"Waiter, I'd like what he's having..."

I just returned from a business trip to Dallas. One of our many, excellent meals was at Palomino, an upscale-ish chain where my wife and I (in another city) had lunch as part of our day-long celebration of her birthday about two years into our marriage. It was a fond memory and a restaurant she really likes, so I was thinking of her.

At the end of the meal, each guest gets a thank-you card with a fortune of sorts in it. Mine read:

"Getting married is like going to a restaurant. You order what you want, then when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that." - May Aubrey

Meltdown

For our eleventh anniversary, we had dinner at one of the ski resorts. As the day had progressed and we’d communicated only the bare minimum necessary to coordinate yard work and some matters relating to the kids, it became apparent that neither of us really wanted to go, that we didn’t really want to “celebrate” this arrangement, this predicament. But it seems that even more, we didn’t want not to go, perhaps for fear of what that would validate so tangibly.

A few miles up the canyon, I realized that I’d worn the charcoal gray shirt that had belonged to somebody who was close to me, and that his parents had given to me after his passing. I thought of James Joyce and smiled at the ironic appropriateness of wearing a funereal color, and this shirt in particular, to an event commemorating something that was dead, or at least dying.

My wife shared her sadness at giving up on many of her life's dreams--as she clarified, this came to mean specifically her hope to have had many children--and finding piecemeal joy in the day-to-days of being with the boys. She said that her only good, "major memory" of the past year was a road trip that she, the boys and I took last fall, while our daughter was with my wife's parents in the Midwest.

We’d sat for a short time in the waiting room near the host’s station, when four twenty-somethings sat down at the table next to us: Two tall, blonde German girls with a couple of goofy-looking guys (one German, one American), all with the rosy-cheeks/reverse-raccoon-eyes look suggesting that they’d been skiing without much sunscreen. The girls’ faces were unremarkable but attractive enough. One of them wore no bra, her small, perky breasts bouncing under her sleeveless blouse, her nipples pressing against the ivory silk as she shifted around with conversation and laughter.

It’s a nice-ish restaurant that we’ve eaten at several times. Small enough to look around the room and remember some of the tables where we'd sat on various occasions: A dinner discussing the “next big thing” with potential business partners, the night I told her I’d gotten a big raise, double dates with good friends, etc.

We sat coldly next to the fireplace and ate in silence, generally avoiding eye contact, the consummate ‘Honey, did you see that couple over by the fire at the restaurant tonight? You could just tell that they were waaaay over each other. I hope we’re never like that!’ couple.

We did manage to fill about 40 seconds when I asked her for a little more feedback on a purchase she’d made while I was out of town on business -- a purchase that broke our $100 agreement, which is (as you may be aware) a commitment to at least discuss in detail if not agree to any out-of-the-norm purchases that exceed $100. (After a decade of financial feuding and lots of big-ticket surprises, we instituted the agreement recently as the result of negotiating a very expensive, non-essential purchase for her. Ironically—on so many levels—the negotiated purchase was of a bicycle, one that she was convinced was literally The Only True And Living Bike on the face of the planet that she can ride, it ran about 3x the price of substantially-similar bicycles, and she’s ridden it perhaps three or four times since we bought it seven months ago.) She said, “I know it creates a trust problem, but when I’m feeling like I am right now about you, about our marriage, I guess I really don’t care about your trust or our commitments.” A sentiment I can certainly appreciate.

15 or 20 minutes later I asked, “Is there anything at all that you want to talk about?” “No. Anything you want to talk about?” I never responded.

What I had wanted to talk about, as I’d thought throughout the day about the upcoming evening out, was to go through or even write out a list of key marital compatibility points:

• Intellectual
• Spiritual
• Physical/sexual
• Interests/hobbies
• Emotional/communication
• Financial
• Goals
• Etc.

…and discuss them. (I’d even thought about writing them on two separate sheets of paper, having each of us place a 1-10 “How We’re Doing” score next to them, and then swapping sheets, but I didn’t think that anything really constructive would come from her seeing my sheet full of sub-5 scores.) My point was going to be to acknowledge that for her, as it is for many (or so it’s claimed), everything starts at the Spiritual and builds from there. But for me, based on my experience in this marriage and my understanding of myself, be it wiring or nurture or what-not, unless the Physical is fiery, the others will not progress. And if none of this progresses--and soon--we both know that this marriage will not last.

But we didn’t talk.

