“I just want to say,” her voice was the exact same tone and volume that it always is, “that you guys make perfect sense.”

My eyes flew from my twiddling thumbs to his face.  His lips twitched as he tried to suppress a smile.  We held each other’s gaze for a moment, the silent laughter dancing between us across the facing chairs.  For an instant, we shared a secret joke.

But I’ve never had a secret thought in my life.

“We think you say that to everyone,” I blurted.

Her perfectly serene expression wavered ever so slightly.  She almost looked confused, except that she would never dare to show that much emotion in front of us.

“You always say that. ‘You make perfect sense’.”  I bobbed my head back and forth to drive home the point that I was mimicking her.  “We’ve been trying to figure out if you say that to everyone, or if we’re really especially awesome.”

“Well,” she pulled her cardigan tighter around herself and regained her composure, “I do say that to everyone.”

“I knew it!”  I was triumphant.  Jared was silent and checking for exit routes.

“My husband actually teases me about it; he says it’s my catch phrase.  But I wholeheartedly believe that every couple does make perfect sense.”

A short list of couples popped in my head and I imagined parading them in front of her to see if her theory would hold up.  For some reason the idea of trampling on her optimism amused me.

“I never say something if I don’t mean it though,” she assured us.  “But I really do believe that you guys make sense.  And Jared,” she turned to my silent husband, “you were very, very brave today.”

I made a note to remind him later that she probably says that to everyone too.  Except me.  She never tells me I’m brave, I realized.  Maybe she only says that to the men.

We wrote the check and gathered our things and headed out the door.

“Be good to each other,” she called after us.  I took Jared’s hand as we left the building, the way I always do when she says that.

“Our counselor has a catch phrase!” I said as we walked to the parking lot.

“I know,” said Jared.

“And it’s such a cool catch phrase.  I want a catch phrase!”

“Oh, Lord.”

“All of my catch phrases suck.  Like ‘That’s what I do!’.  That’s what I say whenever I’ve done something shitty.  You know, so I don’t have to worry about like not being shitty in the future or something.”

“Yeah, I know.”

We got in the car and headed home, both of us, I’m sure, trying to imagine what our own catch phrases would be.

“I think our counselor is going to be on Dr. Phil someday,” Jared said.  “She’s going to be on TV saying ‘You make perfect sense’.”

“I’m going to tell everyone we know her.”

“Maybe you should just steal her catch phrase,” Jared laughed.  “You know, it’d be a great title for a book.  Are there laws or anything about stealing someone’s catch phrase?”

“I don’t know.”

“You probably wouldn’t find out until you were on Oprah or something.”

“Yeah, there’s something especially shitty about stealing your marriage counselor’s catch phrase I think.  I need to just come up with my own.”

And so I’ve been thinking about it.

Seriously.

Because in between writing about celebrities and hotels and weight loss surgery, my mind wanders to things like what would be a cool catch phrase. So far, everything I’ve come up with is politically incorrect or socially insensitive, like my tendency to call people retarded.  I’m pretty sure Oprah, and most of my friends, would frown on my liberal use of the R word.

I don’t think Fuck can be considered a catch phrase.  And my grandmother hates that word.  If I ever manage to get on Oprah, I’d like it if my grandmother could actually watch.  Not that she would, but it’s nice to keep that option open.

Lately I’ve been finding I say “my therapist says” a lot, but I don’t think that’s a catch phrase so much as a really annoying habit that I’ll soon be using to explain why my friends have stopped calling.

I got nothing.  It’s been a week since our counselor admitted that she sometimes talks to us in cliches, and I still haven’t been able to come up with one of my own.

I’m taking suggestions.

(Unless we’re talking about laundry.)

For the first time in forever, I went almost an entire week without working.  I went days without responding to an email or writing a single article or following up on a lead for an assignment.  I was sick, and my body was unwilling to cooperate with my plans to work from bed on my laptop.  I slept and slept and watched TV and slept and slept some more.  For a week.

