Kyle – Page 3 – Counterspectacle

a new blog, for an occasion

Jess on February 14, 2008

I’m sure I’ll still attempt to blog over here. But I would like to announce that Kyle and I have started a blog for our wedding at http://terrorandbliss.wordpress.com. We’ll both be blogging there and we’ll use it as a general website for a wedding announcement like most people get through eWeddings or some similar site. It’s all very exciting! And I’m not going to cross-post here during the wedding planning so you’ll have to follow the story over there for the time being or catch up when it all gets imported after the wedding date which is yet to be determined. Hooray.

The Wedding Date

Jess on February 13, 2008

When Kyle and I initially talked about getting engaged we made mental plans to have a short engagement and aim for August or December of 2008 based on what the church could do. When mom initially gave permission for the proposal, she was under the assumption that we’d wait to get married for four or five years, basically, until I was done with grad school. Obviously, this is causing a bit of tension at the earliest stages of the planning process. So I thought I’d make a list of some of the reasons that I want to have a wedding now rather than later… in no particular order of importance to me.

1. When Kyle and I discussed whether or when we would get married before the engagement, Kyle said he would rather get married before we start our lives together because he feels like it’s something we just wouldn’t get around to doing if we already experience the benefits of married life, less the tax incentives.

2. I don’t like long engagements. I think they’re silly and they ruin the fun and the excitement. Also, friends who have had long engagements seem to forever postpone their eventual wedding. I think engagement is like a strange purgatory where it’s a little better than dating but not as great as marriage. Engagement exists for two reasons: 1) marriage is something people must spiritually and emotionally prepare for and 2) weddings take plannings.

3. I’m looking forward to a marriage. I want that.

4. Very few friends will have to rearrange their schedules or their position in life to attend a wedding in Topeka this summer or winter. Only two members of the proposed bridal party live out of the Way Greater Kansas City area. This is not exactly the case of the proposed groom’s party but their is currently a massive potential for carpooling from the St. Louis area where Kyle goes to college which will not exist in four or five years. Even if it can be argued that we are likely to fall out of touch with some of our guests in the future, the majority of the people who will be invited in the future will probably be from wherever we relocate. Therefore, instead of having a massive number of guests forced to buy plane tickets to attend the wedding of a local couple (if the wedding were still to be held in Kansas) would be inconviencing and unnecessary. It’s good that the wedding is in-town or a short drive for most of our guests right now.

5. It is paramount to me that I get married in a church I actually attend. For the past three years, I have regularly attended mass at Assumption in Topeka. It is certainly the parrish in which I feel most at home. As Kyle and I relocate in the fall, we will inevitably attend services and become a part of the community of a church in the area of our relocation. Likewise, I will request that a wedding four or five years from now occur at that church outside of Topeka.

6. Even if we were to get married in a Topeka church, we’re not going to live in Topeka at the time that the wedding would be planned. This would mean that my mom would have to take on the bulk of the wedding planning with the fun things like picking out dresses and the like being done from a distance without her involvement. I cherish the opportunity to spend several afternoons at different bridal stores with my mom until we find the perfect dress for me on my wedding day. I think that being apart means that this will be unlikely if not impossible. Both because my mom will not want to take on the role of wedding planning due to her already too busy schedule and because I would feel bad placing that burden on her, Kyle and I would almost have to do what my other friends who got married in Kansas when they lived elsewhere and hire a wedding planner. That adds a lot of cost. Cost is bad.

7. When I’m four or five years older, most of Kyle and my friends will be professionals with actual jobs and incomes while Kyle and I are likely to remain in our financial situation until we’re both out of grad/law school and employed. However, our friends who are not in similar economic situations are likely to appreciate the corners we cut in terms of cost as much. Further, I’ll feel a lot of pressure to add things to the wedding that I wouldn’t have now both because I’ll have been thinking about what I want the wedding to be like and because I will feel like I need to impress people who are well off.

8. Kyle and I want to own property together and it’s easier and safer to do that when we are legally recognized as married.

