This may come as a shock to some of you, but I was not one of those little girls who dreamed about her wedding when I was young. Never one to succumb to a clichéd stereotype of what it meant to be a
white girl growing up in the suburbs of the South, I limited the extent of my wedding fantasies to one day when I donned a white hand-me-down dress my aunt had given me for Christmas, pretended to be a princess and "walked down the aisle" in my parents' kitchen, toward a pretend/invisible prince who was waiting to marry me. (I'm an only child. I had to amuse myself.) That is my only active memory of imagining my wedding as child, and it's probably the reason my expectations for my future husband are so unbelievably high - since the only detail I deemed important enough to include in my fantasy was that I should, in fact, marry a prince.
It wasn't until this year that I started thinking about what details I might want at my wedding, and although I now have a precious few things clear in my mind, for the most part I still have no idea. In fact, I would say that until the latter part of this year, if you had asked me whether or not I even wanted to get married, I would have provided a very confident, "I really have no fucking clue." Then came a serious relationship, followed by an intense break-up, followed by an even more intense loneliness, then the realization that I do want to share my life with someone. And then - quite serendipitously I think - along came
Chuck Klosterman.
My friend J told me about him a few months ago, when she was reading
Killing Yourself To Live* and was quite obsessed with it. She gushed about how, if Chuck were cuter and younger and perhaps even
not married himself, she would set a goal to marry him. She said he was the funniest, wittiest, most amazing writer she had come across in recent memory, and for some reason all her words passed in my right ear and out my left, without so much as a pee break in between. I don't know why I didn't run out and buy his books right then and there, but for some reason I did not. She finally let me borrow his
KYTL a few weeks ago, and I have no reservations about saying that it changed. my. life.
She was right. He is the funniest, wittiest, snarkiest, most sarcastic, and yet most poignant writer of our young generation. As my eyes hopped over his words like an adorable bunny over the hills of Appalachia or something, I had the very surreal experience that I had met my penmate. That's like a soulmate, but with words. Chuck is the first author I have read in years - or possibly in my life ever - that made me think, "I want to do this. I want to be this. I want to be the next Chuck Klosterman, and I think I can do it." Reading his book was like reading the book I want to write in five or ten years. Except that now he's written it already - goddamnit - and I'll have to go with a different angle. But it's totally fine. I've already got some ideas brewing.
Beyond being introduced to my potential future self, I also realized that Chuck Klosterman is my ideal future husband. I am now aware that if I ever meet a man as funny as Chuck whilst also being as talented a writer, it'll all be over and done with. It literally does not matter what he looks like, how he dresses, if he has some fucked up accent from upstate New York or the Midwest, or, nay, even if he's a
nice person - if he can write like Chuck and make me laugh (and, yes, cry) like Chuck, that will be it for me. Done and done. It doesn't hurt that Chuck seems to have a good heart and a sweet sentiment in his writing - but, again, this is strictly optional.
Inspired by my new writing muse, I have penned a letter to my future husband. The Internet is weird because my future husband will probably actually read this one day, even if he doesn't know at that point that he
is my future husband. Like, he might read it after our third date or something, after I've told him that I have a blog and he goes home and fearfully googles my name, and then stays up til 5 a.m. reading all my entries before promptly realizing he is already in love with me, and then calling me to ask me to meet him on the Brooklyn Bridge or in Grand Central or something, which I will do, and then he will take me in his arms and profess that he thinks I am the one, and I will not think it's weird because I will have been thinking the same crazy shit. As such, I have chosen my words carefully.
Dear future hubs,
Thank you for that haiku you left on my pillow this morning, and also for promising to leave me many such pillowkus for the rest of our blissfully wedded lives. The only thing I'd rather wake up next to is you - but provided that you are not available, your hilarious puns and witty aphorisms will more than suffice. Oh, and don't start to get all big-headed about it. I mean, don't for a second think that you are a better writer than I am. Granted, you probably are, because I tend to prefer to date (and therefore, logically, marry) up as opposed to down; but just because you
are a better writer than me does not mean you deserve the pleasure of thinking or perhaps even
knowing that you are, in fact, a better writer than me. There's a reason I count Beyoncé's "
Upgrade U" amongst the songs that define my very existence - and I know what you're thinking, but no, it's not because I harbor a secret fetish for grasping large pieces of jewelry between my teeth, although this is also true. It's because I like to think I'm the HBIC in most situations, even when I am not. If you married me, you already know this. So, keep on writing me poems, and keep on being a cunning linguist, but don't let me forget that I am just as cunning. Almost.
I'll see you at our regularly scheduled pun-off, tomorrow, 7 p.m., in our huge antique clawed bathtub. You bring the wine and I'll bring the Moleskin and plenty of cheese. (The kind you write, not the kind you eat.) Just try not to be distracted by my lounging nude body, impossibly relaxed as I pour forth pun after pun after pun from my wine-stained lips. You will fail. I will dominate. And you will not be emasculated by your loss, because you will have already written me a pillowku for the following morning, ready and tucked in your coat pocket, that contains the greatest pun I have ever heard or read in my entire life. And this is why I love you. 'Cuz you got that foresight.
Love,
Meg
*The first time I wrote this I accidentally typed "Love" instead of "Live." Either applies, really.
