Go Shorty

Whenever she sings “Happy Birthday”, Jess belts it in a deep, operatic baritone, replete with furrowed brow and sweeping hand gestures.

It’s just one of her many distinctive singing styles, which range from quiet improvised lyrics about how she’s feeling (“Jessie is hungry and needs more sleep…”) hummed under her breath while typing emails, to an approach that could probably best be described as ‘bellowing’, and which tends to occur either in the shower or very close to my ear (the latter invariably sending her into fits of nearly tearful laughter).

Jess frequently accuses me of being obsessed with her, which is pretty much true. Since we’ve started dating, I’ve become perhaps the world’s premier Jessmologist, and I’d be happy to pen out daily, extended, painfully earnest blog entries about her and her singing and how wonderful she is.

I will, however, spare you. Instead, I’ll only share that the morning I really fell in love with Jess, after we’d been dating for a couple of months, was when she turned to me and said, “it’s nice to have a friend.”

And she was totally right. So, to Jess, my best friend and singing instructor, happy birthday wishes and all my love.

xxx

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October 6, 2008

Try This Instead

Five days until our wedding, and the details are falling into place.

But, while I’m increasingly sure the wedding will be really excellent, I’m also increasingly sure that, if Jess and I had to do it again, we’d take a rather different tack.

Because, excellent or not, it will still be a wedding. And all our guests will have doubtless attended at least a couple of other weddings in the past.

So, the alternate plan:

Buy a case of vodka, a boombox, and a Lexus SUV. Find a cliff. Gather friends, family, vodka, and boombox below the cliff.

Then watch while someone drives the SUV off the cliff.

Far less work, far more memorable, and just about the same amount of money spent either way.

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September 2, 2008

Home Stretch

I realized this morning that I’m now t-minus 20 days to getting married.

Which, on the one hand, is totally thrilling.

And, on the other, is absolutely terrifying.

Fortunately, I’m still exceedingly excited about the marriage part. It’s the wedding that has me worried. While all the major details are figured out, all the main moving parts in place, there are still more odds and ends to deal with than I can count. Seating arrangements, gift baskets for out-of-town guests, writing and printing programs, following up with every vendor we’ve previously locked down to make sure they’re still happily locked.

And, of course, things are crazier than ever (though, finally and fortunately, in a very good way) with Cyan and with Jess’ consulting company.

This weekend, as we were picking up our wedding bands, the jeweler (who’s long since become a friend of ours) offered some good advice: just do what you can until you make it to the top of the aisle, and then wash your hands of the details and pretend you’re a guest.

And, also, drink a lot of vodka.

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August 18, 2008

Music & Lyrics

Among her many other talents, Jess has a savant-like ability to remember every single lyric to essentially every single song, ever.

Some obscure early-nineties dance hit will come on the radio, and she’ll sing along – not just with the choruses, but with the verses, too, word for word.

I, conversely, don’t know the lyrics to anything. Even songs I’ve heard hundreds of times. Sometimes, when I’m driving for example, I’ll actually listen to the words, and am shocked to discover the song is about something totally different than what I thought. But unless I really, really pay attention, the lyrics just seem to wash over me.

Over the years, I’ve spoken with a handful of musician friends, who say the same thing; they can hum the tunes, but don’t seem to retain any of the words. It’s as though we’re processing the songs in a totally different way, with a totally different part of our brains.

It makes me wonder if the lyrics people, then, hear the music in a completely different way, too, if the melodies and harmonies I pick apart gloss together into a cascade of pleasant but undifferentiated sound.

I’m not really sure. But I do, at least, know it’s one more area where Jess’ and my strengths complement each other. Put us behind the mic at an evening of karaoke, and she’ll be faking the melody, I’ll be mumbling my way through words I’m more or less making up. Yet we sound, if not good, then certainly passable. Which, at least if the audience is drunk, is probably good enough.

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August 4, 2008

Down to Business

When I first met Jess, she was serving as the head of marketing and de facto COO of Liz Lange Maternity, a high end fashion brand. She had been there for nearly seven years, from when the company was still pretty much brand new, by the time it was acquired last November by a large private equity fund.

