Megan Stielstra's Blog

Years ago, I was dating this guy with lots of tattoos. One day, at some show, he met another guy who had the same tattoo he did, so he made an appointment to get his covered up due to this theory he had about blah blah they can’t be replicated ‘cause then they lose their magic blah the meaning behind the ink is the meaning behind the man and I’m nothing if not unique, baby blah blah blah (thinking about this now, I wonder how he’d of reacted if it was a woman who had the same tattoo. Probably would’ve dumped me to pursue her, since they were meant to be and all). Back then, I didn’t have much of an opinion about this because I was twenty years old and he got me my first fake ID (it was for a five foot tall Mexican girl named Juliana and it worked EVERY TIME) and furthermore, I didn’t have any of my own tattoos yet because of Henry David Thoreau.

My dad is really into Thoreau. I was brought up reading Walden and, as with me and most philosophies, I ascribe to some of the principles—

• If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

• Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

• Things do not change; we change.

• How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

—while doing my best to ignore some others—

• Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

• [Water is] the only drink for a wise man.

Anyhow, he has some very specific ideas about respecting nature and subsequently your body, which, when I was a little girl translated into my not being allowed to get my ears pierced (which is a problem because, when someone doesn’t know what to get you for a gift, earrings are always a safe bet. Doesn’t matter if you’re ten or thirty [this applies only to those people who don’t know you’re a writer. If they know you’re a writer, they get you On Writing by Steven King or an Indian-fabric journal from Urban Outfitters. The kind with homemade paper that your pen leaks through], they get you earrings, and you say, “They’re beautiful!” because you’re polite, but there’s always someone at the party who’ll notice and say (loudly), “You don’t have your ears pierced!” and then the gift-giver feels bad, and everybody else wants to know WHY you don’t have holes in your ears, and if you feel like going into the whole Thoreau/Dad thing you tell them, “Because of Henry,” and if you’re too tired for all of that you say you’re scared of needles) but, when I grew up and wanted tattoos of my own, I knew I had to wait until I was one hundred percent sure of what I wanted. Out of respect for Henry—I felt I owed him that much. So I waited until I was twenty-seven years old and, after much thought and experience and a particularly emotional night, I decided: a Ouija board across my lower back.

So today, my sister-in-law Mary sent me this, and the first thing that crossed my mind was, “Wow, that’s beautiful,” and then, “That’s his stomach, that musta hurt like crazy!” and then, “I wonder what his story for getting it is?” and then, “I wonder if he ever gets the line, ‘Hey, baby, you need someone to play that Ouija board with?’ like I do every time my shirt rides up in the back,” and then I think about that guy I knew who got his tattoo covered up and I know that’s the last thing I’d ever do. It’s such a part of who I am now—all of them are.

Including the two new ones I’m getting next month.

I know, Henry. I know.

Posted by Megan at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So. Back to the normal routine. Back to writing in the cafe, because if I stay in my house I’m going to A. play with the dog B. organize my file cabinet or C. clean, all of which need to be done, but I’m trying to bang out this book, and if I don’t get on some sort of schedule it will remain locked up in my head, and, frankly, I’d like to think about other things for a while.

My friend Jeff is sitting across the table from me. He and I have been doing this for nearly ten years—writing at the cafes together. It’s good incentive because if I look up from the laptop to stare off into space, I see him typing away, and then I get all, “No way is he going to beat me!” and then I get back to it. We’re at a new place today: Uncommon Ground over on Clarke. New scenery is always good. And this place doesn’t have free internet so I can’t waste two hours on people.com. And they have ginger-peach tea that is so good I forget I’m trying to quit coffee. And later we have a writer’s group meeting for 2nd Story here. And this is a halfway point between our neighborhood and Amanda’s, and sometimes she joins us. She calls such get-togethers “Study Dates” and makes sure we don’t lose focus and start chatting instead of doing our work. This is a good thing for Jeff and I, because we have a tendency to get distracted. How can you NOT? There’s so much to DISCUSS! Like marriage and families and the one-year anniversary Katrina and real estate and Love in the Time of the Cholera and season two of Carnivale and Snakes on a Plane and Pluto is no longer a planet (!) and Voices Underwater and school starts next week and stress and stress management and tattoos and all of a sudden it’s two o’clock and time to go and the writing I meant to get done did not get done.

