EMPLOYMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got a job! I got a job! A real job, not just this extra stuff. Which has been both fun and informative though. I got to be on a game show, talk show (why do people feel a desire to talk about their sex problems on national television?), hair competition show, sitcom, and hour long drama. I feel like I've experienced a variety of shows and can move on. The sitcom was the most fun to film because most of my paid day involved watching them rehearse and film while making frequent trips to craft service (endless amounts of free food. Really good apples and tofu sandwiches and an endless supply of cakes) while talking with other extras. For the scene I was in I was a bar patron, and the person they set me down at a table with to appear to be friends with I really clicked with. So we just talked the whole rehearsal. Then we got a dinner break, with more really good food, the cast and crew eating together, and after hanging out with my bar buddy and another extra I spent the rest of my break wondering around the CBS studios and taking to my brother. Then we filmed our scene and I got to sip white grape juice pretending to be wine and continue my conversation with my friend, talking normally between takes and moving to a whisper whenever they were filming. So if you see some show called Happy Hour (move fast, it got cancelled and this was the last episode. The cast made a really nice speech and made t-shirts for the whole crew) and it seems like I'm having a really great time in the background of this bar it's totally not an act. I was having big fun, and actually had to suppress a lot of laughter, since we're not supposed to be making any noise. I really regret not getting this guy's number, because we really hit it off. I mentioned Sam a bunch and he talked about his girlfriend, so it wouldn't have been like I was trying to pick him up, but it still felt awkward. Damn.
Anyway, I also played a high school student on Heroes, which is apparently about superheroes and therefore cool. This wasn't as fun, but it was still easy money. A lot of waiting around with my book and talking on the phone, and then a few hours of walking around with a backpack. Plus this is apparently some rich high school where all the students have ipods, so I got to listen to music while filming. And if I'm judging filming experiences based on the quality of the free fruit at craft services (and I am) they had pineapple, papaya, strawberries, and
kiwi.
However, the job is minimum wage, and also puts you at the very, very bottom rung of the production. It's not that I have any aspirations whatsoever of climbing higher in the entertainment industry, it's just that it's a little depressing when production assistants (who are a dime a dozen. Seriously, every show has a zillion people wandering around with head sets) get to boss you around. This one jackass on Heroes was especially fond of yelling at us like we were retarded monkeys and physically shoving us around when we didn't respond to his commands fast enough. I think he was just taking out his aggression at being a middle aged guy with a shit job going nowhere.
So being an extra was a fun experience, one to check off the list, and now I'm ready for a real job. I finally (after sending in many, many resumes and making many, many calls) got hired at Sam's group home. Go ahead, ask what others have asked: Do you really think it's a good idea to be working together? In not just the same organization but the same building, carpooling, and being around each other all the time? Yup, I so do. I have absolutely no fear of us getting sick of each other. Not going to happen. Fuck, I'll even tempt fate with this one. Plus I think it will be really good for these girls to have a stable couple around. Not that Sam and I would ever act coupley while working, but just being in a stable, equal, supportive relationship, proof that such things exist, I think it will be good.
Group homes work on a number system of security and difficulty. They turn to lock-down at 13. This place is a 12. The girls here, aged 13-17, have either just gotten out of juvie and are trying not to go back, or have been taken away from their screwed up and abusive families by the department of family and child services (strangely enough that's Sam's mom's boyfriend's job. Breaking into houses and rescuing kids). They have gone through all variety of shit we've never even imagined and they are damaged. I will have to learn restraint techniques, break up fights, try and stop runaways, prevent suicides, and detect drug use. I will be a child care counselor, which means I'm in charge of a group of girls and will watch over them, take them on recreations, help with treatment, and help counsel them. I was warned they can be tough on new people, trying to intimidate and scare them, to see if they'll stick around or if they'll show fear. But I get to skip all that because they love Sam. Not only did they fawn over me, hugging and screaming, when I visited him awhile ago, but if call him at work they grab the phone from him so they can tell me how excited they are that I'm going to work there. This one girl even gave Sam a ring to give to me. I think it's going to be good. And tough, especially emotionally. Sam said I just need to accept that this job will make me cry. When I see and hear about what their lives have been like, it will make me cry. But I think I can help. I can be stable and nurturing and empathetic and stern and full of boundaries. By the way, the girl that gave me the ring is a singer and Sam is going to record her on Sunday at his lock-out studio. She's making an album called A Product of the System But Not a Statistic. How fucking awesome is that.
