- insisting I sleep cozied down in the bed with him instead of confining my coughing, hacking, restless, contagious self to the hard sofa.

- gazing at my slack, shambling frame as I change from a sweaty, baggy pair of gray PJs to a clean, baggy pair of gray PJs and saying (in a voice ringing with sincerity), “You’re so pretty!”

- driving to the restaurant whose name and address I don’t know to order the soup I can’t pronounce.

This Ask Metafilter comment gets to the heart of that awesomeness:

You know when you were a kid, and you’d get excited about sleepovers because you could stay up all night watching movies and talking to someone who just cracked you up and really understood you? Remember how special those nights felt?

Every day is like that now. Except we get to have really good sex, too.

Yup, that sums it up: I get to spend every day and every night with my very favorite person from now on, and we get to express that favorite-ness in every way we wish.

But I still haven’t really internalized that this is a two-way street of Awesome — that my very favorite person’s very favorite person is me.

Let me digress.

I had a rotten morning. You don’t need to know the details, but I made a small error that caused the not-sane part of my brain to castigate me and call me names (which A. is not productive and B. is NOT ALLOWED) while I flailed around trying to get dressed and out of the house in a hurry.

During this ridiculous few minutes of blistering self-loathing, The Fella kept interjecting helpful comments like, “You’re not stupid, you just made a mistake” and “How can I help?” and “Are these your pants?” When he should have been sleeping peacefully (and could very rightfully have been giving me grief over my meltdown), he was cheerfully pitching in to soothe me, to help me, to solve my problem.

And later in the day, I added some of those things together. I did the emotional math: I am married to my very favorite person, the person whose opinion I value more than anyone else’s, the person who I think is the downright AWESOMEST person in the whole wide world.

And he thinks I’m THE AWESOMEST, too.

I think he must be right. You don’t argue with the transitive property.

“You look a little beat, hon,” I said. “Did you have dinner?”

“Not really.”

It took me all of three minutes to whip up something simple for him to eat. As I gave him the plate and a beer, The Fella took my hand and quietly, earnestly said, “Thank you. Thank you for marrying me.”

Today is our second anniversary, and The Fella’s hatched some secret plans. (Nothing big, he assures me. Just secret.) The first item on the agenda: he got me an enormous coffee. Number two on the agenda: he’s doing laundry.

This guy gets me.

* [The Fella, don't hover over the links!] update Now that I’ve given The Fella his gift, I can describe it here. We’re going to have a mid-year variation on our Valentine’s day tradition of staying in with cheesy horror movies and pizza.

For the cotton anniversary, I gave The Fella the abominable-looking Lady Frankenstein, starring Joseph Cotten. Yeah.

Because it’s too hot to heat the oven, I’ll be picking up fantastic take-out pizza from Otto.

Wait for it… cotton.

I toyed with plenty of other gift ideas. For example, I thought about getting a really luxurious set of sheets, which we kinda need. Or towels, ditto. But I dismissed those as gifts for me, not for The Fella.

What did The Fella give me? A really luxurious set of sheets. And a really luxurious towel. Did I mention: this guy gets me.

Since the corner store rotates flavors randomly, there’s no point requesting a specific flavor. Still, The Fella knows what kind to get me: Chocolate with stuff in, or stuff with chocolate in.

Or pistachio.

We’ve had the “or pistachio!” conversation at least three times now, and here’s how that goes, more or less, every time:

Elsa: Or pistachio!
The Fella: [stops tying his shoes, looks up at me in disbelief] … really?
E: Yes.
TF: …
E: It’s my favorite, but they almost never have it. If they ever have it, I get it. If they ever have it, get it. EVER.
TF: How did I not know this? It’s like I don’t even know you!*

*This last sentence only occurred in the first iteration of this conversation, which suggests to me that subconsciously he does recall it, or he would face the same vivid surprise and apparent horror each time.

This weekend, we had another round of the same conversation, at which time I altered the standing order. From now on, the standing order: chocolate with stuff in or stuff with chocolate in, or pistachio. Even if I have specifically requested “no ice cream,” if they have pistachio, get pistachio. “Pistachio rescinds all other orders.”

1. I’m scheduled for oral surgery, and I idly mentioned to my mother that the recovery period will make me wish we had cable “so I could just plop down and watch ‘Columbo’ for a few hours.”

Yesterday, she presented me with a bubble-mailer containing nine hours of “Columbo.” Mom, who is not yet confident in online ordering or particularly savvy at online searches, tracked down and ordered me a gift (and, from her perspective, a reasonable obscure gift) just to give me some comfort and distraction.

2. A few nights ago, I got three hours of sleep before I woke up hiccuping — and the hiccups lasted more than two hours. Silly? Yes. Funny? Yes. Harmless? Yes. Annoying and exhausting and, eventually, painful? Yes.

