Marriage. It's what brings us together. And makes that togetherness feel like a prison sentence.

I happen to really like the man I married. He's funny and smart and my #1 hang. He's good for me and we have a lot of fun together. And even though I like having him in my life, there are times in our marriage that I want to erase him from my existence. There are times that he is the most miserable thing that ever happened to me. There are times that I want to run away and change my name and pretend this relationship never existed. They are few and far between, but they happen, and I'm pretty sure they happen to anyone in any relationship of any significance.

Then we have days like yesterday. We rode bikes to the pier to eat tempura fried fish tacos and drink cold beer. We came home and I planted flowers while he played piano. We had a hilarious conversation about 69-ing wherein I asked, "What if it was my fantasy to 69 and that was all I wanted in life? Would you do it?" and he answered, "I'm am not the Make a Wish Foundation." (I should clarify that it is not my fantasy to 69 all the time. I think the topic came up because we were watching some reality show about freaks and freaky stuff.) I hung curtains, he napped on the couch. Then we went back to the beach to watch the sunset. The day ended with our favorite pizza and what he calls "good old, fashioned TV watching." On more than one occasion I had to shout, "My life is awesome!" because, well, it was such an awesome day.

We've been together for more than 10 years at this point in our story. We have ups, downs, and plateaus. We are codependent and needy and selfish. We are lazy and neither of us wants to work at this relationship, but I think we both want it to last. The thing is, marriage is kind of a losing proposition. It's definitely doomed to fail if it's based on love or sex. I love my sisters more than any human on the planet and there have been times in my life that I would have divorced them if it was an option. I'm pretty sure parents would divorce their kids if that was allowed. Love ebbs and flows, comes and goes, and can be there and still leave space for hate. Love makes you stupid, and the tenuousness of it makes you crazy. Marriage isn't love. Marriage is a decision, one that you make every day. Sometimes it's an easy one to make, like yesterday, and sometimes everything in your body is telling you to just say no except a sentimental part of your mind that says "Remember that day you rode bikes and he made that hilarious joke about 69-ing? That day will come again if you decide to stay with this."

I'm barely into my happily ever after and I have no idea what would happen if we were faced with real challenges. We don't have kids, we aren't sleep deprived, we make enough money, we don't have health problems. We have it pretty good, and we've made the decisions we've made to get it that way. But I fully expect the problems that we do have to always be there and to always be trying to wear us out. I wonder what this union will feel like when we're 20 or 30 years in and if I'll have the stamina to keep listening to that sentimental part that makes room for more of the bike-riding, 69-joking days. I wonder if he will.

Luckily, the universe reads minds. I was driving to work the other day listening to the TED Radio Hour and the whole show was about How We Love. There was a lady named Esther Perel on and she was talking about the paradox of love (have) and desire (want) and how modern marriage really makes those two necessary and valuable experiences impossible. The way she spoke of marriage, the experience and obligations of it, really struck a chord with me. My favorite part was when she said, "This dilemma between our need for security and our need for adventure and how we're trying to bring them together under one roof is more a paradox that we manage and less a problem that we solve." Marriage is a paradox. I think happily ever after might just be possible with that as the expectation.

Accordiongly

Last night we watched Gold Rush and tonight I am doing Valentine's Day crafts while he learns to play the accordion.

I love my life. And as much as I hate his cup gardens and unflushed pee and I-need-it-now tantrums, I love him.

Dulywed

Says me: "Babe, if you need to have sex with me on the kitchen table later, I'll allow it."

Says he: "Do you know how tiny our kitchen table is? No way."

I think that makes this marriage official.

Cray-cray

Mack sometimes needs attention, and he has become pretty good at finding a way to get me to stop watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey that is effectively annoying. Not too much that I get pissed, but just enough that I am distracted.

Well, the other day a magazine came and Mack started flipping through it.

Then Teresa said something totally bitchy with a smile and thought that'd make it okay.

"Ohhh look, there's a free sample."

My head snapped from the television to the man on the couch peeling out a free sample of something I needed, something that was MINE because I pay for that subscription, something that he was about to STEAL FROM ME!

"What is it? Huh? Is it perfume? I hate perfume. What is it? SERIOUSLY."

"It's a Bioré strip."

Dammit. I love those things.

"Give it to me. It's mine. It's my free sample. GIVE IT TO MEEEE."

He managed to keep it just out of my reach, peeling it out of the package, removing the backing and putting it on his nose, and all I could do was degrade into a swirl of irrational consumer jealousy. Finally he snapped his head around.

Yep, that's a pantyliner.

Male Man

I have subscribed to a ton of beauty magazines to become more in-the-know about "prestige" fashion.

Mack gets the mail because it is on the outside and I don't like acknowledging there is outside when that cold white stuff is everywhere. Yesterday he brought in the new Glamour with the mail.

"The phone bill came, and Kim Kardashian wants to show me her boobs." Talk about delivery.

What happens when you don't pay your bills.

