Category: Bryan

I’ve been married to this guy nine years as of last week, and I’m pretty excited about that. He’s a great dad and pastor of our home, and the hardest worker I know.

I think this year has been the best year we’ve ever had, despite job loss, start-up life, and stressful money situations, and I know it’s only going to get better.

One night a couple years ago over drinks a girlfriend asked me how a woman like me could go to Mars Hill. There was a lot of sub-context exchanged in the asking, and it wasn’t necessary for her to elaborate on the question. I knew exactly why she asked it.

She’d read in Seattle’s alternative papers about Mars Hill and its hatred of women and its bigoted misogynist pastor, and based on what she knew of me and my relationship with Bryan she couldn’t fathom how I could subject myself to such teaching.

You see, there’s a verse in the Christian Bible that always riles up the ladies, whether they are part of the church or looking in from the outside. The verse is:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22).

We don’t like that ugly word, submit. It evokes anger and outrage in us because it sounds like we are not equals. The truth is we are equals. Undeniably. But different in ways that go beyond basic anatomy.

What often gets overlooked is the second half of this passage, the one that refers to husbands:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25).

In case you don’t know The Story, Christ gave himself up for the church by dying.

So Jesus doesn’t call his ladies to submit to dicks who think they’re God – or jackasses who treat women like shit – or lazy assholes who beat off to porn all day. He calls us to submit to a man who sacrifices himself to lead, teach, and provide for his family.

Benevolently.

I am married to such a man. And so, yes, I submit to him. That doesn’t mean I’m a weak, marginalized woman. It means I’m smart, because I picked a guy worth following.

Thanks for the great ride, baby.

Bryan likes it when I wear two pigtails in my hair – he says it makes me look spunky. After nine years of marriage he still gets a come-hither twinkle in his eye when I wear them, so pigtails is how I wear my hair whenever he takes me out.

Bryan turned The Big 40 on December 10th, so I threw him a big party in Seattle this weekend for all his friends to celebrate with us. I want to give a big shout out to our friends, Nate & Beth Grigg for hosting the party in their lovely home! Apparently it was a practice run for them since they both turn 40 next month.

(oops, did I say that OUT LOUD Nate?)

The highlight of the evening was the Good Things Rapid Discovery Slam in which a few of us presented cool things inspired by or that remind us of Bryan (detailed explanation here). I read the following essay, written especially for this occassion:

On making an entrance into my life

You came to a BBQ at a house filled with single women, setting out your green salad with mandarin oranges, almonds, and a poppy seed dressing. Sitting there next to the bags of chips and buckets of KFC brought by lesser men, that salad made its first move on your behalf.

You get there first, and you make an entrance.

You came to the office for a meeting one day, and stopped by my desk to say hello. I mentioned we were all going to a show next month, and did you want us to get you a ticket.

“I’d love to take a beautiful woman to a show,” you said, and before I knew it, the group outing became a date.

You get there first, and you make an entrance.

And then I remember sitting at a table across from you in a loud, smokey room, drinking something pink and eating something wrapped, feeling that familiar panic of what-if’s and how-do-you-know’s. I’d pushed back on lesser men before, and they all went away into history, leaving behind affirmations of fear.

But when I pushed back on you with my what-if’s and how-do-you-know’s, you anchored me with you eyes, and said you’d keep asking until I said no.

You get there first, and you make an entrance.

So I followed you off into the sunset, knowing our destination lies somewhere between limitless possibilities and certain painful death. But as they say in our song:

We’re sailing on a strange sea
blown by a strange wind
Carrying the strangest crew
that ever sinned

We’re living in a strange time
working for a strange goal
We’re turning flesh and body
into soul

You set our course on this Strange Boat way back during those salad days. I didn’t know it then, but I know you knew it, because that’s how you roll in this set-up upset reset life.

So I raise a glass to you, Bryan Zug, on this, your 40th birthday. Thank you for setting our course as we follow after that Strange Star.

Maybe others came this way before you, but you got here first, and you made an entrance.

I was looking back through my archives for something and came across this post. It made me laugh that two years later he’s still fighting the Sock Battle. The original post can be found here, in December 2007.

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Every year when the weather turns, Bryan goes into Paranoid Sock Police Mode. It’s not uncommon to hear things around our house like, “The reason you got sick, Ruthie, is cuz you’re not wearing your socks!” and “Thomas! You just coughed because you’re not wearing your socks! Where are your socks?”

Maintaining this level of Sock Security was easy with Ruthie because he just made her wear tights every day. But because Boys Don’t Wear Tights, he’s had a tougher go of it with Thomas. Apparently, as you see in the picture, he thinks pulling Thomas’ socks way up high will help keep them on. Tucking his p.j.’s into the socks also helps, and will increase Thomas’ chance of finding a wife.

I just roll my eyes at the insanity. The kids go all day with bare feet because I have bigger fish to fry than trying to find discarded socks throughout the house. But as soon as Bryan gets home from work he’s on Sock Patrol. I figure, if he wants to spend his energy policing bare feet, then so be it. I usually just end up sweeping random socks into a laundry pile at the end of the day.

In a related story, Bryan has also been known to wear socks with his sandals during cooler summer evenings, and even into fall. I have requested he not do this while in my presence, but I am not obeyed. “My feet are cold,” he always says. To which my normally irrational mind rationally thinks, “Then wear shoes…”

This piece of logic escapes a man with a Sock Blind Spot.

I recently laughed at him when he sent Thomas downstairs in these ridiculous black knee socks, and told him I was so blogging about it. He was all, Fine, but you should watch this commercial first, because socks are a NORTHWEST thing.

Yeah, baby. Sure they are.