three (3)

Today marks three years since this guy officially, legally, became my partner for life:

Since recently having a semi-health scare (and subsequently finding out all seems to be fine), I'm finding myself even more than ever deeply grateful for the choice we made in choosing one another.

Hitting the third anniversary begins to feel, finally, like we're moving out of the newness of this, and are very much settled into the rhythm of being both with one another, and beside one another, every day.

Though not all married couples who've had the experience feel the same, Chris and I agree that getting to spend such a solid chunk of time together- and in our first few years married- has been the ultimate experience.  We quickly went from two or three hours awake beside each other, to seemingly countless hours doing everything with each other.  Experiencing days and moments that have broken us down, exposed our vulnerabilities, and built us up.  And we've done it together, weaving such an intricate web of events and experiences that few could hope to truly understand as we inherently do.

I've done a reflection for the our first two anniversaries (one and two) before, and I'm incredulous that we're here, at another.  But I'm still counting myself so very lucky this kid and I stumbled across one another when we were just babies years ago.  And I can't wait for dozens upon dozens more.

To Topher:

Life with you is three times as grand because:

When I ramble on about all those things I really want to do, and be, and experience, you listen.  And, very often, you surprise me by helping me fulfill my need to learn and grow and do:

You gave me the sweetest, most lovable little brother.  And, hope for our children to have some beautiful recessive gene, like those baby blues of yours.

You love to do things that you know will make me laugh, even when I'm not around to witness it. And, you get my brother to do it too:

You've always admired encouraged appreciated something-a-bit-kinder-than-tolerated my quirks, like that underwear obsession thing:

You're logical emotions are close to the surface (like my non-logical emotions), and you've never hidden them from me:

You totally get my sense of humor, and we can throw it back at each other all day long.  And no one else has to understand (and few rarely do...):

You give the best hugs.  When you hold me, you hold on for real: tight, and close, and hard:

I really love to look at you. Not creepily, but I just love seeing you interact with people and places and experiences.  I always appreciate our world so much more when I pause to see it through your eyes:

You make me laugh.  Even when I don't want to.

You're affectionate, and fun, and spontaneous.

When I get super caught up inside my head, you are the only person who can pull me back out again and help me find solid ground.

You humor me like no one else does, and often, can predict what I'm about to say or do before it happens:

When I give you tickets to the gun show, you're always on time, in the front row.

When we had lessons for our first dance as spousal units, you worked really hard on learning how to dip me.  I like to think it's because you know how much I love old black and white movies, where they do things like take their women for a spin on the dance floor and dip them with abandon.

You love and eat up all of my baking adventures, even when they're broken down versions of what they were in my mind.


When I curse like a sailor, you say you hate it, but we both know you secretly love it.  Like that time I dropped the f-bomb at our cake cutting? And it was...cute?

You're really, really good at kissing.  And other things.

 You are my favorite, dear one. Always.

**these photos are all copyright b scott photography, and of the most amazing wedding photographer and team in the DC/Maryland area. seriously, if you want an amazing person to capture amazing, emotive photos from a special moment in your life, book him. i can't say enough words about how ridiculously happy i still am, three years later, that i chose him for our wedding! thank you brian and susan!

our love, it's older than our beginnings.

We met on a Friday evening, on the twenty third of January, in the year that we would re-elect President W. Bush.  One of those cold evenings where you can see your breath, but there's no snow to make all the cold worth it and you mostly just hurry to wherever it is that your headed.

I hesitate to call it love at first sight (LAFS, if you will) but there was something.  Some unexplainable force working against our better judgement.  That force had been tailing him for a few months already by the time it hit me full in the face that chilly, January evening in upper northwest DC.  It led us to the same obscure corners of campus at the same obscure hours of the day, and it led us to inexplicably seeking out the other's company, even when we had far too many pages to read before class the next day.

If you ask either of us, we're quick to admit that if we'd known that mother fate would discern us capable of finding our forevers at eighteen, we would have laughed, scornfully so, in fact.  Who plants roots with someone before you can even legally drink?  Before you've voted in a presidential election? Before you realize it is certainly far past time to shave off those sideburns and embrace the changing hair landscape that is to come?

The beginning was complicated.  It's always complicated, though, no?  There's never an easy transition when it comes to that strength of just right for you kind of love.  It was messy, and exhilarating, and painful, and it was everything I imagined when I was ten, and more, much, much more.  My Barbie's dramas had nothing on us those first six months.

