In which I learn I am less flexible and more transparent that I envision myself to be

Recent events, like falling in love and getting engaged, have persuaded me to drop Jaded as a middle name. And have made me back away from my "get married in your 20s" directive.

And I am glad I waited this long and found this particular person. That said, I know for a fact that in my 20s it would have been much easier to walk into someone else's life and live there without a struggle.

Because, here you have two adults who have been living full, productive lives. Who, moreover, have been living alone, and have fully stocked their respective places. And have strong senses of who they are. And definite taste.

Who both have what most would probably agree is good taste. This taste, however, doesn't really converge at very many points. As in almost none.

I mean, we both like furniture. And appliances. We both like art.

Saying we have these things in common is like being all, "You like to eat when you're hungry, too?"

I like Nick's stuff. I just would never choose it. And he feels the same way about mine.

My furniture is a mix - old Thai teak furniture, which my mom had made by temple table carvers in Bangkok in the 60s - sat next to a contemporary, clean-lined glass coffee table. My bedroom has unexceptional but simple Scandinavian-designed furniture. The walls, the sheets, and the comforter are periwinkle. It's the softest, happiest color to wake up to.

I have a lot of ethnic art - mirrored tribal textiles from Rajasthan on the walls, statues of Hindu gods and goddesses, indigenous art from Ecuador. . .I lined my fireplace in orange poster paper - the same orange of my kitchen walls. And that's where my black stone Nandi, a statue I was given as a child, lives.

Nothing is designed to go together, but it's all my personality. None of it was planned; most of it was inherited, in one way or another.

Nick, on the other hand, has what one of our friends described as a "very grown up" place. Everything is big, solid, and well constructed of dark wood. He has beautiful antique furniture, carefully collected. He's clearly given some thought to how things will go together.

On his walls he has a lot of vintage maps, and prints of animals - ducks, for example, or hunting scenes. He also has a penchant for prints of old buildings. They're all nicely done and beautifully framed.

Not my taste, but tasteful. And I should mention that I like to think of myself as a supportive character, happy for him to have his taste and me to have mine.

So a few months ago, Nick and I went to an alumni event for his school. It had a silent auction, and one of the things you could bid on was a lithograph of one of the campus buildings - a fine piece of neoclassical American architecture.

Nick looked at it, put down a bid, and asked what I though. I replied in a vague yet supportive way. I thought.

But the next day, we were talking to Maude and Dan about the event. He said he'd won this framed print that he was excited about.

And then he said, "Lisa doesn't like it."

"Sure I like it!"

"I know for a fact you don't."

One of them asked how he knew.

"Because when I asked her what she thought of it she said, very politely, 'It looks like the kind of thing you like.' And then she added, 'You might really enjoy it at your office!'"

Clearly we come from very different directions

I don't know if this is a difference between men and women, or just a difference between Nick and me. Or maybe I'm just really frivolous.

Nick is going to a conference this week.

He hadn't mentioned anything about it before, but we were talking about our schedules for the week. He said he's out of town for a couple days, and then when he comes back, he's got this conference the next morning.

And actually, he says, he's a panelist for one presentation and a moderator for the next.

"Are you ready? Have you worked out your presentations?"

"Yup. Submitted all the materials yesterday."

He's organized like that. I really admire it. Me, I'd fret about them for ages, but not really work on them till midnight the night before.

So, knowing he was comfortable and prepared, my mind turned to the next important thing: his outfit.

He has suits I think are really attractive and suits I think are less so. And he's really not a clothing person. In my mind I'm hoping he's planning to wear the grey herringbone suit. He looks so handsome in it.

"What are you going to wear?"

"What?"

"What are you planning to wear?"

"I hadn't thought about it."

"Really?"

"Really. That's what you want to know about my presentations?"

"What else would I ask?"

"You might ask what they're about."

"Oh."

Two sides of the same pleasure

My dad gave me an essay entitled The Reading Life by Garrison Keillor last December.

