ROUGH DRAFT OF WEDDING VOWS

A_____, I promise to love and cherish you, to respect your times and your ways, to know when you just want me to listen, and when you are truly seeking my humble input.

I promise to brace myself for when you are having a particularly unfortunate day. I promise to feed you pellets of chocolate and/or money champagne, Flaming Hot Cheetos and similar sundry snacks like chopped-up cucumbers and ume sisho without the sisho.

I promise to be your barometer and interpreter of temperatures (or temperaments). I promise to be your jacket when you are cold, and your heating pad for when your feet icicle. And to understand that if you are the last to get in to bed, then by universal proprietary laws you must also switch off all lights and/or lamps; I promise to extend this last promise to programming the television to turn off automatically if I like to fall asleep to its static waterfall.

A_____, I promise to rub your butt until you fall asleep, or take your glasses off after you fall asleep to a Law and Order Marathon; I promise to lay in bed and snuggle without rolling my eyes or wishing that I was at the Y with the soccer mongrels. And I promise to be your envoy for late-nite sundries at the Duane Reade like contact solution, Niagara spray starch, and Theraflu.

Not only that, I promise to wake up and make you Jamaican, Blue-Hill coffee and bagels for the rest of your life, girl, even though you don't really eat in the morning and we only have Sanka(not valid on Saturdays or Sundays). I promise not to messiah myself out to you either, so I better stop making promises and tell you somethings that I will not do.

I will not let you get away with it, because you have my back as well and don't let me succumb to my selfishself. I will not push the subject if you say I don't want to talk about it, as long as you know that I will harangue you later. I will not not hate movie and television personalities that you find unappealing, like that bitch Jessica Alba.

I will however adore, implore, eyore, and kneel-floor to make you understand that I am no more the solitary man. I am now two, or greater than or equal to two. And this is my life and I choose to bumrush this tiny, philistine island of a world with you by my side, holding my hand, helping me vanquish the heathens, the despots, the tyros, and nefarious forces that would like to do us ill.

A_____, I will not rest; I will not stray from my mission. We will not blink from our course; the terrorists of love shall know our missile-guided wrath, and we will not need a coalition of allies because our love collateral will last at least until we take our last breaths.