9. I do not want to cohabitate. I think it’s bad for a relationship when done outside of marriage.

10. I would rather not continue to flirt with the risk of a shotgun wedding.

11. One of the ways Kyle and I plan to save money on this wedding is by cutting costs on things like engagement photos and dj-ing by employing the efforts of friends looking to build work experience or a portfolio or who are just interested in helping us out. We’re likely to not have this diversity of connections when we’re not fresh out of undergrad.

other than that, mrs. lincoln. how'd you enjoy the show?*

Jess on February 11, 2008

kyle and i are engaged.

this is how it happened. we went to see jack’s mannequin last night in peoria, illinois. we got the tickets a few weeks ago for this show at bradley university that they were playing and i was excited to see them again plus it’s four days shy of the time we saw them last year and a week shy of our anniversary so it was just a good reminder of what is so awesome about being in love with each other. while i had no idea that kyle was proposing to me last night (he told me last week he was gonna ask my parents for permission in the summer… not like over this weekend and he told me friday that he hadn’t bought a ring yet), i knew that this was the time i wanted him to propose. i mean, if i were going to propose to me i’d have done it last night. cos it makes sense. and it wasn’t freezing like the other time i wanted him to propose or thought i would until we were at the top of the mountain and it was so so cold and i just wanted to go back down plus i would’ve passed out there. anyway. so i was watching for clues that it was going to happen last night and he was so calm in the car that i just completely ruled it out. i was positive that a man about to ask a girl to marry him would not be just calm about it and more concerned about where we would park and how we would get in…. so i was sure he wouldn’t do itl. and then…

we got to the university and watched the opening acts and then andrew came on and while he was playing and we were singing along i was thinking about how i wanted to go home and write a poem about the night. this poem which has been completely overshadowed by the later part of this story would’ve included imagery about how my favorite thing about him is that when he wrapped his arms around me during the songs i remembered it as the way i felt when he wrapped his arms around me at the show a year ago in st. louis.

i feel completely at home when he holds me. like i’ve never been safer or happier. i just feel like everything is going to be okay as long as we have each other.

so i was thinking about these things and i was thinking about how great he was and then “our song” started which is Made for Each Other (Parts I and II, cos srsly we can be greedy about our song if we want to and make it 9 minutes… it’s fine). And so it came on and he leaned down and said “I love you” and I leaned back and said “i love you too… i want to be with you forever” and then he said “me too” and he asked “Do you trust me?” and i of course said “yes” and so he was like “Let’s go up to the top” so we climbed up the seating of the athletic arena that we were in and sat down on the very top row. I was still pretty convinced he wasnt’ going to do it. I thought he just wanted to talk or sit for a bit or say that he loved me. Or maybe that he was going to push me off. As a lesson against trust. When we got up there, we sat down. It was a very clear view of the stage and you could see all of these people who were so happy to be seeing jack’s mannequin and that was nice and it was our song but we were alone in a crowded room (mwah-hahaha, references are awesome). and so we listened and then we just kissed in the best way for a little while. and i was about to remark that i felt like a 14-year-old, sneaking back to the back of a concert in a gym to make out with my boyfriend… but as i turned to him i noticed that he’d gotten down on one knee and was kind of fumbling with something and i was like “oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh” in my head. then he said some things and i thought i heard a “will you marry me?” so i said “yes” and hugged him and slid the ring on and looked at it and it was perfect and everything was perfect and then i cried cos i was so happy and we kissed and he asked if that all meant “yah” cos he hadn’t heard me when i said yes… it was so wonderful. i’m serious. i can’t think of a single thing i’d want different.

