Jon is playing some computer game involving territory and its expansion and defense from intruders. It looks like something I’d enjoy if you added characters to it and wrote it down in a book with all of its plots, plans, deceptions and last-minute victories. As it is, I don’t ask any questions.

As for me, I’m sitting in the corner chair, reading, writing, online shopping. This day has been much like any other lazy Sunday, but I spent much of it absorbed in a book of historical photos of Hoboken, trying to piece them together. I know a lot that I didn’t know yesterday, but I can’t quite grasp the nature of a lazy Sunday in 1890.

We have cars blasting techno as they wait at the light outside our home, and little kids setting up toy truck show within  the sidewalk square’s space outside their front door. People stop at the grocery store for this week’s dinner supply and the women take advantage of the warm weather to wear their favorite sundress for perhaps the last time before winter.

So did carriage drivers whistle down the cobblestone streets, stopping every now and then to let a trolley pass? Did everyone go to the butcher-shop and the bakery? Or just the poor and the servants? How many 12-year-old girls would be going to school the following Monday? Was public school mandatory? Looking at a group photo at an annual clambake, I can’t quite tell whether the people are middle-to-upper class, or immigrants in their Sunday best. The men all have handlebar mustaches and the ladies are in floor-length dresses with hats.

Surely someone kept a diary or wrote letters that captured the lazy Sunday I’m looking for. The question is whether anyone thought it was worth sharing. And whether it made it to the 21 century.

I took us to a sushi house a couple blocks away, where the 2 roll special could get us a plate full of at least 16 pieces of sushi, a salad and soup. I added an order of edamame, ostensibly because 22-year old guys eat A LOT of food. Especially the skinny ones. But I also happen to love edamame.

He asked me questions about some of the contracts he had seen while filing them away in various cabinets, and I did my best to encourage his interests while trying to sound informed enough that he would believe my answers. I have worked in the business for three years, which isn’t quite enough to answer some questions, though I like to think that he was envious of my knowledge.  I spoke of my early years in New York as if they were a decade past and encouraged him to check out this weekend’s festivals and grab a copy of Time Out NY to take his girlfriend on a tour when she came to visit.

When the bill came, I casually took it from him. The lunch was on me. It’s not like he was getting paid for his internship; it’s the least I could do. He protested gracefully, but also with a hint of anxiety, adding, “I really feel uncomfortable with you paying.” But I insisted, mentioning how the boss had bought my lunch earlier in the week, and so I was simply passing down his generosity.

As we finished off the last pieces of edamame, he looked thoughtful, and then said, “You know it’s funny, waiters, they always bring the check to the guy at the table. And here you just paid even though you’re the woman.”

Before I thought he just wanted to support himself, to pay his half. I had done the same thing in my years as an assistant. But perhaps he actually wanted to pick up the entire tab simply because I was a woman and he was a man, determined to abide by the standards of society. This, I decided, was incredibly naive.

“Well,” I said, “The waiter didn’t really seem to mind so I guess it’s OK.”

Great, I thought. Because I’m the girl who’s picked up her violin only once in the past year. My chances at maintaining a writing habit are about as great as my chances of getting into the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. Which is to say, I can do it, but only if I try.

I can see that once I get around to devoting the time, the approach is similar. When I practice, I tend to start out with scales and pieces that I memorized years ago. When I feel sufficiently in sync with the instrument, I’ll try a new piece, or go back to a passage over which I always trip.

For the last few weeks — months really — I’ve been thinking about writing a novel. I wrote the first chapter and a few character sketches. Then I stopped. I wasn’t sure how to breathe life into it from there. Was my protagonist actually my antagonist? Should the best friend be the leading lady? Could I write it in a fairly regular atmosphere or should I add a fantasy element to it — demons, mermaids, prophesies — to dramatize the point?

Of course, thinking about a story is part of the writing process, but I have a history of over analyzing. I know this is spelling doom for my little project. So here I am, practicing my scales, the type of writing I figured out how to do long ago.