This whole working together thing almost didn't happened because just as I got hired Sam got offered another job, one that would help him gain hours towards being a therapist. He would be helping kids avoid juvie in the first place, going into family crises situations and intervening, trying to get people to talk thing out instead of getting violent. It would have been an extremely difficult job that he would have been great at. But he loves where he's at. After a lot of indecision and pain he talked it out with his current employers and they made some counter offers about getting him into the mental health department, and he's going to stay. I was trying to be supportive no matter what decision he made, but I'm all with the glad.
Oh, I also had applied to work at the only all-women's homeless shelter down in skid row (conveniently close to where I live, an easy bike ride). There were two interviews, both 45 minutes, both of which I completely nailed, plus a complete tour of the facility, and I sent in pages of writing samples in a variety of styles (research, marketing). There were over 50 applicants and I was in the top three. That's right, I'm a bronze medalist. Funny how in school something like the top three is something to be proud of, and in the real world it means unemployed, just as unemployed as the bottom three. The real world is tough. But who cares, because I got a job! The pay isn't much, but I'm promised that if I don't freak out and quit (common with this job) promotions come fast. Sam was there only a month before he became a supervisor.
I also am going to be volunteering as a childbirth assistant with the Pasadena Public Health Department Black Infant Health Program. That's right, I'll finally witness a birth. Several I hope. So I'll spend part of the week working with girls as a counselor and seeing if being a therapist is what I want to do and the rest of the week volunteering as a birth attendant and seeing if being a midwife is my calling. So it will be one or the other or neither, in which case I'll be back to square one but with two big ones checked off the list.
Continuing adjusting to LA. While I do still miss the bay the keening has gone down, and I'm finding good things about here. We've done a bunch of fun things. For instance his friend/bandmate was in this film festival at the Egyptian Theater called Attack of the 50 foot reels. Directors got 50 feet of 8mm film (about three minutes worth) and had to make a film with only in-camera editing. Nothing done in post. This festival was the first time the directors got to see their films, and the soundtracks had to be done by memory or approximation. Some of them were quite good. We also discovered that LA has a silent movie theater (yay!) and saw our favorite silent movie (yes we have the same one) The General (have you seen it? No? Go do so. Buster Keaton is amazing. Seriously, go rent it on Netflix or something) with old previews and shorts beforehand, and a piano player up front playing along the whole time. Man, previews were funny back in the 20's. It's just a cue card saying, "Watch riveting dramatic scenes, such as you've never seen before!" And then they'll show a silent shot of a women sobbing and pleading with a man. It's much funnier to reenact than describe, but I do what I can.
We also visited the oldest street in LA, which I'm forgetting the name of but it's cool and has lots of shops. We also went to this stop the School of Americas event (the SOA is this school in Georgia where they teach torture techniques. Oh, I heard on NPR the other morning about this girl who was trained there [they didn't call it by name, but they said Georgia], studied Arabic, then got sent into Iraq as an interrogator. After doing two interrogations she requested to be transferred and then committed suicide with her service weapon. The military buried this and a reporter is just now uncovering it. This happened in 2003. She was the third woman on the American side to die over there. Hands up for impeachment and converting the military into something else, something that doesn't train people to torture and then covers it up when the inhumanity they inflict causes them to take their own lives). I'll say this for LA. The bay is awesome, and full of conscious activism, but it's all really . . .white. LA is much more diverse, a lot more working class, and the activism often comes from a more passionate, personal place.
