There goes that 20-something talk again. Ugh.

The excitement of my life used to be judged by how many blog posts I did.

If I went for a few days without posting, I was out with friends, or sleeping in late, going shopping, watching movies.

If I blogged every day, it was because I lived in a crummy apartment and had a lot of time to surf the Net and watch NBC while my then-fiance worked second shift.

Now, when I'm not blogging, I'm not out doing exciting 20-something things. As a matter of fact, I've come to loathe the phrase "20-something" and will feel nauseous for a few seconds after reading it when it's used like "great for 20-somethings" or "those dang 20-somethings." I'm not doing anything "20-something." It's pretty ageless.

I'm doing dishes. I'm watching my dog chase his tail while also watching "Law & Order." I'm dusting. I'm getting jealous of friends who made it to the sale at the library and got some sweet books for a few bucks. I'm cleaning the bathtub. I'm reading. I'm worried about the washer that needs fixing.

I'm calling out "Mr. Big! Hey, Dog!" every time it gets too quiet in the house to make sure my dog, Mr. Big, isn't relieving himself under a Christmas tree, chewing on power cords or eating a shoe. I grocery shop at midnight on my days off so I can feel rebellious. See world, I don't need to buy my gallon of milk when everyone else does. Take that!

I'm looking forward to Saturday nights like I was back in sophomore year of high school, when Saturday nights were "OH MY GOD, it's Saturday night! Let's stay out late -- How late is your curfew, 'cuz I have to be home at midnight. Let's not do anything too crazy, either, I have to help my mom with some stuff tomorrow. Want to just watch a movie at my house?" At least that's what mine were.

I think all these diverse activities (or lack thereof) make me a better person.

But you should know that thinking that helps me sleep at night.

Maybe it is bird flu. Or SARS. Or Y2K.

My husband, who would be a hypochondriac if he had the energy for it (and I mean that in the best way, really), is obviously dying of bird flu. So he says.

Why else would he, a normally healthy 20-something vegetable-loving, sugar-free juice-drinking person have a sore throat, he asks me.

I don't tell him it's because it's November, and that's what bodies do: They get sick, especially in the fall-slash-winter, when the weather changes and everything's all foggy and gross outside.

What follows is a real, actual conversation that happened while the ravioli was boiling and the dog was barking tonight. Just to set the scene. The kitchen is blue, if that helps you.

"It has to be bird flu," he said. "You don't even believe me. Just like no one believed me when I had West Nile a few years ago and then that other guy in Michigan or Ohio got it right after me. Only Neil believed me. And that's just because he had Anthrax poisoning. You wouldn't even believe me if I were dead. You'd just tell my dead body to quit being lazy and get up already for like, three days."

I peek up from the fridge.

"It wouldn't take me three days to realize you died of bird flu. I'd get hungry way before then and be asking you to cook."

And just now, I realize how cruel and cliche that must sound online. I promise you he laughed in real life. And then grabbed his throbbing head. Or was it his forehead, to check for a fever? Or was it his sinuses? His stomach? I forget.

Ah. Dave.

(It's all funny to me now, but when I get this supposed case of bird flu here in a few days from him, I won't be laughing.)

It's Christmas, dang it.

We're back to the timeless debate about whose family gets to see most of us over the holidays, and how on earth do you squeeze in three families, plus the extended families (or do we?) into four days? Oh, with eight-hour drives in there.

Our first plan was priceless: Quit our jobs, then spend all the time we wanted hanging out at home. Then, we gazed over to our mortgage payment booklet and sighed and went back to the drawing board, hoping the lottery numbers would work out for us someday (that is, that someday when we start playing the lottery. That's just details).

Next was more feasible: Drive Thursday night, stay at my dad's on Friday, his mom's on Saturday, my mom's on Sunday, drive back Monday.

But wait -- that leaves the inevitable Christmas Monday morning open. I was thinking "Let's take the dog to Wisconsin and pout about having to go back to work and talk about how much it's going to hurt to take down all the holiday decorations."

