I married an Amazon Princess

Or: Mangling my metaphors like I was herding cats to the slaughter but couldn’t make them drink.

I am probably not the easiest person in the world to be married to.

I could be wrong. I could be being hard on myself. Considering I have no other first-hand experience in the field of marriage and thus have nothing to compare myself to, I could be way off-base. I might be the easy-goingest husband in the world after all.

For all I know, most people would envy her for being married to somebody working in a dying industry who is resisting transitioning to a new, less-dying one. Or who flies off the handle with little provocation, or reacts completely out of proportion to perceived inciting incidents which are often wholly imagined. That could be most people’s idea of a heckuva good time!

But my gut says, “Not so fast.”

And when something that big speaks, wise men pay heed.

It would be easy enough to fill this space enumerating Mrs. Dr. Bastardson’s considerable academic and professional accomplishments and accolades, but that would require knowing offhand what they all are, and who has that kind of time? Just check the box next to “Too Many To List Here.”

Which isn’t to say I’m not impressed.

She first caught my eye because she was so good at her job. At my old newspaper gig in SoCal, she worked upstairs in editorial for a few months and gave our boss fits of acute degree-envy. Smart, young and skinny? And ambitious? It seemed like an ideal match for a dull-witted, middlin’-aged, doughty old fart whose only real ambition was to get out of his current gig before he killed his on-the-job frenemesis in front of witnesses.

No sooner had our courtship begun than she fled for college in the Midwest. Being older, wiser and more ill-tempered, I already knew that long-distance relationships only work in the movies. I tried to break it off with her that Christmas, instead we compromised. She’d finish out the year at the college in the Midwest, then come back and we’d try cohabbing for a year. If that worked out, I’d follow her to whatever school she picked to pursue the inevitable PhD.

I think cohabbing lasted about two weeks. Me and my bachelor pad by the beach were not ready for a full-time female presence. I figured out pretty quick I needed my space back, and as graciously as I could, expelled her.

She ended up living with her Grandma for the better part of that year, an experience I guarantee you, she is grateful for today. We did it at the time to save our relationship, but it’s ended up paying unexpected dividends in the happy memories department.

So at the end of the probationary year, we sold most of our crap, packed up what remained in a 350-foot-long U-Haul (mostly full of comic books, videocassette tapes and LaserDiscs) with a tow-bar for my Lincoln Mercury (please don’t ask) and headed up the grapevine to Christmas Island.

Those were the salad years. We lived like a gay couple! Although on a tight budget, compared to now, it seems like we had expendable income to spare. We took weekend jaunts. Saw concerts out of town without having to strategize like we were planning an Apollo moon landing. Had some neighbors who struck me as huge degree-snobs (I had learned to spot them by then), but whose proximity was more than offset by the company of an exceptionally cool dog who filled any potentially lonely moment with a joie de vivre and a empathetic, playful presence that belied his medium stature.

But you know what? Jake (The New Dog, right) is growing on me. Just the other day, the neighbor dog got barky and aggressive with The Boy through the flimsy, white-trash fence that separates our yards, and Jake sprang to his defense, hackles up, in a very un-Jakelike way. He has earned himself a seat within the circle of trust.

But getting back to the narrative I started with…

One day, shortly after her impressive Fellowship at the Smithsonian in D.C., she asked me whether or not I’d like to have a kid. Like an idiot, I expressed ambivalence; gee, I was working from home and we sure had a pretty good groove going, just the two of us… on the other hand, I’d always wanted to be a Dad but figured at that stage of the game, that boat had sailed. I left it up to her and thank god, she made the right call.

She finished her dissertation and earned her PhD during The Boy’s first year. That is some serious multitasking.

And she’s the most excellent mother, other than introducing him to video games (she doesn’t have the addictive gene, so she doesn’t fully ‘get’ it).

She’s a storybook Mom. She’s the kind of Mom who turns out future great men and women, leaders, titans. She reads to him, spells with him, plays board games and does crafts with him, answers “What?” a thousand times per conversation in answer to the incessant “And-you-know-what?”s he peppers his chatter with at this moment in his development; in short, everything I don’t have the patience to do.

And her degrees, the whole handful of them, are only tangentially related to the subject she is teaching now. She goes to work every day and learns that day’s lesson before she walks across the street to the classroom and teaches it to a roomful of college students. (In case you are reading this and are a colleague or boss of hers, I totally just made-up that last part, okay?)

And no matter how old I get, she stays 13 years younger than me, day in, day out.

She got us out of a state drowning in a financial crisis to a state whose financial crisis might not be fully upon it for up to years from now. [insert smiley-face emoticon] Lots of stuff could happen between now and then.

Mostly, I am grateful that she still puts up with me. For the first time in my life, after six months of horizon-to-horizon gray clouds, gloomy weather is producing a gloomy Fang. I used to eat crappy weather for breakfast … mainly because it always burned away to a beautiful beach sunshine by noon, but we’re not looking back any more.

We’re looking forward. I’m looking forward to growing old with her, and she always remaining a much-younger babe. She looks better today than the day we met and has ten times the skills. It’s like I married Diana Prince and got Wonder Woman, too.

The Boy has inherited her even temperament, her laser-like focus, her artistic bent, her skill with language (“And-you-know-what?”s-aside)… and he might not even be here had I been left to my own ignorant, selfish devices. In reparation for that unforgivable lapse in judgment, I have given him Johnny Cash, super-heroes and a 5-year-old head that looks good in a grown-man’s hat.

I wish I had a proper god to believe in, so I could thank Him or Her or It or Them, for The Missus daily. … okay, full disclosure, not every day. Some days my conversations with our invisible overlords would probably—do—take on thornier topics and a darker tone. Come to think of it, I should probably be grateful she puts up with that, too.

In the end, Mrs. Dr. Bastardson always makes the good days better, and I’m looking forward to spending the rest of mine with her for better or for worse, richer, poorer, the whole nine.

As long as she’ll have me, I’ll continue to be proud to be her Anchor Husband™.

PS: Happy birthday, Sweetie! I love you.