I have made my bed, now I sleep in it – alone
I just woke up a few minutes ago. I had wildly disturbing dreams last night that, while not scary, were enough to wake me up with a 
on my face. As I woke up I realized that when I have trouble sleeping I love to roll over and cuddle with my wife. There is something about knowing she is there next to me that really supports who I am as a man. It is like having my support team, all wrapped up in that delicious package known as femininity, standing beside ready to stand shoulder to shoulder to take on whatever may come up.
Being alone sucks. Whether it is physical, mental, emotional or spiritual loneliness it sucks. It is contrary to who we are as people because people are not meant to be alone. God Himself said this in Genesis 3:18:
And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him."
I think this holds true for women as well. Which is where I tend to think that most trouble in relationship stems from. Men, on the whole, are not nearly as much into the emotional aspect of relationship as women are. Women, on the other hand, are not nearly as much into the physical aspect of relationship that men are. What can and often does end up happening is men and women pursue and give of their own need and totally miss the mark of their spouse's needs.
I am a perfect example of that. You can ask my wife on any day of the week if I am emotionally absent and she will loudly tell you yes. This is actually a huge area of discord for us because my wife is very needy (her words, not mine) emotionally and she expects a certain level of attentiveness from me and a certain amount of work in developing our emotional connection in our relationship.
Which probably explains why I sleep alone and have for more than five years. I have a strong longing for physical connection with my wife. I love to touch her. I love to feel her hair in my hands or the softness of her face in my neck. I love to rub her back and hold her hand. The few times she has done it I have loved when she sat in my lap. I love being physically close to my wife.
Unfortunately over time this has led to the outward appearance that I want my wife solely for the physical pleasure I can take from her. And while I love sex there is nothing quite like the nonsexual intimacy shared between a man and woman to make a man feel, well, manly. I love feeling like a "man and his bride". It almost personifies the marriage relationship. But somewhere along the line this entire side of my feelings was lost in translation and now basically says "You sat next to me on the couch or you held my hand so that means you want to have sex with me right now.".
Which I believe is what has led me to all the nights of owning both sides of my bed. I like to sleep close to my wife. If physical closeness is always related to sexual intentions then I would guess that leaves me as a wanton sexaholic that is using the bedroom as my breeding ground for sexual demands and deviance. All I want is some physical intimacy (not to be read as sex - I do want that too, but I am talking about intimacy without necessarily the act of sex). Actually, this is a need of mine, not a want. I need physical intimacy like my wife needs emotional intimacy.
So while she hungers I hunger. Together we are like two different ends of the same stick that are forever the same distance away from the center. It seems neither of us is able to bend much so I keep being emotionally absent, selfish and ungiving/uncaring while she keeps staying up to the wee hours of the morning and falling asleep on the couch.
Somewhere in this there is a lesson to learn. I have been trying to find that lesson the last five years. Hopefully soon I will figure it out so I can go about being married at home as much as I am in public. Man was not meant to be alone. Though at the moment I would bet that both my wife and I would tell you it feels like we were both destined to be.
How big is big?
Me: "I hate Internet Explorer. It can't even handle large tables."
Me: "Can a table get that large?"
He: "No, but a zucchini can."
Me: "Dude, WTF?"
I turn around to see what he is talking about and BAM!, there is a big fat zucchini in my face. Shocked and awed at the sight of this thing, I could only pick it up and try to quell the thoughts that any man would have when faced with something this big.
Ok, comments are open. Let me have it. I know you will anyway.
PS For those that care, the ladies around here named him "Zucchy" and promptly took him home and made bread from him. 
Subliminal marketing message case study – FedEx
Subliminal marketing, a term that has taken a lot of flack from those that think that companies are twisting our arms into buying their products by sending mumbled messages and flashed images in radio, print and TV advertisements, is an interesting topic for discussion among marketers, developers and anyone that ever plans to buy something. I am not that big of a marketing guy myself, but there are times when things just catch my eye (and for my wife, no, I am not talking about beer babes and bouncing boobs in bikinis bobbing around the beach).
Take the case of FedEx and their logo. Their identity is essentially wrapped up in this little five letter image:
The FedEx Logo
There really is not a whole lot of fancy smancy action going on there. In fact, an interview with the designer of the logo reveals that it was a big task to design it but ultimately the simplicity of the logo rang loudly with the executive in the deciding chambers of the company. One of the things that sold this logo was the little nugget of an arrow between the "E" and the "x". Can you see it? If not, here's a little helper for you:
The arrow leads the way
A while back I remember reading something about this arrow in the FedEx logo. In fact, Rebecca Bollwitt twittered:
I just realized the white space between the E and X in "FedEx" makes an arrow :-\
Within minutes Colleen Coplick replied:
@todmaffin @miss604 the fedex arrow thing is intentional. branding
Wanting to look deeper into the discussions that have cropped up about this arrow, I did a Summize (now search.twitter.com) search for fedex arrow and found that there has been significant chatter about this. Subliminal marketing score for FedEx right? Sort of.
