So, yesterday was kind-of a special day for Kyle and I.  If you flip back in my journal to exactly 1 year ago, the entry begins like this: “Kyle Andrew Van Sandt asked me to marry him.  I said yes.”  What’s so special in my mind about his proposal is that it brought an end to a journey, a journey that lasted for an entire agonizing year, and of course, the beginning of a new one.

Go back to the summer of 2007.  Kyle and I had been dating for around 7 months, living together for almost 6.  (We move quickly in the Dietrich-Van Sandt household.)  He had left for the summer to go work for a theatre in Oklahoma City, while I chose to stay in Decatur, work 4 jobs, and try not to throw myself into traffic.  Being in the city all alone, with all my friends gone for the summer and a lot of time on my hands, I was a bit, shall we say, needy.  So he might have brought it up just to shut me up.  But regardless of why he did it, Kyle brought up the topic of marriage.  He even started sending me links to various engagement rings.  Needless to say, I immediately went batshit bridezilla crazy and spent the rest of the summer planning our wedding.  I counted down the milliseconds until he came home at the end of the summer, because I just knew that he was going to jump out of the car after a 14 hour drive, throw himself on 1 knee, and present me with a giant ring.  What actually happened is that he stumbled out of the car, threw himself on  the couch, and spent the next 12 hours watching The Simpsons with his hand down his pants.

So we begin our senior year of college, and I forget about the whole thing until the beginning of November and our 1 year anniversary.  We plan a very romantic dinner, the entirety of which I spend on pins and needles because now would be the perfect time to do it.  Nothing.  Maybe at Thanksgiving.  No?  That’s okay.  Christmas is coming up pretty soon…

So the Christmas season is upon us, and we’re preparing for our trip to see the families.  We’ve got our own little tree set up in our living room, and I can’t help but notice that there’s one more present than their should be under the tree.  I already know what he’s getting me because he showed me pictures of it, (a Leatherman multi-tool, badass,) but there’s this little cylindrical box with my name on it, and when I ask him about it he just smiles a mischievous smile and says that I’ll just have to wait and see.   So the whole trip I can’t stop thinking about that box, no helped by the fact that he keeps bringing up the marriage thing and how he’d like to have an autumn wedding.  So after a week of traveling  and schmoozing with the families, we finally get home to Decatur, and sit down to exchange our own gifts.

I open the first one, a Leatherman-sized box, and *woo-hoo* it’s a Leatherman.  Awesome.  And then I pick up the second box.  And before I can open it, Kyle stops me and takes my hands in his, and says to me, “Stephanie, I just want you to know that you’re easily the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, the kind I can really see myself spending the rest of my life with.  I just want you to know how much I love you.  Now you can open it.”  And smiling through my tears, I slowly open the box…

He got me work gloves.

Fucking work gloves!  Now don’t get me wrong, I needed a pair, but not as much as I needed a fucking engagement ring!  The look on my face must have been hilarious, because he immediately started laughing hysterically.  Until I shoved the gloves down his throat.

So December passed without a proposal.  So did New Years, Valentine’s Day, and my birthday, along with a hundred other days in which I woke up thinking, “Oh my god, today could be the day!” and went to sleep thinking, “Maybe tomorrow.”   I started getting a little agitated; I took it upon myself to mention on the hour how many of my other friends were getting engaged, and that there’s no way you can plan a wedding in less than 6 months so if we wanted to do our autumn wedding we would need to start planning soon.  And every time he would just smile and kiss me and say something asinine like, “Soon enough.”  I started worrying that he wouldn’t ask me before my 6 month deadline; we’d set our hearts on a November wedding, and it was getting very close to 6 months away.  Then I started to get depressed; maybe he was never actually going to propose, and was just saying it to keep me interested.

There was nothing special about May 14th, which is probably why I ignored the red flags that I picked up that evening.  Sure, Kyle had brought home steaks for dinner, but I’d been disappointed that way before.  And it was weird that he suggested that I go change into a nice outfit so we could go meet up with friends after dinner; these were some of my closest friends, I don’t have to fucking impress them.  But by this time I knew better than to get excited.  Except that actually, I should have.  Because as we sat down to eat dinner, Kyle pulled a tiny white box out from the entertainment center and proposed to me.

Exactly 6 months and 1 day later, we were married.

Wouldn’t that have made a great ending?  Too bad there’s more to the story.  This is where I should probably mention that Kyle and I are incapable of having any normal aspects to our relationship; there’s no one way we could end things on such a sweet and romantic note.  But it would have been cool, right?

So seeing as I’d just got fucking engaged, I wanted to tell everyone.  I wanted to tell friends, I wanted to tell  enemies,hell, I wanted it scrolling at the bottom of MSNBC.  So we left to go meet up with friends.  We found them sitting out on the front steps of a friend’s house.  Upon our arrival, there was squealing, there were jokes about the horrors of married life, and there were bets on who’d make the biggest ass of themselves at the reception.  We sat out on the porch for about half an hour, talking and drinking beers and enjoying company.

When all of a sudden, (I’ve always wanted to say that,) there came what sounded like firecrackers, and a skinny guy bolted out of the house 2 down like his pants were on fire.  15 minutes later, there was an army of emergency vehicles parked outside the house.  25 minutes later, there was a body bag leaving the house 2 down and a cop asking us for witness statements.  That’s right: somebody got their ass shot.  While some might have taken this as a bad omen, we thought it was a nice gesture to celebrate the beginning of our new life together.  Sort of a circle of life thing, you know?  Even more magical was when we went across the street where Kyle’s truck was parked and discovered that his front right tire was magically flat.  Awesome.