And when it settled and slowed and solidified that fall, it felt as natural as the green becoming gold on the trees that lined Massachusetts Avenue.  Loving him became as natural as blinking and breathing, and his heart, I carried it with my heart, as if I always had.

My black peacoat, that first official J. Crew purchase, kept me warm that winter, but never as warm as I was right there in my insides, in between those breath-caught lungs and that love drowned heart.  Which might be in the running for the cheesiest thing I've ever written down outside of the journal I kept when I was fourteen, but there it is.

And there it remains, because it's as true today as it was nine years ago.

Love you, Spud, and I always shall.

-Plumpy

two truths and a lie

who else is tired of self-indulgent photobooth photos?

Today, I biked to the teacher training center prepared to engage in a rousing game of Two Truths and a Lie with my trainees.  Upon arrival, I used my limited- and - mayhaps - stagnated Khmer reading skills to determine that today, the 14th, was in fact a day for no regular class for students.  This was confirmed various times as I encountered fellow teachers, and so, I retired my game idea until the morrow.

However, last night as I couldn't fall asleep, I found myself thinking up rather elaborate truths and lies to share, and so I present them for your perusal, remark and, most of all, guessing.

...............................

A:
Last week, Chris saw over my shoulder that I was 'exploring' Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  He was intrigued and without very much prodding at all, in fact, he then spent the evening being chosen by a wand and sorted into his house (by the by, do you think Dumbledore would consider age 27 an appropriate time to allow for sorting? you know, because he was concerned that sometimes, we sort too soon?).  From the minute he entered the Pottermore website, I called it: he would be sorted into Gryffindor.  

When he reached the Sorting Ceremony and began to answer the series of questions drafted by her literary majesty, Lady Rowling, I was confronted with bleakest sort of self-awareness as my chosen true love scoffed away the idea of being scared of isolation or the dark, or choosing to walk toward the forest when the ocean is the most perfectly viable option.  And when he was sorted into Gryffindor, I said to myself, Well, self, you've been equally sorted into both Slytherin and Ravenclaw, and we can't have a Gryffindor married to a Slytherin, so that account must be eradicated.  The decision was of course helped along as the newly anointed Roaring Lion in our relationship confirmed that I was definitely of the Ravenclaw sort: wacky but intelligent, witty but erratic.  

And then we dueled.


B:
Just yesterday, I spent two hours reading about my and Chris' moon and planet charts at the time of our birth.  It was like reading a book about my soul, even the squishy bad parts that I wish no one knew.  I even got Chris on board and he was enthralled.  And then we proceeded to have a thirty minute discussion about how everything about our interactions and disagreements can be easily explained because of the location of Pluto and Mars on the day we were born.  We also then referenced the birth charts for the rest of the evening, and I'm ninety-two percent sure it has revolutionized our relationship in ways no one could have imagined.


C:
Today, after I arrived to school and was notified of the cancellation of class, I used the not-so-rare opportunity to swing by Chris' school to see what he was up to.  I found his bike outside of the twelfth grade building, and when he noticed me, he beckoned me in.  I've swung by his class a few times, most usually when a similar occurrence of class-cancelling has happened.  This day, he was just beginning a lesson centered around the heroine of the 12th grade textbook, Sophea, attending her cousin's wedding in Cambodia, and then reception in London (because, you know, Sophea married a Brit.) (The textbooks were drafted and written with significant help from the British Council. Just saying.)


The students were eager to overlook the boring story of Sophea and instead asked for a discussion about marriage in America.  Never ones to disappoint, I cajoled Chris into re-enacting our entire wedding day, from wake up to, ahem, sleep.  From a joyful first look to a tearful walk down the aisle, culminating in a dance party and a send off of bubbles, the students were enthralled and we were asked for a repeat performance each afternoon for the next month, at 2 and 7 pm. They even said they'd pay a .25 cent admission to see it all again.  

We had to turn them down, as we aren't allowed to charge money for our services, and really, that's a performance one just can't repeat on command.

...............................

Your turn!

read as i say, not as i read

So it turns out that reading a set of books that your spouse read and loved and begged you to read for months will open a whole new area of conversation amongst you.

Whether you view that as opening Pandora's box, or just a can of worms, well, that's on you to decide.

