's reversible. You can change your mind.

But it still scares me.

A husband was never a luxury I considered for myself. From a very young age I thought I knew, for sure, that I would never get married. That feeling was, in large part, because I didn't believe someone would want to wake up next to my ugly mug every morning. But it was also because of an absence - I didn't dream of walking down an aisle in a white dress. I didn't dream of carefully coordinated bouquets. I didn't dream of weddings. I dreamt of having a permanent snuggle buddy who would kiss me on the mouth sometimes, but not of actual, honest-to-god marriage.

Thus, I feel very unprepared facing the very real possibility of my own wedding. My boyfriend and I have Talked About It. It might happen. But the forces pushing us to marry are very... unusual.

See, my boyfriend, Craig, is English. I met him while in Prague during a drunken bender on a boat party hosted by the son of Rick Steves (don't ask.) Craig was a cute and sexy European. I was on my first weekend of my study abroad program. You know how it goes. Tale as old as time.

Except it didn't end after one night. We kept in contact, messaging daily. I went to London with some friends and met up with him. I visited Bristol. I visited again. I met his parents and all of his friends. When I went back for my final semester at NYU, we said we'd keep in touch and see how things went. We both knew long distance relationships often ended.

It didn't.

We talked every day. He came to New York. I spent my first post-graduate summer in Bristol. I fell in love. He did too. Deeply. We fell farther than we knew was possible.

But you can't work in England as an American. Since so many immigrants come in through the EU, the government makes sure no one from non-EU countries gets in and takes a job. No one.

Solutions can be found, and have been, but they're not permanent. I've now spent almost 6 months in England, total, in an uncertain position, gaining experience and money but no job security, no real future. And I'm eager to pursue a career. That's one thing I have always known I wanted.

So the only permanent solution appears to be marriage. I'm not unsure about the man - I'm 100% sure he's the one I want to spend the rest of my life with if I'm going to spend it with anyone at all. But I'm young. Twenty-three years old. I don't think I'm too immature or my brain cells haven't matured yet, but I do think I'm going to change a great deal in the upcoming years. Will the woman I become still be the woman Craig loves? Will she still be the woman who loves Craig?

I know, I know - everyone changes no matter what their age, and it's impossible to know whether a marriage will work out. But it's still frightening, especially if you can't wait until you feel, as they say, "ready for marriage."

But I swear to God, I won't met this man go. I can't. He's my inspiration, my muse, my drive. I'll fight to have him in my life until the bitter end. If we need to get married for that to happen, so be it.

Oh, I've BEEN to Prague.

I suppose I should start with something like, “Well, I’m in Prague now. Look at that!” But it seems a strange thing to say. I feel as if I’ve been in Prague forever, though it’s only been about a month. I’ve been awfully lazy about updating my blog, and for that I apologize. I know I promised a few people I’d keep them updated, but I by the time I got a converter for my laptop so much had happened that I didn’t know where to start. So I just downloaded the NYU proxy and watched old Barbara Stanwyck and Fay Wray movies on Netflix when I was in instead.

Though I’ve been living in New York, these weeks in Prague have been my first time really frequenting the nightlife. I’ve been to a several clubs, even more bars, and a few that crossed somewhere between a bar and club. On our first night, we accidentally wandered into a strip club, where serious looking dancers swung around lazily while stern-faced Czech men watched in silence, frowning at us over their bekarovka and tonics. We didn’t stay long.

We’ve been spoiled with full-bodied beers and clean vodka shots – that is, until the recent hard alcohol ban. That ban has been all I’ve seen in the papers – 20 hospitalized, now 38. Dozens dead. I probably won’t drink another shot the whole time I’m here, just because I’m now so terrified of becoming blind off bad moonshine masquerading as legitimate liquor.

