Reason Three: Gifts

No, this is not a block of cocaine. This was my birthday present this year (or part of it, at least).

My hetero husband is seriously gift challenged. He never knows what to get me, can't remember when I tell him things and, later, we will discuss presentation.

Our first Christmas together, I was convinced that I was getting some sort of kitchen appliance. I was sure of it. I walked out on Christmas and saw a HUGE cardboard box, with something about a chair on the side. Ugh. "He bought a chair, it is going to be hideous," I thought. To my surprise, a nice necklace was inside a very small box inside (wrapped in the plastic bag from the jeweler.) Now, this was not a necklace I would have picked out, but it was nice. I thanked him and told him, several weeks later, to let me pick out jewelry in the future. But I am still haunted my that cardboard box.

I grew up in an admittedly insane family where if gifts were not wrapped with a homemade bow, grandpa refused to open them; where grandma had a closet full of wrapping supplies and gift bags were reserved for emergency wrapping situations only. So the lack of imagination in wrapping bothers me. It is an incredibly ridiculous thing to think about, but I am the type of person that wants the prettiest gifts under the tree, even if no one else notices. I buy ribbon all year long, have a huge bin of various bags, boxes and fillers. Okay, I might be insane.

Some of my hetero's other "unique" wrapping that I have received are: a Rachael Ray magazine wrapped in an orange pocket folder, the above DVD wrapped in toilet paper and masking tape and a scarf in a Target bag. Undoubtedly, each gift still has a price tag on and is, usually, some variation of something I said I liked once, but never really said that I wanted. Unless, of course, I have told him exactly what to get - like when he scored big with the black and white print umbrella as part of a gift.

The real kicker, though, was my gift for grad school graduation - the DVD of "Last Holiday" with Queen Latifah and "You: The Owner's Manual" that book by Dr. Oz. These two items, with price tags, were wrapped in a Pirates of the Caribbean gift bag. So finally, he gets a gift bag, but I am not into pirates. And let's talk about the gifts, themselves. I love Queen Latifah; but a movie about some woman who thinks she is dying? And a book that urges you to get healthy is great, but jeez, I just finished a Master's degree wasn't that enough self-improvement for one week?

As I created a very lovely basket for a wedding shower today, I thought about a day with a husband that would see the need for an entire room dedicated to gift wrapping. For a husband that would want to learn how to make my handmade bows, that would understand the necessity of wired ribbon and give me a gift with no price tag, wrapped in something actually from the gift wrap aisle at the store.

Reason Two: Yard Work

This is the pile of wood that has been sitting in my backyard for months. One day, my hetero husband came home with a truckload of wood from work. Did he pile it up nicely, NO. He just threw it in a pile as close to the gate as possible.

Then, a few weeks later, he decided that we needed to cut some branches off of our trees. These were added to the pile whole. The were partially on the pile, partially in the yard and partially hanging over the fence into the neighbor's yard.

Last week, tired of this huge, hoosier pile, I decided that something had to be done. I put on my gardening gloves, located the reciprocating saw (which is for some reason kept under the bed in the spare bedroom) and went to town on the 15 feet branches. I sawed, snapped branches, and got covered in bug bites until the sun was beating down on me and I couldn't take it for another minute.

Thankfully, this brief desire to hack at wood led my husband to want to make the remaining pile more manageable. We sawed and snapped even more branches until the neighbor no longer had our crap leaning over his fence and we had a huge pile of sawdust on the ground.

In his hetero male world of big trucks and fire building, having all of this firewood makes sense. In my world, I would much rather spend the time making the front of the house more presentable. Weeding, planting flowers, etc.

Somehow, I think that my fictional gay husband would share this same desire. My fictional gay husband would not plop a tree load of wood on the patio. He would need that space for entertaining. My fictional gay husband would think that curb appeal was more than making sure that the lawn is not overgrown. Going to by a flat of petunias wouldn't be met with groans and eye rolls. And that same trip to Home Depot would not then involve looking at ladders, even though we own three of various lengths. What a wonderful world that would be.

Reason one: Collectibles

I am the first to admit that I am no longer in love with my collection of Seraphim Angels that I just couldn't live without in my early twenties. I still, however, display them in a curio cabinet in my dining room. They are still pretty even if they don't go with my decor.

When I moved in with my husband, I had to give up one shelf in the curio. Actually, I don't know that I actually agreed to it; it was more of a retreat from arguing. After all, it's just a shelf.

First it was the Star Wars figurines. He wouldn't let go of the stormtrooper that he had fashioned a display case for. Then R2-D2. Then a football and an old 7-up figure that was his grandma's. Now we have casino chips, a golf ball, and replicas of the 2006 Cardinals World Series Ring. All by themselves, I don't have a problem any of the items (well, maybe the star wars memorabilia) if they are sitting in a drawer or box somewhere. In my curio, though, they look silly.

A gay man might or might not appreciate my angels; he might call them "his girls." A gay man would fight for a shelf, but not a shelf to place random junk from the past. Or if it was random junk from the past, he would at least somehow make it make sense amongst his girls.

I always imagined that I would marry a gay man. Whether it was for one of us to get insurance, or to realize some inheritance, I saw myself in a mutually beneficial marriage to a gay man. Not until I was married to a straight man, did I realize just how beneficial it could be.