THE TIMELINE

Tuesday, August 30.

Jim kissed me goodbye at 3:45AM. I woke some but I can’t remember if he kissed my face or just my arm. I was in the middle of the bed, nestled more toward his side than my own.

Wheels up was a little after four. He'd arranged a private plane to make it a day trip. On weeks where we have the kids Jim avoids overnighters. He was aiming to be back in time to get Josie from volleyball. John, the pilot who was also Dustin’s first flight instructor, flew Jim and Luke, Victory’s V.P., to Vegas where they picked up another guy before heading to their meeting in Southern California.

I skipped class that evening. I ate ice cream instead. At 6:30 I’d just mowed down my second knockoff Drumstick when Jim’s mom, Gay, called me, “Have you heard from Jim?”

“Yeah,” I told her, “He’s on the ground by now. Well, I mean I haven’t talked to him, but we texted earlier. He’ll have landed. He’s getting the kids. I expect him any minute.”

“Megan, there was a small plane crash in Rock Park. I can’t get him on his phone.”

“Okay . . . Okay. I’ll Find-My-iPhone him and get back to you.”

I logged into his iCloud. All devices on his account were offline. All the iPads and iPhones, the computers. iCloud must be broken. I logged into my own account to make sure that all my devices were offline too. Nope. It located all my stuff. Refresh, refresh, refresh. All Jim’s gadgets were still offline. My calls went unanswered.

From my car seconds later I phoned Gay and told her I couldn’t get him so I would go down to that RV park. Why not? Then I called Dustin. He’s a pilot.

“I hope I’m calling you prematurely,” I said, “but I need you to try to call John.” I told him about Gay’s call, about how I couldn’t get his dad on the phone or find him. He listened to air traffic control. Nothing useful. He called me back after talking to John’s flight school. I had a hard time understanding through the new pitch in his voice. It was John’s tail number that went down. They’d seen black smoke.

I get calm right here. I think I detach.

Jim enjoyed reading aircraft accident reports. Weirdo. When he told me about the accidents, what errors pilots made or conditions that caused a crash, I always asked, “Did they live?” He’d scoff a little and tell me, “Of course not. No one ever lives in these things.”

I thought of that while I drove. “‘No one ever lives in these things.’ My husband is dead. I’m driving to where my husband is dead.”

Emergency people surrounding the park stopped me. Look fraught, say “my husband was in that plane,” and they let you through. I tried to read the cops’ faces. How much pity? How much did they know? I worked through the first layer of responders. Then the second. Once parked, the policemen steered me to the other side of a Suburban away from the media.

It starts to get fuzzy here. I don’t know how much time I spent sitting the back of a police car. Was it 20 minutes? An hour? Who said there were two fatalities? “But there were three people in the plane,” I told someone. Jim, the pilot, and Luke. All anyone knew was that there were two fatalities. How long before I thought to call Mike, Victory’s GM, to ask if he knew if they off-loaded Luke on their Las Vegas-stop coming back?

They did. Luke deplaned and flew back on Southwest later.

Two fatalities and only two on the plane. John. My Jim. But not really. Because he was just coming back from a meeting and he was going to pick up the kids. He was looking forward to seeing me.

The kids. At some point Katelynn called asked what was going on. Someone had told her to call. Gay sent Jim’s brother-in-law, John, and his son Rand to me. When I saw John I chucked myself at him harder than I’d ever done to anyone in my life. I can't imagine how he remained upright, but he held me.

When did I text Traci? Did I call her too? I must have. She came to the RV park.

Mike and Brandan, Victory’s COO, were suddenly there. It only occurs to me now that I don’t know how they got through the barricade. There must have still been a barricade. With them I started what would become my habit for the weeks to come, the consoling and recalling. I looked up at Mike, failed to hold it together, and told him, “I know there will be time for this—I’m sure I’ll say it again later—but Jim was so proud of you. He thought of you like a son.”

When did I call my parents? I know when I did it wasn’t twenty minutes before they were in the car on the nine-hour drive to me. I don’t think I spoke with Katelynn again. Maybe I talked to her husband Nathaniel? I know I talked to Dustin more because we discussed how to tell the little kids. What do I do about the little kids? Their dad was hours late to pick them up.

I took a call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was the kids’ mom. She’d heard rumors. I stopped her. “I’ll tell you what’s true. Your kids’ dad is dead.”

The next call was Josie. It was all the way dark by then. Her sobs triggered mine, and I remember crying with her while I sank back against Traci’s car and slid to the ground.

Rand drove my car and Traci drove me. When I got in her front seat I said, “I’m going to come off as cold as this gets started. I’m good at this. I’m good in crisis.” How did I know that? My husband has never died before. But I was right. I’m irritatingly capable with this shit.

By way of calls and text messages, we, Jim’s closest family—the wife, his kids, his sisters, his mom—we knew. The rest of his close people, his Victory Woodworks family, were next.

Like I threw myself at John the night before, when we got to Victory at six the next morning to meet with the employees I hurled myself into Luke’s arms. Luke was alive. By getting off the plane in Vegas and flying home commercial, Luke lived. I remember saying again and again, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you have to live with this.”

I’m so sorry we have to live with this. Here we are though. I’m grateful every day that Luke lived.

I spent a lot of today at Victory and told so many of the team, “We’re missing the most important piece, but we have all the other parts. We will make this work.” I’ll be damned if we don’t crush it, the work, the living. It’s been three weeks today. For however temporarily, I suppose it’s about time I got to this place.

RECOVERED

The TV remote that was already a mystery is glitchy now because I threw it across the room on Thursday night. My mom sat calm on the couch and didn't say anything. If throwing the remote is what was going to alleviate any kind of anything for her daughter, throw the remote already.

It didn’t help. I figured out nothing truly does. There are just the occasional unpredictable ups flecked through persistent ache.

I didn’t get to see him, his body. Not that I wanted to. I didn’t. But I think not having seen Jim's body leaves a gap I can’t bridge. I never saw proof beyond the two personal effects that the Medical Examiner gave me—his watch face and scarred ring. We didn’t get anything else, not his belt or his phone, his wallet, not even his damn socks.

A couple days after after he died the nicest one at the Medical Examiner’s office called me with a note of comfort—and maybe relief?—in her voice saying that they’d recovered his wedding ring.

Recovered.

I can’t get beyond that word. Recovered. They didn’t just slide the ring off his finger. They recovered it. He wasn’t him anymore.

The M.E.’s office called me again later—“Mr. Elliker has been scientifically identified by dental records." So we have verification, but the last time I saw him he was alive. I know I’m not supposed to think about the graphic details, everyone tells me not to, but I can’t help it. I think of the body that did such a good job loving me. They had to identify him by dental. They couldn’t just have someone do it by sight.

The pit in your stomach reading that? It’s my fixed parasite.

Just like I don’t know which scrap of life will serve as an up, I don’t know what will set me off. The other night it was seeing our dog Gus automatically settle into his bed. Around midnight I finally said we all could go to sleep. The dogs and I went upstairs and my mom tidied a little before heading to her room. She found me on my bedroom floor stuck in silent, exhausting sobs. Seeing Gus do what he always does when Jim is home was too much. Gus plops into his bed in the corner. Sophie hops into her basket. Jim gets in the shower. I take the decorative pillows off the bed, fold the big comforter in thirds, turn down Jim’s side, turn on my lamp, habit after habit now missing a part.

How horrible for a mother to sink to the floor to hold her sobbing adult daughter? But she did and cried too. My parents carried me through that dark space when my ex-husband had an affair and I got divorced. And then they lived elated when having and loving Jim made me better, healed in my heart and broader in life. And now. Now my mom is here to just be here because it’s too much by myself.

Don’t take the patterns for granted. I’m so glad I was never mad about tidying up the night’s detritus each morning. Toss Jim’s gum from the nightstand. Move his slippers. Rehang his face towel. For some things his habits dictated mine, and picking up the paper towel wads all over the kitchen when he’d been in there didn’t irritate me. A little bit of Jim here, a little there.

I tell the truth when people ask how I am holding up. Not great. I feel like I’m always hovering on the edge of of something, waiting to deal with the surprise of what I’ll feel next. I see a couple holding hands, happy, and leaning against each other and I smile. I’ve had that and it’s wonderful. I see a couple holding hands, happy, and leaning against each other and I cry. I’ve had that and it’s gone.

I have to get out of bed now. I get Ben and Josie today, and while they know that I’m basically destroyed, I need to not be a mess when they’re here. At the burial sitting in front of Jim’s casket, I was a disaster. I was crying hard and felt Ben’s hand slip around my arm to comfort me. He’s 10. Katelynn took my other hand. When it comes to feeling what Jim was, we are what we have now. What we had can't be recovered, but even if it’s only by way of being in the place their dad lived, maybe today those two get some sliver of peace.

DISCOMFORT IN COMFORT

Today I took donuts to the Victory Woodworks people. My team. I decided we’d celebrate a not-bad day.

