The First 100 Days

Day 100: An Open Letter to My Wife

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:10:00 +0000

Dear Asia,

I just got kicked out of the house.

Ten minutes ago, while I was working from home in my holey gray sweats, I heard a banging on the front door. I thought it was UPS or something at first, but it wasn't.

It was the exterminator. I forgot you had scheduled him to come through today. He stood there with all his supplies, ready to blaze the place with insecticide or whatever they use. At first I told him to come back another time. I was on deadline with an assignment. But I know how much you hate bugs. (With all that squealing, I think the whole neighborhood knows how much you hate bugs.) So I told him to go ahead with it. He said I would have to go somewhere for two hours because if I stayed, I wouldn't be able to breathe.

You're using the car today. So now I’m here at the coffee shop down the street, sitting at a corner table with my laptop. (I guess this means I'm a real writer now.)

I know you won't read this letter until later. You're at work and I won’t even see you for another seven hours. But I’m taking you out tonight. So be ready. What’s the occasion? You and I, darling, have been married for 100 days. It's a celebration.

Truth be told, this has been the longest 100 days of my God-given life. But I can't imagine it any other way with anyone other than you. This whole week, I’ve been thinking about everything that has happened in the past three months, so pardon me while I get my reminisce on...

At this time, 100 days ago, I was choking on salt water somewhere under the Caribbean Sea. I couldn’t breathe and I panicked. As we were scuba diving off the coast of St. Lucia, I really thought my life was over. I even imagined what my tombstone might say:

Here lies Russell Nichols (1983 – 2009) In St. Lucia, he took the plunge. Literally.

We survived, but we’ve been caught in the undercurrents of reality ever since.

Early on, we wasted time arguing about a whole lot of nothing. I fought for independence. I felt like you were trying to strip me of my identity. I struggled to see us as one. But my biggest fight was my own battle of Jericho. I always knew I had issues with pride, but I never really had to confront them until I fell for you. Before, I could do whatever I wanted; I was a romantic loner, a freelance lover. Still dealing with pains from my past, I kept my guard up. I didn’t let anyone get close enough to hurt me. I thought I could carry that mentality into the marriage. I was wrong.

Pride goes before destruction, a lesson I refused to learn. In that case, maybe what happened on Day 27 was a warning, or an omen of sorts. I was in a four-car collision that totaled my truck, Trinity. It tore me up inside. I know you never fully understood what she meant to me, but you helped me through the grieving process. And you were there when the banks kept turning me down for a car loan because of my bad credit. Through it all, you stayed positive and told me it will all work out -- even though I didn't want to hear it at the time.

Indeed, we are different in many ways, polar opposites. But those differences bring balance. You have taught me so much about life, about love, about faith. You showed me how to open up my heart to the possibility of human poetry.

On Day 80, when you went to jail, you showed me true strength in the spirit. I wanted to rescue you from that wretched place, but I couldn't. I thought I failed. Despite the nightmare that it was, you still say it happened for a reason. You still smiled.

It made me realize that I can't take you for granted. Since then, I've been trying to do better at making sure you know without a doubt that you're my angel. I'm still learning how to be more open. But that is my mission: To take you beyond where we've been, and mark my words in the depths of your soul. You may not know how much I adore you, but I will to spend the rest of my days showing you love in the language you understand. As a man. As your man.

It has been two hours now since I left the house. Time truly flies, as we both know. I appreciate you following up with the exterminator. At first, I didn’t think we needed one. I thought I could handle the bug problem in the house by myself (Beware of superhero complex). But to be honest, I knew there would be bugs I couldn't catch or didn't see.

In the same way, I know there will be other types of bugs that try to creep into our marriage, both seen and unseen. I understand that we don’t have the power or the tools to get rid of these things alone. There will be times when we have no choice but to humble ourselves and call on the Lord above (according to His resume, He has tons of extermination experience), then have faith that He'll restore us.

It's Friday afternoon and I admit, it feels good to be outside the house right now. I know the place probably reeks of pest control products and chemicals. I needed the fresh air anyway. When I'm in the zone, I tend to get so caught up in my box that the world goes round without me. You know how I am. That's why I thank God for you.

You remind me to be still and take a deep breath. You inspire me to live each day as if it's our last. You, my darling, are a divine work of art, and together, we're a masterpiece-in-progress. Thank you for helping me see the big picture, in light of my narrow-minded lens.

We have been married for 100 days. I can't say what the next 100 days will look like, let alone the rest of our lives. I can't even say what tomorrow will hold, but know that I am holding onto your heart for dear life. I look forward to spending forever with you. I look forward to showing you love in ways you've never seen or felt. I look forward to becoming a better man with you, for you.

And with God leading the way in truth, you and I can overcome anything that lies before us. As long as we communicate -- and remember to breathe.

Love,

Russell

Day 99: Inauguration Day

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:58:00 +0000

(image by Prince Roy)

I wonder what Barack Obama was thinking on that wintry day eight months ago, as he stood on the National Mall in front of millions and became the 44th president of the United States.

What was going through his mind after he finished swearing in with "So help me God"? Did he realize the magnitude of the moment? Did he have any idea what he was getting himself into? I doubt it. As smart as the man may be, there is no way he could predict his first 100 days in office, let alone his first four years.

All the planning in the world couldn't prepare him for what was to come: the political shenanigans, the public complaints, the death threats. Not to mention the fact that he has the weight of the free world on his shoulders and he still has to be the man to his wife and daughters.

But I wonder if Obama has moments when he feels like he's failing, those times when he thinks he's not living up to the people's expectations. When he looks back over the past eight months, would he say he's done a good job?

I ask these questions because I see my wedding ceremony as my inauguration. One hundred days ago, on a summery day in St. Lucia, I stood with Asia on a private beach and became a married man. I was at peace. I knew I was making the right move.

Now, looking back, there is no way I could have predicted any of my first 99 days. I had no idea what I was in for. In this marriage, I've already had those moments when I felt like I was failing, times when I thought I wasn't living up to my wife's expectations.

This all brings me to my deeply buried lede: It's a thin line between love and politics.

Which means Obama and I are basically the same dude. Wait, hear me out. No I'm not running the country per se, but as the head of the house, my days do revolve around trying to make decisions in the best interest of the one who chose me: my wife.

And when you think about it, isn't the whole singles dating scene like one big political convention? You go out, mix and mingle, and learn what you like. Everybody has an agenda. You pour over platforms, discuss future plans and examine various viewpoints from people who claim they can give you a better tomorrow.

All the while, you're trying to figure out who you should support, which candidate you want to ride for, if any. You wait to find the one who will make you scream out “yes we can,” that one who will have you making T-shirts, rocking buttons, buying bumper stickers and going door to door to declare that you’re no longer undecided.

On May 13, 2009, Asia voted for me. She chose me to lead our household, in a sense, the same way we, the people, chose Obama to lead this nation. Now, for me, every day is a day of learning how to communicate and compromise. Every day I try to do better than the day before. I know Asia will have those moments when she’s wondering what she was thinking when she married me. (“After going to sleep on his wife, Russell’s approval ratings are down today.”) It’s only natural. That’s her right as a wife/voter/woman with a voice.

[SIDEBAR]
Even though, sometimes, my wife takes that whole “I have a voice and I will be heard” idea a little too literally. SMH.
[END SIDEBAR]

But, my fellow Americans and global citizens at large, I believe I have found the key to this political arena called marriage. Putting all pride aside, being a husband really comes down to one simple philosophy, spoken by President John F. Kennedy on his Inauguration Day in 1961, and remixed by yours truly in 2009:

Ask not what your woman can do for you. Ask what you can do for your woman.

On that private beach in St. Lucia, I declared my vows. I made a commitment. I was “sworn in” as a husband. Now I have 99 days down and forever to go. So help me God.

Day 98: Stronger Than Fiction

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:58:00 +0000

(image by Lucius Kwok)

At its heart, "District 9" is a love story.

It's a love story that is woven tightly through the science fiction tale about an alien community segregated in South Africa, and winds through the apartheid allegory, the action set pieces and the special effects that made the aliens look almost real. Cut through the noise and you will see a story about a man who loves a woman no matter what happens, a fact that gets hammered home in the film's haunting final image.

And on that level, I can relate.

My wife and I just left the movie theater and we're still piecing it all together. After yesterday's downward spiral, I suddenly feel inspired. This is the kind of movie I would want to write -- a movie that transcends its running time and follows you home.

I appreciate that Asia and I both have love for science fiction. (By the way, I made a good choice with "Let The Right One In" last night. I think this Flick Pick idea just might be genius.) Driving home, we discuss various scenes in "District 9," and of course Asia starts asking me her trademark "what if" questions.

"Babe would you still want to be with me if I was an alien?" she asks.

(Uh, do you wanna tell her? Or should I?)

"I doubt it," I say.

I kid, I kid. But her question does get me thinking. The idea of men and women coming from two different planets and speaking different languages has been around for a long time. The Mars and Venus guy made a grip writing about it. We all enter relationships with our own ideas, our own traditions, our own ways of life. And when somebody -- an outsider -- threatens that lifestyle, we react.

So the question in relationships, and in the movie, is basically the same: Can two beings with different backgrounds truly co-exist?

This Friday, I will have been a married man for 100 days. Already. In retrospect, this has been a journey, to say the least. I'm thinking back on all the ups and the downs, the good and bad times, the petty fights forgotten by morning, the crazy situations beyond our control. But, in this brief moment where I have time to catch my breath, I can see the big picture.

I see that being married is more than what I do or don't do; marriage is a mentality, a mindset that keeps evolving over time and transforming me into something new, something I've never seen before. All the while Asia's transforming as well, never fully finished but ever-forming. Marriage is about growth.

It's crucial that we grow together. Or else we'll grow apart.

I believe this is where relationships fail -- when two people put all their faith in feelings. Because feelings rise and fall. Untended, they can fade away. If that happens, you can look at someone you've been with for years and not recognize them. You see something so unfamiliar that it starts to look hideous. You claim you've fallen out of love. You alienate yourself.

But in love, like in life, the only constant is change. It's no use trying to lock love down because God is love and God cannot be contained. Yet and still, we try. We categorize and put ideas in boxes and restrict ourselves to our comfort zones. We hold onto what we know, and keep away from the unknown -- until we have no choice but to face it.

The protagonist in "District 9" experiences the unknown firsthand. And it's not pretty. But it was necessary for him to grow. It rang true for me. In the same way that I fight to protect who I am in this marriage, this wife of mine has been changing me, helping me understand that I can still be who I am in the context of this new shared experience.

Oddly enough, I'm finding some of her ways rubbing off on me (and vice versa). I catch myself telling people that "everything happens for a reason" and being more open and monologuing like I am now. Indeed, I'm the same man, but I'm adjusting to this new world, as I must do if I hope to survive. At first I was resistant. I wanted her to Keep Out. At times I still am and still do. But I understand the process. Even though it's painful.

The past three months, my wife and I have stood hand in hand, staring down the barrel of reality. No set pieces, no special effects, no director yelling "cut!" when the scenes went off the script. Just real life, with all its sharp turns, sudden changes of pace and noise. But at its heart, mine is too an age-old narrative about a man who will love his woman no matter what happens. True story.

But anyway, to make the long story short (too late), I thought "District 9" was a really good movie.

Day 97: No Mouth, Must Scream

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:58:00 +0000

(image by 4rank)

It's been nearly eight months since I started working at this magazine job, and now the numbness is starting to kick in, the cubicle walls closing in on me.

I don't know why this happens: With every office job I've had, I always find myself running on empty after being there for six to nine months. I find myself feeling restless, unsettled, swirling around the drain of insanity.

I'm sitting at my desk now, going through the motions. My fingers tap dance across computer keys. Words form sentences on the computer screen. But my mind has left the building. I'm thinking about life, and what it all means.

I can't seem to lift this heaviness that's come over me. I've been through a lot in the past few months, but I don't have anything to show for it. Every day I'm asking myself the same questions: Who am I? What is my purpose? And what's up with airplane food anyway?

Cue the quarterlife crisis.

I don't know why I didn't recognize it before. The symptoms were there: insomnia mixed with exhaustion, random irritability, chronic officitis. Supposedly, major transitions create these crisis state moments. Getting married, of course, would fall under the category of a major transition. But I don't think that's the root of my issue. In fact, this marriage has been the only thing keeping me stable, at least lately.

Beyond the marriage, I am lost. It's the things that I can't control that now control my train of thought: The fact that I have no car, and my credit is bad, and it doesn't look like we'll be able to buy a house this year after all. (Silver lining: The joint account is working out just fine.)

The thing is, I feel like I'm on the verge of something. I can't see what it is yet. For the past few weeks, I've been working on this treatment for a reality show idea. I've also been working on movie scripts. I work hard. And I will keep working hard. But does that even matter?

Ideally, I would be traveling the globe with my wife, writing screenplays for a living, science fiction mostly. That would be the life. But instead, I'm here in this office, going through the motions just to pay the bills.

And then I feel guilty. Last year, when my freelancing business started going down, and I had a wedding coming up, I prayed and God blessed me with this job in January. So how can I even think to complain? Especially when people are getting laid off left and right.

I understand that where I am right now is only temporary, a rest stop en route to my dreams. But I've never been good at waiting; I couldn't even be patient in a doctor's office. (See what I did there?) Still, I have no choice but to be.

