Friday Recommends With Great Hesitation: Semen Analysis

Pete Campbell always gets to home base.

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Since Erin and I have been trying to have a baby for several months now, I agreed to get a semen analysis last week.¹ This is not something I imagined when I thought about the steps toward fatherhood. What man assumes he is fertilely defective?

The first embarrassing thing I did was walk into the wrong office. The lobby I entered had three sets of couples seated together: holding hands, talking quietly, smiling or staring at the floor. I walked past them to the front desk.

The woman behind the desk was drinking Diet Coke through a straw and reading People magazine.

“Hi, I’m Ben Vore and I have a 9:30 appointment for …” I didn’t finish the sentence.

She leaned in and finished it for me. “For a semen analysis?” she said in a whisper that was louder than normal talking. Behind me I imagined the men shaking their heads, thinking, Poor guy.

But am I really a poor guy? According to WebMD, “Up to half of all cases of infertility involve problems with the man.” What’s more, “Doctors arbitrarily diagnose infertility when a couple hasn’t conceived a child after 12 months of unprotected and frequent sex.” We’ve hardly been trying for 12 months. This was more of a preemptive test for peace of mind. (WebMD notes, “Male infertility testing can also spare women unnecessary discomfort and expense.” What husband doesn’t want to spare his wife unnecessary discomfort — lack of insurance coverage be damned?)

“You’re in the wrong place,” the woman informed me. “You’ll want to go back out those doors, turn right and go down the hall. The lab is the last door on your left.”

I exit gracefully.

The lab is tucked away at the end of the hall. I think of the mutant toys from Sid’s room in Toy Story, hidden away in the dark corners. I am not a mutant toy.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture what the room where I would ejaculate into a tiny cup at nine thirty in the morning would look like. It turns out to be like a mini-hotel room. There is a couch with, disconcertingly, a folded white bed sheet. A TV with built-in DVD player sits on a small cabinet. A radio is next to it, preset to white noise volume on an AM station. There is a lamp on an end table with a miniature wicker drawer where I am told to leave my cup. In the corner of the room is a nook with a sink and clothes hamper.

My doctor says, “When you’re done, just give me the thumbs up as you leave.” He gives me a thumbs up as if I need a visual reminder. Then he shuts the door.

I am left alone in a room with more pornography than I have ever seen in my life. Next to the TV is a DVD entitled Whispering Horses. (See “Correction.”) There is a stack of Playboy magazines in a bin below the end table. It is 9:38 a.m.

I have never watched a porno. (Magazines were a different story.) I have friends for whom this is an astonishing fact, and I have friends for whom this is not an astonishing fact at all. My first experience not-watching a porno was in seventh grade at my friend Aaron’s house. When it was clear what was being put into the VHS player, my hairless twelve-year-old armpits began sweating. On one hand I was intensely curious about what was going to be on that tape. On the other, I already knew the shame and guilt that would come with watching it. I was a very conflicted twelve-year-old.

I ended up not watching. First I sat facing away from the TV, then I pretended to sleep. My friends thought it odd I wasn’t joining them, but they didn’t pressure me. They were my friends.

Even though I didn’t watch the porno, I still felt riddled with guilt. I ended up telling my parents that we had watched a porno at the sleepover, only I said it in a way that implied I had taken part. Why did I do this? I think because I wanted to feel “normal” (every guy wanted to watch this, right?), and because I felt like I needed to be scolded.

What was clear to me even then was that lust was not love. My conception of the two was mutually exclusive. I subscribed to a sort of sexual gnosticism: lust, fully bad, was also the route that offered pleasure; love, fully good, was the route that offered the endgame of chaste, sexless thrills (like side hugs or eternal cheek kissing). I, of course, would be doomed to love. At the age of twelve, I believed I would marry a nice, smart, kind, compassionate — and forever homely — girl. I firmly believed this.

“What are you going to do?” Erin asked me after I agreed to the semen analysis.

“I think I’ll figure it out,” I said.

“But, like … how? I mean, what will you think about?”

We had just finished a series with our junior high youth group about sex, and pornography and masturbation had been topics of much conversation among the men. The irony of my situation was not lost on me.

I had been advised to remain abstinent for two to five days prior to my appointment, a task I (we) failed. At around 9:44 a.m., I realized this might be a problem. I didn’t have much in the tank.

At that point I put in Whispering Horses. It had the opposite effect: I am — and I thank God for this, though I wanted to curse him at that moment — someone who is not turned on by pornography. The magazines did not work either. I couldn’t not picture those women as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers.

I kept thinking, “You cannot fail at this. You cannot fail at this.”

At 9:53 a.m., I acknowledged that I was going to fail at this.

When I passed my doctor’s office on the way out, he looked at me expectantly. I gave him the thumbs down.

“Oh,” he said.

We rescheduled the appointment. I was told I could not be refunded my money but that I wouldn’t be charged for a second visit. This seemed fair to me.

I left Erin a voice mail informing her of my failure.

“Honey, it’s ok,” she said when she called back. “You don’t have to go back again.”

I gave this some thought. “No, I can do it,” I told her.

A little later in the conversation she said, “This would be kind of a funny blog post. Too bad we can’t write about it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Too bad.”

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1. The original version of this post did not have Pete Campbell’s picture, but upon watching episode 5 of season 2 of “Mad Men” this morning (“The New Girl”), we couldn’t help ourselves.

Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

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I (Ben) doubt anyone who read Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius when it came out questioned that Eggers was capable of a tremendous literary career. But I also doubt anyone would’ve predicted that, within a decade, he’d have written a book like What Is The What, a novel based on the life of Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng. Both books are high-wire acts, beautifully executed. But whereas Heartbreaking was hilarious, show-offy, postmodern and abrasively clever — a battle royale between brutally self-conscious irony and genuine sincerity  – What Is The What was an entirely different animal: disciplined, subtle, unaffected, and, yes, heartbreaking. The guy has range.