1 year later, we celebrated such magic and love in true Van Sandt style: with dinner, (Vortex burgers and beer,) a movie, (Star Trek, which I hated,) and dessert (brownies, which I-oh my god these things are better than sex!  Which incidentally, is a good thing, since our cat peed on our bed again while we were gone, thus canceling any and all Happy Stephanie-Kyle Fun Time.)  At least no one got shot this time…

It began today, around noon.

I went to Soma to buy bras.  I only had like, 4 bras, which means that I either had to do laundry once every 3 days or wear dirty bras for a few days.  (I usually chose the latter.)  Soma isn’t my first choice, especially since I have a heroin-strength addiction to Victoria Secret’s Biofits, but very much like heroin, Biofits are a fucking expensive habit.  So I gave Soma a try.  And the first thing they do in any bra shop is fit you for a bra, right?  Well I’ve been a 34C for almost 2 years now, but I figure hey, it’s her job, and it can’t hurt, right?  So I get a paper tape measure strapped around my chest in 4 different configurations, and the woman gives me my size.

34D.

Shit.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t really complain.  There’s a whole legion of woman out there with size A boobs who would like to stab me in the face for complaining about my D’s.  But I liked my size C boobs.  They were just big enough that I could make them look gorgeous for special occasions but they could still be crammed into a sports bra if I needed them out of the way.  Besides, do you know how hard it is to find size 34D bras?  34C was hard enough, 34D’s going to be like finding a jar of Nutell in my house that’s more than 3 days old.

But all is not lost.  I mean, my husband’s going to be really excited, right?  Kyle treasures my boobs with a love that most men save for their child, or maybe a dog.  I actually get jealous of them; sometimes I worry that he loves them more than me.  So he should be ecstatic to hear that his luscious lovelies are getting even larger and lovelier, right?

So when he gets home I bring out my purchases and put on a little fashion show for him.  And that’s when several fatal mistakes were made on his part.  First, he got visibly upset when I told him that I didn’t buy the totally impractical, but seriously hot sheer completely lace bra, and informed me that I was to go back and buy it.  Tomorrow.  Then he made fun of the wide shoulder straps on the front-clasp bras I’d bought specifically because I know he likes front-clasp bras.  His damning move?  He looked at me from his lounging position on the bed and lazily said, “You know I don’t consider you a real D, right?  You’re really just a big C.”

I don’t know why this insulted them so much, but it did.  So much so that the girls said, “Fuck you, asshole!” and disappeared under a sports bra, (nothing pisses him off more,) where they stayed the rest of the night.

And that’s how my boobs ruined everything for Kyle.  (Until they decide to forgive him…give ’em a minute…)

So, some of you may have noticed that my postings have been more sparse as of late.  Most of you probably did not.  But now that I’ve mentioned it, even if you still aren’t really bothered by it you’re probably at least curious to know if there’s at least a good story behind it.  I mean, it seems like something I wouldn’t have mentioned if there wasn’t a story coming, right?

While there is a story, of sorts, it’s not of the particularly juicy variety.  No, I haven’t taken a side job running sting operations for the police department and trying to get people to sell me heroin.  No, I didn’t come into so money due to the death of a long-lost great-aunt and have to spend the last week spending her $5.8 million or I wouldn’t get to keep any of it.   And no, I didn’t commit myself to the task of teaching orangutans to perform menial tasks.*

The truth is, we’re moving.  Maybe twice.

You see, as previously discussed, Kyle and I will be packing up and moving to Wichita, KS for 12 weeks.**  Most of our non-essentials will stay in our apartment here in Atlanta, but us, our cats, and as much of our household we can cram into 2 foreign cars will be spending the summer in a tiny apartment in Wichita.  And in 12 weeks, coming back.

Now, in theory, we would then re-integrate our summer crap back into our Atlanta crap and pick up our lives where we left off.  Except that as of today, the school where Kyle teaches has not offered him a renewed contract.  Apparently they’re currently about $60 million in the hole, and to cut spending they decided to lay off not renew all the first year teachers.  Now, since Kyle is the only Technical Director in the entire district, his boss is “pretty sure” that he’ll get offered a contract.  Buuuut, if he does, it won’t be offered until mid-to-late June, which is pretty late in the summer to find out that you’re unemployed.  We need to be looking for our next gigs NOW!  We just don’t feel comfortable gambling on our livelihood

So for right now, it’s a race to see who gets us.  We’re both sending out resumes***, and whoever gives us the best offer first, wins.  If Kyle’s current boss can offer him a contract before anyone else does, we’ll stay in Atlanta.  But if the teaching gig in Philadelphia or the Assistant Technical Director gig in Milwaukee or the Technical Director gig in New Orleans**** offers him something first…we’re going to have to take it.  Neither one of us is particularly excited about the prospect of a hardcore move, but we’re even less excited about being homeless.  It’s this thing we have.

So for the next week-and-a-half, posts may be a little sparse as I’ll be packing boxes, mucking out the fridge, and getting ready to move our life to Wichita.  But tune in tomorrow, when we try doping our cats up to their eyeballs***** in preparation for their 14 hour car ride.

*Unless you count yelling at my husband for throwing his clothes on the floor 6 inches from the laundry basket.

**Which frankly, is about how long I can stand living in Kansas.  I mean, they sell 3.2 beer for chrissake!  Have you tasted that shit?  It’s not even beer so much as just piss-water.

***Okay, I’m lying.  He’s the only one actually sending out resumes because he’s the only one actually finding job postings that he can apply for.  Electrician jobs right now are rarer than a Saturday without beer.  But I’m looking.

****I told Kyle that the only way that I could reconcile myself with living in Louisiana was if we lived above a gay porn shop that specialized in double-ended dildos.  Then I think I’d be okay with it.

*****The vet said we could, I swear.  She didn’t mention anything about us being doped up to our eyeballs, but I’m pretty sure it’s necessary for full effectiveness.