I don’t understand what’s happening right now. I’m not bawling every minute. Yes, I’m low. I feel sludgy. There is that weight in the center of my chest that hampers good posture, but I’m not crying. And if I’m not sobbing every second, if I go for hours without tearing up, I feel like I’m being disloyal to Jim.

I have been trying to figure out why I am feeling a little better and how I could possibly not be this constant puddle on our closet floor. I’m coming up with two things: the heap of incredible memories I have of my darling husband and, well, you people. The mass of kindness and support I’m getting from friends, Jim's stalwart kids, yogis, my family, Jim’s employees, and people I don’t even know is overwhelming and is this thing I keep in my pocket next to the evidence bag the medical examiner gave me containing my husband’s wedding ring.

Bummer, I know. The ring came back to me misshapen and scorched. Seeing its condition rips me. I hate what it implies.

I'm feeling sorry for myself. Of course I am. But I cannot deny the spots where I’m fortunate. I’ve told person after person—usually with tears brimming and a tight throat—that I don’t have a single regret from when he was alive. There isn’t anything I wish I’d told him. He knew how I felt. I knew how he felt. We loved each other hard and squeezed every drop of juice from our life together.

Today when I was talking with one of Jim’s guys at Victory he commented that there is a last time for everything. Well, shit. An unfortunate but accurate point. Our lasts together reflected all the times that came before. On our last night together I tickled his back while he fell asleep mumbling, “This is my favorite thing. I love my wife. You’re my favorite. This is my favorite time. I love my wife . . . ” over and over. The last time I saw him he woke me up to kiss me goodbye. My last text said I loved him. His last text said he was looking forward to seeing me.

I’m lucky that I have a few recordings of his voice—a couple voicemails, the talk he gave at Brandon’s memorial, a recording of him snoring. In the snoring recording I ask him to roll over and as he does he tells me, “I find you irresistible.” I literally have a recording of my sweet, late love telling me he finds me irresistible. Who gets that? It’s like the life we had together—time and again I asked, “Who gets this? How can I be so lucky? How is all this happiness mine?” Its precious source is gone, yes, but, my, the remnants are so sweet.

Don’t count on my present positivity and gratitude as a persistent thread. I’m learning that this process is made of rapid slips and slides and stops and skips. This moment is one where I can’t overlook the good.

Being less despondent makes me suspect that I’m ready to try life by myself. I’m good at alone. No, I have to qualify that: I used to be good at alone. I will be again—it’s my nature—but right now my thinking is early and overconfident. I’m not ready for what’s next, not ready to be alone. So my mom is here with me and I’ve told her, “Sorry Sue, but you live here now.” She’s the best, so she said okay, ordered some t-shirts to be delivered here because she didn’t pack enough short sleeves, and told my dad back in Utah, “Love you. See you when I see you.” He's on board.

Some nights when Jim and I would go to bed he’d lay on his back and I’d smash myself up to his right side. He’d put his arm around me, pull me as close as he could and ask, “Why are you so far away?”

“Why” isn’t my question right now. It’s more “how?” How is this true? It’s more “really?” Really he’s never coming home? We never get to make another memory? All the photos we have of him are all we’ll ever have? I’ll never again run my hand along his beard? Really, never? I can’t decide if I’m more comfortable with the incredulity or if I’d rather get to settling into certainty.

Oh. Neither.

TRUTH OF GRIEF

I’m sick of being strong. I’m sick of being inspirational. Of holding it together. I’m just sad. This is shit.

I went to yoga yesterday morning. It made me realize that it's better to take class here. When I’m able to take class I want to be in my community. Yogis here are spreading the word that what I want for now is for everyone at the studio to give me a wide berth and that giving me that space is caring for me. If I go and take class where the teacher and students don’t know what I am dealing with I won’t get the earnest tenderness that I do with my people.

While I cried for about an hour of the 75-minute class, I was surprised that my body knew what to do. My balance wasn’t terrible. My bending was the same. While my mind can’t come close to making it onto my mat, my body did what it was told. I’ve told my students that the practice they build is theirs, that it will always be there for them. Turns out I wasn’t full of shit. Not all the parts are there all the time. But pieces remain.

Everyone asks what they can do for me. The only realistic answer I can come up with makes me mad. It’s this though: Go love the hell out of your people. Love them hard. Make your person feel as loved as Jim made me feel. I hate telling people that because I want it back. We were shockingly compatible. It was unreal the way he loved me. We said, “This is what everyone wishes they had. How lucky are we?” But it’s gone, and here I am—through now-predictable tears—telling everyone, whether they want to hear it or not, to go make their relationships more. A Do-it-for-Jim!-type of thing. And I am sincere. But yuck. It’s not just unfair. It’s cruel.

Evidently I have to go through a bunch of terrible stuff. And because I’m tough and because I’m strong and inspirational and all that effing garbage, I will get through it. But I don’t want to. It doesn’t matter how resilient I am or how brave, Jim isn’t the prize. The person I want to be proud of me isn’t here anymore. So what’s the point of being great?

My autonomic nervous system is as stuck as the rest of me. I forget to breathe. Lots throughout the day I have to consciously exhale.

I know many people find comfort in thinking of an afterlife and seeing their someone again. Not me. It’s not Now. Now is when I want him. Now is how he lived. I don’t care about later. I care about this minute right now. I want to curl up against him and cry. I want to smell his smell on him not just on his jacket that I wear around the house. That isn’t good enough. Even if I stumble through the worst of the grief and I’m able to actually laugh or get up from the couch or eat more than Swedish Fish and whatever salad my mom hands me when I confess that all I’ve eaten is some candy and a Drumstick, even if I can someday sit up straight in sukhasana instead of slump or stand in front of a room to teach—everything after this is incomplete.

People ache their whole lives for the bliss I enjoyed in the day-to-day with my sweet, sweet Jim. I had an honorable man who adored me and made sure I knew it and so did everyone else. I had a man who left notes on the counter telling me that my smile made him weak in the knees. Who would leave two dozen roses in my car just because he knew where I was parked. Who always did the dishes after dinner. Who loved my body so much I was almost convinced it doesn’t suck. Who made little content sighs when I would tickle his back and who would fall asleep with his head in my lap and his hand clutching my foot.

Upon linking up with Jim I became a terrible friend, daughter, and sister because he filled any void. We talked for hours and hours and would have to cut ourselves off to finally go to sleep. When an event came up and I asked if he wanted to go, his answer was always the same, “Will you be there?” I explained accompanying him on so many seemingly mundane business trips as simply, “I want to be where he is.” I still do.

There is a Jim-sized gap in my little soul. You don’t fill something like that with other things. What he was wasn’t plain. What we had wasn’t ordinary. What I lost wasn’t small. And it seems that all that’s left is waiting for the end.

THE DAYS AFTER

During the day I'm a little machine. The list of things you have to get done when your husband dies is long and grows by the day. Stupid stuff like changing the email address on the Hulu account and canceling the weekly milk order. Important stuff like dealing with the will and getting the death certificates. And stuff that falls somewhere in between there, like canceling his ticket to Copenhagen and repairing the watch he had on when he died so Dustin can wear it.

Yes, while I'm plowing though the massive list of to-dos, time sensitive and necessary by self-imposition, I crack. I cry. My voice breaks. I stop. But I put myself back together and get back to work, hopping from task to task, owning crisis management like my mom trained me, like a champ. 

I lose my shit over things around the house and things with the kids that Jim always took care of. A torn trampoline net. A confusing remote. A creaky cabinet door. How to get the lid on the Camelback to close because Ben wants to play with it. My people step in and calm me down and fix things. But they won't always be here. I'm going to need a new map for how to navigate the stuff that Jim did that I didn't even know about because he was quiet about that stuff. Because it wasn't a big deal. Because he knew how to do everything 

There are must-dos. But I try to remember that there are also things that I don't have to do. I have to do laundry, wash my hair, feed the dogs, and take out the trash. But I don't have to answer every text and message even though I'm grateful, go to the door, leave the house, answer personal emails, and clean out the yoga clothes in my bureau like I've been meaning to do for three months. 

There are things I wish I wanted to do because I used to enjoy them, like walk Gus, turn on Netflix, listen to music in the car, drive fast, laugh. That stuff doesn't make sense anymore. My person is gone. What else is there? We walked Gus together in the evenings. We watched shows together on the weekends. We were in the car together where constant conversation eliminated the need for music to fill silence. We drove fast in the best car ever. We laughed every single day. It was all We. Now it's only I. For always really. Because try to top what we had. You can't. What we had was annoying, only-in-the-movies, must-be-made-up perfection. If my sadness is going to be proportionate to my happiness, then I'll drown trying to find its bottom. 

Nights are the worst. It starts when I get on my computer to do one thing and end up instead clicking through photos and crying. That's when the crying isn't just a catch in my throat and sudden inability to speak. That's the crying that makes my insides seize and vibrate and breathing so difficult. I want to touch his perfectly shaped head and feel his hands where they're rough on the right knuckle and feel his arms wrapping me close. I want to have to scoot back to my side of the bed in the middle of the night because his body heat is making me sweaty. 