Oh, we also went to this Day of the Dead event in east LA. One of Sam's favorite bands played and I highly suggest you check out Quetzal. Man I really need to learn Spanish, I'm missing out on huge parts of the world around me. I want to be able to raise my children to be bilingual.
I've also gone to many, many Sam gigs. I'm getting pretty good at helping schlep around his drum kit and help with the set up and dismantling. Oh, and the company picnic (of his and now my work) was at Knott’s Berry farm, which I've been to twice, once when five and once when thirteen. So I got these weird flashes of memory, walking around. I love that instead of having a parking structure, or even a paved lot, they have a field. With grass and trees. Kind of casual that place. Not so great was the endless stream of patriotic country music. And when they had these fake Aztec dancers pretending to do sacred dances as a front for praising the American military we bailed. Luckily we'd already gone on a bunch of fun rides. Hey, did you hear Magic Mountain is closing? They're always packed but built a new ride every year and are billions of dollars in debt. So it'll become housing developments. Who wants to go before it closes?
Oh, one last random incident in my life. Last Sunday we had dinner with my family at my parents house. I love my family so much and am so close to them and want them to get to know Sam more, and for him to see how incredible they are. Plus I had to find my degree to give to my new job to prove I had actually graduated college. It went wonderfully. Sam and I spent awhile looking through my memory chest looking my high school diploma (which has disappeared and thankfully wasn't actually needed anyway ). I'm super-sentimental and stuff was taking over so I bought a wicket chest and decided all sentimental crap has to fit in there. It's a great system I recommend it. I even organized stuff in there. Anyway, Sam and I went through it and I have him a tour of my life. And when I checked in to see if he was bored, as most people would have been, he just looked at me like I was crazy and said he wanted to absorb me. Y'all, being loved kicks ass. It's like our first night together after I moved in when I was showing him pictures and telling stories of the sea and asked the same question and he gave me the same look and said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, that he wanted to know everything about me. And I thought, I have waited a decade for this, and I have never been so treasured. I waited a long time, and wasn't sure it would ever happen, but I made it into his arms. Yay! I mean really, I've seen so many couples in love, in real life, in the movies. But it's totally different from the inside. When you look at each other in a public place and you're in this shining circle of warmth and you can't get over your joy and you kiss and you don't care who's watching or what's going on. I know it's clichéd but it's true (Allison I think of you) and being in a life partnership is so much fun. It still hasn't sunk in.
Anyway, my parents made this rocking Indian food from scratch, and I feel such a responsibility to live up to, to be as together as my parents. I mean, I look at their kitchen and it's so well stocked, like if you need brown sugar or balsamic vinegar or poppy seeds they have it. And it was okay that I didn't that when I was living alone in a garage apartment close to home, because I was young and broke and new. But now that I'm with my life partner I feel I should be more together, because this is it. This is the person I'm having kids with and growing old with and will we ever have it together like my parents do? But I just talked to my mom and she told me to relax, they didn't have any of this stuff with they were our age. Plus I realize other people (read: my family) see my relationship differently. I see my life partner, they see someone I've barely been dating more than two months.
But the night went well. We had great food and Sam got exposed to the family dinnertime conversations that shaped me - the intelligence and the humor and will I be able to pull this off with my kids? Then we made chocolate cake and played dictionary, one of my favorite games. No board games or props needed, just a dictionary. My family plays to make up the silliest definitions, not the most correct sounding, and always end up rolling around with laughter. I got to see my father tired and silly and laughing endlessly, something I was just worried I would never see again. Because now that I'm with Sam I can never move back home. Which is good because I'm 24, and I'm gad to be starting my own family, but I really love this one. And I was worried it would never be the same again, and I would never experience the same intimacy and familiarity with them, because we’re such a good unit. But the other night assuaged my fears. And now that Sam's lived with me more than two months and has not only not murdered me or stolen from me, but has also loaned me money and is financially supporting me at the moment (first paycheck December 5th!) I think he's okay by them.
