After being engaged for 60% of our relationship, the wife and I made it official on the 16th before being whisked away by Southwest Air (”first one on the plane gets to pick which crate of chickens to sit on”) to Disneyworld. For the first month we were engaged, the wife and I had every intention of sneaking off in the dead of night and sending everyone a postcard from Vegas; we spent the second month deciding how much gold plating should be on the unicorn-drawn chariot that carried us into our ceremony in the Sistine Chapel. The end result, thank blessed Jesus, was much closer to our first impulse than the second: quick, tiny, and economized to an extent that would make McGyver spitefully jealous. Though surely not for everyone, it was more “us” than I could have hoped.

We were given dire warnings, grave warnings, about all the things that were going to go wrong and the frantic hell our lives would be in the final days before the ceremony. To this, I now have the opportunity to say “Poppycock!”, a word that is used so rarely it’s almost worth it to fabricate a reason to say it. Chaos, drama, and tension were largely absent with one exception. That exception though tiny, trivial, insignificant, a blip on the radar merits recording, not because of its effect on the wedding but for the aftershocks it has sent through the firmament of my mind since the wedding. Unfortunately, almost two weeks later, thinking about it is so infuriating that I literally can’t tell the story. People say to me, “Tell me the story of how your priest wouldn’t marry you because you were wearing insincere shoes,” and as I struggle valiantly to do so it’s like the words all try to stampede out of my mouth at once and fall on top of one another in a tangled, writhing, angry pile.

I will set it down in writing, though. It had already entered the canon of American folklore by the time we’d cut the cake, and since I’ve heard three versions of the story since getting home from Cinderella’s Castle I figure I’d better get the facts entered into the record quick.

In the meantime, I am happy to report that marriage is good and nice and fun. It’s the same as being single, except there are 100 things you weren’t ever supposed to even think about doing that you’re now required to do all the time without this breaking your mind. I now have to actively behave as if I’m sleeping at my girlfriend’s house. I’m also expected to sometimes use her money. (That one hasn’t been that hard to get used to.)

I’ll probably be talking about all this for the next six weeks or so, so get comfortable.

I’m glad to see I was missed, online at least. The thing where I came home and saw all those posts I didn’t have to instigate, springing up like flowers between the cracks in the sidewalk, were the realization of a dark secret wish.