I keep my people up way past what's polite so I don't have to go to bed. Around 2am I get the dogs and we trudge upstairs. Here comes the hard part. But instead of crying myself to sleep anymore I lean on pharmaceutical intervention and pass out, not to get rest—Ambien doesn't leave you rested—but to pass the time unconscious. 

My body needs a yoga class. It hurts and I don't think I'm in a place to direct a self practice. But I can't go to class here and I don't want to drive far. Because the yoga community in Reno is tight, basically all the yogis know that the small, flexible girl with the substantial thighs is a widow now. And because the yoga community in Reno is kind, they want to offer whatever they've got and hold me. But I just want to slip into class as discretely as I can, set up in the back, try to move my body and not to cry, and slip out without accepting condolences. Even though I am bowled over by the kindness aimed at me, and I know that there's more than I'm aware of because people have been giving me space, being a distraction from what we do in those studios—self care—is so not what I need right now

Though—thanks to my extreme and potentially detrimental independence—the odds of me asking for help from anyone are about zero, I know that all the people who offer are serious. I believe that they want to—and they would—do whatever I ask. It overwhelms me. I hold the stacks of cards and the notes off of flowers and stall, just defeated. There are so many. How do I get started thanking them all? Don't tell me I don't have to. I'm not that guy. I do have to. It's how I function. Or used to, rather, when my heart wasn't underground in the most beautiful casket ever built.

MY JIM

There was no way my boy was gonna die small. A simple pass-in-his-sleep wouldn’t have been big enough for Jim. He lived huge. I see now that his death was never going to be ordinary.

As most of you know, we lost my love, my heart, the man who made me feel brilliant, beautiful, cared for, and valuable, in a plane crash last Tuesday evening. All I can seem to say to people is how sorry I am for their loss. He belonged to us—his family, his wife, his kids, his grandson—but it’s not just us who are hurting; my guy left a massive wake. His friends, his forum-mates, his Best Practice Group, his clients, and, most of all, his beloved employees at Victory have lost so profoundly too.

Here is a link to his obituary. It's the the most important tribute I've ever written and the only thing I’ve ever felt absolutely certain is beyond my skill. No words can adequately salute this man.

I am receiving message after message telling me how much Jim loved me. And I am so grateful to be able to say that I know it. One of his most charming—and, yes, irritating at times—traits was that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. About anything. He told me. He told me every day, time and again, and in so many ways that he was so incredibly in love with me. We were happy. I am the luckiest girl to have had any of his time.

It has been my great privilege to be in his kids’ lives. He has raised some of the most responsible, thoughtful, hilarious people you’ll ever know. It is going to be my honor to do everything in my not inconsiderable power to see that these kids never stop feeling and knowing that they were Jim’s world. His heart was happiest when we were all under one roof. We’re doing that now, but without our most important piece.

He smelled better than anyone. He had perfect legs. He knew he had a perfect nose. No one thought Jim was funnier than Jim did. He loved wrapping his arms all the way around me. He knew how to love me. I loved loving him.

TERMINAL

I have to be careful in what I say I want to do. I need to actually want what I’m saying I want, not just talking to make noise. Because without my mentioning wherever or whatever it is again, Jim will go and make it happen, and if it wasn’t something I was actually interested in, I end up with a grand experience that I’m only marginally excited about yet he’s delighted to offer.

There are two factors at play here. First that Jim lives to make his people happy. He really is like that. My friend and I were talking the other night about how great my mom is, how she just serves and serves and gives and it seems to feed her. Jim is like that too. He’s a giver. He wants me happy. The other factor is that he’s in it for the experience. Let’s go do something new. Let’s try that. He’s always down for an adventure.

I love So You Think You Can Dance. Out of the blue he worked his connections to land us at a taping. One day I mentioned in passing that I’ve always wanted to go to Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me! A couple months later, there we were in a San Francisco amphitheater, watching Peter Sagal and Bill Kurtis live. Adding the cherry, the next morning I found myself in a wharf diner in front of a pile of the prettiest fruit I’ve ever eaten, across the table from Bill Kurtis, listening to a discourse on grass-fed beef. (My life has its Dalí moments to be sure.)

Sometimes the fun things we do come by way of me going along on his business trips. He had a meeting in Traverse City, Michigan, back in June, and since it’s not convenient to get there and it’s, you know, Michigan, we decided I’d opt out this time. But our Hannah convinced him otherwise—she has to go!—because it’s beautiful or something like that. I’m so glad she sold us. The forests around that area are the prettiest ones I’ve ever seen. The couple days we had driving around finding tea and Meyer lemon vinegar and chocolate and darling houses and field after perfect field giving way to maple stands were worth whatever trouble it takes to get there.

For his part he loves having me along because I’m self sufficient. On that particular trip we assumed that with Über I could go and do as I pleased while he did work things. So our first morning there he went to his meetings in the hotel downstairs, and I picked a few yoga studios to investigate, packed my yoga bag, and opened my Über app to discover no cars nearby. Curious. We were in the biggest hotel in the area and there were no hovering drivers? Oh well. I went down to the lobby to catch a cab. No cabs. At the front desk they were confused by my confusion, which was quickly mounting to irritation. Why would they just have cabs waiting? Uh, so I can take one and get to yoga? I ended up taking the hotel’s shuttle to the airoort to rent a horse and buggy, or at least that’s what I was sure I was going to to end up with. Toyota Yaris. Same same.

At dinner that night Jim was a broken record of surprise and pride at the fact that I went and rented a car all by myself. Being the follow up act to a codependent first wife is some of the most fun I have. Surpassing that standard so thoroughly that I look like an effing superhero takes little more than getting out of bed and going to the grocery store solo. You think I’m kidding. I still think I’m kidding. He assures me I’m not. I take my car to get the oil changed and he looks at me like I up and grew horns. Wait. Maybe that’s because my car doesn’t have an engine. And it doesn’t have oil to change . . .

I kid. I kid. I never did that. But it really is simple stuff like that—booking a flight properly without help—that gets him seeing me as the World’s Smartest Woman. I don’t even have to employ my above-average intelligence to impress my husband. This can be a problem as it leads to intellectual atrophy which leads to the death of whatever self esteem I have left, but that’s a personal problem. I’m working through it.

Being able to go along on business trips is one of the reasons that I quit my job selling life-saving medications. (See what I did there?) In our case, it’s good for our relationship for us to spend time together, especially when we go out of town, so if our relationship is more important than me having a full-time job, then it made sense for me to make myself available for stuff like that in a way that keeping the job wasn’t allowing. (Also the job was becoming one of those things that made me a miserable, crazy bitch, so it was migrating from the asset column to liability.)

His job goes through phases where it requires travel. The places he goes are worth visiting. All places are, really. I can at least find somewhere to take yoga class. So I go along. And when he’s not in meetings we find places to explore, like a chocolate factory to tour, a waterfall to visit, and a fruit stand that only sells asparagus. What do I want with a bunch of asparagus? I wanted to eat a flat of strawberries while we drove to the next town, you fools. You’re a fruit stand! Sell fruit! My fruit. I don’t care what’s in season! I care what I want!

Because he likes to do things at the spur of the moment and I like to be where he is and—cautiously—try new stuff. I may wake up one morning with plans to take class that night but instead end up face to face with a giraffe. It’s not uncommon for me to find myself throwing things in a bag to run off to wherever one of his clients needs attention. I'll suddenly end up in San Diego (on that trip he pulled an entire key lime pie out of his suitcase when we got into our hotel room; a good story for another time) or a Giants game or ballet. My big first world problem is that I have to make sure that my wardrobe is diverse. Hey, let’s go to a Cirque show or two in Vegas tomorrow. Cocktail dress. Check. Let’s go to Yosemite. Hiking shoes. Check. The lake. Swimsuit and scowl. Check.

When he started working on tickets to Jimmy Fallon I asked, “You’re not, like, terminally ill are you?”

“Uh, no. Why?”

“We do so much stuff. Cool stuff. It’s like we’re trying to cram as much living as we can into the little time you have left.”

Some Sunday a month ago I asked what he wants to do for Thanksgiving. We don’t have the kids this year, so we aren’t tied to a traditional dinner. “Want to go see Nick and Mal?” he asked. Well, sure. They live in Denmark. So now there are tickets to Copenhagen in November.

“You’re not terminal?”

“No.”

This last Friday the opportunity arose to go to Burning Man next week. “Want to?” he asked. “Hell yes,” I replied, “Let me me just make sure you still have those blue lamé shorts . . . But are you sure you’re—“

“No. I’m not terminal. I just like to have fun.”

I know as well as anyone that things can—they will—change, fast, and life may not always look like this. So for now we do all the things and I marvel at how this can be someone’s reality. My reality. Weird.

JUST A NUMBER

Two important things happened in 1982. Yes, yes Tylenol laced with cyanide killed people. Think smaller and less national newsworthy. Number one: Jim got his first car, an International Scout. And the second: I was born. While he was learning to drive, I was learning to eat. When he was graduating from high school I was graduating to a toddler bed.