And for those of you who are interested… the ring is the one i blogged about previously from 22designstudio.com it’s called the 7 days ring and the designers began in 2006. their rings are “inspired by architecture and urban life. The main materials of the ring are cement and stainless steel. The concepts involved include many issues such as environment, texture, values and human behavior. Through touching the unique textures, wearers can experience the originality and innovativeness of this series.” The specific ring is described as “The seven sides of this ring represents the seven days of our week, infusing the designer’s reflections on daily life into this seven-sided ring. Turning the sides on and on echoes our turning of time day after day, deeply experiencing and truly living each moment of every day.” I like it because our love is different from other peoples, both that we’ve felt for other people and that other people feel for each other. So I like that the first tactile symbol of that love is unique. Also, the description that they include inside the box says “This is a ring with life. The surface color of [the ring] would become deeper and brighter, while it has been touched more and more. Also, some collisions may make several cracks. Therefore, every [ring] reflects habits of its owner. It is unique everyday, even every moment. Please enjoy its growth.” How wonderful and like love.

Also, let’s be honest. Most boys pick rings for their ladies out of 70 years of DeBeers picture books. Their engagement ring of choice is designed to maximize profit. Mine, while mass marketed, was designed to be unique and to mean something. It is a statement about life (and cement). And I think it is fantastic. When I look at it, I think about how it turns and how each day is a different one and how from yesterday forward Kyle and I will live our lives together.

The date is most likely sometime in August or December. Hopefully August cos the sunflowers will be a’blooming.

twenty-seven dresses

Jess on January 21, 2008

before we even picked a showtime, i figured that i should wait to check the rotten tomatoes reviews until after we’d seen the movie because rotten tomatoes always convinces me not to see movies even though i know that i basically always agree with their fresh ratings, and only agree with their rotten ratings about 50-70% of the time (which makes sense because a “Fresh” movie is a 6.0 or better on a 10.0 scale, so a lot of people would still mark the movie better than 5 and i could just be in that expanded group. i put too much thought into my movie ratings, don’t i?) of course, after we picked a showtime the rest of the internet got boring and i eventually wandered to rottentomatoes. here’s the verdict. 37%. That’s one person out of a hundred for every dress in the title of the movie plus ten. I figure, I’ve seen worse (I’ve also never disagreed with a rating below ten percent). So we go to the movie, cos i’ve already committed to seeing it.

i don’t exactly regret seeing it. But it is the first time that I’ve ever thought a rating was too high. to katherine heigl: don’t you think should stop spending the majority of the script pining over a largely underattractive guy named George. what works in grey’s anatomy doesn’t work every time… ask a doctor.

a tale of two evenings

Jess on December 21, 2007

I realized earlier tonight that I have never told the story of Kyle and my technically first date. I would say that that thing we went on where we went to see Shortbus and to Jerusalem Cafe with Emily in November of last year was also a date. I would also say that the time he came to Topeka to hang out with me at the end of winter break last year was also a date. But then, it’s somewhat hard to gauge because we were both pursuing other people in addition to each other during that time and that night in St. Louis was the night we started clean. So there was a lot going on in my life that made writing down the details sort of difficult cos I was trying to protect feelings or something and I never actually wrote them down even privately. I guess I’ll do that now.

February 14, 2007
I flew to St. Louis at like some random time in the afternoon. I spent the morning at KSHS doing research for a paper and then got yelled at in Mezcal by Brandon and Bearman for quite a bit, but I could not be swayed. So James took me to the airport and I boarded a plane to St. Louis. I got there at 5:30 or so and there was this brilliant and wonderful moment where I was walking toward the luggage claim with my stuff and he was at the bottom of the escalator and I caught his eyes as I was fumbling with my phone to call him. It was adorable. We got all of my stuff together and tossed it in his car and headed toward Delmar so that we could get to dinner and then to the show. He took me to dinner at this Thai place that’s pretty good… We basically just randomly chose it because I love thai food and so does he. He had a few beers and we chatted in a romanticly lit back corner table over our meals. My food was even really delicious. If I’m remembering correctly i had Pad See Euaw and he had Pad Thai. After dinner we went to the Pageant and met Sid and Jessy. We got there in time for a couple songs by the Academy Is.. and then we saw some song by some other band and I only remember paying attention to the song that I remembered from the radio. Then we got ready for Jack’s Mannequin. He managed to swindle our way down to the floor and he wrapped his arms around me and whispered sweet things in my ear while screaming at Andrew to play Konstantine, and other songs. There is a recording of our first date available at jacksmannequin.org. How cute is that? After that we drove to Schnucks and bought some beer and then we headed to Sid’s where we hung out with Jessy and Sid and eventually Ashley for the rest of the night. We hid under blankets to avoid awkward moments of the evenings. And it’s like right that moment we were a team. At least, that’s how I remember it now. Really, I think things developed at a much more reasonable pace than this would suggest. But that’s the best part sometimes.

