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Five Years of Marriage

 For my fifth wedding anniversary, I would like to see a filmed performance of Maury Yeston's "Titanic," in which the captain sings of his nightmare vision:


The ship will start to plunge beneath the surface.
The water lapping at our feet!
The panicked people in retreat....
They'll cling here desperately like bees to a hive.
They'll hold fast...
Doomed to the last. 
Lost and abandoned and all still alive!

My husband gives me a skeptical look. "That doesn't sound very romantic."

It's said that you should marry a person *because* of his flaws, not in spite of them, and I'm relieved that my spouse generally approves of my dour side. His dream is that I will write a Broadway musical about a particular neighbor I dislike; I will cast Andrew Rannells, and I'll call the show "Frenemies." Sometimes, he sends me material (neighborhood gossip) that he wishes for me to exploit, in writing.

It is startling to me that I have married a man who looks at iPhone images of puppies every night before he goes to sleep. His bookshelf features: "Loving Kindness," "Real Love," and "Radical Compassion." (My own titles include "While Idaho Slept: The Undergraduate Murders," as well as "Hitchcock's Blondes.") Also, my husband won't buy a tee shirt that slams the Starbucks in our downtown shopping area, because a Starbucks employee might see the slogan, and he or she might suffer from hurt feelings.

I do think that the sunniness rubs off on me, at times; this Wednesday, I have volunteered to go to my child's classroom to lead a sing-along of "Old McDonald Had a Farm."

But that doesn't mean I've given up on my dream of Maury Yeston's "Titanic." A splendid anniversary treat! What soul doesn't yearn to hear "The Blame," or "To the Lifeboats," or the ominous pre-crash solo, "No Moon"--???

Stay tuned.

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