The American Nightmare

“Salina was really happy for you,” Don said in response to seeing the status updates in my Facebook broadcasting the news that I had restricted to a select few before performing the action.

“Salina was?”, I was confused why Don was telling me that his wife was really happy for me, not him.

‘Yeah, well I was too, we just always thought you were one of those guys that would never get together with anyone, that you would stay single well into your forties and maybe forever.  You just don’t really seem like the settling down type.”

I didn’t take any offense to this statement.  In fact it may be a statement that I would expect from many.  I heard that my sisters stated similar sentiments to some friends of mine when questioned whether I was marrying Maui a month or so before I proposed.  It’s been almost three months to the day now since proposing and I have turned into the hugest lump of corny just like sorry love-struck teenage girls all around the world.  I can’t help it.  I really am helplessly and foolishly in love and I don’t care what anyone has to say about it… except my friends and coworkers.

Around them I pretend that nothing has changed, like there aren't billions of butterflies and rainbows circling around me and the birds aren't chirping for me while I skip around with my basket and hood (I'm not sure why I'm Sleeping Beauty here but oh well). I’m not embarrassed or anything; I just don’t like the idea that I am becoming an old lame-o like those I made fun of all these years, and still do sometimes.  There is a math equation that explains everything.   I’m still uncovering the ideology behind my math so I can't provide ALL the details but I do know for certain that the complex reasoning system exists and that it has been pulling these strings the past decade or so, perhaps longer, leading me to life decisions that sometimes appear to be, or actually are, opposite of my character.

I used to say that my greatest fear was mediocrity.  That wasn’t accurate.  I think what I was defining as mediocre at that time was the “American Dream”.  The American Dream isn’t always “mediocre” though.  There are people excelling at things that I could never even imagine possible and reaching heights far beyond anything I will ever reach, and I’m fine with that.  What I am not fine with is being lame.  If I made millions of dollars perfecting a recipe for ketchup that was so much tastier than the competitions and then if I went home in my Jag to shag my model wife and end up producing offspring that attend Ivy league schools, that’s pretty damn exceptional and not mediocre at all.  But if, as I was producing these results, most of my days were spent working a ton, going home and doing the same thing day in and day out and living the text book life that we were sold to strive for without the fun and the color that I define as life, then I would be truly living my greatest fear; a life more ordinary.

My greatest fear isn’t marriage and kids, it’s the idea of living a life I would not want to read about.  I’m not scared of “settling down”, I’m scared of being bored with life, of feeling as though I didn’t take enough chances, of not seeing and experiencing enough of the world, of being “typical”.  I’m scared of the living death.  People fear the zombie apocalypse as though it is something that will come one day as an epidemic devouring all of humanity.  That fear is upon us and it has been for decades now.  Instead of changing the marketing campaign and offering advice that would actually help the zombies seeking a cure, the doctors prescribe “medicine” that infects them more.  We’re sold fear of the unknown, fear of change and differences in opinion.  We treat people living certain ways outside of the accepted mores of society as though they are lepers and apply labels to all of the boxes we fit people in.  My fear is to be in one of those boxes, affixed with a certain label.  It’s a fear I fight every day while confronting some of the life changes that typically lead to undeath.

My fight against zombiedom hasn’t been intentional.  I make my decisions the only way I know how, with my gut.  I take all the big life decisions that I am confronted with and I imagine the realities that would follow after the decision is made.  If the reality seems like something I like and would want to read about; if it stirs some type of excitement inside me, then I go for it.  If it doesn’t, I don’t.  When confronted with options, there is often the “safe” option and the dangerous one.  Whether the danger comes from an emotional limb that would be stood on or just a nervous moment that would be encountered, or maybe some slight physical harm, it’s usually the way I go… unless I don’t like the results I see.  I’ve never driven a motorcycle because I see death down that path.  No matter how many times I imagine me on a bike, it always ends in death.  Despite the danger a motorcycle brings to my world, death isn’t something I am ready to confront yet.   In the same vein, the normalcy that threatens my future through the act of marriage seems “safe”, but I like the story that has already been created and I like future that I see.

I’ve been asked more than once what has led me to pursue marriage at this point in time and I haven’t given any accurate answer.  I know that people have questions because it seemed to come out of nowhere.  Maui and I have not been dating for years.  We hadn’t met each others' family before I proposed.  We hadn’t even lived in the same state as each other in years.  We have been friends for a long time but we just become close friends in the past two years or so.  Plus we were both coming out of terrible relationships.  So I understand people’s concerns.  To me, this is a pretty complicated and personal question for people to ask so flippantly, yet everyone seems to ask.  What it comes down to for me, was that I liked the future that I saw and I liked our “story”.  It’s really that simple.   I like our past and I like our future prospects.

I know that beyond this there are many other things at play.  There are all of these calculations in my brain that add up the pieces of each other and form perfect shapes and beautifully constructed integers.  The answers to these equations guide my visions of our future and lead me to revel in the unlikely events that brought us together.  The math is all there but I don’t pay much attention to the 0s and 1s, I trust in the computer’s ability to provide the correct output.

