I'm Sleeping With Some Guy I Work With.
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: The Tao of Ben
I know they say it's the worst possible thing in the world you can do, a workplace romance; it just goes against every piece of good career advice anyone could ever get. They will tell you it can lead to trouble, perhaps even the loss of one's job; but I don't care. I'm doing it anyway.

Because the guy in question is my husband Ben.

I started doing contract work for his law firm sometime back in, oh I don't know, January or February. It started off slowly, but they seem to like my work product, with the result that last week I was in the office five days. I put in four or five hours a day, and for the first time since I met him, my husband is my co-worker.

And the interesting thing about it is that suddenly we are picking up the office flirtation where we left it off in November 1997. We pop into each other's offices and engage in witty banter, then exit with one last verbal flourish; we steal kisses in the stairwells and cop feels under the desk. We're the hot office romance! And if someone catches me getting my neck kissed, I loudly accuse Ben of sexual harassment, which always elicits a laugh. It is, in short, absolutely delicious.

So, you know, if you ever get a chance to have an affair with your own spouse, I highly recommend it. At home we've got our hands full with kids and bills and meals and dust bunnies and OH MY GOD, HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SO MANY DIRTY T-SHIRTS? At work, we're lovers. (Well, not literally. I mean, he's never swept the papers off my desk and laid me down with my head on a deposition transcript. But a girl can dream, can't she?)

It's almost enough to make me look forward to Monday.

And We Can't Even Sue Anyone But Ourselves.
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: The Tao of Ben
My poor sweetheart tripped and fell and broke his foot yesterday. It's my fault he broke it; I bought a new dragonfly doormat for the front door, and Ben was watching Matt more than his footing when he misstepped and fell yesterday afternoon while washing my minivan with the boys. We waited until this morning to go to the ER, but suspected a break. And we were right.

Ben would like to thank Vicodin for providing a silver lining to his cloud. He's right now laid up in our big bed watching TV and chatting on the cell phone; I brought him lunch and a drink, so he's all set. Four to six weeks to recover, during which time I will have to drive him to work and back (it's his right foot, so he can't operate the pedals) and wait on him hand and . . . . um, foot.

Some people will do ANYTHING to get to lie in bed watching TV and taking drugs all day.

Marital Wiretap.
Mood:  chatty
Topic: The Tao of Ben
In this entry, I'm going to be somewhat derivative, which should come as no surprise to you because I'm always stealing stuff from people -- shit, were it not for Douglas Adams, I'd hardly even have a rap, much less a world view.

This time, though, I'm not stealing from him for a change; I'm stealing from Miss Doxie and her hysterical conversations with her sister Ziz. Now, of course, I don't have a sister Ziz. I do have a sister, but I don't talk to her that much; I love her, but about the only things we have in common are our parents and upbringing. No, I am thinking of the conversations I have with my darling Ben.

This morning, we were discussing what we would ever do with our evil dog Nicky if we were to take a trip, since usually the only hotels that allow dogs are vile indeed. And so the subject arose of leaving Nicky with someone:

G: We could take him to Sandy's house.

B: No! He would bite those little shih tzus of hers in half.

G: Yes, but she's used to dogs pissing and shitting all over her carpets, because hers do it all the time.

B: That little fuck. Yeah, he's a "shit zoo" all right.

G: Don't talk about my dog that way. I love him.

B: I would love him a lot more if he wasn't pissing and shitting on our carpet.

G: He does it because we don't pay enough attention to him. He's emotionally needy. We are not fulfilling his needs.

B: What he needs is a swift kick in the ass.

G: Don't kick my dog. You'll hurt him.

B: I want to hurt him. Stick a cork up his ass.

G: Okay. We've got some of those synthetic corks from Bonny Doon in our kitchen drawer. Which of us sticks it in?

B: I can't stick it in. That would be gay.

G: Oh, okay, I get it. Because if I stick it in it would only be bestial, whereas if YOU stick it in, it would be both gay and bestial.

B: That's right.

G: Shit. Can I use tongs or something?

B: Rubber gloves.