I am 34 years old and on Saturday my husband turned 50. He looks great. He feels great. He’s never taken better care of himself. So while a tucked away bit of me was a titch uneasy about the gist of this milestone birthday, it’s actually not a thing.

I know that I’m a significant reason he does the eating right and exercising stuff. When I’m his age he will be today’s social security age. When I’m today’s social security age he will be 80. Because men tend to knock off earlier than women and because he’s got 16 years on me, before we got married I had to sit myself down and come to terms with the idea that if we signed on there'd be a good chance I’d spend the last 20 years of my life alone.

Bummer concept though it is, he’s worth it.

When my divorce was certain it took my dad a hot second to start working on my next spouse. I wasn’t interested. A decade of experience with the first one said they were just a needy and dramatic hassle. Jim—not needy or dramatic—opened my mind.

Once Jim and I started to spend time together it wasn’t long before I decided to make him mine. Age was the first hurdle. It didn’t stall me even slightly, but I knew that in his ideas about remarriage he was only thinking within his own age group. He needed prodding to look the next decade down.

One night after I’d come over for some reason or another we were sitting in the front room downstairs that’s now decorated with the art I chose and bright colors I like (and Benjamin has told me he prefers to the way the house used to be decorated) we were talking about The Topic. The others. The affair. The lies. The divorce. The thing that sat us in the same room in the first place and was destroying his children.

“The age difference baffles me,” I told him. Bump. “She’s eight years older than he is. It’s the wrong direction. You don’t graduate from a younger woman to an older woman . . . ” He nodded agreement. Set. “But I think it’s totally okay for a man to go for someone much younger.” He looked at me, his face reading the realization of what I’d just suggested. Spike.

He recalls that conversation as the moment when it hit him that Sister Romo was into him. That she was an option. Before that he thought of me more like a little sister. A month earlier he had offered to cut me a Christmas tree when he was out cutting theirs. But why? Because if one of his sisters had been newly divorced and away from family he’d hope that someone else would take care of them like that. He was being the good guy that he can’t help but be. It’s that good guy that obliviously reeled me in. Hey, wait . . . There’s a fish on this line! I don’t think I even baited the hook . . . Aw. All you had to do to bait the hook is be you, handsome James.

Since 50 is the most standout birthday left (‘cept his 100th, he reminds me) I wanted Jim’s to be special. So I orchestrated a 50-days-to-50 celebration. Every day for the 50 days leading up to his birthday he’d get present—a trinket, a note, a something. I recruited his closest people, interspersed silly whatnot betwixt the meaningful gifts so as to not overwhelm the boy, and kept tissues handy. They were necessary. Katelynn found a recording of his dad talking about the day they adopted Jim. For nine-days-to-50 Josie wrote nine reasons he’s the best dad. Traci found a journal entry Brandon wrote about a day he and Jim spent together with their kids. My mom sent Spikeball and a letter about how grateful she is that he’s part of our family. Turning 50 turned out to be a great reason to make it loud and clear how much my husband’s loved. He merits all of it.

One card from a friend talked about how much he enjoys watching Jim support all his people. That’s it. That’s the thing that makes Jim unlike other guys. His life is structured to support us all. His employees. His family. His friends. He wants all of us content and spends his time deploying resources to make it so.

So what I was barely walking when he graduated high school? When your health is a priority and your mental age is about 14, age is just a number. So what I landed him at 46 and missed so many earlier years? I’ll take whatever time I can get.

Happy Birthday, baby. You were a choice. The best one I ever made.

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

The cosmetic dermatologist sat down on the stool across from me and asked, “So what are you here for?”

“I want you to fix my face.”

“What exactly do you think needs fixing?”

“My face. It’s time. I’m looking old and my aesthetician agrees that it’s time for needles. So even though needles terrify me, I’m more scared of what I see in the mirror, so I want you to poke needles in my face and make it look better.”

“So Botox?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, I don’t see any fine lines on your face. So Botox may not be the solution you’re looking for,” she took a satin nickel rimmed vanity mirror off the countertop and handed it to me, “So, here, why don’t you look in this mirror and tell me what’s bothering you.”

I accepted the mirror and without looking in and it replied, “Oh. My face.” I swept my hand around my head and said, “The whole thing, really . . . well the puppet lines bug me.”

“Can I tell you what bothers me?”

“Please!”

She indicated where I could use some filler and I asked about Botox used prophylactically and that’s how one ordinary Wednesday I came to have a 31 gauge needle inserted into my face in seven places.

This experience helped bring me fully to the fact that I have no idea what I look like. None of us does. What I see in the mirror isn’t the same as what other people see when they look at me. I see dark spots and bags and big pores. My husband sees my bright eyes and straight teeth. I see bumps and divots on the backs of my thighs. He sees the pert shape of my butt. I see that my thighs are massive. He sees that they’re muscular.

I’ve gone through my life just assuming that the world I see is the same one everyone else is looking at. But no. We don’t even take in the same vistas.

Since the early stages of our relationship Jim and I have played a game—What Do You See? It occurred to me as I was getting to know him that we weren’t focusing on the same things when we looked at the world. I’d comment on signage and he’d ask, “What sign?” How did he not see that? “So what were you looking at if not that font?” “The power lines strung by the road. They’re old here. They aren’t buried.”

When we were driving through the area around Lake Michigan a few months ago—easily one of the most beautiful drives I’ve even been on, and I was raised on the Wasatch front, went to college in Hawaii, and now live adjacent to Lake Tahoe and am therefore not easily impressed—we played our game a lot.

Me: That is the most amazing blue!

Him: What? The sky?

Me: No. The nursery back there.

Him: What nursery?

Me: Uh, the one that was deep blue and surrounded by flowers and flagstones. What where you looking at?

Him: There was a tractor for sale.

•••

Him: When you see machinery like that in the backs of trucks do you wonder what the guy uses it for?


Me: What machinery? What truck?

•••

Jim sees industrial things. Construction things and wood. What I see is driven by color, scale, and alignment. Just last night we were sitting on a restaurant patio for dinner and he asked what I see. I couldn’t get past the mustard-colored blouse on another diner. It was clearly new and bought online. Because it still had the fold marks in it. “Why doesn’t she steam those out?” I asked, “It’s a really cute shirt and she ruined it. What were you looking at?”

“The curved roof over there. It was well done and has nice design elements.”

I’ve driven past that building thousands of times and never once given a thought to the windows below the arched roof. I’ve never noticed the roof is arched.

Right now, through the sliding glass doors, I can see Jim outside on his hands and knees sanding the deck. (Yes, I offered to help and he said I could bring him a glass of water.)

When he said that he was looking forward to getting that done this weekend and that the deck will look great when it’s refinished I told him, “You know, my list of things we need to do to the house is long and that wasn’t even on my radar.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t really even see that it needed work.”

“It’s good that we see different things.”

“So you’re telling me that you haven’t been losing sleep over the ottoman downstairs?”

“What ottoman?”

HOUSEWIFERY

When I told my sister, Whit, that Katelynn and I are going to learn to can this summer she text-yelled back, “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?”

“Dude,” I responded, “I choose something to do and get totally awesome at it. This is just the thing I’m doing right now.”

That thing: housewifing.

For someone—me—whose life choices had firmly defined her as not-housewife, this is a puzzling revision. Except it’s not. I never said I didn’t want to be a housewife specifically. I said I never wanted to birth things. And I won’t. There are three pretty significant stumbling blocks that the parts and pieces of zygote-building would have to hurdle in order to knock me up. I never considered Housewife as an option because that job and motherhood usually party together. Instead my housewifery happened because I hated my boss, my husband hated my hating, we didn't need my income, and that darling husband said something like, Woman, quit if you wanna quit. So I went from childless* drug rep who teaches yoga sometimes to childless housewife who teaches yoga sometimes. Drop one noun. Snag another.

But what does housewifery even mean in my situation? To start, it means that my friends kinda hate me. It’s actually one reason I haven’t blogged recently. I a little bit can’t. When I write about my life people hate me and that leaves me a lil’ lonely.

Example—

A few months ago driving through Napa on an impossibly green weekday Jim took hold of my bare right foot crossed over my thigh and said, “I love these feet.”

[one friend just stopped reading . . . her husband’s not very attentive and she can’t deal with enduring this sap right now]

Fighting the urge to slip it from his hand and slide it to the floor, I asked, “But why? I live barefoot. They’re horrible.”

He rubbed a thumb along my rough heel. “Because they’re where my wife starts.”

[three more friends just clicked off . . . two never to be heard from again]

When he says things like that I coo that he’s darling and I kiss his neck, and then I say, “You know I can never tell anyone how cute you are, right? You’ll end up being my only friend and that will put too much pressure on you. You don’t enjoy girl talk.”

It’s not just the stuff he says though. He makes my day-to-day enviable.

Take right now for instance: I’m perched on what must be the softest bed in America, near an open window that overlooks SF’s Union Square while Jim is out visiting clients. I planned to take a few yoga classes today, and I still may, but right now it feels nice to just not. I do, however, plan to take the 8-minute walk to Lululemon for another Scuba Hoodie a little later. My big problem though is that I forgot my shampoo and conditioner at home and had to use some drugstore stuff that’s making my hair frizzy despite the pricey potions I added pre blow-dry.

