You know what else?

I ask Alan to tell me if my outfit works every morning. And I think he's usually truthful.

This makes it easy when we go shopping (like on Saturday) and I ask him if he likes something I'm thinking about buying. It means he can say something like, "it looks like it was made for you." And then I buy it! And he is happy for me!

I do the same for him, when he asks (he does not ask as often as I do). And I'll often buy him something--usually a sweater, usually when I'm on an errand that takes me by Banana Republic--without consulting him first. So far, he's liked it all. Because it all looks like him!

On Marriage

What a lofty title, eh? But I couldn't think of anything else; this post is, after all, about marriage. By and large, nothing's really changed now that we're Married. That's how people say it, when one is newly wed: Married. "Oh--you're Married?" "Did you hear? She's Married!" "How's Married life?" And briefly, one identifies as Married (note the capital M). But after a week or two, it wears off (to me, anyway) and one is just...married. Our life is basically the same, except we're no longer burdened with planning and executing a wedding. Wheee! We've spent more time together the past couple weeks than the several months leading up to the wedding: neither of us has had a show, we've both had regular work schedules, and we got to take a whole week of vacation!

There are little differences, of course. We purged a lot of stuff to make room for new stuff (our towels have never been so nice!). We took time to really clean the house and deck a few weeks ago, after spot cleaning here and there for months. We talk about buying a house--should we or shouldn't we, if we do then where, what our theoretical budget might be. We talk about trying to move to a bigger place since ours is so very tiny, and we might try to go month-to-month on our lease next year for more flexibility. Our wedding checklist is shortly going to be erased and turned into a travel checklist.

Does Alan still do things that annoy me? Yep. Do I still do things that annoy him? Oh yeah! Husband and wife are just parts of who we are, the titles don't define us anymore than when we were boyfriend/girlfriend or fiance/fiancee.

Mostly, we're just relieved to be married. Little m.