on loan

since cc travels so much, it's a bummer to leave home when he's not. midweek sleepovers are always a treat for us, as are the midday lunches (you should try my foreman grill tuna melt: it's special) we've been sharing for the past month. but! with unemployment still my middle name, a very pregnant cousin needing some amy time, and my tum rumbling for a pink-frosted dunkin donut - i'm heading east. on loan to the fam while cc brings home the bacon. (and plays computer games. and drinks diet cokes.)

call me loony, but i feel like a mama bird leaving her chicks behind; i did the laundry, changed the sheets, made extra food for dinners - i'll probably label things and text every few hours to make sure he's eaten and gotten some sunshine, too.

but as much as i'll a) miss my goob and b) worry about the implosion of my delicately balanced household - i'm happy to head home and sprinkle a little bja goodness back east.

if you sit on the corner of our bed, backwards

we've got a bay view. right now i'm watching a barge chug along, finding its way through the fogginess. and...it's gone. good luck, little engine. come again soon.

i'm living on the edge, giving this room a whirl at noon, because i never really see it except at night, and it's looking so lovely these days! what with the new gray walls and the vintagey bedside tables and the hangy lamps with dimmers. you'd like it, i think.

having a one bedroom apartment is an interesting thing. it's not like we go and hang out in our bedroom with a snack (do you? are we weird for not?) so essentially, we end up in the same room together all the time. i'll admit we don't really mind the arrangement, because we happen to be talented at sharing space while doing our own thing. (read: face plants into video games or magazines or the internets or mystery novels or brownies.) in fact, clay once moved his "office" across the apartment to a weird little closet (damn that hgtv and their world-shifting ideas) and we actually missed each other. okay, yup, just puke right here into my cupped hand. finished? okay, moving on.

but since these days we're both here more than normal, in a perpetual snow day (pajamas and hot beverages and midday television) because he's working from home and i'm...not working, i thought i'd branch out and expand my horizons. heyoh! three boats now? my undivided attention has been requested by the coast guard. must focus.

do you know who i met online?

my husband.

i'd describe that confession as not-that-shocking, tho kind-of-interesting, wouldn't you? but you'd be surprised how many people "don't believe it!" it's because we're so gosh darn cute, right? right?

let's rewind to summer 2004.

i was bored in small town massachusetts, just graduated from bu, listening to peter gabriel in cutoffs with my little brother and looking for a reason to spend the day in boston.

clay was in la, about to move to boston for biz school, wearing bright yellow jackets and designer denim and looking to line up a few dates before he cruised into town.

it was love!

now, he'll lie to you when asked, but it was i who found him. (really.) see, on match.com you have to write a headline next to your picture. something, inevitably embarrassing, that will really reel 'em in. most chicks just put on bikinis. (i wore a turtleneck sweater and an army jacket.) but clay's line really did work on me. it said:

did you just call me coltrane?

which is a line from one of my favorite scenes, from one of my favorite movies. (of course, his bikini picture helped too.)

so yep yep, i emailed something witty and charming and very just-done-with-college ("i just went shopping for a suit"), he emailed back something witty and charming and very just-about-to-start-grad-school ("i just gave away all my suits"), we went to the museum of fine arts a few weeks later and the rest is history.

but i still think it's funny how judgey people are about all this internet business. in the early days, sure, because everyone thought someone looking for love online was an axe murderer. but now?

awhile back, at my ad job, i was setting up materials for a meeting with a bunch of my girlfriends. the topic of online dating came up and before i could jump in and tell my story, they all started yelling on top of each other, slamming it, shuddering, gagging at the thought. and mind you, all these ladies were (are) quite single and quite unpleased about it. i could have fought that fight, but instead i just put on my mona lisa smile, and headed out the door to call my wedding planner.

just as lifetime has their army wives program,

i do believe my girlfriends and i should put together a similarly themed production entitled mckinsey wives. we could talk about our over-familiarity with airport routes, our advanced understanding of timezones, our love of expensed room service.

we would discuss how important it is to a have a girlfriend in the same situation, who just gets the differentness of this lifestyle without a million questions/comments/judgments ("wait - he leaves on monday morning and doesn't come back till thursday?!"), and happy dances with you when your guy gets a home-based project. (like mine! starting today!) the cameras would show us gathered 'round, instead of a quilt, an episode of project runway. damning heidi klum for her otherworldly cheekbones and texting our husbands that we miss them.

to tide us over

our photographer posted a few of her favorites online:

http://studioatticus.com/amyandclay/

a v happy day.

we're home

and can't stop playing rockband. after driving 651 miles yesterday, we stayed up into the wee hours of the night playing together, tongues out, foreheads creased in rabid concentration. at one point, around 3 am i believe, i was on vocals for radiohead's "creep" (and we all know how much i love radiohead), with cc jamming on guitar. um, cue mom figure yelling at us to shut the hell up? minus one of those, we just let our neighbors do it instead.

but i'm going to fight through my repetitive stress injuries to put up our last honeymoon post. i'll even make it easier for you this time and put some captions below the pictures. in summary, we had a lovely time. meandering, quiet, full of trees, coffee, and made-up songs. and now we've got the rest of this week in san francisco to rearrange the apartment, catch up with friends, and jam.



to prove we were in seattle. space needle, crazy experience music project building, i think i see frasier hiding?

we ate brunch in a vancouver botanical garden. this is me falling in love with blueberry scones.