With Zeitoun, Eggers has written something even greater. Although it is undisguised non-fiction, Zeitoun shares many similarities with What Is The What — the story of an American immigrant, facing exceptional circumstances past and present, whose story says something bigger about America today. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a New Orleans painter and contractor who stayed behind in the wake of Hurricane Katrina while his wife Kathy and their children fled for Baton Rouge. Eggers sketches out Zeitoun’s childhood in Syria and his immigration to America to reveal a hard-working, enterprising and humane man. Eggers also captures an honest account of the Zeitoun’s unconventional marriage. They are equal partners in their family-run business, as committed to their clients and employees as they are to one another and their family.

Except when their clients cross a line: One woman repeatedly berates Kathy (the phone contact) for a painting team that has not met her standards, even though it has gone above and beyond the terms of agreement. After Kathy tearfully relays the conversation to Zeitoun, he rushes to the worksite and pulls his team out, mid-job. When the woman’s husband questions what is going on, Zeitoun calmly says that no one talks to his wife that way, and that the job is done.

On another occasion, a client ( “a Southern belle in her sixties”) calls Kathy in a panic when the painting crew arrives at her house. “I don’t like these men,” she tells Kathy.

“What’s wrong with ‘em?” Kathy asked.

“They’re swarthy,” she said. “I only want white people working on my house.” She said it like she was choosing a kind of dressing for her salad.

“White people?” Kathy laughed. “Sorry, we’re fresh out of those.”

Eggers adds, “Every so often, would-be clients could not get past Zeitoun’s last name. They would call for an estimate and ask Kathy, ‘Zeitoun, where’s that name come from? Where is he from?’ And Kathy would say, ‘Oh, he’s Syrian.’ Then, after a long pause or a shorter one, they would say, ‘Oh, okay, never mind.’ It was rare, but not rare enough.”

After the levees were breached, Zeitoun used a canoe to paddle around the neighborhood and check on his sites. He finds people stranded on their roofs and brings them water and food. He finds dogs left in their cages, crazed with starvation, and delivers them meat. He rescues a large, elderly woman clinging to a bookshelf for over twenty-four hours to stay afloat. Zeitoun and a friend find a way to hoist her into the canoe. They certainly saved her life. (The fan boats patrolling the neighborhoods would have drowned out the woman’s cries. Only by canoe could a would-be rescuer have heard her.)

While Zeitoun says his prayers in the morning, rescues lives by day and sleeps in a tent on his roof by night, Kathy panics in Baton Rouge at the images on TV. New Orleans is being overrun by looters. The water is becoming toxic with waste and chemicals. There are supposed murders and rapes taking place at the Superdome. Kathy and Zeitoun talk once a day by phone, and she pleads for him to leave. Zeitoun firmly believes God has kept him in New Orleans for a reason. He tells her he will stay.

Then Zeitoun and three others are arrested, in one of Zeitoun’s rental houses. They are given no reason; an armed man barely glances at Zeitoun’s ID. The four are transported to an abandoned Greyhound terminal where they are handcuffed and strip-searched. Zeitoun asks if he can make a phone call. He is denied. Then the four are moved to a staging area of outdoor fence-link cages, much like a kennel. (It is dubbed “Camp Greyhound.”) They are thrown inside without explanation. Unruly prisoners are tear-gassed. Meals frequently consist of pork, which Zeitoun, a devout Muslim, resists.

It gets worse. I was obsessed with following Katrina coverage, but I read nothing about the makeshift prisons or what happened to looters, looting being what Zeitoun was ultimately charged with. Another such suspect: Merlene Maten, a seventy-three year old diabetic who checked into a hotel prior to the storm. Days later when she went to get food from her car, police arrested her for suspected looting. She too was sent to Camp Greyhound, where she — like the others — slept on concrete. She later spent two weeks at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women before being freed.

The elemental disaster of Katrina — the storm itself, the flooding, the submerged houses, the bodies floating face down — has been well-documented. The images are impossible to shake. The human disaster — what happened to Zeitoun, who became nameless and faceless, unable to contact his family, detained under uncertain jurisdiction, suspected of terrorist acts, an outsider during a precarious moment of American paranoia — is what Eggers brilliantly, infuriatingly captures. What’s most impressive is the way he does it. Zeitoun is a hopeful book, free of cynicism. It is straightforward and matter-of-fact. Eggers, who was criticized for fictionalizing Deng’s voice in What Is The What, disappears from the story at the same time he establishes himself as a master storyteller. He uses none of Heartbreaking’s tricks to tell this particularly heartbreaking, but ultimately redeeming, story. That, like Zeitoun’s life itself and how he survives a nightmare ordeal, is a remarkable achievement.

Special Matthew Leathers Edition of Friday Recommends: It’s a Surprise!

Guest blogger Matthew Leathers, left, with one-time fiance Zooey Deschanel.

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by MATTHEW LEATHERS

When I was  contacted by Ben “Black Hammer” Vore to be a guest blogger, I was instantly thrilled. To be in such a regal fraternity with luminaries like Scooter Thomas and Jeremy Piven is a tremendous honor, something to tell your grandmother about (Her response? “Get out of the way, you’re blocking Gossip Girl”). I had been handpicked, plucked from the depths of the vast Voreblog community, to show the world that I’m somebody, somebody with a special purpose. My mind raced — my topic of choice had to be top-notch. This was to be a make-or-break turning point in my blogging career. Hit one out of the park here and I’d be on a gravy train with biscuit wheels. But strike out with the bat on my shoulder? That leads to a one-way ticket back to obscurity, i.e., commenting on Dane Cook’s MySpace page.