By the weekend, I was starting to feel like myself again and was more than a little anxious to start catching up on everything I’d let slide.

(Unless we’re talking about laundry.)

Unfortunately, life had other plans for me.

On Saturday, I got to host a launch party for the new Wii Fit Plus.  Because telling people you’re hosting a “Nintendo Party” is lame and brings up images of pale skinned people crawling out of their basements to gather around a gaming console.  I?  Am not lame.  I?  Was a freaking cheerleader in high school, thank you very much.  And so I decided, with the help of my magnificent friend Faiqa, to call it a launch party.

But I digress.

(Look at how not lame I am.)

ANYway, on Saturday I invited about 20 people to come to a launch party and we all sat around and listened to Wii Fit Plus Barbie tell us about how much better the Plus version is from the regular version.

She was lovely, really.  And she handled my “good natured kidding” about her lack of body fat in front of a room full of strangers quite well.  Probably because she works in PR and is professional, unlike some people who cannot resist the urge to make fun of beautiful people.  Man, some people are lame.

ANYway – Wii Fit Plus party on Saturday.

This picture does not add to the story at all except to say that they served us smoothies in shot glasses and so I was doing shots of health food because if you hand me something in a shot glass, I will shoot it. But I am exceedingly proud of this completely unedited picture, so look at it, thanks.

Blah blah blah, party party party, blah blah blah, everyone got free Wii Fit Plus thingies, blah blah blah, go me.

The end of Saturday and me not getting any work done.

On Sunday, I awoke with the same ginormous pile of work to get caught up on.  I also woke up with two kids and a husband who hadn’t done jack squat in about a week.

So we went to the county fair.

Let me tell you how much I hate The Fair.  I grew up in Iowa where the Iowa State Fair is revered as the be all to end all of fairs – and I loathed the idea of going every year.  What I remember about the fair is going as a kid when all we could afford was admission and a bag of popcorn and/or cotton candy to split between my mother, brothers and I.  We would walk around those godforsaken fair grounds for hours, pretending that rides and games didn’t exist and looking at animals and plants and butter statues instead.  I hated every minute of it.

And yet…

I dragged my kids into the horticulture hall. And they hated every minute of it.

Jared and I, however, were in awe.  Because we are, apparently, officially old now.  But I thought it was really interesting to see the kinds of things that are grown here in Florida that are not corn or tomatoes or soy beans.

Prize winning pineapples! And oranges! And star fruit! That is cool, right?  Right?!?!

No?

Fine.

I let them go on bumper cars, too.

And eat funnel cake and fried oreos.

And bring home the goldfish they won from that ping pong game.

Blah blah blah, fair fair fair, blah blah blah, I’m pretty much the best mom ever, blah blah blah, go me.

The end of Sunday and me getting sunburned in November because it was 80 degrees and no one at the fair has ever heard of shade.

Now, of course, I still have a metric crap ton of work to get caught up on and I am finally ready and able to happily throw myself into “catching up mode”.

(Unless we’re talking about laundry.)

>> Having both of your children sick at the same time.

>> Waking up in the middle of the night to find one of your children throwing up in your bed.  On your sheets.

>> Having to change the sheets in the middle of the night while one of your children sits on the floor next to a glass bowl.

>> Waking up the next morning to find that one of your children had also threw up on your comforter.  And your pillow.

>> Getting one child well enough to go to school, but still having one kid sick enough to have to stay home.

>> Getting sick yourself, while you have one sick kid at home.

>> Throwing up.

>> Throwing up so hard that you pee your pants.

>> Admitting that “throwing up” could easily be replaced with “laughing”, “sneezing”, “coughing”, “jumping”.

>> Realizing that you’re not even 30, and you’re making the same jokes about peeing your pants as your 49 year old mother.

>> Neither of you are actually joking.

>> Thinking of your mom peeing her pants makes you exceptionally sad that you don’t have your mom when you’re sick and covered in your own vomit and pee.

