Is marriage different from living together?  Does it feel different?  Do you act different?  Doesn’t living together cause people to divorce more?  From what I’ve read, no.  Living together before marriage I’ve read, when you look at people who make a commitment before moving in the divorce rate is the same.  Also consider, how many couples who move in together who end up NOT getting married.  A substantial proportion.

But as to the question is marriage different?  I honestly found it no.  Not a pinch different.  My DH and I married however, in a super low key wedding.  Just us and the Justive of the peace.  We had no witnesses and no photos, nothing.  In fact we wore our work clothes, went out for cheap chinese food, and then went home to sleep.  We went to bed and woke up feeling the same.

But everyone, even my mom kept saying it’ll feel different.  Funny it didn’t.  But then we had bought a home together, shared all money, checking, credit cards, etc.  The only difference?  We could finally file taxes together.   I mean we filed for a green card for my DH, the real reason we got married when we did; and when we were called for our interview it took about 15 minutes.

That is after waiting all day for our appointment. We were taken into a room, asked if our names and birthdays matched.  How we liked being married and congratulations on the marriage.  Then the guy stamped our application and we had my DH’s green card in less than 6 months after our marriage.  Very fast, no complications.

After talking to other couples who went through the exact same thing, we had it easy.  Ridiculously easy interview, no extra hassles, reference letters, pictures, etc.  People were asked intimate questions, they actually had to show pictures, etc.  Us, the young 26 and 28 year old couple who were married at the courthouse alone, the interviewer didn’t even ask to see a picture together!

I guess all the documents we sent in 4+ years of statements, house note, utilities, cell phones, etc were enough to prove our commitment.  Does that mean we were acting married? I guess so.

But I can definitely see how marriage is an adjustment for many couples.  If they never lived together or shared money together it can be an adjument.  We went through that our first year of living together.  It wasn’t easy.  But by the time we got the piece of paper?  It was exactly that.  A piece of paper.

Was marriage different from dating for you?

Last week ended with the deaths of Micheal Jackson and Farrah Fawcett were the big ones.  Also Billy Mays, the infomercial guy.  Plus all these bloggers are trying to prank celebrity deaths.  So what’s the big deal?  I wonder is it just the media that is making these deaths all a bigger deal than they are?

Or is it that we are bored with the economy and the situation we’re in?  That we’re looking to escape from reality and it’s more interesting and easier to listen to celebrity and entertainment news than deal with out depressing situation?  I mean the biggest TV draw last week was Jon and Kate divorcing.  Like that wasn’t pretty much a given.

Yet you can’t read any paper or online article without mentioning Micheal Jackson’s death.  Honestly I’m pretty tired of all these celebrity going and comings.

I wonder what would happen if instead the media educated us more about our government, economy, and healthcare?  What would happen if more people understood what socialized medicine was?  Or how the voting process works?  Or who the President of Iran is?  What would happen if we wrote more articles about science or even religion?

I’m just tired that our news is dominated by which celebrity is pregnant, who is dating whom, and who died.  I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t contributing to the decline of our economy?

Whose to blame in this obesity epidemic? I call it an epidemic because obesity isn’t just apparent/prevalent in the US.  Most other westernized countries are facing the same skyrocketing trend.  In 2002 the average BMI was found to be 28 for men and women, up from 25 in 1960.  And we all know it’s only increased from 2002 to 2009!

That being said whose to blame?  Do we automatically blame ourselves?  Do we blame our society?  How can we change?  I asked the question “weigh more, pay more.”  People were debating how much to blame are individuals?

Me I’m overweight. I sruggle with my weight.  I constantly have to watch what I eat. I am currently on a diet.  I am losing weight.  Unfortunately I gained around 20 lbs during the past year when I injured my ACL and broke my foot.  I couldn’t exercise and I didn’t unfortunately moderate my eating habits appropriately.

Thus I got sluggish and gained weight.  No one forced food in my mouth, I just have poor eating habits.  But another truth is that I am don’t have great genetics.  My DH and I eat the same things over a weekend and I’ll gain 5 lbs and he’ll come back 5 lbs slimmer.

Truth is that I learned bad eating habits from my family.  They are not skinny people.  Everyone in my family  is overweight. They are not obese.  They don’t look huge because they aren’t super tall people and they are really large.  They are just pudgy, chubby.  I’d say between 25-30 BMI which is where I normally sit.  I watch my weight but I’m still around 25 normally.  I have trouble getting lower, while my DH stays at 22 or lower without exercising or changing his eating habits.

