Married Life

It has been a long time since I last posted, but I believe that I have very good reason. Since I last posted, I both bought a house and got married. Because of that, it is my pleasure to announce that Weird is a Compliment is no longer a solo effort. My beautiful wife has agreed to join me in posting here occasionally.

The two of us have mostly managed to settle in, and we are really enjoying just being able to spend time together. It's amazing what kind of a difference it makes when you can do things together in the evening, and don't have to worry about leaving in time to make an hour-long drive home. It's a wonderful thing to get home from work, and enjoy a quiet evening at home with my wife.

With that said, I have to express a few pet peeves with a lot of people that I have run into since our wedding. It seems like everyone wants to ask the same questions, and in most cases they should already know the answers.

1) "What did you do on your honeymoon?"

This one irritates me for several reasons, depending on who asks it and what they are specifically asking. Some people ask it as though it's a competition to see who can have the most exciting honeymoon, or travel to the most exotic locations. Others are trying to ask what specific activities we had planned. To answer this, we spent a quiet weekend at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, and didn't really plan much of anything except alone time to get used to the whole idea of being married. It was wonderful.

Of course, that sort of answer isn't good enough for some people. In one case, someone kept pushing me about what did we have planned for our honeymoon, to the point where I gave an answer that will shock some of you. (It certainly shocked him.) If you really want to know that answer, email me. I'm not posting it here.

2) "How's married life?"

This question really irritates me, because I mostly get it from people who are married themselves, and so they should already know the big secret of married life: it's a lot like single life, which is just like life in general. People don't magically change when they get married, and Gwen is the same Gwen today that she was before our wedding.

Yes, there are adjustments to make. She fold the towels in halves, while I fold them in thirds. She puts soap into the dishwasher immediately after emptying it so she can easily tell that the dishes are dirty, and I wait to fill the soap dispenser until I run it. She's stolen the covers a time or two, and so have I.

But none of these things is really a fundamental issue, nor do these sort of things really matter that much in the long run. (Well, maybe the towels, but we won't go into that...) The only real difference between being engaged and being married is that we are discovering more and more each day how deeply we really love each other.

3) "Are you planning to have children?" "How many kids do you want?" "Are you trying for kids?"

These questions irritate me more than any others. Quite frankly, it's no one else's business when we plan to have kids, how many kids we plan to have, or whether we are trying to have kids right now.

If we want you to know when or if we're having kids, we'll let you know. We're still getting used to the whole idea of being married, and we're not really focusing on children right now. When that changes, we'll be sure to let all of you know within a year or so of our getting pregnant. Otherwise, if you are going to ask these questions, you had better be prepared to provide babysitting services (for free) when we do have kids, because I consider such questions to be volunteering.

I don't want to seem like I am just complaining, though. I'm grateful that so many people care about both of us to the point where they are interested in our lives. But I do wish that some people would learn to temper their curiosity with a little more common sense. At the very least, I would prefer that people come up with some more personalized and unique questions.

Is that too much to ask?

The Big Reveal

And now, behold! The promised pictures the soon-to-be Mrs. I think you will all have the same question that my friends and coworkers have asked when seeing Gwen for the first time:

"What's a girl like her doing with a guy like you? Couldn't she find someone better?"

I fully recognize that I really don't measure up to a woman as amazing and wonderful as she is, but I do keep on trying. For some reason, she thinks that's enough.
This is our official engagement picture.


This is the last picture that we took that day. It was just a spur of the moment one, but I think it was one of the best overall.


We were told to walk up the path together, but I was in the mood for a game of tag.

And finally, just to prove that she really can deal with me quite easily:

Have I mentioned that I think Gwen is absolutely wonderful, and I am so blessed to know her, let alone be marrying her?

It's a Crazy Life

It seems like every time I post, I start by apologizing for not posting. Sorry, but that's life.

I'm still alive and kicking. A lot has happened, and yet it seems like I'm still right where I was before.

I'm still waiting for the final approval on the house, still waiting for the wedding, and still dealing with things day-to-day. I'm starting to get impatient at the wait. Like Inigo Montoya, "I hate waiting."

Darn it, I don't want to wait another month for my house. I don't want to wait another 75 days to get married (but who's counting). I don't want to be patient. I just want to be able to move forward with everything.

But, all in all, life is good. Yesterday, Gwen and I went to Cabell's Mill and took our engagement pictures. My old friend Meghan borrowed my camera and took the pictures for us (and it only cost me a grilled cheese sandwich, some tomato soup, and some ice cream). She did a phenomenal job, and really brought out the beauty of Gwen's hair. I will try to post some of the pictures later today.

We hope to have the announcements ready to mail in a week or three, but I am in the process of verifying addresses. If I haven't contacted you already to verify your mailing address, and you want to be sure to get one, drop me an email.

That about covers everything for now. I will endeavor to post more often in the future.

Big news!

I will keep this short, because I have to get to bed soon, but I have some wonderful news to share.

Today, my girlfriend and I announced to our families that she is not my girlfriend, but my fiancée. We are getting married this coming October in the Washington DC Temple.

