Fantastic Weekend = Bloated Monday Morning

I don't remember the last time I rented 4 movies at once, but I did on Saturday. I picked one for everybody:

Funny People - Me (best choice, by the way)

G.I. Joe - Todd
Four Christmases - Becky

And I'm completely drawing a blank on the fourth one but it was the new cancer movie with Cameron Diaz, because sometimes I sort of want Jenny to cry without it being my fault.

I am a real fan of lounge weekends. I've been reading this delightfully sacrilegious book called "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. It is about the resurrection of Christ's childhood friend Biff. Biff is asked to write a more complete "gospel" about the early years with the messiah (who is named Josh in the story because Jesus is a Greek translation of Yeshua, which is Joshua). My wonderful Mormon friends and family would probably not get as much of a kick out of the book because, at 15, Jesus discovers coffee and goes on a healing frenzy, almost getting beat up after aggressively casting a demon from some guy's wife.

I think it's a great story and surprisingly endearing.

I laid on the couch in front of the window, wrapped in a thick fleece blanket and just read and dozed. On more than one occasion I woke up to see Abbi's smiling face about 2 inches from mine. I loved it.

We ate countless plates of nachos and played hours of pointless facebook games; cooking fake food, arranging non-existent jungle jewels, tending virtual farms. And yet, I did feel a small pang of guilt when I realized that I was neglecting my electronic fish. Poor Shiteater - sick from a lack of pixelated food and a dangerously high level of binary algae.

We stayed up late and let the girls climb into our bed first thing in the morning to watch hours of cartoons before actually getting started for the day. It never felt busy or rushed. Pure bliss.

It was the kind of weekend that leaves you in need of a strong laxative tea and at least an extra hour in the gym.

To top it all off, Jenny wrote me the sweetest blog entry I've ever read. As someone who is prone to public, written expressions of love... it hit me right in the sweet spot and left me with a lump in the throat. She was speaking my language, which I'm learning is such an important key in a relationship. The "treat others the way you would like to be treated" rule also works in reverse. How many times have I sent Jenny a naughty text message to express my fondness of her when doing the laundry would have been so much more effective? Oh well, we are constantly learning more about each other and using that knowledge to improve our marriage. It really is incredible to be in a Give-Give relationship.

Sadly, most of this world is filled with Give-Take relationships. You won't ever see a Taker with another Taker - it's too easy for them to spot each other. But a Taker will latch onto a Giver with ease, and the relationship works well... for a while. Both parties are having their needs met. But, it really is only a matter of time before the Giver gets emotionally/sexually/financially/(take your pick, really) exhausted.

I don't mean to group the earth's population into two groups, and I realize that a broad spectrum lies beneath this generalization, but if you're a Giver you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm sure I've written about this before - in fact I've toyed around with the idea of a book titled "Surviving as a Giver in a Taker's World" except I have absolutely no real credentials to speak of. I just know what it's like to feel like a prisoner in a relationship. And now, thanks to Jenny, I know how beautiful it can be when two people get together who are trying to "out give" each other.

The magic question to find out if you are the Giver in a Give-Take relationship is: "What would happen if I said 'no' to them?"

If you are terrified that they won't want anything to do with you and your usefulness will abruptly expire, I'm sorry, but you are.

Not quite sure how I ended up down this path, especially since I selected the action figures bagging a squirrel photo for this entry. But, hell, it's my blog and if I decide to soapbox midstream then eff it, I'm going to.

I've seen a lot of Give-Take relationships end, and it's usually a very messy ordeal. Sadly, it's almost inevitable - a matter of time - a clicking timebomb. It normally takes a Giver a long time to put their foot down. By that time many of them are so fed up that when they finally do, it comes down with a lot of noise.

Unfortunately, to add true fufillment to this type of relationship a genuine change has to take place within the Taker. The situation can't turn around without it. Hopefully we all know how futile it is to put our lives on hold while we wait for someone else to change.

Anyway, enough of that for now.

So, yeah, it was a great weekend. I guess the sensations of bloated and contemplative aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps that's why so much of mankind's best thinking is done on the toilet.