Fixation

As a married couple, there’s something inspiring and invigorating about being a part of a wedding. This last weekend Katie Lohuis, one of our best friends, was married happily ever after to Matt Stott. Amy was actually a bridesmaid so the last few weeks have been busy for her with the bridal shower, bachlorette party, and rehersals. All the planning and arrangements payed off though, as the ceremony was breathtaking and the reception was a blast.

Congratulations Katie and Matt Stott

I had a chance to write down some words of encouragement and advice for them at the rehersal dinner, but I used up my piece of paper saying how excited I was to see this day come and how they could stay with Amy and I any time. I don’t regret the words that I wrote, but thinking about it in retrospect, I wish I had passed along a little more advice. If I could sum up all the things I’ve learned so far in marriage into one statement, that would be “Don’t expect to fix everything”. There have been so many times in Amy and I’s relationship when Amy has presented a problem or an issue that I’ve wasted time trying to fix. Most of the time, communication isn’t about hearing a problem and trying to solve it, but about listening, feeling, and communicating back. In many ways, Amy and I are the opposite of typical couples. She’s the organizer, the brains, and as far as our job roles go, she wears the boots in the family. I work at home, I’m a creative, and I tend to take a very non-systematic approach to most tasks. When it comes to communication though, I fall into the same male pitfalls as all of our other young-married friends. That is, I fail to communicate.

Word Racer Blobs

Take tonight’s problem for instance. Amy wanted to play Word Racer on the mac for a few minutes tonight. It used to work fine in Firefox, but now it crashes the browser. Since the last time she played, I’ve upgraded Firefox from 1.0 to 1.0.4 and upgraded the Mac OS to Tiger. It does work in Safari, but all the letters become incoherent blobs for some reason. Well, I’ve been working on trying to “fix” that problem now for several hours and although Amy definitely wants to be able to play Word Racer on the mac, she probably would have preferred that I stuck to some kind of deadline so we could have spent time together working on a project that we need to get done. If I had just spent 30 minutes to an hour and told her that I’d come back to it later it would have been fine, but instead I’ve wasted most of the night trying to fix a problem rather than communicating. I’m such a creature of habit.

PS: If anybody has had any luck playing Word Racer in OSX Tiger, please let me know. After spending all this time, I’m still frustrated that I haven’t been able to get it to work.

8 comments on “Fixation

Ray says:

I definitely agree with you on �Don�t expect to fix everything�. My wife Amy and I are both stubborn. Here’s a typical conversation:
“I can’t fix something/figure it out.”
“Here, let me try.”
“Don’t touch it, please! I’M working on it!”

It’s not a matter of us wanting to fix the other’s problem, it’s really just us wanting to vent. When we first got married, I wanted to help my wife with stuff, but soon found it’s better to just LISTEN. Great. I can do that. And don’t offer advice. Just keep my pie-hole shut and ears open.

sue stott says:

Dear Jason,
What fun to read what you wrote and see the picture of Matt and Katie. I am so glad that the wedding was meaningful for you and that you enjoyed the reception. I wish I could have met you, especially after reading what you wrote. You are right on about women just needing to talk–being a good listener is so important–the advise sometimes happens as we talk–then we know what we are thinking!!! Anyhow, I think Amy has a great husband–from what I read and tell Amy I enjoyed meeting her at Katie’s. The cookie surprise was amazing.
Sincerely,
Sue Stott

Oh, the cookie making adventure! Amy (with the help of her sister, sister’s boyfriend Sean, mom, dad, and myself) made about 250 bride/groom themed cookies the day before the wedding. For more pictures from the wedding (including a couple from the production line), visit: http://amesnjas.com/06_2005_mattnkatie.php

Scott says:

Please, please, please tell me if you find a solution to the Word Racer problem. I’m desperately searching for a way to play again. I’m addicted! And I’m really starting to regret installing Tiger for this very reason!!

Well, I’m not the one addicted 🙂 but we still haven’t found a way to
play it on Tiger. Sorry… If anyone has, we’re still dying to know.

andrea says:

holy crap, after far too much time looking for a fix to that blob problem, i *finally* found it!

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@195.ktbOanMTSLW.0@.68b3f7c6/1

“for me, if i disable font “#HeadLineA”, with Font Book, it changes the font within yahoo games but it’s still an ugly cursive script font. i then disabled “#PilGi” font. it’s much easier to read now. i’m not sure what determines the font but it’s a work around.”

the font is still a little weird but hella better than what you have above.

yay! hrm, i’m not entirely sure fixing this is a *good* thing. =D

That’s great Andrea! I’ll have to give that a shot. I’ve got LinoType’s Font Explorer X installed here, so I can just disable the culprit fonts in there and hopefully we’ll be able to play again.

caff says:

andrea…thank you so much for posting that. the apple discussion is no longer there and I just got tiger and am a fan of word racer too. Thank you! (and thanks to Jason for posing the question – nice blog btw). Cheerios.

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