Little Things I Love About You (Anniversary Edition–2006)

That you willingly traded cell phones with me so I could take advantage of our New Every Two plan and buy my super cool, Heck Yes I’m So Freaking Organized Now It’s SCARY Treo 700p Pure Palm Smartphone Ramma Lamma Bing Bang. Even though my old cell phone was a Razr and totally sucked. And had the battery life roughly equivalent to that of the mayfly. Oh, and was pink. Bright pink. So very, verrrrry pink. Pinkalicious! Which I don’t need to remind you is the totally hip color for the modern, totally not gay man, so really, some might say I did you a favor. That’s all I’m saying.

That you let me give you facials and microdelivery peels. Because, hey, let’s face it, even a man needs to exfoliate once in a while, am I right? Plus, it’s TINGLY! (Um, see above.)

The way you seem to intuitively KNOW when I’m in a total funk– the kind in which I am unable to resist the urge to eat every last cookie or pastry in the house, after which I park myself in front of a mirror, puff out my tummy, and deliver a lengthy and somewhat tearful discourse on the many evils of clothing companies and the arbitrariness of pant sizes; or the kind in which I say things like “Okay, I know you did NOT just take the last piece of gum out of my purse!” after which I make that angry face, you know, the one you always say me make me “look like Satan”– and you realize that the children are dancing the electric slide on my LAST NERVE, so you wrangle them and drive them to the nearest park or the library, thus giving me some quality alone-time with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, old REM CDs, and my inner bitch, while at the same time saving the children (and yourself) from verbal annihilation. That’s what’s called being a HERO. Seriously. There will be songs.

That, when we actually find a babysitter and go out on a Real Date, and you take me to a restaurant in which the establishment holds up its personified nose at blue jeans and Uggs, poo-poos the idea of “dining on a shoestring,” and doesn’t even MAKE a children’s menu, and the waiter brings the bill at the end of the meal, you always make sure to ask in a voice that carries all the way to the old, snooty-looking couple at the furthest corner table, “Now, you take FOOD STAMPS, right?!” Which is never embarrassing. AT ALL. Wait…

That when you get embarrassed your ears turn bright red and you smile in the cutest, sexiest way imaginable, thus providing me with all the motivation I need to cut loose the craziness and do my utmost to embarrass you whenever the opportunity presents itself.

That when the weather outside is frightful, you will wake up at four-thirty in the morning in order to warm up the car, scrape and de-ice the windshield, and drive me to the train station, so I don’t have to endure the horrors of navigating the Capital Beltway in inclement weather. Which is TGIM-speak for “So you don’t freaking kill yourself, you wicked-crazy, aggressive driver, you.” Which, aaaaw! And RUDE.

That you are always willing to go on long, brisk walks with me, during which you patiently listen– even interjecting an occasional “yes” or “I hear that”– as I expatiate on the superiority of the earlier seasons of Buffy, before Angel left, Oz took off, Buffy became the vampire layer (oh, yes I DID), and Willow turned all gay and whatnot.

That when you overhear a conversation about whether or not it would be appropriate for children to wear their Halloween masks in the local church during the Fall Festival-slash-Halloween Party, you immediately bring the conversation to a higher plane of thought by leaning in and asking, “Well… What Would Jesus Wear?” And that when I burst out laughing– thus securing myself a special place in hell– and no one else does, you simply give one of those Uh-Huh, Think About THAT shrugs and walk away. Thus securing a place in hell right along with me. Baby, that’s love.

Happy anniversary, gorgeous man. Best fourteen years of my life, bar none.

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