He was thinking "Let's drive three hours south, after just having driven said three hours to see your mom, stay for two hours with my extended family, and then make the eight-hour drive from there to Oshkosh."

The dog whimpered. I whimpered. Eight hours. Plus three. That's 11 hours in the car. In one day. The lack of time is already bad enough, as it's practically a "AW! Merry-Christmas-Thanks-for-the-gift-We-have-to-go-Bye" affair.

Back to plan C. Only we don't have a plan C; that's our problem.

I know, I know ... Compromise, compromise. Ugh. It's Christmas, dangit. This is supposed to be fun. "RIGHT? AREN'T WE ALL HAVING FUN," I say through gritted teeth.

In conclusion, we bought a table with a leaf that seats six.

I'd thought about "forever" (or "FOR-ehhh-ver," as the "Sandlot" boys say) before I married Dave.

But it's this building of forever that continues to surprise me.

We wanted to get a new, bigger table for a while, but the scent of our freshly burned kitchen table made me long for a new one. Now. As in right now. Yesterday would be better. Every time I walked by the table I could picture it on fire. And I still smelled that smoky scent, even though Dave said I was just crazy. Maybe.

But Dave likes buying things, too, so we set out this weekend to jumpstart our search.

First stop: A furniture store that's going out of business. We happen upon these really, really cool tables ... for $1300. It's about $900 more than I would ideally like to have spent, so we kept walking. We passed the cool walnut tables. Continued on by the high, bar-like tables. We stopped in front of the typical "Just Like You Remember From Your Mother's Kitchen!" tables.

Dave continued walking, but I was seeing the wisdom in the matron-friendly tables.

Good God, I was thinking, there's room for six people at this table. And wooden seats, not cloth. Easy clean-up. It was like a ... natural train of thought.

Dave pointed at a cool looking one, more adapted to sitting in the middle of some uptown loft than (what the realtors would call) a "quaint" house in Oshkosh. I pointed at my choice. There was some salesman heckling, and we left tableless.

"Why didn't you like that one?" he asked.

I looked around ... "Um. Because there are only four spots."

"It's just the two of us."

"We're going to have this table more than a couple of years." Hint, hint.

Dave stared at me and I swear I saw a lightbulb go off. "O-o-o-h. O-h." You should note that's an "O" sound and not an "oo" sound.

And that's when we got in the truck and became immediately more interested in the passing scenery.

"But ..."

"If we have a set of our parents over, that leaves only one spare seat, if there are three of US," I said.

"Oooh. Yeah."

I am so ... married.

Happy Thanksgiving

It's warm. About an hour ago the sun was shining.

And I'm at work.

My mom, stepdad and younger brother are at our house waiting for us, probably thinking up bad jokes about burning down the house (referring to my blog post on Monday) and enjoying our NBC-or-Fox TV choices. And making us a chicken fajita Thanksgiving dinner while our turkey thaws out in the sink, waiting for its moment to shine tomorrow (yes, on our charred table).

I've never felt so awkward, waiting here at work, wondering if I left any dirty socks lying around the house or if Dave left any half-empty (or half-full, ahh) glasses of milk sitting around the computer room for them to find and make little mental notes about.

And ... After Dave's parents brought him his childhood in boxes last weekend, this weekend was my parents' turn. I didn't have boxes upon boxes of half-constructed dinosaur models or anything. Just Barbies -- and those obviously have more collectors' value.*

(*If you like collecting headless Barbies with dog-chewed feet and mismatched clothing.)

I can't fight this feeling anymore.

Post-fire last night, I didn't actually go to bed, nor did I fall into a coma, unfortunately.

Instead, I sat and tried doing the only thing that used to make me happy no matter what: Writing up a Christmas wish list.

But you know, I realize how much different ... how "married" I've gotten. It just wasn't "rainbows, unicorns and happy faces" fun anymore. Instead of CDs and movies, I was dismayed at first over my own desire to add "shovel" and "dish towels" to the list.

Suddenly, it's not fun and frivolous. It's all house-related and boring.