And now, for my own amusement, I will attempt to catalog the list of bizarre coincidences between my beloved and me (the ones I can remember only). Some I’ve mentioned before:
1. The first album we both bought with out own money was The Cranberries No Need To Argue.
2. We were both sociology majors.
3. We both have dunbek hand drums.
4. We both drum (him much more so than me, but still).
5. We were at the same Chili Pepper concert right before meeting (a day apart, but same venue, and since it wasn’t in a city he lived in
it counts).
6. We were at the exact same Ani concert two years ago in Santa Barbara, a city neither of us lived in.
7. We’re pretty sure we were in Paris at the same time four and a half years ago.
8. We both have cousins with young blond daughters nicknamed CJ. They kind of look alike too.
9. When we were kids we both had pet rats named Reggie.
10. We both almost bought each other presents at Target on the same day (not a store I’m at very often).
11. We both woke up with painful shin splits the same morning.
12. I have a spiral shell necklace I always wear, he has one tattooed on his shoulder.
13. We tend to be thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time. And some of those thoughts are strange.
14. Twice I called him on the phone the second he got home.
15. We tend to have the same favorite song on any album and many other preferences.
16. We have the same favorite silent movie.
17. When riding in the car one of us will put on the album that was in the other’s head.
18. When we met we were both in the middle of reading the same book (Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins).
19. In high school I decided to change my last name to Coleman, after jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, because Anna Coleman sounded nicer
than Anna Fink. His legal last name is Coleman but at around the same time he decided to change it to Pow so as not to inherit a name
for his slave owning ancestors.
20. Our philosophy for making big decisions is to take the path you would regret least.
21. We are two years, five months apart in age, the exact same difference as my brother and his girlfriend. My brother and I are both
younger than our partners.
22. The men in my family have a very distinct walk they dubbed "Fink Walk," where their heels are in and their toes are pointing way out.
Sam has Fink Walk. When I saw that at Burning Man I knew we were meant to be together.
23. We both have phones through Verizon. Okay, not the biggest coincidence, but useful since it means free calling.
24. We both have curly hair and both want to raise our children to be revolutionaries. That’s not so much a coincidence as just cool. I
can’t wait to start a family with this man. No, actually I can wait. I’ll take waiting thank you.
25. We were at a concert that hadn't started yet, so recorded music was playing. I was asking him about his first kiss with his last
girlfriend. At that exact moment a Rage Against the Machine song started playing: it was the exact song that had been playing
during their first kiss. Seriously guys, out of all the songs in the world. He got pretty freaked out.
26. When I was younger I decided I was going to buy an air hockey table when I grew up. It was the one arcade game I love, and it was going to be my one silly splurge - I real one, with air that blows the pucks around. Of course Sam had one, although it was in a car that got stolen a few weeks ago.
27. Both our favorite type of hawk is the red-tailed hawk. Come one, how many people have a favorite type of hawk?
28. We've both had dolphin stickers on the dash of our cars.
29. When we were kids we had the same kids Greek mythology book (not your typical, in-every-house fare).
30. Speaking of which, we have the same favorite Greek deity (Athena, goddess of wisdom).
31. My friend has a Persian cat named Fizzgig whom I promptly nicknamed Squashy Face. His ex-girlfriend's mom has a Persion cat named Gizmo whom he had nicknamed Mushy Face.
32. We both have freaky pinkies - mine are abnormally small, his are crooked.
33. We both tap dance.
34. Our maternal grandmothers worked for the post office for many, many years and live in mobile homes.
35. Ten years ago I saw Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet and decided that was it - I was officially ready to meet my soulmate. That was Sam's first date with his last girlfriend, the one he spent that decade with.