This morningish (we got up around 11) started out like most mornings de winter, with both of us in bed trying to invent reasons we should get out of bed even though it's like 11 degrees out there.

I'm not lazy; it's just cold.

Eventually the responsibilities of social networking got me up and Mack, with no one left to endorse this bad behavior, decided to get on with his day too. I hopped on the computer, he hopped in the shower.

Squeak, bang, creak, squeak, thunk.

"Is the water guy outside?" yells a frantic bathroom voice.

"Wha?" I say as I get up and go to the window to look out. "Yeah."

"Catch him!"

Without thinking, I burst through the front door, down the steps and started yelling after the KAWC truck. "HEY! HEY! HEY! WAIT!!!"

As The Man Who Ruined Today rounded the corner and out of sight, I returned to the moment and realized I'm in public, on a busy street, in semi-transparent blue polka dotted pajama pants, a stretched out grey t-shirt sans bra, and electric pink furry boot slippers that should only be worn by 13 year olds. Aka too sexy.

I went inside to preserve my dignity and explain to Mack that The Man Who Ruined Today got away, and you know that scene in A Christmas Story where the dad's cusses are all mumbles and grrrs? Yeah, that became my life for about 15 minutes.

Since we'd been gone for most of December, the mail had gotten out of control. We went through it when we got home, and I remembered seeing a KAWC bill and putting in on Mack's desk to be paid. There was nothing else from them, just a bill, and it was due Jan. 12. No problem, except that they turn off your water within the month if you don't pay the bill for that month before your next bill is due, a policy that, along with the fact that they don't knock to give you one last chance to pay, qualifies them as Asshole Cuntbag Dickfaces.

I immediately called them to pay the past due bill, the current bill, the $26 Because We Haven't Fucked You Enough Charge and the $1.80 Rape Charge for Paying Over the Phone. With a confirmation number in hand and a promise to have the water back on today in place, the next issue to deal with was Mr. Grumbles.

The Man Who Ruined Today came just after Mack's shower, which was good, but right in the middle of Mack's manscaping, which is oh-so bad. Mack is a hairy gorilla, and because he shaves probably once a month, when he finally does it, it is a project. A project that requires water.

When he opened the door to show me "what I'm dealing with," it was too much. There he stood, his entire torso and face splotchy with shaving cream and newly cut hairs, a mess of man flesh that needed nothing but rinsed.

Unfortunately, our options were scarce. There was a vase that was soaking after I rinsed out a bunch of cigarettes and melted snow left by our mail-getter Scotty and a pot of water that I'd boiled eggs in yesterday.

I passed them into Mack as options and silently affirmed my belief that showers are overrated. I also found my water bottle from yesterday's gym trip and another one that Leigh left here a few days ago (I think), two sources that gave us about 2 cups of clean water. We decided those should be saved for brushing teeth.

Mack closed himself into the bathroom and did his best to solve a problem we haven't had to deal with since the bucket showers of Ghana days. He emerged smelling an extra lot like shaving cream.

"What'd you go for?" I asked him. "The egg water or the cigarette water?"

I can't imagine a more disgusting choice to make. He went for the eggs.

Dulywed: Year 4

Dear Mack,

If not for the utterance of the words Happy and Anniversary, the celebration of our fourth year of marriage would have been just like any other day. You and me, on the couch, medical books in our laps, waiting for the guy to show up with the Chinese food.

There was no fancy dinner, no gifts, not even the exchange of cards. We both had tests looming, Thanksgivings to recover from, and slight hangovers from those $3 Kamikazes you forced on me and Shannon the night before. Instead of the typical things like fruits or flowers, we gave each other time and understanding.

Looking back on the past year, I think time and understanding is just about the best thing I could have asked for.

This was the year I went on overnight trips to Memphis, Lake Charles, Indiana, Memphis, Indiana, Louisville, Louisville, Louisville and left you at home to fend for yourself. Of course, I ordered you pizza from a distance a couple of times, and I premade some meals and put them in the freezer for you, but even as much as I know you love (and need) food, I know you love (and need) me around more. You're probably starting to twitch with the urge to deny that, but it's a fact. After four years of marriage, I am the one person you neeeeeeeeed in your life.

And, to be fair, I neeeeeeeed you in mine.

I need to ask you where you're going when you leave the room, even if your answer is always a smart-ass, "France." I need to call you when my day is done and see how yours is going. I need to feel that mix of annoyed and humored when I hear you turn on the shower to rinse down your pee or when you grope me while I'm sorting laundry. I need to pass you my plate to when I've had enough and ask you questions that I'd normally save for Google. I need you to fill our house with music, to help me get a thicker skin, to challenge me to dream bigger than I've ever dreamed before.

I don't need you to drive me anywhere because you are a panicky old man driver with road rage who can't remember where he's going.

When we went to DC this past March and got in that huge fight over coffee or something as equally stupid and you stormed off and left me and I was roaming the city without a way to get in touch with you, I can't begin to describe the panic I felt. Not because I was worried something would happen to me or to you but because you are my person and even when I hate you, I need you to be there.