So, she took that company transition as a chance to step out herself, and start looking for other opportunities.

Pretty quickly, it became clear she was talking to basically two categories of companies: large ones, where they were eager to hire her, but where she was less eager to actually work; and small ones (with annual sales under, say, $5m), who were also eager to hire her, and with whom Jess was excited to work, except for their inability to actually pay a salary.

From the beginning, I suggested that she consider launching a consulting firm, the idea being that there were a lot of those little, sub-$5m companies that had bootstrapped their way to success, but had started topping out, and desperately needed strategic, marketing, financial and operational assistance.

Jess, however, was against the idea, mainly on the grounds that she was convinced she’d never find any companies willing to actually hire her as a consultant.

But, it turns out, she didn’t need to, because companies started finding her.

By now, JG & Co. (at the moment, the ‘& Co.’ being me) has signed on a slew of clients, including great brands like [Lucy Sykes](http://www.lucysykesnewyork.com/) (WASPy-cute kids clothing), [Lauren Moffatt](http://laurenmoffatt.net/) (a quirky contemporary clothing line), and [Hayden-Harnett](http://haydenharnett.com/) (bags, etc.).

More companies keep popping out of the woodwork, too, and so Jess is now trying to figure out how many she can handle, and if she needs a real ‘& Co.’ that ideally includes people who (unlike me) have at least some vague idea about the business of fashion.

Still, I couldn’t be prouder of her. I know, first-hand, how hard and stressful and nerve-wracking it is to get a company off the ground, and have been constantly impressed by seeing her handle it all with grace and aplomb.

I always wanted a sugar-mamma.

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June 27, 2008

Susurrus

I’m a talker. So it should be little surprise that, even while sleeping, I continue to jabber away.

According to Jess, however, my intelligible words are few and far between. Deep asleep one night this week, for example, I apparently slapped my chest twice, thrust my arm into the air, and shouted, “halfway!” But, even then, a few minutes later, another chest slap and arm thrust was followed by “spreak!”, a phrase for which I have no real explanation.

More frequently, it seems, I just mumble.

“Hapatapapatapa…,” I’ll say.

Recently, Jess has taken to playing along.

“Oh, really, hapatapapata?” she’ll ask, to which I invariably respond, “mmmhmmmm.”

While I’m not much of a somnolent conversationalist – my entire set of answers limited to shades of “mmmhmmm” – I’m apparently still relatively expressive. I have a contented “mmmhmmm”, for example, and another when I’m annoyed to have her bothering me mid-oration.

It’s apparently a family trait, as my grandmother used to drive herself to tears of laughter through similar nonsensical exchanges with my mother, when my mother was a girl. And whenever I share a room with my brother David, he keeps me up through the night with buzz-saw snoring punctuated with long, mumbled chains of semi-words.

Which makes me think I’m probably less than a joy myself. Still, as Jess continues her long-held traditions of both stealing all the covers, and kicking me, hard, while asleep, I’m calling it even on calling it a night.

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May 25, 2008

Fleas

It was only thanks to inclement weather that I yesterday avoided attending the new Brooklyn Flea Market.

Jess, who has an impeccable eye for all things fashion and furniture, and can quickly pick out gems hidden in long racks of crap, loves flea markets, thrift and vintage stores.

I, on the other hand, try as a general rule to avoid places that reek of mothballs and armpit. Walking down scented aisles, I can’t help but think that whomever each vintage dress previously belonged to is probably now long since dead, and quite possibly from some terrible skin-borne affliction transmissible by their old clothing.

So, in short, I’m not a huge fan. But, in my best attempt at being a good fiance, I come along. It’s an effort only partially appreciated by Jess, who (correctly) accuses me of hovering over her the entire time. Not, as she thinks, because I’m trying to get her to leave, but instead because I’m trying to gain some safe harbor from proximity to the only person in the place for whose hygeine habits I can personally vouch.

Still, odds are good, once the weather warms, we’ll be Brooklyn bound after all. I just hope that, in the weeks between, I’ll find some good leads on a cheap Hazmat suit.

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April 14, 2008