36. We bite our lips when nervous in the exact same place and often have a scab there.
37. The last concert Sam went to with his ex-girlfriend was Manu Chau. The bus/ship we met on was playing Manu Chau when he came up to it and that's the reason he got on it, making them one of the reasons we met, and segueing him from one relationship to the other.
38. We both have close friends named Sarah - mine's from New Hampshire and his lives there currently.
39. When I was 14 I became obsessed with having a tattoo of a blue butterfly, for no particular reason. This lasted for months, and I even had dreams about it. Among his other tattoos, Sam has a blue butterfly.
There are more I’m not thinking about and I’ll post them as I remember them. Feel no need to check back or anything, it’s for my own benefit really. But seriously, it can get freaky sometimes.
Anyway, I also played a high school student on Heroes, which is apparently about superheroes and therefore cool. This wasn't as fun, but it was still easy money. A lot of waiting around with my book and talking on the phone, and then a few hours of walking around with a backpack. Plus this is apparently some rich high school where all the students have ipods, so I got to listen to music while filming. And if I'm judging filming experiences based on the quality of the free fruit at craft services (and I am) they had pineapple, papaya, strawberries, and
kiwi.
However, the job is minimum wage, and also puts you at the very, very bottom rung of the production. It's not that I have any aspirations whatsoever of climbing higher in the entertainment industry, it's just that it's a little depressing when production assistants (who are a dime a dozen. Seriously, every show has a zillion people wandering around with head sets) get to boss you around. This one jackass on Heroes was especially fond of yelling at us like we were retarded monkeys and physically shoving us around when we didn't respond to his commands fast enough. I think he was just taking out his aggression at being a middle aged guy with a shit job going nowhere.
So being an extra was a fun experience, one to check off the list, and now I'm ready for a real job. I finally (after sending in many, many resumes and making many, many calls) got hired at Sam's group home. Go ahead, ask what others have asked: Do you really think it's a good idea to be working together? In not just the same organization but the same building, carpooling, and being around each other all the time? Yup, I so do. I have absolutely no fear of us getting sick of each other. Not going to happen. Fuck, I'll even tempt fate with this one. Plus I think it will be really good for these girls to have a stable couple around. Not that Sam and I would ever act coupley while working, but just being in a stable, equal, supportive relationship, proof that such things exist, I think it will be good.
Group homes work on a number system of security and difficulty. They turn to lock-down at 13. This place is a 12. The girls here, aged 13-17, have either just gotten out of juvie and are trying not to go back, or have been taken away from their screwed up and abusive families by the department of family and child services (strangely enough that's Sam's mom's boyfriend's job. Breaking into houses and rescuing kids). They have gone through all variety of shit we've never even imagined and they are damaged. I will have to learn restraint techniques, break up fights, try and stop runaways, prevent suicides, and detect drug use. I will be a child care counselor, which means I'm in charge of a group of girls and will watch over them, take them on recreations, help with treatment, and help counsel them. I was warned they can be tough on new people, trying to intimidate and scare them, to see if they'll stick around or if they'll show fear. But I get to skip all that because they love Sam. Not only did they fawn over me, hugging and screaming, when I visited him awhile ago, but if call him at work they grab the phone from him so they can tell me how excited they are that I'm going to work there. This one girl even gave Sam a ring to give to me. I think it's going to be good. And tough, especially emotionally. Sam said I just need to accept that this job will make me cry. When I see and hear about what their lives have been like, it will make me cry. But I think I can help. I can be stable and nurturing and empathetic and stern and full of boundaries. By the way, the girl that gave me the ring is a singer and Sam is going to record her on Sunday at his lock-out studio. She's making an album called A Product of the System But Not a Statistic. How fucking awesome is that.
