Cool web stuff: guest post at Indie Reader Houston. Also: my story is going up in installments every day this week at Five Chapters. The photos are kind of messed up right now, the original image files were all FUBARed. Today I managed to get high-def jpeg captures off the word document and sent them along to the editor, so the image problem should be fixed by tomorrow. Hey, you know how in scifi movies, they can boot up a computer unearthed after a thousand years with no problem? Begs the question of why you can’t get the data off a CD from 2003!
This week, my husband apparently knocked the socks off one of his co-workers who hadn’t previously known that he is married to a novelist (NB my husband is a scientist). “How do you live under the same roof?” the coworker said, “what do you talk about?”
An interesting question. So, let me provide a series of random samplings from my marriage:
Me, bemoaning the loss of my youthful flat tummy: “Man, it used to be concave–what the hell happened?”Husband: “Well, it’s concave from the inside; you just have to invert the coordinate system.” “Dude. Repeat after me–‘you are as beautiful as the day I met you.'” — Husband, touches the side of his face with big toe Me: “HOLY SHIT YOU CAN DO THAT?” Husband: “I’m as surprised as you are!” — Me, some remark including the phrase “bringing home the bacon” Husband: “If they’re paying you in bacon, you need to get a better agent.” — Placeholder title on academic paper, “Super pimp-ass clever title: with colon and possible pun” Husband’s edit: “If you turn it in like that, I will give you five dollars.” — “Elena, did you really eat that muffin with the flecks of white mold on the top?” “Dude, this is why I have a stronger immune system than you.” — “This movie blows enormous chunks of ass.” “So you’re saying, at some point, this movie ate a spoiled ass.” — “At least I didn’t fart on you again.” — Quoting pretentious windbag blurb on the back of a book: “”Müller scatters narrative bombshells across a field of dreams.” Riposte: “Müller lays down a creeping barrage of luminous prose to cover the advance of an infantry of hope.” — “Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are–hey why the hell am I singing that? Were you humming that earlier?” “Ayep.” “SPOUSAL ABUSE!” — Husband, comes home from business trip Me, fitting myself into his arms: “I don’t like it when you go.” “I know. I don’t like it either.” —
Twelve years and counting.
Elena Mauli Shapiro 
Aw, this is so sweet! This is what marriage is about…haha, I would’ve smacked the guy who asked why I was married to a so-and-so person… 🙂
Thanks! Sometimes people wonder why we hooked up when they hear us described, but when they see us together it becomes obvious. I recommend marrying someone who is the same kind of goofball you are. As long as you can laugh, you can stick together through all kinds of hairy shit.
Love these, Elena. I too am married to a scientist (biologist) and am grateful for his even (and informed) responses to my daily panics that if my jaw hurts it isn’t because I have lockjaw, or any number of utterly irrational worries…
The scientist-artist pairing is really a good one. You get to be right brain, he gets to be left brain; together you get to be a pretty balanced person.