Things That Are Cool:

>> Having your husband voluntarily leave work early because both kids are sick – which marks the first time in 10 years that he’s ever left work because someone at home was sick.

>> Having your husband leave work early again when you call him crying because you are siiiiiiick and it huuuuurts and you peeeeeeeed and you want your mommmmmeeeeeee.

>> Having your husband finally just decide to not even bother going into work because clearly you are useless and both kids are now home because Veteran’s Day was in the middle of the damn week.

>> Waking up after being sick forever to find that, while your husband was bringing you soup and waking you up to make you take sips of Diet 7Up from a straw and rubbing your back and shoving little white pills down your throat because the flu is no good reason to skip your antidepressants, woman!, he also managed to clean the house and do all the laundry.

>> Including those sheets.  And the comforter.  And your pillow.

Miss Britt and the Proust Questionnaire:

What is your most marked characteristic?

My need to be heard, which is really secondary to my need to be understood.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Excellence.  In anything.  I used to believe it was ambition, but the desire to do more is far more common than the characteristics required to actually do something well.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Strength and accountability.  The women I admire most are not perfect, but neither are they victims of their imperfection.

What do you most value in your friends?

Loyalty and understanding.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

My need to be heard.  It makes me a horrible listener.

What is your favorite occupation?

Writing.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Freedom.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

To be afraid of misery.

In which country would you like to live?

In many, for a certain period of time.

Who are your favorite writers?

The ones who can make me laugh, cry, and think.

Who are your favorite poets?

Shakespeare.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

J.D from The Great Brain series.

Who is your favorite heroine of fiction?

Willow

Who are your favorite composers?

Prince

Who are your favorite painters?

Monet and Degas

What are your favorite names?

Emma and Darby

What is it that you most dislike?

Cruelty, apathy and rodents.

Which talent would you most like to have?

Willpower

How would you like to die?

In a tiny apartment, at a very old age, surrounded by a disorganized chaos of memories.

What is your current state of mind?

Sadness.  There are too many people in this world who have to live with grief, and not enough gratitude from those who don’t.

What is your motto?

My motto remains the same as it was the day I stole it from someone much more clever than me so that I could finish my high school yearbook questionnaire.

“You can never discover new oceans, unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

I thought it was interesting, and announced mid session that I’d be featuring Marriage Mad Lib on my blog.  My marriage counselor laughed and Jared shook his head the way that he always does when I announce that something is going to show up on my blog.  I like to think it’s a mix of resignation and amusement.

Anyway, first the exercise and then the explanation.  Because every good Mad Lib relies, to a certain extent, on the element of surprise.

Before you start, picture yourself for a moment in your childhood home.  If you had lots of childhood homes (raises hand), picture yourself in the one you remember most easily.  Take a minute to imagine your mom and both the good and less than good memories you have of her as a child.  Do the same with your dad, and any other caretakers that were important in your childhood.  It’s important that you think of these people as you saw them as a child, rather than how you view them as an adult.

Now…

1.  List several adjectives that describe the positive characteristics of your caretakers.

2.  List several adjectives that describe the negative characteristics of your caretakers.

3.  Complete the sentence:  What I wanted and needed most as a child was ________.

4.  List any recurring childhood frustrations that you had.  For example “did not get listened to” or “no one knew I was hurting” or “had to take care of siblings”.

5.  List how you responded to these frustrations.  This should be how you felt AND your behavioral responses.  In other words – what you did.

6.  List your positive memories from childhood.  It can be specific, like “that time we went to the Macy’s parade”, or general, like “decorating for Christmas”.

7.  List the feelings you associated with each memory.

8.  Go back to step 1 and 2 and circle the three adjectives in each list that had the most impact on you.

Now, it’s time to fill in the Mad Lib.

I am trying to get a person who is (circled answers from 2), to always be (circled answers from 1), so that I can get (what you filled in on 3) and feel (7).  I stop myself from getting this sometimes by (5).

