Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage

When Bill sneezes, it’s like a blast from an air horn aimed at your face. No matter where he is in the house, his sneezes are excruciatingly loud. Somehow there are two notes involved, a screechy high one and a shouty low one. It’s as if someone in the next room has spotted a bear and they’re making this high-pitched yet also bellowing bark of hyst

The irony of living among people who place peace and quiet at the top of their priority list is that they’re often very angry.

The suburbs are a place where people go to embrace the dominant paradigm, because the dominant paradigm makes them feel safe and comfortable.

Over time, marriage itself starts to feel like a slowly unfolding apocalypse. Your marriage will die or you will die. Which ending seems happier?

In my particular suburb, every other lawn seems to have a little sign with a cartoon of a dog taking a shit on it, under the words PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG. But oddly enough, there’s also dog shit all over the place.

Marriage can’t always be about living your best lives in sync. Because some of the peak moments of a marriage are when you share in your insecurities, your anxieties, your fears, and your longing. That commitment, the one that can withstand and even revel in the darkest corridors of a life, grows and evolves and eventually transcends a contract or

Contrary to popular wisdom, growing older does not make you less conflicted. In fact, you become more and more conflicted by the second. You can see all sides of any given thing. It’s all stupid bullshit and you want all of it, everything, and you also want none of it, it can all go fuck itself.

I wanted a cross between a therapist and a cowboy.

That’s life in the suburbs: pretending that nothing is bothering you while you eat something shitty.