It's no accident that God gave me an extroverted woman for a wife. In the past, when I would have these "woe is me" episodes, I would isolate myself, shut the world out and hibernate until my winter ended. I would write a lot, and I didn't talk to anybody. I could get away with that when I was single, but as a married man, not so much.

Now, when I want to suffer in solitude, I have to do things like go to see her family, as was the case Sunday. Or she'll want to cuddle, as is the case every day. But I thank God for this woman because she radiates, which makes it difficult for a man to hide in the dark. Her energy forces me out of what's familiar, and I hate that at the time, but appreciate it later.

That's what happened tonight. I came home from work and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and cover up my confusion with sleep. But my wife had other plans.

She's telling me about her new idea for us to choose what movies we watch. She wrote down a list of genres, cut and folded them and put them in a plastic bag. How it works is that one of us will pick a genre out of the bag, then select two movies in that genre. The other person will then select one of the two options, and that's what we'll watch. Flick Pick, she calls it.

I know this is probably her undercover way to force me to watch those dumb horror movies. But it's a dope idea nonetheless.

[SIDEBAR]
Creativity = Sexy
[END SIDEBAR]

It's almost 10 p.m. Asia's finishing up dinner in the kitchen. I'm lying on the floor with the laptop.

"You ready to pick your movie?" she asks, bouncing over to me with the plastic bag.

I'm first up. I guess a movie would do me some good right now; I need to escape. I reach into the bag. I better pick sci-fi. Please pick sci-fi.

"No peeking," Asia says. "You can't see can you?"

I shake my head. I can't see through the folded papers, and even if I could, I wouldn't need to. After nearly losing my mind today, I know karma's coming around to give me a break.

After moving my hand around for a few seconds, I pull out the white paper. This is it.

I unfold it slowly. I look at the word on the paper, my wife's handwriting in blue marker ...

Horror. Story of my life.

Day 96: Submission Wrestling

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:57:00 +0000

(image by twdhf)

In my hands is a large manila envelope with five giant stamps and no return address.

It's Monday. Again. I'm at home and I've been working since about 9 a.m. It's almost 4:30 in the afternoon now. Asia went to work two hours ago, and I just stepped outside for a second to get the mail.

Back in the kitchen, I flipped through the stack, hoping that a random freelance check that I forgot about would fall out like a subscription card in a magazine. But all I saw were insurance bills, utility bills and couch ads -- garbage, garbage and garbage.

But then I saw the envelope that I'm holding now. What in the world is this? It's addressed to me and Asia with a special services sticker and U.S.A. in our address. Wait a minute ... is this it? I take a closer look at the stamps to find my answer: It's from St. Lucia. After three months and some-odd days, our wedding certificate has finally arrived.

I decide not to open it. I know Asia's been waiting a long time for this to come. So I'll let her have her moment when she gets home from work at midnight.

Why does this matter? Not only does it let us know that the whole escape to St. Lucia adventure actually happened, but without this document, Asia could not legally change her last name.

The last name debate goes way back. We hadn't really brought it up since that early conversation. But I knew the subject would sprout up again once the certificate came.

Back then, Asia had all these reservations about changing her last name, saying she's had it all her life and whatnot. o_O I didn't feel her on that one. In my mind, it was just one of those automatic things: Women get married, change their last names, no questions asked.

Now, almost 100 days in, I understand where she was coming from. I'm not saying she shouldn't change her last name. But I can, on some level, relate to her reluctance.

Ever since we got married in St. Lucia, I've been holding on for dear life to my independence. With each passing day, I felt like I was losing myself in this marriage, and the custom-made "Russell" was getting made over into a generic store-brand product called "husband".

I felt like I was losing control and freedom and the things that made me who I am. I see now that Asia was saying the same thing about her name. She wasn't dead-set against changing it, but she was only telling me that it wasn't easy to give up that part of who she is. I didn't listen.

"You don't understand," she said in our earlier discussion. "Men don't have to give up anything. Women have to give up their last names, their bodies during pregnancy. Everything."

That's valid. (Although I can't say I agree that men don't have to give up anything; it's just not as tangible.) Not to get it confused. I am still not hyphenating my name. But this isn't really about her changing her name as much as it's about me changing my understanding of her submission.

I'm learning that submission, like love, is a choice. Not an obligation. Not a right that automatically kicks in once you land on the other side of the broom. But the concept has been so distorted over time that some men wield the 10-letter word like a weapon to abuse women. They spit out scriptures and try to control their wives, forgetting the fact that true submission comes not from a man's commands, but from a woman's voluntary actions.

I honestly believe that most women want to submit to their husbands. They want him to be the head of the house. They want him to be the man. But when a man isn't showing selfless love to his wife, she struggles to submit.

Can I honestly say I've been a husband worth submitting to? Have I been showing my wife selfless love and honoring her freedom of choice? Not completely. I'm working on it. These things take time. Also, above all else, I need to submit myself to God.

The Bible says husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. If ever there was a lifetime commitment ... Oh, but there is. On May 13, 2009 in St. Lucia, Asia and I made one. And now, three months and some-odd days later, we have the signed paperwork to prove it.

Day 95: Memory Lane

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:57:00 +0000

(image by djking)

I can't remember the last time I was getting beat this badly.

Oh, that's right. It never happened.

I'm at a bowling alley in Vallejo with my wife, some of her family and friends. There's seven of us. It's the 4th Frame. And with only 31 points, I'm in dead last place.

They're talking about me, telling me I'm out of my league. After all the trash I talk, I can't be mad at that. I just better find a way to come back. I hate losing.

Earlier this afternoon, Asia and I drove down to Vallejo for a family dinner at her aunt's house. Depending on traffic, it's about an hour away from where we live. I wasn't trying to be there for a long time. We both had to go to work the next day.

At the house, we feasted on barbecue chicken, ribs, potato salad, macaroni salad and beans. We stayed there until about 9:30 p.m. After packing some leftover plates and dropping Asia's mom off at her house, we drove to the bowling alley up the street. Asia's sister had invited us there for a going-away-party type of deal for a friend who's moving to Atlanta tomorrow.

I thought it was a dope idea. I was in a winning mood anyway, and it also gave me a chance to check out my old stomping grounds.

Back in high school, this particular bowling alley was the place to be on Saturdays. On those nights, the overhead lights would go down and bright lasers flashed. Music blasted. The place was packed. Nothing but a bunch of rowdy teenagers with their bowling balls, like their minds, in the gutter. We lived for those nights. And whenever a fight broke out and the police shut it down and kicked us all out early, it felt like the world ended. But we knew next week, we'd be back.

But this place means more than that to me. Indeed, this bowling alley and I have a personal history.

What we gon' do right here is go back. Way back. Back into time.

December 1999. My parents just divorced, and my dad moved to Vallejo. I had just transferred to a new high school there.

Christmas break was a week away when I met Asia for the first time. She was a sophomore, and she grew up in Vallejo so she knew everybody. As the new boy on the block, I hardly knew anybody. But when I saw Asia, I knew she was somebody I wanted to get to know.

After school one afternoon, I passed Asia a note with a message and my pager number on it. She paged me that night. I called her back. And for nights to follow, we stayed up for hours talking on the phone until one of our cordless batteries died. I wanted to make her mine. And I was not going to lose.

At the start of 2000, I spent the first three months living with mom back in Richmond, which meant I didn't get to see Asia that much outside of school. But every Saturday night, we met up at the bowling alley. It was our spot: In February, this is where I kissed her for the first time. Then in April, this is where I asked her to be my girlfriend.

Standing here now, it feels like that was another life. Granted it is a Sunday, but this place doesn't feel familiar. The overhead lights are all on and glaringly bright. Aside from our group, there's only five other people bowling in the whole alley. And there's no music. (It used to be free to request a song, but now they're charging $1 per song. They must've lost their minds on Lane 16 if they think I'm coming out the pocket for that.)

But above all that, the main reason I'm convinced this is some alternate reality is that I'm losing. In high school, I ran these lanes. Nobody could touch me. I was Mr. 300, the King Pin...

"Oh, nice try babe," I hear Asia call out behind me.

I'm standing in front of the Lane 21 now. It's the 5th Frame and I just knocked down 7 pins in my first roll. I haven't gotten a strike or a spare yet. I don't know what's up with me. My bowling average is 165. I mean, I know I haven't bowled in a while, but 31 in the 4th Frame? This hurts my feelings.

At least, let me pick up this spare and get back into this thing. Maybe I'm using the wrong ball. I try a different one and step up to the line. I've done this a million times before (two million if you count the Wii). Just roll the ball down the lane. Three pins. All I need.

I take a step forward, in rhythm, swing my arm back, then forward. And let the ball go ... 2. That brings my score up to 40. This sport is stupid. Who invented bowling anyway?

Asia's up next on the opposite lane. She's been doing her thing. She already got a spare in the 2nd Frame, and she has 39 right now.

She picks up her ball, aims and fires. She bowls a 9, then picks up the spare. I need some of that mojo, STAT! My fate will be sealed in five more frames. Don't panic. Think positive.

I. Will. Not. Lose.

"I'm about to come back on all y'all," I declare to the group.

They laugh.

"It's too late in the game for that," a friend quips.

I sit down, my stomach knotting up. I hate losing. Asia's sitting next to me, trying her hardest not to laugh.

"Don't worry babe," she says. "I believe you."

But all the laughs disappear the next frame when I bowl a strike. I don't say anything. The high-point man has 73 right now. I know I will need a few more marks to pull this off. I manage to get a spare on my next turn.

By the 8th Frame, I'm back in the game -- in second place with 88 points. The high-point man has 90. Do or die time.

Two frames later, I claim victory with 125, at least 20 points more than everybody that scoffed at me and said it couldn't be done. I guess I got my swagger back. Asia ended up with 100, beating out the other women. What can I say? Winning is what we do.

"Victory is ours," I say to her.

It's so crazy that nine years ago, I was here in this bowling alley, kissing a girl that would turn out to be my wife. It just goes to show that the Lord works in mysterious ways, and I never really know how this game called life will play out. All I can ever do is take things one frame at a time -- and know in my heart that I've already won.

It's 11 p.m. when Asia and I leave the bowling alley. It was good to be there again, to reminisce, to see the place where our journey began. But now it's time to hit the road. We've got a long drive ahead of us.

Day 94: Computer Love

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 05:57:00 +0000

(image by TalkingTree)

My wife of three months thinks I need to go to rehab.

I keep telling her it's not that serious, but she doesn't believe me.

"The first sign of Internet addiction is denial," she told me.

"I'm not denying anything," I said as I lied on the living room floor with the laptop. "I would tell you if I was addicted."

Granted, it might not have sounded like the most convincing statement. And the fact that I'm awake at 2 o'clock in the morning, scouring these Internets definitely doesn't help my case. But who is she to judge me? She's just as awake as I am, sitting in front of the desktop computer as we speak, pestering me with questions from an Internet addiction quiz that she just found online. Oh, for the love of irony.

But the more we debate about my so-called denial, the deeper the rabbit hole goes. I'm about to find out that Asia has an issue not so much with what I'm doing online, but with whom I might be I'm doing it with -- specifically, other women.

I am a writer. Which means my computer is like my second heart. I will admit that sometimes I work on my scripts or stay online for longer periods than I planned. Whether I'm in the zone, or staring at a blank screen, waiting for inspiration to strike, minutes turn to hours turn to evenings, which sometimes turn into mornings. This is the life that chose me.

I thought Asia understood that. But for whatever reason -- maybe the lack of sleep, the stress from school, or just simply that curious hormone called estrogen -- she suddenly seems to have a problem with my work habit.

She's asking me these questions on the Internet addiction quiz, but I know my wife well enough to recognize her doublespeak. So I ask her straight up if she has a problem with me being online. Her mouth says no, but her eyes say, "What do you think?" So I ask her again.

"It just..." she struggles to find the words.

I wait for her to finish. I don't want to fill in her sentences with my own hypotheses.

"It just doesn't look right," Asia says finally. "Like if you're sending e-mails at 2:30 in the morning, people will be wondering why you're not with your wife."

"Who cares about people?" I say. "And it's not like they're reading the e-mail as soon as I send them anyway. They won't even see it until the next morning."

"But they can see the time you sent it."

"Who does all that?"

"Trust me," Asia says. "People do that."

"You're talking about women or what?"

"Whoever."

Which means "women."

There was a time when I would have felt a certain way about this whole episode. I would have felt like Asia was trying to dictate what I do or change who I am. Like she was stripping another layer of my independence. My pride would have kicked in, the walls would gone up and the battle would have been on.

But, at least right now, Jericho has left the building. Truth be told, I just want to understand where she's coming from.

I can't get behind the whole "it doesn't look right" idea. People will have their opinions regardless. But if I'm handling my business and got her feeling good, who cares what anybody on the outside is talking about?

But, if she's saying I'm not handling business and this is all some kind of veiled plea for attention, then let's talk about that. I don't really know how it could be that. I make time for her. I make sure I'm taking care of her needs on a regular. And I'm smart enough to know not to ever bring the laptop to bed.

And what's this nonsense about other women? I don't know who or what she's talking about. She's acting like I got a Second Life boo on the side.

Indeed, sometimes I send e-mails or Twitter updates out at random hours of the night. But I'm not really looking at who's male and female. When an idea comes to me, I want to write it down and send it on immediately. Sometimes that idea will come during traditional office hours, and sometimes it'll be a nontraditional hours. In any case, I've been straight up about everything with Asia whenever she asks.

But still, my wife seems to be convinced that I'm in the wrong.