Now ask yourself:

*Does “I am trying to get a person who is ______” describe your partner?  Are there some words that don’t fit, or other words from step 2 that also fit?  Cross off the ones that don’t fit and add any others from the list that do fit.

*Are you trying to get your partner “to be _______”?  Same as before.  Cross off words that don’t fit and add any from your list original list in step 1 that does fit.  Are these the things you “poke” your partner about?

*Reread what you said in the “so I can get ___ and feel ___” section.  Does this describe the overall feeling you’re trying to achieve in your relationship?

*And finally, take a look at the last part about things you do sometimes to stop yourself.  Are these typical responses for you when you argue with your spouse or run up against conflict?

For me, this exercise gave me an eerily accurate description of how I see my husband, what I’m trying to get from him, my goals in a relationship and, of course, how I get in my own way.  It was less accurate for Jared, mainly because he had a pretty much perfect childhood and couldn’t come up with a single negative attribute for his parents.

(Our counselor noted that this exercise is more difficult for people with really, really good childhoods.  I concluded that Jared picked me because his parents were perfect and I was also perfect.  Clearly.)

This exercise, or Marriage Mad Lib as I call it, is an intricate part of Imago Therapy – the type of marriage counseling Jared and I are in.  The idea is that we pick our partners for a reason, and that every relationship has the potential to be a good one.  This particular exercise is meant to show us some of the unconscious reasons we picked our spouses in the first place.

In a nutshell – people get married to resolve childhood conflict.

I think it’s brilliant and compare it to relationship karma.  If you didn’t get it right the first time around, you keep looking for situations to try again until you do.  Jared is not near as comfortable with the idea, mainly because of his basically perfect childhood, I think.  Even though he’s not entirely buying into the “we get married because of problems we had with our parents” theory, even he has to agree with the revelations that have come from it about our own behaviors – especially mine.   So there’s that.

I’m putting the “answer” to my own Marriage Mad Lib in the comments.  Feel free to play along if you’re comfortable, or tell me you agree with Jared and think it’s totally nuts.

I am not, for obvious reasons, listing Jared’s answers.  A girl can only take so much head shaking.

The first person who lectures me after reading this post gets virtually punched in the nose.

And with that warm welcome…

The old adage says that I’m “burning the candle at both ends”.

In reality, I’ve got a freaking candelabra burning up in here.

And not a pretty, dainty, simple candelabra like this:

Oh, no.  No.  That would be too easy.

My proverbial candle burning more closely resembles something like this:

In other words, I have a lot going on right now.

For example:

>> I’m hosting a party for Nintendo in less than two weeks – and have yet to get the final invitations sent out.  I’m really excited to do this because I get to give a bunch of my friends a party and free stuff, and I get to give away something really, reallllly cool on this blog pretty soon because of this party.  But also?  I kind of want to pull my hair out with the planning at the moment.

>> I’m officially getting paid to write on four separate blogs now.  Which is AWESOME.  I’m thrilled.  It gets me closer to one of my ultimate goals.  But also?  Four. Separate. Freaking. Blogs.  Not counting the two blogs of my own that I maintain just because I like to.

>> The fourth and most recent blog that I’ve been hired to write on is Babble’s FameCrawler site.  It offers the largest income potential of all of my current writing gigs and I am so, so, so grateful that I’m actually starting to earn something resembling a living through writing.  But also?  It’s a site about celebrity parenting.  I actually tagged a post I wrote recently as “celebrity parenting advice”.

>> Have I mentioned yet that I just started a new writing job?  The thing about any job is that it requires a lot of work and focus and attention when you start out.  And while I am still grateful and am having a lot of fun doing it – OMG THE STARTUP PROCESS FOR NEW JOBS IS DRAINING.

>> I’m turning 30 in January.  I’m planning a big celebration of some kind for my friends and family.  I’m hoping to use some of my connections as a travel writer to turn part of the big celebration into work.  All of that?  Is good.  But also? OMG I HAVE TO WRITE A FREAKING PROPOSAL NOW.  And by now?  I mean, it probably should have been done yesterday.

