Moo.

My man is a contractor and he works hard at least six days a week – if not seven. And if he’s not at a job site on Sundays, he’s doing some sort of work on our house. He’s a busy boy.

For my mom’s birthday in February, I gave her a coupon for one free day of slave labor stripping the wallpaper in her living room. A few weeks later, my dad started talking about hiring someone to come look at the slight water damage in the kitchen ceiling, re-patch some places he thought he didn’t patch well, and give the whole ceiling a fresh coat of paint.

That would be a two-story high ceiling that extends through three biggish rooms, by the way.

“I’ll have Dan come look at it,” I said. “He can fix it while I’m doing the wallpaper.”

“Oh, he doesn’t need to do that on his day off, he does that stuff all week.”

“I’m sure he won’t mind. You don’t have to go hire someone else and pay for it,” I insist, and I’m right.

Of course my man can take care of it. He swore he didn’t mind helping my folks out, even on a day off. I thanked him profusely, telling him my mom and dad would really appreciate it.

“It’s no problem,” he said. “I don’t have a cow to give them for you, so I’ll help out instead.”

Well, he used to say he’d give my dad a goat in exchange for my hand in marriage, so I suppose this is an upgrade of sorts.

Moo.

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Our house – in the middle of the street

I’ve never lived with a boyfriend before.

When I was engaged and got the apartment my fiance and I were planning to live in post-wedding, technically it was “mine” for the time being. But he was over there all the time, always sleeping over always just OHMYGODINMYFACE because he wanted us to spend meaningful and valuable time together. It drove me crazy. I need my own space, I realized – and that 1 bedroom apartment, which was all we could afford, just wouldn’t cut it.

For a variety of reasons, we didn’t get married.

I didn’t even do so hot with roommates in college. My junior year I lived with 3 other girls in a 4 bedroom house, which sounds nice enough because we each have our own private space. But my GAWD, the estrogen. The bickering. The you-should-come-do-yoga-with-us squeal which, when ignored, made me a social pariah.

I dropped out of college that semester.

I like having my own space to putter about aimlessly, to put things where I want them, to read a book and watch whatever I want on TV. I want to decompress after work with a short nap. I want to let the dirty dishes pile up if I feel lazy. I want a place to be antisocial. I want to be QUIET.

That was how I spent most of my twenties, in a series of apartments (and one house), roommate-less and comfortable with my breathing space. When E and I were off-and-on serious, I did begin to imagine what it would be like living with him – mingling our living preferences and trying to coexist on an everyday basis.

I tried. I failed. Even in my overactive imagination, it didn’t work. Like so very many things about us as a couple, it was just another irreconcilable difference.

We broke up for the third and last time, and three days later I had a date with Dan.

I can’t remember a time I ever wanted to be around someone so much. I’m serious. I can’t. After 2 weeks of dating, we stopped sleeping alone.  It didn’t matter if it was date night. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t till 9 or 10 pm. We were at my apartment or his house, never apart at bedtime.

But he has a dog that needs to be let out and in, and his house was 20 minutes from my apartment. The back-and-forth was a total pain in the ass, so we did the only thing that made sense:

We packed my stuff and I put the apartment on Craigslist in early February.

I have my own computer room here, and Dan has given me the run of re-organizing the kitchen. I have license to rid the common areas of the dumb bachelor-type things like the foosball table in the dining room. Our things are all coming together, mingling furniture and utensils and linens and DVDs. There have been compromises – paint colors and things going up on the walls. We’ve cobbled together a who-pays-for-what plan to try and keep our finances separate but equal.

We agreed the other day that it’s “our house” now. And he told the crazytail dog that I’m her mama.

It’s always nice waking up next to your man, but I never knew it would feel so good just to come home to him every day.

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Knucklebuster (or, how bitchy girls made me break my boyfriend’s windshield)

All right, the blog is back because I am quite pissed off and I don’t want to bruise my knuckles punching anything else. Better to nurse the one bloody finger and hit the keyboard with the rest of them.