Opening such a can has in fact happened twice in the course of our short marriage and, as I have a decidedly positive outlook on life (give or take a few overreactions, quickly overlooked and forgotten, of course), I take it as opening another small window into Topher's brain, that I do.

You see a few years ago, I managed to cajole Topher into opening the tales of a sir Henry James Potter, as written by one JK Rowling, and I can only imagine that finally meeting my ink and paper twin (Hermione, that is) was unto meeting the inner depths of my soul, as it were.

And when Topher opened that first page of the Sorceror's Stone, well, it should be noted that the heavens parted and the light of wisdom and understanding of myriads of references now understood shown down upon us and our union was granted an additional five years of unending happiness and blessings.

And yet, knowing all these extra blessings wrought unto us from Christopher's reading of seven of my deliciously favorite books, knowing the seemingly endless months I had ahead of me living in a foreign land where the best distraction of constant, erm, glowing, is distraction of any kind, but reading is best, and YET, I still resisted. Re-read Harry Potter, I did, in fact, before I did indeed relent and I opened them.

The saga of the Song of Ice and Fire, otherwise heralded as the Game of Thrones.  

I am currently in the midst of the third book, and they pass in quite a whirlwind, as there are four or five all mashed together like one book in my Kindle version, and so I never really know when I'm about to end one and traverse into another until I reach dozens of pages of family trees, which are an attempt, unsuccessful at best for my understanding, to break down the lines of the dozens of families within in each novel.

And yet, I like them.  They are entertaining and have good characters, and I especially love that the battle scenes are almost always explained after they have happened, secondhand, from one character to another, which has got the best thing ever!  Reading battle scenes is the worst, way worse even than having to read Quidditch scenes in my beloveds.

However, I'd have to say some of the best times I've had reading this year are the books I pulled off the shelf I'd just dusted for spiderwebs while working in the library here at site.  I read so many rad children's books this way!  It was like I had a chance to do third grade all over, which, for those who know me, is saying a lot!

I mean, I had no idea that Roald Dahl was so freaking creative.  His books are works of art!  Whole new words and ideas and hilarity, from these books!  AND I even discovered that a movie that I used to DREAD seeing on the Disney channel when I was young because it TERRIFIED me is actually The Witches by Dahl!  And I needn't have been so afraid, although, who really wants to stay a mouse forever?  But Anjelica Houston, and those wigs and nails all the witches had! Nightmares for days if I even caught one second of the ballroom meeting scene.

And my friends, there were so many more lovely children's books I devoured those afternoons, perched on a teak wood chair, in my jersey cotton maxi skirts, a button down shirt, (untucked because I can when I work at the library!), beams of sunlight slowly making their way across the dusty floor as the sun lowered ever so slowly into dusk, peals of laughter reaching me from the secondary school just a mere fifty yards away.  

Charlie and his chocolate factory, Charlotte and her web, Laura and her prairie, Pippi and her horse; they will always spring to mind when I feel a layer of dust on my fingers and I hear the slow strum of an overhead fan.   

Those books, they belong to this full year I spent living in Cambodia, and they belong to the Kate who lived in that year, who strived ever so much to live in the moment and not strain for the next.  And these books, they helped her stay present and happy and joyful and young and patient and peaceful.

and I think he will make cute babies, too, so there's that

It may be a bit of a skewed depiction, as it's a conversation that happened just a few days ago, but it's a memorable conversation nonetheless, and one that I did, in fact,  have this year.

It is memorable it's non-memorableness, as it is the same exact conversation I seem to have every single week, often times with the same people, like the little savory cake seller at the market who loves my nose, or the teachers at my school that love to ask me, every day, if I'm going home to cook lunch, even though they know I'm not.

But this conversation ended on a note that seems to sum up all that I feel and speaks to why I love to have it, even when it's exhausting and repetitive and seemingly unending.

So there's that.

And here's the conversation.

.................................

The setting: 

Our tiled porch/entryway, midday.  In my hand, an electrified battery-powered mosquito racket in hand.  In my host mother's, a broom made of long grass, wrapped in colorful plastic along the handle.

The mission: 

To kill as many disease killing, blood sucking little biotches as we can so they don't escape into our house and bite me.  Which they will, if allowed. Never Chris. Always me.

Host Mother: Oh, you are killing mosquitoes? Here, let me help you.  I will shake the plants and you can kill them.

Me: Thank you!

*sounds of hundreds of mosquitoes being electrocuted*

Host Mother: Where is Chris?

