Happy birthday, Meredith!

Today is the day we celebrate my wife's birth! I love my wife (seen here with Abraham Lincoln). She is kind to me, and works hard at our marriage, which is one good reason things go well between us -- underwater, she's paddling like a duck.

Here are some more things to know about her:

• Meredith loves warmth, and hates cold, even more than I do.
• She loves our dogs.
• She likes order and symmetry. She likes making it, and a lack of it bothers her.
• She likes assembling things: furniture, puzzles, equations.
• She dyed her hair purple earlier this year, and it looked great. I love it when she tries new things.
• She likes babies. Anybody's babies.
• She's going to quit her job in February, and that will be such a huge adventure.
• She is so liminal right now, and it is so exciting to be next to her while she's doing it.

Happy birthday, baby.

Today was a great day

Today was so full, I'm technically writing this on Sunday.

The important thing is that we went to some friends' house tonight, M and I had dinner with Jason and Kim (and Kim's brother, and their kids), and then a bunch of people came over for board games. I am blessed and happy to have such giving friends* and a loving wife.

Also, I kicked ass at Dominion and Power Grid, and Meredith won her game of Pandemic. High fives all around!



*And not just in Philadelphia. I have great friends all over. If you're my friend, then thanks, man (or lady)! You've probably been a better friend to me than I've been back, particularly if you're Monte and I haven't called you back even though you've called me twice now, and what is my problem anyway? Anyway, thanks, friend.

Lucidity is becoming optional

Oh my gosh, have I listened to The Flaming Lips cover of Borderline a lot today. Like, seriously, if I weren't already me, I would have made me turn that off. I watched the video about three times, and then put it in the background while I wrote, and then tabbed back to hit play again every time it stopped.

After about 10 of those, it was time to download it. I just set it on "Repeat One" in iTunes, and it played and played and played. Now, about 10 hours later, I'm singing the Madonna version in my head. What the hell?

My wife is gone for the weekend, and of course I miss her, except that I don't miss her at all because I love having the house to myself. I can retreat so far into my cave that daylight becomes an ironic metaphor that you use to mock people who make the mistake of showing emotion.

Except that there's still 2 dogs I have to pay attention to, because if I don't they poop in the house and it stinks and I have to clean it up. That's when I really miss my wife.

If there's one thing I don't recommend it's getting your hand stuck in a vise. If there's another thing, well you and I both know, there's a lot of things I don't recommend.

I never even say, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," because that means your only allowable actions are sitting in the half-dark and reading the Internet for 36 hours straight.

Speaking of which, I can't recommend that either, because I've been up for about 36 hours straight now, and you start making choices like listening to The Flaming Lips for about 4 hours in a row, and reading 50 pages of a Jack Handey book, and then leaving a rambling blog post.

Here's the video, if you want to watch it 9 or 1o times too:

The flaming lips Borderline

2008: A fantastic year

Most years of this decade, I've come to a grim December and thought, "Man, that was a hard year. Hope the next one's got something better."

2008 broke my streak. 2008 has been a fantastic year. A lot of it is thanks to Meredith, who helps ground me by listening and taking me seriously. Highlights:

• Worked at the same place all year, at a job I basically like, without a long under-employed break -- an extra bump considering how lousy the year was for everyone's business.
• Started a hobby from scratch, and made some walking around money in the process.
• Restarted writing RPG material, and it was fun instead of nerve-wracking.
• Depression came, but did not stay this year.
• I'm energized rather than intimidated by the need to learn and stretch.

It is a fine time to be Jeff Quick. Thanks for reading, y'all.

College Life

M has a new job as financial honcho at a venerable nonprofit org in Philly. She makes a lot more money, and is happier in her new job. Yay new job!

Last night, they had a big to-do with cocktail attire and a celebrity appearance by C. Everett Koop who, before he was all Mr. Surgeon General, was saving children from death with his bare hands at CHOP and probably has awesome stories by the bushel. So that's very interesting.

