I Do, I Do, I Do. Now Leave Me Alone!

Menopause is really kind of cool, if you disregard the raging hissy, red-faced parts and concentrate on the depth of the emotions you can plumb in, oh, four minutes or less.

Marriage is really kind of cool, too, if you disregard the raging hissy, red-faced parts and concentrate on the depth of the emotions you can plumb in, oh, four minutes or less.

The parallels between these two poignant and panic-inducing stages of life came to me, along with a bad case of the “Oh craps,” as I helped my nephew, Tony, and his then-fiancée, Kara, write their wedding ceremony.

I don’t know if they asked me to pen their vows because I have been with Doug since Boy George was cool, or because I’m sappy but not sickeningly so, or because I’m a writer who’s a) cheap and b) can quote the hell out of a slew of dead great thinkers. I choose to believe they picked me because they know I love being married, that I like the person I am after more than two dozen years with this smart, kind, hot guy beside me, and because I know, since I have lived other lives, that anyone who says their marriage is perfect lies like a dog.

I used to read anniversary notices and wonder how one person could stay married to another person – hell, how anyone could do anything other than breathe and eat Reese Cups – for 25 or 40 or 50 years. Then I married Doug, the man who cooks for me, rides herd on our pets, sings to me and calls me baby (and it doesn't sound creepy). We swear we stay married so as not to screw up two other people's lives. Maybe that’s part of it. Maybe more than that, we’re still a team because it’s real and it’s raw and damn, we’re good together even in the throes of my assorted hissy histrionics.

If, for example, Doug misses one of my calls during the day, I have planned an elaborate, Viking-style funeral before he has time to retrieve my voice mail. In my head, my Dougster is sprawled at the bottom of the basement stairs a la murder-scene chalk-outline, looking like a cross between Jeri Blank’s frozen-faced dad in “Strangers with Candy” and a broken marionette. In less time than it takes to type “I Am An Ignorant Ass,” because that’s what my dad called people who borrowed trouble for themselves, I envision myself draped over my sweet baboo’s tube-entwined body in the hospital, stroking his face and swearing I’ll meet him at Rainbow Bridge, the place where dead pet friends wait for their owners.

Thirty seconds later, I’m on the phone with Doug, reminding him that I need to lose 17 pounds in the next three weeks and that he’s not helping by buying me truffles. And then I cry, because I want to curl up on Doug’s lap, press my head against his hair and smell the warm spot below his left ear and thank him for the chocolate. And then I cry some more, because I remember when we were both so cute it was silly.

So, called upon to write a wedding ceremony for cute people who don’t want any mention of blessed unions, something not pagan enough to make their grandmas faint dead away but spiritual enough to embrace their joy, I spring into estrogen-challenged action.

“It’s really as simple as this,” I tell the kids between sobs and a quick stop at “The Young and The Restless,” where I am going to live with Jack Abbott if Doug doesn’t make it.

“The two of you found each other, love each other and now, cannot imagine life without your best friend. You believe in marriage and its immortal possibilities.”

And I do, I do, I do believe. I really and truly, down to the tips of my come-you-know-what-me shoes I still love wearing, do. At its best, I’ve learned, marriage can, in one afternoon, be wilder and more exciting than living through Mr. Toad's Ride, a Category 5 hurricane and a Spielberg movie in one afternoon. At the worst, those who enter this oh-so-demanding venture with little concept of commitment or unselfishness are most often disillusioned and disappointed.

But Doug and I did it. We persevered. Somewhere between the breathless “I love you’s” and the words that wounded us to the core, between moving in together and my ruptured spleen that left us $20,000 in debt? That’s where we discovered the everyday miracles that sustain and enrich a relationship, the keen and abiding oneness that only two people whose lives intersect from the pillow to the kitchen to the grave can envision.

And in that very special place is where Doug and I figured out what our marriage means, and where we’ve defined and redefined our expectations. That’s where we’ve celebrated individual and shared successes, found pet names and inside jokes -- and the courage to say “I can” when saying “I can’t” would be perfectly understandable, too.

