My husband's got another movie coming up soon. Look for it in the "discount" bin at a DVD store near you. I'm not sure where the acting bug bit him...but ever since he portrayed that gay zombie in a student film, he's been quite keen on it.
Now – as thrilled as I was that he had gotten an acting gig, as ecstatic as I was that the armies of the undead are finally equal opportunity employers, as happy as I was to have the house to myself for an entire weekend during the film shoot…I was less than pleased being confronted with a pile of blood and viscera-soaked metrosexually appropriate clothing. (Almost as displeased as my Darling Other Half was when the producer saw his favourite silk Hawaiian shirt on set and whispered, "Oh my God, that's perfect! That's the gayest piece of clothing I've ever seen!" He was not in costume yet. He has had that shirt since Standard Six and wears it at least twice a week.)
A friend introduced us during some godawful church-sanctioned function. (For those of you who do not know, I work as a marketing manager for the Association of Dutch Reform churches. It's also not boring, but it's not easy either. How do you sell church in this day and age? "Do you like…sitting on hard benches? Drinking tea? Abstaining from sex? Well, then, have I got a deal for you!!!" I frequently wish I could get a job with the Islamists, dress like a ninja and campaign against the infidels, but they are not hiring.)
The meeting was pretty memorable for two reasons: a) he didn't have dress sense six years ago either, and b) I had that wonderful feeling you get when you meet someone special and you know – you just know – like some writer once said, that you will not get through this experience with your knees together.
The only minor hiccup was that we were both in relationships at the time, but we were so positively overwhelmed discovering each other that it didn't matter. (He was in a relationship where the other person threw things. I was in a relationship where I was doing the throwing. It was dysfunctional all around.)
We started out as friends, which is great, because you discover the other person's Crazy all at once. The Crazy, for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, is that part of your personality that you keep hidden in order to avoid the loonie bin. We all have the Crazy. Some less, some more. My husband and I both have it in bucketfuls. All his shirts have to be arranged according to color. And have to be folded EXACTLY the same size. Clothing in the closets arranged according to length. All the coat hangers must match (and can only be white). All CDs and Books must be kept alphabetically. All cereals and groceries must be categorized and stacked in rows. All toiletries – shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes – must be white and match. He will only wear white socks. . I can’t buy any other color, even though, as a fashion lover, I can’t tolerate white socks on anyone but tennis players and newborn babes. He takes photos with his phone of all the cars that park next to him when we go out to the mall, in case one of them accidentally scratches his car. He will only use brands that existed between 1985-1990 (his first five years of life). He will only use pristine wooden clothes pegs for hanging laundry (matching, of course). Dirty dishes must be piled in a certain order or he will not wash them. If this does not happen, he goes into a dormant, depressive state and cannot function like a normal human being. It's like kryptonite. This also proves that opposites attract because my approach to most household and laundry items involves buying things that do not wrinkle, bundling it up, chucking it inside the closet and closing the door very quickly.
I really enjoyed the friendship phase of our relationship. I never knew that so many awful movies existed. It become our ritual – picking me up from work, having a burger, and going to the Labia to see Kimura the Giant Fleshing-eating Turtle from Tokyo Part II (or something similar).
When I finally broke it off with my boyfriend, I told him the sad news and he immediately responded with a grin and, "I'm really sorry to hear that…what are you doing Friday night?"
Our first real date was a picnic halfway up Tygerberg hill. (It was going to be all the way on top of Tygerberg hill, but he was a heavy smoker at the time and collapsed after ten minutes' worth of climbing).
Now – as thrilled as I was that he had gotten an acting gig, as ecstatic as I was that the armies of the undead are finally equal opportunity employers, as happy as I was to have the house to myself for an entire weekend during the film shoot…I was less than pleased being confronted with a pile of blood and viscera-soaked metrosexually appropriate clothing. (Almost as displeased as my Darling Other Half was when the producer saw his favourite silk Hawaiian shirt on set and whispered, "Oh my God, that's perfect! That's the gayest piece of clothing I've ever seen!" He was not in costume yet. He has had that shirt since Standard Six and wears it at least twice a week.)
A friend introduced us during some godawful church-sanctioned function. (For those of you who do not know, I work as a marketing manager for the Association of Dutch Reform churches. It's also not boring, but it's not easy either. How do you sell church in this day and age? "Do you like…sitting on hard benches? Drinking tea? Abstaining from sex? Well, then, have I got a deal for you!!!" I frequently wish I could get a job with the Islamists, dress like a ninja and campaign against the infidels, but they are not hiring.)
The meeting was pretty memorable for two reasons: a) he didn't have dress sense six years ago either, and b) I had that wonderful feeling you get when you meet someone special and you know – you just know – like some writer once said, that you will not get through this experience with your knees together.
The only minor hiccup was that we were both in relationships at the time, but we were so positively overwhelmed discovering each other that it didn't matter. (He was in a relationship where the other person threw things. I was in a relationship where I was doing the throwing. It was dysfunctional all around.)
We started out as friends, which is great, because you discover the other person's Crazy all at once. The Crazy, for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, is that part of your personality that you keep hidden in order to avoid the loonie bin. We all have the Crazy. Some less, some more. My husband and I both have it in bucketfuls. All his shirts have to be arranged according to color. And have to be folded EXACTLY the same size. Clothing in the closets arranged according to length. All the coat hangers must match (and can only be white). All CDs and Books must be kept alphabetically. All cereals and groceries must be categorized and stacked in rows. All toiletries – shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes – must be white and match. He will only wear white socks. . I can’t buy any other color, even though, as a fashion lover, I can’t tolerate white socks on anyone but tennis players and newborn babes. He takes photos with his phone of all the cars that park next to him when we go out to the mall, in case one of them accidentally scratches his car. He will only use brands that existed between 1985-1990 (his first five years of life). He will only use pristine wooden clothes pegs for hanging laundry (matching, of course). Dirty dishes must be piled in a certain order or he will not wash them. If this does not happen, he goes into a dormant, depressive state and cannot function like a normal human being. It's like kryptonite. This also proves that opposites attract because my approach to most household and laundry items involves buying things that do not wrinkle, bundling it up, chucking it inside the closet and closing the door very quickly.
I really enjoyed the friendship phase of our relationship. I never knew that so many awful movies existed. It become our ritual – picking me up from work, having a burger, and going to the Labia to see Kimura the Giant Fleshing-eating Turtle from Tokyo Part II (or something similar).
When I finally broke it off with my boyfriend, I told him the sad news and he immediately responded with a grin and, "I'm really sorry to hear that…what are you doing Friday night?"
Our first real date was a picnic halfway up Tygerberg hill. (It was going to be all the way on top of Tygerberg hill, but he was a heavy smoker at the time and collapsed after ten minutes' worth of climbing).
So this post is dedicated to my spouse. You might be a flaming weirdo. But life with you has not been boring.
I'd also like you all to know that De-Wet is not the weirdest man I've ever dated. There was the guy who wanted to borrow money from my dad to built a teleporter.
ReplyDeleteAnd y'all remember that weird lonely time of my life where I pretended that ex-convict who kept asking me for toe nail clippings I'd met on the Internet was a real relationship...
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