Me: He is inside.  We are having several friends over to eat dinner to celebrate Christmas.  He is preparing the food.

Host Mother: Oh, ha ha, he is such a good husband.  He knows how to cook!

Me: Oh, I know!  I am very lucky to have a husband like him.

Host Mother: Very lucky!  In Cambodia, men do not know how to cook and the wife has to do everything. It is not very happy and it is very exhausting for the women.

Me: Oh, yes, I have seen that.

Host Mother: I think I like how in America men and women both know how to cook and share the duties of the home.

Me: Oh yes, me too!  I think it is easier that way for the family to be happy and healthy.

Host Mother: Oh, ha ha, yes.

Me: I am very lucky though. Not all American men like to or know how to cook.  But when I met Chris nine years ago, I thought to myself: He is handsome! He is funny! He has a good heart! He knows how to cook!  And I think he will make cute babies! So I should marry him!

Host Mother: Oh, ha ha, that is funny!  And so true! Ha ha.  Ok, we have killed the mosquitoes.  I will sweep them now.

Me: Ha ha.  Thank you.  I will go help Chris cook now.

.....................

And, it should be noted, for the record, that I actually really did help Chris cook.  I made the potatoes, and the carrots, and boiled the beans for him to finish.  And it was delicious, it was!

.....................

big plans, people

Yes, that's right, I've got big plans, people.  Big plans. For the future holidays, I mean. Future holiday traditions, in fact.

I think I've mentioned that since moving to a developing country and foregoing regular gatherings with our friends and family, having limited (at least, slower and more expensive) access to internet, and enjoying three hour long rest periods in the middle of every work day, Topher and I have gained a great deal more time to simply sit and chat with one another.

And chat we do.

Recently, one chat revolved around the Christmastimes we enjoyed as a child and would like to have with our as-yet-to-be-conceived-but-often-key-players-in-my-imagination children when the stork drops them off on our doorstep in coming years.

As it turns out, the Toph and I are both very big tradition-ists.  Not traditionalists.  No, rather we're both rather focused on the traditions we grew up with as children.  Many of our respective traditions fit rather nicely, like the pieces in a pricey puzzle you might buy in a gift shop in Jackson Hole or Ocean City (see how I did that, and referenced places of meaning for me and the husband?!)

Annnnddddd, some will require a bit more...finagling.

We both believe in parties.  I grew up with my family throwing elaborate, food and fun filled Christmas Eve parties until my nineteenth year of life, when my parents sold my childhood home (no hard feelings, there.  It's not like I didn't get to say goodbye and heard only through text about the weekend spent ripping up the nail-polish stained carpet in my room and the whitewashing of the walls I had spent many an afternoons gazing at, admiring our floor to ceiling wall paper, as was the custom of builder grade homes from the 1980s.)

(Only kidding there, Mom.  Really, no hard feelings.)

(Just trying to preempt the sure to come text when she wakes up and reads this blog via phone. Love you Cindy!)

Chris also grew up with a big party around the Eve of Christmas.  Both of our parties were made up of mainly church and neighborhood friends, and the family members who lived within driving distance or were visiting for the holidays.

So, there will be parties.  We have yet to agree if the party will be a Christmas Eve-Eve party or just Christmas Eve party, or another random weekend before Christmas day party.  We have some years to decide officially, but family and friends, be excited for 2013, when we will kick this tradition off.

At said parties, the food present is of utmost importance.  For me, two kinds of fudge (known, even in our Marsh household, as "Mom's fudge" and "Dad's fudge"), nutmeg log cookies, sugar cookies from my family recipe (used as wedding favors for our 2010 nuptials!), and "Tom and Jerry's," a sweet, egg and rum based concoction that I need to hear being whipped into a frenzy for it to really feel like Christmas to me.

For Chris, it's caviar, pate and deviled eggs. Candied bacon and various other finger foods.

(I mean, it's safe to say which of our food 'musts' are more versatile and kid friendly. I mean, I'm not knocking Topher's caviar or deviled eggs, even if you couldn't pay me with all the Christmas trees in the world to eat more of those items than I already have to satisfy my universal rule of 'try everything once.' I'm not calling those foods strange or unusual or even somewhat unpalatable.  No, that's your job in the comments.)

There will also be stockings.