[SIDEBAR]
I'm starting to realize that a man truly doesn't stand a chance against a Woman Who's Convinced. No matter what we do or say, it will always be wrong and we will lose. Chuck Norris ain't got nothing on a WWC.
[END SIDEBAR]

My wife and I have been going back and forth for a while when I stop pleading my case and ask the obvious question: "Do you want me to get off the computer?"

"No, do you," she says. "I was just making an observation."

"Well you clearly have a problem with it," I tell her, "so if you want me to get off the computer, just tell me."

She's quiet for a moment. Then says, "I don't want to tell you what to do."

Alas, the fork in the road. I can either use her silence as an excuse to keep doing what I do, or I can see past her shrug and give in to what she's asking without asking.

At that moment, my mind flashes back to some words of wisdom from a long time ago (read: less than three months, but it feels like forever). This was back when I had a side gig, making deliveries to offices downtown. Not long before that job ended, my employer at the time gave me some grown man advice on how to handle marital disputes. He said any issue between a couple could be solved by asking one simple question: "How important is this to you?"

I never forgot those words, but every time I knew I should say them, I couldn't do it. My pride wouldn't let me.

I looking at my wife now, and the words still aren't coming out of my mouth. But this time, it's not because of my pride. I'm not asking the question because I don't need to. I already know the answer. So I make a decision.

"Look, how about we do this," I say. "I will put a time limit on myself. From now on, I will not send any messages past 11 at night. How's that?"

The side of her mouth curls into a smile and she nods. With that, I close the laptop and we go upstairs to the bedroom.

I still can't say I understand her issue completely, but it doesn't really matter. I did what I had to do as a man, as a husband and as a writer who's not in denial about my non-addiction.

Day 93: Past Perfect, Present Tense

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:56:00 +0000

(image by Mosieur J.)

My eyes burn, my head aches, and all day, I felt like I was going to keel over onto the computer keyboard. And crash.

But I survived. Barely.

After last night and working off of only two hours of sleep, I somehow, some way managed to make it through the day. (Good thing I worked from home too because I doubt the corporate climate would have been too keen on my whole walking dead look.)

It's almost 8 p.m. It's dark outside. My wife should be getting off of work in an hour. I hadn't heard from her all day. She's probably knocked out herself, drooling over her own keyboard and such right about now.

I've been at home, staring at this computer screen since 8 o'clock this morning. I guess I might as well start detox. I stand up and head upstairs to shower.

It's Friday night, which means it's date night. But to be honest, the only place I feel like going is to sleep. Sleep. It's become such a foreign concept to me. I remember at some point in time, I'd be half-dead without a full eight hours. But for weeks now, I've been working off of about four to six hours a night. All my days have started running together. No sooner do I put my head on the pillow does the alarm clock scream in my ear. And I'm off to work. Forty-plus hours. Five days a week. One vicious cycle.

But Friday is my day. Friday means I don't have to wake up at some godforsaken hour to go to work the next day. Friday means I can stay up all night without paying for it later. (Asia goes to work on Saturdays, which plays a factor. But she seems to be able to function on less hours of sleep than I can.) But since we've been married, we seem to have forgotten how to do Friday night. It seems like too many of them have been wasted by arguments about stupid stuff that doesn't even matter a day later.

I can't exactly say why. Maybe all the stress from the week gets built up and Friday night is the time it gets released. Yeah maybe that. But I also think that because it is Friday, we put extra pressure on ourselves to make it count. That pressure puts us on edge. We put more energy into ideas than actions. And before I know it, the night has passed me by faster than a New York City cab.

What changed?

What happened to the way we were? The simple life? The good ole days when everything seemed so ... perfect.

"Remember when we used to just get Boston Market and watch The Wire?"

It's rhetorical, but I ask Asia this question and other variations every now and then. I often think about those times last year and the year before when she would come over to my spot, and we could do nothing and it felt like everything. I was freelancing back then and she still worked in the evenings, so all this getting up early foolishness didn't exist. In fact, the only time I used my alarm clock was on Sundays, to wake up for church.

I think about those days a lot. No pressure. No worries. Just me and my girl. And it was good. But I know it's not real.

It's all in my mind. I know that I've redacted the less-than-perfect parts of my memories. I would bet a million that I was stressed out back then too. And that I hated living check to check just as much as I do now. And that Asia and I still argued about stupid stuff that didn't matter a day later. But I don't remember any of it because I choose not to.

It's crazy because I know that next year, I'll be saying the same thing and having the same thoughts about where I am now.

"Remember when we used to have picnics on the living room floor because we couldn't afford a couch?"

... or ...

"Remember when we used to watch episodes of A Different World on the laptop because we didn't have cable?"

In the future, I won't remember how exhausted I am now or how much time I spent worrying about if we'll have enough to pay rent. I won't remember what exactly my wife and I argued about on any given day. I won't remember because I'll choose not to.

So if this is true, the question is, why is the now always so full of stress? If I know that the daily drama will soon be forgotten, why waste any time dwelling on it?

The objective then is to try and see today through hindsight lenses. I must learn to step outside of the crisis at hand to live in the moment at large. Or else it will pass me by.

It's 9:03 when I get the call from Asia. She's coming home. I tell her that I think we should just chill at the house tonight. Thank God she agrees.

About an hour later, we're lying in the living room on the floor, watching TV on the laptop. It's date night. But sometimes the perfect date is one where I stay home, just me and my girl, doing nothing but it feels like everything.

I almost forgot that.

Day 92: Hot & Cold

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 05:55:00 +0000

(image by awrose)

Hiding in the guest room closet, I'm trying my hardest not to make a sound. My wife can't know that I'm here.

A sliver of light from the hallway shines through the cracked closet door. The space is tight. My suits hang over my head as I sit here, curled up on top of a white plastic bag. The bag is bloated with clothes to be donated, and it makes noise every time I try to move.

I probably should have cased the closet before hiding in here, but I didn't have time. It's 10:20 p.m. Asia just returned home from school. Now the game is about to begin.

I can hear her heels on the kitchen floor downstairs. She should be reading the note I left her on the counter right about now -- explicit instructions for my wife to follow.

It's our three-month wedding anniversary, and I have big plans for tonight. Yesterday, I bought Asia some lingerie from Frederick's of Hollywood and I knew I wanted to surprise her with it today. But I'm not the type of dude to just buy something and say "here take it". Presentation, I believe, is everything.

Two hours ago, I came up with the idea for a scavenger hunt that I called Hot & Cold. I wrote down clues on post-it notes and placed them around the house. Each clue led to another clue, which would ultimately lead to the bedroom, where I hid the lingerie and thigh-highs, and further instructions. I had it all mapped out.

I hear the microwave humming downstairs. In my note, I gave her the option to have some leftover macaroni and cheese before she started the game, so any hunger pangs wouldn't put her out of the mood to play.

My left leg is falling asleep. I try to stretch it out, but the bag makes too much noise. I might be here for a while too, depending on how long it takes Asia to get through the clues. When I hear her come upstairs and turn on the shower in the bedroom -- per my instructions -- that will be my cue to go downstairs and get ready.

[SIDEBAR]
This is my idea of romance. I've never been real big on flowers and candy. I'd rather put together a series of puzzles to solve or a game to play. I've been doing this since we dated in high school. In my director's chair, I can create scenarios and wait and see how she figures it out. Indeed, I do good work behind the scenes. I'm like a young Jigsaw, minus the whole getting off watching people die slow and painful deaths thing.
[END SIDEBAR]

Truth be told, it's been a long time since I did something like this for Asia. I don't know why. Maybe I've gotten lazy. Or maybe all the recent drama just made romance less of a priority. Probably both. Whatever the reason, it's not a good thing.

They say routine is death to a relationship. I think about this a lot because I know I tend to live in cruise control. I'm already seeing how easy it is to get comfortable in a lifetime commitment. Truthfully, this is one of the reasons I thought I would never get married.

When I was single, there was no pressure to keep the spark alive with any woman. In my fear of commitment, I never let it get that far. I did my thing with whoever I was feeling at the time. Once the infatuation phase was over, it was on to the next one. Don't judge me. I'm just being honest.

But marriage is no fling. And forever is a mighty long time.

They say couples should continue to experiment and try new things. But at some point, won't you run out of things to do to keep the relationship fresh? Eventually, it seems like everything will be a rerun of an old episode, and you'll know all the lines by heart. I can't just flashy-thing my wife Men In Black-style and make her forget what we did yesterday. In that case, isn't the trap of routine inevitable?

Suddenly, I hear the shower come on in the bedroom. Time to move out. Slowly, I stand and push the closet door. I peek down the hall. The bedroom door is slightly open, but it sounds like she's already in the shower. I creep past the room and tiptoe down the stairs.

Once again, I have no idea how much time I'm working with. She might take a long shower or take forever to slip into the lingerie. It better fit too. I turn off the lights in the living room, play some music and get some things together in the middle of the floor. Then I wait for my wife to come down.

Perhaps I put too much pressure on myself, as I'm prone to do. I understand ups and downs, and that opposites attract. But I also understand that it's not so much the hot and cold, but the lukewarm feelings that will kill you. Isn't that what people feel when they say they have fallen out of love?

I'm still learning. I'm still new to this game. But I will keep doing what I do whether I feel hot or cold or somewhere in between. Because true romance, I believe, is not based on what I feel, but how I fan this flame through my actions.

At that moment, I hear Asia coming down the stairs. I can't see her yet, but every step brings her that much closer.

Warmer... Warmer...

Indeed, we've only just begun.

Day 91: Like a Virgin

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:55:00 +0000

(image by shimown)

Five minutes ago I lost my virginity.

I went inside Frederick's of Hollywood for the first time in my life. Tomorrow, I will have been married for exactly three months and, for this special occasion, I wanted to surprise my wife up with some lingerie.

It was a genius idea. Not only would some skimpy lace number give me a good reason to dispose of those tired Mr. Bubble pajamas, but also because, as Russell's First Law of Intimacy states, to give is to receive.

The dimly lit store felt like a glorified walk-in closet, and I squeezed my way to the rack on the left side. A techno beat pulsated from hidden speakers. No one else was in the store but me and two clerks. One stood behind the counter, the other hung up items in the back area.

Good, they haven't asked me if I needed help. That means I look like I know what I'm doing.

It's 5:07 p.m. now. Asia thinks I'm still at work, but I left the office early to come here. It was 5:02 when I entered the store. I gave myself 10 minutes to get in and get out. If I'm still in here when the clock strikes 5:13 p.m., the spell would be instantly broken and I would become (gulp) a browser.

Time is ticking. I don't have a clue what to buy. Earlier this afternoon, one of my good female friends gave me a quick lesson in lingerie shopping: Know her size. Lace never fails. Wires, for the win!

It seemed simple enough, and so now I'm moving around like a pro. I make my way from rack to rack, stop to examine something red and sheer, put it back and keep it moving. From the outside looking in, I'm a straight-up veteran. You can't tell me nothing.

Or so I thought.

"Do you need help with anything?" the clerk asks me.

Busted. I look at my phone. It's 5:15 p.m. Too late.

"Nah I'm good," I tell her.

Just because I'm browsing doesn't mean I've sunk that low. I mean, I'm a grown man. What do I look like asking some random chick to help me find something for my wife? In any case, I'm too late. I'm already officially a browser -- with a scarlet letter B on my chest.

I walk to the back area. Discount racks! Now, that's what I'm talking about. Why didn't they put this stuff up front? Didn't they get the memo? There's a recession going on outside.

But as I look over the items, something doesn't feel right. Not in my mind, but with this material. It feels thinner, less elaborate ... cheaper. But who cares right? Is there really such a thing as cheap lingerie? Sounds oxymoronish to me. No matter what it costs, I'll still be getting the same, ahem, return on investment. Am I wrong? Am I wrong?

Right then, another man enters the store on a mission. He walks straight to the clearance rack, which is cluttered with basic lace pieces. He flips through them, snatches a brown one, tosses it on the counter, pays for it and walks out. The whole transaction takes less than two minutes. Good luck with that.

It's going on 5:30 now. The clerk from before approaches me again. She's smiling, but I can see a trace of concern on her face.

"Are you sure you don't need help finding anything?"

"To be honest," I say. "I don't know what I'm doing."

She laughs, then starts asking me questions about what it is I'm looking for. That doesn't help. If I knew what I was looking for I would've been long gone. Then the clerk goes back behind the counter.

"You can look through this catalog," she says, pulling out the store booklet and opening it. "We don't have all the pieces. But we have this one, and this one and ... see that picture behind you? That's this right here but in a different color."

"Can I check this out for a minute?" I ask her about the catalog.

"Sure no problem."

I'm flipping through the pages when I see a black satin chemise with sheer panels, red trim and garter belts -- it has my wife's name written all over it.

I ask the clerk about it and she says they do have that piece in the store, and in a few different colors: burgundy (like the one on the wall), deep purple with black trim, and black with blue velvet trim.

"Only the burgundy and the black and blue ones have matching thigh highs," the clerk tells me.

Matching is always a good idea. I walk to the front area, to the same rack I started with when I first came in here. I examine both pieces. The burgundy one is cool, but it just isn't screaming at me like this black and blue velvet piece. It is settled.

"Okay, now what size?" the clerk asks me, then points to herself. "My size?"

I look her up and down. Uh, no. What do you say to something like that anyway?