This whole working together thing almost didn't happened because just as I got hired Sam got offered another job, one that would help him gain hours towards being a therapist. He would be helping kids avoid juvie in the first place, going into family crises situations and intervening, trying to get people to talk thing out instead of getting violent. It would have been an extremely difficult job that he would have been great at. But he loves where he's at. After a lot of indecision and pain he talked it out with his current employers and they made some counter offers about getting him into the mental health department, and he's going to stay. I was trying to be supportive no matter what decision he made, but I'm all with the glad.
Oh, I also had applied to work at the only all-women's homeless shelter down in skid row (conveniently close to where I live, an easy bike ride). There were two interviews, both 45 minutes, both of which I completely nailed, plus a complete tour of the facility, and I sent in pages of writing samples in a variety of styles (research, marketing). There were over 50 applicants and I was in the top three. That's right, I'm a bronze medalist. Funny how in school something like the top three is something to be proud of, and in the real world it means unemployed, just as unemployed as the bottom three. The real world is tough. But who cares, because I got a job! The pay isn't much, but I'm promised that if I don't freak out and quit (common with this job) promotions come fast. Sam was there only a month before he became a supervisor.
I also am going to be volunteering as a childbirth assistant with the Pasadena Public Health Department Black Infant Health Program. That's right, I'll finally witness a birth. Several I hope. So I'll spend part of the week working with girls as a counselor and seeing if being a therapist is what I want to do and the rest of the week volunteering as a birth attendant and seeing if being a midwife is my calling. So it will be one or the other or neither, in which case I'll be back to square one but with two big ones checked off the list.
Continuing adjusting to LA. While I do still miss the bay the keening has gone down, and I'm finding good things about here. We've done a bunch of fun things. For instance his friend/bandmate was in this film festival at the Egyptian Theater called Attack of the 50 foot reels. Directors got 50 feet of 8mm film (about three minutes worth) and had to make a film with only in-camera editing. Nothing done in post. This festival was the first time the directors got to see their films, and the soundtracks had to be done by memory or approximation. Some of them were quite good. We also discovered that LA has a silent movie theater (yay!) and saw our favorite silent movie (yes we have the same one) The General (have you seen it? No? Go do so. Buster Keaton is amazing. Seriously, go rent it on Netflix or something) with old previews and shorts beforehand, and a piano player up front playing along the whole time. Man, previews were funny back in the 20's. It's just a cue card saying, "Watch riveting dramatic scenes, such as you've never seen before!" And then they'll show a silent shot of a women sobbing and pleading with a man. It's much funnier to reenact than describe, but I do what I can.
We also visited the oldest street in LA, which I'm forgetting the name of but it's cool and has lots of shops. We also went to this stop the School of Americas event (the SOA is this school in Georgia where they teach torture techniques. Oh, I heard on NPR the other morning about this girl who was trained there [they didn't call it by name, but they said Georgia], studied Arabic, then got sent into Iraq as an interrogator. After doing two interrogations she requested to be transferred and then committed suicide with her service weapon. The military buried this and a reporter is just now uncovering it. This happened in 2003. She was the third woman on the American side to die over there. Hands up for impeachment and converting the military into something else, something that doesn't train people to torture and then covers it up when the inhumanity they inflict causes them to take their own lives). I'll say this for LA. The bay is awesome, and full of conscious activism, but it's all really . . .white. LA is much more diverse, a lot more working class, and the activism often comes from a more passionate, personal place.
Oh, we also went to this Day of the Dead event in east LA. One of Sam's favorite bands played and I highly suggest you check out Quetzal. Man I really need to learn Spanish, I'm missing out on huge parts of the world around me. I want to be able to raise my children to be bilingual.