I ballooned up this year closer to 30 and thus, I’m back on a diet to lose the weight and get back.  This time I’m going try and get to 22, but who knows?  Am I to blame?  Yes.  Should I be upset if I only get back to 25 BMI?  Maybe.  Does that make me an awful person?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  Maybe I should be trying harder and really not eating and getting slimmer.

I am aware of the problem, but sometimes it slides out of control. I love food.  I’m like those people who love spending money.  The truth is I love to eat.  I enjoy food.

So how do we fix this obesity epidemic?  I think it’s even worse than the debt epidemic in the US, more widespread and of more impact.

I am a pedestrian most of the time.  I ride public transit to and from work. I carpool with my DH.  I do not have a parking spot and I rarely drive.  But I do have a car to drive on the weekends and weekdays.  I enjoy the freedom.  But the average pedestrian where I live on the East Coast Sucks!  They are assholes!  Major ones!

They walk across the street when they think no car is coming.  They cross when there is traffic, nevermind that the light is about to change.  They walk across the street if the light is green and about to change or if they don’t feel like waiting!  Yep basically they feel they have the right of way no matter what.

This is what causes all of the traffic where I live.  I’ve lived in CA, and that’s REAL traffic.  4 of the top 10 worse freeways are in Southern CA.  It’s pure hell.  Traffic starts at 5 am until 10 am and from 3 pm to 8 pm.  Gridlock the whole way.  One accident, you might as well be sitting at a starbucks.

But out east?  Traffic even during rush hour never makes the bus more than 5 or 10 minutes late.  My DH’s commute at 5:30 pm is the about 10 minutes faster without traffic.  So what’s the hold up?  Pedestrians.  They make it impossible to cross intersections.  Even when there is no traffic, pedestrians can cause traffic because they act invincible.

To all those assholes, I wish you would move and live somewhere else.  I wish you would even spend a week in any other major city where people would not care and run you over.  Go to Asia or Europe and they drive like maniacs.  There you actually fear for your life and wouldn’t step off a curb expecting to be obeyed and respected. You would respect the 1 ton metal hunk barreling to you.

Sometimes I just want to smack the other pedestrians for being so dumb.  Nuff said.

I watched “He’s just not that into you,” last week.  If you do only watch one chick flick this year, it should be this one.  It was pretty funny.  I think a lot of amusement came from seeing our real life relationships play out on the small screen.

I mean honestly how many of us behave like that in relationships?  It’s sooo difficult to call, email, text, facebook, myspace someone. I can’t imagine trying to date right now.  I’m definitely Generation X, where it’s mostly about the cell phone for a call.  Generation Y?  Well everything and anything goes with the cell phone.

A lot of my girlfriends watched the movie as well and were saddened but unsure whether they should follow Jennifer Aniston’s lead.  Which character?  The one whose been living with her boyfriend of 7 years but is unsure where it’s going.  Then she kicks him out becaues she wants marriage and he doesn’t.  Then he comes back and proposes.

Honestly?  I don’t think it’s that straightforward or simple.  I don’t think that it really happens that way.  More often that not if you end the relationship, I can’t tell you how many more men move on to the next woman, and then, wham!  1 year later they are engaged to be married.  It’s not that they don’t want to be married, it’s that they don’t want to be married to you!

Or the married guy whose cheating?  Yep, I get that as well.  I’m in that boat.  I wonder have we been together too long?  Will he eventually stray?  Right now without kids it’s easy, but I can see and understand how busy and stressful life is after kids.  More than a couple of female coworkers have confided to not having sex for a year after giving birth.  They worry about their relationships and marriage.

I don’t think that it stops.  This neurosis women have.  It just changes.  I think the movie funny. But it just focuses on the dating and early marriage stages of life.  I wonder if they’ll have a movie about more about marriage and it’s angst?

I ran into some trouble last week and couldn’t post or approve comments.  Sorry about the mishap.

Cheers,
LAL

Last week I talked about reality TV and big families.  Now I wanted to ask what are people watching? Are people still into reality tv shows?  Do people watch American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, the Biggest Loser, or the Bachelor?  What’s popular?

Are reality tv stars still famous?  Or become famous from being on “reality” tv?  So I have cable, but I also have DVR.  I doubt I can go back to watching regular tv, commercials are way to annoying.  I always tape my shows and try to watch them while exercising.

So what do I tape?  I am into sitcoms both comedy and drama.  I am ashamed to say I actually tape quite a few shows. I love Law and Order and Law and Order SVU. I tape both seasons every week.  I also tape 24, but only started watching it this season when my roomie decided he wanted to tape it.  I also tape Scrubs, the Biggest Bang, and Two and Half Men.  I used to love everybody loves raymond and sex and city.