But, you know, that’s it.  That’s all I’ve got going on here.

I mean, unless you count the kids and the marriage and the friends and the regular 9-5 full time paying full time job and the  OH!  RIGHT!  The MARRIAGE.  Because, ya know, THAT is requiring its own mountain of work and focus and attention right now.  And those things – the kids and the marriage, specifically – are balls that absolutely can. not. be. dropped.  They can’t even be tossed around, you know?  They have to be held on to and appreciated and polished up as often as possible.

Because in the end, those are the two lights that keep everything else burning.

And I’m not even bitching.  Not really.  The mass chaos right now is temporary.  The party will come and go; the new job will become one of the old jobs soon enough.  And, by the grace of God, every single one of the things on my plate at the moment are things that I adore and am grateful for.

I’m just saying… um… I have a lot going on right now.

And also?

Best. Post. Ever.

Wow.  Yeah.  Hi, my name is Britt and I get paid to write.  And this post is a stunning example of why.

Clearly.

Photos by Brenda Starr and choctaw ridge, because it’s not nice to steal.

It’s a miracle she didn’t immediately denounce me as her nemesis.

Instead, she exploded out of the elevator and into the hall of the Philadelphia  Sheraton with more life and animation than I had ever seen in another human being.  (Which is saying something, because I’d already met Becky.)  The woman is more of a walking party than I am – and I don’t think I’ve ever said that about another person in my life.

She permanently cemented herself into my heart that weekend.

Now, almost two years later, she is living in my neighborhood, and has become the girlfriend I longed for since moving to Florida.  No, she doesn’t have kids like I do, but she happily walks along behind mine while we all go trick or treating together.  And sure, she’d probably kill me if I dropped by her house without a forewarning phone call or text, but she walks into mine without knocking and has shown up more than once in her pajamas and Homer Simpson slippers.

She has permanently cemented herself into my family over the past six months.

She was the person my husband called when we separated.  She’s the friend who stays with our kids on Thursday nights.  She’s the girl who cried on my couch and let me cry on hers.  She’s one of the few people I called out for on my very worst day, and she came to my rescue without hesitation.  She sits on my back porch and endures my secondhand smoke while we laugh and laugh until one of us (usually her) snorts or (usually me) pees.  She talks sense into me when I need it and shuts the hell up when I don’t want to hear it.

A part of me knows that it won’t be like this forever; neither one of us has plans to die in this subdivision in Central Florida.

But we both know better than to guess or worry about what the future will bring.  For right now, she’s here, and I am more grateful for her presence in my life than she will ever know.

Happy Birthday, Hilly.

And thank you.

For all of it.

“Ohhh, shit,” Jared and I realized in unison that we had scheduled the appointment for a half an hour earlier than usual, and that we were late rather than a few minutes early.

We stood in front of the locked door to the building that housed her office and I flipped through my phone to try to find her number.  I noticed a missed call from 40 minutes earlier.  I called and she confirmed that she had long gone and we’d have to postpone our appointment until the next week.

“Is it stupid that I feel like crying?” I asked Jared.

“No.  I mean, I kind of do too.”

We got back into my car and began to retrace the route we’d just completed.

“You wanna go do something instead?” he asked.

I sighed.  “We asked Hilly to babysit so we could go to counseling.  We can’t just leave the kids with her if we’re not where we said we’d be.”

“Damn,” he muttered.

“Want to stop and get ice cream on the way home?” I offered.

“You can’t eat ice cream,” he reminded me.

“No, but I could watch you eat it.  I mean, I guess.”

“Really?” he perked up.  “Would that make you feel better?”

“Would watching you eat ice cream that I can’t eat make me feel better?  Hell no.” His face fell.  “But I will!”

He smiled.  Apparently knowing that I would was almost as good as actually getting to eat ice cream.  We drove along in sulking silence for several minutes.