A short time after we were seated, the German girls et al had joined four other people at a large table about 15 feet away from us. Halfway through our meal, out of the somewhere-between-center-and-corner of my eye, I caught braless girl take her seat upon returning from the bathroom. As she sat down, her friend excused herself. As the friend stood, it was impossible not to note the slender legs extending from the 4” heels of her black leather knee-highs up toward to rafters, wrapped in tight black denim, and delineated from her black sweater by an inch or two of exposed skin at the small of her back. My wife was gazing at the fire—rightfully questioning her decision to marry me and then stick it out for one anniversary after another—and so I counted to ten and excused myself, at first wanting simply to watch these legs make their way down the corridor to the restrooms, which I knew were dozens of blessed strides away at the other end of the building. I nonchalantly hustled out but, alas, had counted too long and she’d already disappeared into the ladies’ room. So I stood in the hallway, pretending to be interested in a collection of photographs (in front of one of which my wife had taken a picture of our daughter at about age two and had given it to me as a Christmas present – in fact, I’m looking at it right now), awaiting her exit, upon which I’d follow her back to the restaurant at a cushion of several paces. But then my mind raced to imagine meeting face to face in the hall, throwing her a line in rusty German suggesting that we find a dark corner (that would be “eine dunkle Ecke”) for something fast and that our friends wouldn’t notice. The thought began to arouse me and I started stepping through the logistics, when the door opened and she emerged. I didn’t turn to face her directly or obstruct her path; she only glanced at me as she passed. I was disappointed and relieved.

At the end of the meal, when we passed on dessert and the waiter went to ring us up, I said, “Well, it hasn’t been all bad. You’ve got to travel to some cool places. You’ve got three amazing kids, two of whom you love, one of whom [our eldest, the girl] you’re trying to love. Nobody’s starved. I’ve never hit you, although I’ve wanted to a few times.” I stopped short before, “And I’ve never had an affair, although I’ve wanted to a few times.” We’ve discussed that before and at length, but it seemed a little brutal for this setting – more brutal, yes, than the “hit” line.

The sound of the engine and her request to turn up the fan didn’t overcome the silence, so a quarter mile down the canyon, I turned on the radio. It took only “-ver gonna say good-” from Rick Astley's unmistakable baritone for me to know that “Never Gonna Give You Up” would not be a welcome commentary, so I punched P2 over to 90.1 for some jazz. That canyon has a bit of a history for us: We went to that ski resort for our second date. The date was at her invitation and the location her choice. I drove, and as my dad’s Isuzu Rodeo made its way down the canyon afterwards, I took her left hand in my right, between the elbow rest and the automatic transmission shifter. Our first physical contact, this hand-holding was so intense, so…almost erotic, that it took us both by surprise and set the stage for things to follow (and then, eventually, to dissipate). So whenever we drive down that canyon together—which is not infrequent—the car fills with a thick, unspoken recollection of that magical first descent together, and when the feeling between us is not at its best—also not infrequent—we are acutely aware of how far the passion has fallen.

A few miles from home, I asked her if I could ask a question. She said yes. I asked, “Early in our marriage, we had lots of problems in general. And you were also keenly aware of the attitudes I had about certain aspects of your body. And yet there were times when we had interesting, impassioned, and…I’d say even ‘urgent’ sex. Today we still have lots of problems, and you’re still aware of attitudes I have about your body, but sex is…well, you know how it is, in addition to being really rare. What do you…” “We didn’t have three kids back them. Every couple on the planet will tell you what having kids does to sex. I’m surprised that you even ask this question.” “I’m not talking about having sex on the kitchen counter or in the backyard. I’m talking about…” “By the time you finally get home from work at night, I’m done. You don’t wake up early enough to allow for intimacy in the morning, and you don’t create special opportunities for it on other occasions. I don’t know what you’re expecting. Besides, it's not like I'm going to go hop on a Stairmaster or do a thousand sit-ups so my body can match some ideal of yours.”

When we got home, she went to bed. I watched a West Wing rerun -- an episode from season seven called “Duck and Cover,” about the near-meltdown of the fictional San Andreo nuclear power plant.

A double disadvantage

Friday night, we went with a few couples from our ward to do sealings. The sealer (who is also our home teacher and a man for whom I have tremendous intellectual respect) emphasized the fact that each spouse "gives" him- or herself to the other, who elects to "receive" the giver. This underscored to me that my wife and I haven't fully given ourselves to each other. We're always at least a toe--sometimes a few limbs--outside of the marriage. (More about Me And The Temple in a future post.)

Tonight, we had a multi-family FHE with a couple of neighbor families. It wasn't really FHE, although it was more of an FHE than I manage to pull together under our roof most of the time. It was mostly the kids playing kick the can and the adults engaging in freeform conversation around a fire. So we'll call it a Fireside and check it off of some list that I'm sure is somewhere.