There is so much more that I could say right now, but suffice it to say that Gwen is the most amazing woman I have ever met. She is intelligent, witty, charming, beautiful, and has a smile that can disarm anyone. She somehow has a way of seeing who I really am, and yet she actually seems to like what she sees. She deserves far better than me, but she doesn't seem to want anyone else.

I don't deserve a woman like her in my life, but if she can't see that, I'm certainly not going to try to change her mind. To quote Nanky-Poo from The Mikado, "She shall never learn the truth from me."

Heroes and Friends

I ain't live forever but I've lived enough
And I've learned to be gentle and I've learned to be tough
I've found only two things that last to the end
One is your heroes the other your friends

Your heroes will help you find good in yourself
Your friends won't forsake you for somebody else.
They'll both stand beside you thru thick and thru thin
And that's how it goes with heroes and friends

I grew up with cowboys I watched on TV
My friends and I sometimes pretended to be
Years have gone by but now and again
My heart rides the range with my heroes and friends

Your heroes will help you find good in yourself
Your friends won't forsake you for somebody else.
They'll both stand beside you thru thick and thru thin
And that's how it goes with heroes and friends

Today, I want to give a tip of the hat to one of my greatest heroes and one of my best friends. He is one of the greatest men I know, and has always been a wonderful role model for me in almost every aspect of my life.

He is absolutely honest; I have never known him to tell a lie in any way.

He is incredibly intelligent, and is always willing to share his knowledge and skills with others. He is by far the greatest teacher I know, with an amazing ability to connect with his students on a personal level, and relate his material to their lives in a way that they can understand. It doesn't matter if the topic is nuclear physics, the Gospel, or how to do basic home repairs.

He is a constant student, always looking for new ways to learn and grow.

He is the man who introduced me to classic science fiction, and especially to the idea of dreaming of a better future, and then working towards it. He especially introduced me to the Lensman series, and if any man I know is of Lensman grade, it would be him. Of all the characters in literature, he reminds me most of Virgil Samms. (If you don't know who that is, hunt down a copy of Triplanetary, and especially of First Lensman. The latter volume will explain all you need to know.)

He was my Scoutmaster and helped guide me to my Eagle Scout. As a Webelos leader, he taught us to take down a wall, and then tackled us when we wanted to move on to the next one.

From the earliest age, he has always been kind and patient with me as I wanted to tag along with him on various projects. It didn't matter whether he was fixing a sink, rewiring a lamp, or writing a program on the computer. I wanted to work along side him, and he always found a way that I could.

I cannot describe how much I love him, nor how much I wish that I could be just like him. One day, I hope that I will be as great of a father as he has been to me, because I know that I could never be better than him.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Unrequited Love

Recently, I have been rewatching Babylon 5 from the beginning. (If you haven't seen this series, I highly recommend that you find a copy and watch it. It is easily one of the most impressive TV series of all time.) I finished Season 4 over the weekend, and a comment from the next-to-last episode struck me. (Yes, there are spoilers, but the series is 10 years old already. You have been warned.)

Towards the end of the season, Commander Susan Ivanova is severely injured in a battle and not expected to survive. They transfer her back to Babylon 5 so they can make her more comfortable in her final days. However, Marcus Cole (who has obviously been in love with her without her noticing) learns of an alien device on the station that can heal people, taking energy from the operator and giving it to the patient. He rushes back to the station and breaks into where the device is stored, then goes ans uses it on Ivanova, giving his life for hers. In dealing with the aftermath of this, she says to Dr. Stephen Franklin:

All love is unrequited, Stephen. All of it.

I was looking up something related to this quote online, and got pointed to another site, which is especially fitting in light of Valentine's Day last week.

Now, I can understand a little of the view that all love is unrequited. In a way, that's right. In its purest form, love shouldn't depend in any way on whether it is returned or not. True, selfless love is given to someone else with no strings attached.

At the same time, Ivanova is wrong. Not all love is unrequited. Yes, some is. Who hasn't felt that feeling of love for someone else who doesn't return that love? Who hasn't wanted, with all of their heart, to confess their undying love and devotion to someone, but stopped short of doing just that out of fear or lack of timing? Or worse, they work up the courage and are rejected instead. I know I have. Several times. It takes a lot for me to admit to myself that I have fallen in love with someone. Admitting it to someone else, especially directly to that person, is far more difficult.

And yet, not all love or relationships go that way. I look at my parents, who have been married for just shy of 35 years. I see my sisters' relationships with their husbands. I see family and friends with stable, loving relationships. I know that it's possible, and I know that I won't rest until I can find someone to develop such a relationship with myself.

So, I guess I agree with Ambassador Delenn, who later in that episode is commenting on Ivanova's observation with her aide Lennier (who is in love with Delenn, but refuses to tell her, but that's another sad story). She says, "She's wrong, of course."

But then, you have to live life as it comes at you, taking what joy you find as it comes along. Possibly the best advice from the episodes I watched on Saturday was this tidbit from Marcus: "Touch passion when it comes your way, Stephen. It's rare enough as it is. Don't walk away when it calls you by name."

Happy belated Valentine's Day, everyone. I hope that everyone who reads this is able to learn for themselves that Delenn is right and Ivanova is wrong, and that not all love is unrequited. Hold on to that love when you find it, for it is one of the most precious things in existence.