How do you know true love?

Kate here.

It's been over a month since I got married to the most wonderful man in the world (no, not Jude Law, sillies :p) and after the wave of marital (oops, I almost typed martial. Yeah right, like Karl knows anything about fighting for my love, especially against homeless men at Don Pablos who stare at me and accuse me of witchcraft while I'm on my thirteenth Pina-Orangappleade margarita, then spit at me and burn a cross on the table--thanks for defending my honor, Karl. "But Kate, I was in the bathroom doing a line of salsa off the toilet seat blah blah blah I can't satisfy a woman blah blah blah I'm gay." Whatever Karl. Love you honey!) sanctity, love, respect, and happiness subsides, you start to enter that time known as the "deep reflection of possible life-altering mistakes made while high from smoking grasshopper entrails." This is the time in marriage when you come home from work (with Scott, sigh), feed the dog, kiss your husband, ask him how his day went, cook some dinner, discuss the newest issue of Tucson magazine that just came in the mail, then sit in front of the TV, curled in your husband's arms, as you waste your life in an existential void like a Kafka protagonist.

It's a very deep time of my life. You think of stuff like war and ignorance and intolerance and how much you hate Republicans (omg, GWB iz teh stoopid!!!!! lolz). Lost in thought, you think of the ways you could be happier, most of them involving material possessions or young children from foreign lands snatched out of brutal poverty and given a life of luxury generally not found in the Third World due to societal trappings and the White Man (grr, I hate capitalism).

It's enjoy to make a girl cry. Which I do, every night between 2 AM and 2:14AM. It's like biological clockwork. Some doctors describe it as "post-marital stress restless leg syndrome." Others describe it as "post-feminism." I don't know, I don't believe in the health industry, not with 51 million Americans without health insurance because the Republicans hate poor people.

There is a common cure that I use to overcome whatever mental suckiness I may encounter, however. At 2:15AM, every morning, I turn over in my bed and stare at Karl.

If I had a nickel for every hour I have spent watching Karl sleep, in the six or so years that I have known him, I could own a fleet of yachts (instead of just our own, lonely dingy called "Asbistos." In fact, part of the reason I agreed to marry Karl is because watching him sleep is an exploration into beauty itself. He is a mixture between angel and cherubim, his face tranquil beyond the stars. My face gets as close as an inch away from his lips, which have the structure of the Grand Canyon, but moist like sticky buns. Being an inch away from his face for extended periods of time can boggle the senses, and often I hallucinate from the sweet liquor of his breath and noxious vapors his whiskers.

I dream of fields of washing machines and ovens, each on various stages of spin cycles and heating cycles, some washers cleaning delicates, some turned off, while the ovens run the gamut from bread baking to broil. At the end of the field is a giant cat, named PUBES. He has a bionic eye and can read emotions, but can only speak in limericks. He and I go shopping together for groceries and booze for the big party at the End of Time (when the Great Spider spins its web and catches the fly of eternity, sucking the blood of redemption, and releasing the world from the bondage of slavery).

My hallucinations go on in this manner, but soon I am back in our bedroom. Often times licking Karl's face, probing his ear with my fingers, and trying to unravel the mystery of his nose. I have clocked in innumerable hours in these endeavors and he never knows about them. But the crags and gulleys, the geography of his body is what keeps this marriage together. I hope he knows that.

For those that don't have the pleasure of staring at Karl's sleeping form at night, here's a sample of his simple solace: