I've been a husband for a grand total of 10 months, 14 days.
My wife and I have been together for about 4 years total.
In that time, God has worked amazing changes in me through her, keeping me close to her as she suffered through her mother's lung and brain cancer, and death last May at the age of 46.
I didn't know that I could achieve real selflessness until God brought us together (via the Internet, no less).
As a result, my identity is so deeply wrapped up in her, and was looong before our marriage, when I finally was able to loudly proclaim it as such.
This of course is contradictory to what most marital counseling advises.
But, then again, they seem to be more interested in preparing couples for divorce right off the bat rather than for lifelong commitment these days.
Anyway, we're both Christians, but we come from completely different backgrounds.
My parents had me in church every time the door was open.
Her parents were cops, so Sunday was a welcome rest day, especially when they'd get home around 5 AM the night before.
Basically, the problem I'm finding is that my marriage matters more to me than my relationship with God.
I find my wife to be much more forgiving of my inadequacies (we both feel the other got the short end of the stick) and eager to move on than I've ever felt with God.
Of course, this could just be due to my wife being physically present, her voice clear and unclouded by the other voices in my head, and her embrace real and comforting, not metaphorical.
I don't feel at a loss when I don't feel God's presence, but my wife's absence from home makes all activity, especially hobbies and even reading, seem pointless and boring.
Even both of us are engrossed and don't speak a word to each other for hours, merely her presence fills me with comfort and an assurance I didn't realize existed until she got a job which required her to work all day and sometimes into the wee hours.
Thusly do I sit at this moment, devoid of her presence and thus any meaning in anything I do.
Isn't that how I'm supposed to feel about God?
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Iron Man 2...
Tops the first film in every way, if that's possible.
Deeper interactions between the good guys, a more passionate and complex villain....and we get to see Scarlet Johansen beat the living crap out of a small army.
Yeah...Scarlet's the real star of this movie, as far as the "action film" part of it goes.
The best word to sum up this movie as compared to the first: DEEPER.
Everything, every character, even the random SHIELD agent from the first movie, the villains, plus the little extra after the credits (it's a good thing that was worth the wait...after almost 3 hours I had to PEE).
Since this is a blog, I don't give a crap about spoiling it for people.
There's less humor in 2 than in 1, but that's mainly because Tony spends the first half of this movie DYING.
Yeah.
There's a scene where he gets drunk while wearing the suit, and a fight with Rhoadie (also suited) ensuits...er--ensues.
Don Cheadle owns the part of Rhoadie in ways that make Terrence Howard look like an amateur.
Yeah...War Machine...looks awesome, kicks ass...and even provides a little comic relief.
Of course the movie wouldn't be complete without Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vankov, possible the deadliest SANE supervillain yet to appear in a comic book film.
Electric whips, mastery of robotics technology, and the biggest axe to grind outside of Sakaar.
Blacklash + Crimson Dynamo = Ivan Vankov in Iron Man 2.
And what a sweet love child it is.
My one and only complaint:
Whoever let Sam Rockwell play Justin Hammer needs to be shot and speared and castrated with a red-hot spork.
Seriously.
If they were worried that audiences would be too stupid to see a difference between Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer, they seriously didn't know their freakin' audience.
The audience that showed up tonight in thousand-dollar Iron Man and War Machine and Thor and Captain America and Wasp (shout out to the big girl at Q. Springs!) costumes, and quite possibly knows the characters better than anyone who's never worked for Marvel.
Seriously guys, your target audience KNOWS THE CHARACTERS...except when you butcher them in favor of a metrosexual villain!
Then you didn't even give us the pleasure of seeing Hammer sliced in half by one of Ivan's whips! WTH?!
You'd already shown Ivan to be a master hand-to-hand fighter!
Show us Ivan snapping Hammer's neck or something!
Not that I'm ranting or anything.
Deeper interactions between the good guys, a more passionate and complex villain....and we get to see Scarlet Johansen beat the living crap out of a small army.
Yeah...Scarlet's the real star of this movie, as far as the "action film" part of it goes.
The best word to sum up this movie as compared to the first: DEEPER.
Everything, every character, even the random SHIELD agent from the first movie, the villains, plus the little extra after the credits (it's a good thing that was worth the wait...after almost 3 hours I had to PEE).
Since this is a blog, I don't give a crap about spoiling it for people.