I hate catty girls. And I reserve a special hate for girls who are catty about boys.

I started playing Gaelic Football this fall and that’s where I met my boyfriend. I think he’s amazing. I think I am the luckiest girl in the world because the guy who I think was Eligible Bachelor Number One in the Gaelic Athletic Club picked ME.

Most of the girls I met on our girls’ team have been lovely to me. I’d never played before and they were helpful and friendly. But after Boyfriend and I had our first as-a-couple outing at a club party, one of my good friends on the team – and a long-time club member who knows the ropes – approached me and asked if anyone was giving me any trouble about him.

He’s a bit of a goofball and a prankster. I thought she meant people might be saying things along the lines of  “Haha, good luck with that crazy guy!” in a sort of friendly fashion.

“No, everyone’s been really nice,” I told her. “Why would they give me trouble?”

“Some people are just mean,” she said. “You tell me if any of the girls are saying things and I’ll take care of it.”

I named one girl who I knew only a little. “She just was telling me to take it slow,” I said. “Not that I think it’s her business because she doesn’t know either of us, but I figure she meant well.”

My friend looked mad.

Huh.

I knew by then that my boyfriend had in the past dated a girl who was in the club at that time. I think it was at least a year – maybe two – since then. She was no longer around and from the sounds of things, no one especially liked her anyway. I doubted that any lingering sentiment about her would make someone give me any trouble, so of course I wondered what she could be referring to.

When I asked him, Boyfriend said pretty much the same thing my friend did. That some people are mean and he wouldn’t put up with it.

That was in November.

I trust my boyfriend. He trusts me. We tell each other things before they’re asked. We know about exes, we know about the experiences that have shaped each other’s views on relationships, and so on. We know where we come from and how we got here.

Saturday night – a condensed version:

We have dinner with friends, then migrate with that group to another place for drinks. There she is, the girl who told me to take it slow, with another girl from the club who I’d only met a few times but was nice enough to me then. We chat, and Boyfriend drifts away to the bar with the guys. The three of us girls have some drinks and talk about nothing important, but I feel good because I think they like me and I like to be liked. Camogie training starts next month and I want to be on this girl’s good side because she’d been in the club a long time and everyone knows her.

Then she asks how things are with him.

“Wonderful,” I gush. “Perfectly happy.”

She starts in on telling me to be cautious again and quite frankly, I’m a little annoyed. But I thank her for her concern and tell her that it’s between me and him, and we’re doing great.

“Well, I’m just worried,” she says plaintively. “I mean, because of things with my friend…”

“You mean Erica?” I say, naming his ex that used to be in the club. “I know about that.”

“No.” And thenguys, I’m not kidding, she smiled when she said this… “I mean about him and (other girl).”

The other girl was sitting right next to us. She smirked. She’s like, 45. She’s not cute. She has a whiny voice. AND SHE FUCKING SMIRKED AT ME.

I repeat: I trust my boyfriend. And what he did with other girls before we were together is not my concern unless it involves something that itches. But I could not, would not sit there and take that shit from those girls.

I walked over to him, grabbed his hand and said we were leaving. And as we walked out, I heard her calling “I’m sorry!” to him by name – not to me.

I told him what was said and I though his head was going to explode. He started swearing, calling those girls liars and whores and then turning to me quickly, telling me that he’d never done anything with that girl, that he went home drunk with her one night years ago and passed out on the couch alone and nothing happened.

“Even if something did, it was before I even knew you and – “

“That’s not the point!” he raged as we headed for the parking lot. “She has this stupid crush on me and she knows nothing is ever going to happen and she lies about this shit! Both of those girls have slept with practically everyone in the club, they piss off everyone and I don’t even know why the board doesn’t fucking kick them out.” He stopped walking and pulled me close to him. “I’m sorry, babe. I am so sorry you have to deal with people like that, I’m sorry they’re doing this to you.”