Lucky for me, I already knew Asia's size, so I grab one and hand it to the clerk. She takes the chemise and stockings to the counter, rings it up and puts it in a bag. Finally, I exit the store. I don't even want to look at the time.

Outside the mall in the parking lot, I put the goodie bag in the corner of the car trunk. I still have to figure out a way to get the gift in the house without Asia seeing it. But I've got time.

As soon as I start the car, the phone rings and I answer it.

"Have you left work yet baby?" Asia asks me.

"Yup," I tell her. "I'm coming home to you now."

Day 90: Straight, No Chaser

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:55:00 +0000

(image by billaday)

"I want to watch 'The Hangover' and then I want to make love."

For the 10 years that I've known Asia, this has to be one of the most perfect and precise statements to ever come out of her mouth. It's direct, it's concise. The subjects and verbs agree, the voice active. No extra words, no misplaced prepositions, no pointless exposition. Just a simple, straight-forward, sexy-as-all-get-out sentence.

And best believe, she didn't have to tell me twice.

But wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.

I went in to the office today at 9 a.m. Tuesdays are my new Mondays -- and I had a serious case. My head was hurting all day, which doesn't mean much of anything at the workplace anymore; it comes with the territory nowadays. But on a good note, I found out that VIBE magazine would be coming back, this time as a quarterly. I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes. I might just get to see my byline on those pages yet.

I left the office at 6 p.m. and made it home by 6:50. In the kitchen, I see chicken sizzling on the stove, a tray of macaroni and cheese in the oven and my wife standing there in another one of my button-ups. This is all I need in my life.

"I'm going to go take a shower right quick," I tell her, then I head upstairs to my sanctuary.

After I'm refreshed, I throw on some sweats. On my way down the stairs, Asia meets me halfway and right then, she hits me with that perfect sentence.

"I want to watch 'The Hangover' and then I want to make love."

Why is this such a big deal you ask? Because my wife is the undisputed heavyweight rambler of the world. That means her thoughts usually don't come out this fully formed. Now, Asia doesn't think she talks too much -- and she will spend hours explaining why. Fact: Sticks and stones can break your bones, but my wife's monologues will kill you, revive you and kill you again.

Me on the other hand, I prefer the direct approach. I'm still working on my tone. But that's how I like it. Straight up. Raw. And if I can't say it that way, then it must not be important enough to be said at all. Of course Asia hates when I start to say something and say "nevermind." Come to think of it, I've never heard her say nevermind in my life. I can't even imagine what that would sound like coming from her.

In any case, I want no parts of that speech game she plays. Oh, you don't know about her speech game? I'm not sure if she made it up or found it online or something, but basically how it works is that Asia will start talking aimlessly and hope that on the road of her diatribe, she'll discover where she's going. It's like she's playing Marco Polo with "her point."

But this is the woman I chose to spend forever with and in some twisted, romantic horror kind of a way, her long-winded ways balance me out. I know I'm not alone. I know many women suffer from regular spells of word vomit. And many men have had to pluck through the mess to find some semblance of purpose.

In our Sunday conversation, my grandfather gave us this nugget of gold: "Women think with their mouths. Men think with their mouths closed."

That one line pretty much sums up my relationship. But tonight, Asia goes off the script.

Here we are. It's almost 8 p.m. I'm fresh out the shower. The food is hot. We're both hungry. And Asia gives it to me straight, this perfect sentence that needs no panning. Not to mention the fact that it goes against every indecisive bone in her body. Here's a woman who knows what she wants. I like it a lot.

In the living room, I set up the movie while Asia fixes the plates. But 30 minutes into the plan, as we're eating and watching "The Hangover," something goes terribly wrong.

"I don't feel well," Asia groans, curled up on the floor. "My stomach hurts. I feel like I'm gonna throw up."

Perfect. Sentence. Wasted.

I try to find out what's wrong. I rub her stomach and ask her if she wants some tea. As much as I hate to admit it, she probably just needs to sleep.

I help her upstairs and get her in the bed. She's knocked out within seconds. I lie on my back beside her, staring at the ceiling.

Now what am I supposed to do?

It's not even 10 p.m. yet. I could go downstairs and do some work, but I don't really feel like it. My mind is still on the plan. I had already seen "The Hangover" once, and I was looking forward to watching it again with Asia, but clearly that's not happening tonight.

Maybe I could still pull off the second half of the plan. I mean, take away the stomach ache and the fact that she's asleep already, and she's basically good to go. Am I being selfish again? No I'm not being selfish. It's no big deal. I wake her up all the time. I'm a hardworking man. I got rights, needs, now. But then again, she does look comfortable lying here, and Lord knows she needs the rest. We've been staying up too late every night as it is. But at the same time, that means she should be used to it then, right? Decisions, decisions...

All right, that's enough talking.

Day 89: Security Guard

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:54:00 +0000

(image by Thomas Hawk)

Something happened to me yesterday. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it. But if I was on a TV show, it would have been one of those aha moments, where I would have started glowing while the Hallelujah chorus chants in the background.

My grandparents' 50-year anniversary tribute made me step back and look at the big picture. But the epiphany came after church. The whole family went out to dinner and, as always, after the round of updates came the relationship questions -- the "why do men always..." and "how come women don't understand..." questions.

We delved into the usual subjects: love languages, compromise, men and their space, women and their ~~insane Cinderella storybook fantasies about what a relationship should be~~ issues and everything else of the Venus and Mars variety. But in our conversation, something my grandfather said stood out to me. We were talking about women and their constant need for attention, and Pop Pop put in it biblical terms.

"The wife, according to the fall, lives for the desire of her husband," he said, "but because of the husband's love for his wife, his desires are for her best interest."

This is how a husband should live, he said, following in the example of Christ, who despite his every right to judge us, chose instead to surrender his life to the church in love.

Now, I always knew that a woman's need for attention dated all the way back to the beginning. I knew that women tended to hold fast to emotions. I knew that women took whatever a man gave them, multiplied it and gave it back. But I forgot that a woman living for the desire of a husband was all part of the curse.

Driving home yesterday afternoon, I played back the conversation. His words made me re-examine my ideas on insecurity. In my mind, a woman's insecurity was her own problem to solve. Especially when she had no real reason to suspect any infidelity, but still turned every single conversation into a Law & Order interrogation scene.

Allow me to elaborate. Earlier in our relationship, there were times when Asia had an issue with me having female friends. I didn't think it was a big deal. I mean, she had male friends and I never got on her case about that. I trusted her. So what's with the inquisition?

"Who are you texting?" she would ask.

"My friend."

"Is it a girl or a guy?"

"Why?"

"Because I wanna know."

"Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it?! Let me see your phone."

"That's just your insecurity," I'd say, brushing her off and going about my business.

I didn't feel like Asia had a justifiable reason to put me on trial. I didn't do anything to warrant a search and seizure. I was a grown independent man, so who was she to ask me about what I was doing? That was my thinking. So as my defense, I would deflect and blame it on her and her issues.

But was I truly innocent?

These intuitions don't come from nowhere. And according to scripture, if a woman is cursed to desire a husband, and I'm not doing my job as a husband, then am I not just another snake in the garden?

Through prayer, through words of affirmation, through random acts of kindness, I need to do my job, monitoring the perimeter of the relationship for any signs of potential trouble (pride, selfishness, talking serpents, etc.) No I don't have the power to undo what was done in Eden days. But I can do my part to reassure my wife that I'm her man. And make sure that she knows that every single day.

"Take a husband who loves his wife so much that all he wants to do is what's in her best interest," my grandfather said, "and a woman who loves her husband so much that all she wants to do is fulfill his desires. How in the world is that marriage not going to work?"

I suppose the road to 50 years of matrimony starts here.

It's just past 11:30 at night when Asia calls me to let me know she's on her way home. Nice! I worked from home today and I've been up since 8 a.m. But tonight, I'm ready for her. I started detox an hour ago and now I'm in the kitchen making dinner.

It's 11:50 p.m. when I hear the keys in the door. I stop what I'm doing over the stove and go to meet her.

"Hey baby," Asia says as she steps into the house.

I reach out and pull her to me. She can smell the food from the den (and no it's not burning) and heads to the kitchen to see what culinary ~~mess~~ masterpiece I made.

I give her a taste. Then I say, "I want you to go upstairs and get out of those clothes and I'll get this set up."

Without another word, she rushes upstairs. I turn back to the stove.

Just to think. This time last week, I was sitting at home alone by the phone. My wife was locked up in jail and all I could do was wait for her court date the next day. Back then, tomorrow never felt so far away. But this right here at this very moment, this is where I am now. All we ever have is today. And so as long as I have breath, I need to handle my business.

A few minutes later, I hear Asia coming down the stairs. She walks into the kitchen with one of my button-ups hanging loosely off her frame, and some black skin-tight pants on. She looks at me and smiles. And the Hallelujah chorus chants in the background.

Day 88: 'The Greatest Love Story Ever Told'

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:52:00 +0000

(image by Ella's Dad)

At that moment, the church lights go dim.

The host runs down the aisle to the altar, thanking the crowd for coming out like any good host would do. Now that the sermon is over, it's time for the show to begin. I'm sitting with Asia, my brother and his wife. On the other end of our row, in the aisle seat, is my grandmother. I lean forward to watch her expression, careful not to let her see me. She has no idea what's about to happen.

I've known about the event for months now: My grandfather's church had planned a special tribute to honor my grandparents' 50-year wedding anniversary.

The congregation gives a standing ovation as the host calls my grandparents to the front. My grandmother rises from her seat in shock, flustered with tears streaming down her face, as ushers escort her to the stage, where three chairs have been placed. It's good that everybody managed to keep this a secret -- especially from my grandfather, the church's founder and senior pastor. He's usually good at figuring out surprises beforehand. But the smile on Pop Pop's face right now lets me know he didn't see this one coming. Not at all.

"This is the greatest love story ever told," the host tells the congregation.

Once on stage, my grandparents settle into their seats; the host sits down as well. At some point, he's supposed to call up the family members to share their memories. I haven't even seen mom or anyone else this morning. I know they're in here somewhere. But the plan was to be scattered around in the church, so my grandparents wouldn't see us all together and suspect anything.

The host puts them in the hot seat, asking how they met and what they have done to keep the romance alive for so long. Between rounds of questions, the projector screens show a series of slides recapping the decades. After that, the host calls for "witnesses" who can attest to the authenticity of this love story. That's our cue.

We all stand on stage behind the two of them, passing the microphone and talking about what their relationship means to each of us. For me, it means God is real. It's been 50 years. Yet and still, you look at them and you'd think they just got married yesterday.

As a kid, my grandparents' house was the best place in the world. It was like going to a resort. My brothers and I would stay up all night playing video games in my uncle's room and then wake up to the smell of grandma's raisin toast.

I always admired how Pop Pop had his personal office where he could go to work in peace. And grandma always seemed to respect that space.

And as long as I've been alive, I've never seen my grandparents argue. Not once.

"They have a system that works for them," mom told me and my brothers one day after we interrogated her to get some dirt.

Whenever they disagreed about something, mom said, they would leave notes around the house to communicate without going to war.

Theirs is a relationship that's grounded, not only in whose they are, but also who they are. Truth be told, their personalities mirror Asia's and mine. In our relationship, I'm similar to my grandfather: focused and reserved, with an "invitation only" sign on my world; and we both write. Asia is more like my grandmother: free-spirited, a social butterfly, a rebel without a pause; and they both sing.

But we've got a long way to go before we're on their level. With them, I see two people who honor the individuality of one another. Despite the differences, their personalities never seem to clash, but coexist in the new world that they've created together. This is something I'm still learning. At times, I wish Asia would see the world the way I see it, or handle situations the way I would handle them. I highly doubt that approach will work for 50 years. I don't even know if it would work for one year. But I do know I need to learn to appreciate who she is and how she is because, in many ways, she makes me better.

By now, the family has left the stage. My grandparents remain up there with the host. As he asks them a few final questions, I'm sitting back in the pew now, holding Asia's hand. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this reality: My grandparents have been married for half a century.

Not even three months into my own marriage, the 50-year mark is like a mirage to me, a mythical figure in the distance of the desert, and I've got millions of sandy, scorching, suffocating miles to go before I'm even close enough to say it's far far away. But I know it's one step at a time.

As the show concludes, "At Last" by Etta James pours through the speakers and the host gestures for my grandparents to dance. Grandma hesitates at first, giggling in her chair. Then finally, they stand up, hold each other and dance on the stage to the song -- a happy ending to this special tribute, and a perfect beginning to the next chapter of one great love story.

Day 87: Half the Battle

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:56:00 +0000

(image by ESSL)

So I guess I can kiss Moroccan belly dancers goodbye.

The sun is setting on this Saturday afternoon as my wife and I drive south. Tonight we were supposed to go to a Moroccan restaurant in San Jose for our friend's birthday party -- the same party that Asia RSVP'd us for, which ended up being postponed until this weekend. Apparently we missed the belly dancing part at the restaurant, so now everybody's trying to figure out what to do.

I'm more than an hour away from San Jose when I pull into a gas station lot to call my brother to get an update. I'm down to do anything as long as it does not entail going to see that live-action "G.I. Joe" movie.

Sitting in the passenger seat, my wife huffs at my decision to park.

"Why are you pulling over?" Asia says. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find out what's going on."

Her attitude didn't come out of nowhere. We've been arguing about nothing the entire ride.

"I don't get why you stopped," she says. "You can't talk and drive?"

"I'm not trying to waste gas if they end up not going," I tell her.

