Around the time of the engagement, I had an unusual request. I wanted to sacrifice one beach day at the movies.
If you were in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in the summer--lucky you!--wouldn't you want to park yourself on the sand (and leave only for brief meals)?
But my fiancee understand that I had an addiction to movies. Good movies, bad movies. I would spend substantial parts of any vacation--a vacation in a foreign country!--sitting in a multiplex. I'd tell myself this was an inventive way of studying "local color," but the truth is, if you're seeing Jordan Peele's "Us" at a mall in Montreal, you're just seeing a big Hollywood movie in a mall.
My husband ceded his beach day. We drove to a small Cape Cod town to see "Wind River," a B-level film in which Elizabeth Olsen unearthed dire truths about the oppression of Native Americans in the West. People were slaughtered. No one smiled--for two hours. Graciously, quietly, my husband took a nap.
After the movie, we posed for an eccentric, somewhat crabby photographer, a gay man who lived alone in P-town, and who gently encouraged me to suck in my gut. He half-jokingly suggested a nude shot. (We declined.) His studio was named for Walt Whitman, and he made wistful references to a boyfriend on another continent, and I sensed he had deep, dark secrets, as any artist would.
The photographer wanted zaniness: He wanted us plopped on our stomachs, in the sand, though we had donned nice, fancy shirts. I openly bitched and complained and, once again, my fiancee was cheerfully tolerant. The "stomach" shot--which seemed absurd to me--turned out to be my favorite in the bunch.
Some things have changed over the past two years: We have a happy little kid, and we purchased a house, and I've curbed my movie addiction. I've tried to find other interests.
But one thing I very much appreciate about my husband is this: We're planning a trip to London at Christmas--and, already, Marc is talking about finding a West End cineplex where we could scrutinize Taylor Swift, in "Cats."
And that's my marriage, in a nutshell. I'm a lucky guy.
If you were in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in the summer--lucky you!--wouldn't you want to park yourself on the sand (and leave only for brief meals)?
But my fiancee understand that I had an addiction to movies. Good movies, bad movies. I would spend substantial parts of any vacation--a vacation in a foreign country!--sitting in a multiplex. I'd tell myself this was an inventive way of studying "local color," but the truth is, if you're seeing Jordan Peele's "Us" at a mall in Montreal, you're just seeing a big Hollywood movie in a mall.
My husband ceded his beach day. We drove to a small Cape Cod town to see "Wind River," a B-level film in which Elizabeth Olsen unearthed dire truths about the oppression of Native Americans in the West. People were slaughtered. No one smiled--for two hours. Graciously, quietly, my husband took a nap.
After the movie, we posed for an eccentric, somewhat crabby photographer, a gay man who lived alone in P-town, and who gently encouraged me to suck in my gut. He half-jokingly suggested a nude shot. (We declined.) His studio was named for Walt Whitman, and he made wistful references to a boyfriend on another continent, and I sensed he had deep, dark secrets, as any artist would.
The photographer wanted zaniness: He wanted us plopped on our stomachs, in the sand, though we had donned nice, fancy shirts. I openly bitched and complained and, once again, my fiancee was cheerfully tolerant. The "stomach" shot--which seemed absurd to me--turned out to be my favorite in the bunch.
Some things have changed over the past two years: We have a happy little kid, and we purchased a house, and I've curbed my movie addiction. I've tried to find other interests.
But one thing I very much appreciate about my husband is this: We're planning a trip to London at Christmas--and, already, Marc is talking about finding a West End cineplex where we could scrutinize Taylor Swift, in "Cats."
And that's my marriage, in a nutshell. I'm a lucky guy.
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