When The Fella left for work, I had stopped hiccuping. A few hours later, he called me to check in, “to see how you’re doing.”

I never miss a chance for self-mockery: “Because I was hiccuping?”

He was so gentle: “Because I know you had a hard morning.”

And that is how love can look: even in the face of the silliest affliction, he made sure I was okay before unleashing any jokes.

You’re not as smart as you think you are. Shut up sometimes.

You’re smarter than you think you are. Speak up, but thoughtfully.

Be kinder. Be more patient. Be more demanding. These are not mutually exclusive.

You can’t see your own privilege. Listen more, and put yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Good job with the sunscreen! Keep it up even after your gothy years pass by.

Your parents show their love as best they can, and they’re doing miles better than their own parents did for them. That doesn’t mean it’s enough. The sooner you see that and let it go, the happier and more loving you will be.

Jagosaurus: Random thought I keep forgetting to articulate: Sometimes I wish we would jointly post (edited) versions of some of our conversations. We B Funny.

Elsa: Oooh, blog fodder! Uh. I don’t have to post that part*, right?

J: You do not.

E: Sold!

J:  Excellent.  What happens next?

E: Yeeeeeah, I thought you’d know that.  I, uh, something.

Here’s what happens next. Let’s start at the beginning. (Salty language and insect horrors ahead.)

J: This website makes me think of you.

E: And to think: you sent this not even knowing that I accidentally (and sparkling-winily) coined a phrase during a cocktail hour at our place Monday night. A friend was struggling to describe the ambience of a particular downtown lounge, trying to paint us a brief picture of its ineffable funk. I chipped in two words and the room EXPLODED with laughter.

And all week long, one friend in particular has been asking me over and over to help her remember the phrase. Finally, she wrote it down on a little scrap of paper during another wine-soaked evening. That means she’s walking around with a scribbled note reading “DOUCHE MIASMA” in her pocket.

It’s also the new cologne from Ashton Kutcher.

Oh, and: enjoy.

J: The feral goose-raptor story has me in tears. Maybe I can use those tears to drown the Gigantor Roach in stairwell that is menacing me by just sort being a roach.

E: Around 3 am, The Fella woke to me uttering a brief high shriek. He stumbled out to find me scuttling from the kitchen back into the bathroom with a broom in my hands.

“Wassit, honey?” he asked, reasonably enough.

“BIG FUCKING BUG. BIG FUCKING BUG,” I replied, also reasonably enough, feinting at the bathroom corner with my broom.

You see, I stumbled into the bathroom and sleepily picked up a box off the shelf. When I did, a BIGASS MILLIPEDE ran off it and up my arm. TOWARD MY HEAD. ON MY ARM. WITH ALL ITS LEGS OH MY GOD.

I hate the sexist implications of this, but there are only two things that give me the wig quite this badly: roaches and millipedes. I try to smash ‘em like a sensible person, but I get so squiggly-scared that I often lose the crucial few seconds before they seek cover. In this case, it sought cover behind the toilet.

But, see, I’d gone in there to pee. And I hadn’t yet. And I certainly wasn’t going to ensconce myself on the seat until the bug was DEAD DEAD DEAD I KILL YOU WITH DEATH DEAD.

The Fella knows that it’s okay if he can’t kill it, can’t find it, whatever. We have an understanding: he just tells me he killed it, no matter what.

J: AAGGGGHHHHH. EVERYTHING with more than 6 legs is UNACCEPTABLE.  Roaches are the only 6-legged bugs I truly cannot abide.

I should be reasonable about this: I live in an 80-year-old apartment building with tenants from all over the world and with varying degrees of hygiene. There will be roaches.** And I only see 2-3 a year but they are BIG. And they are so fucking primitive and creepy. Honestly, I’d be much more relaxed if they were sharks.

I squished another one yesterday in the bathroom. It was already in its death throes but that’s not enough for me and so I had to smash it with a catalog and then summon the courage to sweep the bastard into the toilet and flush it. Part of my brain really believes it will reanimate mid-transport to the toilet so I am ridiculously twitchy about this. And I also had to resist the urge to then burn the building down.

Who are these people who aren’t even a little disturbed by bugs?

**Not a movie I’d like to see, not even with Daniel Day Lewis.

E:

and then summon the courage to
>sweep the bastard into the toilet and
> flush it. Pat of my brain really believes
> it will reanimate mid-transport to the toilet
> so I am ridiculously twitchy about this.

I know, I know — last night, The Fella smashed the revolting thing and swiped it up with toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet, all the while shooting me reassuring little glances where I cowered across the other room… and though my feelings are almost evenly split between gratitude and embarrassment, there’s a tiny sliver of me fuming: “Jeez, you put it right where I have to SIT DOWN AND PEE.”

Because YOU KNOW it might reconstitute, grow a thousand times larger, and come roaring back up the pipes while I’m sitting there. How does he not understand how likely that is? He must not love me at all.

