How to Survive Love: The Whole Truth

Max: Defender of Household and Killer of Flies

2011-01-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's just an invasion of flies. The other day we were bombarded by flies. These flies did nothing but reproduce. I'm not sure if it was mating season or love was just in the air for these buzzing bastards but it was ridiculous. I'm not sure if there is a fly viagra out there, but if there is it is probably located in our garage where these fly-devils spawned their evil little fly babies. In order to protect the household, I mounted my fly armor and armed myself with the latest killing technology (aka I rolled up a magazine). I killed probably thirty flies in a day. But guess what? These flassholes (it's a mix of flies and assholes, clever I know) kept coming back! I even booby trapped outside with my secret fly killing recipes. After several days of hunting and killing every single thing that buzzed in that god forsaken garage like I was some sort of Dirty Harry of fly-killing, I finally destroyed them all. The silence has returned and all is normal...for now. I have retired the newspaper but I'm ever vigilant for the return of these bastards.

"Do you know what time it is?!"

2010-12-27T14:08:00.000-08:00

Forgive us for lagging in the posts, y'all. It's the holidays (Happy Holidays! I hope all your wishes came true!), Max just graduated (woooohoooo!), and we're now in separate parts of the country visiting family. However, before we left, something happened that I wanted to share with you.

Most people don't decide to go into Starbucks in 30 degree weather and order an iced-coffee. So what can you do if it's freezing and you want a cold drink? Well, Max recently had an epiphany about that particular dilemma.

Here is our exact conversation:

"Do you know what time it is!"
"Tool time?"
"Nooo..."
"Time for you to get a watch??"
"Nooo..."
"T-shirt time???"

"Nooo... HOT SHOWER, COLD BEER TIME!"

Max endorses this product

Oh god. This could be dangerous.

While we're on the topic of booze, I should probably tell you about Napa. Who knew it was only an hour away from the city! We went on a dark, rainy day while Max's parents were visiting and they took us to a castle winery.

There were sheep, skeletons, a dungeon and a torture chamber. Yes! Oh, and wine!

Before the tour, Baby Max got sick and although I was supportive for the duration of his sickness, held his hand and let him know it was okay to say no to the tour, in my head I was saying, "Don't do this to me. You need to get better so I can see the freakin castle!" Thankfully, his sickness cleared while on the tour and we were able to enjoy the deeeelicious wine at the end. Take it from someone who is not classy enough to like wine: this was amazing. They even host holiday parties throughout the year. Who wants to come with us?!

Hot shower, cold beer is probably the best invention ever. It has served me well on many a cold day. Speaking of a cold day, the castle was freaking awesome. They have a room where you can hear whispers from all the way on the other end of the room. The torture chamber was great and gave me many ideas in case anyone disrupted my hot shower/cold beer time. mwuhahahaha

Sleep Deprivation: Gender Differences

2010-12-18T00:42:00.000-08:00

So everyone handles sleep differently, which I have gotten a crash course in since moving in with my lady. The past couple weeks have really tested both HGITW and I in the realm of withholding sleep (her due to work and I due to school). Some people can go long periods without sleep. Nope, not us. HGITW and I handle sleep very, very differently. After being up for about 24 hours in a row, my skin glows green and my eyes turn red. Basically, I begin to go Hulk Smash on any comment directed at me that has even a hint of criticism or sarcasm. Even that weirdo on the bus is sure to get a double dose of the evil eye and a invitation for a round of fisticuffs if he dares talks to himself again in my presence.
This is what I look like:

HGITW does not do this. She doesn't become particularly upset at little things or picks fights. Instead, she becomes bat-shit crazy. Now, I'm not talking about being so tired that things become hazy and you feel like you are in a dream. I am talking about detention in a facility for the mentally insane. That type of crazy. Strings of words and sentences come out of her mouth that should never go together. Her eyes flip back into her head and I'm pretty sure some 4th dimension devil baby takes hold of her. Then when she finally does sleep, she wakes me up to pearls of wisdom such as "get off the regular personnel blog". When I ask her what the hell that means, she says "oh forget it", then falls back asleep. She has no recollection in the morning that this ever happened. The best part about this is that she said "oh forget it" when she tries to explain to me what it means. Oh forget it, you obviously don't know anything about regular personnel blogs, duh, geez. I probably could make a whole separate blog about the ridiculous things that she says while sleeping. I can't judge her too badly though because I have been known to be a night babbler from time to time also.

