How long have you been together?
Since January 2006 <-- This is wrong, should read 1996, thanks, Hopie!, during the snow.
How long did you know each other before you began dating?
A couple of months. He'd just quit his job as a newspaper reporter and came to work as a night-time assignment editor at the TV station where I was a news producer.
Who asked whom out?
Hard to say. It was my sister's idea; she came into the newsroom one evening, I introduced her to M, and as she and I were leaving, she whispered to me, "He's cute as shit." Indeed. After that, I think I probably asked him if he wanted to join "us" (the night crew) for a drink after the 11:00 news, and it turned out no one else wanted to go (or maybe I wasn't so expansive with the invitation?), so it was just the two of us, and there was a lot of snow on the ground, so he drove us in his truck, and it turned out it was his 25th birthday, and I bought drinks and afterwards he took me to my house and we stayed up late talking and then he left. That was the beginning.
How old are you?
I'm 47, he's 38.
Whose siblings do you see the most?
Mine, because she and her funny husband live just a few blocks away. We'd see his brother and his wonderful wife and baby if they didn't live 800 miles away, or if we didn't.
Which situation is hardest on you as a couple?
Gosh, this is hard to say, because cancer affects absolutely everything lately. I'd say childrearing is toughest, though we're very much in synch with each other, and with A. What's tough about it is how skewed the balance has become; M has to do pretty much everything, all the day-to-day, all the care. He gets her up, gets her dressed, gets her breakfast, fixes her lunch, gets her to school, brings her home and gets her supper, supervises homework, gets her to bed. On weekends, it's M and A: he takes her to playdates and parties, she goes with him to the grocery store and the butcher and cheese shops, they do laundry together. My role recently is a kind of really lovely combination Jabba the Hutt/Yoda, a blob on the bed and, occasionally, the sofa, who spouts profound truths and allows herself to be served pretend tea. As I've written here somewhere, one of the most difficult aspects of illness is being unable to fully mother (gah - noun/verb) my little girl. Hard on me, hard on her, excruciatingly difficult on M. So, combined with the crushing weight of cancer itself, I'd say the imbalance of everyday duties (and accompanying guilt) exerts the most pressure on us as a couple.
Did you go to the same school?
No, and if we had, we wouldn't have known each other since I'm a thousand years older. We both went to public high schools in different states; we attended different colleges. (I went to Tulane, he to University of Richmond.)
Are you from the same home town?
No. He grew up on Long Island. I grew up in a Quaker village in rural Virginia.
Who is smarter?
He is much quicker on the uptake than I, both intellectually and socially. He has a better memory. (A lizard has a better memory than I.) I'm better than he is at thinking ahead and seeing lots of possibilities (does this account for my outsize ability to worry?); he's more spontaneously creative. We both blow at math.
Who is the most sensitive?
I'm not sure what this question means. We're both humanoid, with all the attendant emotional equipment. It used to be that I "got over" arguments faster, probably because I'm less temperate and usually in the wrong, but lately M has given me, erm, a wider berth. More rope? Anyway, he's extremely patient.
Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Swear to God, I can't recall the last meal out as a couple. When I'm feeling up to it, the three of us go for sushi in a matchbox of a restaurant (with equally minute servers) a few blocks away. Haven't done that since last summer. A puts the chopsticks to seaweed salad and edamame and noodly things while M and I knock back spicy tuna rolls and saki.
Where is the furthest (farthest?) you've traveled together as a couple?
We're talking earth orbit, I presume. We were engaged in Rome (he bought my ring in Florence - sigh). A few years later, the two of us followed the sun and the curve of the earth to Changsha, Hunan Provence, PRC, and jetted home two weeks later, a family of three. Best. Thing. Ever.
Who has the craziest exes?
I win that race hands-down.
Who has the worst temper?
Hi. Me again.
Who does the most cooking?
The most? How 'bout the only? That would be M. I can make a mean holiday apple pie. And quiche, I can make quiche, if called upon to serve, which is rare.
Who is the most stubborn?
I am, unless M digs in his heels and becomes angry, in which case I know he's serious and I cave. (Isn't everyone stubborn? What is the definition of stubborn? Determined? Tenacious? Resilient? Jury's out on this one.)
Who hogs the most bed?
I think we're both pretty polite. It's never been an issue; we're a tiny people.
Who does the laundry?
M does 95% of the laundry these days. I do it when I feel up to it. I do my skivvies. Yet another imbalance about which I feel unending guilt. On the bright side, we are fortunate to have a whole huge laundry room on the second floor. No more running to the basement, or the laundromat. Seriously, the second floor laundry changed my life. Make this the first major shopping accident you have after the Not So Great Depression ends: move the washer and dryer upstairs.
Who's better with the computer?
He is. He is.
Who drives when you are together?
He does, unless it's a long trip, in which case we split it. I love to drive (except at night, when I don't see so well), so I don't know how we fell into such traditional roles; probably has something to do with that first snowy night in the truck in January 1996...
One other unsolicited item:
M and I had been dating just over a year when I was first diagnosed, in February 1997. In October 1998, we went to Italy, where he asked me to marry him. How many 26-year-old men do you know who'd stick around through all that cancer nonsense, and then willingly sign on for more?
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