So I admit to all of you now, that as I feign normalcy there is actually a whirlwind circling around in my belly that is love.  I may, on occasion, zombie out a bit.  I can’t say that I won’t.  And maybe one day I will completely transform but that day has not come yet.  Maui and I are fighting the horde and the disease that causes undeath together.  I’m her *Rick O’Connel and she is my Evelyn Carnahan and we are going to continue fighting the mummies (it’s not that great a leap from zombies to mummies but if you cannot just go along with this analogy then add “and zombies” after the word mummies… jerk) together as we travel the world discovering exciting new plot twists around every corner.  Or maybe just, just maybe continuing to live a life, at least a little,  less ordinary.

*See 1919's version of "The Mummy"

Motherpluckin' Giovanni

 

“I miss my Boomie”, Maui says.  Boomie is the nickname for her cat.  I have also heard her cat referred to as Kitty Boom Boom, Fat Cat and, though I’m sure she’ll deny this, Boo.  At first I think it’s just a random statement but then I hear the sobs and I realize that she needs a hug.  I can’t imagine it’s easy moving away from home for the first time ever and having it be the other side of the planet just compounds matters.  I have had a hard time relating to this because I haven’t lived in my home town for longer than a few months since my first year of college, and when I left, I was happy.  The most I can do is sympathize.  It isn’t something I can empathize with.

“Boomie is fine”, I say, “I’m sure your father is taking really good care of her.”

Maui  continues to sob and starts kicking the tears in overdrive when she says, “But what if she misses me?  What if she thinks I abandoned her?”

“That’s the last thing on her mind.  She is having a blast without you”, I tell her, “She has a boyfriend and she sees him every day now.  In fact she has two.  It’s been taking up most of her time.  She misses you but without you there she has been able to get out and have a good time without being smushed, chased or snuggled with every five minutes by a human. “

“But who is going to spank her butt and squeeze her face and lay on top of her?”

“One or both of those boy cats will fulfill those needs, I’m sure.”

Besides missing her animal Maui has adjusted to her life in Kuwait exceptionally well.  I think the fact that she knows it is temporary helps.  It also helps that she has a friend in the building.  I think the one single factor that has made the biggest difference, however, is the fact that after almost two years of living in Kuwait, I finally got my license the week before she flew in, purely by coincidence.  With this, we have been able to explore various parts of Kuwait on our own and sometimes it almost feels like a real life out here.

Like this past weekend for instance, my coworker Giovanni wrote down directions for this Japanese store that sells a wide array of random thingamabobs from all over the orient at an affordable rate.  Even though I work nights, we decided we would wake up early and venture out to the store during the daytime, as well the camel races afterwards.

It ended up being much more of an adventure than we had planned.  The area near the store, according to the directions, was by the City Center which included a bowling alley hundreds of market-like stores and a children’s Chuck E Cheese-esque arcade.  We scoped it out a little the night before but could not pinpoint the exact location.  We figured we’d have better luck in the daytime.  To avoid paying the parking fees, and also to be situated closer to where the store’s entrance should be, we parked in a parking lot that connected to the City Center Parking lot and walked the extra fifty yards to the  perimeter. 

We are both extremely hungry and decide that we will eat something fast in the shopping center before venture into the Japanese store.  We are walking through the gate to the other parking lot when Maui does a little skip hop to catch up with me and grabs my arm.  She whispers, “I smell animals.  That must be where they have the petting zoo”.   I take a big breath in and smell hay and agree that there may be some type of animal petting or feeding area nearby.  As we continue walking, the smell gets stronger and Maui points to a building to the right and says, “There they are in that building.  I can hear the chickens laughing”.  I look up and see the word “Slaughterhouse” written on a sign by the building and look at Maui.  Her mouth is open as if her jaw had just had just been weighed down with marbles.

“Fucking Giovanni.  I wonder if this was a joke of his, sending us to a slaughterhouse”.

This is when I realize that Maui hadn’t realized what the building was.  This was a poor observation, on my part, of her reaction to the building.  She hadn’t read the sign and was paying attention to the animals that could be seen outside the building instead.  My guess is, she was trying to figure out how one would go about entering the facility for petting sessions.   Upon hearing the word “slaughterhouse”, there is a distinct change in her facial expression and demeanor.  I remember it in slow motion, her head slowly turning towards me as her curious stare becomes the sad eyes I saw that morning when she was crying over the cat she missed.  The laughs from the chickens seem louder than ever at the realization that they are the dying screams of an animal about to be executed and all I can do is curse the sky at Giovanni’s clever manipulation but deep down, I want to laugh.

We don’t ever make it to the Japanese store but we do manage to find the camel races in the deserted desert where the Bedouins thrive.  The camels aren’t ridden by people the way horses are in the states.  There is a machine that is affixed to their hump that whips them repeatedly as well as a stable of cars beeping their horns next to them to keep them running .   Maui felt bad for the camels being whipped to run the race.  I was still traumatized by the screaming chickens and the house of death we walked past in search of Japanese delights.