Not cool, Max.-Not cool!-Way over-exaggerating here, guys.-Do not believe what you are reading.

Max loves it when I don't get sleep. Loves. When I get exhausted, I want attention and affection. And he feels appreciated. I start calling him "honey" and talking in a sleepy voice, and he thinks it is sooo cute. It's one of the only times that I am mostly calm and sweet, and he's even told me I should get less sleep more often. But ya know what, Max? If you want to say that I get all bat-shit crazy, I'm going to take that as a challenge! It's on, bucko.

Pfft no relationshiz today. Only this amazing thing called KARAOKE!

2010-12-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry if you came to this site today expecting to read some outrageous things Max did. We have separate lives sometimes, and mine just happens to be on the internet. I'm cool, I know. I signed up for a karaoke blog ring. What's that? It's where a bunch of cool ~~kids~~ 20-somethings sign up to post a video of themselves doing karaoke on another blogger's site. This month's theme was Show Tunes. To see my rendition of Part of Your World, check out super cool Erin's site at The Post Modern Talk-O who JUST moved to Paris. Love her.

Now here's your treat. I get to host December's blogger of the month: the real Mandy Moore. Not the so-called actress but the real-life hottie. (<--I wanted to let you know that my spell-check thinks "hottie" should be spelled "hogtie." Waaaay different! Although some ~~sickos~~ people may indeed want to hogtie that hottie.)
With that, I think I'll turn it over to her!

-----------------------Mandy---------->

Before I'm officially ousted as the Karaoke Ring Cheater, I'd just like to say this:

People. I understand we don't all celebrate the Christmas. But we do have other Holiday songs. I know, because I sung some back in high school chorus before I got too cool. Why the hell, did we vote to do showtunes in December?

I'll be completely blunt and honest (because that's me). I am not nearly cultured enough to have ever seen a show, let alone know a damn thing about showtunes. I mean, look who you're dealing with here. I consulted with Google, and I couldn't even pretend to know Rent, or Cats, or that little Annie chick. Unless you wanted the Jay-Z version of "It's a Hard Knock Life," it wasn't happening.

So I selected Showtunes as the genre in "iTunes" heh. And but alas! It said the music from Dirty Dancing was within the showtune genre! Now whether or not you agree with this, it's whatever. Take it up with them. It was either this or the Gilligan's Island theme song or nothing. BUT, you guys thought I couldn't sing last time because my computer fritzed and you couldn't hear anything and I had to dub the music in later and it was horrendous and...yeah. This time, I decided to sit right here in front of the screen and mic with no dancing, and no kidding if I didn't do 24 takes before settling on this one because it was the most decent of the 24 and by the end I was so tired and mad, I just gave up. But whatdoyaknow? I still can't sing.

If anyone knows how to fix a broken laptop mic and/or speakers, (because, who do you think I am, Bill Gates?) get at me. Otherwise for sanity and not embarassment's sake, I'm going to have to disappear from this ring forever. Or until I get a new computer.

Which could be years.

Anyway, check out my very special Nipocalypse Pal, Miss Ginntastic on my blog! You can call her Gin for short. Duh.

Thanks for entertaining our efforts, folks. And thanks, Risha for putting this together!

RIP Fiona Walzenbach

2010-12-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

It all started on a sunny San Francisco summer day; last summer to be precise. HGITW (refer to post 1) comes over to my crib with a surprise. She had brought two newts. We had talked about raising some love-children (of the animal nature) and the choice was frogs but I had forgotten completely about our talk with the frogs (the first time that it has ever happened. I have an impeccable memory. Ask me about that one time...I bet I know exactly what you're talking about). We decided to raise them. The first order of business was naming the slimy rug rats so I decided on Murphy and HGITW decided on Fiona (She has a strange fascination with names that sound out of a fairytale, sorry all you Fiona's out there).