When I was younger, trying to keep my tired eyes open during the adult gift exchanges at Grandma's house was torture. An uncle and aunt would get pillows. Another would open and feign surprise in some tools. One got a toaster.

I mean, we're talking about stuff that now appeals to me.

So why fight it, I concluded.

I just added "garden tools" and "a small wastebasket" to the list.

All that's missing is a pickup truck, a cowboy hat and some boots

I should've known it was going to be a bad day when I woke up late. On a Monday. With a headache.

I should've called in sick when I tried on shirts and every single on had bad static cling. I should've crawled back into bed when I put on my shoes, stood up in the dining room and promptly stepped in a pile of dog "mess" that was obviously not fresh. I should've punched myself when I realized what I'd stepped in ... two minutes later, after walking all over the living room and dining room.

Plus, it's Monday.

Nothing, so it seems, got done today at work. I'm busy. It's a holiday week. Guests just left, and more are coming. Don't get me wrong - that's good news. But it just adds to the mounting evidence of my life being the perfect country western song. Or so someone suggested to me today earlier.

Well, I'm not sure which country song "I almost watched my dining room go up in flames" is in, but I'm guessing I may be the first to actually put the dog crap and the fire in the same song.

We were given these really pretty votive candleholders this weekend, and I put candles in them. I turned my back and did dishes in the other room, and what to my wondering eyes should appear was this glowing orange ball to my left.

I gasped, saw the foot-high flames, and ran to see the tablecloth burn (which, I'll have you know, was not underneath the candles, but "safely" pushed to the side) -- along with my table. Apparently the flame burnt through one of the holes you see here, and spread to the table, then the tablecloth.

I was, because I'm this stupid, concerned about the police scanner call when I grabbed the table cloth and beat the fire with it, then grabbed the vase of flowers and dumped water all over it. The police scanner. Seriously.

Dave had just left for work; I called him and asked him come back. "Hi, it's me. Just wondering if you wanted to survey the damage of the fire. Oh, yeah by the way, there was a fire." Or, maybe it was more "COME BACK PLEASE."

Which made him late for work. Which made me feel bad. Which made me realize that "WOW this would make an awesome blog." Which leads me to believe that my next step, upon finishing this blog post, will be to hope for a deep coma of some sort that would last until 2026, or else carefully walk to the bed and go to sleep. At 8 p.m.

(Photo: Yes, these are the candles that set fire to my table. Yikes.)

Free to a good home: "Triceratops, Or Half Of It, Anyhow."

My first official "In-laws" visit came and went, and was relatively painless. With the exception of a minor, tiny, insignificant detail ... Or about 156 minor, tiny, insignificant details. Sitting in my living room in boxes. And dresser drawers. And bags.

Our parents are all looking forward to getting our belongings out of the house. Mine are coming Wednesday to bring me, of all things, my bike, my dollhouse from 1989, and some lawn chairs we couldn't fit in our own cars any time we were driving back from Ohio. Oh, and the wedding pictures.

His parents brought -- drumroll, please -- two coffee tables, a desk chair, a dresser, a partridge, a pear tree, less than half of a triceratops, some mini baseball helmet bowls, a football sign that was later determined to belong to Dave's brother, two football helmets, Little League trophies, books, a school workbook, a shelf, one sweet chair his grandpa made and seven lifetime's worth of Americana, boyhood "stuff."

Dave loved it. For a second. Then he realized "Oh, God, yeah, I'm married. And ... oh, no, my wife's not going to like this triceratop head on our coffee table."

And that's where he was right. Because I'm uptight sometimes, and that's only made worse by the thought of half-finished dinosaur models taking over my living room.

But there's happy ending. We didn't fight. For much longer than a few seconds. He threw a lot away. He hid the rest in the basement and a closet. It's out of sight. It's out of my mind.

And I'm pretty sure that's how most packrat marriages start.

(Photo: Apparently, I should've kept these bowls. They're going for a whole $9 on eBay.com right now. DANGIT.)

Mr. Big

In honor of my mother in law coming this weekend ...