My classes have been enjoyable. My most serious class is a course on international reporting. People rarely mention how small classes can get while studying abroad. We had four people in our class until last Thursday. Now there’s only two, including myself. The teacher is a gloriously abrasive Argentinean with a New York accent, blonde highlights and 7-month-old twins. She’s reported all over the world for everything and everybody, and though I’m intimidated by her I’d love to be just like her, which is a problem because I’m absolutely nothing like her. I’ve realized all of a reporter’s greatest attributes – forwardness, self-confidence, and an ability to remember facts from hearing them once – are my weak points. I’m the anti-reporter in all but the ability to write. But what else am I to do with my life? Write poetry? I don’t think so. Well, the matter of my future career will come later (I have a few months before I have to choose what I’ll do for the rest of my life.) For now I’ll focus on turning my weaknesses into strengths, if just for the class I’m in.

My Kafka class has been surprisingly disappointing. I love the work – I’m sorry I’ve never read any Kafka before. It was because I was reading “The Trial” that I decided to write this blog post. It’s the kind of writing that makes you want to write yourself. I guess in the future I’ll have to start keeping Kafka around just to make me want to work. But the teacher is incredibly dull. He’s a young Czech man with a Tony Stark beard and a monotone, mumbling voice. He punctuates every sentence at the beginning and end with a low, grumbling “uuuuuuhhhhhhhh.” But that wouldn’t be a problem if he understood what literature majors… well, do. My roommate, who’s in my class (for the time being – she doesn’t like this professor much either) tried to analyze the text, bringing in other examples from Kafka’s contemporaries to punctuate her point, and the teacher interjected saying, “I think you are adding your own ideas.” Which is what we do – we analyze the text and come up with new ideas about the text. This teacher prefers us to simply regurgitate what we’ve read, which could have passed for English in, say, 7th grade. I don’t even know if I can do very well in this class if I’m expected to do that.

Czech class is very difficult for me. The teacher is wonderful, and teaches us conversational Czech instead of trying to explain everything through grammatical terms like “past participle” or “future perfect indicative” or whatever. He’s Czech, but speaks perfect English, and this NYU teaching job is only one of his many translating/teaching jobs where he teaches English speakers Czech or Czech speakers English. He’s tall with high cheekbones, probably about forty years old, and everyday appears sincerely happy to see us.

Finally, I have my Cultures and Contexts course, taught by my orientation leader Mucha. He’s a distant relative of the famous Mucha, though he won’t tell us exactly how they’re related. While he was a college student, he was also one of the dissidents who organized the Velvet Revolution, and was a personal friend of Czech libertarian, playwright, and president Vaclav Havel. He’s also damn precious. He must be in his forties as well. He has a broad, little boy smile and breathes in sharply in between each of his sentences, giving the impression he’s extremely excited about absolutely everything he’s saying. He also seems thrilled about the course he’s teaching, and makes us powerpoints in (admittedly a bit poorly translated) English before taking us outdoors for field trips. And whenever we go out he puts on an adorable blue pageboy hat, which absolutely kills everybody in the class. We’ve only had two class periods (it’s a long, once-a-week class) but he’s gained the loyalty of all of his students, party through his history as a dissident and partly through his supreme cuteness.

I suppose I’ll write about my roommates and some friends I’ve made here next time. It’s lucky I don’t have anything bad to say – otherwise I wouldn’t be able to write about them. This is the internet we’re living in, after all.

Stagnant

Unexpectedly, once my Spanish class ended I fell into a sort of stagnant state, floating aimlessly once the panicky structure of deadlines and quizzes disappeared from under my feet. I've always had trouble motivating myself when there's no one there to light a fire under my butt, no one there to disappoint if I don't get shit done. My entire life has built its schedule around avoiding stern or disapproving looks from teachers and parents, and my priorities have always upheld the mountains of schoolwork to be done. Now that I'm free to be creative on my own, I sort of melt into a puddle of lethargic waste, spending all of my time listlessly watching "RuPaul's Drag Race" and bad anime, putting off doing simple tasks like taking out the trash, ordering a prescription at the local pharmacy, going to the gym, buying milk. Very little gets done. What I need is a good kick in the pants.

