While You Were Sleeping

I’m lying in my bed with my boyfriend Preppy, enjoying that lovely fuzzy place just before I fall asleep. There’s freshly laundered sheets that smell like gardenias, and I’m curled up with a man I adore.
I am officially content.
Then, just as I’m drifting off, a deafening noise pierces the silence, akin to someone starting a chainsaw next to my head. I bolt upright and look over, already knowing the source: Preppy is snoring.
Careful not to disturb his peaceful slumber, I roll him over on his side, which stops the chainsaw, replacing it with what I’ve come to call “The Death Rattle”. Sometimes the Rattle only lasts a few minutes before it subsides. No such luck tonight. I tilt his head forward. I stare at him and silently demand he stop this racket right now. The Rattle continues, supplemented by the sound the spit-sucker makes when you go to the dentist.
I rub his back and say, “Shhhh,” very gently. Then I say “Shhh,” a little less gently. And I shove him a little.
“Wha, huh?” says Preppy.
“You were snoring, baby.”
“Were you shushing me?”
“I was out of ideas. I thought it might make you stop.”
“How? I’m not doing it on purpose!”
“I know, I know,” I say. “Go back to sleep. Sorry.”
He floats back to his dreams. The Rattle returns, defiantly, with renewed vigor. I put a pillow over my head and pray for sleep.
On the phone the next day, my sister Shannon tells me to try lightly pinching his nostrils. It worked on her husband. So in bed that night, when the chainsaw massacre begins anew, I reach over and very carefully pinch his nose. It works! He instantly stops snoring. I want to dance a little jig, so great is my joy in this moment. Until I realize Shannon’s trick didn’t simply make Preppy stop snoring. He’s also not breathing.
“Oh, Sweet Jesus,” I think. “I killed my boyfriend.”
I shake him, which gives him a good jump start, his mouth falls slack, and a new instrument is added to the bedtime symphony: Sort of a mournful, moose-like sound. I decide this is my karmic punishment for trying to murder him in his sleep, put the pillow back on my head, and fail to sleep much.
The next morning, my roommate George notes that I’m unusually grumpy.
“Your reaction to this snoring business is beginning to concern me,” says George.
“Have you ever slept with a man that snores?” I ask.
“Darling, I’ve encountered every deficiency known to mankind. There were a few that snored. I thought it was kinda cute.”
“No, George. Golden retriever puppies with giant paws are cute. Sleep apnea is just frustrating. Plus it’s not good for him. I’m thinking of his welfare.”
“Bullshit, you’re thinking of your beauty rest. Personally, I think you just need to learn to sleep through it and accept that there are some things you can’t control.”
I’m really trying to do that, I swear. A few days before, I’d run across one of Preppy’s T-shirts in my bedroom. It was a Larry the Cable Guy shirt that said “Git Ur Done”. My first instinct upon finding it was to, of course, set it on fire in the back yard and play dumb later. And I know when I was with The Ex, that’s exactly what I would have done. That poor man lost half his wardrobe, item by item, when we started dating. My instinct anytime I run across something I don’t like is to make it go away immediately. I didn’t want to repeat those mistakes, so I folded the “Git Ur Done” t-shirt, and put it in his drawer.
Now, faced with the snoring quandary, I’m once again battling the question of whether to try and fix something, or accept it and let it go. I really wish there was an easy reference guide for relationships that I could consult in these scenarios. But, left to my own devices, I decide that I’m probably just adjusting to having someone sleeping in my bed on a regular basis, and with time I’ll get used to my bellowing boyfriend. I don’t need to force this issue. But there’s not any harm in picking up some Breathe-Right strips and casually leaving them on his side of the bed, just in case he’d like to try them out.

House Rules

When I was little, I’d always picture getting away from Mississippi, and then one day returning with pride and confidence, as a success. In a perfect scenario, I’d be in the back of a big limousine, maybe wearing a fur coat, like Reba at the end of the “Fancy” video.
Next month, I experience a small measure of that moment when I travel to see one of my plays produced by a theatre back home. After I announced the production to my friends, it didn’t take long before a road trip was planned. So this July, George, Slutty Mandy, my boyfriend Preppy, and I are Mississippi-bound. I fully expect the crowd to grow as we get closer to the event.
Preppy is the first guy I’ve ever dated from my home state of Mississippi, so it’ll be a nice visit home for him too. We grew up not far from each other, and know all the same landmarks. It’s a fun thing, saying stuff like, “You know, over where the Shoney’s is on County Line Road?” and having him nod along. He knows it well.

Every kid who ever went to Jackson with their grandparents and had supper at 5:00 knows that Shoney’s.
My Mama and I are notorious over-planners, so something like this launches us into the stratosphere.
“I need you to find out if anyone has any food allergies,” Mama informed me in a recent conversation. “And your Daddy’s gonna fire up the grill! Goodness, I hope we have enough beds for everyone.”
“It’ll be fine. We’ll bring sleeping bags if we need to. And Preppy’s staying with his parents at least one night.”
“Oh!” she said. “I just assumed he’d be staying with them every night.”
“Well, he’ll wanna be where all our friends are.”
“Naturally. You know you two can’t share a bed, of course.”
“We understand that. Your house. No problem.”
“And since you’re both from Mississippi, I don’t have to tell you that you’ll need to behave appropriately while you’re here.”
Oh, boy. It’d been a while since we’d had this conversation. When I was still with The Ex, there was an endless list of rules and restrictions that we were expected to adhere to whenever we visited my parents. Included in the mix: no holding hands, no kissing, no hugging... basically if we could make it appear that we hadn’t been properly introduced, it would really make everyone more comfortable. We endured that for a few years, until a showdown during Christmas planning that led to us spending our holidays alone. We were just tired of making concessions for other people’s intolerance. After we broke up, I started going home again. Our relationship continued to improve. In fact, it’s better than it’s ever been.
But now there’s a boyfriend again.
“I’m going to need you to clarify what you think of as ‘appropriate’, Mama.”
“Oh, you know. There’s just some things that make me prickly, Son. I even have to look away when those boys kiss on Brothers and Sisters, and…”
“Just stop. Listen to me. I am not a TV show. I am your son. We won’t share a bed, because that’s not a big deal for us, and we won’t have any makeout sessions because that’s just tacky. But that’s it. We will hold hands, we will embrace, we will sit together, and I will tell him I love him. And when you see that happen, you can look at me and remind yourself that after I went through cancer treatment three times, and all the crap we’ve both survived, thank God you have the chance to see me alive and happy. And that I’ve found someone who loves me as much as he does. I swear if you can’t get over your own bullshit and do that, you’re gonna see a whole lot less of me. We are not going down this road again. House rules have changed.”
Mama said she understood.
My childhood dream was to come home with pride and confidence in who I’d become. And you know what?

I think I’m finally doing it.