i go in for the grab. (please note my t-shirt. it did not leave my body for 6 days.)



sorry, ladies. this one's taken.


cc wearing a ring and eating a scone had to be captured.


i always get really into oranges when they throw me a slice on my plate. a holdover from my bout with scurvy perhaps?


marlon brando.



we cross back into safe waters. phew.


what we saw a lot of for a lot of days.

it's hard to convey in a terrible, drive-by shot like this, but the pacific northwest is dripping with trees. i grew up in new england and thought we knew about green stuffs - but we know nuthin.


we stopped near seattle to shop the outlets. cc bought this crazy cute red (pink?) sweatshirt.

and little red drove us all the way home.

we're on a roadtrip, people

and having a lovely time of it. we wanted to take a leisurely, old fashionedy, throwback honeymoon without frantic deadlines and set itineraries and currency converting; just a meandering stroll through the us of a's pacific northwest. we didn't plan much because after all the planning of the big day (which i realize i haven't posted about but i will, i promise, it was wonderful and our best day ever) we just didn't want to. so we threw a bunch of things in our bags, grabbed the camera, grabbed some dc's, and hit the road.

so far we've driven (on mostly narrow and very windy roads) up to mendocino, visited my favorite fictional town, coasted along the oceanside, through the redwood forest, through a big tree, across the oregon border, through many pancakes, slept in a super 8, slept in a small wolf-decor cabin, bought some mom underwears, sung along with willie nelson, sung along with boyz 2 men, sat on a giant boot (which SPOKE TO ME), hugged some very large trees, maybe saw big foot, definitely saw baby deer, gawked at a very blue lake, ate half a banana cream pie in portland, collapsed.

i'm a little too lazy to deal with cute captions under the following pictures, but i'll outline here what you're about to see. me in front of the murder she wrote house in mendocino (you have no idea how happy i was), me getting the s*&$ scared out of me when that huge boot started addressing "the girl in the brown shirt", me gawking at redwoods, captain america clay posing next to redwoods, our cabin wednesday night, me touching the ceiling of our cabin, me and crater lake, cc's senior class photo in front of crater lake, mr. and mrs. pose, our fondue dinner in portland. more trip unfolding as we speak and more posts to come but for now...

enjoy! bedtime!

if you don't like weddings, this isn't for you

as our crate and barrel registry cheerfully, but maybe also a little passive aggressively, reminds us:

it's "only 26 days to the big event!"

now, i've tried to keep away from rabid wedding talk these past 5 months because i've personally always found it a tad obnoxious when people flip their lives upside down and become professional brides. it all seems a touch psychotic and sweaty. and so i've eagerly crafted multiple satirical posts saying things such as:

"i'm in month 4 of no sugar, dairy or carbs and am really close to my goal: dropping 30 pounds! i look and feel amaaaaaaaaazing!!"

"my whole life i've dreamed of creating a fairy tale wedding and now it's finally happening!!!"

"to all my single girlfriends out there, trust me when i say: YOUR PRINCE CHARMING IS OUT THERE TOO!!!!!"

etc etc etc.

but then just as i would be close to pressing publish, i'd chicken out. something about the thought of a potential employer finding this blog and thinking that was actually me talking about me made the real me shudder.

but in all seriousness, and i'll keep it brief, i really am very excited about the big day. we're into the good stuff now - colors, tunes, ties - and i'd have to be a scrooge not to be having fun. plus, i'm marrying the best buddy guy friend around who sings nonsense songs with me all day long and teaches me how to ride a scooter without getting crabby and picks out pencil skirts flawlessly. plus his bum is very cute. i'm lucky to the max. okay! gag!

oh and one more bride thing that's got me all flushed and manic and loving of the internets. my bridesmaid, the fabulous sharon, suggested i check out etsy.com/alchemy so all those crafty buggers out there could bid for the chance to design our wedding favors. ah glee modern life! i won't go into the project specifics just yet, but i picked a scissor-wielder and i think she's going to be great. and i promise to behave myself in my new role as client, which in my personal opinion and experience means: a) no whining b) no demanding teen flow tampons.

oh, san francisco

you are pretty - you are - but why so cold? was it something i said?

last night we flew back from the big t; this time not in first class, sad face. clay had a seat up yonder, but i couldn't grab an upgrade, so my buddy came back and sat with me instead. gem! we had the very last row to ourselves, which was ridiculously loud and perfumed by the bathroom, but it brought us special attention from the flight attendant who, i think, was in love with our love? she kept bringing us things we didn't really want but felt we needed to take. her last treat of the night was three small bottles of champagne. and then a shot of disaronno (on the rocks!) because "the champagne isn't very good - you'll want to chase it with this." i nodded and smiled, then ditched it all in a trashcan outside the plane.

and now we're back in our little city and i'm in a big sweatsuit but still shaking like a leaf. texas teased me with warm sun and green grass and iced tea sipped in a tank top. also cute houses with yards for under 200 grand. but i digress.

my goal today is to get our chateau in fighting shape. this postage stamp is cute as a button, but turns messy real quick if you blink. and since i've got book club here on tuesday, i am letting the fear of social humiliation spur me on. but really, instead of just tidying, we need new organizational systems. what to do with tools? boxes of frosted mini wheats? our mail and the 12,435 magazines we receive?

i'd appreciate any of your tips on staying streamlined in this messy modern day of ours. we thank ye kindly.