G: Hmm. I think he will bite me the minute he feels me start to stick something up his ass.

B: Hmm. Well, we may just have to kill him.

G: But I don't WANT a dead dog.

B: He wouldn't piss and shit on our carpets, though.

G: But what fun is that? What're we going to have, Weekend at Bernie's Dog? We prop him up next to the fireplace?

B: I will even rig up a tape recorder to bark every once in a while.

G: We can attach him to a leash, and drag him around the neighborhood.

B: That's the idea.

G: Don't hurt my dog. I'm sorry he poops.

B: Or Winnie the Pooh Dog. You know, like Winnie the Pooh is always eating honey, but he has no alimentary tract.

G: That's right! What's up with that? Where does the honey go? He has no rectum. He has no anus.

B: Remember that time his ass got stuck in Rabbit's living room? Because he had eaten too much honey?

G: Right! And Rabbit was all freaked out about having a bear's ass trapped in his living room, but NOT for the obvious reason --

B: -- which is, given how much Pooh had eaten, that ass should have been SHITTING ALL OVER THE PLACE.

G: But Rabbit didn't care about that! He even grew to embrace the ass. Remember, he put a frame around it, and painted a face on it, and put antlers on it.

B: Talk about gay.

G: That must be why Rabbit is such a fussy little fuck! Because he's a fairy. A mean one!

B: Yeah. Come to think of it, Pooh's probably relieved he has no anus.

And so on and on. This is why I love my husband -- we have conversations like this every day. Come to think of it, this also explains a few things about our sons and their vocabularies.

But it doesn't explain where all the honey goes.

Happy Birthday Ben.
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: The Tao of Ben
To my husband, on the occasion of his 50th birthday.

Looking back, it seems completely appropriate that I met you just as you were turning 42 – just as you were about to become the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. That certainly is what you are to me.

A year later, I took you to dinner on your 43rd birthday. I remember our conversation that night very clearly, because over dinner you told me how you’d considered donating sperm just so you could have some offspring somewhere in the world. I told you to forget it – before you did that, I said, you should knock me up instead. Once again, we didn’t know what the future held in store for us. We didn’t know how true that was going to turn out to be.

And now here we are at your half-century mark, and the chickens have come home to roost. That is one hell of a lot of changes in eight years. You’ve gone from gay bachelor, as it were, to happy family man. It couldn’t have been an easy transition, but do you know? You made it look easy. You made it look like the part you were born to play. Except I don’t think you’re acting.

I hope we have made it worth your while, the kids and I. I know we’ve brought you a whole wealth of worry and headaches and noise, but I hope the love makes it okay. I hope, when you walk in the door and the boys run up to you and Julia coos and unleashes her smile, that it seems like a good deal. I know it hasn’t been easy. I know that at times you must have been tempted to run off to Central America, or considered going to live in your van. I hope you will always think it’s a good idea to not do those things.

Sometimes you don’t believe me when I tell you what a wonderful husband you are. I’ll say it again, for the record. You are not perfect. God knows I’m not. But I see you giving us everything you have to give, and what more could we ask? I try to do that for you too. And I can tell you that you have brought out the best in me. These past eight years, becoming your wife and the mother of your kids, I’ve grown into a better person than I’ve ever been in my life – a better person than I ever realized I could be. You know it to be true. In this way you have brought good to the world – you took a woman alone and a man alone, and you made happy wife, happy mother, loving husband, loving father. And three children, happy and healthy, loving and loved. You think you’re an underachiever? You’re wrong. Look what you have made. I couldn’t have done this with anyone else. I needed you. I need you. I love you, Ben.

These eight years have been good, but I am really going to enjoy the years to come. All the years I’ve got left, all the good I have to give – those are yours, only for you, forever. I love you. Happy birthday, honey.

Halloween Song.
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: The Tao of Ben
This is the night light we've had in our bedroom vanity area for the past year or so. We all love Nightmare Before Christmas, and despite his rather sinister persona, old Oogie Boogie has become a sort of friend to our kids. If we forget to turn him on, Matt says Turn on Ooogie Boogie! He really is a part of the family. This week, with Halloween in the air, he's more popular than ever.

