The Phillip Fan Club

Phillip recently spent an evening catching up on this website. You'd think he'd have it open at all times, constantly refreshing to see what bits of written wisdom I've imparted to the masses, but sometimes he forgets that it exists. Shocking! Sometimes I have to say, "Did you read what I wrote TODAY? Did you LIKE IT?" And then he will obediently fetch the laptop and dilligently read each and every post. It was a bad idea this time around, however, as it appears I've offended him. Phillip, he would like you to know, feels that he is being unfairly maligned on this here website. "I like ITALY," he griped, miffed at my last post. "I do TOO know about wiring!" he said after reading the post before that one. "And if they knew where I LIVED I'm SURE I would have been invited to my high school reunion!" he whined, as if this was the biggest affront of all.

So anyway. I said I would devote a post to the Fantabulousness and Devastatingly Handsomeness of my husband. Well, first I suggested he write his own defense, but that did not go over well, so I have to think it up all by myself. Hmmm.

Okay, so instead of talking about the things Phillip is not so good at (if anyone in the world has a negative sense of direction, it is Phillip Cheung) and instead of making (slight! done with love!) fun of him (yesterday I found fourteen pairs of socks piled up underneath his desk) (maybe I am exaggerating) (not by much), I'm going to tell you how awesome he is. Which is so awesome the awesomeness obliterates the Hansel and Gretel trail of socks up to the third floor.

Here is my newest favorite Phillip thing: he likes babies. I don't know what it is about seeing my six foot two gigando husband holding a teeny tiny three-month-old baby, but it makes me melt. And he doesn't just hold the baby, he plays with the baby. He talks to the baby. And when the baby goes home, he'll say to me, "Gosh that baby was cute!" Babies seem to gravitate towards him (or is this just men in general? Deeper voices and all that?) I was holding a baby yesterday and then my husband walks by and says something and the baby looks up at him and holds out her arms and just like that, I am no longer holding the baby and Phillip is walking off with her. It would be unfair if it wasn't so adorable.

Phillip is the youngest. He is so youngest that he's practically an only child. And when we got married, I became the youngest in a small quiet family and he became an older brother of four loud siblings. I wasn't sure how he'd get along in my family, but he does okay, and he loves my little sisters. I'm sure I'm mortifying all of them by writing this, but I love that he loves my sisters. He thinks the boys are all right too, but he likes to take care of my sisters. He wants to invite them for dinner. He wants to fix their computers. He wants to help them move. He won't forget we're supposed to take them somewhere, like I do all the time. If he thinks I wasn't very nice to one of them, he'll tell me so. It'd be sort of annoying if it wasn't so cute.

In college I used to go to his dorm room to watch Saturday Night Live. Not because I liked this show or anything, but because Phillip always invited me to watch it and I always went and it became a Thing. Plus I had this big embarrassing crush on him, so whatever. But I would go to his room to watch TV and he would sit at his desk and play around with his computer. Or he'd do homework. Or he'd read something. Or he'd do pretty much anything except watch TV with me. It drove me out of my mind (not that I stopped going, because hello, big embarrassing crush) and one day after we were married I asked him about it. He said, "Oh, I just liked having you around." He's still like that. He doesn't need to be doing anything with me, he just wants to be doing things in the same place.

He goes to church, and not because of me.

He knows old songs and actually likes them. Not kids' songs, in which his internal Song File is remarkably deficient (oops! I'm not writing THAT kind of post!), but old 1940's torch songs and movie theme songs and standards that aren't "The Way You Look Tonight". A long time ago someone told us that we were the only two people he could think of who would know the name of a particular old song he had stuck in his head, and that made me feel all warm and fuzzyish, like it was Meant To Be. (Barf: I wrote "meant to be".)

He first met my parents right after helping me through the string of Parental Minivan Thefts. (My parents' minivan, which I had with me at college, was stolen three times in four months. This was due to my own stupidity, as well as the inherent meanness of the thieves, who were probably just stealing it the second and third times to point out how stupid it was to leave it on the street in the University District.) All my parents knew of Phillip at that point was that I had racked up their international phone bill calling some boy the previous summer, and that he had helped me track down and fix that stupid van every time the police called to tell me it was found. I believe the word my dad used was "sainted". This was excellent forethought on Phillip's part, don't you think? But he didn't have to help me fix my car. Or be nice to me in the parking lot when I realized my van had been stolen for the third time and I burst into humiliated frustrated tears of WOE.

He likes to cook. He won't clean the bathroom, but that's all right because I won't vacuum. He knows I hate getting gas (like, irrationally so)- he'll run an errand with me just so he can fill up my tank. He indulges my television habit. When I'm anxious, he'll stay up so I won't have to fall asleep by myself.

I've heard Phillip advise friends once or twice about relationships, and he has said something like, "Well, when you're with her, are you a better person than you are without her?" I love that he knows to say this. I love that it's true for me.

Seriously. If he would just learn to put his dirty clothes in the hamper, he'd be perfect.

(Confidential to Phillip: feel any better?)

Comments

[Maureen]

Hey, Andrew (The Husband) never reads my blog either! It must be a husband thing. I don't know, I guess he spends his time at work *working* or some such nonsense.

[Antonia]

awww!!