December 21, 2007

Tonight, or rather today, we spent the morning laying around bed. He stayed up really late working on debate stuff and then joined me to sleep since I have been doing this thing lately where I wake up as soon as he’s not in bed next to me and have trouble getting back to sleep. How adorable is that? I’ve never really done that before… usually I just enjoy the extra bedspace. But there’s a part of me that even when asleep feels more comfortable with him next to me. So at 11 or so, he asked if I still wanted to see Charlie Wilson’s War at 12:15. I said I did so we started to get around and I took my shower and we cuddled some more. He complemented for me looking pretty when I got dressed and said that he’s always impressed with how pretty I look every day. Then, we left the house and headed to the movie theater. We bought our tickets and headed in for the show. He handed me a power ade when I was expecting Diet Coke and I was like “aagggh, PowerAde. What a waste of the money for the soda! ick!” in my brain and then i was like “what is this?” and he said “Diet Coke?” and i said “no… it doesn’t taste like diet coke.” so then he surprised me with the actual diet coke. while this was not an intentional mix up so that he could save the day with the soda i wanted, it is an adorable example of how he always thinks of me and he knows me well enough to get diet coke, or i suppose, he would ask before he chose powerade as the drink du jour. The movie was fantastic (you should see it!) and we were all snuggly during it. After the movie, we went to Rich People’s Dillons and I bitched about Suburbia and how much I hate the people that live out there and drive out there. THERE WAS A 4-CAR CRAZY FIASCO THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A WRECK TO TEACH THAT LEXUS A LESSON! Ack. We used my gift card from work, plus 1.89 of his money to get stuff to make shrimp tacos later. Then we headed to Washburn so I could get my check and send some transcripts. Finally, we went to the bank and deposited my check and then headed home to make our food. I cleaned the kitchen while he read net-benefits and then I caught up on my rss feeds and read some dirty letters from James Joyce. Turns out dirty letters from James Joyce are really fucking dirty. Like. really. Kind of horrifying, actually. Google that shit. We decided to postpone dinner till a more normal time, but when it finally was time for dinner we were both really hungry. And the shrimp tacos were delicious. He basically just heated up some oil and then let about 3/4 of a cup of onions simmer in it. After a minute or so of the onions simmering, he added a bunch of white shrimp that we’d gotten precooked. We added a heaping tablespoon or so of cilantro and about five round slices of pineapple cut into wedges. He seasoned it with Chipotle taco seasoning, just a little though, and then we ate it on soft corn tortillas with cheese and pico. Yumminess. After dinner we took a nap and then I headed to work and he went back to Kansas City.

So as you can see, our relationship has grown and changed a lot over the past 10 months. But in the best of ways. And I can’t wait to spend my life with him.

sunday, bloody sunday

Jess on December 14, 2007

I’m officially done with the semester, thank God. I’m so happy that it’s over, and next semester should be relatively relaxing. It’ll just be a lot of writing and editing paper and not a lot of going to class, something that I can really look forward to, let me tell you.

Kyle’s on his way into town tonight which I’m excited about. I haven’t seen him since November 27 in the morning, which is not fun at all. I generally like to go less than two full weekends without seeing my boyfriend, and its worse when we sandwich full work weeks around them. agh. but we’re both done with the semester and get to spend a few weeks together, including some time in albuquerque in the beginning of January.

