a missing rant, costumes, and my amazing spouse

I wrote another rant yesterday, but thank god I was smart enough not to post it.  Best to not go there, I think.  I will just say this.  Even if something you read on the internet has a point that you agree with, you still have to maintain a bit of skepticism.  Realistically, there is no check on what people can post in their blog, or tumblr, or on some forum somewhere. Experiences can be exaggerated, embellished, or even made up out of whole cloth.  The fact that it makes a good point doesn't mean that we can swallow it whole without checking to see if it even makes sense. 

But as I was typing away, the subject changed in mid-stream and became about various other things, so I deleted the rant and here is the rest of it.

As you might guess, I hate costumes.  Because you walk into a costume party and everyone immediately turns and looks at you and judges your costume.  First of all, I hate it when all eyes turn toward me.  It makes me want to sink into the floor. Secondly, I am completely uncreative with things like costumes, so my costume is always lame and the looks immediately turn to sneers.  Except my friends, who know this about me, so instead of sneering, they shake their heads at my dumb costume but feel proud of me for trying. 

Ha, and this is going to end up someplace I hadn't expected.  I mentioned last spring that we attended a marriage enrichment conference.  We've had monthly meetings since, where we meet with the other couples and socialize and do some sort of reminder activity about the communications skills we learned at the conference.  Last month we were supposed to spend some time thinking about the ways we are different from our spouse, and then at the end, we were supposed to introduce our spouse to the group as if they had never met them, and explain the differences you appreciate about them.

It was a great exercise, but when it was my turn to introduce Dean, everyone's eyes turned toward me, and my mind went blank.  (see, there is a connection!  people looking at me!)  I made it through the first thing I had planned to say, but then the rest of it went right out of my head and I ended it as quickly as I could.  So, since a few of those people read here, here is the belated version.

He is tidy; I am messy.  He is a morning person; I am a night-owl.  He is an extrovert, I am an introvert.  He is terrific at managing a group of people: listening and evaluating and organizing, and then coming to a decision or leading the group to a consensus.  (as you might guess, when I'm leading a group, I freeze up when they all look at me at once.)  He is a dedicated athlete and takes excellent care of his body-- he's in better shape than many who are half his age.  He is aware of the physical appearance of our house, and works hard to keep it nice, which I think about only when we have company coming over.  In fact, he works very hard at everything he does, where I tend to be a head-in-the-clouds sort of person.  He is very practical-- he can cut right through a lot of the crazy things that I worry about to find what the real problem is and what we can do about it.  He loves physical activity, and he loves to play with our kids or any kids, which keeps me from becoming Sedentary Sally.  And-- this wasn't in the original version, but it occurred to me after typing the above-- Dean loves costume parties.  Good grief, why in the world does he put up with me??  

So with the rant deleted out of it, it's not such a bad post, right?  Have a nice weekend everybody!