Who, as a disclaimer, I must say is a good sport, as I have mentioned her in passing on here before and she just shrugs it off as "one of those blog things." It's cool. She's cool. But, as I was saying, in honor of my mother in law coming up this weekend ...

No, there is no "nesting" impulse going on anywhere in my vicinity. See this area? No nesting going on. It's quite un-nested, as a matter of fact. Except maybe if you count the dog. I am sorry.

The dog, who has become "our wittle puppy." It's quite disgusting, so I've heard from passersby: "You don't call yourselves 'Mom' and 'Dad' to the dog, do you?" a friend asked.

Cue crickets, tumbleweed, wind blowing. "No. Of course not. Don't be ridiculous."

Sigh.

I used to make good-natured fun of the people who'd pass me on the way to the grocery store with poodles on their laps, staring out the window. Now, I have a dog on my lap in the car sometimes.

Dave used to swear he'd never have "one of those sissy dogs." Yeah, I try to tell him that now that he has a seven-pound dog sitting on his lap while they're watching football.

And the readers of my blog just shook their head in disbelief and disgust.

Knotted for a whole month.

It's been a month to the day since I tied the knot.

I figured that if I were to ever have to show my children either A.) where it all went wrong or, more likely, B.) how it all went right, then this would be a good place to start looking. I will be able to say "Ah, yes, around month 54, he stopped leaving his socks on the bathroom floor in little balls. THAT'S when things greatly improved." Then my children will say "Yes, but he's not worn socks since then. He's a flip-flop guy now."

And that will explain EVERYTHING.

But, it's month one and, unlike mothers who blog monthly about their children, no one is teething. No one is learning the ABCs and my goodness no one is being potty-trained. So don't expect anything as witty and fun. This is marriage. And according to the marriage counselor we had to talk to before we got married (who, by the way, has never been married), this is hard work.

Month 1: Ah. So you didn't really doooo them.

Dave's doing laundry. I'm doing dishes. Dave does garbage. I dust and vacuum and sweep. Dave changes the batteries in the TV remote and takes out recycling to the garage. I clean the bathrooms. And so on.

But we're learning the power of bargaining. Or so I thought.

I heard the dishes being clanked around in the sink last Sunday, and thought "If I sit here quietly, he'll do them JUST TO BE NICE." Because it was a Sunday, and I had to work at 1, and he had some extra time. I went back to reading my book.

That night, he asked me to put away laundry. Clearly one of his tasks, the newlywed in me was saying. "Um, OK," my married self was saying. I said, joking, "So THAT'S why you did dishes. You wanted me to do the laundry." Laughing, ha ha, laughing.

He kind of shook his head and stammered, "Oh. No. I didn't really dooo dishes. I put them in the dishwasher."

The dishwasher, which we don't use because it's small, it overturns cups and bowls and leaves dirty, sediment-filled water in them that renders them good for nothing but another go-round in the sink, and it actually takes way more effort to remember that there are dishes in the dishwasher than it takes for me to actually just wash them myself.

"Oh. I thought ..." I opened the dishwasher to count the dirty-water-filled cups -- four, by the way -- and then I gingerly closed it and coughed. Um. Now what, marriage counselor? Huh? Now what.

But I put away laundry after all. I mean, I think the bathroom drain may need some attention, and I may just be able to fold some socks to get out of doing that one.

GO BUCKEYES/GO BIG BLUE

This weekend is monumental.

Not only are my inlaws coming up, but do you REALIZE what's going to be on TV?

Ohio State vs. Michigan. In football.






OK. I tried. Look, I really tried to get into the game. I did. I've lived in Ohio, UM's big rival state, for years. I lived in Michigan (and hated every second of it, just about) and tried to keep an open mind.

I learned all the "Hail to the ____" songs that don't use the traditional UM fight song words. I've been to a party almost every year to watch this game. I've participated in cheering one side or the other.

But I don't care.