So everything was going swell in newt-land except the little rebel Fi wouldn't eat. Murph ate like a champ because hes mah boy and he kept growing big and probably is Godzilla's midget cousin but Fi didn't eat. She never ate. The first time we saw her eat was a couple of days ago when HGITW fed her. She ate like crazy. Then BAM, she is belly up as cold as the rocks that surrounded her. We asked the newt coroner but they only concluded that she overate...and her little stomach wasn't up to it. It was a sad day, but we said our good byes and moved on. Correction: Max said his goodbyes and flushed her before I could even properly look at her through the waterfall of tears streaming out of my face because our love newt died, which implies our love will die. It was obviously a much more symbolic meaning for me than for him. Jerk. Murph is doing well, chillin on the rocks and being king of the castle. I wish I had a picture of Fi, but she was way camera shy, and generally hated the paparazzi, which is weird for a newt.

How did we meet, you ask?

2010-11-30T22:26:00.000-08:00

Funny story. I was a responsible (but cool) Resident Advisor for 3 years at our college and Max was a hood rat that hung out with hooligans.

A typical outfit from 2 years ago

Well, kids on the floor thought it was funny to tear down the posters that we RAs spent hours putting up. I got tired of it and put up a sign that read, "The next person to tear down a poster will be fined $1,000." That very night, the 5 foot long welcome sign was crumpled up and on the ground...

OHHH HELL NAW. I wrote a new sign that said, "6th floor, unless you come forward with who did it, you can thank the person who tore down the welcome poster for your $1,000 fine." This sure got their attention. The herds came flocking to my door. Ya know who did it?!


Yup, this guy.

Did he remember? No. Let's just say he was "under the weather."

Did he take the blame? Yes.

Do I believe he did it? Oooh yes.

Did I make him pay a fine? Nah, I was too cool to do that. Plus, he was cute. (Also, I didn't actually have the power to make the fining decisions, but the residents didn't know that.)

So what did I make him do? I made him come to the next program and give a 5 minute presentation on fun alternatives to drinking. The program entailed drinking mocktails while watching Breakfast as Tiffany's. He had a blast!... texting in the back of the room, napping, eating pizza and avoiding watching the movie.

The rest of the year was spent making googly eyes, which resulted in a first date 6 months later.

Though I can't accept or deny the allegations forthright previously mentioned, I must say it was quite the story. Now I'm going to fill you in on the real deal. The rest of the year was Michelle making googly eyes, while I pretended not to notice and be too cool for school. My plan was to pretty much be Zach Morris from Saved by the Bell until she digged me enough to let me take her out. That didn't quite go as planned, but I teased her enough for her to give me some sort of attention. Those couple dates led us to where we are today, which I can't complain about.

(that first picture was a halloween costume, everything except the 'Stache, which is 100% real and I still rock to this day [As you can see in all of the pictures that have been posted of Max])

The dreaded chores

2010-11-27T00:43:00.000-08:00

Sara requested that we do a post about cleaning house... Well, Sara, I wrote one of those about a week ago and Max vetoed it because it was " too personal." But per your request, I am going to try again.

I've always been a fairly neat person. I love organization and having a designated space for everything. Since I've known Max, he has lived in some nasty ass places. His summer residence was known for their parties and their form of housecleaning consisted of throwing away last month's red plastic cups. It was so dirty you didn't even want to squat on the toilet, let alone even thiiiink about walking barefoot on their floor.

Yuck! *This might be a slight exaggeration.

(Sorry boys, I really do like you as people, just not as my roommates).