So I write about all that, my popsicle dripping onto the comforter in the dark: "You will find yourself thinking, whether you're walking the dog or spotting each other in the airport after days away from each other: "This is the person I believe in. This is my best friend. I do not live just for you, but I would die for you." Doug said that to me one time after we'd been married several years and I swear to God, my heart almost stopped.

But I tell them, too, that to think they will complete each other through marriage would be selling them, and the infinite possibilities of their marriage, very short indeed. That would imply they would not continue to grow, or that they were not strong, wonderful people before they shared these vows. And of course they were those people, and of course they will blossom, as will the strength of the promises they make in front of their weepy moms and one slightly tipsy aunt.

"That’s because the marriage of the spirit will take you to places you cannot imagine, and most of all, will always bring you home to each other," I write, watching Doug fall asleep and wondering if he knows that he looks like the love child of Bea Arthur and Eric Clapton.

"Everything will change, and grow, from here on out, and so will Kara and Tony Moore. Not because you say “I do” – but because for now and forever, the two of you can say with the assurance that loving marriages bring: “We want to. We choose to. We will.”

And then, because I need to suck down another pint of sorbet and find the painkiller I hid from myself one day when I wanted 27 of them, I call it a night. I have nothing else to tell these two, I mutter to myself, except that it’s not nice to call the other person an ignorant ass. And for God’s sake, who’ll feed the pets when Doug is taking a dirt nap?

Oral Fixation

So I see Oral Roberts is dead at 91, only 23 years after he claimed that unless he received $4.5 mil­lion for scholarships at his med school by a certain date, God would "take him home in one year.” The P.T. Barnum fan in me giggled over Roberts' claim that God wasn't going to cure cancer until each & everyone out there sent him $240, even as I was angered at a man of "faith" who would use cancer as a fundraiser and threaten his own death - at the hands of his supposed Maker, no less - in the name of righteousness. And I was fascinated by the idea of a 900-foot vision of Jesus who allegedly told Roberts in '77 that the City of Faith Medical and Research Center should be built -- 27 years before a 62-foot-tall "Touchdown Jesus" stepped into the waters of the Solid Rock Church off I-75 north of Cincinnati. By the way, Oral's hospital went belly-up faster than an overfed goldfish in 1987, just a few months after Immoral Oral announced that he had raised more than God had told him to dig up. Talk about the Lord working in mysterious ways! This mystery was downright stupefying: Who on God's green Earth sent this man money to keep him from dying? And why, oh why, did they bother?

Not familiar with Oral's particular brand of religious madness and homophobia? Check out this old video, where Oral talks about "oriFICES" -- don't miss the long "I" --and organs and waste matter and the like. You'll never look at your mouth, nose or ear quite the same way again. And keep in mind, as Oral shared, "Everybody knows when sexual arousal reaches a certain point, the person goes insane." Crazy, man, crazy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61_rPgitFmc

Next Stop: Bologna Land, USA

If he's willing to fix the bologna sandwiches and hang out with me when we reach retirement age, I think I have found the perfect golden-years job for my brother.

I'm confident Mike would make a dandy curator for my as-yet-unnamed Roadside Attraction, the one I plan to start at our childhood home unless our mother refuses to be ticket-taker.

The possibilities for something like a Genuine Kentucky Brick House came to me years ago when I saw an American Heritage magazine story listing memorable roadside attractions in the United States.

The writer's choices included Trees of Mystery in Klamath, Calif., Parrot Jungle in Miami and the Paper House near Boston, a house whose walls are made from 215 layers of newspaper and which is featured on roadsideamerica.com, a Web site full of strange stops across America.

Along with Rock City in Chattanooga, one of the few entries I had seen up close was Wall Drug in Wall, S.D., a huge store whose treasures include a fiberglass jackalope, a 6-foot-high rabbit on wheels and a mini Mount Rushmore with a sign stating, "Please Do Not Climb On Faces."