After eating, the french press coffee has steeped and I pour myself a cup.  I sit down to an inbox of emails and a stack of bills, letters and junk mail. For the next seven hours, I am an office girl with a head full of books and bookkeeping in a quaint Brooklyn brownstone.

Then I revert back to primitive instinct once again as I commute through the jungle, toward the plains of New Jersey.

I’m ready for the change. Summer has always been nice — no school, pools are open for days of fun, and now, there’s no reason to make excuses when I feel like having a cocktail on a Saturday morning, especially if I’m at the beach. But the laziness tends to bore me after a while, and my pale skin tends to look better in fall clothes.

For me, Fall is about new beginnings. More so than New Years Eve or the coming of Spring. It’s a time to buy new jeans, get new notebooks, figure out this year’s signature fall color and root out that top from five years ago that suddenly seems like a good thing to wear.

Yeah, I was that little girl who couldn’t wait to go back to school. To see who I would sit next to, what my teacher would be like and whether there were any cute boys in my class. So when weather like this rolls around, I still feel a little bit of a thrill, wondering what this Fall will hold in store for me. A perfect dress, a new best friend, a promotion for me or my husband? Maybe I’ll actually join an orchestra this fall, or find a new hobby for the season. The city of New York is my limit…which of course doesn’t limit me much at all.

Now that wedding day is more than a month behind me. Jon and I have continued into married life, which, to those who ask how married life is treating me, I have to admit is much the same. Of course there is a legitimacy that comes with our legal union. As Jon quotes from a Seinfeld episode, Everything sounds better with ‘my wife’ in it. (And Kramer confirms with “My wife has an inner ear infection.”) We can now pick up each others’ dry cleaning, and I don’t feel so weird going to the vet, where I used to hope they wouldn’t refuse treatment because my last name was different from our dog’s. Now it’s the same.

But I also changed my name at work. And in addition to all the bureaucratic hoops that I have to navigate to make sure I still have access to email and people can still find my phone number on the directory, it seems I also have to confront social opinions on marriage and the choices that come with it. It’s something I admit I naively didn’t think I would encounter by following the social norm and taking Jon’s name.

A senior member of my department came by wondering why he couldn’t find me on the office chat. I explained that IT had just fixed it so there might be a lag before it showed up in searches. I concluded with, “Oh, this whole name-change thing is quite a process.”

“Well, no one asked you to change it,” he said with a pointed look. And walked away. (Yes, he studied gender studies at a school in NY and no, his wife did not change her name)

First of all, society kinda does ask me to change it. But I esteem those women who keep their name because they feel a connection to their father’s family, or because they have an established professional reputation, or simply because they were born with that name and they see no reason to take on this new family name for the sake of society’s preferences. Those are good reasons. And what’s more, women who keep their name put up with a lot of snarky comments and confused reactions. But none of those reasons really applied to me. I wanted Jon and I to have the same name because we’re in the same family now. This seemed the easiest way to do it.

But this comment, aside from popping a little How dare you! thought bubble in my head, makes me question how wifedom is changing my view on feminism. Maybe not necessarily my own view, because I’ve always taken the side of Women Have Choices! Yay! Let it continue! But more the side of those who advocate breaking all gender roles. I find that as I wife, while I do break some traditional gender roles, I actually like others. And what kind of feminist does that make me?

Unresolved feelings indeed.

I made a good choice in my bridal brigade. I avoided people who like to stress or dramatize situations, so from the girls who helped me create centerpieces to my lovely dressmaker and my bridesmaids who put my hair and face together and sat with me that morning, I have to say that I have some smart and sensible friends. Not to mention my adoring husband, who stopped any potential worrying in its tracks by just being himself, the guy I want to commit to, every day.

Photo by Brad Luttrell

And then, because it was in Louisville, and because it felt like someone lifted the gates yelling, “And she’s off!”, I’ll give you the horse-racing version,

Going round the church now with Dad, here comes the bride. The birds keep singing and people are smiling and suddenly she’s at the groom’s side and her dad is trying not to cry as he hurries back to his seat.