*This might be a slight exaggeration too, but you get my point

His other apartment during the school year was also a pig sty. There was always a stench as you walked in the door and the 10 paper bags on the ground next to the entrance door would be overflowing with old food, pizza boxes and an unthinkable amount of booze. So with Max being the cleanest one in the houses, I thought that moving in together wouldn't be such a big deal. We'd be fine when it came to cleaning. That there would be no more foul smells in the laundry hampers and that toilet paper rolls would be replaced once empty...

There was more transition needed than I thought. The first month we lived together, I was a living nightmare. I would start the day in a great mood which quickly changed because I would find little things that I've already reminded the messy boyfriend about. And because I don't want to continue terrorizing him, I become passive aggressive and then eventually blow up because the place is a mess! It was never really a mess, but it would drive me CRAZY finding leftover toothpaste mouth on the handtowel or dried coffee on the counters and leftover crumbs on the table... and the floors... and the other table...and the couch that now has a permanent grease stain. I am pretty sure Michelle spoke SOLELY in passive aggressive comments for more than 24 hours, I'm not sure but it is definitely worth looking into whether that is a world record.

From the previous post, you already know I have road rage. But you should probably also know that I have rage, in general. [Side note- My friends and I were playing Imaginiff. The question was: "Imaginiff Michelle were an emotion, which emotion would she be?" Out of 6 choices, they unanimously chose Rage.] We can't all be perfect, ladies. I guess I'm allowed to one fault, right? However, I'm going to save the in-depth commentary on my reactions for Max... He's a much better exaggerator than I am. I'm not an exaggerator, I'm a gifted story teller. You think Morgan Freeman exaggerates? Nah, he tells awesome freaking stories. I am just waiting till Planet Earth contacts me for voice-overs.

I make it out to be worse than it really is. Jesus I hope so! We made it through the first couple of months and seem to have a pretty good system. We've both had to compromise on our cleaning standards. He does dishes when I cook, which basically means he always does the dishes. Then we divide most of the other housework. And when the other person begins a sentence with, "Uh Baaaabe," we roll our eyes, smile fakely and pretend to listen because the other person is about to say something that we don't want to hear. Or maybe that's just me. Definitely just you, I'm as sincere as a boy scout. Because there is no way that I did something wrong.

Road Rage

2010-11-19T21:35:00.000-08:00

Hottest girl in the world is a good driver by all means. However there is one aspect of her driving that makes me want to rewrite my will, and that is her reactions to other drivers. Michelle is, by nature, very expressive. In the course of a few minutes, as Wade and Eric could testify from the other night, she can make more emotional faces than you would ever imagine possible. Eric suggested she get back into theater, and I could see why. She is probably the most expressive person I know, but I am getting off topic, so I'll continue...

When we are driving and someone cuts her off, doesn't throw on their blinker in time, or does some other run of the mill stupid driving move, HGITW(Michelle) decides that is the time to make it her personal crusade to lay the wraith of baby Jesus down upon that unsuspecting driver until they feel like they have been smited by Zeus himself. Now most of the time I don't mind, because the person deserves it, but it is not uncommon to read about a person who gets shot or hurt because of a road rage incident, and that is one thing I would not want to be apart of. (This crossbow incident is probably one that tops the list.)

I understand defensive and offensive driving, but there is no category to describe the way she drives. If I had to limit it, it would be somewhere around, "defensive but dangerous." As in, defensive driving until someone does something stupid, then it turns into two middle fingers in that driver's window until they cower into the farthest lane away from Shell's vehicle before she turns green and goes hulk-smash all over their car while shooting lasers out her eyes.

Now don't get me wrong, I'll still be in the car with her anytime. However I have learned to be on an extra lookout for crossbows lately...

Quote of the Day

2010-11-17T18:10:00.000-08:00

"So if you don't brush your teeth, your farts smell worse?! You're freakin me out."

It's Not Cute to Say the Darndest Things When You're 22...

2010-11-16T22:44:00.000-08:00

Usually I am not one to shy away from snickers bars or food, in general, so you’d think that I would have no problem stuffing something into my mouth before I say the wrong thing… False. Max would probably be a lot happier if I did that before answering a question.