I'm sure if we were to market our childhood home well, Mike and I could add a stop in Central Kentucky to the peculiar lineup, given his ability to create something from nothing and my ability to talk to strangers for hours if cash is involved.

We've got a 2,000-square-foot home and a full basement stuffed with memorabilia, from my dead aunt's salt and pepper shakers to my grandmother's journals from the early 1900s, a six-pack of Billy Beer, tools of the trade from a 40-year-defunct shoe repair shop and more armless dolls than you can shake a stick at, provided YOU have arms.

And if that's not enough, our attraction-to-be is just 30 miles from a big, now-empty metal teepee near Williamstown, Ky., something odd enough for a mention on roadsideamerica.com, too.

NEXT STOP: BOLOGNA LAND

According to Wade Gutman at Grant County Chamber of Commerce, the teepee was the building the gas station attendant worked out of at Hillside Truck Stop, on Kentucky Highway 25 south of Covington.

The teepee, Gutman said, was constructed in the 1950s or earlier, probably to snare the interest and business of travelers like my dad, a man hard-pressed to pass up a place with luncheon meat, bread, a clean bathroom AND a teepee.

Until about 1967, my bologna-loving dad refused to take Interstate 75 from our house to Covington, shouting, as Mike and I turned green on the winding state road, "There's nothing to see on the interstate, for cryin' out loud! We're almost to the teepee!"

Given that background, I figured the one and only road trip I took with my family as an adult, through Florida, should include a stop in St. Augustine, at the Tragedy in U.S. History Museum.

The museum, now closed, featured the car in which actress Jayne Mansfield was supposedly riding when she died in a car crash -- a Buick, though crash photos show she died in a Cadillac -- Lee Harvey Oswald's bedroom furniture, and a photocopy of Elvis Presley's last will and testament.

Instead of treating everyone to roadside weirdness, however, my parents insisted on an afternoon at a historic fort.

On the plus side, Daddy drove on the interstate from Kentucky to Florida and back home, too.

And no one made me eat "lunch meat," which I have hated since 1962.

I didn't want to push my luck and demand to see the car in which Jayne Mansfield might, or might not, have eaten her last bologna sandwich.

HOMESPUN RICHES

A while back, I visited my mom, who hopes to stay in our family home until she leaves for the Big Roadside Attraction in the Sky.

We got up around 5:30 a.m., stepping outside to take in the misty morning air and the sounds of chirping birds.

"I love it here," she said.

I love it, too.

Throw in a replica of an almost-authentic death car, a couple of rocks shaped like scary jackalopes and Teddy Roosevelt's bespectacled mug, and we'll all come out winners.

And don't forget Mike, calling out: "For those of you who remember the days when a pound of bologna was less than a buck, the trolley to the old teepee leaves in 45 minutes. Just don't get any ideas about riding on the interstate. There's nothing to see on the interstate, folks! NOTHING!

"And for cryin' out loud! I beg you! Please do NOT climb on the faces!"

Who Is That? Where Were We? Aw, Snap!

The upcoming onslaught of holiday photo-taking reminded me of a piece I penned after finding yet another box of undated photos. Ever find one of those boxes and swear you'll ID all the photos in your computer and bins and albums? Sure. You'll do it! Right after you get back from that boat cruise to the Isles of Langerhans.

Everyone who has ever said, "Oh, I wish I could go back and live the simple lives my ancestors enjoyed," please do me a favor.

Look at photos of your ancestors, especially pictures taken near the turn of the 20th century.

And then, as you wonder why people in those days looked as though they'd all been told Little Johnny had "the epizooty" or consumption or some other fatal illness, get back to me if you aren't glad you're here now, with your digital camera, scanner and super-digitalized-auto-non-pixilated everything.

I say this because I've recently been involved in an exhaustive effort to identify and catalog pictures I've taken over the years, and those handed down to me by relatives who didn't care to ID our scary, sullen-looking forefathers and foremothers.