The bride and groom are trying to pay attention to the readings now, but keep slipping smiles at each other…oh wait, here’s a song. .The bride is engrossed in the ceremony for a moment before turning back to Jon.

The priest has called them up now for the vows and there’s a moment where something may have gone wrong…is it in good times and bad or for richer for poorer? But the slip-up is unnoticed and they turn the corner, offering peace to everyone in the front row…and Jon steps a bit on the dress, the audience holds its breath…but she turns and beams at him, making sure he goes first around the next bend.

They light the candles, they sing another song and everyone files out exclaiming about the weather, the bride’s dress and and what a lovely homily the priest gave.

And now we’re in the final stretch; despite the traffic that holds up some of the bridesmaids, the bride and groom arrive at the reception on time. The dance is a bit tricky and they chide each other playfully but soon get back on track, working the room and thanking everyone for coming.

By the time Livin’ on a Prayer comes through the speakers, the two are sweating and running out of steam. But they keep pushing on until the end…and bid their adieus.  Whisked down the street, stopped by some scavenger hunters who want a photo and up into the room where they take off their worn shoes and sink into the bed.

I’m still waiting on photos from my official photographer, so more on this later, but I have to agree with my mom who said, “If anyone didn’t have fun at this wedding, it was their own fault.” Jon and I had a blast. And we never want to do it again.

My traveling companions

I dug through my closet of bags (seriously) and pulled out a nice sized canvas bag for all the trip essentials. My mom always had such a bag for our family vacations and I feel like it would be wise to follow her example for this 13-hour drive through the mountains.

1. Sunscreen. It was already in the bag and I’ve had too many sunburns from long car trips to risk not having it. Burnt right arm on my wedding day? No thank you.
2. CDs. Yeah, yeah, we have iPods, but we’re renting a car, remember? This calls for a collection of hopefully-unscratched CDs that we can both enjoy. As for radio, WV may have good scenery but I’m not counting on great music.
3. Snacks. Cape Cod chips, fruit snacks, chocolate and jerky. Mmmmmm.
4. Drinks. Pop and bottled water. And of course I’ll buy some coffee on our way out of town.
5. Dog accessories. Chomsky is very high maintenance and might need his own bag: Food, bottled water and water bowl, leash, Everlasting Treat fillers, Nylabone, small treats, plastic bags, a bottle of Nature’s Miracle and some paper towels just in case.
6. iPhone–fully charged. For directions, updates to family and entertainment.
7. Printed Google directions. For when the iPhone fails.
8. Camera. You know we’re going to have to stop at some weird place because the dog (or one of us I suppose) has to pee. Jon is charging his camera now.
9. Blanket. I’m debating between the soft furry UK blanket and the amazing quilt that we received as a wedding gift!
10. A sense of humor and a lot of patience. I would say that this will be the first big test for our marriage except that we won’t quite be married yet. I guess that designation belongs to the trip back after the wedding. Either way, aside from little ZipCar excursions here and there around NYC, we don’t drive together too often. This is going to be a llllooonnngg trip so we’d better make the best of it.

I realize that this reads like a high school student’s essay, the kind they write when they just want to graduate and get it over with. And that was kind of my thought process as I wrote it. But I did learn something along the way about our faith in each other and how we make each other better people than we are on our own.

My mom called me today, as she does every day, with a new bag of questions. The Tittles lady hasn’t responded to my email; what if she’s unreliable? Who is your cousin going to golf with? Do you think six people at a table is OK?

The difference was, today I said who cares. The men can figure out who’s golfing with whom. They’re big boys. Even my cousin. 6 people? They’re all friends, they’ll be fine. And Tittles, well frankly if she doesn’t show up and we have no cake balls, I don’t care because I will be married. Yay!

Then she said, Well you seem a lot less stressed than I am. I told her she needs to get that way. And soon.

Because we’ve made all of our big decisions. We’ve dotted the Is and crossed the Ts and now I’ve just got to walk down that aisle toward Jon and celebrate afterward. If something goes wrong, and something surely will, it’s OK.

I’ve heard many a smart bride say just that. But now I am living it. And it’s kind of awesome.