Asia is convinced that it won't be wasting gas because San Jose is less than 45 minutes away. I tell her that it's farther than that. She says that she's driven this way many times before. I respond that I just looked at the directions online and we still have at least an hour to go.

And herein lies the root of most of our problems: Both my wife and I are headstrong, argumentative, unabashed, "I'm right and you're completely wrong" know-it-alls. (Truth be told, we should be in a Know-It-Alls Anonymous group, but I think we'd get bored telling the moderator how to run the meeting every time.)

But there's one key difference between me and my wife: I actually know it all, but my wife is just an imposter, and the worst kind too because she doesn't know she's an imposter. I know this already, but I still go back and forth with her. It's like dealing with one of those 1-800 automated operators -- no matter what you say or how you say it, she still won't hear you.

But in all seriousness, I can state with 100 percent accuracy that 95 percent of our fights come from the simple fact that we haven't yet mastered how to agree to disagree. It's a lost art, I would say. Or, more accurately, a buried art. We know where it is and how it works, but we don't have the desire to dig it up. Asia feels like I'm always challenging everything she says, so she works overtime to prove a point. I don't disagree with her for the sake of disagreeing. I'm usually just stating my opinion. Indeed, my opinion does seem to conflict with her opinion, but it's not my fault that her opinions suck.

Once I'm off the phone with my brother, I get back on the road. The new plan is to meet up at Dave & Busters down in Milpitas. The drive is most unpleasant. Nothing's being said, but the bad vibe makes it hard to breathe. In my mind, I know I should try to smooth things out now, so we don't bring this negative energy to what's supposed to be a happy occasion. But forget all that.

It's minutes past 10 p.m. when we get there, the last of the group to arrive. I step out the car and, thinking Asia already opened her passenger door, I activate the alarm system. Suddenly, she goes off (the car alarm, not my wife, although it's rather difficult to tell the difference). I'm standing outside, pressing the button as hard as humanly possible. But it won't shut off.

From inside, Asia unlocks the door. I open it and hand her the keys, thinking she might know some kind of trick to silence her car. She puts the key in the ignition and starts it. No go. Nothing we try works. It just keeps wailing in the parking lot, with the lights flashing.

After five minutes or so, the ringing finally stops. Asia gets out, glaring at me with eyes that could cut bamboo. I better be thankful there are witnesses nearby. We head to the front entrance, where my brother and his wife, the birthday girl and some other friends have been waiting. All right, showtime.

Twenty minutes later, we're inside, sitting at two tables -- one round, one rectangle -- that have been pushed together. Asia's next to me, in theory at least, but not really.

"Do you want me to move closer?" Asia asks.

Not really.

"You can if you want to," I say, trying to keep it family friendly.

She stays put. I knew she would.

The waiter comes around and takes our orders. By now, I'm feeling a little more at ease. Everybody else seems to be having a good time. And I'm Jericho. This is pointless. Right then, my walls come down. I turn to my wife.

"Come over here," I tell her with a smile for good measure.

She doesn't budge. I gesture for her to move closer with my head. She sits there, weighing her options or something, I don't know. I guess I'll have to take matters into my own hands. I grab her chair and pull it closer to me.

"I don't like you right now," she says, quietly.

I can see a smile lurking somewhere beneath that pout, so I work to pull it out. By the time the food comes, we're back where we need to be.

But, after we finish eating, my wife starts talking her nonsense again.

"Let's go play some games," Asia says. "I'm going to beat you in basketball."

Now, she should know better than that.

Day 86: Give or Take

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:40:00 +0000

(image by fabbio)

Here's the scene: It's Friday night. I'm home alone. Flowing. I'm in full-on work mode, wearing a beater and my classic holey gray sweat pants that really ought to be ~~burned~~ bronzed.

The wife's at work. Won't get off till 9 p.m., which gives me an hour give or take. I'm sitting at the computer, trying to shoot off a few e-mails and wrap up a few projects. In short, I'm in my zone. I didn't know it at the time, but this zone, this rhythm, this flow that I'm in is about to come to paralyzing stop.

Today was my first day telecommuting. First, let me say I don't know how I ever managed to leave behind this work-from-home world. Nine months ago, this was my life but that changed in January, the day after President Obama's inauguration. I didn't necessarily want to get an office job. The economy made me do it. (Put that on a T-shirt.) But my pessimistic bank account told me I needed one, and the Big Homie upstairs blessed me with a 9 to 5 right on time.

Still, I admit, I miss the freelance life, where getting ready for work comes down to one simple question: "Pants or no pants?"

[SIDEBAR]
Come to think of it, doesn't God telecommute?
[END SIDEBAR]

This morning, I woke up at 8 a.m., went straight downstairs and got on the computer. Without the interruptions of a 30-minute commute twice a day, the structured schedule and all the anti-creative feng shui that comes from working in a cubicle, I can flow. Freely.

It's 8:10 p.m. now. I've still got time. I start organizing some work online and backing up some files. That will give me about 45 minutes to work on my screenplay. Then I'll go upstairs to take a shower and wait for my wife to get home...

Or not.

I hear the key in the lock. The front door opens and in walks my wife, all smiles.

"Hey baby," she says, as she walks into the kitchen and puts the mail down on the counter.

My. Flow. Is. Wrecked. I save my work and exit the programs on the computer. Then I stand up from my chair, trying to keep my cool about the situation.

I have told Asia this time and time again. On the days when she goes to work or school, I want her to call me before she comes home. No, I'm not trying to hide anything -- unless I'm trying to surprise her. Most of the time, I just want a heads-up so I can have time to get my mind right. When I'm flowing, I flow hard. And I can't just switch it off on the spot.

When Asia comes home, of course, she wants attention. But how can I give her undivided attention when I'm still in work mode? I'll be present physically, but my thoughts will be roaming, whether I'm thinking about a scene in my script, or how I can sharpen a line of dialogue. This is how I've always been, the consummate craftsman.

For the sake of my relationship, I've learned to budget my time to account for detox: a 20-minute window where I can power down, clean up the house, shower and shift gears for when my wife gets home. I can even start dinner if I'm feeling Emerily. Asia has an erratic schedule and gets off at random times. All I ask for is a courtesy phone call saying, "I'm on my way home." This is for her own good.

When she doesn't do that, I get stuck in this limbo state, somewhere between the worker and the husband. Which is where I am now.

As usual, she assumes I have an attitude.

"Why do you have an attitude?" she says as I brush past her and head upstairs to the shower.

But I don't.

"I don't have an attitude."

I'm not mad. But now I need go through detox. I'll deal with the phone call issue later.

The guest room shower is where I go to getaway. It's my private sanctuary. I come here to escape the madness out there. Asia understands this and when I'm in here, she knows to leave me alone for a few minutes so I can have some time to myself.

Or not.

I hear the handle turn. The bathroom door opens and in walks my wife, all scowls.

"I don't understand why you have to be so rude all the time," she says. "In jail and I couldn't say one word to the guard or they would keep me longer. And now I got to come home to a husband that ignores me?"

I'm a corrections officer now? Really? It's a low blow. But I knew it would come eventually. I knew, given the opportunity, Asia would use her time in jail against me. Like I'm somehow connected or even responsible for what happened.

"That has nothing to do with anything," I shoot back. "I'm talking about a simple phone call."

"I didn't even think about it," she says. "My sister called me when I got off work but I didn't wanna be on the phone while I was driving."

"So you can talk your sister, but you can't remember to call me."

"I was only talking to her for like two minutes," she says. "Then I got off because I didn't wanna get pulled over."

I see her point. But I don't think she sees mine. In this relationship, Asia asks me for all these things, and I go out of my way to try and do them for her. But how can she ask for things and not be willing to give me what I ask for? This is about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to-day.

At times, I feel like I give so much to this marriage and all Asia does is take, take, take. And, to be honest, that drains me. I'm working long hours every day to provide, and she acts like I'm supposed to hop into a phone booth or something and come out as her Attentive Man. It doesn't work that way. I need time to transition. And what she fails to realize is one phone call could help make that transition happen before she comes home.

All of this drama could be avoided.

I know marriage isn't supposed be a tally sheet, where you look at how much you do compared to your mate. But it's hard not to. It's hard to keep giving when it feels like you're not getting anything in return.

Apparently, I need to master that sooner than later. Because now on this Friday, rather than relaxing and doing something fun with my wife, I have to spend the rest of the night trying to explain my issue while she runs her mouth.

And there's no telecommuting for this job. Believe me, I checked.

Day 85: Catering Business

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:44:00 +0000

(image by Jeremy Brooks)

It's 8 o'clock at night and my wife just called me during her break at school, sounding like Fran Drescher. It was the return of Asia's sick voice. But this time, it was different.

"I don't feel good at all," she groaned. "I think I'm coming home early."

Usually, that last statement would have me all out of sorts. I take my personal time seriously. And when Asia doesn't think I'm serious about that, I take it personally. I'm not saying her well-being didn't matter to me. I just knew that my wife tends to ... how can I say this ... embellish her anguish.

I know this for a fact because I caught her in the act. Some time ago, she was playing the whole sick routine: the puppy-dog eyes, the lip-poke action, the doomsday groaning, the whole nine. I was taking care of her and then I went upstairs to grab a blanket. Downstairs, I heard her phone ring. Not only did Asia suddenly have the strength to move to get the phone, but when she answered it, her sick voice magically disappeared!

"Oh hey girl," I heard her say. "I'm just kicking it with my baby. What are you doing?"

Err?

All she could do was laugh when I raced downstairs and exposed her for the fraud that she was/is/will be forevermore.

But I can't knock the hustle. I too have faked many a illness in my day. In fact, I wrote the "Think and Grow Sick" manual back in grade school. The only difference is that I used to act sick to get out of going to school and church and whatnot. But my wife does it for evil. Asia plays sick for the sole purpose of ... how can I say this ... getting extra attention.

It's not even her fault; this type of behavior is hardwired into her XX chromosomes.

Ever since the dawn of time, women have gone to extreme measures for attention. Take Eve, for example. This woman started talking to a snake, took a bite of the forbidden fruit and spurred the fall of man just because Adam wasn't giving her no play. (He was probably out in the field putting in overtime, trying to provide for her and everything. Of course, that didn't factor into her thought process. I know, I know. The plight of the world is not Eve's fault. I'm just sayin.)

But I digress.

Whether Asia was faking or not, I've gotten better at giving her what she needs. I used to just give her a drive-by hug, toss her some aspirin and tell her to walk it off like I would do. Don't judge me. I've learned. Now when she cries ill, I give my lady the royal treatment: 12 minutes and 21 seconds worth of cuddling time, a cup of hot tea in her favorite mug and I top it off with a back massage guaranteed to make her toes curl.

But this time, it's different. My wife just got out of jail. She could have caught some virus while locked up, or it might be the stress of the whole situation finally catching up with her. In any case, my personal time will have to wait. I need to cater to her now. I need to do something special, something that says, "I care. No really. I do."

I know what I can do. I'll make her a gourmet meal -- a real one too, not the "cut a slit in film cover" kind.

I look at the clock. I thought Asia would be home by now if she left school early. Maybe she decided to stay for the rest of her class. Either way, I should get this dinner started. I want her to smell the aroma as soon as she walks in the door.

I stand up from my chair, walk to the kitchen and open the wooden cabinets. Time to get down to business.

Day 84: The Runaround

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:46:00 +0000

(image by Peter Musterd)

I imagine the amusement parks in hell look something like the DMV.

No Ferris wheels, no funnel cakes. Just a stuffy room full of sad people, holding tickets with numbers and waiting for hours to see a disgruntled employee, who will tell them that they need to come back tomorrow and do it all over again.

Indeed, after all the drama of the past few days, the DMV is definitely the last place I want to be. But here we are, my wife and I, sitting in the back corner of the cramped and crummy office. Waiting. It's only 9 a.m., but I can already see that this is going to be one long day.

I would normally be at work right now. But with Asia's car still at the impound, I had no way to get to my office across town. My sister-in-law spent the night at our place. This morning, she drove us the police station to pick up the car.

"We can't release the car without you first renewing your registration," the guard said.

o_O

We tried to tell her that we would drive straight to DMV afterward, but she still turned us down. So we left the station and drove to DMV. At 8:40 a.m., the office wasn't open yet, but already there was a line of people snaked around the building.

I really wanted to get to work because I needed the hours and I also have an important meeting scheduled this morning. I'm supposed to find out if I'll be able to work from home on Fridays because Asia needs the car to go to her job.

In the DMV parking lot, the three of us sat in my sister-in-law's car, trying figure out what we could do.

"Why don't you rent a car for the day, so you can go ahead to work?" Asia said.

Even though I told myself I didn't want to see another rental car for the rest of my natural born life, I didn't see any other option. We drove to the rental car shop.

"I'm so sorry," the woman behind the desk said. "We don't have any cars available here or within in 50-mile radius."

o_O

So we drove back to DMV, which is where we are now, sitting in the back corner of the cramped and crummy office. Waiting. We've been here for an hour. I e-mail my supervisor to let her know I'm running late. Then I sit back and try to relax as the monotone voice keeps calling out numbers that don't match my ticket.

I should be the happiest man in the world. My wife is home. She's fresh out of jail and sitting next to me, being her normal happy-go-lucky self like nothing even happened. But I can't help but keep thinking about the whole situation. I'm haunted by the idea that I failed her.