But only my husband could give him a theme song. Remember disco? This morning we were all bustling about the vanity area when Ben sang:

I love the night light
of Oogie Boogie
[on the disco . . . .?]

Worse, you know, it's catchy. So we've all been going around singing it all day. And later on Matt, who is a very friendly little guy, greeted a total stranger on the street with Hi! I love the night light of Oogie Boogie!

Hee. It may not be as bad as Copacabana, but I'll bet you're going to have that stuck in your head all day, too.

Happy Halloween from the Crumpackers.

Mmmm, Toasty.
Mood:  on fire
Topic: The Tao of Ben
My husband bought me a new toaster at Target on Sunday morning. Because my 45th birthday is next weekend. And that present -- that toaster -- makes me smile, because it's a tidy capsule of my life at this moment, this hectic mommyish life of mine.

I understand that some girls wouldn't accept a mere toaster as a birthday present. Lots of girls require their men to work a hell of a lot harder than that: It must be thrilling, and it must be a surprise, and it must be well planned and thought out ahead of time, and he shouldn't have to ask what you want, he should magically know, and the only question he should need to ask is One carat or two? But I find that doesn't work all that well in the real world, when dealing with real men. The only thing a man will think out and plan ahead of time is a Super Bowl party or a clandestine affair. When it comes to birthday presents, we should count ourselves lucky if they remember our birthday. Or that they are married. To us, I mean.

So I don't burden Ben with a whole lot of expectations, because I find that expectations get you in trouble. As Douglas Adams wrote, A life burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruits are sorrow and disappointment. Would you like to achieve inner peace? Let go of your expectations. Now that I think of it, this is sort of a gritty form of Buddhism.

But back to the toaster. It may seem like a shabby birthday present to you, but not really. Because Ben is cheap and doesn't think we need a new toaster, but the toaster we have (had!) is infinitely infuriating. You push the handle down and it doesn't stay pushed down. It leaves the toast either frozen or nuked to cinders -- and no, adjusting the little dial does nothing to relieve this. If anything, it muddies the waters. That toaster, indirectly, has taught my sons more cuss words than fifty playground smartasses.

So Ben didn't want to get a new toaster. But he let me pick out a new toaster. Oh, I had to research it in Consumer Reports and get it on price cut and buy it in the pedestrian white color instead of the swoopy red color, but I have a new toaster. This is worth so much more to me than diamonds or a boob job.

And also, of course, because Ben has already given me the best present a girl could ever want. And three little presents to go with that. I'm hardly entitled to complain.

Jokes.
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: The Tao of Ben
I'm going to tell a couple of Ben jokes. Warning: They are dirty jokes. One of them is even political, a little. So if you don't like the F word, if you're going to get offended and hate me, please stop reading. Because we have established that I am an enormous pantywaist and will cry if you hate me.

Ahem. *taps mike* Is this thing on?

Guy walks into a whorehouse and tells the madam, "I've only got ten dollars. What you got for ten dollars?"

The madam says, "Well, ten dollars. That's not a lot, is it? I tell you what: For ten dollars you can fuck a chicken."

The guy isn't best pleased but figures what the hell. So he goes in and fucks the chicken. He leaves.

The next week he goes back to the whorehouse and tells the madam, "Well, I'm back. And this week I've only got five dollars."

The madam looks him up and down. "Oh, you're back, you big chicken-fucker? Five dollars? Well, okay. But for five dollars, you can only watch. Go on in there."

He goes into a little room and sees through the viewing hole a man having sex with a terribly ugly, deformed woman. Even so, the guy next to him is pleasuring himself. Really going to town.

The first guy says "God, you can really get off to THIS?"

And the other guys says "Oh, you know, this is nothing. You should have seen what we got last week for twenty dollars! Some asshole was in there fucking a chicken!"

Ahem. The next one is shorter, mercifully.

Bill Clinton is walking down the street when he is approached by a whore. The whore says "Do you want to have a good time?" and Bill says "Well, I've only got five dollars."

