Lessons of Marriage: 6-10

6. Never ask me if a picture frame is crooked. The same statement applies to if I think a frame is straight. Which is a bit odd to me since I can draw a darn good straight line freehanded, I took art since a young age, and I'm a type-A person; but in all seriousness, I apparently can't tell the difference. I mean I can tell the obvious slants on a wall, but the ones that are just enough to annoy people to fix them... yeah, those I don't notice. So maybe there's a chink in the armor of my control issues. Perhaps this is a good thing? I'm looking for a silver lining here... Can you tell?

7. Logic doesn't play into the length of a shower. Obviously, I'm a girl. So my shower times have always included shampoo, conditioner, soap, face wash, and shaving. I mean that results in an understood twenty minute shower (maybe fifteen if I want my legs to resemble a chigger bite war zone after bestowing myself with razor burn...). It is also obvious that I now live with husband. His habits should be completely different than mine, right? Right. I mean he even has super short hair. By my calculations his shower should take about 6 minutes, and that's still giving him some leeway time. What is not obvious is that his showers take longer than mine.... Who knows why? For being an extraordinarily logical person, this is definitely a chink in his armor. You might also ask why this topic has even been discovered: well... our apartment hot water heater only has warm water for 20 minutes. When my shower ran out after his, the investigative work began... Call me Nancy Drew.

8. I have serious issues recalling a phone conversation. And when I mean serious, I mean it's bad. Husband will ask me questions about a conversation that I physically just finished, and I can't tell him many highlights. Being a bionerd, I blame the whole "associative memory being different for everyone" line. Notice how I called that a line... Now it's not like I don't store the information I just learned somewhere, I just... can't tell you where. "Hi, I'd like a roadmap to my last conversation cataloged 7 minutes ago..." Boy, that would be nice. A cumulative history like a web browser. And it would fare better than when I remember the details in spurts over the coming days and weeks and then inform husband of them (as if he still cares by that point...). I'm working on it. Maybe I should jot down a brief outline as I talk? Or maybe J.K. Rowling should spill the beans on how to make a pensieve and pull those memories from our heads... Muggles. How do we cope?

9. I reread books. Husband does not. This was a low blow for me to discover a few days ago, so let me elaborate: I'm a book person. Like majorly. I might not read every title listed on the NY Times bestseller list, but I really enjoy a good story. One that develops a world within my mind and tells an interesting, or captivating plot. Yes, I am a Harry Potter reader and perhaps that is where our differences begin. I have loved Rowling's world since a young age, and I reread at least one of the books every year... It's like my own personal tradition (I used to reread them all every summer, so I have thankfully dialed it back a bit. Nerd alert). But my rereading habits apply to books beyond HP: Huxley's Brave New World, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, Rivers' Redeeming Love... You get the picture. I'm just one of those types that will think of a world that I enjoyed visiting, so I return... Sometimes it's a nice world, sometimes it's frightening. It's a process that helps shape your own world and reminds you of valuable lessons, you know? (If you couldn't guess, yes, I have a great imagination...) Either way, sweet husband let me know gently that once he trucks through the world of Harry Potter, he's leaving on the Hogwarts Express and never returning... It was a crushing few seconds where I realized that my childhood love of other worlds will always be my own and not his. Ah, well. I should have seen this coming since he didn't begin reading the series until after we got engaged... So I'm counting it as a victory to have gotten him into the series at all and another W for getting most of my HP references in our daily life (serious nerd alert). Way to go husband! I'll cope with the rest (As a side bar, yes I will read HP to my children. And most likely my grandchildren (Lord willing). I'm that confident.). Moving on....

10. Strawberries are way less likely to be wasted if you core them. Seriously, it's true. You know how you can have an itch for a ripe strawberry, so you end up buying a pint of them just to eat seven? So in a few days, you're left with these wimpy and wilted strawberries that you most likely ignore until they mold and you throw them away? Well, it was complete happenstance that we fixed our wasteful ways on this subject. I, being the idealistic bride, registered for all the cool, nifty kitchen tools, including a pink and lime green strawberry corer (You know, why not register for it??). Well one day, curious husband was rummaging through our kitchen drawers and pulled out this odd looking contraption. He decided to attack the whole container of strawberries at once (and we buy the big one... no shame) and put all the freshly washed and cored berries in a ziploc bag and back in the refrigerator. No lie, within about 4 days we had consumed them all... The moral to this story: we humans are lazy, but if we just push through the pain of making an effort all at once, we can continue to be lazy AND enjoy yummy fresh strawberries (rather than the wilted ugly stepsisters). Oh, and that this couple loves fruit (blame the wife for that one).