Anniversaries

When I ask him what he’s laughing at, he’ll say something to the effect of, “Whenever this happens, I picture us in some magazine as the idyllic gay couple living their idyllic gay life.”

That’s what inspired me to create this book cover.

There was a ceramic jar right on the counter next to us (see it for yourself), and he just looked at it without comment as his answer.

Now, whenever I dry a wooden spoon, I ask, “Do we have a special place where we keep these?”

It’s to the point now where Bob answers each question, in order, each time.

We use a lot of Tupperware, so inside the fridge, Bob labels each of the containers with what it is, and the date we made it, to make things easy to find and to help us prioritize what needs to be eaten first.

This exchange has become our standard tête-à-tête whenever we have it now.

I am not a morning person and Bob is. He likes to share his dreams while they’re fresh in his mind—and often does while I’m still trying to wake up.

Also, the time on the bedside clock is an inside joke. Whenever we see that time on a clock, we always yell, “BOB O’CLOCK!” because “8:08” looks a lot like “B:OB” (more so on some clocks, like this one, than others).

^{Complete aside: We both wear boxers, not briefs, but this book-making app didn’t have boxers in their “clothing” selection.}

Even though we each take our prescribed amount of pills each day, never missing any, they never come out even at the end of the month.

It boggles our mind and exasperates us each month.

Often, I say how much I love the bar, and Bob says how much he loves the sink.

This exchange often happens whenever we use one, which has always been indoors where there’s no chance of a bee ever being.

On the rare occasion (I think it’s happened twice in 5 years) that he asks me if I would run outside and pick a small amount of an herb to use in cooking, I do it with trepidation just hoping I’ll be able to find where it is in the yard and then recognize which herb is which.

For each movie and book we watch and read, respectively, we write “a 10×6” (a 10-word summary and a 6-word review) about it and then share it with each other.

Some of Bob’s movie 10x6es.

Some of John’s book 10x6es.

There are a couple of clues we give from which only a gay guy would get the answer. The exchange depicted here is one of them.

Another one is:
Clue: “One of the most important exhibits in the Smithsonian.
Answer: “The First Ladies’ Dresses collection.”

Well, one time we had a friend over when we did that, and she looked at us bug-eyed and said, “You two even laugh alike!”

This just cracked us up, because she didn’t realize we were doing our exaggerated “punny” laugh and that we don’t laugh like that all the time.

Once, we read an article about the main puzzle editor, Erik Agard, committing to bring more diversity to the puzzle, in both its clues and answers, so now we look through the answers and clues to identify ones that refer or allude to women, people of color, GLBT people, and other traditionally under-represented groups.

1) We almost never say each other’s name when we talk to each other, and every once in a while when one of us does, the other person always does the same in response.

2) Occasionally, we’ll find ourselves saying something louder the second time if the other person didn’t seem to know the answer or understand it the first time, and then we crack up about it.

Well, not us. We’ve decided that 10 minutes is plenty of time to look at anything.

Now, after looking at anything famous—or that other people might look at much longer—after a minute or two, one of us will say this.

1) A high percentage of the time that Bob sees himself in a picture, he’ll note that he still has that shirt or those shorts, or whatever.

2) Whenever we see someone wearing some piece of clothing with a camouflage pattern, we’ll pretend like we can’t see it.

He seems to enjoy doing it, in spite of my trepidation and being kind of particular about my coiffure.

1) Every once in a while, Bob will (knowingly) go on and on, further refining details about something like Hank Kimball used to do on Green Acres, a 1965-1971 sitcom of which we own all 170 episodes.

2) And sometimes when either one of us has been talking for a while, particularly when the other has started to leave the room, or is already in the other room, we’ll yell, “Are you still talking?”

We drove up to Battle Creek so I could meet a lot of Bob’s family. On the last night, we’d gone to bed at about 8:30, because we wanted to get up very early (like 4 a.m.) and get on the road. But, I woke up at about 11:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I whispered over to Bob to see if he was also awake, and he was, so we got up and left right then for our 12-hour drive back to Raleigh.

“Can you believe it’s been [x] years since…,”

we always say, “Was it [x-1] years last year?”

Because if it was, then we can believe it’s [x] years this year, because that’s how years work!