"Oh, come on," says the whore. "You're the President! You can afford more than that!" But Bill refuses.

The next day Bill is walking down the same street with Hillary when he encounters the same whore. She comes up to them and says to Bill, "See what you get for five dollars?"

The Worst Thing About Him.
Mood:  amorous
Topic: The Tao of Ben
This morning I got disgusted and cleared our bedroom vanity area of the detritus of Benjamin, which had grown to cover a full 25% of our spacious countertop. Meaning that I grabbed big double handfuls of receipts and parking stubs and direct deposit envelopes and boarding passes and such, and stuffed them into a miniature shopping bag. Because that is where Ben files his receipts, before eventually rifling through them for expense reports or tax returns: in a sprawling heap on the vanity counter. (Historical Note: Ben is also the person who said, when we moved into this house over five years ago, that he wanted to keep the vanity area clear. Without a lot of makeup and bottles and tubs of goo littering it up. Well, honey, what's good for the goose, and so on.)

During this process, I also cleared the vanity of the most peculiar form of detritus of Benjamin: His collection of used lengths of dental floss and used Q-Tips. For nearly eight years I have been completely mystified by this practice. In the instance of our vanity, the wastebasket is mere steps away, beneath the sink on my side of the counter; but invariably, on his side, there grows an accumulation of used dental floss and Q-Tips. My husband is a very clean man, so these items are not offensively dirty. But WHY MUST THEY BE THERE? WHY CAN HE NOT THROW THEM INTO THE WASTEBASKET? It's an enduring mystery, and often quite an annoying one.

But you know what? As with all things about Ben that I do not particularly like, I have to admit it to myself: If that's the worst thing about him, then I am truly blessed. That prick. How can I get properly annoyed with him for little things when he is in general such a paragon? Even with the dental floss conundrum, which I think anyone can admit would annoy them, righteous indignation seems a bit excessive given the general winsome quality of this man, and of life with him.

And also because I know that it is something I would miss, grievously, if he were not around. I would long to pick up his used dental floss; I would ache to gripe at him about it. So it's always with a pang of love that I grin, and bite my lip, as I survey the unmistakable footprint of Ben Crumpacker in my life and my bed.

I love you, honey. Did you know that?

Peace In The Kingdom.
Mood:  happy
Topic: The Tao of Ben
My husband is like a Valium. No, not because he's a pill. And no, not because he puts me to sleep. It's because his very presence fills me with immeasurable comfort; his slightest touch fills me with warmth and security. If they made a prescription drug that could affect people the way his calming presence affects me, America would be a nation of pill-poppers. But relaxed and happy ones.

I had a beastly day yesterday, which I had to handle mostly on my own because my husband was in San Jose. I made it through; badly, but I made it through. By the time I arrived home from the office, Ben was already there, and suddenly everything was okay. Oh, the kids were demanding and what to eat for dinner was a mystery and our household was in its usual chaotic, noisy state. But Daddy was home, and everything was ultimately okay.

I slept well. I kissed my husband and told him I love him. I dressed my kids. I dropped them off at day care, together with some literature on the topic of head lice from Dr. Sears for the day care lady. She pissed me off, and now she will be EDUCATED! Today feels bright and peaceful. And Ben, who never reads this blog -- well, I hope he feels the love. Thanks for centering me, sweetheart. I can always count on you for that.

Marital-Verbal Arts.
Mood:  chatty
Topic: The Tao of Ben
Marital e-mail conversation:

I also received a pair of high-heeled backless sherpa clogs, reminiscent of a pair I had many years ago (don't worry, they were cheap, made by Candie's, the shoe brand famously modeled by Jenny McCarthy while sitting on the pot). I will be interested to see what you think of them. Of course, I can't wear them until I've got my center of gravity back, which should be right around the time the weather turns cool enough for high-heeled sherpa clogs. xoxo GC

I really don't want you wearing high heels, or any kind of narrow or tiny heels, while you carry a child; and especially not while going up and down stairs. You only have to screw up once. If you don't believe me, ask any orthopedic surgeon, biomechanical expert, or earth momma baby magazine. Please postpone your slavery to fashion, or keep the shoes at work. Meanwhile I'll call the handyman so we can get the same handrail that Kirsten has. Our baby will thank us. xo BC