My wife spent four days in jail. Four days. I did everything I knew to do. I called everybody I knew to call. But every road led to another road which led to dead end after dead end. I keep thinking that there might have been one thing I overlooked. But what else could I have done? Picketed in front the jail? Camped out at the courthouse, refusing to move until they released her?

Maybe this is my ego talking. Maybe this is coming from my own complex to always want to be the one who saves the day.

I do believe this situation forced me to see what it feels like to have no control, to be powerless, to lose. A lesson in humility. But still, how can I call myself a husband if I can't protect and provide for the woman I said those sacred vows to? I should be the happiest man in the world. But instead, I feel guilty.

I'm sharing these thoughts with Asia while we wait here. My wife, of course, doesn't see it the way I see it.

"You did all you could do," Asia tells me. "I believe there's a purpose for everything. I feel like everything happened the way it was supposed to happen."

How she's able to always see blessings in the ugliest of disguises is truly beyond me. Especially when it hasn't even been 24 hours since Asia walked out of the county jail. But that's my wife, the eternal optimist.

After an hour and a half, the monotone voice finally calls our number. We walk around counter, buy the new tags and get out of there. It's almost 10 a.m.

Back at the station now.

"No I can't accept a debit card," the guard says. "We can only accept a cashier's check or money order."

o_O

Ten minutes later, we come back with the cashier's check, only to find out that the car's not even here. The actual impound is 20 miles away, in the exact opposite direction of my job.

By the time we get there, it's almost 11 a.m. I already missed the meeting at work. Asia and I go inside the shop and sit on a green, raggedy couch. The owner pulls up the file on the computer, presses some buttons and gives us the grand total. I hear the number and I don't want to believe it, but I have no choice. We pay the money. I take Asia's car to work, while her sister drops her back off at the house.

I don't get to work until 12:30. My supervisor tells me that she went ahead and rescheduled the meeting for 2 p.m. I catch up on e-mails and my other assignments while I wait. I had been looking forward to this meeting about me telecommuting on Fridays.

During the week, Asia works Mondays at 3 p.m. and Fridays at 12:30 p.m. On Mondays, I could come into the office at 5:30 a.m. to be back in time for her to have the car. But on Fridays, that wouldn't work. I had proposed telecommuting on that day until I found a car, which would really help me out mentally if nothing else.

It's minutes after 2 p.m. now, and I'm sitting in the office of one of the higher ups who will give me the yes or no answer.

She asks me to explain my situation again. I give her the abridged recap: I got in an accident June 9 and my car was declared a total loss and I've been struggling to replace it and my rental expired and now I have to share a car with my wife who works 30 minutes away.

She looks at me, leans back in her chair.

"Tell you what," she says. "How about we let you work from home on Mondays and Fridays for a trial period, and we'll see how it goes from there."

I tell her I accept and thank her for giving me this opportunity.

Indeed, it is a blessing. But now I feel guilty again. Guilty for ever doubting God's grand design. Guilty for ever forgetting that all things work together for good in the long run. Like my wife's been saying all this time.

Day 83: Wait For It

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:01:00 +0000

(image by h.koppdelaney)

I'm sticky with sweat as I dart across streets downtown, dodging cars and ignoring signs that say Don't Walk. I'm running late.

It's 1:40 in the afternoon and the heat is suffocating. My wife has been stuck in jail for the past three days, and I've been stuck at home, with nothing to do but wait for her court date today at 1:30 p.m. I don't want to miss anything. I'm two blocks away from the courthouse now. Must. Run. Faster.

I left my spot at 1:25. I had been fixing up the place so Asia would feel welcome in her re-entry into society. I caught a cab downtown. But the driver tried to be slick and use the one-way streets to hike up the meter.

"Oh this is one way too?" he asked. "Oh man, I didn't know. I guess I got to go down and come back around."

"Uh no," I told him. "I'll just get out here."

So I paid him, hopped out of the yellow van six blocks away and took off.

I'm out of breath by the time I reach the courthouse. After I walk through a metal detector, a security guard directs me to the second floor.

Upstairs, hordes of people crowd the hall, spread across wooden benches. I pull the handle of the courtroom door. It's locked.

"It's not open yet," some genius sitting nearby tells me.

I slump down in an empty spot on a bench. If I could wait four days for this, I guess a few more minutes won't kill me. I just want it to be over.

I haven't spoken to Asia all day. I know she was nervous that they might try to keep her in jail longer. She doesn't have any paperwork stating she completed the community service. We both know she did. I told her to think positive.

About 10 minutes pass when someone unlocks the door. People start filing in. Once inside, I take an aisle seat on the left side, three rows from the back. The judge sits in his seat. The bailiff, standing below the bench, addresses the crowd.

"All right," he says. "I'm gonna read a list of names of people who will NOT be here. If you're here for anyone on this list, raise your hand and I'll tell you why they won't be here."

I scan the room as he reads the names. It looks like any normal courtroom, except this one has a box to the right with black bars around it, where the inmates will be. I'm haunted by the image of my wife behind those black bars, under the piercing gaze of these random people who don't know her like I do.

I'm snatched from my thoughts when the bailiff calls Asia's name.

What does that mean? She's not here? But every single person I've spoken to said she would be here. She has to be here.

I raise my hand. He asks me who I'm here to see and I tell him. He pauses, looks down at the sheet, then back at me.

"The DA dropped the charges," he says. "There's no case."

At that moment, my heart stops, not knowing how to feel. Part of me wants to rejoice in the fact that it's all over. But another part of me hates the idea that Asia had to go through all this hell for nothing.

Now what? If there's no case, she should be free, right? The jail is about four blocks away, so I leave the courthouse and start walking under the scorching sun.

It's 2:30 p.m. at this point. My sister-in-law calls me. She's downtown and I direct her to the jail. She parks her car and we go inside to try and find my wife. The guard won't let us upstairs because he says she's at the courthouse.

"I just came from the courthouse," I say. "They told me she wasn't there."

He says she is there and he doesn't know when she'll be coming back. "Your best bet would be to go home and wait for her to call you."

All this waiting and running around is driving me crazy. Why can't anybody give me a straight answer?

I knew going back and forth with the guard would do no good. We leave the jail and head back home.

Time goes by...

3 p.m. Just got home. Asia's sister makes a run to Subway. I'm not hungry.

4:30 p.m. Asia's sister is sitting on the floor, watching "Funny Games." I'm here in the same place I've been for most of the past four days: in front of the computer, waiting by the phone.

6 p.m. We're on our way back to jail now. Never got a phone call, but I couldn't wait around anymore.

At the jail, we go through the metal detector and fill out the visitation form. This time, the guard lets us go up. Finally.

On the seventh floor again, I press the intercom. A lady asks me who I'm here to see. I give her the information. She puts me on hold for a second.

Then she says, "No, you can't see her."

"Why not?"

"Uh," she says. "You have to talk to the guard downstairs please."

My patience has packed up and gone. It's bad enough Asia had to stay in jail for four days for no reason. But now that the case has been dropped, she's supposed to be a free woman, and nobody's telling me where to find her.

Back downstairs, we go to the glass booth and speak to a different guard.

"You can't see her because she's being released," he tells us.

"Well, do you have any idea what time?"

He shakes his head. "It can be anytime between now and 6:30 in the morning."

There's no hiding the frustration on my face. This system makes me sick.

Back outside, we talk about what we should do next, but there's really nothing to discuss. I could go back to the house and wait for Asia to call, but I won't. I'm going to stay here and wait until my wife comes out. And if I have to wait until 6:30 in the morning, then that's what I will do.

My sister-in-law is with me, so we sit on the concrete slab outside the jail, talking about random stuff to pass the time. I hear the jail door open behind me. I turn to see who it is. It's not Asia.

My stomach hurts. I need to eat something. But I'm not leaving. It's going on 8:45 p.m. now. The door opens again. I turn around. Still not her.

I can't take this waiting. The bailiff said there's no case nearly seven hours ago. What else is there to do but give Asia her stuff back and let her go?

By this time, I'm trying to figure out how I can lie down on this concrete in the middle of downtown. Apparently, it's going to be a long night...

Then she appears. My wife. Wearing the same pink workout suit she had on the last time I kissed her four days ago. It's 9:31 p.m. when my wife walks out of the county jail.

I stand up and wrap my arms around her for the first time in forever. I think about the nightmare this has been: the 10-minute phone calls, the visitation restrictions, the insomnia, the heartless guards with their spiteful grins, all for a case that wasn't. But right now, nothing even matters. Asia's free again. At long last.

Holding her close, it feels good to be able to wipe the tears welling in her eyes. Thank you God for watching over my wife. Now it's time to go home.

"I'm sorry," she says, pulling away from me slightly. "I know I stink. I need to shower."

That makes two of us. I'm feeling dirty myself.

Day 82: The Longest Sentence

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:00:00 +0000

(image by D2 Photography)

Q: What's the longest sentence known to man?
A: "I do."

It's an old joke and, being a poet, I always appreciated the play on words. But I don't think I really understood what it meant until today -- now that my wife has been in jail for three days, an eternity in my eyes.

It's 8 in the morning. I just woke up. After staying up for two days, my body finally quit on me last night at midnight, and I collapsed upstairs on the bed. When I woke up, I didn't know where I was, or where my wife was, or what day it was. Then, slowly, it started coming back to me, the reality of this never-ending nightmare.

Downstairs, I sit at the computer by the phone. Asia hasn't called. I know she will. I don't know when. For the past few days, this place has been my own holding tank. I can't drive anywhere. Asia's car was towed away and because my name's not on the registration, the police won't let me pick it up from the impound. If I go outside, I think I'll go out of my mind.

After I told my supervisor I had a family emergency, she gave me permission to work from home today. All morning, I've been writing stories and conducting phone interviews. It's easier when I'm busy to think that Asia's just away and that she'll be home any minute. But those minutes bleed into hours and before long, it's dark outside.

At 8 p.m., the phone rings. I grab it and press zero before the operator finishes his sentence. I've been waiting all day for this call. But Asia's voice sounds weak.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

She groans. "I've got a really bad headache."

I tell her that it's because she hasn't been eating.

"The food is gross," she says. "I had a salad and a tomato earlier, but I couldn't eat anything else. My head hurts so bad. It's throbbing."

I tell her to ask the guard if they have any aspirin. Then I try to change the subject to get her mind off the pain and ask her if she's still alone in her cell. She says she has a new cellmate now, and they've been talking all day because there's nothing else to do.

"I miss you," I tell her.

She's quiet.

"Hello?" I ask.

"I couldn't say it right then," she says. "It was going to make me cry."

She takes a deep breath.

"Okay," she says. "I miss you too."

"You have 60," an automated voice interrupts.

Sixty more seconds. My mind starts racing, trying to find the right words to say before the call cuts off. I tell her that I spoke to her mom and sister earlier and they said they love her.

"Tell them I love them too," she says.

Words escape me. I'm running out of time.

"Okay," she says, "try to get some rest and I'll see you tomorrow."

"I will," I tell her. "Hello? Babe?"

And like that, she's gone.

I hang up the phone and sit here in silence, a sound that suddenly feels too familiar. I start thinking about the past few months, the little things I've taken for granted: home-cooked meals, clean showers, a caring wife. Asia's been in jail for three days and she hasn't bathed or eaten a real meal. Past arguments about which restaurant to go to or wedding photos seem petty and pointless. I hate myself for ever holding a grudge.

All my wife wants me to do is show compassion, show her in her language that she's more to me than a woman I just so happen to live with. Why is that so hard?

For as long as I can remember, my heart has been locked up. And I don't know why. Maybe it stems from my own parents' divorce. Or my pride that keeps my emotions behind bars so I can save face should things fall apart. Or my flawed perception that real men don't show pain.

Whatever it is, I'm suffering now. For all the times when I would rather go to sleep than make up with my wife because I didn't want to look like I "gave in". All the times I got irritated when Asia would call me 50 million times a day while I was trying to work. Now I can't call her at all.

My pride is on trial for past crimes. Guilty by association with my ego, I'm paying the price for my wrongs right now. I realize that, in the past three months, this marriage has been slowly stripping me of who I was before, on the outside. Like me being a man who always has to be in control. It's killing me that I have no control over this situation. I can't come to my wife's rescue and save her from this hell. I can't be Mr. Incredible. I have never felt more powerless in my life.

Letting go of self is a lesson I always knew I would have to learn. I just never thought it would be like this, with my wife hurting and hungry and in jail. I've been so busy fighting for my independence, crying out for so-called freedom. But I have yet to realize the true liberation in love. And until I do, I will remain a prisoner of my pride.

This is my story. This is my cell.

Day 81: Through the Looking Glass

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:48:00 +0000

(image by decade_null)

I'm sitting alone in an empty house as police sirens whine outside my window, and my mind keeps telling me that, at any moment, I will hear the familiar sound of a key in the front door.

From where I'm sitting, I can see my wife walk into the house. She runs up and pounces on me like she always does, and she says that she's sorry she got home so late, but they made her work overtime at the job.

It's a few minutes past 5 a.m. now, and my mind has been playing this scenario over and over. I've been waiting here by the phone for hours. I can't sleep. I won't eat. And time is moving so slowly, it feels like it's moving backwards. The scene I've created in my head feels real enough, but I know, in my heart, it's only an optical illusion.

In reality, Asia, my wife of almost three months, is in jail.

The last time we spoke was four hours ago. She called me for a second time at about 1:30 this morning. Her voice quivered as she put me on hold for a second. I could hear her sniffling.

