Monday, June 30, 2008

Sunday, June 29, 2008

maria gets invited to f. scott fitzgerald's garden party


zelda eat your heart out

forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit

maria and i have been married for almost two months and it has seemed like a long time, although many kitchen appliances have longer warranties than that. we figure that once we hit that ninety day cut off we're stuck with one another. i am still teaching guitar lessons at the Utah School of Music, which is a presumptuous name considering that we only have six instructors, one location, and that one location is in orem, which isn't quite the hub of utah.
to describe maria and i's sleeping arrangements, i have the left side of the bed and she has the right (for perspective's sake, imagine that you are seated at the head of the bed, and then imagine maria and i coming home and asking what the heck you are doing in our bed, and don't give us that "we're just trying for some perspective" stuff- we won't believe it). so, we'll both start off in the middle, and eventually maria kind of rolls over and cuddles up to me and drapes half her body on me as though i were a coat stand or something. after a while i get a little hot, so i gently remove her and roll over a bit towards my side. a little later she will roll over towards me and do the same thing again. the actions lather, rinse, and repeat themselves until i'm perched precariously (for some reason those words seem to go really well together) on the edge of the bed, praying that her unconscious sense of space doesn't falter and cause her to roll over once more. it's really cute.
the past weekend, we made the trip down to california for maria's father's wife's son's wedding. maria once again proved herself amazing by actually driving for more than an hour. the past trips have been similar to her paying tithing, putting in that ten percent. our long distance road trips usually consist of her curling up into a perfect sphere in the passenger seat, waking up occasionally to change my music to her music, or give me a smile. this time i came prepared and brought along a four pound bag of trailmix which i bought at costco (we have a costco membership, thus we are true married persons. i figure that my next step will be wearing khaki shorts with socks and sandals.). we drove through thursday night and got to my parents' house at about 730 in the morning, chatted, and then fell asleep. we eventually woke up and went to the beach and did beach things, like getting sunburns.
we left for nephi and kirsten's sealing, and i drove really fast. the sealing went great, we took pictures, and then went to hometown buffet for lunch. i had orange chicken. i liked it. the plan was to afterwards go to a beach in santa monica. we went to this private/pay beach. the waves were about six feet or so, but they were breaking about ten feet from the shore. so, the water would rise up and suck up all the water in front of the wave, leaving a rocky shore. maria ventured boogie boarding and i turned my back, then turned it again (i am now facing the ocean) and saw her walking towards me with her shoulder all bloody. apparently she had taken quite a fall. i calmed her down and wiped away her tears with my shirt and told her that life will go on. the lifeguard came up to us and asked if we spoke english. i said, "yes, we talk english". then he asked if maria was ok, and then i had to convince him that she wasn't the victim of spousal abuse. he directed us to his tower, where he showed me his first aid kit and collection of stamps. then the theme music started playing and he ran off down the shore so that he could run back up the shore. i stitched maria up and told the priest to go away, that no last rites were needed here.
at the reception, maria's younger brother gideon sent me a message in a bottle and asked if i would help participate in the custom of decorating the newlyweds' car. i found one car that had a white dress bag thing in the back seat, but he sent me a carrier pigeon informing me that they had found a car on the other side of the church outside of the kitchen that contained the bride's registry info. through the use of two cans and some string i told him ok, i'm coming over. along with two of maria's cousins we circled the car with a malicious glint in our eyes. we commenced with the ritual car-decorating dance, and charged two dollars for admission. we covered the car with toilet paper and whipped cream and shoved cake under the door handles and even adjusted their seats and canceled their auto insurance. then we finished with a ceremonial sacrifice and waited for the happy couple to emerge.
after some time, we sent gideon to investigate. he sent back paul revere, who charged across the parking lot on a horse and told us that everyone was gathered on the other side of the building. we crawled through the tunnel we had dug earlier when the nazis weren't looking and saw that everyone was indeed gathered on the opposite side. i put a message on the times square electric billboard and asked everyone what they were doing waiting around that other car. telepathically i was told that this was the "getaway car", and that they were waiting for the grand departure. realization dawned upon me and illuminated our mistake. we put a wanted ad in the newspaper and found kirsten's parents, and asked if they had parked their car around by the kitchen. their lawyer met with us and told us that they had. we told them congratulations on their marriage and then hid out in mexico for three days, where i worked as a leathersmith named eusebio and maria spearheaded a small revolution under the pseudonym "la gran dama".
we then returned to provo, and life is normal. we have started summer classes and are still searching for fall housing, as well as the third gunman on the grassy knoll. cheers, steve.

Monday, June 16, 2008

when steve met maria

The first post. A daunting task- especially since Steve is the English major with writing aspirations, not me. However, I am the slightly nerdier one who is familiar with blogspot and its ways, and therefore I am posting until he figures out how. However, I will disperse typos, form grievous grammatical errors, and commit various linguistic faux pas throughout this intial post to increase his motivation for learning up to matching his need for editing.
How does one begin? Pen to paper, if you will, is always the hardest part. I feel inclined to start with a salutation, of some kind.
Dear reader- It should be known that coming up with a blog name was easy. the above title is, nonsensical, but funny, a perfect replication and mirroring of Steve and me’s sense of humor at the moment we thought of it. I couldn’t tell you know why it was funny, but it was. The hard part was figuring out the url. The current whenstevemetmaria came after several days of contemplating the pros and cons of, and expounding on the possiblities, of our intials. For those who don’t know what s&m is, you won’t find out here; but for those who do, steve is now over it and it is no longer a part of his life. Suggestions such as thewideworldofs&m or allabouts&m were brought up, and found to be. Available. Tempted though I was for the humor behind it, the thought of our dear readers mistyping the url and the potentially dangerous consequences grew to be to much for me, and I drew the line at thehouseofs&m. Eventually Steve;s brilliance shown through and came up with what we have today.
And now for the purpose of this blog- to keep those who care up to date on what we care about by posting whatever we feel like when we feel like it.
I say we, because, I know, dear reader because I have faith in Steve’s capacities to not sleep well knowing there is an over- usage of commas in a published passage attached to his name and literary reputation.