something to write about

This past year has seen a significant drop-off in my blogging regularity. It was intentional, by all means, but also there was a personal dissatisfaction with the whole blogging process. Bloggers are mostly viewed in the court of public opinion as either savvy online go-getters or lifeless losers who pine to be published writers but lack the necessary skills to get their foot in the literary door.

While I probably would be viewed in the latter category rather than the former, I have never had a problem with being seen by the public at large as some sort of weird loner ranting against a seemingly unfair societal system. In fact, I tend to encourage that perspective because it's not that far off from the truth.

I think the main reason why I reduced the amount of time and energy spent blogging, however, is simply because I ran out of interesting things to say on a consistent basis. Whereas before I could blog endlessly and rapidly about any topic at length, I found myself at the beginning of last summer scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to finding things to write about, and it was showing: people who used to frequent my blog lost interest; I was repeating myself in numerous ways; and the tone of my writing became hard, sullen, angry without the benefit of any genuine humor to sweeten the bitterness.

In short, I was in a bad place during a bad time, and it was reflected in my blog.

Much has changed since last year, and even more has changed in the past two or three weeks since I last posted an entry here. I know I've spoken of serious life changes in this blog many times before, but this time I am pretty sure that what I've got to say to anyone reading this will qualify, without a doubt, as a truly major step in not only my writing but in my life in general.

I've been writing about My Girl for the past six or seven months, and it has been a pleasure to do so... but she is no longer My Girl.

No, instead she has become My Wife.


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It began innocently enough with a comment I made to My Girl sometime after her bicycle accident.

"I'm just gonna start calling you my wife from now on," I said to her as I smoked a cigarette while lying on her bed. "I'll introduce you as my spouse to anyone and everyone."

I can't say for sure if I was serious or joking. All I know is that I meant it when I said it, even though it was delivered with my trademark flippancy. Whatever the case, I threw it out there for her to devour. She didn't seem to mind my resolution.

Two days passed. We saw each other during those days-- sometimes at the coffee shop where she works part-time, sometimes at her townhouse in Hollywood, sometimes at my place in Reseda. It's a given, because ever since the start of this summer she and I have been virtually inseparable, making sure to hang out for at least a few hours each day. Even when we were not dating and still platonic friends, we were spending the vast majority of our time together.

Then, two days after I announced that I was going to refer to her as my wife from now on, the subject came up again while we were bedded down in her room.

"You know, if you asked me to marry you, I'd probably say 'yes', and I would mean it," she said to me.

"Really?" I was a little taken aback, only because for the first time in my life I was not trembling with fear and dread at the prospects of marital bliss with a girl I was dating... and what's more, I felt excited and exhilarated by her bold admission.

"I've been thinking about it since you brought it up the other day," she said, "but I didn't want to say anything because I was afraid you would say that you were kidding. I've been wanting to tell you how I feel, and I guess now is the time to do it."

"You've been thinking about it for the last two days?"

"Yeah. Seriously."

Oh my God, I thought, she really wants to marry me!

"Well, I would marry you if you wanted to marry me. No bullshit."

I couldn't believe what I was saying to her, and yet I was not scared or pensive. I found that I was actually quite confident that what I was telling her was my true feeling on the matter.

"I want to marry you," she said, her doleful eyes fluttering softly behind her oh-so-cute nerd-glasses perched delicately above her nose. "I want to be the mother of your children. I want to take your last name."

Upon hearing this, I figured I may as well do it right.

"Okay then... Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

"When do you want to do it?"

"Right now!" Her face beamed with energy.

"That would be cool, but you know we can't... you've got work, I've got a million things to do... but I agree that eloping would be the best course of action."

"Yes, let's elope! In Las Vegas! Either this weekend or the next!"

"That's a deal."

She smiled, and we kissed, and then she looked at me with the utmost seriousness and said, "You're not gonna chicken out on this, are you?"

"No, I'm not. Are you?"

"No way."

"Alright. Then it's settled. We'll play it by ear, but by the end of August we will be husband and wife."

A chill ran down my spine. It was not the kind of chill that signals impending catastrophe. This particular chill was like a jolt of electricity coursing through my body and rejuvenating parts of me that I had dismissed as dead.

We kissed. We made love. We slept.


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My Girl and I were married at a chapel in Las Vegas on Saturday, September 1st, 2007.

It was a tough ordeal resisting the urge to inform everyone within earshot of our plan to elope. Obviously I am someone whose life is an open book, and I am very good at broadcasting my intent no matter where I am or what I am doing.

I wasn't 100% successful at keeping it a secret, but I did manage to avoid telling my family and closest friends about it until after it was done. She laughed at me every time a not-so-intimate acquaintance of mine congratulated her on something she had not done yet. She understood that I was bursting at the seams, eager to proclaim to the whole world how much she means to me.

Reactions to the news have been positive. My family was unanimous in their support and were not offended that we eloped. My mother was especially happy, because she has always wished and prayed that I would find the right woman and settle down.

And she is the right woman, by all means. It may seem rushed, considering that we only met about half a year ago, but I have never been so sure of something as I am with my decision to make her My Wife.

Some of my closest friends-- the ones who know me pretty damn well, the ones who have seen me go up and down throughout all of my peculiar phases --wanted to make sure that this wasn't some misguided flight-of-fancy on my part. Once they heard the conviction in my voice or saw the stinging certainty in my eyes, they had nothing but loving sentiments to convey to the both of us.

So much to take in, so much to tell. There isn't enough space in this post to cover it all.

Only now have I felt stable and grounded enough to sit down and write it out for people to ingest. The whole affair has been simultaneously simple and complex, with an extreme array of emotions threatening to spin out of control at any moment. But through it all, I never lost faith in what we set out to do, and I know for a fact that her faith was just as devout (if not more).

In my next post I will tell the story of the actual wedding day, a surreal mini-adventure that (true to form) seems stranger than any fictitious scenario I could ever concoct. And after that, there's the emotionally-charged story of how My Wife's older sister (my new sister-in-law) reacted to the news of our marriage.

Those are just a smidgen-- a mere fraction --of the events and episodes that I have yet to commit to this blog. And let us not forget the stories that have yet to be told because they haven't happened yet-- there'll be plenty of those, for sure.

I guess I finally have something to write about again, something worthy of my time and effort. Not that the past year has been uneventful or bland. On the contrary, I purposely refrained from writing about a whole shitload of things that I went through. I left them out because they did not break any new ground and served no purpose other than to give me a vehicle for my self-pity.

But let me make one thing clear: I did not marry her because I needed material for my blog.

I married her for the only good reason there is: because we love each other.

Now I'd like to share it with all of you.