I've also been putting off social interactions. Rachel and Kevin are both in Paris, Wonky Teeth (I'll call him WT from now on) is working at a summer camp in upstate New York, and all my other friends are from clubs and classes - friends I hang out with when I see them but haven't spent much time with outside of our joint activity. I'm forced to seek out my class-and-club friends, and in my globlike state that seems like too much effort. How can I organize a trip to a concert when I can barely brush my teeth in the morning?

But, luckily, I ended up getting together with one of my class friends - Meredith. I've had three classes with her, and we ended up sitting together in our last one out of familiarity. She was always astonishingly easy to talk to, and when I posted online that I was staying in New York for the summer, she responded that she, too, was here. So we got together one day to look at art galleries, and it went surprisingly well. I was afraid my choices of cheap art galleries - one of old French sketches and another by Courtney Love (which was both far away and, in the end, closed) - would bore her, but it turned out she studied French and was going to Paris next semester. She was smart, but not too serious. Wholesome, but open and unfazed by debauchery. It's rare to meet someone so simply herself. We went to the met a week or so later, but I haven't hung out with her since. I should text her. Invite her to one of the Celebrate Brooklyn concerts - I hear the admission is only $3. I'll do that... after I watch this episode of "Descendants of Darkness."

I'm also working. Part-time. But not at Sunglass Hut. The Sunglass Hut job unexpectedly fell through, entirely because one of the managers couldn't get his shit together and get me my one. last. interview. I had already done a urine drug test and a background check, for Christ's sake. Not to mention I had already done two interviews AND a floor audition. Why would they make me do all that if they weren't interested in hiring me? I had one more interview, a meet and greet with the regional manager. But the times they kept signing me up for weren't working - I was taking my Spanish class at the time and couldn't do things in the morning. But they didn't seem to understand that. So I kept calling, and finally the manager said he would call me back with the available times that would work for both the regional manager and me. So I waited. He didn't call. So I called him. And he wouldn't come to the phone - the person on the line kept repeating "he'll call you. He'll call you with the times." And then he never called. I was pretty mad.

But then, I got a part-time job at Cole Haan. I'd like to be working another job, too, since it's only 10 or 15 hours a week, but it's too late in the summer to try anywhere else. I've been thinking of putting my name in a temp agency or a babysitting website... after I finish watching this episode of "RuPaul's Drag Race."

Dang. I wanted to post today. I wanted to talk about how my new Spanish teacher seems like a good guy and all, but he really doesn't seem to have a clue about how the class is supposed to be run. I'm really worried this class will mess up my GPA just because the teacher doesn't know what's going on. I also wanted to write about how he wears really thin T-Shirts (by which I mean too thin - the kind of thin shirts that, even if they're loose, outline your chest with distracting accuracy) and pit stains. But he's been really nice, and doesn't get frustrated when we ask him to repeat things or explain. Which, I guess, is what you should expect from a teacher. But it's more rare than you'd think.

I also wanted to talk about my interview with ---------- ---, and how it's a lot fancier than I first thought. It turns out this was only the meet-and-greet. There's two more interviews and a floor test I have to pass. I hope I'm good enough - it looks fun. Everyone who works there looks chic and professional and older than me. I don't know if six months at Target prepared me for a high end retail job - sometimes I think maybe I'm more suited for a kiosk or a K-mart. But you never know.

And for a while, I've been wanting to post a little about a guy I talked about earlier. You know, the one with the teeth? In February? Well, I can't say very much, because I know my relatives occasionally read this blog (hi guys) but after our mutual friend finally stopped liking me and got a girlfriend, things worked out. For a couple of days. But it was the end of the year, and after those few days we wouldn't be in the same city for nine whole months. And I would be in Prague, on my own in Europe. I would have had to end it no matter how long we were together. So we just let it be what it was. And it was. And now I have a great friend. I honestly had more fun and felt more like myself while just talking to this guy then I've felt in a long time. That's the thing I can't give up. I don't know if we'll ever be romantic like we were, but I think we'll still have that.

