Soul, Mate.
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: The Tao of Ben
To borrow a word from my friend AB, there are about a frillion reasons why Ben is absolutely the guy for me. These reasons crop up every day, usually in very routine aspects of day-to-day life. Which, as I've said before, is exactly where love's true colors are found.

Yesterday I found myself coming down with just a real ornery sort of coughing, congested headachey cold/flu type of thing. Just butt ugly. It was the start of a three-day weekend, so my office closd early, and I went straight to bed with a mug of tea, a bottle of cough syrup and the remote control. Ben offered to pick up the boys so I could rest.

So I took to bed, and the whole family wound up congregated up there, and we watched TV, and I blew my nose and swigged cough syrup, and eventually everyone wound up falling asleep.

And so it was that I found myself up all alone at 2:30 a.m., sniffling, coughing and suddenly realizing that I must have chugged too much cough syrup. It was Robitussin; Dr. Sears said the active ingredient was okay during pregnancy; I hadn't thought much about it. But cough syrup? If you overdo it? Can affect you sort of strangely. What I'm saying is it gets sort of hallucinogenic.

So here I am, essentially tripping on cough syrup all alone in the dead of night. And I'm thinking well, this is a buzz I would have paid good money for 25 years ago, but now it really is kind of a pain in the ass, and here I am sick besides. And then Ben woke up.

I told him what was wrong, and he hugged me and told me I was goofy. And do you know what he did? He hunkered down and kept me company. With our two sons snoozing away in bed beside us, we cuddled up on the bed, whispering and talking in the dark, and flipped through all 400 channels in our premium digital cable lineup before deciding to chuck all that and put in the VHS of Things To Come (1936), an Art Deco science fiction glimpse into the future. Is there anything so cool as the vintage future?

After a couple of hours of watching that, holding hands and saying "cooool" a lot, we heard a thunderstorm approaching outside. Which might not be much to you, but in Southern California, they're remarkable events -- you might see one in a ten-year period, maybe not. So we opened the blinds and sat there listening to the thunder and watching the lightning together at 5 a.m. And then we went back to bed. It was the most time alone we've had together in a very long time, completely not romantic or planned or even very interesting. But oh my God, so friendly and comforting and cozy.

How cool is to be married to your best friend? Who else will sit up with you and keep you company on your stupid cough syrup trip and watch '30s movies with you in the dead of night and hold your hand and giggle with you and think lightning is as cool as you do? I never have to explain or defend or excuse or pretend with Ben. He just inhabits this life with me, day in and day out, there when I need him, no questions asked. Oh my dear goodness, so lucky am I.