I've seen the expressions on the faces of my husband's and my relatives, staring ahead morosely as if to say, "You'd look this dejected, too, if you were wearing a corset, having your photo taken took all day AND you knew that your life expectancy was up … oops! Tomorrow!"

And looking at their grim mugs, I know one thing for sure: Had I been born before 1900, I probably would have taken one peek at family photos and killed myself in hopes reincarnation worked.

FACES FROM THE GRAVE

For example, take -- I mean literally. Take them, please -- the pictures of my husband's great-great-grandparents, Eliza and W.W. Steed.

W.W., which stands, I think, for Weed-like Whiskers, appears to have indigestion from eating too much hoecake before enjoying a rousing after-dinner game of "Let's Forge a Trail to Somewhere."

And plump Eliza, who reminds me of a dark-haired, unhappy Quaker Oats man, looks like she's just been told that her new corset, with twice the power of the old one, has arrived by Pony Express.

I can't tell you how old the Steeds were in these shots, because apparently, before 1900, people who were 25 looked like someone who's 65 these days and people who were 50 weren't in pictures, because they were dead, or at least wished they were.

In the most morbidly fascinating entry in my collection, my maternal grandmother, great-grandmother, great-uncle and great-great grandmother are dressed in their finest in front of the old homestead, Little Ugly House in the Woods.

The Perkinses stand, arms hanging stiffly at their sides, about three feet away from each other, all sporting that "Little Johnny's 'bout dead" look.

My grandmother and great-uncle do not look like carefree children, to put it mildly. I think it's because they're afraid that once the photo shoot is done, they will have to kiss their grandma, Mary, who in the photo is dressed from her shawl-covered head to her toes in black and is seated sidesaddle on a horse.

Granny Mary, I've learned, didn't believe people of color had souls. That probably explains why she looks ready to gallop off to the strains of the bike-riding music in "Wizard of Oz," or to meet the Headless Horseman for a batch of whatever a man without a head and a woman without a heart eat.

I look at her pinched, angry face. And shudder. And thank my lucky ancestral stars I was born several generations after the original Wicked Witch.

JUST SHOOT ME

In reality, I realize folks in photos way back when had good reasons to look so tired, bored and old, things like hard lives, poor health habits, long trips to the outhouse and no cable TV.

And probably, because it took forever to set up a picture in the era when cameras were as big as a dinner table and "flash" meant smoky magnesium, people got surly as they waited to be photographed.

So relive "the good old days?" Look like THAT in photos? Uh -- not in this lifetime, thank you.

I just hope that before I meet Granny Mary and the gang, I can track down and destroy any unattractive photos of myself, including the Halloween shot where I'm wearing a black dress, black hat, black hose and a too-many-beers grin.

I'd hate to see myself, for eternity, propped up on a shelf next to Granny Mary, as some poor kid who got stuck with the family photos wonders aloud:

"Whoa! What was HER problem? And doesn't she remind you just a little of that old bat on the horse?"

No, I Did Not Run Away With Vanilla Ice

I'm back - you really thought I'd started a blog and then gone the way of Vanilla Ice, didn't ya? After a career-imposed hiatus which threw my work off track (translation: The company I was interviewing with has a strict no-blogging-by-employees-policy but I turned them down). I have cleared the way for blogging every day and interviewed for a couple of gigs where my off-site writing is not only tolerated but encouraged! Beginning Dec. 12, 2009, check out Double Naught 7 Digest every day after 5 p.m. for updates on everything you never needed to know but surprisingly, care about anyway; celebrity news & views; and slices of life from the Tristate and beyond. My book, "Cynthiana," will be released by Arcadia Publishing on Monday, Dec. 14, and I'll be interviewed on ... drum roll ... WCYN radio in Cynthiana, Ky., that morning. On Saturday, Dec. 19, I'll host a book signing from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum.

Hope you'll check me out. This time, I'm here for the duration.