Well, whatever. I have a Spanish thing to write. It's dumb and long and I just don't care anymore.

As one or two of you (by which I mean all of you) already know, I'm spending this summer in New York, partly because I have to take a class and partly because after a few weeks Little Rocky Run starts to resemble both the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands and a black hole. Now that I'm an adult with legitimate clips on my resume, it's time I started doing adult things like working for actual pay. I have an interview with Sunglasses Hut tomorrow.

I'm doing some other adult things too. For instance, today I made a cucumber-onion-avocado-tomato salad I found on Punchfork. I'm starting to make vegan dishes, not because I'm becoming a vegan but because I'm living in 10's New York, of course. When people reminisce about this time period, they're going to remember how vegan was in fashion just like lowfat was in fashion in the 90's. I don't want to miss out. And I figured, if I'm not going to give up burgers and other animals while I'm out, I can trick myself into getting the nutritional benefits of veganism by only teaching myself vegan recepies. When that's all I know how to make, I'll have no choice but to eat shittons of vegetables and tofu. And anyway, my adult palate has become to refined for a diet of only brownies and macaroni and cheese. I'm becoming one of those losers who says, "Oh, fruit!" at the buffet table. 

But don't confuse this with an actual interest in my nutrition. I'm not that grown-up yet. I don't know if I'll ever be grown up enough to eat foods I hate for their nutritional value or not eat foods I love because they're bad for me. Cupcakes make life worth living.

Also, now that I got my NYU ID back in a overnight express package from my mother after I left it in my backpack and came to New York without it and had to explain to the security guard that I actually did have a class in this building and am in fact a student here, I can go to the gym in the mornings before class. This is good news, because I'm testing out a theory: For a long time, I've looked at fitness magazines and figured that if they actually worked, one would only need one issue to "slim down," as they say. It seemed like a poor business model, with the success of the magazine relying on the failure of their readers to actually do what was in the magazine. I realize that's a cynical way of looking at it - maybe some women like to update their fitness routine each month - but I thought it might be fun to test that theory. So I cut all the exercises out of the May 2012 Shape magazine (and all the pictures of Mariah Carey to put on my wall when my Dad and his fiance Kristin move into their new place where I'll be living for the summer) and I'll take them with me. I'll follow their exercise routines. We'll see if they work. Also, we'll see if I stay with them once the workload picks up in class and I obtain a job that requires me to spend a lot of my time, you know, working.

Besides, I'm not so interested in losing weight as becoming strong enough to crush my enemies' heads like watermelon. I'm a little worried about traveling in Europe without some sort of plan in case I come across a rogue pack of bandits or Frenchmen or Polish Samurai or something. I figure that if I walk around looking just a little bit more like the Hulk, I'll be an unlikely target for pickpockets or swordsmen.

Some Mild Rants:

Why are balls considered the essence of manhood? We use them in so many expressions - grow a pair, that guy sure has some balls, that took balls, what balls, etc. - to represent toughness and boldness. But actual balls are the antithesis of toughness and boldness. If anything, they should represent fragility and shyness. What's avoids all encounters? Balls. What can't be touched without causing screams of pain? Balls.

Maybe it's the idea is that after gently guarding two delicate balls between your legs all your life, nothing seems that demanding or difficult. "Protect the princess from a dragon? Sure, whatever. That's nothing, I've been protecting my cojones from literally everything for thirtysome years. And they don't have the dexterity of even the most clumsy princess."

(However, I really like the saying, "What a dick," since it seems to say, "What an overly praised yet actually ridiculously sensitive person who draws his/her entire esteem from his/her theoretical power.")