The first step is knowing your audience. What is the first thing you notice when visiting Voreblog? An unhealthy obsession with Lost and pooping? Certainly, but do they define the blog? If aliens stumble upon these pages centuries from now, would they file them under “Cleansings, Colon”? No, sirs and madams, I don’t believe so. What’s numero uno here is the relationship between a man and a woman. Voreblog is about love, perhaps more specifically it is about marriage. If my post was to be fully embraced, then I had to talk about marriage.

This was supposed to be a “Friday Recommends” post, though. As one of the few, so it seems, unmarried visitors, what could I possibly recommend about marriage? Well, nothing, really, and that’s exactly what led to my topic — I was to recommend not getting married. Ever. A counter argument was to be given for the three single people that frequent this blog. And I’m certainly qualified to give this donnybrook, because I’ve never been married. Not even for a second. I had it all planned out. This was to be my crowning achievement, my No Jacket Required. I was going to mindfreak the Voreblog universe, ya’ll. And it was going to be the tits, pardon my acid tongue.

This was not to be a diatribe against marriage — I have several good friends in happy unions — but a mere presentation of another path toward, well, if you don’t mind the City Slickers reference, toward finding your smile. The defining paragraph was to be anchored by my friends Danny and Erin, both months away from thirty, happily together for close to a decade with no plans of getting hitched in this lifetime. They were my Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, my Brangelina, my Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, my Nicole Richie and that one guy from that band I hate. They were regular people in love that didn’t want to get married. I was going to totally contradict Beyonce by telling you to love her and NOT to put a ring on it.

But then something happened.
I went to visit them in D.C. for the weekend, and not five minutes into our conversation, Danny goes, “Hey, Erin, show Matthew your hardware.” I immediately thought this meant, “Erin, take off your shirt.” Yes, it would have been just as strange for them to suddenly be swingers, but not nearly as strange as what actually happened. Instead, Erin flashed me a diamond ring and a big smile. Danny had casually popped the question a few days prior (by “casually,” I mean he asked her during an episode of Seinfeld while both were in their pajamas) and, shockingly, she had said yes. After years of pooh-poohing the idea of marriage, they were now suddenly drafting an invite list right in front of me. Jaw, I’d like you to meet Floor.

I had it all mapped out in my mind. I was going to talk about being young and single in NYC, and I was going to make all you “marrieds” jealous. But now? It seems like a sham, a travesty, and a mockery. A traveshamockery. I could have still carried on with the idea, told stories of late nights with the huddled singles, yearning to be free, but now it just seems kind of wrong. I’m legitimately happy for Danny and Erin; therefore, I can’t argue against something I support.

So what do I recommend? Do Not Cross Voreblog.

Somehow, through voodoo, mind control, or just flat out chicanery, they sabotaged my plan. They found me out, and my idea became a casualty of the game. It had to get got, I suppose. How they convinced my friends to get engaged, I’ll never know. I assume waterboarding was involved, but Voreblog does not torture, or so they say. I’m letting sleeping dogs lie, though. I’m not about to rattle any cages here. What’s done is done and I’m moving on.

So next time you think about dissing Mad Men, think twice. Or Don Draper will bone your mom. I don’t care if he’s a fictional character, Voreblog will make it so, believe me.

The Vores Go Zoolander

On Saturday, August 22nd, Ben and Erin gave each other the gift of a lifetime in honor of their fifth anniversary. A baby? No. A membership to the cheese-of-the-month club? Guess again. Any number of communicable diseases? No siree. A photo shoot with the fabulously talented Jenny Beck (a Columbus-based photographer and sister of Erin’s friend from Miami, Kelly)? You betcha! Jenny took photos in three locations: our back patio, Pioneer Park in Montgomery, and the United Dairy Farmers in Blue Ash.

Behold the creative power of Jenny’s lens:

Thank you so much for spending time with us, Jenny!  We had so much fun and think you could take Annie Leibovitz any day.

Check out Jenny’s work here.

Friday Recommends: Five Year Anniversaries

We think we’ll try celebrating one today!

This Day In Vore History: July 20, 2003

Part four of a four-part series recounting the romantic origins of Voreblog. Parts one, two and three.

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You may know a lot of things about Donald Trump, but you probably didn’t know he has a board game. Trump: The Game was a gift to Ben from his grandmother back around 1989, the giving of which appalled Ben’s mom. “But he loves to play board games,” Grandma said in her defense. “Mom, it’s a game about Donald Trump,” my mom retorted. “Do you want your grandsons to grow up like Donald Trump?” Grandma paused as if considering the correct answer to this question, saying finally, “It just looked like Monopoly to me.”

The game’s slogan, emblazoned right there on the front, is, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but whether you win!” Below a picture of The Donald is his signature, with what appears to be at least four m’s in his last name.

When Ben packed up his apartment to leave Pittsburgh in July of 2003, he put Trump: The Game in his backseat underneath boxes and boxes of books. It was still there when he arrived at camp later that month, and so he decided it could be good for a few laughs.

——————–

Erin left Nashville three days early, on July 17, for third term at Summer’s Best Two Weeks. She would be going back as the kitchen crew counselor for two terms — one month — and was kicking it off by spending time with Ben in State College before they both showed up for camp. The plan was to meet Ben in Pittsburgh, where he and most of his worldly possessions would be packed in his car, waiting to ship out. Ben’s first contact with Erin that day had been a cell phone conversation in a hospital. Ben was there visiting one of his youth group kids when the phone rang. Ben answered it in the hall. Erin was somewhere outside Wheeling — be there in about an hour. A nurse passing by informed Ben he couldn’t talk on his cell phone in the hospital. This was news to Ben as he had just purchased his first cell phone the week before. “I’ve gotta go,” he told Erin. “A nurse is yelling at me.” He went back into the room and watched a family he had grown very close with try to make small talk as everyone awaited a doctor. Not for the first time, Ben felt guilt at the kids he was leaving behind. He also felt guilty that he should be so excited to leave.

