Have you ever gotten so mad at your significant other that when the anger fog clears you realize that you've dropped your drawers and are currently squatting over their laptop on the coffee table yelling "Take that back or have fun explaining this at the Apple Genius Bar. Let's see if they can genius urine out of your hard drive." No? Me neither then...Tips for the Post Apocalyptic Relationship Part IV: Nothing says I love you like losing your mind over something irrelevant.
-By Leah Bonnema (Stand Up Comic)
Over the past year I have done multiple installments in a blog series I call Tips for the Post Apocalyptic Relationship. They are a compilation of perhaps helpful, perhaps slightly unhinged hints that I've derived from my coupledom about how to make paying the electricity bills or killing zombies together easier.
AND because I want us to beat the zombies. USA, USA, USA! Human Race, Human Race, Human Race! Let's make t-shirts! Am I am expert on zombies and/or relationships?! Why the f*&k not?!
As far as the Zombie Apocalypse goes, I have been dreaming about varying versions of Armageddon since I was a kid (true story, f'ing Sarah Connor over here, where are my arm muscles?!). Perhaps that is weird. OR perhaps I am just destined to write, direct and star in one of the greatest movies ever. And/or perhaps it is the only way my subconscious can calm my chronic anxiety: Some day Leah complete chaos will ensue all over the planet and all those things you worry about won't matter.
And in regards to my relationship aptitude, The Balls&Chain or B&C for short (which is what I lovingly call my fiance because fiance sounds like something I would wear to a dance recital - not the man who is going to be building forts in trees with me) and I have been together for 6 years, in NYC I might add, which is like dog years for a relationship. Although in NYC people tend to move in together quickly because of rent prices, they also tend to move onto to moving in with someone else even quicker.
The long engagement (which always seems to really bother people) is due to the fact that we didn't want to get married until the Same Sex Marriage Law was passed in New York because it seemed extremely unfair (to say the least, the very least) that we could get married when other people who love each other could not. It felt unjust to participate in an institution that discriminates.
Now that the law is passed (YEAH NY - come on MAINE) we are slowly making plans. So far we have agreed that we're going to register at SkyMall (Voice Activated R2D2 - I'm letting you know now) and that we're going to play Metallica's Nothing Else Matters (Never opened myself this way/ Life is ours, we live it our way/All these words I don't just say/and nothing else matters/Trust I seek and I find in you/Every day for us something new - awwwwwww) as our song. OR maybe, just maybe Ozzy Osbourne's I Just Want You, I'm still not a hundred percent sure... Don't rush me.
At the beginning of this relationship there would have been nothing so romantic as SkyMall. At the beginning of this relationship (ok up until about six months ago) I may have been known to boo people who held hands or showed any public display of feelings. And I won't even start on how romance movies have made me livid. Ok just this one thing about them...
A reoccurring debate we've had in our relationship is over SlumDog Millionaire. My B&C loved it. I thought it was fine up until the end. Then it was total bulls&%t. SPOILER ALERT: I was completely disgusted that they would end the movie at the train station where the two lovers meet up and do a 'yeah love' dance. How dumb?! The movie should end with him winning the money, that is more important because he will be able to change his circumstances. Probably they will fall out of love ten minutes later but moving out of the slums now that is a concrete change. I stand by this. Slumdog is completely ludicrous (and I believe Rocky is a real Boxer so I am often willing to take a leap of faith).
I also found The English Patient to be so ridiculous that it made me want to scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon. Too many feelings. That movie felt like a period. A period that would never end.
But I noticed that I have been changing. To put it in terms of Christmas stories (which is the best way to explain ANYTHING) it's like my Grinch heart grew three sizes. And it's not that I have ever been unfeeling in anyway. It is the complete opposite. It is that I am so feeling that it is almost paralyzing at times, feeling every emotion possible for every living thing, so I just choose to limit them as much as I can. Well the emotion is now apparently out of the f'ing bag and I tell you I do not like it one bit.
Like any overwhelmingly controlling, rational thinking, reason seeking, need to be productive individual I needed to find a way to temper and deal with the waves of emotion that come up. So I have a personal 24 hour rule; it works for me.
If some s%$t makes me want to scream or cry or set our apartment on fire I shelf it, emotionally, and wait it out for a day. (I try to do this with all relationships, decisions, etc. TRY is the important word here.) I will think about it the next day and if I'm still upset I'll bring it up to the B&C in a pragmatic, non-aggressive, non-finger pointing manner. And I HAVE done this. And it IS helpful. And often a day later it becomes clear it was not a big deal at all. I do not want to waste time working something out when I could have spent that time writing dick jokes. Trying to communicate exhausts me.
HOWEVER last month I was so hurt, like genuinely torn up, about something that in the grand scheme of life means nothing, NOTHING, that I found myself laying on the bathroom floor, crying, telling myself over and over again: These feelings aren't real Leah. They will pass. They will go away - wait it out. You do not want to pee on all of the B&C's tech stuff because you think the way he signed his name on a card that was supposed to be from the both of you suggests that he doesn't care. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU LEAH?! Do some math or something!
AND I am finding myself to be completely obsessed with Booth and Bones' relationship WHICH IS ALSO NOT REAL. (I went home to visit my family and my mom was watching Bones on Netflix and AGAINST MY WILL I started plowing through all the episodes needing for B&B to get together so I can feel like all is right with the world. Please DO NOT tell me what is happening I am only on season six.) Side note: B&B are the perfect zombie fighting team. (Another reason why they MUST consummate immediately!) This is why I never watch television. I can't stop. Won't stop. When I start Battlestar Galactica I didn't leave the house for a week. It's tearing me apart inside.
I heard (and it feels incredibly indecent to say that a pop song initiated some deep personal investigations) P!nk's new single True Love and realized that it is the musical version of the first five minutes of my comedy set. AND THEN I CRIED. What's next?! 27 Dresses?! VOMIT.
PostApoc Tip: With unabashed ridiculous love nonsense (GROSS) comes unbridled wild non-reasonable hatred but it will hold you together through the world and its wars. Like glue. Or something sticky. Don't be weirded out if sometimes you feel compelled to pee on someones stuff to make a point, that's just an odd, perhaps mildly rank way of showing how much they matter to you.
With love comes complete irrationality, there's nothing you can do about it. Just don't kill each other, kill the zombies. The couple that craycrays (yeah I just used a reDICKulous word so it would sort of rhyme) together, slays (zombies) together.
Leah Bonnema
is a Stand Up Comic. www.LeahBonnema.com
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Will you be walking down the isle to the Rocky Theme song? I feel like it would be the correct choice....And when the, whoever it shall be, says "you may kiss the bride" , I will yell out "SO SAY WE ALL"! and in doing so complete your magic moment
:)
Posted by: Jennwenng | Thursday, October 04, 2012 at 04:35 PM
I was actually thinking about walking sown the isle to a Rocky montage - starting with the beach scene in Rocky III btwn Adrian and Rocky... Ooooh......Tears... AND yes SO SAY WE ALL -- such a wonderful idea! I LOVE IT!!! Wahoo! What fun! Maybe 2014.....
Posted by: Leah B | Thursday, October 04, 2012 at 04:55 PM
I will browse what to get you on my plane ride home from vacation!
Posted by: Kimberly Lew (Playwright/Blogger) | Thursday, October 04, 2012 at 05:19 PM
DON'T TEASE ME KIMBERLY!!! (Lord of the Rings pendant)
Posted by: Leah B | Friday, October 05, 2012 at 12:16 AM