Feh, leave it to you to ruin what little fun this old girl has left. I'm all cool with wearing my grip-tread loafers while I carry your children about, Saint Maybe (it's from Anne Tyler, wherein one character addressed another as "King Careful. Mr. Look-Both-Ways. Saint Maybe"). You are their ever-vigilant guardian angel, and I bless you for that. xoxo

His Vocabulary's Better Than Mine, Too.
Mood:  amorous
Topic: The Tao of Ben
At this rate, I'm going to have to start a new category called Ben Crumpacker Is A Prick. He just sent me an e-mail containing the word miscegenation, and damn if I didn't have to look it up. Webster's defines it as a mixture of races; especially: marriage, cohabitation, or sexual intercourse between a white person and a member of another race. Lest anyone jump to the conclusion that Ben is a racist, I will hasten to add that he used the word in describing the plot of the movie Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing (1955). At that time, of course, miscegenation was considered a big deal. Today, one of my most beloved Internet friends partakes of it frequently, with great relish, and with a particularly gorgeous specimen of malehood. Take a bow, Vince Chao. Let's hear it for miscegenation!

Note to my husband: I'm the one who is meant to be tossing about words that send people scurrying to Webster's, you prick. The fact that you can do that to me is one of the myriad reasons you are a prick, and is also one of the even more myriad reasons I adore you.

For Whom The Smell Tolls.
Mood:  smelly
Topic: The Tao of Ben
There is a standard Crumpacker method for checking if one of the boys has poop in his pants: Quite simply, we smell their butts through their pants. Ben was quite scandalized the first time I held up baby Sam and demanded, Smell his butt! But you know, it's a good method. I have heard of parents who check for poop by thrusting a hand inside the kid's diaper. Now that strikes me as foolhardy. Compared to the hand-in-the-diaper method, smelling their butts, while it probably looks a bit strange in public, is downright safe and sanitary.

This afternoon I thought I caught a telltale whiff, so I started polling my kids. Do you have a poop? I asked Sam. He shook his head. Matt, do you have a poop? Sam, who is my good little helper, immediately offered, I better smell his butt. And he duly did so, and announced after a moment that Matt in fact was poop-free.

Sam's sense of humor, these days, is firmly rooted in the absurd, so in the spirit of the moment, I suggested, I'd better smell Daddy's butt. Sam squealed with delight as I approached his father and said Sit up, I need to smell your butt. And I did exactly that -- I took a big whiff, thinking I was safe. I mean, you'd hardly expect the guy to have a poop in his pants, right?

I almost fell over -- it smelled pretty damned bad. You've been farting! I accused him. He grinned. Not lately, he replied. I was left sputtering with indignation and disgust.

Ben just laughed at me. See? he said. Don't go around smelling people's butts. And I have to agree. Next time you get the urge to smell the butts of the males in the room, I recommend limiting your inquiry to the toddlers.

A Fun Disease.
Topic: The Tao of Ben
Everyone at our house is sick. It's my fault; I caught it at work, from our accounting department. That sounds a touch scandalous, until you consider that my firm's "accounting department" is this chick whose desk is ten paces outside my office.

Ben was complaining of his symptoms this morning, and I felt guilty for infecting the household. I told him "I'm sorry. This is not a fun disease to have. . . . Then again, I guess there are no fun diseases to have."

"Well, there's St. Vitus Dance," Ben suggested.

My Husband, The Prick: Coda.
Mood:  irritated
Topic: The Tao of Ben
My husband read all about the fact that he is a prick, and the statement that his IQ was measured at 154. "Actually, that's not right," he told me.

"Oh? What is it then?"

"What they told us was that my IQ was at least 155," he said.

Prick. If they awarded IQ points for assholery, it'd be 387, you prick.

My Husband, The Prick.
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: The Tao of Ben
There are those who have expressed shock at my reference, in this blog, to my husband as a prick. That is your chosen mate and the father of your children, they say, or words to that effect. How can you say such terrible things about him?