I'm the woman who has relatives with a scarlet and gray garage, adorned in buckeyes; the one who knows a guy who would be hard-pressed to find an article of clothing that didn't have some sort of OSU mention on it; the woman whose family sings "Hang On Sloopy" while motioning "O-H-I-O," YMCA-style; and the woman whose family makes buckeyes not because they're delicious but because they're BUCKEYES. I'm the one who has the family for whom "Go Bucks" has nothing to do with Milwaukee.

We're talking a serious, serious OSU infatuation for my family.

And I married a Michigan fan.

While my family all releases a collective "UGHH GROSS," I must explain: I had an OSU sweatshirt once. Not because I was a huge fan, but because that's the standard Christmas gift one gets in Ohio. And I had a UM sweatshirt once, not because I like the Wolverines, but because it was $5, and hello, it even had a hood. And OK, it made my family gag, and that was funny at one point in my life.

I find it really, really hard to pick a side, because I just don't care. I don't. And I don't care if that makes me a bad person. So be it.

This weekend, when my husband's happiness lies in a few touchdowns (or lack thereof), and when the phone starts ringing for the inevitable "HAAA TAKE THAT"s when one side scores, I shall be sitting back, cleaning the toilet or something.

Or, if I'm lucky, someone will offer to take Dave to the bar, and I can tag along for chicken wings. Because if you can't beat them (or even stand the game), you may as well eat something while you're ignoring them.

That is, if Wisconsin bars play that game anywhere. Dang, wouldn't that be a shame.

(Photo: Friends of mine, who wore buckeye necklaces to my wedding. True story. Ohio State fans are crazy. And I can say that, because I was one of them. Kind of.)

Hello, again.

I've been a bit absent from the blogosphere lately, and I blame things like democracy, an extreme lack of sleep, children (not my own), Christmas and housewarming parties.

But I'm back. And I'm back with a vengeance.

Because doesn't my dog KNOW that just because there is a 7 1/2-foot tree in my living room that it doesn't mean "OOOH! A TOILET UPGRADE! This is way better than peeing on the rug."

No. As a matter of fact, as Mr. Big is learning, it really means "TOUCH AND DIE, LITTLE ONE."

And when I say "die," of course I mean "not die," as he really is the cutest puppy in the world.

Sigh. Go ahead and say "I told you so." For added Mom effect, you can also throw in ERIN FRANCES in there. That's what she usually does.

A sure sign I'm getting old

When I was 16, back in the day, I was living in Holland, going out and dancing to one of Europe's favorite music genres, Bad Electronic Music. At the time, it was "awesome, man" because my mom hated it and, being 16, what more did you really need to know?

And when I came to my senses a little later, I realized that it takes a special person, i.e., Radiohead or Postal Service, to make electronic music good. And that's when I lost my Chemical Brothers' CD.

Anyhow. After all of these embarrassing revelations I'm spewing here, there is a point. Last night, post-election hoopla made me go out after work. Out to a bar that had a band that was playing OK music. Then came the DJ for a while. Those times, the songs made me feel old. Maybe I was just tired, but the "dancing" I was doing was in one-and-a-half second spurts, and it was mainly to mock my 16-year-old self.

Inside, I was my mom, saying "WHAT IS THIS CRAP AND WHY IS IT IN MY CD PLAYER." It was electronic music. Circa the 1990s. In my ears. No. Make that "offending" my ears.

I think I handled it well enough. I don't believe I made the Annoyed Mom Face or anything.

If I hear "I approve this message" one more time, I'll scream.

I will be so glad when the elections are over.

Besides the annoying TV commercials and the yards with 75 signs in them (all the same, of course, just in case you missed it the first 74 times), I am just exhausted of the wait. Working at a newspaper, I read about the issues every day. I'm reading the stories on the wire. I'm reading letters to the editor. I'm up to my ears in elections.

And I just want it to stop.

I want to watch "Law & Order" and only think about how cute Chris Noth is. Not how annoying it is to watch the commercials.

I'm also excited to be voting this year in particular. My first "real" election was when I was almost 19. I voted in a mid-term election for the county dog warden and the sheriff or something like that. I remember walking in to the Putnam County, Ohio, courthouse, taking the pin and voting with an envelope, all low-tech. Probably the same way the Pilgrims did it. Should they have had to vote for dog warden.

