Blogging since 1998. By David Wertheimer

Month: July 2002 (Page 1 of 3)

Transformation

Once engaged, one’s home life quickly adopts a new set of rules and regulations. The switch is enjoyable, but some of the changes do come as a surprise.

Once engaged, one’s home life quickly adopts a new set of rules and regulations. The switch is enjoyable, but some of the changes do come as a surprise.

~ The prospect of cohabitation, once a distant hope and promise, becomes not an inevitability but a matter of immediacy. Prepare to relinquish rights to the old home within 18 minutes of proposing, and do not expect to be “at home” (meaning the bachelor pad) for more than an hour ever again.

~ When spending time at the new home, the old tenant (now your soon-to-be-betrothed) will expect the phone to be answered, even though all the calls are still for resident No. 1. The answering machine messages do begin to include both people, which is more fun than it sounds.

~ Suddenly it has become acceptable for the fiancee to pee with the door open.

~ That list of moderately awkward pharmacy items that once was purchased on a quiet, lonely night when no one is looking? The secret’s out. And, for that matter, someone else’s secrets are now in.

~ Sharing and not sharing ceases to exist. Everything is “ours.” Which is great when one needs batteries, and less so when the ballgame loses the remote-control faceoff to “The E! True Hollywood Story.”

~ Jerry Seinfeld’s good-naked, bad-naked routine is a lie.

Reassuringly, the moldy-items-in-the-back-of-the-fridge cliche is a cliche for a reason.

Weblog catch-up

Note to readers: I update this page just about every business day. The engagement notice last week was a (happy and fun) anomaly. I’ve been saving up bookmarks in the interim. Click away.

News: iVillage To Eliminate Pop-Up Advertising. “This move was based on an iVillage/Vividence survey showing that 92.5% of iVillage women found pop-up advertising to be the most frustrating feature of the Web.”

Exposition: I Remember Patty in The Morning News. “Patty’s mother was an abrasive woman, the kind of person who jingled into a room with too much jewelry and not enough taste.”

Trivia: Origins of band names. “According to Paul Stanley, Kiss was a momentary inspiration that sounded dangerous and sexy at the same time. Kiss denies the silly fundamentalist rumor that the name stands for ‘Knights In Satan’s Service’.”

Fun: How to swear in German. “Hau ab, Du Pfeife!”

More tomorrow.

Happily ever after

I’m engaged!

I met Amy in November 2000, a half-blind setup by my friend Steve and his fiancee, Ilysa, who had Amy crash drinks with us at the East 64th St Merchants NY. I didn’t know I was being marketed until the cab ride home, when Ilysa grilled me with, “What’d you think of Amy wasn’t she cute isn’t she nice do you want to call her I think you should call her here’s her number she’s expecting you to call so give her a call good luck,” and left me in the cab with a scrap of paper.

Dutifully, I called. Amy and I went on three dates in the span of a week and a half around Thanksgiving; the first was fun, the second two, less so. We were both intrigued but not quite “there.” Regardless, Amy invited me up to her apartment for a nightcap after our third date.

I turned her down and didn’t see her until January.

Prompted over the holidays by an insistent friend, I called Amy just after New Year’s 2001, curious about trying again. She called me back six days later. Our dates went much more smoothly, and our third date the second time around was a magical night at Jules in the East Village. We stayed out late listening to jazz and drinking red wine. Amy invited me up for a nightcap. This time I accepted.

Two days later, we had a swirling, all-night phone call, and somewhere around 3 a.m. I professed a desire to date her exclusively and see what happens. She thought I was mildly crazy but she ran with it.

We fell in love in the springtime: me first, declaring it at lunch outside her building, a little too earnestly; her a few weeks later, in a whisper, walking with me down Ninth Avenue. We spent the summer kissing, snuggling, holding hands, and looking googly-eyed at each other, as any happy lovebirds should.

In the year since, we have grown fully into each other’s lives. We look out for one another, take care of one another, challenge each other to be better and stronger individuals. More often than not, we are ridiculously romantic. I dote on her, bring her flowers, make the bed; she prepares my lunch, runs my errands, giggles at my jokes. We see each other every day and hate being out of touch for more than a few hours at a time. We are, in short, hopelessly in love.

Last summer, we went to the Charlotte Inn on Martha’s Vineyard for our first real vacation together. The weekend was romantic and wonderful. When we discovered this past spring that the puppy I was to give Amy would be delayed until the fall, Amy asked if we could go back.

I booked the room in mid-May and started planning.

My relationship with Amy is like none I’ve had before. No one excites, inspires, surprises, or adores me like she does. I have never been as caring, selfless, trusting or revealing as I am when I am around her. We share laughs, values, hopes and dreams. My friends and family cannot stop telling me what a wonderful person I’ve found, and I couldn’t agree more.

Saturday night in the Vineyard, after dinner at the inn’s restaurant, I brought Amy to a magnificent room filled with flowers and champagne. On the floor was a DVD player—she’d been asking—and in my pocket was an oval diamond in a platinum setting with trillions on the side, the ring of her dreams.

“Of course I will!” she exclaimed.

To my biggest fan and most devoted reader: I love you, Amy. I couldn’t be more excited to spend the rest of my life with you.

Comments

Another book review

“Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself” gets a thumbs up from sitecritique.net. “This book is extremely important for project managers, as well as designers who are looking for some guidance before beginning a large project.”

Bachelor party weekend do’s and don’ts

Do plan on spending money indiscriminately and wondering where it all went.

Don’t schedule a tee time for golf before noon and expect to make it on time.

Do mix and mingle friends, because they will have fun as a unit.

Don’t order $4.25 platters of escargot. (Some of your tripmates may disagree with you, but it’s a personal decision.)

Do coordinate travel so that most of the party is flying and driving at the same time.

Don’t go to South Carolina in July.

Do eat, drink, and be merry, because it’s hard not to have a good time. Congratulations, Steve!

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