I cried.

What the fuck is wrong with people? Why do some people get such a sick high out of hurting other people’s feelings? Why do they even bother being nice to me? It’s not right, it’s not fair – and I know that makes me sound like a baby, but guys, it’s just wrong.

I hate people like that. I hate being around people like that. And that night when my thoughts were booze-fueled and racing, I didn’t want to play anymore. I didn’t even want to put myself around people who were going to act like my sorority sisters did when we were nineteen. I got even madder when I thought about quitting – I mean, why should I quit when they’re the ones who are bitches and should go away? Why should I let them stop me?

So, because I was so ragey and Boyfriend wouldn’t let me go back in the bar and take it out on one of them, I punched his windshield, bloodied my knuckle, and left a starburst crack in the glass in front of the passenger seat.

He needed to replace it anyway. It had a big crack in it already.

Boyfriend said that if people are going to be like that to me because of him, he won’t tolerate it, he’ll take it to the club board, and if they won’t kick those girls out – because like he said, this isn’t new behavior for them -  then he’ll quit.

I’m feeling much steadier (and soberer) about it now, but still pissed that people would deliberately hurt someone they don’t know for no good reason – and then smirk about it. Still pissed that what they did was to hurt HIM, too.

But I’m going to go to training with the team. I won’t quit because of people like that, but I won’t play nice even if they try it on me. And don’t you goddamn mess with my boyfriend. I can break glass and if I line up against you in a scrimmage – bitch, I can break your face.

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I guess he needs a blog code name now

So, the movie date? That guy? We see each other every day. He brings me flowers and makes me blueberry cinnamon rolls. I go to his hurling matches. We’re in a legitimate, status-changed-on-Facebook relationship now.

It seems so fast to you, doesn’t it?

That’s okay. But it doesn’t feel like that to us. It seems simple and lovely and good, like being in each other’s lives is the most natural thing in the world, even though we’ve only known each other a few weeks. And while I’m fully aware that this loved-up state is often the norm in new relationships, in my personal experience all I can compare it to is this

The last time I felt like this about someone so soon, I almost married him.*

I think people see us and they can just TELL. We went to a party after the Gaelic Football final this weekend, our first public outing with everyone from the club around, and I can’t tell you how many people said things along the lines of “this just makes sense” when they saw us holding hands or making googly eyes at each other. Most of these people know me a little, but they’ve known him a long time. I like that it makes sense to them.

I just like to see the boy’s face. Fuck, I like to see his shoulder when I wake up in the morning and he’s rolled over facing the other direction. It’s like that.

Last night while snuggling:

Me: “This is going to sound really cheesy, but I feel really lucky to be with you.”

Him: “I’ve felt lucky since the day I met you.”

Me: “Fine. You win the cheese.”

Him: “Yessss!” *fist pump*

We can tick off a lot of prosaic checkboxes about why we fit together: similar families, values, and a predilection for tinkering with things, same dry sense of humor, and a shared dislike of Jell-o that escalates to a shared hatred if the Jell-o has stuff in it. Even the things we don’t have in common aren’t substantial enough to cause any friction. For example: I love the Chicago Bears, and he doesn’t really follow football but will watch with me. If he was a Packers or Vikings fan, we’d have a problem, but this? It works out.

I think the true and deep connection happens on a different level though.

WE ARE BOTH EVIL GENIUSES.

Today one of his employees ate his bag of Skittles. The boy LOVES his Skittles. He was looking forward to Skittles when he woke up this morning. He sent me a text after this theft occurred and we plotted revenge. After considering and discarding ideas of just killing the perp or shoving M&Ms in his ears (Skittle-like, but good and melty and hard to remove), we figured that a fish in the guy’s ductwork should do it.

Something very awesome is happening here.

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* But the fact that I didn’t does not bode ill here. It’s a long story but trust me, this ain’t the same rodeo.

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