It's true that Ben is an absolute masterpiece of a man and that I love him very dearly. However: He is a prick. (Hi honey! Kisses!) I am not just saying this, either. I have solid proof, to wit:

He is smarter than I am. Intelligent men aren't ordinarily a problem for me; with the exception of that commodities trader I dumped to start dating Ben, I've tended to gravitate toward brilliant men. However, he is brighter than I am and has the statistics to prove it: According to standardized tests way back when, his IQ is 154 and mine is only 145. That's nine whole points, you prick. Of course, we have to account for some of the pruning of brain cells we did in the '70s and '80s, which might have equalized things a bit, but according solely to the numbers, I'm his mental inferior.

Of course, you may be thinking. He's a lawyer, isn't he? You should expect him to be very intelligent. Well, no; that's not accurate. The California Bar is populated with a startling percentage of abject idiots, and as for the rest of them, for the most part they aren't so much intelligent as they are cagey.

However, I first met Ben when he was my boss for two months on a temp assignment, and it's true that he was pretty much the first attorney I'd ever worked for where I didn't secretly think I was smarter than he was. For once I wasn't thinking You should be sitting in here drafting my points and authorities, and could you please, please try to grasp the proper use of the comma? So I guess I should have seen it coming. What I didn't see coming was what an insufferable know-it-all -- insufferable prick -- he can be. Worse, I'm probably not much better.

He is more well-read than I am. This is particularly goading because my bachelor's is in English literature, whereas he majored in something reprehensible related to business or economics, and his postgraduate degrees are an MBA and a JD. Not a liberal arts degree in sight. Yet that prick is far better versed in history and literature than I am. It's true that he's a little weak on modern American literature and to some extent on Shakespeare, but he's well versed in Chaucer and has plowed through more DH Lawrence and Tolstoy than I ever managed to do.

However, being well-read doesn't make him a total prick. On our first date, Ben completely charmed me by announcing that James Joyce's Ulysses was "gibberish". I squealed with delight. "That's exactly what I've always thought!" I crowed. Do you know how much time I spent, as an undergrad in English, listening to people have on about how brilliant and profound Joyce's works are, and Ulysses in particular? The entire time, I was thinking what a bunch of incomprehensible bullshit it was; but Ben was the first person I ever met who dared to say it. Besides, a guy who discusses Joyce on the first date instantly makes a girl like me weak in the knees. I vowed immediately to have sex with him whenever possible and to spend a ton of time with him, even though he is absolutely not meant to know more about literature than I do, and therefore he is a prick.

He is instinctively condescending. This must be a corollary of being smarter than everyone else; during conversations with me, even after all these years, he will automatically launch into explanations of the most axiomatic concepts of science or sociology. Well, maybe not axiomatic to the coke-addled trust fund babies he hung out with at Beverly Hills High, but axiomatic to anyone with the mental wherewithal to think beyond series TV and French Vogue. It makes me nuts: Don't you condescend to me, you prick, I tell him. I don't have big enough tits to be a bimbo. And then I blow him a Bronx cheer, flip him the bird, and kiss him, and we continue our conversation.

He invariably beats me at backgammon. In my undergrad days, I was pretty damned good. Scott and I used to play everyone in his dorm, and although I would lose a few games from time to time, I could beat all the guys fairly routinely. That is, until that prick Ben came along. It's not that I lose to him once in a while -- he beats me every single goddamned fucking time, without exception. Clearly there is some sort of bad magic at work, there; you could play a series of games with a chimp, and statistically speaking, at some point the chimp would have to win. It drives me absolutely insane, and I have been known to pout and say I'm not playing anymore and stomp off like any three-year-old. Because I am just not meant to lose like that, is why.

His sense of humor is even more offensive than mine is. And that is really saying something, because I have an appalling sense of humor; I have had female acquaintances who have completely stopped speaking to me because of some obscene and/or misogynistic joke I've told. Which is stupid, really; as Steve Martin's character pointed out in the movie My Blue Heaven, most people think they have good senses of humor, but they don't, really. Anyone who would be offended by a joke about how a pregnant woman is different from a light bulb (you can unscrew a light bulb) just isn't made for this world and should go hide in a shoebox.