“Do you want to try to talk about some stuff on our own?” he asked, quietly, not really sure, I think, how he wanted me to answer.

“Yeah, um, no,” I chuckled.  “I don’t think we’re really ready for that.  And then we’ll have to call to tell her that the whole thing is off because I accidentally killed you the night we missed a session.”

“Or we’ll have to call and tell her that we did it on our own and we were so awesome that we fixed everything and now we don’t need her anymore,” Jared countered, “and that would just make her feel bad.”

“Exactly.  That’s probably totally what would happen.  Let’s not hurt the poor woman’s business.”

“Good idea.”

We drove along further, holding hands and silently agreeing to leave the big stuff alone for another week.

“Hey!” I piped up, “I might go to Africa in the spring!”

“What?”

“Yeah!  There is this group of writers that I kind of got invited to maybe join to go to Africa and -”

“You?  And Africa?” Jared was practically snorting from laughter.

“Listen, asshole, it’s for charity.”

“You have always said you have absolutely no interest in going to Africa.”

“Well, OK, fine,” I conceded, “but that was before I was going to go to Africa as part of a group of writers who were going to write about orphans and orphanages and help people.  Now I am totally interested in going to Africa.”

“Why would you write about orphans?”

“It’s for a Christian organization that -”

His laughter was now impossible to talk over.  “Oh that is even better.  You would be perfect for them.”

“I know!”

“You’ll be all ‘these fucking bugs!’  And ‘I am HUNGRY!  And I haven’t had anything to drink in fucking days!’ Oh, yeah,” he snorted again, “this is a great idea.”

“They would feed me, Jared.”

“Britt, you are scared of alligators.  You won’t even camp in Florida because you’re afraid of getting eaten.”

“There aren’t any alligators in Africa!”

“No, there are lions!”

I rolled my eyes in the dark.  “I’m not going to get eaten by a lion.  Now you’re just being stupid.”

“I bet you more people get eaten by lions than alligators.”

“No way.”

“I’m going to look it up,” he pulled his iPhone out of his back pocket and started to google lions vs. alligator deaths while he continued to drive my car.

“OK!  Fine!  Lions eat people!  Jeez.  Watch the road.”  He put his phone away and I continued to make my case. “It’s not like I’m going to be in a campground where lions can eat me.”

“So someone is going to pay you to go to Africa and write about orphans?”

“Um, well, no.  Not exactly.”  He raised an eyebrow.  “Technically it costs about $3300.”

“You’re going to pay $3300 to go to Africa to write about orphans?”  I was beginning to suspect he was mocking me.

“Noooo,” now was my chance to prove the how much sense this plan made, “it’s for charity.  So you raise support for the mission.”

“You’re going to ask people to give you $3300 to go to AFRICA?!”

“Well -”

“What the hell?  Why don’t you ask someone to give me $3300 to go to Spain!?”

“That is just -”

“Hey, I’ll bet you anything there are poor people in Spain!  I’ll take pictures and you can write all about it.  Poor, Poor, Poor People in Spain!”  He began crafting headlines for me.

“You suck.”

“No, you know what, never mind,” I could see the wheels turning in his head.  “Amsterdam,” he was triumphant.

“Who are you going to -”

“Hookers!  There are so many hookers in Amsterdam!  Yes!  I’m going to start a fund – here, write this down, you can do it on your blog – we’re going to raise money to help the hookers in Amsterdam!”

“Jared, you cannot have sex with prostitutes and tell them that you’re saving them.”

“Means they’re not prostitutes anymore, doesn’t it?”

“Jared, seriously.  You are -

“Genius!  Fucking genius.”  He reached over and patted my leg.  “Thanks babe, this is a great idea.  We’re going to do some real good here, I can tell.”

My marriage counselor owes some hookers in Amsterdam an apology.

After they had endured more time than anyone should ever have to endure in a Wal-Mart, I took them to the nearby party supply store that had been converted into a costume shop for the Halloween season.