Stockings are of the utmost importance to both Chris' family and mine.  For me, stockings are the first thing to be opened on Christmas morning, and they are chock full of special Christmas candies (like chocolate oranges! and chocolate shaped like bells!) and little, significant presents.  For a great deal of my life, every Christmas, I received a new cross (like, the little baby Jesus' cross) necklace and it was always in my stocking and it was always beautiful.  Stockings are gift cards, and that exciting moment when you reach your hand in and you just.don't.know.what's.NEXT! And your name is embroidered on the stocking with a Santa and his fluffy (real fluff!) beard underneath, relaxing in a chair with a puppy at his feet that your paternal grandmother knit for you when you were a wee babe and will be your stocking until the end of time, forever and ever, amen. That's Christmas, that is.

And for Chris. Stockings are pretty much THE event in his family.  They aren't even stockings? They're giant bags that everybody fills with everything, from those expensive little gift cards to a new year's supply of razors.  And it's crazy, but it's awesome, and you end up loving every item, from the new tee shirt of your favorite sports team to the solar-powered book light that Gaga gave you because she knows you like to read, even after the sun sets.  And it's at the same time terrifying and overwhelming and exhilarating and your heart's full to bursting with the pure joy of dozens of little things rolling around a giant bag just for you and each new grab is another moment of "oh my GOD who knew this was EXACTLY what I needed?! Was it you? You? You! Thank YOU!" And your hit with gratitude as you remember how much these people in this family love you and spend hours scouring places for even tiny little things that will brighten your life in the coming year.

And at this point, you're probably also wondering how in the Wenceslas Topher and I will manage to combine some seemingly starkly-different traditions into a semblance of two that are replicable and yet also honor both of our time-honored Christmastimes past?

I have no idea.

But, god donkey, I'm excited to try!

are you more of a fudge and cookie kind of christmas pal, or a pate and caviar pancakes person?

for richer and for poorer

if you had to answer, would you say you're richer or poorer this year?  richer or poorer in money. in time. in love. in experience. in patience. in success.  richer? or poorer?

richer. richer. richer. in everything except money.

but when you're living on three dollars a day as a peace corps volunteer, you quickly realize two very important things:

1. so many of the best things are only available at a cost.
2. money doesn't matter and you don't really need the best things.

take cheese.  it's one the things that, eaten, can make me happiest. mainly because it's not readily available.  it's also one of the most expensive things i can purchase.  when i do, i'm in heaven.  when i do, i realize how lucky i am to have been able to save enough to buy it.  when i do, i realize how very little i actually need it to be happy.

so, so much richer.

being married in the peace corps

for the past two weeks, the newest group of volunteers has been back at our site for an additional two weeks of training.  one evening, a dinner for the married couples of the newest group was arranged, and chris and i were invited.

something i've been aware of for the past sixteen months which truly solidified at the dinner is this:

it's pretty dang awesome being married in the peace corps.

and because it's a week to truly remind ourselves to be thankful for those things which we are graced with, i must admit:

i am incredibly grateful to be married in the peace corps, and grateful for all that it brings.

october 30, 2011. three months into the peace corps.

for me, being married in cambodia, in the peace corps, has meant having someone with me every day who deeply understands the frustrations, joys, setbacks and leaps forward that come with serving a whole new community in a whole new culture.

it has meant supporting one another and lifting one another up when needed most.

it has meant chris knowing when i've had a rough day and surprising me with the smallest things to help me smile.

it has meant someone to lay down next to each night, sweat through the sleeping hours with, and rise cursing the same rooster every morning for sixteen months.

it has meant having an intelligent, kind, handsome man to stand up for me in public when i don't fit the mold of a proper cambodian woman and help me in private when i still can't cook.

it has meant someone to give me my space when i need it, and have the conversations with our host family or others when i just don't feel up for it.

it has meant growing our marriage and our bond in ways i never could have imagined sixteen short months ago and giving ourselves a foundation of deep respect, understanding, and communication that i doubt we would have had otherwise.

october 30, 2012.  fifteen months into the peace corps.

deep thoughts on marriage

I ran across this blog post I wrote a good long time ago, and it amazed me that something I wrote over two years ago can resonate even now.

I had a moment of reality check: I’m going to be a wife. Like, a living breathing wife with a husband, and another human being upon whom my decisions will need to be discussed, shared, and decided together.

Gone are the days of “I’ll just move to Denver now” (so, this never happened, but you get the idea). No more large life decisions alone, because I’ll be one part of a whole. I want to move back to Rome. We want to do the Peace Corps—does one mean that the other can’t happen?