Circa: one month ago

Max- “I’m pretty observant”

Michelle- “Umm…when?”

Circa: one minute ago

Michelle- “What are some other times I’ve shot you down?”
Max- “…I’m financially responsible, I’m a good driver, I’m productive...This is not good…Pretty much everything that I say.”

Yikes, I’m harsh. I can’t say it looks good when it doesn’t or that something is true when it isn’t. He knew this when he signed up to date me. It is not fair to say that women are the only ones concerned with their outfits and looking good or maintaining a positive self- image. Guys are just as bad. Maybe Max wouldn’t spend an extra 30 minutes (and miss the bus twice) because he was changing outfits, but he would still get his feelings hurt if I told him his hair looked better without gel or his shirt was a tad too small OR that maybe he’s not as observant as he thinks. My shirts are never too small, if anything my muscles are too damn big.

Well, shoot me in the face. This was supposed to be a rebuttal about being concerned about my outfit, but it just turned into me being a terrible girlfriend. FML. At least he still loves me, right?

The Fashion Fiasco

2010-11-13T15:51:00.000-08:00

Ok gents, we’ve all been in this position. Your lady comes home from her 7 hour expedition at the shopping mall and wants to get your opinion (which, in fact, means absolutely nothing because she made up her mind already before she even asked you). She tries on her new outfit and asks “What do you think?” You are now standing there wishing there was a snickers bar close enough that you can shove it into your mouth to buy yourself a couple minutes. Unluckily for you, there are no snicker bars on hand and times-a-ticking. You have 2 options:

Honestly say it doesn’t look good. This sounds like suicide, and it is. Don’t be fooled by people who say “be honest, she will appreciate it even more”. Those people are obvious masochists who love prolonged hours of icy across the room stares and cold shoulders. I don’t know about you, but I like my shoulders warm.
Lie. You could lie, say it looks good when it doesn’t, and risk her seeing right through you. I say don’t do it, in all honesty she knows if it looks good or not.

The answer:

Either way you’re screwed, my advice is to ask so many mundane questions about irrelevant parts of the outfit that she gives up and goes with what she would go with anyway. Good luck, and I’d recommend getting some of those candy bars to fill your mouth next time.

He really freaking does this and now I know!

Boner Check

2010-11-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

Max loves Brian Wilson. Absolutely loves. Not only a man-crush but a crush-crush. For the World Series, Max dyed his beard black to resemble Wilson’s. All my friends know this too. I would literally get messages from friends after Wilson appeared on TV to check if Max was... excited. He insists I have nothing to worry about, but I swear I heard him say “Wilson” and “machine” in his sleep last night.

He’s still in denial about the dream.

The First Post: Duh Duh Duh

2010-11-11T22:59:00.000-08:00

Here it is, folks, the answers to all of your relationship quabbles (I don't think this is a word, but I invented it, and now its gonna be viral, because I'm awesome). [You're right- quabble is not a word. But quibble is.] This first post is probably going to have something to do with the fact that the Hottest Girl In the World (Michelle, whom shall be referred to from now on as HGIW, pronounced hee-gaw-ee-wa) is going to think I'm really corny and geeky for what I said before. Now back to business.

This blog is dedicated to the everyday trials and tribulations of being in a relationship, living with the person in close quarters, and finding a way to not kill each other at the end of the day. Feel free to post your questions and we will do our best to give both the male (aka correct) [FALSE] and female [more realistic and rational] view of the subject.

Thanks for visiting,

-Max

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Readers,

I want to warn you that we talk about some pretty gross stuff. I also want you to remember that I'm still a lady! Don't worry, if you forget, I will constantly be reminding you. Ladies, why is it okay for men to be nasty and stinky all the time when women can't? Nuh uh, not in this house! I also want to share that while it is stereotyped that men don't care about details, Max chose the blog template. Yes. He vetoed my decision and said it was "too boring." He chose the red theme for love.

Welcome to our blog!

-Michelle

P.S. Can you tell who wrote which part in the About Us section?