Ben, though, has some material so shocking that he can make even me howl in protest: Honey, that is just plain wrong, and no one should ever say that. I mean, you are talking about actual sex with animals, for crying out loud. Does this stop him? It does not, because he is a prick, and part of his amusement in telling these jokes is in watching people run screaming for the exits. (In fact, he confessed to me that he used to deliberately say appalling things on first dates, in order to screen out girls who would find his sense of humor intolerable. Which turned out, he says, to be almost all of them.)

A large portion of his material is original, and almost all of it is pretty startling. These are a couple of the cleanest, most printable examples I can think of:

One day he burst into song, his own take on that little Peter Paul Mounds/Almond Joy advertising jingle. You remember. Sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don't. Except Ben's version was:

Sometimes a dick's in your butt
Sometimes it's not.

Do you see what I mean? People just don't go about saying things like that. They certainly don't expect to hear other people say them. And Ben, that prick, enjoys playing these things for shock value.

Another story I found appalling was a famous prank he and his friend Bob (whose sense of humor is so disgusting that he makes Ben look like a Sunday school teacher) played on another guy. They gave him the Elephant Walk. I don't know; maybe all guys do this; but it involves turning both your front pockets inside out, opening your fly, pulling out your unit, and walking menacingly toward someone. You see? Pockets = elephant ears. Penis = trunk. Horrifying.

Worse, as you see, Ben's shtick tends to be terribly gay, which also raises disturbing questions. My husband is as heterosexual as they come (except for a suspicious affection for Rock Hudson/ Doris Day movies), but he knows the shock value of appearing gay, and he isn't afraid to do it, and he loves how it makes people uncomfortable. See? Total prick.

Finally, I can't stay mad at him for more than a minute. This really cheeses me off. Several times I've had good and righteous reasons to be extremely pissed off at him, like the time he stood me up for a dinner date and went and sat in a bar for two hours before he remembered to call me, or the time the first year we were married when he went away to Lake Nacimiento for the weekend and didn't tell me until I saw his water ski in the back of the car, whereupon he announced that he was leaving in ten minutes and that I was staying home to feed and walk the dog and let in the repairmen.

You see? Real prick maneuvers. Yet on each occasion, just as I was asserting my righteous indignation, he said something to totally crack me up and charm me. "Fuck you," I used to tell him. "I'm so fucking pissed off at you right now, I'm going to go off and start making voodoo dolls. Now could you please stop being so fucking endearing for a minute so I can get on with that?" Prick. And then he would grin at me, and say something funny, and kiss me, and thus get himself completely out of trouble.

I think you can agree he's a prick. But, you know, it's like I said. All the really good ones can be pricks at times. It's all a matter of whether they make it worth your while.

The Academy Would Like To Thank.
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: The Tao of Ben
The Academy would like to thank my husband for a brilliant performance, a truly disarming acceptance speech, and for being such a good sport about the fact that the slow smouldering passion of our courtship has given way to "Hey, we could boink" delivered in a conspiratorial whisper while watching the Oscar wrap-up after the boys are asleep.

Ben Crumpacker, you of the prodigiously prolific semen: Take a bow.

Soul, Mate.
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: The Tao of Ben
To borrow a word from my friend AB, there are about a frillion reasons why Ben is absolutely the guy for me. These reasons crop up every day, usually in very routine aspects of day-to-day life. Which, as I've said before, is exactly where love's true colors are found.

Yesterday I found myself coming down with just a real ornery sort of coughing, congested headachey cold/flu type of thing. Just butt ugly. It was the start of a three-day weekend, so my office closd early, and I went straight to bed with a mug of tea, a bottle of cough syrup and the remote control. Ben offered to pick up the boys so I could rest.

So I took to bed, and the whole family wound up congregated up there, and we watched TV, and I blew my nose and swigged cough syrup, and eventually everyone wound up falling asleep.