And tomorrow I'll vote for the first time in Wisconsin, where you're allowed to register at the polls, oddly enough. None of this 30-day waiting period stuff. Different.

But what I'm expecting will be most different is the peace and harmony I'll feel when I turn on the TV and don't see "I'm (So and So) and I approve this message." Seriously. I expect Hell would be a hot, sticky, windowless room with a fuzzy TV that just kept replaying political ads over and over again. With no remote control. No "off" button. No cord to pull out of the socket. Yes. That'd be my hell.

The name change game train

I envisioned changing my name to be on par with the annoyance of, say, getting through international airport security. I was right, kind of. It's just like that, only instead of taking an hour, it takes weeks.

I got my certified copy of my marriage license five days after I sent away for it. I got my drivers license two days after that, after a 45-minute wait in line. I waited three minutes to talk to the Social Security clerk about changing my name on my card, and now I get to wait 10-12 days to get it in the mail.

And as I'm sitting here, two days into my 10-12 day period, I'm making a list of all the places I have to change my name through, once I have my new SS card: There's the cell phone, credit card, library card, magazines, debit card, bank account, car title, house title, insurance, prescriptions, doctors' offices, and the worst, all my work user names and my e-mail address. It's not as easy as hopping on Yahoo and getting a new e-mail. No sir.

Because it can't just be this easy process. No. It's got to be this long, drawn-out process full of "Marriage license, please. Now your driver's license. Now your blood sample. Now your mom's maiden name. Mom's blood sample. And a partridge in a pear tree."

And changing bank accounts was even more fun. We decided to create a joint account from his old one. You know, hi, here we are, let's put my name on it. But even that causes headaches. I can transfer money online into that account, but my name won't be on it for a few weeks, until the checks come back. And no debit card, either. Nope. Sorry. That's another two weeks' wait.

So I ended up keeping my old account for now. No debit card? For two weeks??? Please.

And, I can vote now.

A little less than a year ago, I gave up my rad blue, yellow and white Ohio driver's license for a pink Wisconsin ID with a barn, an American flag, some green cloud thingys and a sailboat on it.

Aside from the obviously downgrade in design ... it was pretty cool to be a card-holding member of the Badger State, seeing as I live here now. Now, I'm even cooler.

I have my new name, my new address, my new haircut and my "married" face on it. Not a big deal to like, world peace or anything. But when I slid my gold-seal adorned piece of parchment from the State of Ohio that declared that I was married and the woman behind the counter said "Oh, congratulations," it felt more real than my entire wedding day.

And I audibly giggled when I walked out of the crowded DMV, pushing past the teenager who was on a cell phone with her mom, saying "They won't let me get my permit because I don't have my birth certificate, and Dad won't go home to get it because HE'S STUPID."

I didn't giggle really at her, though I remember that deep-hearted feeling of injustice at the sheer idiocy of a parent through a 15 1/2-year-old's eyes, but because my new ID says I'm Erin Wasinger. Yeah, that's a good feeling.

4 a.m. wake-up call

Every morning, we're awakened by this whimpering. Crying. Whining. I'd do my best whimper here if there were a microphone on this computer. It's classic puppy whining at its best.

It's not like, cute, happening just when the alarm was going off, right before he licks our faces as a ray of sunshine spreads across us all and music plays and it smells like cinnamon rolls, and we all go downstairs to eat drink orange juice and talk about our days before going to work.

No. It's not quite like that.

It usually happens around 4 a.m. when it's cold and there's no sunshine and it doesn't smell like cinnamon at all. I've babysat overnight before for an infant ... OK, and I know it's nothing like BEING a parent (so stop writing the angry comments now), but the moment I first come out of REM sleep to hear the whining, that moment of confusion-slash-realization that if I move, if I make the first "shhhh" sound, I will be the one to get up. That moment. It's the same idea.

"Hey?" Dave will ask, as a test to see if I am awake.

"Dog whining? What dog whining?"