Dear Reader, this out-of-town Monday isn’t a weird one. I’m exactly this spoiled all the time.

When talking with a friend a few months ago about how irritated I get when the housekeepers don’t tuck in my sheets just right (I actually had the spoiled audacity to bitch about that) she cut in, “Wait—they change your sheets too? Sorry, but what do you even do!?” It’s never a good idea at moments like that to reply, “Uh, I fill out the order form for the weekly organic box. I schedule the Tesla maintenance, pay the people who pick up the dog poop outside, bring the milk in from the front porch and pick up my weekly juice order. I request additional landscaping and leave out the dry cleaning. Oh, and I choose new carpet.” I have experiential confirmation that nothing makes you sound douchier than a response like that. More importantly—to me—it overlooks what I do that actually adds value.

I’m married to a man who would prefer not to think about anything that isn’t fun or doesn’t have to do with work. His life is about supporting me, his kids, and the parasites that literally live off of his kids’ child support. So I make a good bit of my life about making his easier.

Jim’s ideal world is one where he doesn’t have to think about what to wear or what to eat, where his people are happy, and where he feels loved. So I manage his wardrobe—I toss clothes when they’ve seen their day, clip coordinating socks to his shirts, pitch a fit when the dry cleaners crease his chinos, and hunt for shoes that are comfortable on the first wear. I handle his food—the evening before each work day I choose and pack his snacks and I make his lunch salad with vinaigrettes acidic enough to give him lockjaw, just like the man likes. To take care of the keeping-the-wife happy part of Jim’s ideal I go to yoga, teach yoga, buy clothes, visit family, keep friends, and learn new things. And to make sure he feels loved I don’t let my hobbies become more important than us spending time together and go to bed when he does so I can tickle his back for the whole two minutes it takes my guy to pass out.

Nutshelled: housewifery for me means that I take care of the guy who is taking care of me, and the rest of the time I do whatever the hell I want, and I do it in a really nice car.

We’re good partners. We are religiously aligned. Our priorities match. He likes to talk business. I like to hear it. I have skill sets that enhance his work and home life. He’s good at the money making. I’m good at the money spending. He comes with me to art museums. I accompany him to baseball games and occasional outdoorsy garbage. We each feel well-supported. We were happy when my daily wear was high heels and pencil skirts, and we’re happy now that I wear more Chucks than heels and leggings than skirts.

I was born pretty uptight. For most of my life that served me okay. I got shit done. I felt good about the shit I got done. It gave me something that felt like happiness. But I don’t feel like I have to be like that just now. If I need to go into hyper-productive mode I know how; it’s built into me. 

My relationship with Jim caught me at a good time. The first month we started seeing each other was the month I finished graduate school. I’d been doing driven and stressed out for a long time and I was ready to give output-as-priority a break. I was managing the emotional trauma of a cheating ex-husband, and I finally had some space for fun. If there’s anything people know about Jim it’s that my husband is fun. So I let it happen. Without really knowing it, I was ready for something else. I’m now up to my ears in Something Else.

I’m crushing housewifery like I crushed drug repping, like I crushed school, like I crush all the shit I choose to crush. Anyone can make almond milk every Wednesday, Dear Reader, but it’s only badasses that use Thursdays to make crackers out of the pulp.

•••

* But Megan, you can’t call yourself childless! You have step kids! Yes, yes I do. And I don’t. When Jim and I got married we talked about what my role with his kids should be. Jim wasn’t looking for someone to be a parent to his kids. His younger children have a part-time mom. And for the older two that don’t, Jim’s a great dad and mom and those two’s mothers-in-law (wink, Traci!) are about as stellar woman as exist on the planet. A stepmom wasn’t necessary. Instead we decided that I would support him as a parent and be the kids’ friend as much as they were okay with—I would give them the assurance that their father was loved and would help them in whatever way they needed. And that’s just what I told them in the letters I wrote the kids when we wed.

The relationships have evolved over the last couple years. It’s different with each of them. Anyone whose done the blended family thing knows that the bonds are tenuous and the relationships perpetually delicate. I do my best to not overstep my boundaries while still being available in the capacities the kids need.

Initially, I helped out and made myself available because I loved Jim and he loves his kids. It’s nice now that I adore those little dorks for themselves and get to enjoy relationships with each of them and their significant others that are unique to them and independent of their dad.

So am I their stepmom? Only if that’s what they want. I don’t presume. I try to identify and respect boundaries. I just act as their dad’s other half and have a really good time with them both when he’s around and when he’s not.

DAY ONE?

I rarely know what day of the week it is. Since quitting my drug career I haven’t really had to know. I look at my calendar in the morning to see if I’m teaching, but other than that, my knowledge of what date it is barely extends to the current month.

Therefore learning that not only is this the first day of a new month but in fact the first day of a new year was unexpected. (Well, actually not much is expected. I have the immense privilege of floating through my days taking yoga, taking pole, teaching some, making out with a hot piece of ass, and eating lots of feta.)

But I did the significant day proper. I took Bikram this morning, went to Star Wars in 3D with Ben and Jim, and then picked up my two yoga teacher pals for a vinyasa class this evening. In class I laughed hard enough to fall out of postures. Then there was cake. And all day diet soda.

If I do that thing that all the people everywhere are doing and take stock of 2015 it’s clear that I done the whole durn year proper too—

• I graduated from yoga teacher training.
• I stopped selling drugs.
• I discovered that it is possible to be sexually attracted to a car.
• I started seriously working on my French.
• I took up pole and got a pole in my house!
• We got lost in Venice.
• We lazed in Hawaii.
• We partied at the Playboy Mansion.
• I rattled around The Big Easy with my two besties.
• I celebrated my first year of marriage to the best man I know.
• I saw all five of my sisters at once.
• I met a good looking newborn.
• We got a Katelynn Hansen quilt.

And those are just the standout things. The everyday things add up to notable too. I enjoy Jim’s kids. I live to love that man. I get to text with my mom and my sisters most every day. My dogs are annoying but healthy. Jim’s company is thriving. While my eyesight sucks I have contacts and glasses for correct it. Netflix has The West Wing on demand. My body is sore and bruised and calloused from constant activity. My drawers and closet are full of clothes and shoes I like. Amazon exists. My knees hurt less. My bed is comfortable. My husband adores me.

Not only do I not know what 2016 has in store, I don’t know what day of the week it is tomorrow. But I do know that with Jim as my person the year and every next day will be entertaining and abundant. Aw, shit, I just used that word—abundant. I'm gonna go gouge out my own eyes now.

CONFOUNDING EXPECTATIONS

We didn’t expect life to look like it does now. Whoever does though? For one thing, I’m pretty sure I expected my hair to stay pixie-short for the rest of my life. I expected to be a drug rep—begrudgingly—for a long time. I expected I’d stay married to that other guy. I even expected that I would give in and have a kid and spend the rest of my life trying to to have a good attitude about being something that I never in my life wanted to be.

I’m just so glad, so grateful, that none of that is true. Life now is startlingly different than what I may have expected. It is startlingly so much better. 

Yesterday I asked Jim, “You know that saying, ‘If it seems to good to be true it probably is?’ Then how do I explain you? You seem to good to be true but with you what you see is actually what you get.” He is this great. And Jim is never shy about his faults or things he would have done differently in his life. I never have to be uptight about telling people things about my husband. He’d tell them himself. Even nearly three years into this relationship I’m still surprised by that. I spent ten years married to a guy who was nothing but secrets. Jim, however, couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. Or even my life. Anyone’s life, if we’re being all-encompassing and honest here. Keeping secrets takes more energy than he is interested in expending when he could be doing something useful. He is dead set on being useful.

This was the week of his Victory Woodworks holiday parties. One for each office, one here in Reno and one in Vegas. I love going along to those events. First off, Jim lets me hand out the crisp new money when people spin the wheel for cash which makes me instantly the most popular person in the room. And I love seeing how happy his employees are. Unless they are 85 of the best fakers in Nevada, these people like where they work. My husband is a good boss. He is genuinely interested in making Victory a place where his people are happy. And when he gave his little speech at the Reno party he got to announce that he missed work the previous day because he was at the hospital becoming a grandfather. He'll be good at that too.

You skipped over the relevant niceness of Jim’s daughter having a baby and went right to, “Wait! Doesn’t that make you a step-grandma!?” Snicker snort chuckle guffaw blah blah blah. You realize I’ve been getting that for a good eight months, right? I’ve also come to terms with it. If a grandma figure is someone who buys shit the parents wouldn’t and sends surprises to their doorstep and helps decorate their apartment, well then I fit that bill. I got to leapfrog all the hard parts of having a kid and jumped right to the part that all overworked mothers ache for. I’ll take it.