And so it was that I found myself up all alone at 2:30 a.m., sniffling, coughing and suddenly realizing that I must have chugged too much cough syrup. It was Robitussin; Dr. Sears said the active ingredient was okay during pregnancy; I hadn't thought much about it. But cough syrup? If you overdo it? Can affect you sort of strangely. What I'm saying is it gets sort of hallucinogenic.

So here I am, essentially tripping on cough syrup all alone in the dead of night. And I'm thinking well, this is a buzz I would have paid good money for 25 years ago, but now it really is kind of a pain in the ass, and here I am sick besides. And then Ben woke up.

I told him what was wrong, and he hugged me and told me I was goofy. And do you know what he did? He hunkered down and kept me company. With our two sons snoozing away in bed beside us, we cuddled up on the bed, whispering and talking in the dark, and flipped through all 400 channels in our premium digital cable lineup before deciding to chuck all that and put in the VHS of Things To Come (1936), an Art Deco science fiction glimpse into the future. Is there anything so cool as the vintage future?

After a couple of hours of watching that, holding hands and saying "cooool" a lot, we heard a thunderstorm approaching outside. Which might not be much to you, but in Southern California, they're remarkable events -- you might see one in a ten-year period, maybe not. So we opened the blinds and sat there listening to the thunder and watching the lightning together at 5 a.m. And then we went back to bed. It was the most time alone we've had together in a very long time, completely not romantic or planned or even very interesting. But oh my God, so friendly and comforting and cozy.

How cool is to be married to your best friend? Who else will sit up with you and keep you company on your stupid cough syrup trip and watch '30s movies with you in the dead of night and hold your hand and giggle with you and think lightning is as cool as you do? I never have to explain or defend or excuse or pretend with Ben. He just inhabits this life with me, day in and day out, there when I need him, no questions asked. Oh my dear goodness, so lucky am I.

He's The Damn Paterfamilias!
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: The Tao of Ben
Tomorrow is Ben's and my fifth wedding anniversary. Ben is not the sort of guy who is interested in hearts and flowers and lyrical pronouncements of love; he is a pragmatic, no-nonsense, salt-of-the earth kind of guy. He is amazing and I cannot describe him, although these phrases spring to mind: A Mensa member with a penchant for doo-doo jokes. A Renaissance Man with a whoopee cushion.

He is also a fantastically low-key husband. Low-key all around; he doesn't make a lot of demands, nor does he make showy displays of love. What he does do is show up every single day, cooking food, reading stories, taking out the garbage, wiping bottoms, laughing, making wisecracks, hugging me when I feel fat, giving me breaks when I feel tired, and being just generally all-around present in the household, with the boys and at my side. For that, you can keep the dozen roses and boxes of chocolate. Roses won't rock the babies to sleep. Chocolates won't make me giggle when I'm sad and weary.

So raise a glass to my husband, and thank God or whomever that there are men like him in the world. He's the why and the wherefore, the center of my life, the father of my kids, my one true love. Love you bunches, honey. I never could have guessed, as a little girl, that when my knight in shining armor finally showed up, he'd have a handful of fake dog doo and a gag arrow through his head. And I'm not complaining a bit. He's bona fide!

Res Judicata.
Mood:  sharp
Topic: The Tao of Ben
More insights from my husband:

There is a legal concept called res judicata. That's Latin, of course, as we pretentious legal types tend to use. What it means is that once a matter has been litigated and determined on the merits, it can't be litigated again. So the legal determination of a matter, we say, has res judicata effect.

In the Scott Peterson trial, evidence was introduced showing that after Laci's death, Scott had purchased the Playboy channel, but shortly thereafter cancelled it and bought a harder-core porn channel instead. All alone in that house with a porn channel. We all know what he was up to. This evidence was not contradicted or rebutted in any manner.

Therefore, it's res judicata that Scott Peterson is a jerkoff. Ewwwwwww. Most men are wankers -- I mean, scratch that. All men are wankers. But the fact that Scott Peterson is a wanker is a matter of public record and therefore subject to judicial notice. Hee!