The Official Blog of Joseph Baker

10 years ago before ipods, online shopping and American Idol I met the man who would become my husband.

I had just graduated high school and two of my friends who did the whole ross and Rachel will they-won’t-they-are the aren’t-they thing got engaged. Even though the engagement barley lasted the idea of having the long lost man in my life started entering my mind. Over and over again.

I was alwauy surrounded by women. My mother, aunts,best friends, doctors and teachers. So much so that I had developed an odd and embarrassing idea of what I wanted in a man; tall, handsome and in the military. I think I even wrote it in one of my fluffy pink journals.

It's interesting I was always surrounded by women too. My mother,my former co-workers, my best friend, my sisters. The idea of wife had never really crossed my mind at that age and if she did I said as long as she didn't have an STD, it was okay.

When I returned to Pennsylvania to start college I still had the pink journal but it was filled with other less interesting fantasties. I had been diagnosed with breast cancer so sever that I had a full masectomy and lost my hair in a matter of weeks. I hated leaving the house and sometimes just being around my roommates made me jealous.

Around this time I was dealing with brain cancer.Mine wasn't as sever but, I was not taking well to the medication

My old teachers gave me a teaching job to help pay for school and cancer treatments. I was good at my job, even though I was a few months older than most students they respected and trusted me and as a result I was majoring in childhood education.

Then he came along. I had spent the morning putting on a little extra make up and the silicone prosthetics the doctor had given me,because the Navy was recruiting at the school.

I know my desperation may have seemed silly, but time wasn’t my friend and every day I went to chemotherapy I was told that I might not make it through the night and to keep a phone by my bed just in case. I didn’t want to die alone in my bed.

He was sittomg on my desk not in it on it. I noticed all the girls in class were watching him. Long blonde hair in his face and brown eye staring at the ground,. I knew exca;tu how this would go. We’d meet share words and then we’d probably never see each other again. Things like that had a happening in town all the time.

I was wearing contacts because someone had told me it would make me look less tired (read: high) at work. I was one of those people who didn't loose my hair to radiation but, my mother was going through her "I want to be a hair dresser" stage.

I remember thinking she had a pretty smile and I was amazed at the respect the teacher and the other students had for her. The teacher in the class spoke so highly of her.

I want to say it was love at first sight but like all things it took time. He wouldn’t talk much because he had a stutter and a slight accent that was annoying as hell, but he would talk to me and he wouldn’t shut up. We argued at work and during after school activites at the end of the day and on the way home because we were neighbohrs/

She threw binders at people's children.

Later on I realized that maybe what attracted us to each other is that we weren’t. We were both young adults with limited supervision yet there was nothing sexual about our relationship. Both of us having abusive past (well mine was in the past).

I was under the impression my father had been convicted in Conneticut (it didn't stick) so, I was starting to let go and be a normal young adult. I was starting to like her but, I didn't see her in a sexual way.

In december almost 4 months to the day we met, we were both visiting people in the hospital. Worried about our loved ones I remember sitting in the empty waiting room talking over the philospjy of hospitals and life and death when we kissed. Somehow(because I knew the hospital very well) we ended up making ou in an empty hospital room. I can now say that he ever so gentelmenly, trying to keep his hands from wondering past my neck.

I'm pretty sure I grabbed her ass but, okay.

Afeter that we were bullied into a date at a restaurant I worked at. We had non-alcholic drinks and akward conversation. On the way home I passed out from lack of eating and I don’t remember much but I remember being carried upstairs and placed into bed with a kiss. I remember waiting for him to leave like he could read my thoughts and thinking

I told her we should get something to eat but, she refused

I’m going to have to marry this man aren’t I

The night after I was folding laundry when there was a tiny knock at the door. One of Joel’s brothers said he was hungry and asked if I could fix him a snack. He looked scared so my roommate and I walked him back to his house and found the kitchen filled with junk food. We fixed them some M&M cookies and Juice when his little sitster asked if Joel wanted some.

We didn’t even know he was home and I was very uncertain about being alone in his bedroom but I didn’t want to worry the kids. His room was a mess and it was dark, he was lying in bed trying to fight a fever. His hair was darker and for the second his eyes opened a paler color than I remebered

I had skipped out on some sessions and on some medication. I think I was having control issues.

He turned his head when I walked in and I almost blurted “I carried a watermelon” but I pulled up a desk chair and couldn’t speak. Words were cheap, kissing was to intimate so I settled for holding his hand. I waited till his breathing was slowed and he fell asleep. I kissed him and walked out the room thinking about how the doctors said my last days would be but somewhere else I was thinkging;

I’m need marry this man.

For two weeks I looked at every commercial, tv show and even people on the street differently trying to comprehend the idea of marriage and what it would be like to have a husband. When schools started again I avoided Joel for as long as I could. He was talking about some apartment or something and it didn’t make sense but I asked him to marry me.

Okay, here is the whole story. My mother and I had had this huge fight,she hated the fact that I told her I thought I loved Fiona, she was pissed at me over my medical bills so, I moved out of her house and into this crappy one room apartment with Michael Orange before he was rich. It had an oven/sink that tripled as a roach motel, we shared a bathroom with the whole floor but the absolute worse part was he slept with his microwave . . .and named it Steve.

I don’t remember if he said I do yes or I love you but two days later we started a relationship for the books.

I said yes. It was in December at one of Oaklande's notorious festivals. I had gone to it just to see her. There were feelings between us for me that I can't even write about it was like this magnetic pull telling me this girl was different , she wasn't going anywhere and she was going to change my life and she did. And when I married her for the first time I wasn't facing life alone. I have no idea how all those innocent,sweet and impulsive feelings we had turned into anger, bitterness and jealousy but I don't think what happens today or in the next 10 years is the end of our story.

We were married on Janurary 4^th