I've also gone to many, many Sam gigs. I'm getting pretty good at helping schlep around his drum kit and help with the set up and dismantling. Oh, and the company picnic (of his and now my work) was at Knott’s Berry farm, which I've been to twice, once when five and once when thirteen. So I got these weird flashes of memory, walking around. I love that instead of having a parking structure, or even a paved lot, they have a field. With grass and trees. Kind of casual that place. Not so great was the endless stream of patriotic country music. And when they had these fake Aztec dancers pretending to do sacred dances as a front for praising the American military we bailed. Luckily we'd already gone on a bunch of fun rides. Hey, did you hear Magic Mountain is closing? They're always packed but built a new ride every year and are billions of dollars in debt. So it'll become housing developments. Who wants to go before it closes?
Oh, one last random incident in my life. Last Sunday we had dinner with my family at my parents house. I love my family so much and am so close to them and want them to get to know Sam more, and for him to see how incredible they are. Plus I had to find my degree to give to my new job to prove I had actually graduated college. It went wonderfully. Sam and I spent awhile looking through my memory chest looking my high school diploma (which has disappeared and thankfully wasn't actually needed anyway ). I'm super-sentimental and stuff was taking over so I bought a wicket chest and decided all sentimental crap has to fit in there. It's a great system I recommend it. I even organized stuff in there. Anyway, Sam and I went through it and I have him a tour of my life. And when I checked in to see if he was bored, as most people would have been, he just looked at me like I was crazy and said he wanted to absorb me. Y'all, being loved kicks ass. It's like our first night together after I moved in when I was showing him pictures and telling stories of the sea and asked the same question and he gave me the same look and said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, that he wanted to know everything about me. And I thought, I have waited a decade for this, and I have never been so treasured. I waited a long time, and wasn't sure it would ever happen, but I made it into his arms. Yay! I mean really, I've seen so many couples in love, in real life, in the movies. But it's totally different from the inside. When you look at each other in a public place and you're in this shining circle of warmth and you can't get over your joy and you kiss and you don't care who's watching or what's going on. I know it's clichéd but it's true (Allison I think of you) and being in a life partnership is so much fun. It still hasn't sunk in.
Anyway, my parents made this rocking Indian food from scratch, and I feel such a responsibility to live up to, to be as together as my parents. I mean, I look at their kitchen and it's so well stocked, like if you need brown sugar or balsamic vinegar or poppy seeds they have it. And it was okay that I didn't that when I was living alone in a garage apartment close to home, because I was young and broke and new. But now that I'm with my life partner I feel I should be more together, because this is it. This is the person I'm having kids with and growing old with and will we ever have it together like my parents do? But I just talked to my mom and she told me to relax, they didn't have any of this stuff with they were our age. Plus I realize other people (read: my family) see my relationship differently. I see my life partner, they see someone I've barely been dating more than two months.
But the night went well. We had great food and Sam got exposed to the family dinnertime conversations that shaped me - the intelligence and the humor and will I be able to pull this off with my kids? Then we made chocolate cake and played dictionary, one of my favorite games. No board games or props needed, just a dictionary. My family plays to make up the silliest definitions, not the most correct sounding, and always end up rolling around with laughter. I got to see my father tired and silly and laughing endlessly, something I was just worried I would never see again. Because now that I'm with Sam I can never move back home. Which is good because I'm 24, and I'm gad to be starting my own family, but I really love this one. And I was worried it would never be the same again, and I would never experience the same intimacy and familiarity with them, because we’re such a good unit. But the other night assuaged my fears. And now that Sam's lived with me more than two months and has not only not murdered me or stolen from me, but has also loaned me money and is financially supporting me at the moment (first paycheck December 5th!) I think he's okay by them.
And now, for my own amusement, I will attempt to catalog the list of bizarre coincidences between my beloved and me (the ones I can remember only). Some I’ve mentioned before:
1. The first album we both bought with out own money was The Cranberries No Need To Argue.
2. We were both sociology majors.
3. We both have dunbek hand drums.
4. We both drum (him much more so than me, but still).
5. We were at the same Chili Pepper concert right before meeting (a day apart, but same venue, and since it wasn’t in a city he lived in
it counts).