So that’s my weekly cable fix.  I probably could get away with basic cable since I mostly watch sitcoms.  But then my DH wouldn’t be able to watch sports.  He used to be a hockey addict and one year I bought him NHL live, but it’s not available anymore with FIOS.  We bought it so he could watch his team.  And now he watches baseball occasionally.

Do you watch cable tv or tv in general?

My nickname as an adult is the modern nomad.  Yep.  It’s not that I travel a lot.  It’s not that I don’t have a home.  It’s because I love to move.  We’ve been living in our current place almost 4 years and that’s a record for.  As my DH put it, I have an itch to move.

When we first meet, we moved 3x in 1 year.  I was constantly getting better deals on apartments so we moved after six months and again at the end of another six months.  It drove him nuts!  I think my DH bought our condo to get me to stop moving.

It didn’t work. I had to move away for graduate school and I moved from the apartment I inital found in 6 weeks.  Probably a new record.  My mom just sighs because this habit started in college. I would move pretty much every semester to a new place.  It’s not that I didn’t like my roommates but stuff always happened to me.  I just got unlike in the roommate lottery.

My very first college roommate dropped out and became a missionary.  That is after she had a nervous breakdown and went to seek help.  I had left her after 1 month because, well I didn’t like her. I moved into a triple to get away from her and my next to roommates?  Were nice enough and we lasted till the end of the year. Then I moved home for the summer.

The next year I had a roommate who pretty much lived with her boyfriend.  Awesome!  A double turned single. I stayed put that entire year because I figured out she dropped out.  But this was after collection agencies were calling for the hit and run accident she had been involved in.

The next year I had a single.  Lovely.  Peace right?  Nah.  I had roommates who were having a tv thrown out of our apartment in a huge fight with her boyfriend.  I decided I didn’t need the drama.  So I moved off campus finally in with friends. I had tried not to live with friends because I figured things would go wrong.  Well I was right.

My two roommates were great.  We had fun and partied. Problem?  My roommate had a thing for crazy Marines.  That ended badly and again I moved out, and in with another friend.  This friend I figured, no boyfriend, low key, perfect!  Wrong.   Turns out she was badly depressed and wouldn’t clean or leave the house.  Sure no drama, but she bounced rent checks and never left her room. I really liked her but she had go!  Her parents came and got her.

Another friend moved in and while she was nice and paid the bills, she too had crazy boyfriends.  She had left one guy and cheated with his best friend.  That did not make for a calm house, since the ex would show up drunk.  I had enough and moved out on my own for a few months subletting.

Then I meet my DH and we began our nomadic lifestyle.  I was done with roommate, but I still have the itch for moving.

It’s summer and wedding season is coming up.  The time of year when you are bombared with invitations to weddings or baby shower or graduations.  It seems like every weekend there is something to do.  But do you really have to accept and go to all these invitations?

Where is the line drawn that you must accept an invatition versus looking bad for refusing?  I find this a very hard line to define.  It’s not always about the money.  Graduation parties or baby showers are not nearly as expensive as weddings. And some weddings are nothing more than a small party.

But are people inviting you because they really want you there or because they feel obligated?

I mean, do people invite coworkers to their wedding because they must?  And if they only invite one or two “close” coworkers are you obligated if you get the invite?  What if you feel uncomfortable because you won’t know anyone else?  Or feel that you were invited for the gift?

I wonder, how many of us are going this summer to social obligations but we really don’t want to?  And how many of us are inviting people because we feel obligated to?

What do you think about your parents watching your kids?  Instead of being a stay at home parent, being able to work.  Instead of daycare, getting free childcare from you parents?  Would you do it?  Does it depend on the circumstances?

Would you do it if your parents lived in the same city?  Thus they wouldn’t have to live with you?  But if they lived away and had to live with you for 6 months or 1 year, the answer would be no?  Or would it be possible for 1 month but not longer?   Would you be willing to send your child to your parents if they lived in another city?  To be apart?

I find it fascinating that there are so many options.  My DH’s coworker has trouble making ends meet.  So she sends her child to “visit” with his great grandmother, grandmothers, etc.  This is free childcare but since they don’t live in the same city, she doesn’t see him sometimes for a month or more.  She also has her siblings come to visit for a month or more and help care for him while she works.

Thus she’s utilizing many of the different options.  What would I do personally?  I don’t know. I would love to have help from my mom, but she lives very far away. And sending my child to her is not an option.  I’m not even sure her living with me is an option, even for 1 month!

I was watched/raised by my grandmother.  But since we lived in the same city, I just went to her house in the morning, ate dinner, then went home.  So my mom didn’t have to deal with her mom at night.  I think that’s the ideal situation.  What are you doing?