There's less humor in 2 than in 1, but that's mainly because Tony spends the first half of this movie DYING.
Yeah.
There's a scene where he gets drunk while wearing the suit, and a fight with Rhoadie (also suited) ensuits...er--ensues.
Don Cheadle owns the part of Rhoadie in ways that make Terrence Howard look like an amateur.
Yeah...War Machine...looks awesome, kicks ass...and even provides a little comic relief.
Of course the movie wouldn't be complete without Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vankov, possible the deadliest SANE supervillain yet to appear in a comic book film.
Electric whips, mastery of robotics technology, and the biggest axe to grind outside of Sakaar.
Blacklash + Crimson Dynamo = Ivan Vankov in Iron Man 2.
And what a sweet love child it is.
My one and only complaint:
Whoever let Sam Rockwell play Justin Hammer needs to be shot and speared and castrated with a red-hot spork.
Seriously.
If they were worried that audiences would be too stupid to see a difference between Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer, they seriously didn't know their freakin' audience.
The audience that showed up tonight in thousand-dollar Iron Man and War Machine and Thor and Captain America and Wasp (shout out to the big girl at Q. Springs!) costumes, and quite possibly knows the characters better than anyone who's never worked for Marvel.
Seriously guys, your target audience KNOWS THE CHARACTERS...except when you butcher them in favor of a metrosexual villain!
Then you didn't even give us the pleasure of seeing Hammer sliced in half by one of Ivan's whips! WTH?!
You'd already shown Ivan to be a master hand-to-hand fighter!
Show us Ivan snapping Hammer's neck or something!
Not that I'm ranting or anything.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Waiting Up
It's kinda weird.
My wife spent so much time looking for a job that I got into a rhythm, which involved her always being at home when I was.
Now that she has a job (waitress), she's out late at night (downtown no less)...and I feel lonely for the first time in probably a decade or more.
Today she had to be at work at 11 AM...and 12 1/2 hours later is still working.
In contrast, I had to be at work at noon, and finished at 5 PM.
In the long run it'll be good, both of us bringing in money, and on the financial side could greatly reduce our stress.
But I wonder how much time with each other we'll lose when she's getting home dead tired in the wee hours of the morning night after night, and I sit at home bored, restless, and lonely night after night.
Tonight I'll force myself to stay awake long enough for her to get home, even if that requires a second trip to Wal-Mart and a case of VAULT.
Oh, and just to clarify my moping:
We've been in a two-income situation before, but she worked set hours (kinda hard as a waitress), so we always knew when we'd be able to spend time together.
I hope our marriage doesn't suffer as a result, no matter how much money we earn.
My wife spent so much time looking for a job that I got into a rhythm, which involved her always being at home when I was.
Now that she has a job (waitress), she's out late at night (downtown no less)...and I feel lonely for the first time in probably a decade or more.
Today she had to be at work at 11 AM...and 12 1/2 hours later is still working.
In contrast, I had to be at work at noon, and finished at 5 PM.
In the long run it'll be good, both of us bringing in money, and on the financial side could greatly reduce our stress.
But I wonder how much time with each other we'll lose when she's getting home dead tired in the wee hours of the morning night after night, and I sit at home bored, restless, and lonely night after night.
Tonight I'll force myself to stay awake long enough for her to get home, even if that requires a second trip to Wal-Mart and a case of VAULT.
Oh, and just to clarify my moping:
We've been in a two-income situation before, but she worked set hours (kinda hard as a waitress), so we always knew when we'd be able to spend time together.
I hope our marriage doesn't suffer as a result, no matter how much money we earn.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
To My Wife
I say I love you, I say I need you
I try so many ways to say how my heart beats for you
I say I'm always thinking about you
There's no way I'd want to face this life without you
And even though these words comes from deep inside me
There's so much more I don't have the words to say
'Cuz what I really want to say
Is what the sun would say to the sky
For giving it a place to come alive
But my words get in the way
Of what I really want to say
Oh what I really want to say
I know that sometimes my words can be as hard as stone
And sometimes my words have left you feeling so alone
So please forgive me and hear the words I'm saying now
I spend my whole life looking for a way somehow
To let you know just how precious you are to me
I'll use the best words I know but I still won't say it all
It's like a tale too great to be told
It's something that my heart can only show
I'm gonna take my whole life
Just to let you know
What I really want to say
-by Steven Curtis Chapman
I love you.