——————–

Erin and Ben arrived at camp on Saturday the 19th for dinner. It was a cookout, and since it was between terms there were only other counselors. They caught up with friends and filtered into the crowd, and at one point Ben found himself standing in a circle of guy friends looking across the lawn at Erin standing in a circle of girl friends. They had just spent two days together, and yet suddenly she had eluded him again. Ben watched a tall, athletic counselor cross paths with Erin, and after they shook hands he stood there nodding his head as Erin talked, looking tall and athletic and dangerous. Out of nowhere, Ben was filled with jealousy bordering on hostility.

Ben was walking back to his cabin when Erin caught him from behind. “Hey, where you going?” she asked. “Just back,” Ben said. “Gotta unpack.” “I was thinking it’d be good to, you know, pray together before the term if you wanted to do that,” Erin said. Ben stopped and considered this. “I think I’d like to do that,” he said.

Later that night, after dark and once the stars over Boswell, Pennsylvania, came out in a fashion far superior to that of either Nashville or Pittsburgh, Ben and Erin walked around Lake Gloria to the zip boat dock near the rope swing. It was the same place where, a year before on that same Saturday night, Ben had sat alone in prayer about the upcoming term. It was the following day that he met Erin Beers.

What they prayed about that night, neither remembers exactly, except that Ben was still on anti-malarial meds from his trip to Quito, Ecuador, the prior month. The pills were an unholy combination with Ben’s other meds, and on the nights he took them he had terrible fever dreams. He would wake up shaken and disoriented as if he had inherited a different brain overnight. Slowly everything would come back to him, but not without a toll. He asked for prayer for that.

It was a hard transition for Ben in other ways. It was his seventh year at camp, and yet the minute he arrived on site, tailing Erin’s Jeep, he was wracked with anxiety, as if it was his first summer all over again. The first day there he wondered if he could summon the strength and confidence to get through the day, much less the two weeks. Sitting on the dock that night, he found it hard to believe he couldn’t find peace in a moment like that one.

——————–

The kitchen crew is virtually the only place at Summer’s Best Two Weeks where guys and girls intermingle. Every high schooler working crew gets the “relationship” speech at the beginning of the term: You’re here for God, not a date. This is only a slight variation on the speech counselors get at the beginning of the summer. Once the speech is given, however, a moderate degree of harmless flirting is tolerated, checked when necessary with one-on-one interventions with serial flirters.

The Loveline was another way of channelling attraction into the relatively harmless confines of the written page. At the O.D. (Officer of the Day) Shack, every counselor had a clothespin with his or her name on it. Fellow counselors could pin an encouraging note any time of day. The lines that held these pins up practically coursed with both the low hum of modest admiration to the full throttle buzz of repressed sexual tension.

One benefit of being a high school crew member was that you also had access to Lovelines. There was only one drawback: You did not have your own clothespin, only the generic “Boys Crew” and “Girls Crew.” There was no way to pen a heartfelt and faintly suggestive Loveline without the near certainty that it would be screened by, if not two counselors, then any number of fellow crew interlopers who circled the shack before and after meals like buzzards.

The primary way around this strategy was to encourage everyone to write a Loveline to each member of the opposite crew. These letters would be group efforts, and both guys and girls had the same idea: If, for example, Heather liked Andy, then all the girls would help write/decorate Andy’s letter, but it would fall to Heather to add just the right personal touch or coded phrase which would communicate her true feelings in a discreet but unmistakable way.

Now add one more layer: Not only were crew members engaged in this meticulous game of epistolary romance, but the crew counselors who were artfully stoking these young passions were also playing the same game. Not that long after they began dating, Ben and Erin would both remark how weird it was to talk through their feelings as opposed to writing them down on a tiny scrap of paper in some coy or amusing way.

That particular term in 2003 it was the boys crew who launched the first wave of Lovelines. Trying to think of a creative way to write the letters, crew member Evan saw Trump: The Game sitting underneath Ben’s bunk. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Evan said. He opened it up, took out some Trump Money and passed it around.

“What’s this for?” someone asked.

“Fellas,” Evan said, “a wise man once said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose, but whether you win.’ It’s time to win some lonesome hearts.”

He removed a pink $50 million dollar bill and wrote on the back of it: $50 MILLION IN TRUMP MONEY < ANNIE

“Gentleman,” he said, “Annie will be putty in my hands.”

The men launched into the Lovelines with a fury. Once they were done, Ben and the boys sauntered — no, make that swaggered — down to the O.D. Shack before dinner that night and pinned a mammoth stack of Lovelines for the girls crew. They were early so they could get a head start on the pre-meal chores that often fell to the (more enterprising) girls. When the ladies arrived on time they were all beaming and laughing, little notes in their palms or tucked in their pockets. The guys played it low key and saved their grins for when the girls weren’t looking. Ben did the same.

——————–

“The price of a Las Vegas casino in ‘Trump’: $50 million. Working with you on crew? Priceless.”

———————

Unlike a year ago, Ben and Erin didn’t spend their day off together that term. Erin drove to Cincinnati for the day to attend the Sweeney’s wedding, while Ben went to see Seabiscuit by himself. You can probably guess who had a better time.

———————

“Dear Emily, thank you for the encouragement like on the dodge ball field and caring when I hurt my arm. If I could have you or 50 million dollars, I would choose you.”

———————

Ben and Erin thought they were being discreet. But two people falling in love are about as discreet as — to borrow Tess Gallagher’s phrase — “tigers answering questions about infinity with their teeth.” Will, the camp director and a man not given to inhibition, was talking with Ben and Erin about film when he asked if their taste in movies would be compatible in marriage. (Erin turned red and walked away in response.) Ben’s co-counselor Brad, who knew Erin from college, picked up on the signals pretty quick. And one night in the girls cabin, a girl named Liz Lackey said to Erin, “So, Ben Vore is moving to Nashville.” “Yes, I think he is,” Erin replied. “And you live in Nashville.” “Yes, I do live in Nashville.” “So … do you think, like, you and Ben will hang out?” There were giggles. The cat was out of the bag.