Something that Jim and I frequently say that we didn’t expect was how great things would be with his kids. We reasonably thought that it was going to be awful a lot of the time because family blending is just that. But I—thank you thank you thank you—didn’t come with kids, which makes things easier, and also, I am awesome. (Jim too, but let's talk about me for a sec.) The kids—I’d say especially the older two—have gotten the message that I’ll do anything to help them. In the beginning that was for Jim. I wanted to make him happy and that meant being nice to his kids. Now I enjoy them in their own right for the engaging people that they are. When I threw Katelynn’s shower I told Jim, “This isn’t for you. This is for her.” I love hanging out with Katelynn. And I’m going to enjoy watching her be the terrific mom everyone is certain she will be. I’m excited when Dustin comes home to visit. I’m ecstatically pleased at how he’s progressing in his pilot training. They’re not my kids but I adore them, I am happy for them, I’m proud of them, and feel what I guess could be termed a sort of stewardship for them. It’s a gift that the horror Jim and I expected to wade through didn’t materialize. Instead we all get along and even enjoy each other’s company.

All of that has been a boon lately since my yoga practice has been on a sort of hiatus and I needed other things to focus on so I didn’t drive myself—and Jim, the real sufferer here—to madness. A couple months ago I dislocated a rib in pole class, and then just as it was healing I had a minor foot surgery that developed an infection which absolutely wouldn’t heal if I didn’t stay off it (“for crying out loud” —nearly exasperated podiatrist who would really love it if I started wearing shoes once in a while instead of living my life barefoot). But I’m back on my mat, Dear Reader, heading to class now, in fact, and am really looking forward to putting my body in its place. (Said the girl who imagined she had some kind of control.) Peace out, y'all.

SHOWERING

This morning while eating his cereal and staring into the backyard Ben said, “What if shadows had shadows?”

Last night he asked me to cut out a Sponge Bob turkey that he made for school because, “You do everything perfect.” I will therefore give him anything he wants at any time. By which I mean I will execute the three clicks it takes to order his desires off Amazon. I bought him some rad snow boots earlier this week and am looking forward to inheriting them as a hand-me-up. We wear the same shoe size now. He’s nine and grew an impressive four and a half feet this summer.

I’m in my office where R2D2 and C3PO are bickering on the other computer screen, Sophie is lolling on my lap, and the lil’ space heater under my desk is doing its damnedest to upgrade my attitude. Cold makes me cranky. But a cadre of adorable boots that have recently come by way of Zappos should serve to make me less winter-rotten.

This weekend will be about doing nothing since last weekend was about a baby shower and in two weeks there’s Thanksgiving. We are staying in Sparks for the holiday this year as our teeny pregnant lady will be 36 weeks and doin’ no traveling. We get to host and if I have any sense at all I’ll delegate every food assignment and keep my own efforts to table decorations. For y’all, decoration is the thing I do decently.

The baby shower last week was—I’m pretty sure—a raging success. The house was tidy, darling, and full. Katelynn got showered with a boatload of gifts and left here with over a thousand diapers to add to the collection she’s got going. Tons of her people shuffled through our house, embroidering quilt squares here, filling candy bags there, writing on advice cards, and eating eating eating. Trust me here: use Whole Foods. I’ve got experience in this food-ordering thing, and using Whole Foods for catering is a sure-fire win.

For weeks before the day of, my world was about details for this quilt-themed baby shower. I'm not so much known for doing things halfway or even reasonably, really. 

The momma-to-be is an ardent and talented quilter and put together some quilts for her babe that she was down to display at the shower, so with that in mind I designed invites and advice cards that looked quiltish and matched the decor to the general color theme she put together, making garland after garland of mixed paper flags, having Jim hang 20-some-odd big honeycomb baubles from the ceiling, and staking giant—seriously giant—coordinating balloons to the lawn outside. Traci put together a charming quilt project where guests embroidered muslin squares and she will piece them into a quilt that matches Katelynn’s color scheme, which I think couldn't be more appropriate as Traci is Katelynn's quilting godmother.

As we were setting up for the shower the night before, Josie surveyed the extensive decorations and asked me to do her party. “What are you having a party for?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she replied, "it’s Friday?”

Jim flew my ma in for the shower, a thing of which one does not truly realize the value until the morning of the shower and Megan is losing her shit. It’s good that my life has few acutely stressful situations. Pretty much no one handles that worse than I do. Mama Sue got stuff done, handled me like a champ, and when Jim looked at her with wide eyes exhibiting the futility of dealing with me in such a state, she nodded her head in sympathy.

Shortly before the food arrived, when Jim was hanging a garland over the back doors, Ben asked what he was doing and Jim replied, “Trying to make Megan happy.” 

One notable part of the shower occurred just after Katelynn finished opening gifts. I was across the room fidgeting with something and Katelynn called out, “Hey Megan, it’s time for a Grandma photo.” Classily, I hollered back, “Go to hell.” Kathy, Nathaniel’s awfully super mom, headed for Katelynn’s chair and as I followed I mouthed at Katelynn, “I hate you” which was of course intended as a gesture of love.

Come December my husband will be a grandpa, and the parents-to-be are getting quite the kick out of calling his 33-year-old childless wife Grandma. I’ve come to terms with it. My job is to buy them cute stuff. I can do that. I can do that all day, son!

That gonna-be Grandpa and I did Halloween weekend in Vegas. The first night we went to Cirque’s Ka. Then the following evening we had tickets for Le Rȇve. And then after that show Jim said, “Wanna go to O?” So we did that too. Two Vegas water shows in one night means I spent three hours straight with a dropped jaw.

But in writing that out I realize that it’s not out of my ordinary. Living with Jim means that a minimum of 60% of the expressions you wear are stunned, impressed, or incredulous. (The next 30% are delight. And the other 10% are depression, dismay, and disgust as influenced by effing whoremones that sweet Jim can’t fix, though boy does he try. Poor perfect man.) He’s anything but average and funny as hell. Just ask him. Wink.

SO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD SLEEP

I should be asleep right now. Or at least trying to be asleep. As it is I haven’t yet washed my face or taken out my contacts or downed my sleeping vitamins or taken my antidepressant. Oh, wait–are you so new around here that you didn’t know that I knock back some Wellbutrin XL every night? Even though I’m a yoga teacher and I’m supposed to keep my body pure and devoid of—gasp—chemicals? Yeah, bitches, I take a drug despite eating righter than I let on, doing boatloads of yoga, and even teaching that mind/body nonsense. I’m quite proud of it too. Proud because it’s damned responsible self care to down those lil’ white pills daily. Harp on me about it. I want you to. Because I will take down your self-righteous and potentially undereducated ass. (Huh, didn’t know ’til just now that I am feeling really feisty.)

Anyhow, I ain't sleeping but I should be. My hair needs to be washed, I haven't packed yet, and early tomorrow Jim and I are boarding an airplane, since, unlike the paranoid and pretentious disaster of a human being I was married to during my genius years, James isn’t afraid to fly. The handsome mister and I are heading to Los Angeles for a couple days. Day one is for hanging with Internet Jessica, Internet Jeff, and The Boy. And Day two is for going to a taping of So You Think You Can Dance. Because Jim is really damned in love with me and knows how to make magic. While I'm not the fangirl type, I love Cat Deely with all my heart. I shall not seek to, like, interact with her, seeing as I’m afraid of everything. But I get to witness my fave show go down. More than enough.

Instead of even trying to snooze I’m enjoying the sound of cute Jim snore and Sophie sleep-moan, listening to Chopped, and thinking these thoughts—

• You can’t wear heels or open-toed shoes to SYTYCD. So it was very nice of Jim to rush me to the Rack tonight for some pointy-toed flats that will work with my orange dress.

• All my problems could be solved if I’d just internally rotate my hips. That’s how insignificant my problems are.

• Everyone has a mirror face. Turns out mine is the same as my disappointed face.

• I love animals. I wish them long, healthy, happy, happy lives. 'Cept when they interrupt my sleep; then I feel differently. At 6AM some months ago a bird was pecking at the eaves outside our room. Jim was already up and downstairs, so I texted him, There is a bird outside our window. Please go kill it. I can’t be held responsible for the things I wrote when Woody Woodpecker stole my sleep. 

• Sponge Bob is not, in fact, a kitchen sponge that got chucked in the sea as debris and came alive. He is a sea sponge that just looks suspiciously like dish-washing sponges. Cameron teaches me the important things.

• I do not talk in my sleep. Except this one time Jim told me I said, “You can’t play with that in here. You have to take it outside.” So when he sleep-talks he says he loves me and that he’s proud to be my husband. He’s even said, “You’re just so delicious.” (What?) But when I talk in my sleep I reveal my full crossover into stepmotherhood in a house where fireworks are standard, waterfights common, raw eggs used for revenge, and where, for fun, we put children in human-sized hamster balls—in which, guys, they could, like, die if we don’t let them out (so I made sure that when they got those for Christmas they got pocket knives too).

• A couple weeks ago I decided that since I took six years of French in high school and college it's ridiculous that I don't speak any French. I'm therefore fixing that. My first few lessons made sure that I know how to say “I understand a little French not very well” and “Do you want to come have a drink at my house?”

• The Tory Birch fragrance smells like CK One. It smells like 1994.