I try so many ways to say how my heart beats for you
I say I'm always thinking about you
There's no way I'd want to face this life without you
And even though these words comes from deep inside me
There's so much more I don't have the words to say
'Cuz what I really want to say
Is what the sun would say to the sky
For giving it a place to come alive
But my words get in the way
Of what I really want to say
Oh what I really want to say
I know that sometimes my words can be as hard as stone
And sometimes my words have left you feeling so alone
So please forgive me and hear the words I'm saying now
I spend my whole life looking for a way somehow
To let you know just how precious you are to me
I'll use the best words I know but I still won't say it all
It's like a tale too great to be told
It's something that my heart can only show
I'm gonna take my whole life
Just to let you know
What I really want to say
-by Steven Curtis Chapman
I love you.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Live and Let Die...
Yeah, have that song stuck in my head AGAIN...
Had to ditch Vamp Kisses....turned out to be waaay too teenager-y for me.
Went back to an old standby: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Yeah. Sweeeeeet.
Currently trying to write a script for a comic book.
Here's some definite characteristics:
-Introspective -> most of the action happens in flashbacks
-Post-Apocalypic -> totally didn't meant for it to be set in P.A. Texas panhandle...but that's what happens sometimes while storytelling.
-All about the protagonist -> okay, some would ask "what literature isn't?"
Reach Charles Dickens. His characters are completely linked (like, to the core) with the settings in which Dickens has placed them.
Oliver Twist is more about the state of the poor in England in Dickens' time than it is about a poor boy going through shitty life experiences.
...even though his life experiences are inexorably linked to the state of his surroundings, and these experiences give us a unique view into the state of his surroundings.
Yeah...completely linked.
My prot. Aleksander is the agent of plot, even when stuff happens TO him rather than him MAKING stuff happen, because we only see it through his eyes.
Anyway, fun time, even though it's beating the crap out of me with a sign that says "YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE!!!!!!"
Had to ditch Vamp Kisses....turned out to be waaay too teenager-y for me.
Went back to an old standby: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Yeah. Sweeeeeet.
Currently trying to write a script for a comic book.
Here's some definite characteristics:
-Introspective -> most of the action happens in flashbacks
-Post-Apocalypic -> totally didn't meant for it to be set in P.A. Texas panhandle...but that's what happens sometimes while storytelling.
-All about the protagonist -> okay, some would ask "what literature isn't?"
Reach Charles Dickens. His characters are completely linked (like, to the core) with the settings in which Dickens has placed them.
Oliver Twist is more about the state of the poor in England in Dickens' time than it is about a poor boy going through shitty life experiences.
...even though his life experiences are inexorably linked to the state of his surroundings, and these experiences give us a unique view into the state of his surroundings.
Yeah...completely linked.
My prot. Aleksander is the agent of plot, even when stuff happens TO him rather than him MAKING stuff happen, because we only see it through his eyes.
Anyway, fun time, even though it's beating the crap out of me with a sign that says "YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE!!!!!!"
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Vampire Kisses
Yes, I'm following the vamp lit trend.
Hell no I have not and will not read Twilight.
Now on Vampire Kisses 3: Vampireville.
...this series is pretty much what Twilight should have been:
More about an intelligent teenage girl's reactions to entering a previously unknown supernatural world through her romance with a vampire, than about the supernatural world itself.
Especially since the rest of Raven's 'world' (i.e., Dullsville) puts so much pressure on her to act and look a certain way.
Everything is experienced at Raven-level, so there isn't any temptation to make the series more grandiose or world-encompassing than it needs to be.
That being said, Schreiber takes a too much time describing Raven's goth-ness.
We get it. She's gothic.
Stop telling us the details of her black eyeshadow/lipstick/nail polish application process EVERY TIME she does it.
Same thing with how her room looks.
We KNOW she has an Edward Scissorhands lamp and sleeps with a Hello Batty plush.
Basically, I shouldn't get overwhelmed by her goth-ness in EVERY SINGLE BOOK.
This could have all been done ONCE in the first book, and just left to implication and reader foreknowledge for the rest of the series.
Anyway, still chugging along in school.
I'm starting to think I'm the teacher's pet in Spanish.
I mean come on, when the teacher uses YOUR notes to create test questions, what else can you think?
