Sunday, July 11, 2010

Married life is great (if not quite what I expected)

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When the 18-year-old me was imagining her future husband, she pictured a guy who was tall (at least 6 foot), Jewish, artsy (preferably in a rock band) and made a good income doing good things that made the world a better place. Bonus points if he was rakishly good looking and a vegetarian (as I was at the time).

Josh and I started dating when I was 19. Yeah. While he's a good 5 inches shorter than my requirement, he was Jewish (check!) drummer in a rock band (double check!) when we met and has morphed into a good-looking guitarist/rock critic extraordinaire (yes, he's one of those guys who gets better looking with age). His earning power is easily eclipsed by my own, but by staying home with our kids I trust he's doing his part to make the world a better place.

Plenty of people are surprised to hear I've been with Josh my entire adult life, but there are advantages to meeting your mate before you've grown up. The biggest being that we weren't too set in our ways when we met. He lived in a filthy shared apartment and washed his laundry once a quarter (all together on cold in an extra-large washer) when wet met at the University of Chicago. His idea of cooking was something called Beef Stroganoff a la Rudy, which consisted of browned ground beef mixed with noodles and a can of Cream of Mushroom Soup. Now he does 5 loads of laundry a week and has grown into something of a foodie--a lucky strike for me since he makes dinner most weeknights!

Thanks to Josh I have watched a good chunk of the "worthy" movies of the last 50 years and my taste in music is far broader than the indie rock I adored in the mid-90s. And thanks to him I've met two of my favorite people in the whole world.

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