• When your secondary degree is in writing don’t ever use the casual phrase, “I could write a book on—” such as, “I could write a book on how no housekeeper in the world is worse at making beds than ours is.” Because people will say, “Okay, do it.”

•••

Bonus: a couple more shots from the family shoot we did with Ash a few months ago—

I call this one “I Swear He Likes Me Back”:

And this one “Frame that Shit Stat”:

GOALS CAN KISS IT

Cat, Meg, Lo, Whit, Hay, Mal

These—these are my bitches, my broads, the dames I adore, mes soeurs, my sissies. For the first time in more than a year all six of us were in the same place.

I’m just home from a week in the ‘Tah where I got to see Mally’s new house, buy my nieces with $54 worth of candy, eat Whit’s stupid-good buttermilk cake, visit Cat’s new saloon, talk my parents’ ears off, go up American Fork Canyon with Amber, laugh so hard with Haley and Caitlyn that I couldn’t get my eyes to open properly, drag race on State Street, drop in at Lo’s new apartment, envy Ashley’s charming pad, and teach some yoga to my ma’s church gals. All the things: I checked them off my list.

On Monday I subbed a yoga class wherein a student inadvertently guilted me into, at the very least, slapping together this post. She is a literature teacher at the university. We got to talking Englishy things, and based on the kinds of questions I was asking about her job she queried, “So did you go to UNR or something?” I ended up confessing that I, in fact, have a Masters degree in writing. Of all things.

“Do you still write?” she asked me. (That hateful little shit.)

“Uh, well . . . ” and when a sentence starts out ruefully with an Uh, well you don’t need to hear the rest, for it certainly conveys a big fat Of course not.

The question irked me. Do you still write? Still? Did I ever? And is that a thing that you just up and stop doing? Evidently, yes. But here’s the thing, yeah, I did feel a certain amount of guilt when I answered that no, I don’t write really at all ever (except in my head which I actually do count just a little bit, because, and few non-writers know this, when a writer is sitting staring out a window, they’re actually working), but the guilt didn’t overwhelm me because that’s just not where I am in my life right now. And that is fine. I’m hoping that the copious amount of time I spent writing for school is kinda banked somewhere and when I seek to dust it off it won’t be totally worthless. But for now, in this meantime, however long I choose it lasts, I’m writing rarely and that is okey dokey.

As a nonfiction writer I’m living now what I’ll write later. I spend my time teaching yoga, doing yoga, enjoying the effing hell out of my a-damn-dorable, doting husband, being spoiled, growing my hair, and playing house (read: buying shit with which I decorate and redecorate the abode, a spectacular and spectacularly expensive hobby that my indulgent darling indulges).

I saw a post on Humans of New York a bit ago where the dude's quote was something like, “I’m taking a break from setting goals right now.” I’m doing that! I’m surely goal-oriented and I can’t successfully live any one day without a list of what I need to get done, but the big goals, the lofty things—I can’t believe I’m saying this—right now I don’t need them.

I want to be a better yoga teacher than I am now and that takes two main things: practicing my yoga and practicing my teaching. So I take and I teach as often as I can. And I want to be the best wife I can be because the man I’m married to merits all I am plus some.

Day in and out I can’t understand why Jim thinks I deserve all the good he is and does. But here he is being all amazing and shit every day, loving me even when I’m wholly unlovable. The man’s a certifiable lunatic who wakes to spoil me. And don’t misunderstand, unabashedly, I love it.

Any sentence I begin with, “Jim do you think we could—” or “Jim, let’s—”“ or “Jim, I think I want—” he immediately interrupts with, “Yes,” “Okay,” “Sure.” without even hearing what I’m asking. I have to be careful what I mention interests me; he’ll get it, make it happen, shift the moon and hand me the sun.

Honestly, I don’t talk about a lot of that amazing stuff because my friends get nauseous and jealous, and it makes the two of us loathsome and incomprehensible. It’s a small price for a life that’s pretty damn perfect. [Insert your—totally understandable—eye roll here.] So while life is real and has its inconveniences, you could be safe in saying that we’re still in that delirious newlywed phase. I mean, guys, I just heard him start his ear-splitting snoring in the other room and it made me smile. Cuuute. 

AT LENGTH: MAKING THE GARAGE SMELL OF THE DEAD

I haven’t practiced Bikram for the last two days. Don’t fall out of your chair—I did a double on Tuesday and I’m doing a double today. The world hasn’t split at the seams. I’m still certifiably bananas.

Since I haven’t done hot for a couple days, I’m sore. (I did do a few vinyasa classes.) Heat is magnificent stuff. It makes me more pliable, and it doesn’t leave me sore. When I practiced just power yoga for the first five years of my yoga life I was sore every single day. And happy about it. When I teach a particularly stretchy class I’ll tell the room, Hey when you get up tomorrow morning and your body hurts, don’t blame me. You did this. It’s your achievement. Be proud of it. And for those first five yoga years I was just that: proud of my soreness because I earned it. I must say though that I don’t miss daily muscular backlash. A Bikram practice has its own ball of inconveniences but daily soreness isn’t one.

Laundry is though. With Bikram yoga in my day-to-day, laundry is a significant part of my practice. Team, I am disgusting. Like, really gross. Many of my hot yoga friends wash their sweaty gear as soon as they get home. Me? I drape the sopping towel and mat and top and shorts over a drying rack in the garage. I let it all pile up for a week or so, then I drag it all off of the rack and wash it. Laundry every day? Yoga is supposed to make my life better not way worse. No matter how small the load, laundry every day is way worse.

But! However! I was totally jazzed to do laundry on Wednesday because I was running out of yoga clothes. Which is not actually the truth, for my yoga wardrobe is like a girl's big butt—it would be impolite to discuss its size in public—but my favorite yoga leggings were dirty so I was basically deprived and had absolutely nothing to wear. See, the washing machine broke. It gave up its greasy ghost. So in an act of sheer grownupness I ordered us new ones. I did comparisons on Consumer Reports, read reviews online, double and triple checked the measurements Jim gave me, prioritized features, and selected a darling set of Whirlpool helpers. Even Jim said yesterday that they’re cute.

The set arrived on Wednesday which means that there were a good two weeks worth of leggings, tanks, sports bras, sweat towels, shower towels, shorts and Bikram tops queued for their close up. Guys when I practice, I practice. There’s no lazing about on my mat. I leave it all on the field. I don't sweat as much as I want to, but I do sweat plenty. Therefore when you've got that much yoga gear waiting to be laundered, you have a seriously malodorous mountain of performance-grade fabric positively ruining the garage. See? Disgusting.

Now everything is clean and smelling friendly and ready to get drenched with drop after drop of straight up effort.

Have I bored you with all this yoga blather? I’ve bored myself. It happens. A few weeks ago I was with Cameron in the yoga room before teaching my class, pretending to help him clean the room after he just taught, and I sprawled across the podium and said, “I hate yoga. It’s the worst.” I think he understood. There has been a class or two where we’ve done our namaste at the end and bowed and under my breath I've said, “I effing hate this shit.” Yoga. Of all things. Not every hit can be a homer, Dear Reader. But that’s only 5% of my yoga life.

The rest of the time I do love it. I often close class by telling students that if they have questions afterward not to hesitate asking, ‘cause yoga is my favortie thing to talk about. (That’s almost true. Jim is actually my favorite thing to talk about, but the world at large is fed up with hearing about how adorable he is and how much he spoils me and how much fun we have together. Ah, the life of a trophy wife . . . ) But sometimes. Sometimes I’m just so sick of yoga.

When I start talking with Jim about my day I feel bad that three-quarters of what I have to offer him has to do with yoga—where I took class, who taught, where I taught class, and how I managed to sorta blow it yet again. As an example, in a class yesterday I called a student a jackass. Yup. It was appropriate given the environment, and I’d do it again exactly the same way, but I would say that as a yoga teacher it's generally frowned up on to call your students names.

It can be dangerous to make your hobby your job. Adding money into the equation will alway suck out some of the fun. It was certainly that way with my art, and check out just how much of it I do now. Near to none. In my situation I had to choose: art or money? Consciously or not, I chose money. I did big print sales; I did logo after logo, but the pressure of working with clients and feeling like I ought to be turning a profit nullified the enjoyment in the activitiy. 

But here I don’t think that I did a dumb thing in making my hobby my hobby “job,” because I really do love it and there is so much to still learn. I’ve always been geared to teach so it’s a reasonable step in the evolution of my personal practice. And more than that, it’s not about the money. If you are in yoga for the money, well, you’re not good at making life choices. Because of Jim I don’t have to think about that element; it’s a thing for which I’m neverendingly grateful.

Did you see that? You see what I did there? I slid in a little Jim-is-perfect factoid and you hardly knew what was happening to you. A splash of ninja boastage. I'd say stay tuned for more if you aren't gagging yet. 'Cause that man's adorable quotient is always on the rise.

TRAVELING YOGI CAMPER

Danielle, this one’s for you. We've never met, but Whit said that according to your reading of my blog the Ellikers are still in Hawaii. Good point. That would be one long-ass vacation. Though Josie was pissed we had to come home at all, I was thrilled to be back in Sparks. I like my real life. I prefer it to vacation. Probably because my real life includes vacation.