———————

“We ♥ girls crew! (like whoa)”

——————–

What Ben and Erin remember about the crew that term wasn’t especially remarkable. It was a fun group but not an extraordinary one. Nobody made any giant spiritual strides. There was friction between the guys all term long, but they worked hard when they needed to.

Erin would stay on for two more weeks while Ben went home to State College: to rest, to prepare for Nashville, to transition from one thing to the next. They wrote letters daily, and on Erin’s fourth term day off Ben drove to camp and they hung out in Greensburg for the day. As they went about day off hikes and Bruster’s ice cream stops and the obligatory chill time at Barnes & Noble, they looked at one another and saw two things at once: the couple they were becoming, and the couple they might be, together, for the long haul.

That night they kissed for the first time, in the Adventure Fort across the lake, where the eight- and nine-year-olds camped during their overnight trip. Erin was the fifth girl Ben had kissed in his life, and he hoped the last. Erin had kissed so many guys that she stopped counting.

———————

“If I had to choose between $50 million and working with you, you would find me in the kitchen, right next to you, letting Tim do all the work.”

——————–

On Friday, July 18, the day before Ben & Erin arrived at camp and prayed on the dock, there was a downpour in State College. Ben had taken Erin to Meyer’s Dairy for milkshakes, and they were driving home when it suddenly became quite dark overhead. “Looks like rain,” Erin said. “Looks like the flood,” Ben replied.

It was the flood. It hit suddenly and came down so hard that Ben had to pull over because he couldn’t see the road. A lightning strike sounded like it was directly overhead. Erin said quietly, “Are we going to die?” Ben wouldn’t realize until much later that she was not joking.

Ben’s house was fifteen minutes outside town, close to the county line, situated in a flood plain with a stream that winds around the property. When they arrived home there was a gulley pouring down off the mountain. The storm had lessened but the rain was still falling hard. The stream had risen above the bridge between the driveway and the house. The current was so strong it was pushing the right side of the bridge up, tilting it at a slight angle.

“What do we do?” Erin asked. She was holding two half gallons of Meyer’s skim milk. Neither of them were wearing a rain jacket.

Ben said, “Here. Give me those.” He took the milk jugs. The mountain run-off was above their ankles. “Now jump on.” He turned his back to Erin and crouched down.

She hoisted herself up for a piggyback. As soon as she was on, Ben handed her the milk. “Don’t drop these, okay?”

“Are you going to make it? Isn’t there another way across?”

“I’m afraid this is it.”

“You won’t drop me, will you?”

“I sure hope not.”

Ben waded down the steps to the base of the bridge. The water was up to his shins. He stepped onto the bridge and it held.

“I think we can do this,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Erin asked.

“I’m sure,” Ben said.

“Then let’s do it,” Erin replied.

One foot in front of the other, they crossed the bridge.

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Marriage And Our Rapid Decline Into Morbid Obesity

Couples who live together are more than twice as likely to become obese than those who live separately, new research shows. Penny Gordon-Larsen, associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, said … people living together – married or not – tended to eat meals together, possibly cooking bigger meals or eating out more often than they did when they were single.  - The Telegraph, June 12 

 

[Entry from Erin's journal, 8/14/04] 

Getting married today! I’m so glad I found a man who cares about his physical health as well as regular exercise and sensible eating. We agreed we’ll join the Y next month. (Couples discount!) I am certain that marriage will lead to a shared, lifelong commitment to healthy living!

[Entry from Ben's journal, 8/19/04]

We climbed Grouse Grind on day five of our honeymoon here in Vancouver. No taking it easy on the beach for us! 2.9 km basically straight up (a 853 meter elevation gain). For fun, we took the tram back down and then ran up the mountain the second time. Erin beat me by a nose, but we both clocked in under 40 minutes. I love a woman who’s in better shape than I am!

[Entry from Erin's journal, 9/14/04]

One month down! Marriage is off to a good start, although I’m eating more than I anticipated. Need to remind myself that I don’t need to keep up with Ben. Also to keep my portion sizes down. I know I can do it!

[Entry from Ben's journal, 10/21/04]

Weighed in at 180 this morning, up 15 lbs. from wedding day. I guess we have been eating out a lot lately. And it’s been harder to exercise than I thought. Next week I’ll definitely sign us up at the Y. 

[Entry from Erin's journal, 12/26/04]

Our first Christmas together as a married couple. Everything was beautiful. Ben did gorge himself on the Christmas turkey, then put back an entire pie for dessert. Father cheered him on for seconds and thirds but appeared repulsed after sixths and sevenths. I was brushing my teeth tonight when he got on the scale. I sneaked a look: 209 lbs. That’s up almost 50 from the wedding. Oh well. There’s more of him to love, I guess. 

[Entry from Ben's journal, 3/23/05]

We celebrated Erin’s birthday at Golden Corral. I thought it a curious choice until I saw the all-you-can-eat buffet. Two please! But while I found the restraint to stop after four trips, Erin went back for nine helpings. After the seventh I said, “Honey, maybe you should slow down and let things settle” when she snapped, “Maybe you should shut your trap, lardo — it’s my birthday!” When we got home she finished both Ben & Jerry’s pints in the freezer. I had been hoping for at least one of them.