For the record: I think such discussions are a necessary point of the writing process. So is dreaming, and reading, and watching movies and plays, and writing in your journal and trying out ideas. But at the end of the day, the story itself needs to get on the page, and there comes a time when Jeff or I will say, “Okay. Enough is enough. I’ll see you in two hours,” and then we drop back into the work and—even though he’s sitting right across from me—he doesn’t really exist.

Posted by Megan at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It was one of those conversations which isn’t so much a conversation but rather you talking aloud to yourself and assuming the other person is just tuning out ‘cause that’s what you’d be doing if the situation were reversed, and I was all, “blah blah I have to buy lip balm, and coffee, and email that story to Kim and get Mojo more bully sticks and pick up Christopher’s dry cleaning and—” at which point the person I was talking to interrupted to say, “Aw, you’re such a good wife!” and I suddenly felt defensive, like, “I’m not picking up his dry cleaning because I’m a good wife, I’m picking up his dry cleaning because I have the car today, and it’s on my way home whereas it’s like two miles out of his way and we have an early flight to Portland tomorrow, for my stepbrother’s wedding, and Christopher has to wear a suit ‘cause it’s sort of formal, but also I’m picking it up ‘cause he picked it up last time and the time before that, too, in FACT, he’s usually the one picking up the dry cleaning, and he cooks a lot, too, because he’s better at it than me and also ‘cause he’s nice and wants to do nice things for me, and I want to do nice things for him ‘cause he’s really busy right now and we try to help each other, which is not my job as a wife insofar as a Woman Serves Man sort of thing but IS my job in that I’m part of the team that Christopher and I are, you know?” but what I said aloud was, “Yes, I am a good wife,” because I really want to be. It’s a goal of mine. Of the most maximum priority. Which has little to do with dry cleaning either way.

Posted by Megan at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You see the tall, super-cute guy kissing me in that picture? He's my husband. We got married over the weekend, which makes me officially a wife. A Mrs. I'm Mrs. Him. Mrs. Super-cute Guy. Mr. and Mrs. Super-cute Guy ran away for a week to a lovely house on the beach with ten of their closest friends, and they got married. And drank champagne and skinny-dipped (often simultaneously). And grilled things purchased from a nearby farmer's market, laid in the sand, laid around the house, swam in the lake, watched movies, laughed a lot, told loads of stories, danced, ran after doggies, threw frisbees, flew the new stunt kite (Christopher), got the pedicures (Megan), and had an altogether magical, perfect, joyful escape with each other and other people they love.

We've now been back five days and what's interesting is, the rest of the world is continuing as though nothing happened. There is still work, and traffic, and dirty dishes, and palm pilots filled with obligations, and rent, and news updated online every twenty-four minutes and emails to answer. I remember having this same feeling when we returned to Chicago after living in Prague, but then I'd been gone for a year and now I've only been gone a week. It's not that I feel different--I just had a really magical time and I want everyone to feel this relaxed and happy, which means there should be National Holidays instead of having to go to work, and walks in the park--or maybe bikes! Or levitating skateboards like in BAck to the Future!--instead of gridlock, and why don't we all just eat fruit and sushi with our fingers instead of dishes! And can the schedule be filled with things that say, "Skip down street with new husband, 2:15" instead of "Meeting with financial advisor, 3:00." And rent--fuck rent! Free housing for ALL! And can the headlines read something good for just twenty-four minutes and then be updated back to the horrible, mind-numbing insanity happening everywhere (an entry for another day ['cause y'all know I'm on a roll with this happy stuff] is that we're doing this Plan of Healthy Living thingie which applies blah blah to the mind as well as the body and involves, along with broccoli and Vitamin C, buying fresh flowers and News Fasts. News Fasts! Which is an idea that I'm really on the fence about because I like being well-informed as to what's going on in the world, it feeds my self-perception as an educated, activist individual etc. etc. but DAMN, sometimes I just want to turn the shit off and run in fields with puppies and little children and new husbands and remember all the hope and beauty and greatness in this world!) and maybe, instead of all the emails I get about business, everyone should just grab a digital camera and photograph themselves smiling really big! Like this:

And then--THEN!--send those photos to me and everyone in your inbox, so our inboxes are flooded with really happy things instead of the ho-hum blah blah stuff that sucks hours out of our day! Hey!

