First I found your house.

And then I found you on the Internet.
Now I scan the obituaries for your name.

I come in peace.

One day I asked myself what if I go down this street instead of that one.
I don’t know, only one way to find out.
And so I took Orchard instead of Dudley and nearly stopped in my tracks when I saw it.
This house is the only thing that could keep me in this city.
Waking up in this house would make life worth waking up to.
Coming home to this house would give me a reason to have left home in the first place.

I smell my lentils cooking in the kitchen.
I hear me typing in the front bedroom.
I see my sisters coming over to play pinochle in the front room.
I see the attic full of fabric scraps and skeins of leftover yarn.
I see me sleeping with the windows open in the back bedroom.
I see me crying in the bathroom.
I see me stretching on the front porch.
I see my laundry hanging in the backyard.
I see me letting the weeds grow on the side of the house.

There is only one place for all of this, for all of me. And you are living there. With your wife and your dog. You are young. You look fertile, like you might try and fill the house up with kids.

And so I must wait.

A composite of some of the writer's facebook friends

I used to say that my mom was my best friend and then I met my husband. Now I say that he is my best friend because that is what people say. Actually, women say it more than men. But they always sound happy when they say it and so I say it. I am married to my best friend. But secretly, we like REALLY different things. If we weren’t married and people didn’t say you should be married to your best friend, there’s no way we would be best friends. I like shopping and celebrity news and lotion. He likes dogs and trucks and sports. One thing that we can agree on is that steak is delicious. He said that he knew that I was a “cool chick” when I ordered a steak on our first date and ate more than half of it. So whenever we fight, which we don’t really do that, we try to remember to go eat steak.

We also really like reality TV. We’ve liked it since the beginning, but now there are so many shows to choose from. We have different favorite shows (me: the bachelor :: him: west coast choppers), but they are all so good that we will each watch the other’s favorite show. That’s what marriage is all about, watching each other’s favorite shows.

We also really like working out. He loves “being ripped” and I just don’t want to ever get fat. He promises that he would love me even if I get fat, but he says such mean things about his sister Janine who probably needs to start working with a trainer that I know that if I got fat maybe he wouldn’t say those things but he would probably think them.

Right now we are saving up our money to update our kitchen. We went to a factory direct appliance store today to look at stainless steel appliances to go with our granite countertops. Our house will look just like a new condo! I can’t wait! After the kitchen is done, we are going to save up for a new motorcycle for my husband. And then maybe we will have a baby or build a deck. I am so happy and blessed and nothing is wrong. At all.