Overall, I have to say there isn’t that much new going on in my life. I’m not really stressed out about anything except that I work too much and don’t have time to just get away (the weekend is a brilliant invention). I got my application in to Minnesota and as of today they have all the materials that go along with that, long story about the graduate school admissions office being two weeks behind on processing mail could go here but instead i’ll just leave out the details and say its all taken care of which is the important part. Now, I’m focusing on getting my apps in to Boston and Iowa or wherever else I decide to apply whose deadline hasn’t already passed. Honestly, i’m just really focused on Boston and Minnesota. If I don’t get those, I don’t really want a whole lot of anything else. And that’s just how it is..

James is seeing a girl. Her name is Lauren. He’s pretty smitten in a way that I haven’t really seen him in a few years which is really nice. I mean, he’s a great guy and he deserved to have a doting female at his side, and I really like this one. It puts me in that weird place where it’s hard to be good friends with exes again because Emily is taking the news about as well as one would expect, but they’ve always been good about not making me be in the middle. Mostly, I’m just glad to have James back. He’d sort of disappeared there for a while and this girl seems to keep him up during the day (lol, and up at night being all giddy talking about her). It’s a nice change.

maybe i'll just keep growing younger with you

Jess on November 20, 2007

kyle’s been in town for four days now and i just can’t begin to say how happy i get to have him around. he’s completely wonderful, and we’re completely in love. i’ve just never enjoyed someone’s company so damn much. it’s strange. we sleep sometimes in the morning and i climb out of bed and find a book and climb back into bed and then we watch football all day and hang out with our friends and i can’t think of a single thing i’d rather do. or we don’t sleep in and i go to class and climb back into bed with him and read until i fall asleep again and he wakes me up from my nap and then we play fight until i’m out of my grumpy mood. and we’re cute. and playful. and i attack him with sharks sometimes and then giggle at my cleverness. he is ideal.

and then we go out with my friends sometimes or his friends othertimes and it becomes completely obvious to everyone that we are a pair. i read about duprasses today. for those of you not familiar with the genius of Kurt Vonnegut or just not his lesser works, a duprass is a two person karass according to Bokonism which is the religion of the narrator of Cat’s Cradle and a karass is a group of people who are put together to accomplish some task for God but they are unaware of the specifics or even the existence of their mission. so we are like a duprass. and everyone is noticing.

we’ve been watching grey’s anatomy… like most shows on tv i didn’t know it existed until it was a season and a half in and i didn’t see a single episode until sunday night. i really like most of the characters but i also think that it’s stupid and unrealistic. it’s also pretty mindless. you’d think that eventually people would want to stop sleeping with everyone they worked with. but who knows. one of the episodes we watched involved adoption, from the perspective of mother-who-gave-child-up-for-adoption. eek. i got sort of really upset watching it. i can’t exactly say why. i just feel like there’s this part of me that i can’t explain to people that they don’t relate to. and while i think it’s a beautiful thing what she did, i’m also not sure that i’d ever want to meet her. and sometimes i think that would be a good idea but a lot of the time i think it would be a terrible one. and i wouldn’t want to be disappointed by what i found. and i don’t know that i care to add her to my life, i think i would just want to say hi and that i’m okay and that i appreciate it, you know. it’s weird. being separated from someone who you’re genetically related to.

this is the first november i’ve had in college where i’m not dramatically re-inventing myself. i’m not leaving j, i’m not involved in some scandal involving a bottle of svedka and a couple questionable decisions, i’m not trying to leave joe or work things out with steve, i’m not involved involed in some scandal involving a freshman and a couple questionable decisions. i’m just… who i was in october. and a little better put together, a little less stressed out than in years past. which is nice. i was listening to the hold steady* today and realized that the song “first night” sort of explains me in the context of my past: “Holly’s insatiable, she still looks incredible/But she don’t look like that same girl we met/on that first night/when she was golden with floorlight and beer/on that first night/she slept like she’d never been scared//And then last night/She said “Words so long never could save us.”/And then last night/She cried and she told us about Jesus//Holly’s inconsolable/Unhinged and uncontrollable/’Cause we can’t get as high as we got
on that first night.” I’m glad I’m golden with floorlight and beer again. It’s much better than alternatives which I have explored to varying degrees.