One of these couples--also in our session Friday--is extremely frank about their past and ongoing challenges. Not in a shock-value/one-upmanship way, but just because that's how they are. Off-the-charts brainiacs, great kids, Straight & Narrow, turbulent marriage. The conversation went meta, turning to the question of whether any of us could identify a "truly ideal" (loaded, I know...I'm just reporting the news) relationship among any couples that we know well -- old, young, related, unrelated, living, dead, etc., anything was fair game. The group came up with TWO.

(One nice thing about spending time with other couples is that the more my wife gets to peek behind the veneer of relationships that she once idealized, the less she expects out of ours. OK, that's the couch potato way to put it. What I mean is, "The, uh, more she realizes that each couple will have its own share of challenges, sadness, disappointments, etc.")

In conjecturing reasons for such a short list, a consensus emerged that the husbands tend to be more jerkish than do the wives. I tend to agree. At first, I wondered whether the man's --in general-- physical and financial advantages create and maintain in her fears, respectively, of pain and poverty that allow him to be cavalier and callous, or worse.

And then I wondered whether it has more to do with the Natural Man's --again, in general-- innate incompatibility with monogamy (notwithstanding C.S. Lewis's articulate defense of it as being in fact very natural...I can't find the quote, but he asserts, in part, that the yearning of one for the one other is the soil from which our race's entire body of romantic poetry and song sprang forth), a struggle that can breed frustration, bitterness and resentment, all of which he projects on and embodies in her, the woman to whom he swore monogamy --at least mortal monogamy-- in front of God, angels and witnesses, and he's now second guessing, as he does from time to time, what he got himself into.

Speaking of C.S. Lewis: “A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women, whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary, are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us. And the quality by which they most easily hold a man, their beauty, decreases every year after they have come to maturity, but this does not happen to those qualities of personality —women don’t really care twopence about our looks— by which we hold women. Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose. I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.” (from God in the Dock)

Mom & Dad, Summer & Krystal

This afternoon, my parents called me at work just to tell me they loved me. My mom spoke, said my dad --who spoke intermittently in the background-- was up much of the night with a bad cough, and that they were thinking about me and wanted to call, nothing fancy, just to call. I think it's the first time they've done that.

This evening, on my way from work to downtown (SLC) for an event I needed to participate in as part of my Church calling, I called home to check in. My son answered, we spoke for a moment, then he handed the phone to his mom:

Me: Hi, I'm just calling to see how things are going.

Her: What does it matter how they're going? You're not here to enjoy it if it's going well or to help anything if it's not.

Me: Oh. Sounds like they're not going so great.

You'll be surprised to learn that--brace yourself--it deteriorated from there.
Several hours later, I was heading home listening to Elder Eyring's most recent conference talk and becoming mildly agitated about the conspicuous absence of "unity" in our home--and very aware of my role in that disunity--when I passed Trails ("A Gentlemen's Club") on 3rd West. Its digital marquee flashed:

"...TWO GIRLS ON EVERY STAGE...CALENDAR GIRLS SUMMER & KRYSTAL..."

It wasn't until the low RPMs rumbled my engine that I realized that I'd slowed from about 45 to something in the high 20s, and that I was having to consciously ennumerate the reasons why it would be just plain stupid to go in there.

So I chose more benign rebellion by turning on some Billy Idol and grabbing a pint of Häagen-Dazs Bailey's at the nearby Wal-Mart, where I lingered at the fashion mag covers in the checkout line.

Facebook seems to snuff the old flames

I've read --and it makes sense-- that social networking sites are breeding grounds for infidelity. After years of resistance, I gave in a few months ago and have really gotten into Facebook. It's amazing stuff. I've (as goes the FB lingo) "reconnected" with scores of old friends, including, yes, some former girlfriends, most of whom are married with children, and none of whom --as far as I can tell...famous last words of naïveté!-- seem to be on the prowl.

With the exception of one serious, pivotal and in many ways wonderful relationship that lasted from a year before my mission to roughly a year after, my marital "what ifs" aren't backward-looking -- meaning, I haven't given much thought to "How would it have been if..." Instead, they're predominantly "How would it now be if..." So while there is an extramaritally-validating element to being back in touch with people, male and female alike, who knew me back when I was interesting and even cool, I don't find myself enticed, probably in large part because seeing these women now "breaks the seal" in my memory of them as nubile 17-to-25 year olds, reminding me of how unusually kind the years and motherhood have been to my beautiful wife.