"Okay," she said and took a deep breath. "I'm okay now. I was doing fine, but I keep tearing up when I hear your voice."

"It's gonna be all right," I told her, also speaking to myself.

"Baby, they made me strip off all my clothes!"

"You got on the orange jumpsuit?" I asked, trying to make light of the situation.

She laughed. "No, they gave me the stripes. Orange and white stripes."

She told me they were moving her upstairs to a cell soon. She didn't know who would be in there with her.

"I'm coming to see you today," I told her.

At that point, I still didn't know whether Asia would be released today, or have to stay until Tuesday. Either way, I knew I had to see her. The county jail website says weekend afternoon visiting hours are from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

"Baby, I gotta go," Asia said. "I'll call you later. Try to get some rest, okay? I don't want you staying up all night."

"I won't be able to sleep," I told her.

Before she got off the phone, she mentioned that breakfast time was around 4 or 5, which is why I'm sitting here now at dawn, just in case she calls.

Time crawls by. The sun comes up. No call yet. I find things to do to keep from losing my mind: I do the laundry, listen to a sermon on humility, watch some Fresh Prince DVDs, kill a bug behind the TV. I've been calling the jail all day too, but nobody's answering the phone.

It's noon when I look on the county jail website, and I see that the projected release date on Asia's file has been changed. It used to say 8/2/09; now it says "None." I stare at the screen, hoping it's just a glitch in the system. I call the jail again. Somebody answers this time, only to confirm my worst nightmare: Asia has to stay in jail until her court date on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.

It's almost 5 p.m. now. I've been awake for 24 hours. I want to see my wife. But first I have to figure out how I'm going to get to the jail.

The jail is downtown, 7.6 miles of freeway away from where we live. My brother is nowhere to be found. I don't think there's any bus stops nearby. And I'm not really close enough with anyone in this town to ask them for a ride to jail. I decide to call a cab.

I rush upstairs to shower, shave and line up my hair (After my wife spent the night in jail, I couldn't just let her see her husband looking busted). I throw on some clothes and head downstairs to leave.

That's when I realize I don't have a house key.

I was driving Asia's car to work last week, so I had her keys and I gave her mine. But when she took the car yesterday, I never got my keys from her. I didn't think I would need to.

So now, I have to make a choice: I can cancel the cab and stay here, or I can go to the jail and risk leaving the door unlocked. Right then, my cell phone rings; the cab is outside.

I look out the window and see the yellow van parked in the lot, and the driver coming up the stairs. I have to make a decision now.

I open the door and say, "I'll be right down."

He nods and returns to the van. I run to the living room and turn on the TV. I press play on the DVD player to make it sound as if somebody is here watching a movie. Then I go outside and close the unlocked door behind me.

It's past 6 o'clock by the time I reach the county jail, a massive gray complex towering into the twilight sky. Inside, I empty my pockets and take off my belt before walking through a metal detector. Following procedure, I flip through the book with a list of all inmates, find my wife's name and fill out the information on a small form. It doesn't feel real. None of this does.

When I'm ready, the security guard in the booth calls me up to the window. He's a burly man with a thick mustache and a voice that sounds like sandpaper.

"Go around this corner to the elevator, seventh floor east," he tells me.

In the elevator now, I don't know what to expect. But I do know this is the slowest elevator I've ever been in. When it finally stops, the doors open to a narrow corridor with white walls, and two doors on both ends. I look at the slip in my hand: 7E. To the left. I reach the door and press the intercom.

"Name of the person you want to visit and cell number," a woman says through the speaker

I give her the information. She pauses, then says, "Come in and have a seat at Window B as in boy."

The door buzzes and I open it. The room's empty, dim, with nothing but silver stools next to black phones, and a wall of windows looking out over jail. I sit on the stool and peer through the double-layer window. I can't see much beyond the staircase except a few people shuffling around, and a man folding white towels.

After five minutes, I see my wife downstairs talking to a woman in a booth. The woman points up at me, and Asia turns and then walks up the stairs.

Her orange and white striped suit hangs loosely off of her limbs. Her braids have begun to rebel. Yet, she's as beautiful as ever.

As soon as Asia sits down, her eyes start to water. I pick up the receiver and she does the same. I say hello.

"Hey baby," she says, wiping her eyes, then she laughs. "I don't know why seeing you makes me cry."

It hurts to see her cry. It hurts to see her in these raggedy clothes. And in this situation. But as her man, I don't want to dwell on the horror of this moment. I have to be strong for the both of us.

"Have you eaten at all?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "The food is disgusting. Just looking at it makes me wanna throw up. I took bologna off a sandwich and ate the bread. And an apple. But that's it."

She tells me how she's had to stay in her cell all day and that her cellmate was cool, but they moved her out, so Asia's alone now. I tell her everything I know as far as her case, which isn't much, unfortunately. I tell her I miss her.

We've been on the phone for 45 minutes when the door opens behind me. In walks a man with a buzz cut and some missing teeth. He sits two stools away and tells me his girl hit him over the head with a bottle last night, and he turned her in. (Coincidentally, her name is the nickname me and Asia made up for ourselves.)

My hour is almost up. Before I leave, I tell Asia that we should pray. She wants to do it this time. I close my eyes and listen to her talk to God and, for a moment, there is no double-layer window between us.

When she finishes, she looks at me. Then I smile and put my hand to the window.

"We gotta do it," I tell her. "It's only right."

She laughs and puts her right palm against the glass.

"Thank you for being so calm and holding it together," she tells me, as tears start to spill again.

We soon say our goodbyes. She's crying as she hangs up the phone. I feel a knot form in my stomach. I wave one last time as Asia walks away, wiping tears streaming down her face.

Buzz Cut looks at me. "Aww. Is she gonna be all right?"

"She'll be okay," I tell him as I watch her disappear down the stairs.

"She loves you," he says. "I can tell."

"I know she does."

The taxi ride home is a fast one. The sky is getting dark. I'm sitting in the back of the van watching the world go by. I see nobody on the road.

It's almost 8 o'clock by the time I reach my complex on the north side. I've been trying not to think about the fact that the front door's been unlocked this whole time.

I walk up the stairs and approach the door. I can still hear the TV on inside. That's a good sign, I think. I peer through my window, squinting between the blinds. Everything looks normal. I grip the silver handle and push the door open, only to find the place the same way it was before I left: empty inside.

Day 80: Time After Time

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:54:00 +0000

(image by fallsroad)

A phone call wakes me up.

In the bedroom, I open my eyes and try to make out the blurry red numbers on the clock: 4:51 p.m., I think. That means I've been asleep for almost five hours in the middle of this Saturday, even though my throbbing head makes me feel like it's been only 15 minutes.

The phone is somewhere buried beneath the rumpled sheets. I'm too tired to find it. It's probably my wife calling me on her way home from work. No it can't be. Asia should be home already. She only works until 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

The phone has stopped ringing by the time I find it under the covers. It was my sister-in-law. And she called twice. I'm thinking she must be in town and calling to see if we're home so she can come visit. I call her back, still half-asleep.

"Russell?" she asks. "Are you at home?"

"Yeah I'm home."

"Is Asia home?"

"She should be," I say. "Why, what's up?"

She exhales.

"Okay good," she says, "because my mom just got a collect call from jail on her answering machine and she said it sounded like Asia."

The last time I spoke to Asia was at noon, right before I went to sleep. I had been up since 5:15 this morning. At dawn, I drove 18 miles south to a farm, where I met with some dairy workers for a freelance story on the dairy crisis. I was there for almost two hours, but I had to rush back to give Asia the car because she had to go to work at 9 a.m.

I made it home by 8:49, kissed Asia goodbye and staggered up the stairs. I did some work but then my head started pounding and I was seeing double. Noon rolled around and I couldn't function anymore. Asia called me on her break and could hear it in my voice.

"You don't sound so good baby," she said. "Get some rest, okay? I'll be home at three."

Now, five hours later, I don't know which way is up. I have no idea what Asia's sister is talking about. Asia should be here, downstairs.

I tell my sister-in-law I'll call her back. It still feels like I'm dreaming as I rush down the stairs, clutching the phone.

"Babe?" I call out.

She's not in the kitchen or the living room. Her car's not outside. I don't know what to think right now. I call Asia's phone. No answer. What's really going on?

I get the number to the county jail and dial it.

"I think my wife might have been arrested," I tell the operator. "Could you tell me if she's there?"

"What's the name?"

I give him the name and I wait.

"No," he responds. "She's not listed here. But if it just happened, it might not have posted yet."

He tells me to check back in about three hours, or visit their website and type in her name for the information later.

I hang up the phone. This is crazy. Why would Asia be in jail? I call her sister back. She says the voice definitely sounds like Asia's on the answering machine, but they can't make out what she's saying. I ask her when she last spoke to Asia. She says Asia called her at 2:30 because she got off work early.

"I was talking to her on the phone," she says, "then she said there was a cop car behind her and she dropped the phone. And then my call dropped."

My heart stops. I told Asia to stop talking on her cell phone and driving at the same time. But it doesn't make sense. She shouldn't have gotten arrested for that.

Then my mind starts racing with all these various scenarios. What if she got pulled over and said something slick to the officer? What if the cop disrespected her and she reacted? I try to shake that thought as I feel my blood start to boil.

I don't know what to do. I have no car and my brother's out of town. My sister-in-law lives two hours away. I keep trying to call Asia's phone. Voicemail. My head is pounding.

At 5:50 p.m. I type her name in the county jail website again. I have been doing it for the past few hours, but nothing was coming up. This time, when I typed in her name, something did come up:

Warrant Arrest. Misdemeanor. Liquor Sale to Minor. No Bail.

Liquor sale to minor? I don't understand. I know that two years ago she got in trouble for buying alcohol for some undercover cop posing as a underage kid. She had to do community service for it. I know she would never get caught up in something like that again.

Immediately, I call the jail again to get some answers.

"No, it's the same case from before," a man tells me. "Apparently, she failed to complete one day of her community service. That turned it into two warrants."

He says she won't be able to get out until her release date. At the bottom of the file, it says she is scheduled for release tomorrow. There has to be some way around this. I can't stand the idea of my wife staying in jail overnight.

I call back to see if there's any way she can be released tonight. A different person answers the phone, a woman. And what she tells me makes my stomach sink.

"The release date is wrong," she says. "Since she's ineligible for bail, she has to stay in jail until the court date."

I look over the file for the court date: August 4. Three days from now. No this can't be real. There's no way this is happening.

"Can I see her now?" I ask. "Where is she?"

"No, she's probably still getting processed right now," the woman says. "You won't be able to visit her until tomorrow."

I'm stuck. I'm sitting here now, trying to figure out the next move. I need to know that Asia's okay. But I don't know what to do. I don't understand how she would have two warrants on her file. I know for a fact that she finished that community service.

I call Asia's sister to update her on the situation. She tells me Asia just tried to call their mom, but it went to the answering machine again because their mom doesn't accept collect calls. On the message, they heard Asia say, "Tell Russell to turn on the house phone."

We never use the house phone, so we keep the ringer off. Maybe the phone Asia's using can only call landlines. I hang up my cell, snatch up the landline phone and switch on the ringer. And I wait.

It's almost 9:30 p.m. when a piercing ring sends a shock through my body. My hands are shaking as I pick up the receiver and listen to the collect call operator. I hear Asia say her name. I press zero to accept.

"Baby I'm in jail," my wife says.

"I know," I tell her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine," she says. "I just don't know what's going on. I couldn't remember your cell phone number so I had to leave a message with my mom to tell her to tell you to turn on the house phone."

God, it's good to hear her voice. She sounds like her normal self, but that doesn't make me feel any better about this situation.

"The cop wasn't disrespectful or anything was he?" I ask.

"No, he was actually nice," she says. "And I could tell he felt bad after I explained the story. But he had already called back up so he couldn't let me go. I still don't understand why he arrested me."

I explain to her how she has two warrants on her file. And I tell her that nobody will give me a straight answer as to when she'll be released.

"I know I finished my community service," she says. "This is just a misunderstanding."

I hope, in this case, her optimism proves to be right.

"Oh, I have to go baby," she tells me all of a sudden. "I'll call you back, okay? I love you."

I tell her I love her too. I hold onto the receiver long after she's gone. I keep trying to tell myself that this is all just a bad dream. I want to stay positive about it all. That's what my wife would do. That's what she would want me to do.

I haven't eaten anything all day. My head is still throbbing. I sit in the chair, staring at her file on the computer, and wait for her call.

It's almost midnight now. I hate this feeling. The feeling of not knowing how she is. The feeling of not having her right here right now. I think about the times that I took her for granted, when I could go to sleep without kissing her because of my pride, because I knew she would be here in the morning.

This time she won't be. And now I don't want to sleep. Not without her.

Day 79: How Do I Love Thee?

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:11:00 +0000

(image by mark78 xp)

Now, a confession: At times I don't know if I have to the capacity to love my wife as much as she wants to be loved.

This is hard to say because I don't honestly know what that means, for me or for her. But it is what I feel. Or, more accurately, it's what my brain tells me I feel. That's important to distinguish because this is, after all, a mind-over-heart matter.

I've known Asia for 10 years. We dated in high school, reunited four years ago and got married in May. I've grown since I first met her 1999. But at the core, I haven't changed much. I'm still a loner and a lover of language, who speaks my mind but rarely my heart.

I've never been one to show much emotion. I can express myself on paper. But that doesn't help me in the cases when Asia asks over the phone how much I miss her.