Being from the Midwest, my parents love him. They love Prairie Home Companion. It resonates with them - his words are real and true. They evoke memories of youth for both of them, and they listen to him and laugh.

He's a good storyteller. And I can appreciate his craft. But as a person, he never really grabbed me. I never found him all that hilarious. I got tired of his show on PBS.

All this to say, even though it was only a page long, I didn't jump to read the essay.

My dad kept asking me if I'd read it, and I'd say that I just hadn't gotten around to it. He sends me articles regularly. The importance of Vitamin D. Consumer awareness articles. Health and safety tips.

Whenever he gives me something that comes with an owner manual, he follows up to see if I've read it. Because he knows I probably never will.

In other words, I'd put it in my "will be edifying but not necessarily interesting" pile.

But I finally read it the other day. It's about how Keillor became a reader, a writer, a storyteller.

And damned if he didn't pull me in from the very beginning. And this, this part I love:

"All of storytelling is an opening of the heart, a search for intimacy with strangers. Intimacy is a necessity of life, and we would go insane without it. On planes and trains and long bus trips, in bars, coffee shops, it happens all the time: You sit next to someone you don't know, and a spark is struck and you wind up telling more about yourself than you ever told your parents or your sister.

A writer starts out trying to show off, but if you keep going, you learn a thing or two. One, that writing is less like Destiny and more like dentistry: You get up in the morning and go to work. And, second, the great pleasure of stories is to be of one mind with another human being, and to that end, it isn't so important whether I write the story or you write it and I read it, they are two sides of the same pleasure."

I love his wording, and it's so true.

Thanks, Dad.

Want a cookie rituals

Our dog Gloria was our last family dog. She was a mutt from the pound in Lima, Peru. She was the first smart dog we ever had. And she was totally bilingual.

So she could do things that our other dogs couldn't. Like sit and give you her paw. I realize these aren't stellar examples of her intelligence, but for us it was pretty cool.

And one of the best things was that she could do them in Spanish.

You'd say, "Want a cookie? Una galletita?"

She'd cock her head.

"Sientate, por favor."

She'd sit down. You'd squat down and put out your hand.

"Dame la mano."

And out would come her paw.

"Gracias!" And you'd give her the cookie. And pick her up and hug her and kiss her and tell her how much you loved her.

She was a dog, but she was family. For dog lovers, you know what I'm talking about. There are times that you like your dog more than you like some of your friends and family.

And so, not to compare myself to my dog, but, well, sort of. . .

I realized the other day that I love these kinds of little rituals. And they're really not so different from the "want a cookie?" back and forth.

Sometimes, when Nick tells me he loves me, I'll say, "You do?"

To which he'll nod. And then say, "Do you know how much I love you?"

I'll shake my head. "Noooo."

"You don't?!"

So then I look up at him, and as earnestly as possible I say, "No."

These things are always said with the same inflection, the same feigned lack of knowledge, the same feigned surprise.

So he will go on to list the newest reasons. Or the original reasons. Or any reasons. It feels like sunshine.

I love this back and forth. And he knows for a flat out fact that I will never, ever pass up the opportunity to hear how much I'm loved. Or why.

Good advice and getting unstuck

The skies are back to sparkly.

Thank all of you for the nice comments and kind messages.

I got such good advice from several people. It was the kind of advice where you stop and think, wow, this makes so much sense. Why didn't I think of this?

Essentially, it was this. It's OK to be sad sometimes. It's OK to be down sometimes. It happens to everyone. Accept your feelings. They will pass.

It's so reasonable, isn't it?

I get all worked up when I'm in a bad place. I think the issue is that I get scared that the bad place will move in and take over. It's terrifying. Even if rationally, I know I'm not alone, somehow, I'm all alone. I'm sitting next to Nick, but I'm alone. I'll get stuck somewhere bad. All alone.

And then I have people say, hey, Lis, it's OK. And if you get stuck, we'll help you out.

It makes it all easier.

Thank you.