You have become the yin to my yang, the highs to my lows, the dish-puter-awayer to my dish-washer. We have in our fourth year found balance, a balance that can only come from succumbing to reliance, from settling into need. As much as we are still two distinct individuals, it feels like we're finally family.

Thank you for giving me these past four years to work my way into this depth of trust, this degree of love, and thank you for understanding my needs and tolerating them, even when they make your head want to explode. Like, I need a cat.

I love you, Thomas. Happy Anniversary.

Needy Bitches

Dulywed: Year 3

Dear Mack,

I was watching Top Chef on Tivo today and the challenge was to create a dish using the hotels of Las Vegas as inspiration. The Bellagio and Mandalay Bay were among the featured hotels, and the whole subject took me back three years ago when we spent the weekend at the now-demolished Frontier hotel, to that fateful night when you and I went to the courthouse and promised to be best friends for the rest of our lives in front of three complete strangers.

I remember wearing cowboy boots and picking the most ridiculous bouquet in the little chapel. I remember the minister pushing the play button on his tape player and cuing me to walk down the 6-foot-long aisle. I remember thinking how silly this whole show was and how tragic that some of the other couples there were actually taking this seriously. Our wedding, the one that legally bound us, was a joke.

But then, standing up at that ridiculous alter wrapped up with silk roses, something happened. Since no one else in the entire room mattered, I became fixed on you. I robotically uttered familiar phrases about sickness or health, richer or poorer, and looked into your eyes without being distracted. When I was told to say that I would be your best friend forever, I was jolted. That was a serious commitment, one I naively hadn't considered before that moment, and I had to make a decision right then and there. Staring at you in your grandpa sweater with your big smile and dangerous eyes, I agreed. I promised to be your best friend.

I know that there have been days, weeks, maybe even months in the last three years that I haven't been your best friend. In fact, it's possible and likely that at times I've been your worst enemy. But even in that darkness, in that indifference and carelessness, I'm still glad that I made the promise of friendship. It's created a bridge that keeps our marriage from going under, that gets us over the bad times and back to the good ones, that binds you to me and me to you.

This past year has been full of ups and downs, just like the roller coaster ride we went on at the New York hotel moments after we got married. You graduated from college and I got laid off from my job. You started med school, I started nursing school, and we both stopped doing dishes. We moved away from your family and came closer to mine. We traded endless sun, weekends at the beach and a constant state of poverty for rainy days, mosquitoes and feeling like millionaires. You lost judo the way you liked it and I lost fire dance as I was just falling in love with it, but you gained a judo friend who loves it as much as you do and I reconnected with the arts activism that gives me a sense of purpose. We got my older sister back, we left your baby sister behind. You had your issue with ProstaStrong and I had mine with Metamucil. We drove across the country in a state of delirium, shared the discovery of shadow people, almost died trying to move in and then sat on the porch swing swilling cold beer and getting bored of unemployment. I built a dollhouse, you dissected a human body.

I guess you could safely say this year has been unlike any we've ever had.

A few weeks ago when you were about to burst from resentment for a state narrowed by its dominant whiteness, we escaped to the cemetery to sit by the pond and preserve your sanity. In that small afternoon, while you held my hand so I could hang over the pond and get garbage out of the water, while we watched the fish have a feeding frenzy on bread, while that super fat ugly bird waddled over to our bench to get some attention, I felt like we were best friends, like we are appropriately balanced between helpful and hurtful, between together and apart, between supportive and disruptive. I felt like I did that day at Shakertown, when the whole world fell away and it was just me and you and cartwheel practice.

Of course I love you. Of course I care about you. Of course I think you are deliciously handsome and sexy and smart and funny. But as we spend more and more time together, the thing I value most about you is your friendship.

Thank you for the last three years and for the one we're starting today. Happy anniversary, Mr. T.

This Little Piggy

A couple of nights ago Mack decided it was time to go to bed and I absolutely was not ready. There were several episodes of the 2005-06 season of Grey's Anatomy on the Tivo and I am on fall break from school and I just felt like staying up retardedly late and flexing my "I'm a grown up and can do what I want when I want" muscle.

But he was not having it. In physically dragging me to bed, he also dragged/drug/dragguged the sofa and coffee table into the hallway.

And then, during the final hoist of his far-from-waiflike wife into the bed, my not-quite-baby toe hooked on his lobster claw toenail and... bad feelings happened.

He did emergency bandaiding, and I figured it'd be better by morning. But then last night I had volleyball and ground my ouchie in the sand for an hour and then today I put on socks and tennis shoes and went for a jogalk. Now my not-quite-baby toe is really made at Mack's lobster claws.

How can I somehow milk this situation for this...

The Holiday Spirit

Fine. Los Angeles doesn't naturally have any holiday spirit. Fireside chats and the first snow are sort of like jokes about Mars. Why would anyone need fire? And snow makes it cold.

But this year, I wanted it.
And despite his initial resistance, Mr. T fell for it too.
It was like the best day ever.