[Entry from Erin's journal, 11/24/05]

Thanksgiving, our favorite day of the year! Despite the fact we’re both over 200 pounds now (Ben is pushing 300), we felt like we could indulge a little (or, in Ben’s case, a lot). It was poor taste for Ben to push my nephew Timmy out of the way for the last piece of pumpkin pie, but Timmy can be a brat sometimes. Mother said she was disturbed by the way Ben sat in the corner gnawing on that pile of turkey bones. “I thought you two were joining a gym,” she said. “What, and cut back on our ten hours of TV a day?” I shot back. On the way home we stopped at Honeybaked Ham and rooted through the garbage out back. Mmmmmmmm!

[Entry from Ben's journal, 1/1/06]

New Year’s Resolutions: 

1. Finally join the Y.
2. Get back under 430 pounds.
3. Fit into those stretch-waist pants again. 
4. Stop using those motorized carts to get around the mall. (Erin says it’s time to suck it up and just walk.)
5. Submit online application for The Biggest Loser.

Here’s to a healthier 2006!

[Entry from Erin's journal, 1/10/2006]

We adopted a cat! His name is Scooter Thomas and he makes us feel better because he’s a little rotund. Plus the vet said his percentage of body fat was 82%. No way we’ll ever get that obese!

[Entry from Ben's journal, 9/9/06]

Worst birthday ever. Erin (all sanctimonious because she hasn’t gained triple figures since January) suggested we just get the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday’s. “That’s a terrible appetizer, but okay,” I told her. That’s the whole meal, she said. “Ha ha,” I said. Fight ensued. Later we sat at separate tables at DQ and drowned our sorrows with ice cream cakes. I had seven.

[Entry from Erin's journal, 10/17/06]

Sometimes I look at Scooter Thomas and think he’s judging me. So what if I’m tipping the scales at 340? Still, maybe we shouldn’t have laughed so hard when his substantial girth prevented him from jumping on the bed. Confession: Some nights I can’t fall asleep because I’m afraid he’ll eat me.

[Entry from Scooter Thomas's journal, 10/18/06]

Boy do I have some fat owners. Their corpulence disgusts even me.

[Entry from Ben's journal, 11/16/06]

Woe is me. Mr. Scale says I’m 507 pounds. Stupid Know-It-All Scale. I thought I could hold off the 500 mark until at least December, but I guess going to White Castle every day for the past three months hasn’t helped. And darn Taco Bell and their “Fourth Meal”! I started setting my alarm at 2:40 a.m. so I can get a half dozen chimichangas before the drive-thru closes at 3. I wish they wouldn’t skimp on the salt though. 

[Entry from Erin's journal, 3/23/07]

I put my foot down and told Ben we had to join the Y. He said it’d be a birthday gift, so we went today but he couldn’t fit through the sliding doors. I inquired about local gyms with wider entrances. Little teenage punk working the desk gave me this holier-than-thou, I’m-not-410-pounds look before responding, “I think all entrances are the same size, m’am.” Outside, Ben had fallen down and couldn’t get up. I rolled him to the car and strapped him on top.

[Entry from Ben's journal, 7/6/07]

Terrible check-up. The doc said my body fat percentage is 103%! I told him I didn’t think that was possible. “Neither did I,” he said, shaking his head. He kept looking at the tests and furrowing his brow, then he looked at the CT scans and started dry-heaving. (I hate it when he does that.) I dread the thought of seeing Scooter Thomas tonight. He knows. He always knows.

[Entry from Erin's journal, 12/25/07]

Terrible Christmas. Family tensions are through the roof. Ben broke his chair when he sat down, which didn’t help. Worst moment: When Aunt Betty’s bowl of cranberry sauce disappeared and turned up twenty minutes later in the folds of Ben’s stomach. (Father was not pleased.) Later, while watching Family Man, somebody said, “Where’s Aunt Betty?” “Someone check Ben’s stomach flab,” Uncle Mort said. (I hate Uncle Mort.) A thorough search revealed Aunt Betty was not there, although we did find what looked like some half-eaten Cadbury eggs from Easter. Later Aunt Betty turned up in the couch cushions. (Ben accidentally sat on her.)

[Entry from Ben's journal, 5/1/08]

I can honestly say I didn’t expect marriage to be this hard. Or that 1000 pounds would make it so difficult to fit into the car. We bought a forklift to get me around town. I hate it that my cat judges me.

[Entry from Erin's journal, 9/2/08]

Oprah called. She wanted us to be guests on her show. “What’s it about?” I asked. “Couples who collectively weigh a ton,” she said. “Will there be hard questions and tears and forgiveness and reconciliation and more tears?” I asked. “You betcha,” she said. “Let me call you right back,” I said. I ran outside and couldn’t find Ben, but when I came back in he was rooting through the fridge. “You’ll never believe it!” I said. “We’re going to be on Oprah!” “Great!” he said. “I just have to call her back right away,” I said. “Oh,” Ben replied, suddenly looking downcast. “What is it?” I asked. “I ate the phone,” he said. 

[Entry from Ben's journal, 10/3/08]

Mr. High And Mighty Scale said I’m 1,593 pounds. I hate him. HATE him. I took him outside and ran over him with the tractor Erin uses to pull me around town. The last laugh is mine, jerkface!

[Entry from Erin's journal, 1/1/09]

New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Join the Y with or without fat ass husband.
2. Get back under 600 pounds.
3. Wipe that look of smug superiority off Scooter Thomas’s fat face.
4. Buy a bigger tractor and holding pen to transport Ben around town.
5. Apologize to Scooter Thomas. He looks too tasty to be mad at.

[Entry from Scooter Thomas's journal, 4/12/09]

My owners are going to eat me. Absolutely, positively no doubt in my mind. I fear for my life. 

[Entry from Ben's journal, 6/17/09]

Scooter Thomas ran away sometime last week. It’s a shame. I found a great grilled cat recipe. Guess I’ll have to eat the Cincinnati Zoo instead.

The Spiritual Fruits of Failure (or, Happy Easter!)

