Because Dear Husband says I never post about him.

Dear Husband complains that I never post anything about him but instead spend to much time writing about cute actors. He feels slighted. But I don't know how to write something that doesn't simply sing his praises or get all mushy, so without more ado, here are 25 random facts about Dear Husband:

1. He can't eat gluten, something he found out in the last few years.
2. He went from being an Orthodox Christian and Sean Hannity-listening political conservative to a liberal NPR-listening Emergent Christian in the space of a year. I'm still freaked out. Pleased but freaked out.
3. He loves Swedish Fish and he misses being able to eat Twizzlers (which have wheat in them).
4. His favorite painter is Chagall.
5. He's Jewish but converted to Christianity when he was 13, causing much tension in his family.
6. Is far more creative and romantic than I am. Once he had a taxi pick me up to take me to a secret location, a friends house as it turned out, where he had javascript:void(0)prepared a gourmet meal and a slideshow about our life together. Another time he took us to the mall and told me that we each had 20 minutes and 20 dollars to find the perfect anniversary gift.
7. His grandfather was the Head of Production at Paramount Studios in the early 60s and then set up his own production company. Dear Husband is the only person I know whose birth was announced in Variety.
8. Loves watching basketball and his favorite team is the Lakers.
9. Grew up playing tennis, but he never watches it on TV nor seems interested in playing it again.
10. Would switch teams for Matthew Goode.



Well, who wouldn't?

11. He loves the TV show Sanctuary, primarily because of Amanda Tapping.
12. Prefers listening to books to reading them.
13. Likes nonfiction more than fiction and thinks my love of sci fi and fantasy is a little silly.
14. He's the fun parent.
15. He gets nervous when I drive.
16. Used to be an Assembly of God pastor. This was before I met him. Yeah, he spoke in tongues and all that.
17. My mother adored him and peppered him with questions about Judaism.
18. Was transformed from a spendthrift to a fiscally responsible person via Dave Ramsey. This single change resulted in a much more mature and thoughtful person.
19. Likes reading poetry with me.
20. Is so not handy. He doesn't mow the grass or fix things around the house. We are both completely clueless about gardening and lawn care and usually kill plants.
21. Does most of the housecleaning out of desperation.
22. Is getting a degree in instructional design. My understanding of this area is vague, but it sounds cool.



A whisker basket

23. Always says "whisker" when he means "wicker." This is one of the first things that endeared him to me.
24. Loves electronic gadgets. His smart phone is an extension of himself.
25. There is no one I would rather spend time with. Well, I had to get a bit mushy, didn't I?

In which I briefly discuss being a human pincusion, and how much more fun it is to be alive than dead

The sky has drifted from blue to gray over the course of the afternoon. I love overcast days and the promise of rain. The greens look greener and the asphalt looks less harsh. No doubt it its still hot and steamy, but at least it appears more bearable – the light isn’t boring into my skin.

Speaking of boring, I had to have another biopsy yesterday, of my left breast. I am always amazed at medical science. They make such extraordinary leaps in technology and yet they cannot design any device for human comfort. Stereotactic biopsies aren’t painful – they shoot you up with lidocaine and then the extraction needle itself continues to inject lidocaine – but the contorted position you must hold for 30 minutes or so is. Perhaps it wasn’t that long. Perhaps it was just the incredible tension in my neck, which I was forced to twist to one side as I lay face down (“Don’t move!”), and the creeping numbness in my right arm, or the fact that the positioning device felt much like an unending mammogram. I greeted the lidocaine with some relief, although after a number of minutes of immobility, I began to imagine the remarkable discomfort had disrupted the flow of time and I was not entirely in the room but was perhaps also inside that computer screen just out of my line of vision. At times like these, doctors and techs display a remarkable serenity and deliberation, as if they are not in the same reality with you, the reality in which you are being compressed with some force into an unnatural state of being. Instead, they are in a world without limits, with an infinite amount of time to adjust, examine, adjust again.

Afterward the tech told me that they inject epinephrine along with the lidocaine. I asked why and she told me that it reduces bleeding. “When we have someone in here who can’t tolerate epinephrine, this whole room is covered in blood by the time we’re done.” I gave myself a little mental pat on the back for my good relationship with epinephrine. I was very grateful that I did not have to stumble out of the room slipping in my own blood.

I’m supposed to have the results in 5 days. I’m not unduly worried, because I simply do not have the energy to worry about it. It has reminded me, however, of how much I like life and this world and how uninterested I am in heaven. Sorry, but I would much rather be with my family than with God, and given that He created us to have fierce ties to other people and our own lives, I don’t think he should expect anything else. Lately I’ve wondered if I have any deep belief in an afterlife. When I was younger I thought it didn’t much matter – once you were dead you had no consciousness with which to be disappointed. It matters while you’re alive, while you’re alive and someone else is dying. You don’t want them erased or even “to live on in your memory.” Really, that latter is pathetic. I don’t want someone in my memory – I want them in the flesh. I find heaven difficult to believe in. I won’t even bother with hell, which is so obviously some sort of sick fantasy dreamed up to satisfy both our bloodlust and our sense of justice.

Besides the obvious desire not to miss watching my children grow up or travel around the world with Dear Husband, I find myself hoping that I don’t die without seeing the final Harry Potter films. And what a shame if I were to miss the next technological advance, or the emergence of the next great actors or writers or artists. Or even the next morning’s coffee. There seems to be so much to look forward to, even when I lag and am weary and depressed.

The wind is growing wilder and the sky is drawing close. I expect to soon see the first dark marks of rain against the pavement. I’m looking forward to watching movies with the family, or perhaps reading a bit, and then sleeping in as much as Firecracker will allow (DramaQueen would sleep until noon).