Emma had known for weeks what she wanted to dress up as for Halloween.  No, she assured me, she had not changed her mind.  Yes, she repeated, she was sure.

It took us less than five minutes to find exactly what she wanted.

For those of you who don’t have little girls (or boys), that is the Red Power Ranger.  Not the pink.  Not the yellow.  Oh, no, not either of the characters that are girls.  We had to have the Red Power Ranger.

I’m pretty sure I can go ahead and throw out that princess dress up set I bought her for Christmas.

Devin had no idea what he wanted to be, unless they sold kits to make solar cars, in which case he would go as the guy who invented the solar car.  They did not, surprisingly enough, sell solar car kits at The Party Store.  (And I think he talked me into promising him a trip to Detroit as some sort of consolation.  So thanks a lot, Stupid Party Store.)  Instead, he and Matthew wandered up and down the aisles touching every single freaking prop, hat and pretend weapon, before deciding on a big plastic stick and some face paint.

He said he was going as A DEVIL! RAWR!! I told everyone he was going as a goblin, because what kind of good Christian woman lets her nine year old son go trick or treating as Satan?

I bet I have a Jehovah’s Witness on my doorstep by 9 am Monday morning.

I did not buy Matthew a costume, because, well, he’s not my kid.  Instead I promised that he would have to hold my hand in public if he touched one more god forsaken thing.

Fast forward to Saturday, Halloween night.

I’m kind of starting to think it’s bullshit that I only get to claim two children on my tax returns.

ANYway.  Jared, Hilly and I got all three kids suited up and ready to head out trick or treating.  We then realized it was only 6:00 and no one else was out yet, so we made the kids sit around in their costumes while I watched last week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model.  There is nothing better than Tyra Banks to get you in the mood for the scariest night of the year.

And then we went trick or treating.

Those glow sticks are for safety.

And speaking of safety, you know what is not safe?  Running across the street without looking for cars no matter how many times your mother warns you not to.  And do you know what happens if you insist on running across the street without looking for cars no matter how many times your mother warns you not to?

You have to walk by three whole houses while your dad holds your hand. And smokes a cigarette. And pulls his shirt up to rub his belly and say “Whussa matter with you boy?  Don’t you love yo daddy?”

Oh yes I did.

And no one ran across the street for the rest of the night.

ANYway, blah blah blah, candy candy candy, blah blah blah, I want water, blah blah blah, we had Halloween here, too.  The end.

We came home and let the kids sort through their candy while Jared, Hilly and I sat around and talked and laughed and compared notes on personal hygeine.  We eventually put all three kids in bed and sent Hilly on her merry way, and then Jared and I went to bed.  The end.

Except…

As I climbed under the covers and prepared for our counseling mandated nightly ritual of using The Dialogue to tell one another what we appreciated about each other, it struck me that all of this almost didn’t happen.

Yes, there would have been costumes.  There would have been candy and face paint and hundreds of pictures and, in all likelihood, Matthew.  There would have been trick or treating, and Halloween would have come and gone just like it does every year.

But when Jared and I separated at the beginning of September, the plan was to stay separated for 3 months.  Which means, there wouldn’t have been this:

- which is the terribly scary haunted house that one of our neighbors puts on for free every year that I absolutely will. not. go into, but that Jared gladly took the two boys through while Emma, Hilly and I cowered on the sidewalk.

And you know, that probably would have been OK.  There still would have been candy and costumes and trick or treating.  And maybe Hilly would have taken two black robed boys through a neighborhood Halloween house.  And, yes, Halloween still would have come and gone the way it does every year.

But it wouldn’t have been the same.

Because there wouldn’t have been this.

And there’s absolutely no replacement in the world for that.

After much consideration and ample poking and prodding from Jared, I’ve decided to apply for a temporary travel job from TheBigTrip.com.

The deal is, basically, that you spend 3 months traveling – all expenses paid – and you earn a $50,000 salary for those 3 months.  Part of the submission process includes a video application.

I made mine today.

If you can’t see the video player, the direct link is here.