J: Seriously. WHY DON’T THEY UNDERSTAND?

E: jagosaurus@noname.com wrote:
> Honestly, I’d be much more relaxed
> if they were sharks.

Well, yeah, ’cause then you could just step out of the tank, right? The tank in your apartment building?

J: Okay, maybe not sharks. Geese.

E: Well, if they were geese they would eat the roaches and millipedes. Yuck. Geese are gross.

J: And mean-ass motherfuckers too. The late great Figaro and the still-with-us Abby were/are useless with roaches too. They’re all “AW HELL NAW.  You take care of it.”

E: A few years ago one pleasant late spring day, The Fella surprised me with a day trip. We ended up at an area exotic animal refuge/zoo, where they take in abandoned or illegal animals who can’t be set free in their natural habitat. They have a few lions and pumas and the like, a bear or two, but the park is mostly populated by tamer stuff: raccoons and, i dunno, capybaras or whatever.

And a whole lot of adorable ducks waddling around free. They’ll just sidle up to you like you’re both at a cocktail party, glance up, and casually, conversationally say “QUACK?”

And also geese. Big. Fucking. Geese.

And they have a coin-op machine, like a gumball machine. You put in a quarter and get a handful of parched corn. To feed the ducks. The cute, conversational ducks.

Except, y’know, GEESE.

Geese are vicious fuckers, with big powerful wings, and they know it. Also, it turns out geese are smart enough to have identified the sound of a coin-op ratchet turning, and to associate it with food. And to then rush whoever is standing next to the machine, their big wings aloft.

Also, because I didn’t know where we were going I was wearing tiny little sandals that left my toes totally exposed. Turns out, if geese think you’re holding out on them parched-corn-wise, they’ll rush you and actually bite your toes. HARD.

I never knew before that day that I could be pushed so far that I’d take a kick at a bird.

J: Geese, swans, roosters. All mean motherfuckers.

When my grandmother was young, she constantly had to fight her way past an incredibly aggressive rooster at her cousin’s house. There may have been kicking involved, which is not the idea interaction with a bird or any animal. Still, you know, it’s kicking a bird, which is simultaneously terrible and, honestly, funny as shit because I always picture the chickens from The Muppet Show.

Yeah, ducks are charmers. More duck please.

(Why the fuck are none of my neighbors freaked out by or taking action against The Stairwell Roach? Is it a friend of theirs? WTF.)

E: I feel like I should be clearer: it was a feinting kick. I didn’t connect with any of the birds. But I totally should have. Geese blow.

J: > Geese blow.
And honk.
E: Ha! Incidentally, my google ads are for BirdBGone Duck Control. For controlling ducks. And I’m all “Can’t you read? I like the ducks! It’s those goddamned geese that can get bent.”

J: If you control the ducks, YOU CONTROL THE WOOOOOOOOORLD.
Maybe not.

I feel like I should mention that my friend C. has a lap rooster. Named Bruiser.

Really. I think you need this information.

E: I’m uh that’s whu…

… Okay, I’m just going to assume that “lap rooster” is some sort of euphemism.

Can you blame me?

J: Seriously. She got some chickens because she’s insane and the rooster, BRUISER, likes to cuddle in her lap. What makes this even better is that she can’t have a rooster in the city limits so my friend J. is taking in Bruiser. As she put it in one of my favorite sentences ever written: “Bruiser will be coming to live with us.”

E:> she can’t have a rooster in the city limits
That’s what they taught us in sex-ed. Frankly, I thought the curriculum was a little prudish: they’re all blah blah primarily for procreation blahblah missionary blah no chickens within city limits. Puritans.

J: Cock blockers.

E: Who likes it rooster-style?

E: Quack?
____________________________________
*E: Except I totally am posting that part. Because Irony. (That’s the name of my upcoming album: Because Irony.)

J: The sophomore offering from DOUCHE MIASMA.

E: I really feel like Douche Miasma is a club name. Or maybe an elaborate cocktail involving Red Bull and Jaegermeister.

J: Yeah. I think Because Irony was released by The Dude Huddle.

We cannot escape grief, nor should we wish to, because grief gives gravity to our happiness; it shows us the depth of our love by showing us how we would (and how we will) cry for our loved ones when they pass out of our ken.

But for the moment, I am not interested in philosophy or rationalizations or the graceful balance of grief and joy: I only want to love my family, old and new, and offer love and support, to take comfort in our shared laughter and tears and stories and remembrances, to supply gelato cones and handkerchiefs and hugs and a soft shoulder, should anyone need it.

Uh, sorta, kinda, in a coupla places. Readers of The Fella’s weekly Video RePort will no longer know me by my given name, but as Mrs. Videoport Jones.

See, Future Mother-in-Law, I did take his name after all!