Probably not, but time, and money, aren’t endless. I want to go back to school and get my PhD or something—but I also want to have a baby and/or children in the somewhat soon future (as in, before I’m 30). I still want to continue to do well in my current job, and potentially move upward in the organization I work for. I want to buy a big house—before I’m 30. Again, time and money are NOT endless—AND I have another human with whom I need to discuss how to spend these two things.

I've been grappling with what's next and how it impacts my marriage and this rang true all over again. Except now it's real. I am married. And I do have to think of Chris in all decisions that I make, and I can't DO ALL THE THINGS.

And in other marriage notes, this was interesting: http://www.danoah.com/2012/10/16-ways-i-blew-my-marriage.html/3/

for the record, hermione would be a fantastic middle name

so i just found this fantastic essay, written in response to a different essay, but most importantly, an essay that speaks to my very book-loving soul.

recently topher and i began a year long gin game (you know, you play with cards) that will culminate in a fantasmic trip to an imaginary prize counter of our creation.  we're keeping score for total points overall, total wins, number of wins over the other spouse, number of points over, etc.

essentially, we've allotted "points" to each of the categories and upon the conclusion of our year+ of gin games, we'll each have some points to spend at our self-devised prize counter.

what i'm most excited for? not trading in for a meal of my choice, prepared by chris, or an early morning dog walk, but this, a prize of my own creation:

one pregnancy/baby related decision.


in theory, i'd spend this on choosing where we'll have our child, or whether or not we find out it's sex, but i'm anticipating that we're actually on the same page when it comes to those things.

i'm going to save my decision for something i've always wanted:

the chance to give our children a middle name from literature.

chris, in his rational way, is adverse to this given that we've already decided to give our future children family middle names.  and, logically, he's against giving our children four names.

as are most of the people we've shared this debate with?! which lends me to wonder why i am friends with all of these rational, even-keeled people?! where are my passionate, overzealous friends that support decisions simply because they seem illustrious and different and exciting?! is it because i am too passionate/overzealous/different that any opportunity to friend these people was overshadowed my own huge personality? let's not answer that.


this all brings us around to the essay that was making the tumblr/internet rounds nearly a year ago, but which i just discovered and in my passionate, overzealous way fell head over heels in love with, and believe it to perfectly support my desire to give our children a literary name in line with their curious, meandering, unique future personalities, experiences and world perspectives.

so yes, i do believe that hermione is a perfect second middle name for our future daughter, and i've got two fantastic literary middle names picked out for future sons, one of which is actually from CHRIS' favorite books and resonates dearly with both of us.

thus, for my husband, who loves and hates my ability to disappear into a book, my incredibly-heavy handbag with a book always in tow, my pleading eyes as I silently ask for it to be ok to settle into my imagination and current novel on the long (and short) car trips...

and for those who question and misunderstand my long-windedness, my overthinking, my endless pursuit of adventure and uniqueness, my deep belief that josephine march, anne shirley, elizabeth bennett and even hermione granger are my sisters and friends and soulmates despite their lack of corporeality...

to all, i plead, read this, believe this, own this, know this.  and then understand me.

You should date a girl who reads.

by Rosemarie Urquico

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

NLN (no-longer-newlyweds)

today is two years.

last year i wrote quite a lengthy post about my thoughts on success in marriage.

last year, i thought the key was having a sense of humor, and being able to not take anything in life too seriously.  

last year, i thought, one year in, that as long as you could laugh off the things that are frustrating about marriage, your partner, life, you can do anything inside that partnership.

this year.

this year, we celebrated not with elaborate dinners involving escargot, or fun day trips to a nearby farm.

this year, we enjoyed pizza from a box (seriously, the BEST PIZZA i've had in cambodia) with jill.

this year, we were invited to dinner with our host family, and enjoyed our anniversary dinner of rice, chicken and soup made of chicken bones.

this year, i spent a wonderful hour reliving the amazing day that was may first, twenty ten, courtesy of our amazing photographers brian and susan. (thank you both, again, so much.)

this year, i realized.

damn, was i right last year.

humor for each other, humor for life, humor for all the things that could make people bitter, frustrated, or angry, really is a great answer.

this year, i'm still just as lucky to have chris as my husband.

this year, i'll happily move out of newlywed-dom to simply married-dom.

bring it, NLN status. we're ready.