Year #11

Andrew celebrates his anniversary with an OkCupid excerpt and poem.

Back when Erica and I were first dating, I liked to tell people I was dating a homeless girl. The mother-in-law apartment she rented on Mercer Island was under construction, and so she spent that summer snagging various house-sitting gigs and being nonseriously homeless.

A benefit of dating a homeless house-surfing girl is that you get to kiss her in all kinds of different places. One of those places was in the home of Rumphy, an old rescue dog who survived Hurricane Katrina and now patrolled the living room, wedging his body between us if we got too physical.

I distinctly remember the two of us sitting on Rumphy’s small couch, opening up the OkCupid dating app on my phone, and proceeding to run through dozens of their matching questions together. It was a ritual that we continued for months, eventually increasing the challenge so that we would first guess how the other would answer the questions before answering them ourselves.

Now that we’re hitched and with children, I rarely open the app. But one night before Corrigan was born, I logged into my defunct account and showed Erica my old profile. It wasn’t long before she was laughing at my poor curation of photos, at my shin-high white socks, the shorts she claimed were a couple sizes too large, the prominent tongue in the table tennis action scene.

Her laughter makes my heart glad.

* * *

Here’s the final text on my OkCupid dating profile, my response to the prompt “You should message me if . . .”:

You should message me if something horrible has happened, and you and I are the only living humans on earth. Even if we aren’t the best of matches, humans need humans, and—why haven’t you messaged me yet? By the way, speaking of apocalyptic not-so-romantic scenarios that don’t belong on an OkCupid profile, one of my favorite short stories is “Tetris” by Justin Taylor, in which, as the doomsday fire approaches on the horizon, the protagonist obsessively tries to beat his personal record on a video game rather than waking his sleeping girlfriend so they can make up and spend their last moments together. Let’s not be like that. That’s the worst worst-case scenario. Instead, you should message me if you like what I wrote on my profile or if you think I’m cute or if you looked over how I (obsessively) answered (so many) OkCupid questions and you think we’d have fun together.

I think that should tell you at least two things:

1. I get a kick out of doing unexpected things with words and ideas.

2. That facility with language does not extend to romance.

I know that I should be able to write verse that makes the heart flip or melt or flap its insect wings or whatever it is that besotted hearts do, but it’s like there’s a trip wire in my brain that prevents it.

I can fill a page with beautiful words, but I can’t write an ode to beauty.

* * *

I have a theory about this.

I think it’s because it is my nature to flee from sentimentality. I would fact-check a feeling. I want Erica to know that if I say something kind, it is also verifiably honest and true.

Our wedding rings. Erica sent me this after she read a draft of this post. “This ties into your aversion to sentimentality,” she said. “With the nod to fairy tales.” The photo is by our wedding photographer and now friend, Amanda Roth.

Here’s a true thing I could say:

Erica, when I chased the kids out of Doug’s tent tonight, I almost laughed at how spare it looked inside, just two sleeping bags, two thin pads, and a stuffy. In contrast, you made our tent into a home. A mattress with sheets and a duvet. The dog bed and kid sleeping bags arranged just so. My retainer waiting for me in an interior pocket by my makeshift pillow.

These are true, simple things I love about my wife. She doesn’t like camping, but she’ll do it for her boys. And if she does a thing, she does it with thoughtful (and efficient!) care. She transforms spaces, makes them feel like home, fills them with love, thinks of what we will want or need (my retainer!), and makes it so.

Now imagine that with rhyming couplets, a sick meter, and an aria or two.

* * *

When we were dating, I told Erica that I would never write her a love poem. But surely this poem that I wrote her a few years ago made her swoon?

You don’t like my feet
to touch you in bed
except when they’re clean
and not covered in sweat.

You don’t like my drawers
open all day,
pajamas and pants
in a colorful array.

You don’t like when I speak
in a crotchety old voice,
the fake warble and wobble
is not your first choice.

You don’t like my podcast
playing loud in the shower,
especially when it’s the
Corrigan napping hour.

You don’t like me at all
in these circumstances I’ve named,
except to laugh with and cuddle
and chide with chagrin.

Erica, happy anniversary week!

Anniversary date: Karaoke, pizza slice, Elliott Bay Book Company, and ice cream.