"A lot," I'll say.

What can I say? I'm a man of my word, and those words are few.

But every now and then, Asia will go through these phases where what I do and who I am isn't good enough for her. And because she's my polar opposite, she feels compelled to express herself. Over and over and over. Like she's doing at this very moment.

"I don't feel like you adore me," she says.

She just got home from work and already I'm on the hot seat for reasons beyond me.

"What do you mean?"

She stands in the kitchen, looking at me as I sit at the computer. My wife goes through these spells at least two days out of every month, so I know the script by heart.

"Do you think you do things to show me you care?" she asks.

I think I do and I rattle off a list of them: I cook dinner half the week, I spend quality time with her, I leave loving notes around the house before I go to work while she's still asleep. Not to mention the fact that I'm working multiple jobs to keep the lights on. But I guess she doesn't see all these things. So I ask her the question I always ask her.

"What would me caring look like to you?"

She's quiet for a moment.

"I don't know," she says. "You just don't seem into me. I don't feel like you think I'm special."

"Give me an example of what that would look like."

"Like," she says, "I want to come home to a husband that's excited to see me."

"I am excited."

The words don't sound convincing, even to me. But that doesn't make them any less true. The thing is, like anybody, she expects me to respond the same way she responds. When I come home, she rushes to the door to pounce on me.

I don't do all that.

Sometimes, I get up to hug her. Other times, I stay in my chair, keep working on whatever I'm working on, and ask her how her day went. That doesn't make me less excited; it just makes me me.

But this goes deeper because she's also told me in past conversations that she never had a problem getting affection from her previous boyfriends. She says she's not used to the way I show her love. I never knew if this was her passive aggressive attempt to make me jealous, but she couldn't pay me to be phased. She chose to be with me. Case closed.

I can't be anybody but me. I know I'm not the mushy type. I can only express so much sentiment in a given day. If I feel it, I feel it. But I don't like to force it because then it feels false. But how will my wife ever see that I adore her if the things that she recognizes as adoration don't come naturally to me?

Asia believes I take her for granted. She always tells me that "life is too short for us not to cherish every second."

I love my wife. But I love with my head and think with my heart. And sometimes, I don't know if she will ever understand that language.

Day 78: The Big Picture

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:10:00 +0000

(image by Michael Kesler)

Quick, somebody, call Guinness. I think my wife and I just set a world record for the shortest time looking for a movie in a movie rental store.

Driving home now, I can't really believe it myself. It took all of seven seconds, maybe eight, to run inside grab the movie and walk out before the door finished closing.

This is a big deal because, for us, renting a movie used to be a long and laborious process with more drama than the movie we ultimately chose: I would want to watch one thing, she would want to watch something else, the aisles seemed to go on forever, and every movie we picked up we had either seen before or it was made by Michael Bay, the exploder of exploding explosions.

In the movie-hunting game, Asia and I have two very different strategies. I will peruse the stacks on the shelves, one by one, looking for a title or cover that catches my eye. (This is the only place where I browse.)

My wife doesn't have the patience for that, so she'll run to the nearest clerk.

"Excuse me," she says. "Can you tell me what's good?"

I hate when she does this. I don't understand why she would think a random clerk could tell her more about movies than I could. Film is what I do. Indeed, part of my issue stems from my ego. But the other part is just common sense.

Just because somebody works somewhere doesn't make them an expert on the merchandise. It's not like an electronics store where they might know the ins and outs of a central processing unit and can give you cold, hard facts about ram. This is more like asking a waiter what tastes good at a restaurant (which Asia also does by the way): They can tell you what's popular. But what's good? It's just a matter of taste.

But I digress.

While I'm combing through movie cases, the clerk usually starts throwing titles out at Asia.

"No, we've seen that," she says. "We've seen that too. No, I don't really care for him as an actor. Seen it. What about something with Edward Norton in it?"

If I can't find anything worth checking out, sometimes we go with the clerk's suggestion. About 90 percent of the time, it doesn't work out and we cut it off early.

Then one time, Asia came up with the idea that we could split up, pick out our top three choices, then compare and pick one. That worked out well. (Disclosure: We picked one of my three.) Lately, we've just been switching off who gets to select the movie.

I picked "The Usual Suspects" last week, so tonight, it was Asia's turn. She wanted to see "Funny Games" so we went in, grabbed it and got out. No questions asked. The way it should be.

In all honesty, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. My wife and I both love movies and we have since childhood. When I get together with my brothers, all we do is quote movie lines. And Asia's mom still has a whole cabinet stacked with VHS tapes, even though her taste is questionable at best. (I got love for you mom, but no I don't want to see "Life Size" starring Tyra Banks as a human doll, thanks.)

My taste and Asia's taste in movies vary somewhat, in the sense that I'm specific about mine. I like psychological thrillers and science fiction films like "Children of Men". Asia likes just about anything, as long as it has some element of suspense. Occasionally -- but not often, thank God -- she'll be in a chick flick mood, which is about the only time my constant headaches come in handy.

As a screenwriter, a movie buff and a full-time life analyzer-at-large, I look at movies differently. And I can't watch just anything. Give me rich dialogue, compelling characters, a storyline that speaks to a larger truth about the human condition.

Being around me for so long, Asia's started to appreciate these things more -- ever since I got her out of her "Texas Chainsaw Massacre is my favorite movie" phase. Now she will point out problems in the plot, identify the symbolism in a visual motif or explain why a third act failed. Bless her heart. She even figured out the mystery in "The Usual Suspects" halfway through the movie.

I haven't converted her completely. She still has an affinity for films that I wouldn't use to smash a bug. Which is why when it's her turn to pick the movie, all I can do is try to influence her to pick something I want to see. That didn't happen this time.

It's past 11 p.m. by the time we make it home and get the movie set up. It's about these two visitors who come to this vacation home and torture the family living there for no reason. I don't get the point, but it's Asia's choice so I will try my best to hang with it. No promises though. But this arrangement is teaching me the value to compromise, which is crucial for me because I'm so used to doing things my way.

Maybe one day I can be like my grandfather. He admitted once that he and my grandmother go to the movie theater and see separate movies sometimes. Not out of spite, but out of respect for each other's different tastes: My grandfather likes pulse-pounding action; grandma likes the sweet and sappy stuff. And I love the split-screen image of Pop Pop on the edge of his seat, grinning like a Cheshire cat, while grandma dabs at her eyes with her fifteenth Kleenex.

In the big picture, that's what I believe marriage is supposed to be: two people with different interests who work them out in a way that works for them. But my grandparents have been married for almost 50 years. It's going to be a long time before I've earned enough husband credits to work out that kind of deal.

For now, I'll just have to suffer through some of Asia's lesser selections about serial killing sprees in suburbia. Hopefully, this film is finished faster than the time it took us to pick it up.

Day 77: The Road

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:10:00 +0000

(image by are you my rik?)

THIS JUST IN: I've officially been evicted out of my comfort zone.

Yesterday morning, I finally turned in the rental car that I've been driving for weeks. Now, I'm on my way to work driving my wife's car: a deep purple Honda Accord coupe.

Don't get me wrong. The car is clean, dare I say sexy. It just looks a million times better with my wife in it than it does with me in it. Like a negligee. This isn't my first time in this car or anything like that. I've driven it plenty of times before. For instance, I would drive it whenever we'd go to the drive-in theater (mainly because Trinity had no radio).

But it's different now. I'm not just driving Asia's car as she sits in the passenger seat. I'm not borrowing it to go to the store because my truck's in the shop. I'm sharing this car now. It's like it's both of ours. And why not? Why am I even surprised to be sitting here right now? I should have seen this coming from miles away.

For the past three or so months, mostly everything I could call my own has evaporated right before very eyes. The more I tried to hold onto what was mine, the faster it slipped through my fingers. In the battle for independence, I must be Crispus Attucks.

But as I'm driving to work, nothing else seems to be different. It's the same commute. The same radio stations that play all the hottest commercials with occasional music breaks. The same feather-footed drivers that keep making me miss the the lights. Why do I feel so alone?

I'm trying to make sense of all this, analyzing the situation in various translations to find the truth.

Literally: I'm driving on this road in my wife's car.
Figuratively: On this road of life, I'm becoming one with my wife.
Philosophically: The road lies within; the car is my mind.
Spiritually: Narrow is the road ... drive carefully.

I might as well chalk it up to grand design. Meaning God set all this up for me to understand what it truly means in tangible terms to come together in holy matrimony. He's upstairs somewhere in his Mankind Factory, hammering away at my ego, waiting for me to realize that, in truth, everything that I claim to be mine is not mine, but His -- including my wife.

I came into this marriage thinking I could dictate as king of the castle, but every day, my mate puts my reality in check.

"We won't get anywhere," she tells me, "unless you recognize that we're partners."

All this time I've been struggling to do that. Now I have no choice. With my wife and I sharing her car, we have to coordinate our schedules and organize our time. Her internship has ended, which means she has Tuesdays and Wednesdays free. But on Mondays, she goes into work at 3 p.m.; on Thursdays, she has class at 6 p.m.; and on Fridays, she goes into work again at 12:30 p.m. It's not as simple as just dropping me off because my job is so far away.

For the record, I am thankful to have a car to drive at all. Also, for the record, this isn't about the car. It's about me -- whatever "me" I have left. Indeed, letting go has been a hard lesson for me to learn. I have this fear that I will lose myself. But I think the greater truth is not that I lose myself in this marriage, but that I learn how to surrender myself to the marriage. To my wife. To God.

Then and only then will we be able to move forward by faith, and face without fear whatever lies on the road ahead.

Day 76: Fear and Greed

thirdeyewitness@gmail.com (mr. nichols) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:08:00 +0000

(image by thinkpanama)

The worst, most irresponsible financial decision I ever made was three years ago in Boston, when I paid a large lump sum to buy into an education program on stock trading.

Granted, this was back when I was working for the Boston Globe and my cash flow was more than a fickle trickle. I had no concept of the term "splurge" before then. I realized that I didn't want to leave my extra money to mold sitting in the bank. I wanted to invest it. I did research and went to local seminars to figure out how and where I could put my money to make it multiply.

I settled on three places: I put about one-quarter into a CD (Certificate of Deposit) and another quarter into a mutual fund. The rest I decided to use to dive into the stock market. I called it my white-collar hustle and it soon became an addiction.

At work, I would watch the ebb and flow of the averages, and gamble on certain companies that seemed to be on the upswing. The most I made in a single day was $220, but I panicked when I saw it go down the next day, and cashed out. I didn't have the knowledge nor the skills to be a day trader. But I wanted to learn.

I found this one company that offered full-fledged online courses on trading. The price was steep, and I remember talking to the salesperson on the phone one afternoon. I told him I was interested in the program, but it cost too much. He put me on hold to talk to his boss to see what he could do. When he came back, he offered me 50 percent off the price. It was still high, but for lifetime access to the courses, a personal representative and all the materials they would be sending me in the mail, it seemed like a good bet. So I did it.

I think about that decision a lot. It wasn't a scam or anything. I took some of the courses and learned a great deal, and my personal representative still reaches out to me to this day to "see how my trading is coming along." But I didn't have the discipline to stick with it.

I'm thinking about that now because my wife and I are sitting here at this Rich Dad Education seminar, listening to a lecture about real estate investing.

"In this world, people are driven by two things," says the speaker, a former contestant on "The Apprentice," who blames Amorosa for getting fired. "Fear and greed."

I heard that before. And I know there's a thin line between them. She talks about how the country has never seen housing market conditions like this before. And how you can tell it's the ideal time to buy because most people are trying to sell.

After about 45 minutes, she starts talking about this education workshop that will go more into detail about the different investment opportunities and strategies for success. Again, I'm tuning it out. Even though she had been giving us good information, I knew that this would ultimately be one big sales pitch. And I'm not a salespeople person.

But then she hits us with this:

"This is a special offer for today only," she says. "If you go and sign up right now, we will cut the price in half and you get to bring a guest for free. Not only that, but you'll receive Robert Kiyosaki's books and DVDs and you'll have a lifetime financial consultant."

Talk about deja vu.

I turn to Asia as people hop to their feet and head to the back area to sign up and get their tote bags. Honestly, I do think it's an incredible offer, but would I really pay for something I could learn for free at the library or on the internets?

Still, I turn to Asia and say, "I think we should do it."

I'm expecting her to be the voice of reason. I know she had a long day dealing with the insurance company about rental car issues. So I'm thinking all that drama will influence her response, and she'll tell me it's a bad idea.

But instead, she says, "I'm down."

Ten minutes later, as we're sitting back in our seats, our new tote bag next to me, the buyer's remorse kicks in. I know I have three days or whatever to cancel if I so choose. But I support our decision. We came to a mutual agreement that by signing up, we are committing ourselves to see this through and really make something of it.

Truth be told, I can't blame the speaker, or the salesperson who sold me the stock trading package, or even the couple with the magic water. I do think it's possible to be successful using some of these tools or services, but, like a relationship, everything depends on what time you get in and how much time you're willing to put in.

In that sense, I only played myself with that stock trading package because I didn't follow through to the point where I could make back more than what I paid for it. Maybe one day I will go back and finish those courses. I do have access to them forever.

In the meantime, I will be working with my wife to learn more about this real estate game. I do admit, I feel better now than I did in Boston when I made that financial commitment on my own. I believe it's much easier to stick with something when someone is holding you accountable. And partially responsible.