While we didn’t end up getting to skydive in Hawaii like we wanted—apparently skydiving companies have ditched the Big Island (something to do with cost)—we did go on a helicopter tour and saw lava. We did go to a black sand beach. We did go swim with dolphins. Well, Jim and the kids did; my leave-the-animals alone self sat in the boat and got knee-weakeningly seasick. We did climb rad trees. We did hike around and see waterfalls. We did strip off our clothes and jump off rocks into a pool of water that very well could have but kindly didn’t gift us leptospirosis. Don’t worry, we didn’t strip off all our clothes; we were in our underwear. Which, yes, yes, itself actually is cause for concern.

Dunno where Ben and Jim were at the time, but Dustin, Josie and I were scrambling around some rocks at Rainbow Falls and saw teenagers jumping off lil’ 20-foot cliffs. Dustin was like, Oh, I’m doing this, which was convenient for him seeing as he was the one of us three wearing a swimsuit. He jumped. He climbed back up. He said it was fun. Josie and I were jealous. Josie and I were not at all sure what to do. Do we jump in our clothes? Do we go in our underwear? Oh dammit, I guess we do. Before stripping down to my stepkid-scaring lacy underthings I looked at them both and said, “As your technical stepmother, I apologize.” 

That same afternoon Josie and I brilliantly decided to trek down what has to be the, like, at least fourth steepest road in America, and when it occurred to us collectively that the further we walked down the further we’d have to walk back up we turned around took the hardest walk of our lives back to the Waikoloa overlook parking lot. We side-stepped with jazz hands. We walked up backwards. We bear-crawled on our hands and feet. At one point Josie started hallucinating fauna. Guys, we almost died basically. 

Since we survived I can say it was a good trip. It wasn’t where this spoiled white lady would have chosen to go, but Jim brought me a fresh-squeezed beet juice every morning from the nearby shop and I got to go to Bikram four times. Homegirl got what she “needed.” She can label the vacation Good.

Shit’s happening, Dear Reader. At this moment I’m writing from the Palms Place in Vegas. Jim had to come see his people down here and I came along so we could make a weekend of it. Sweet Cameron covered my Saturday class. Dunno what we’d do without that lil' nugget of a yogi; he’s also caring for the doggies seeing as—wait for it—Dustin moved out yesterday. Tomorrow, the boy is starting the next leg of his flight schooling in Utah. Yes, spreading wings. Only literally. Therefore better than everyone else.

So yoga. Last week I taught seven classes. Between Bikram and Power I probably took nine, but I don't so much tally that anymore. Teaching seven is the most I’ve done in a week so far. I know I’m a decent teacher. But I’m a new teacher. It’s gonna take forever to just graze good. A bit ago I passed the little 100-class milestone and it still feels like every class is my first.

One night last week when I got home from Bikram—as sexily sweaty as ever—Jim and Ben were watching Star Wars Episode II. I sat and we watched for a while, me answering Ben’s questions here and there because I was raised by a legit Star Wars nerd, and then Dustin got home and went we full out, talking technology, story line, comparing to LOTR. At one point I looked at Jim and said, “Your family is a bunch of geeks.” His lack of pride was confusing. 

Hey, so Jim took me by a camping ground last Saturday. (Had to retrieve a trailer. Don’t confuse yourself thinking I was actually camping.) It was nothing like what I expected. The campground was basically a big parking lot winding through the forest where people sit around all day and tell their kids to go play with sticks. Our neighbors at home aren’t as close as these camp sites were. I thought you went camping to, like, get away from it all or something? Apparently it’s actually just congregating closer with people you don’t know and coming to terms with being filthy. ’Til now my reason for not camping was that it was outdoors. But my relationship with outside has been improving of late. Now my primary reason for not camping is that it looks stupefyingly boring and if I want to get uncomfortably close with other stinky humans I can just go to Bikram. Which I do every day. So it’s as if I camp every day. I’m a camper. 

TODAY: WED ONE YEAR

One year ago today, after my 10AM yoga class, Jim surprised me at the studio with a giant Diet Dr. Pepper. Three and a half hours later in our backyard I wore a dress I'll never need again and became his wife. Then our family and best people ate lemon cake. Then we all went to the go-kart place for our inevitably unique “reception.” A kick-off that aptly indicated what we were in for.

We've been married one year. In my life, I've never been happier. I've never been more spoiled, more loved, or more in love. I still think that everything he does is adorable. As an example, Jim has a habit of leaving his chewing gum on his bedside table at night. When I zip past and snap it up to toss in the trash I think, “He’s so cute.” But I'm right. I mean, gawsh—

Mid-morning on Wednesday I took a call from a third-party company that Sanofi hired to do my exit interview. Was the company compliant? Would you work for Sanofi again? Why did you leave? Are you currently employed? And then the interviewer paused and said, “Do you mind my asking what you’re doing now?” “I left the industry,” I told him, “I’m teaching yoga.” He laughed and commented on the significant departure from my previous life. “Why did you choose that?” he asked. “It makes me happy.”

At that moment I was perched on the edge of the kitchen table facing the backyard. I had the sliding doors open a few inches because I’d just come in from checking on my herbs and before that I’d been taking our chubby puppies for their daily march. As I answered his questions I thought, “Sheesh. This is a good life.” I’m grateful to Jim. Jim is grateful to me. I thank him often for convincing me to quit. He thanks me often for quitting. And he’s glad that my time plugging away in the workforce granted me a perspective that can appreciate what it takes to support a family. I don't take what he does for granted. He makes success seem like a foregone conclusion and hard work look easy. But it isn’t and I know that and it makes me all the more thankful for what life my sweetheart enables.

I do house stuff—laundry, grocery shopping, morning tidying after everyone’s left, bringing in the milk, writing the check to the housekeeper—but I also get to do things beyond what I could when pedaling drugs. On Tuesday I had time to make a four-layer cake. (Ended up decent but not better than that. I’m learning.) Yesterday I took three yoga classes—one for strength, one for sanity, and one to check out a new local studio. In between I got a facial. I drink more water. I eat more vegetables. Guys, I’m just happier. 

But here’s the thing—while my job got to a point where it was making me white-collar cross and that was beginning to bleed into my personal life, my personal life was already splendid. This husband I have can’t be real. When I get jealous of someone—like, oh they have such a great body or they are so pretty or smart or all the other shit we think—I scuttle my envy by thinking, Yeah, but they don’t have Jim. I actually think that. And it actually makes me feel better.

I’m so taken with this man's quirks. He leaves me love notes on 3x5 cards ‘cause they’re what’s handy. His favorite part of our Playboy Mansion experience was the technology of the hyper-cool MirMir photo booth; that’s the thing he can’t stop talking about. He sees cheese and crackers as an acceptable dinner. He always gets the same smoothie at Jamba juice but orders it as, “Give me whatever has the most pineapple in it.” He thinks water is disgusting. He falls asleep listening to The Office. And while everyone thinks my husband is funny, no one thinks Jim is funnier than Jim does. 

He teaches me things. On a drive from Los Angeles to San Diego he taught me about handicapping and how sports betting works. He taught me the difference between welding and soldering. I now know a bit about what’s going on in my car when I turn on the A/C. I’ve learned exactly why Teslas are inconceivably bitchin’. And I’ve independently come to the conclusion that unions are, like, the third worse thing ever. 

He is the most fun person I know. That anyone knows. His hobby is spoiling the hell out of his kids. (We’re trying to balance that out with foreign things like “discipline” and “responsibility.”) He’s down to go anywhere or do anything. He likes desserts enough that when we were in Vegas at Rose Rabbit Lie and he ordered the entire dessert menu so we could try everything. He took me to “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” and then the following morning we went to breakfast with Bill Kurtis. He is constantly bringing home new remote-controlled gadgets and has lately been playing remote-controlled battling tanks with Benjamin. People, there’s a professional-grade ice shaver in the garage. He buys me feta cheese in bulk. We did the VIP tour in Disneyland.

Read: fun. 

He knows that the thing I want out of every trip we take is to find a yoga studio. (Right after our breakfast with Bill he dropped me off at the Funky Door while he went to a job site.) He came with me to class in Milan. A couple weeks ago he practiced with me at a Bikram studio in North Hollywood where the room’s temperature read 110 degrees Fahrenheit before class got started. He’s a guy who’s in it for the experience even when that experience is sweaty and inconvenient. 

We have a trip to Hawaii with the kids planned for next month. If you know me much you know that Hawaii isn’t so much my bag. I went there for college. The novelty wore off. I loved my education but learned that island fever is real. Also, I’m the color of printer paper and avoid the sun like it’s cyanide. After Jim booked the plane tickets I told him, “I love you so much that I’ll go to Hawaii with you.” His reply: “Have you ever gone somewhere with me and not had fun?” Of course not. Naturally it’ll be a blast. Wherever he is is where I want to be. Always.

Also I’ll get to see his exquisite legs in shorts. I never get sick of that.