From him: Life

So the sexy wife is currently in a religion/philosophy class, and the first assignment was to answer a bunch of questions on her world view. Including gems such as "What is really real", and "Why is there something rather than nothing." Now personally, I love discussions like that, particularly after a certain amount of appropriate mental lubrication. And I think assignments like that are easy, because (as I keep reminding the sexy wife) there is no right answer! She, on the other hand, likes to put a lot more thought into her answers, and agonizes over what she believes and how to express it well.

I think its fascinating to contrast our answers to "What happens to a person after death?"

Him:

Not a damn thing. You live your life, you make your contribution to society and the universe. And when you die you're gone. Your impact on people and on the world fades over time. Some people fade more slowly than others. Arguably Gilgamesh (circa 2600BC) still has an effect on the world, but the impact of some child who died at age one month in 1920 is probably negligible at this point.

Her:

This is by far the most difficult question for me. I believe our soul is what makes us who we are. Our soul is made up of our emotions, thoughts and beliefs. Our bodies are simply the means by which our souls live on earth. I have been taught that after death our souls will go to either heaven or hell, depending on how we have lived our lives on earth. I have been taught that heaven is where you meet God and loved ones who have preceded you in death; heaven is a beautiful place void of pain and suffering. However, I am not convinced that our contribution to existence simply ends there.

Its a wonder we are so compatible when we're just living life together.

From him: Changing jobs

I'm starting to conclude that there are different kinds of bloggers. Some people are great at blogging in the heat of life. The more crazy life gets, the more they have the need to share it with the world, perhaps because getting it out of your head and getting it into the ether is a stress reliever. Other people blog more contemplatively, sharing the kind of keen insights that only come when you have a couple of hours and your beverage of choice (caffeinated, alcoholic, hot, cold, it seems a necessary ingredient.)

I'm still evolving as a blogger, but I think I am more of the latter. When things get crazy I'm not so good. And things are definitely interesting now.

I'm changing jobs after being with the same (big blue) company for almost 22 years. That is a scary thought, but I'm excited as well. I feel exactly the same way I felt when I bungee jumped in New Zealand. And the sexy wife has been really supportive. Change is not really her thing, but she's been happy for me, and very calm about things like me dropping out of a trip to San Francisco I was going to go with her on.

Its been especially interesting telling all my co-workers I'm leaving. They too are universally happy for me, and its a bit telling, I think, that there is a degree of envy. Many of the people I work with have been here for a long time. 30 years is not unknown. And part of that is the sense of (perhaps false) security in a nice big corporate environment. So I feel kind of like the lone warrior stepping out from the walls of the village and exploring the big bad world outside. We'll see whether I come scurrying back to the walls in terror when I see what's out there.

From her: Little Things become Big Things

Soooo, here's some advice. Don't bring a glass of port to the bedroom and then spill it all over your clock radio. Do call your husband and tell him you'd like to have phone sex, and follow through of course (he gets all crazy happy and more in love with you).

From her: Monday night

I can't sleep so I might as well write a post, accompanied by a glass of port. Maybe contributing will relieve a bit of stress and maybe the port will make me sleepy.

I have to wonder why we're doing this in the first place. Do we have too much time on our hands? (I can tell you I don't!) Is it to entertain each other? Is it a way to tell each other what we want to say without having to say it out loud or face to face? Perhaps it's a way to see the comedy in our life, or just how much we drink. As you can tell, it wasn't my idea. And I'm fairly certain its birth was out of procrastination of something more important Husband needed to do.

So here we are. I certainly don't want to be the Debbie-downer and not go along with the fun. But in reality, I am. I find this new form of interacting to be very stressful. So much expectation associated with it; and subsequent guilt when I don't keep up, or am not as witty. In some ways it feels like a competition of cleverness and writing skills. But that is a statement reflecting my mood, because when I'm skipping through life (yes, it happens occasionally), I love being clever and recording my thoughts.

Tonight, however, all I really want to do is eat the homemade chocolate chip cookies currently sitting on the kitchen table. All of them, all at once. With another glass of port.

From him: Saturday night

Saturday night was a really good night. The day was long and hard. It would have been easier to handle 9 hours of home improvements if we hadn't been good and done some running and working out first. Needless to say, by 8pm we were totally wiped out. We spent the evening at home, having dinner, and then drinking wine and port and playing Gin by candle light. Josh Groban, Diana Krall, and Michael Buble on the stereo.

We played until the sexy wife could no longer recognize three-of-a-kind in her hand and then called it a night. It was really nice having a romantic, kid-free evening with just the two of us.

Having the 23-year-old wake us up at 1:00am because he was locked out of the house only put a small damper on the relaxation.

From Him: the tipsy blog

Originally I was thinking this blog could be a back and forth kind of thing. Think Jane Curtain and Dan Acroyd. Possibly without me saying "Jane you ignorant slut." Having some kind of pressure to write a blog (e.g. your partner wrote their post, where's yours) seems like a good way to stop a blog from fading away through inactivity. However the sexy wife has been eyebrows deep in an accounting class for the last couple of months (see the previous post), and adding more pressure is just likely to make her go completely postal. Not pretty, and not good for either of us. I'll just use this forum to unload, and eventually, following the last accounting class and accompanying alcoholic unwinding (several gin martinis should do it) she can probably join back in.

On the subject of alcohol, I was feeling a little cooped up in the home office, which consists primarily of of a desk, printer, and kitty litter box. I can't really complain, since the sexy wife worked there for years, but come Friday afternoon I really needed to get out. I was happy to discover that the local Buffalo Wild Wings has both Bass Ale (which I already knew) and free wireless (which I did not.) I decided to work the remainder of the afternoon here, consuming of both. Though between the beer and the blogging, "work" is perhaps a stretch.

My other excuse for the beer is the deep thinking required on the subject of my employment. I have worked for the same large blue corporation for the last 21 years. And in the next day or so I'm expecting a job offer from a much smaller company. The trade off is basically boring stability against a much more challenging job that should either have much greater rewards, or crash and burn spectacularly. Unfortunately for the sexy wife (who is much more conservative) I tend to prefer even spectacular crashing and buring to boring stability, which should give you an idea of which way I'm leaning.