 

Our favorite Easter story is a strange one. It’s commonly known as The Road to Emmaus. Two men are walking on a road from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus two days after the Crucifixion. As Frederick Buechner says of these two, “There was nothing left to do that Sunday but get out of town.” In the margin of The Magnificent Defeat, the collection of Buechner’s sermons in which “The Road to Emmaus” appears, Ben scribbled “This place is dead anyways,” a reference to Swingers when Charles says that of every party just before he leaves. 

Buechner continues,

Where did [those two] go? They went to Emmaus. And where was Emmaus and why did they go there? It was no place in particular really, and the only reason that they went there was that it was some seven miles distant from a situation that had become unbearable. 

Do you understand what I mean when I say that there is not one of us who has not gone to Emmaus with them? Emmaus can be a trip to the movies just for the sake of seeing a movie or to a cocktail party just for the sake of the cocktails. Emmaus may be buying a new suit or a new car or smoking more cigarettes than you really want, or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred.

 

Emmaus, he concludes, “is where these two went, to try and forget about Jesus and the great failure of his life.”

“Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure,” Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her latest book, An Altar in the World. Spiritual failure might be an odd topic for Easter, but as Buechner says, the first mood of the day was despair. By every account Jesus had failed, and these two men did what we would have done, anyway: Get out of town. Move on to the next thing.

The story continues with a stranger joining the men on their walk. The reader is told it is Jesus, who eyewitnesses have already seen alive again, “resurrected.” But the two men don’t recognize him, even though they’ve heard the rumors of an empty tomb. The three of them walk all the way to Emmaus and the men still don’t recognize Jesus, even though he has talked with them the whole way, explaining the scriptures as they went. When they reach Emmaus, the men invite Jesus to join them for a meal. Only then, after Jesus breaks the bread and blesses it, do the men recognize him. And as soon as they do, he disappears.

Strange story. “All the stories about how Jesus appeared to people after his death are strange,” Buechner writes, “and the strangest thing about them is how unglamorous they are, how little fanfare there is about them.” What appeals to us so much about this story is where it happens: Emmaus, “the place” (sayeth Buechner) “that we go in order to escape.” But, he adds, “There are some things that even in Emmaus we cannot escape [and] it is precisely at such times as these that Jesus is apt to come, into the very midst of life at its most real and inescapable.” 

One of the things we love about Barbara Brown Taylor — aside from the fact she’s a terrific writer — is that she’s well acquainted with failure. We’re pretty sure she’s experienced “life at its most real and inescapable” more than a few times. “In my life,” she writes, “I have lost my way more times than I can count.

I have set out to be married and ended up divorced. I have set out to be healthy and ended up sick. I have set out to live in New England and ended up in Georgia. When I was thirty, I set out to be a parish priest, planning to spend the rest of my life caring for souls in any congregation that would have me. Almost thirty years later, I teach school. … I have found things while I was lost that I might never have discovered if I stayed on the path. … These are just a few of the reasons that I have decided to stop fighting the prospect of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead. The Bible is great help to me in this practice, since it reminds me that God does some of God’s best work with people who are truly, seriously lost.

 

We are people who have been truly, seriously lost. We’ve gotten lost pursuing so much of what we planned to do with our lives — write a book, see the world, play in the NBA, go West. We’ve gotten lost in our marriage. We’ve both struggled with mental illness, and while that has literally been a hell to go through, we’ve learned things about God we certainly would not have otherwise. We have come to many of our beliefs through our failures. The truth is, our story would be a strange one like Emmaus. We’ve been on that road many times before, and what we celebrate today is that even there God still found us. 

Does that mean we wake up every morning relishing a new day of failure? No. That would be perverted. But we’re learning to see our trials and our shortcomings as spiritual opportunities. We’ve wondered before if Christians shouldn’t be better at failure. Are we, the church, guilty of worshipping success? Because Jesus wasn’t an example of earthly success. He didn’t look much like anyone expected, which may have been why the two men didn’t recognize him either. They weren’t prepared to see him. They were looking for someone else.

Easter is an occasion for celebration, and it’s top dog on the Christian calendar. But before it was the Easter story, it was the Road to Emmaus. The Road to Emmaus is the Easter story. It contains within it both failure and redemption, faithlessness and belief, death and resurrection. It is, to our ears, a true story. And so we believe it.

Happy Easter.

Friday Recommends/Disrecommends: Starting and/or Finishing Movies Without Your Spouse

Today we tackle the sensitive marital topic of whether or not to finish watching a movie — by yourself — that you began watching with your spouse but did not finish. Or: Starting and finishing a movie — by yourself — that your spouse may have rented with the intent of watching it together. Or: Watching ahead on TV DVD sets. 

 

BEN: DISRECOMMENDS

Seriously, you can’t wait for me?

We began this journey together. I drove to Blockbuster and called to see if you wanted to watch Body of Lies, Ghost Town, Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Australia. You said you were in a light-hearted comedy mood, so I went with Ghost Town. What could go wrong with Ricky Gervais*? (Plenty, it turns out — but we’ll blame Greg Kinnear.)

We watched forty, maybe fifty minutes before you conked out on the couch. Who can blame you? It was bad. You were tired. We’d both put in a long day. We went to bed.

Then, three days later when I suggested we put our heads down and barrel through (it was due back that night), we started watching for five minutes when you got that sheepish, guilty look on your face. You said, “What if I told you…”

“That you’re PREGNANT??” I said. I was absolutely convinced those were the next words out of your mouth, while at the same time baffled that you would choose this moment, halfway through Ghost Town, which we both knew was terrible though neither of us had said that out loud yet, to tell me that Scooter Thomas would one day have a younger sibling.

No, you said. It’s just that I already watched this. Can I just tell you how it ends so neither of us has to suffer?