Same thing with asking me every day "what did we cover last time"?
Hell no I have not and will not read Twilight.
Now on Vampire Kisses 3: Vampireville.
...this series is pretty much what Twilight should have been:
More about an intelligent teenage girl's reactions to entering a previously unknown supernatural world through her romance with a vampire, than about the supernatural world itself.
Especially since the rest of Raven's 'world' (i.e., Dullsville) puts so much pressure on her to act and look a certain way.
Everything is experienced at Raven-level, so there isn't any temptation to make the series more grandiose or world-encompassing than it needs to be.
That being said, Schreiber takes a too much time describing Raven's goth-ness.
We get it. She's gothic.
Stop telling us the details of her black eyeshadow/lipstick/nail polish application process EVERY TIME she does it.
Same thing with how her room looks.
We KNOW she has an Edward Scissorhands lamp and sleeps with a Hello Batty plush.
Basically, I shouldn't get overwhelmed by her goth-ness in EVERY SINGLE BOOK.
This could have all been done ONCE in the first book, and just left to implication and reader foreknowledge for the rest of the series.
Anyway, still chugging along in school.
I'm starting to think I'm the teacher's pet in Spanish.
I mean come on, when the teacher uses YOUR notes to create test questions, what else can you think?
Same thing with asking me every day "what did we cover last time"?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Just finished Tempted...
Holy crap....
It's an amazing testament to P.C. Cast's ability as a writer when I feel shattered after watching her protagonist experience horrific trauma.
Especially when the trauma involves the death of her rock, the love of her human and vampyre life, the anchor by which she is held to her sense of self...dying as his spirit cries out to reveal the secret to destroying the enemy....
...and we're left not only not knowing whether or not she got the message, but seeing their souls in the afterlife together.
Holy **** on a ****ing sandwich!
I'll probably call this a fairly good day when I get home from work tonight, but at the moment it's all just fuzzy.
Plus I'm pissed that I have to wait until APRIL 27TH to find out what the hell happens next!!!
Maybe I'll 'finish' my fanfic during the ensuing TWO MONTHS' time.
Might just post it here if ya'll're niiiiiice.
Anyway.
Got a chance to wax (gush) romantic in my Spanish class.
Had to write a 12-15 sentence paragraph about a family member.
So of course, I wrote about my wife.
Mi esposa es muy facil amar, y muy bien a mi.
(My wife is very easy to love, and very good to me)
Yeah.
"AWWWWWWWWWWW"
Yep. Don't say learning another language doesn't have its uses.
Mi esposa es el amor de mi vida!
(My wife is the love of my life!)
More awwwwwww's ensue.
Especially since she's sick at the moment.
Mi esposa está enferma hoy. Lamento que yo no pudiera hacerle todos mejor con un beso.
[My wife is sick today. I wish I could make her all better with a kiss.]
It's an amazing testament to P.C. Cast's ability as a writer when I feel shattered after watching her protagonist experience horrific trauma.
Especially when the trauma involves the death of her rock, the love of her human and vampyre life, the anchor by which she is held to her sense of self...dying as his spirit cries out to reveal the secret to destroying the enemy....
...and we're left not only not knowing whether or not she got the message, but seeing their souls in the afterlife together.
Holy **** on a ****ing sandwich!
I'll probably call this a fairly good day when I get home from work tonight, but at the moment it's all just fuzzy.
Plus I'm pissed that I have to wait until APRIL 27TH to find out what the hell happens next!!!
Maybe I'll 'finish' my fanfic during the ensuing TWO MONTHS' time.
Might just post it here if ya'll're niiiiiice.
Anyway.
Got a chance to wax (gush) romantic in my Spanish class.
Had to write a 12-15 sentence paragraph about a family member.
So of course, I wrote about my wife.
Mi esposa es muy facil amar, y muy bien a mi.
(My wife is very easy to love, and very good to me)
Yeah.
"AWWWWWWWWWWW"
Yep. Don't say learning another language doesn't have its uses.
Mi esposa es el amor de mi vida!
(My wife is the love of my life!)
More awwwwwww's ensue.
Especially since she's sick at the moment.
Mi esposa está enferma hoy. Lamento que yo no pudiera hacerle todos mejor con un beso.
[My wife is sick today. I wish I could make her all better with a kiss.]
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