(I wager there's some readers--of the three of you who still check this since I haven't posted in so long that everyone has given up on me, but, seriously, people! Sometimes you've got to unplug and live a little!--who are thinking, "Oooh, gross, she went and got all lovey-dovey, all bluebirds on her shoulder, puke puke!" Back in the day, I lived with this guy, Pete, who's an amazing artist and he had a studio in the back of our apartment where he painted all these really dark, scary intense things. And then he met his future wife, Carol-Anne, and he sat in the middle of that studio looking at blank canvases and said, "I'm so HAPPY! What am I going to PAINT!?" which lasted all of two days before he came up with all this new wonderful material and had to move to LA 'cause he got a dealer blah blah success [sidebar: a few months into our relationship, Christopher said, "What are you going to write about now that you're in a stable, healthy relationship with serious long-term possibilities?" and I had this weird moment of panic. What WOULD I write about if not the self-depracating, cynical adventures with (the wrong kind of) love? Answer: the five billion other subjects that I see/experience/imagine every day] the moral of which is, love is great! Put down the Camus and turn off The Smiths and go fall in love!)

So. Blah blah we're happy. But people--we were happy before we got married. This happiness is not breaking news. "Do you feel DIFFERENT?" I've been asked since we returned, and, seriously, I don't. My wedding was wonderful, but it was ONE DAY (Okay, five, technically, but you get my point). This giddiness here isn't about a DAY, it's about me and Mr. Super-cute up there. We have all these plans, stuff to do this weekend and stuff to do five years from now, and I am SO FUCKING EXCITED FOR ALL OF IT!

I was reading Newsweek this morning, and there's an article about--get this--post-wedding depression. Because, apparently, these brides spend years planning their wedding, but they didn't plan for the day AFTER. And the day after that and the day after that, and need SUPPORT GROUPS to get them through the difficult times of what to do AFTER the wedding. Be careful, all you wedding planners out there--you know who you are. You've got a binder somewhere filled with articles ripped out of magazines. You've been imagining your wedding your whole life. For example:

Two weeks before the wedding, Megan and Christopher sat down with a kick-ass pastry chef.

KICK-ASS PASTRY CHEF: (to Megan) So. Have you been dreaming about your wedding cake since you were a little girl?
ME: You can put it in a bucket so long as it tastes good.
KAPC: You and I will get along just fine.
CHRISTOPHER: I would rather it not be served in a bucket.

I'd like to point out a few facts from this little scenario:

1. All the wedding books/mags/planners will tell you to get your cake SIX MONTHS IN ADVANCE. This is bunk. Kick-ass cake can be purchased at any time for any occasion. And that pretty frosting that looks like flowers? It tastes like playdough. I know because our KAPC let us taste the pretty cakes, and then the good cakes, and we got a cake which was good AND pretty. And had frosting made of WHIPPED CREAM (with a bourbon chaser).

2. It is assumed by anyone in the wedding industry that the bride has been dreaming about her wedding forever. Sometimes you must set them straight. You must say, "Dude, I'm not all jazzed with the vision of my wedding. I am jazzed by the future with my husband."

3. If your husband is a designer, especially a very good designer (such as mine), he WILL care about such things as what the cake looks like. So ask him. Mostly, though, he will care that A. you are happy B. the whole experience is fun/relaxed/stress-free C. there are good friends and D. his new stunt kite does not get stuck in a tree.

So, in conclusion, my wedding was a really great party to celebrate something amazing, something which is, to me, truly awe-inspiring: two people who are all wild about each other making a commitment to take on this crazy world together as a team.

Do I feel different? No--because I've felt this for Christopher since we started. Look:

In Italy, after three months.

Alaska, eight months.

Chicago, year and a half.

Michigan, after nearly two and a half years. August 4th. Our wedding.

I'm very, very excited for all the future moments, when I can look back at a photo, or my journal, or the pictures painted in my mind's eye, and see all crystal-clear how much I love this guy.

This is our beach.

The best man reading from Makondo, by Anthony Doerr.

The Man of Honor making me cry with his toast.

Mrs. Jobson drinking wine and putting the veil on the dog.

The Mr. and Mrs.

Posted by Megan at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)