Oh, my lovely wife, I could overlook this if it had been the first time. But was it the first time? No. Was it the second time? Not even. How many times has this happened before? Let me count them:

• “Dexter,” Seasons 1 and 2
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• “30 Rock,” Seasons 1 and 2
• “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Seasons 2 and 3
• “Big Love,” Seasons 1 and 2
• “Extras,” Season 2
• “Prison Break,” Seasons 1 and 2
• The Faculty
• The Ballad of Jack & Rose
• “The Sopranos,” Seasons 1-6

 

Are you seeing a trend here?

Marriage is about being joined together. One flesh and all that. But what can I do when you’ve been going behind my back … with movies and TV shows I think I’m sharing with you for the first time? It’s so disillusioning. 

But I am of small account. I will proceed no further. I repent in dust and ashes.

 

ERIN: RECOMMENDS

I can’t help it that you work weird hours. I only have a narrow window of time when I get to relax. And see all those seasons of television.

You know how I am with surprises. I can’t wait! I want to know now! Birthday presents, Christmas presents, secrets — it’s torture! Why do you put me in a situation where I have to endure such temptation? 

Besides, I always watch them again with you. And you wouldn’t know any better if I didn’t tell you. It’s just that Ghost Town was so bad and I couldn’t bear watching it again. 

The real question is: Why are you such a slow-poke meanie?

If I waited for your lazy butt all the time, think of the movies and TV shows we’d never finish. (Answer: All of them.)

I’m like Bob Harper on “The Biggest Loser.” I’m pushing you to be your best. 

Also, when you come home from basketball on Wednesday nights you smell like The Swamp Thing’s crotch.

But I love you!

p.s. Your stromboli was much better tonight.

 

—–

* = Speaking of Ricky Gervais. (h/t Mark Hoobler)

A Twitter Recap of the Most Recent Argument in the Vore Household

We are aware that Twitter feeds usually read chronologically, from the bottom up, but we have inverted the format here for ease of reading.

goodhusband I’m going 2 be a good husband & make dinner 2night. I’m thinking stromboli

bettycrocker Ben must be trying 2 be a good husband 2night because he appears 2 be making something resembling stromboli

goodhusband Wife noticed I’m making stromboli! Bonus points

bettycrocker Husband is absolutely butchering whatever he thinks resembles stromboli

goodhusband Wife does not appreciate my slightly unorthodox stromboli-making technique

bettycrocker Do not appreciate my husband’s very wrong stomboli-making technique

goodhusband Wife will regret 4ever doubting my slightly unorthodox stromboli-making technique

bettycrocker Going 2 take over & prevent my husband from continuing 2 be wrong @ making stromboli

goodhusband Wife has misguided notion that I need help making stromboli. Might reconsider words coming out of her mouth right now

bettycrocker Groaning incredibly loudly so as to break my husband’s will & let me take over the stromboli-making

goodhusband Wife apparently does not want dinner 2night. I guess she is curious what starvation feels like

bettycrocker Husband could not fold dough properly if his life depended on it

goodhusband Wife will deeply regret ever doubting my ability 2 fold dough

bettycrocker Husband shows an appalling lack of concern 4 the insides which are spilling out of the stromboli

goodhusband I could put those insides back in the stromboli much more efficiently w/o my wife’s very loud groaning

bettycrocker Husband is acting like a stooge

goodhusband There, I have restored the insides to the stromboli. Now I will pinch down the sides like so

bettycrocker WHY IS MY HUSBAND PINCHING THE SIDES DOWN LIKE SO??

goodhusband MY WIFE NEEDS 2 GRASP THE FACT THAT IT WILL TASTE JUST FINE REGARDLESS OF HOW I PINCH

bettycrocker Will alert my husband 2 the disaster that is his folding technique by poking open a hole where it is poorly folded

goodhusband Wife is sabotaging the stromboli & needs 2 step away from the oven

scooterthomas When Mommy & Daddy fight I hide under the bed & cry

bettycrocker Husband is quite stingy w/ the garlic salt

goodhusband Wife apparently thinks garlic salt grows on garlic trees & that we need not worry abt garlic salt supply 4 rest of earth’s popul

goodhusband ation (whoops)

bettycrocker Husband is acting like a total stooge

goodhusband Will allow my wife 2 garlic salt the stromboli because she can sometimes be a total stooge

bettycrocker My husband can watch & learn from how I garlic salt this stromboli

goodhusband Was looking forward 2 having stromboli w/ my garlic salt tonight, so this will be wonderful

bettycrocker Glad I intervened & salvaged the stromboli. Husband will feel the same once he tastes how good it is

goodhusband Wife will deeply regret interfering w/ dinner when she tastes how good this stromboli will be. If I decide 2 let her eat any

[10 minutes pass]

bettycrocker Stromboli my husband prepared is actually pretty good!

goodhusband Wife has a way w/ sarcasm!

bettycrocker Husband does not appreciate my honesty and mistakes a genuine compliment 4 biting sarcasm

goodhusband Wife really thinks I did good! I am filled w/ joy & sunshine

bettycrocker Wonder if my husband will be so good as 2 cook stromboli 4 me again?

goodhusband Will have 2 think long & hard on this matter of whether or not I can ever cook stromboli for my wife again

bettycrocker I think Jeopardy is on now

goodhusband Agree w/ my wife that Jeopardy is on now

bettycrocker I don’t think Jeopardy is on this channel though

goodhusband I ask my wife what we will do about Jeopardy not being on this channel

bettycrocker I am going 2 groan really loudly

goodhusband I am going 2 make my wife stop groaning really loudly because I love her & I want to watch Jeopardy as well

bettycrocker I love my husband because he makes me stromboli & turns the channel 2 Jeopardy

goodhusband I love my wife but I am now going 2 crush her @ Jeopardy

bettycrocker I think my husband believes he will now crush me @ Jeopardy. Will have 2 disabuse him of that notion

scooterthomas My parents are watching Jeopardy so I’m going 2 go hide