6. We were at the exact same Ani concert two years ago in Santa Barbara, a city neither of us lived in.
7. We’re pretty sure we were in Paris at the same time four and a half years ago.
8. We both have cousins with young blond daughters nicknamed CJ. They kind of look alike too.
9. When we were kids we both had pet rats named Reggie.
10. We both almost bought each other presents at Target on the same day (not a store I’m at very often).
11. We both woke up with painful shin splits the same morning.
12. I have a spiral shell necklace I always wear, he has one tattooed on his shoulder.
13. We tend to be thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time. And some of those thoughts are strange.
14. Twice I called him on the phone the second he got home.
15. We tend to have the same favorite song on any album and many other preferences.
16. We have the same favorite silent movie.
17. When riding in the car one of us will put on the album that was in the other’s head.
18. When we met we were both in the middle of reading the same book (Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins).
19. In high school I decided to change my last name to Coleman, after jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, because Anna Coleman sounded nicer
than Anna Fink. His legal last name is Coleman but at around the same time he decided to change it to Pow so as not to inherit a name
for his slave owning ancestors.
20. Our philosophy for making big decisions is to take the path you would regret least.
21. We are two years, five months apart in age, the exact same difference as my brother and his girlfriend. My brother and I are both
younger than our partners.
22. The men in my family have a very distinct walk they dubbed "Fink Walk," where their heels are in and their toes are pointing way out.
Sam has Fink Walk. When I saw that at Burning Man I knew we were meant to be together.
23. We both have phones through Verizon. Okay, not the biggest coincidence, but useful since it means free calling.
24. We both have curly hair and both want to raise our children to be revolutionaries. That’s not so much a coincidence as just cool. I
can’t wait to start a family with this man. No, actually I can wait. I’ll take waiting thank you.
25. We were at a concert that hadn't started yet, so recorded music was playing. I was asking him about his first kiss with his last
girlfriend. At that exact moment a Rage Against the Machine song started playing: it was the exact song that had been playing
during their first kiss. Seriously guys, out of all the songs in the world. He got pretty freaked out.
26. When I was younger I decided I was going to buy an air hockey table when I grew up. It was the one arcade game I love, and it was going to be my one silly splurge - I real one, with air that blows the pucks around. Of course Sam had one, although it was in a car that got stolen a few weeks ago.
27. Both our favorite type of hawk is the red-tailed hawk. Come one, how many people have a favorite type of hawk?
28. We've both had dolphin stickers on the dash of our cars.
29. When we were kids we had the same kids Greek mythology book (not your typical, in-every-house fare).
30. Speaking of which, we have the same favorite Greek deity (Athena, goddess of wisdom).
31. My friend has a Persian cat named Fizzgig whom I promptly nicknamed Squashy Face. His ex-girlfriend's mom has a Persion cat named Gizmo whom he had nicknamed Mushy Face.
32. We both have freaky pinkies - mine are abnormally small, his are crooked.
33. We both tap dance.
34. Our maternal grandmothers worked for the post office for many, many years and live in mobile homes.
35. Ten years ago I saw Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet and decided that was it - I was officially ready to meet my soulmate. That was Sam's first date with his last girlfriend, the one he spent that decade with.
36. We bite our lips when nervous in the exact same place and often have a scab there.
37. The last concert Sam went to with his ex-girlfriend was Manu Chau. The bus/ship we met on was playing Manu Chau when he came up to it and that's the reason he got on it, making them one of the reasons we met, and segueing him from one relationship to the other.
38. We both have close friends named Sarah - mine's from New Hampshire and his lives there currently.
39. When I was 14 I became obsessed with having a tattoo of a blue butterfly, for no particular reason. This lasted for months, and I even had dreams about it. Among his other tattoos, Sam has a blue butterfly.
There are more I’m not thinking about and I’ll post them as I remember them. Feel no need to check back or anything, it’s for my own benefit really. But seriously, it can get freaky sometimes.