For better for worse (but which is Indiana?)

Lest I depict Himself to be nothing but a lazy slob (okay, I haven't done that yet, but god knows I've been tempted), let me just add that there is a deep and insidious flaw in my own character, as well...

I love Indiana.

I dream about it. I fantasize about it. I wax sentimental about it. I have been known to spend at least 10 valuable vacation days there every year. But most dreadfully of all, I don't shut up about it. As Himself so eloquently phrased it to his friend Brian, "With Melissa, someone forgot to install the 'off' button when it came to Indiana."

It's awful, it really is, how much I natter on about that place, how much I can't shut up about it, about Indy, about Booth Tarkington, about Ernie Pyle and Michael Jackson and Larry Bird and whoever else (who is famous) had the wonderful fortune to be born in that state, about IU, about my halcyon days of grad school. I know my colleagues and supervisors roll their eyes whenever I start spewing out that nonsense. But them? They can just fire me. With Himself, he has to endure the reminiscing, the vacation days, the hints about how I would love to retire there, the comparisons, the whining about how much I would love seasons and weather and clouds and the color green, and worst of all, my constant reminders of the many ways of how California consistently falls short--he's stuck with it. For better and for worse, and all that crap. I know I'm a right pain in the arse when it comes to this, and I said as much to Himself last night.

But as Himself pointed out, it's better than the alternative. The alternative is what happens when I have an extra strong gin gimlet, or I start listening to songs from that period of my life, or start looking at pictures from my IU years, or else my vacations back: it gets worse, and I start to get quiet. Then I get little stabs of pain in my heart (I'd like to think that it's not the cholesterol) and I get melancholy and I wonder how the hell I got from the solid, quiet, sensible Midwest to this nonsensical Wonderland known as the West Coast.

On nights like these, I know I am exiled--banished far from my Indiana, most likely never to return to live, and certainly never to go back to those long ago, problematic days. On nights like these, when I am somber (but not sober) and blogging, Himself looks over at me and worries. But that is what our vows are for.

And that's why it's "for better or for worse." Himself loves me despite my love for Indiana, and I love Himself despite his aversion to Indiana. But on nights like these, I mourn. But...as Alice Hoffman points out, "on nights like these, it's better not to think about the past, and all that's been won and lost. On nights like these, just slipping into bed, between the cool white sheets, is a relief."