"Because the daughters of Zion are hotties..." (Isaiah 3:16)

I was on BYU campus for a few hours today. As you may be aware, most buildings on campus are repurposed on Sundays for Church meetings, and my visit apparently overlapped with the beginnings and ends of several meeting blocks, as the sidewalks would swell intermittently with groups of students coming and going in their Sunday best.

I didn't, uh, fail to notice that most of the girls (I should say women, as I don't remember the female studentbodies walking and mincing with this kind of sophistication when I was there) were bona fide head-turners, and the Quad did blossom as the rose, with more leg than Radio City Music Hall.

Yea, Isaiah truly saw my afternoon.

Wash, rinse, repent

I've been listening to October 08 Conference tapes during my commute lately. Elements of Elder Christofferson's talk "Come to Zion" resonate with me in a way that few recent addresses have, but more on that in a future post. For now, I want to nitpick a line that jumped out at me as I listened this afternoon, from the Priesthood Session: "True servants of Jesus Christ are properly groomed."

Statements like this make it difficult for me to process and ponder the messages that surround them, largely because my mind gets stuck in this groove on the record (and I know that the prophets of old saw our minds getting stuck in sundry progress-hindering grooves), "Wait, did he really just say that? And is that what me really meant, or did he mean something else but that was just the most succinct way of encapsulating the broader idea?"

Not sure where to begin on this (and I'll skip the "How are two earrings bad but one is OK? / What if you're from a tribal culture where piercings are the norm and the absence thereof is the sign of deviancy, rebellion and dangerously individualistic expression?" > "It's not about earrings, it's about obedience." > "Obedience to which eternal principle?" > "You're body's a temple." > "Agreed. Then why is even one piercing OK?" side discussion) so I'll just throw out some bullets, in no particular order, and eventually arrive at my point, maybe:

- To consider the application of this “principle” at its most practical level, does the frequency of one’s hair-washings or the potency of one’s B.O. have anything to do with one’s degree of devotion? If anything, didn’t Isaiah and Lehi warn against too much grooming, not inadequate grooming? What's the One True Standard of Personal Hygiene to which we should aspire? Socially-acceptable grooming practices vary widely even among industrialized nations (not to mention many Third-World countries where the Church is thriving), so is it the standard Procter & Gamble and Monk would like us to see us embrace, or is this universal truth subject to local interpretation? And would John the Baptist be up-to-sniff?

- If The White Shirt "is simply a symbol of purity," then what do charcoal gray or navy suits symbolize? (More on that well-worn vestment here.)

- There's the "There should be nothing about [your] personal appearance that would distract" argument, which seems like a reasonable point, until, assuming “to distract” means to “stick out,” one takes a closer look at the basis by which distraction is measured. Virtually everything we wear is the product of fashion design filtered and disseminated via various marketing mechanisms. So are we to attire ourselves in the most moderate common denominator of whatever our given culture offers, after the marketing process has played itself out in establishing what’s pinko radical, what’s weirdo puritanical, and what’s We’re-Peculiar-But-Not-SO-Peculiar-As-To-Alienate-Prospects vanilla? This seems to be the case and vanilla’s the winner (that is, Western corporate culture vanilla), which means that this truth is, at its source, being defined by Hugo Boss & Friends. Which makes perfect sense, especially for Deacons passing the sacrament in Uganda or home teachers making the rounds in Sri Lanka.

- I broached this topic with my wife earlier today. She asked the very reasonable question, “How do you think a disciple of Christ should groom or dress?” I said, “In a way that doesn’t provoke immoral thought. Beyond that, nothing else matters.” I’d add that, when the situation is appropriate, one should dress in the way that his or her culture associates with respect. In Chicago, this may very well mean a suit. (Although, as my bishop mentioned, “If I’m wearing a $7 grand Brioni to Sacrament Meeting, there’s a problem,” to which I’d add, “If you own a $7 grand Brioni, there’s a problem.”) But it will mean something very different in Kingstown, Accra and Quito – so why does the Church promulgate the idea of purity inherent to The White Shirt and the clean shave? My wife also asked, “Why are you making such a big deal out of this? It’s little, it’s nothing. You’ve got more important things to work out.” (For the record, I conform to Church Grooming & Dress Standards at least 99.6% of the time.) Given that we in the Church certainly know that little things can mean a lot (see Alma 37:6-7), it’s hard for me to view this small matter in isolation. And it’s hard for me to reconcile it to anything other than the lasting influence on Church patriarchy of IBM and Hippies, each a model of controllable and uncontrollable behavior, respectively, manifest through its own “uniform” – which, incidentally, IBM eventually gave up on.

I can’t believe I just blew 45 minutes on this.