As I looked closer at the logo I began to see something that I have not ever seen anyone talk about. Can you see it? The FedEx spoon, strategically placed between the "e" and "d" in Fed (what better a place for a spoon?). If you need help, well, I have a helper for that too.
Not only delivering arrows, but spoonfuls of them, too
Oddly, a search for FedEx Spoon turned up no results at all. How does this happen? How can such a noticeable symbol of feeding service go missed for this many years? I mean, it is a spoon, inside of Fed. How can anyone miss that. Subliminal marketing score for FedEx? Not quite.
Although every time I see a FedEx logo, whether it is a truck, a billboard, an airplane or whatever, I always look at the arrow and think "FedEx is heading in the right direction". But I also stop and think "What exactly are they feeding me with this logo?". Yes, I get my packages overnight. And yes, I can track packages I send easily and quickly.
But to think that FedEx spoon feeds me too. Well, they have secured my business for the rest of my life I think. Or at least until they change their logo again.
WordPress 2.6 is now officially released
WordPress 2.6 was officially released today. There are a ton of new additions, bug fixes and other coolnesses within this release so you might want to get a hold of the newest version and update your WordPress.
I already updated in case you were wondering. 
EDIT | Apparently there have been some folks having issues with the upgrade. Chris Brogran, famed Twitterer and blogger, reported that his upgrade didn't take and he had to roll back his installation. Sounds like the WordPress team needs to spend a little time looking into this, huh?
I hate Kaiser Permanente almost as much as I hate anxiety
Tonight, on my way home from work I got a call from my wife. She was noticeably upset over the phone and asked me in a whimpering, exasperated voice to stay on the phone with her. I asked what was going on and she told me that her chest was feeling heavy again and that she was really panicky. This was the way she was feeling Friday night when I was on the phone late into the night trying to find ways to calm her down.
Seeing as I was about 15 minutes away from home at the time I suggested she just keep talking to me. I was actually heading home earlier than normal because she had a doctor's appointment tonight and I was taking her to it. She told me she had called the Psychiatry department at the hospital looking for something that could help her anxiety. The doctor she talked to prescribed her something and told her it would be ready later in the day. It just so happened to be later in the day.
So I got home, picker her and the kids up, quickly loaded everyone into the truck and headed to Kaiser. I got her to her appointment and then took the kids into the pharmacy to get Sandi's medications. They had no clue what I was talking about. 
Apparently the doctor did not send the prescription to the pharmacy as she said she did. At least that is what the pharmacy told me. They also told me that I could head up to the doctor's station and see if I could get the prescription resent. So I headed up there and was able to speak to the receptionist for the psychiatry unit. That was revealing.
The doctor never did anything with the prescription. Never filled it out, never called it in, never sent it off... whatever a doctor does when they prescribe meds was exactly what this doctor did not do. So it left my wife without medications that she desperately needs to calm her down. She was having a very bad episode tonight. Again, I was a little concerned for her safety (I know the effects of anxiety and its outward manifestation so I don't panic too much over it) but really I was just freaking pissed off at anxiety and, more specifically, Kaiser for their lack of attention to detail that left my wife suffering for another day.
I so cannot wait to get through this crap. I am so over it. The doctors need to get off their cabooses and get some freaking answers out to us because this just plain sucks. People should not suffer like this at all.
Finally we were able to get back to church
Yesterday I was able to take about 5/7 of my family to church with me.
What that means is that we were finally able to get back to Sunday morning church after about a 6 week absence because of head lice that never seemed to go away. With the exception of my daughter Alaynah all of my children were able to go with me. And as much I as I hate going to church alone it was a good time.
The kids were able to spend some time with their friends that they really haven't seen in a while and I was able to actually worship and learn a bit. I felt almost like the prodigal running back to daddy after being in the wild for a time. I know it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty long for me.
The rest of the day afterward was a pretty big blur. We hit up Costco, came home and put some food together for eating, I cooked and cleaned then it was bedtime so I worked. But I think what made yesterday bearable for me was that it started out right. I like being able to go to church on a Sunday morning.
Now if I could just figure out this waking up alone thing I will be golden.