Also, why don't ladies in period pieces have underarm and leg hair? Unless your setting your epic in ancient Greece or Rome, you're missing out on a pretty easily added piece of historical accuracy.

You say it's gross? It's not gross, it's natural. How did we come to consider something disgusting that literally everyone above age 14 has? How did we come to just pretend ladyhair away? And even many male stars now sport waxed chests and sometimes even shaved underarms. Why?! Put it back. On everybody. (If the time period calls for it.)

That aside, violent bloody battle scenes are pretty gross. But we normalized them through TV, movies, and video games. And now, to some interest groups' dismay, we can all enjoy a fountain of blood from a sliced enemy soldier with no distaste whatsoever. Why not do the same for pit hair? And lady leg carpets? And hairy manbacks?

Hair

Yes I have a midterm tomorrow. Yes I'm going to write a blog post instead of going to sleep right away. What of it?

(Actually, I had a serious heart-to-heart with myself on the way back from my internship. I asked myself, "Self, if you were to die right now, which would you rather leave behind - good test scores or good/ok blog posts?" And deep inside my heart, I knew I would rather leave blog posts. Too bad I'm conditioned to prioritize school above all else. Stupid mind.)

Here's what I didn't do all semester so far: shave my leg hair. Here's what I learned: I don't actually grow leg hair. What have I been doing all this time?! Shaving tiny blonde hairs almost as thin as the ones on my arm. And the ones on my arm are pretty much invisible. And the back of my legs? Absolutely no hair at all. I've been mindlessly going through motions of hygiene that don't apply to me. It's like I've spent seven years mowing plastic grass.

Ok, maybe it's not that drastic. I do have some hair, and since I'm so used to the hairless feel I might shave them again come summertime, just because I don't like them rustling in the wind. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean I can't feel them. But it does make me wonder, how did I ever end up shaving them in the first place? Certainly not because there was any physical indication there was something to be shaved.

And I certainly wasn't the one who decided to start. I fought puberty with a vengeance. My mother had to beg me to wear a bra (a bra I still own and wear. Limited Too sure built things to last. And yes, I'm the same size I was back then. My breasts grew in one great leap, so I got all the mortification of an early bloomer with larger breasts than any of the other girls in the sixth grade and then the mortification of being a small-chested adult. Whatever man. 36B's for the win!) When I first got my period, I howled so loud my mother came running in alarm. She tried to congratulate me as I lamented the loss of my youth. I was fully aware these signs of puberty - breasts, periods, new hair - meant I was leaving a place to which I could never return. And I clung to my residual youth. I played Barbies through seventh grade (albeit their adventures got increasingly murder-centric) and I'm pretty sure I spent my ninth grade year acting like a toddler. Just ask anybody from the theater department of Centreville High circa 2008.

And underarm hair was no exception. I was sure the minute I shaved my pits, my youth was gone forever. I spent days in sixth grade with my arms clenched to my sides, not wanting anyone to notice my new hair but not wanting to go through the aging ritual of actually shaving them. Then, one day, my mother said, "Hey, Alison, do you want me to show you how to shave your underarms now?" She had suggested this delicately a few times before, but I had always emphatically resisted. However, since clenching my arms was very uncomfortable, and because raising my hand had become virtually impossible (and, since I was also just learning how to use deodorant and experimenting with different brands, sometimes the smell was unpleasant. Sixth grade was a very awkward time for me) I said, "Ok."

And we went into her bathroom, and she showed me the razor. It was a svelte, curvy, pretty thing, that razor. Somehow less threatening than I imagined. Then, she showed me how to use shaving cream (a practice I later deserted) and shave. And I lost nothing. Nothing but hair. I didn't jolt into adulthood or lose my childhood innocence. I was still me - but now I no longer feared being called up to the blackboard. So I imagine that, about that time, my mother said, "Do you want me to show you how to shave your legs too, while we're at it?" And I figure I said, since I now knew I had nothing to lose, "Ok."

And I guess I just started. Weird.