speaking of being golden with beer, i’m doing that not-getting-drunk thing i did last year again. hopefully this year sobriety doesn’t end with a trip to the hospital. lol, at lunch today Kyle asked me what our plans were for Christmas and I said that I was hoping that as long as Christmas doesn’t involve me laying in bed all day and thinking about suicide it will probably be okay.

*note: i don’t ever remember the difference between the Hold Steady and the Hush Sound. So when I was looking for some songs to check out on the album of the Hold Steady… I asked Kyle if he liked the Hush Sound. He started talking about the differences between their albums and how he had both and blah blah blah this was how I was able to discern that the Hush Sound is the shitty emo band that I’m not interested in and the Hold Steady is the shitty hipster band that I am interested in. 🙂 I laughed about it on the inside. But seriously, I kind of like that Kyle’s not as pretentious about music as I am. It means that we’re not constantly having some sort of power struggle about who’s music is more scene.

An ear for baby if you need it

Jess on November 5, 2007

So I’ve had like five migraines in six weeks and I’m not even sure why. The thing about it all is that a year ago I was far, far more stressed out than I am now. And right now I actually feel pretty relaxed about everything, classes are going well. Interpersonal relationships are good. I’m getting along with my parents, seeing more of my brother than before and better than all of that they’re all getting along with each other. So why, then, does that spot behind my eye feel like it’s going to explode 1/7th of the time. I’m not sure, but I have a hunch that it could be distant stressors. Things like grad school coming, a relationship being taken to the next level for the first time. Weird stuff. I’m not sure what it is but it’s something different. At least I finally have a decentish medicine that works 75% of the time to keep me functioning.

Kyle’s been in town all weekend which is nice. He’s been right that it’s fixed things. I just wish that he was around like all the time. Because I’ve never really had a boyfriend that I’ve just liked this much. And I’m glad that I finally do. I wish I had someone around for lunch dates or back rubs or movie nights or even just someone to curl up next to when the day is over. But I don’t, and I think that’s probably okay too. I remember last semester I really appreciated having the time to get to know myself. I’d write about how even though Kyle was far away when I wanted him here, it was nice to get to spend time with friends and not have that daunting issue of boys and girls and dating kind of looming over every conversation. I should just try to look at it that way still. Cos it’s nice to have this life that’s just full of friends and good times without much concern about dating.

Playing house

Jess on October 31, 2007

I just found a shopping list of kyle’s while looking for a pen so i could enhance my studying. I miss my boyfriend soooo much.

That that don't kill me

Jess on October 28, 2007

I’m done with the protected posts for at least another few hours. Everything is fine, I just needed to rant a little bit over that thing where Kyle doesn’t like to talk on the phone (a truth that only emerges when he’s been bad about talking on the phone). Then, I needed to post a follow up which involves about the sweeteset e-mail I’ve gotten in a while. Now, I’m mentally reflecting on whether or not a “And they lived happily ever after” at the end of Romantic Comedies might teach boys that we really mean for them to act like our knight in shining armor even after they get some play. But everytime I try to word it, it hurts the feminist in me. I guess, I just think that the funeral for romance is the harbringer of death in a relationship. I know that things get hard… and I’m fine with that, I think it makes the romance more sweet. I just also know that everyone observing it from the outside knows Joe and I broke up because there was no romance between us. On either side. And I don’t want that to happen with Kyle. He’s about the most like my dad that I’ve ever met. And I know for a fact that my mom still gets flowers just because sometimes and that my dad still tells her she’s beautiful and all of these other things. I made the decision a year ago that I wasn’t going to settle for a friendship in the form of a relationship.

I want a million roses and a marching band.