awww

I can’t wait for English to catch up with teh Interwebs. In another era I could say I read a magazine or a book or even an article. I started to type I read words. Well, yes, that is what we usually do. Rather than reading numbers. It is so much better when I can patronize myself.

I digress, which would be an awesome name for a blog, I bet. I have read posts and articles and words expressing such love for people’s loved ones. And it made me feel awww in my heart. The secret language of marriage, which I found by way of Sarah Brown‘s guest post at Dooce, which is only worth mentioning because the guests posts have made me very happy. The shorthand of inside jokes and memories is a glue of not just marriage but friendship. And despite knowing that Rob and I have enough shorthand to develop our own sign language, I can’t think of a single example. I was reading words somewhere else , about the sweet things husbands have done for their wives. And I aww’d. And I don’t feel bereft for my lack of examples, I’m more embarrassed  for not writing down / noticing / treasuring the sweet things Rob does do.

Especially if you read Tara Parker Pope in the NYTimes and her divorce book and stats. Scary stuff. The eye roll as the sign  of contempt.*** The idea of creating annual checkups for your marriage. And as much as I get the analogy that we (should) have annual checkups for our bodies. And tune-ups our car. I pause. And my belief in the analogy fails, because who hasn’t felt like they felt fine until the doctor poked and prodded something. Or diagnosed you with PCOS and you go off birth control to see if you’re suffering from infertility. (Let’s say not really) Or that your car was fine as you drove into the 90,000 mile checkup and now they want you to replace the struts. On Rob’s car, the dealer actually told me I shouldn’t drive his car because the struts were so bad. And the independent mechanic couldn’t decide who was nuttier – them or me. Because the muffler was practically dragging on the ground. But the struts? they were fine.

Did I drop the connector thought? Just that if I don’t notice the sweet things, perhaps I am missing the big picture. Or the bad things.

In any case, I have been feeling fuzzy and warm with love. But my memory is weak. I have wondered f that is the key to a long marriage. Poor recall. Ba-dum-dum. No really. Cold Play’s Viva La Vida was on a CD in the minivan, a leftover CD that I’m sure I burned months (years?) ago.  And I like that song. But I can’t sing along to it at all – not as a crititque of my admittedly poor singing voice but because I can’t remember the lyrics. It took me forever to find what song it even was. I could hum it, but that does not enter into Google very well. Viva La Vida is like my love right now.

There are worse things. Right? I hope.

***OK the words are not cooperating. If you’d click that link, you’ll find an WSJ archive story from when TPP worked at the WSJ. And I loved her there and was delighted when she switched to the NYT because the NYT is more freely accessible. Besides the point, Sarah. This contempt in an eye roll story is from 2002. But I have read those words somewhere recently.

This and That