I feared that we would stand in our fancy duds, surrounded by a mob with at least 40 years on us, engaging in drab, repetitive conversations which would be all the more excruciating for me, since my entire job was to smile and not say dumb things.

Instead, the evening was a sedate blast. The mob of septuagenarians -- spot on. But a room full of doctors is not dull. If I twittered, this is how I would have described the evening:

• Discussed 19th c. gothic literature with a medical ethicist. Heavy.
• Crazy stories from the frontiers of museum conservation.
• Pitched myself for a potential job!
• The CEO keeps manhandling Koop to get him to talk into the mic.
• Koop's friends call him "Chick." No, for real.
• Free Jack Daniels?! But I'm driving!
• My wife almost flashed the chairman of the board. Smoooth.

Furthermore, THIS JUST IN: Rich people eat pretty damn well. The food was "heavy hors d'oeuvres" which to middlebrow yokels like me means: "The kind of things you eat anyway, only out of a paper bag, while sitting in your car."

I wanted to bury my face in the cheese table. Attended by an enthusiastic cheese sommelier (or something), he pointed me to this awesome sheep cheese, and a five layer cheddar thing that was so good, I left the table so I wouldn't embarrass myself by scooping wheels of it into my mouth. Duck and turkey dim sum was my second favorite, but it's not like I failed to eat the steak and potatoes wedges. Only after the food was all gone did I discover there had been lamb in a room I never even got to.

Music came later, which we didn't get to hear because we were touring the museum and talking to the director. Then on our way out, we got free miniature trowels! Oh boy! They're probably meant to be letter openers, but we brainstormed other uses that I can't remember now.

Overall, a success. Next month, I am arm candy at some formal dinner, where I will need a tux. It will probably be a boringer event, but I'll find someone talkative and ask a bunch of pointed questions and see what I can open up. Everybody in that room has a lifetime of stories. Some of them have to be great.

Our Paper Year

Today is Meredith's and my first anniversary, and it's been a great year.

When we met, I knew early that she would be an excellent lover and partner. I'm so glad she feels the same way about me.

There's no part of my life that's not improved with her in it, and year 2 looks to be even better.

Advent Update 2

I talked yesterday about busyness putting me off my game for Advent. Part of that busyness is spending time with my wife -- which, I hasten to add, is no burden.

It's just that I'm used to solitude and silence on tap. I don't know how to be contemplative with someone else around all the time.

Meredith asked me how we might celebrate Advent together, and I blanked. What I was expecting this Advent was my usual rhythm of thinking hard, and then walking around with ideas on simmer, until something becomes increasingly clear or relevant to me. Then I say, "Huh! How about that?" and fold it into my meager roll of wisdom about how to love God and my neighbor.

The idea of doing that in concert with another person is so unlike what I've done before, I had to stop to think if it was even possible.

Of course it's possible. That's what pastors do for a living. But the idea was tire screechingly new to me for about 12 seconds.

So I have to do something different this time. I have to be more communicative about the process. I might have to be more intentional about destination, or I might have to say every couple of days, "Okay, I still don't know where I'm we're going, but here's an interesting rock. What do you see?"

Well, it's a time of waiting for good things! This is the latest good thing to come along.

Good Medicine

This just in from LiveScience.com! New Depression Rx: Get Married.

So far it's working well. I sure do love my wife.

Dog Days

I am co-owner of a dog now, which is nice, but annoying.

I like dogs. But what I really like are other people's dogs. My head is full of things to think about, and dogs are notably outside.

Too bad. Because wherever my head is, the dog is still right here, and still needs attention and food and exercise, and, dare I say, love.

Parents talk about pets as responsibility trainers for children. But no one ever talks about pets as responsibility trainers for would-be parents.

Life, married

I'm a little more married than I used to be.

I don't feel different, it's just everything else that changed.