Our First Fight: The Good News is I'm Not Crazy

Last night, my husband of almost one month and I, met some friends out for drinks and in the middle of a Manhattan bar, danced to the Dirty Dancing classic, Time of Our Lives, not caring that at 28 years old we looked like the "old people in the bar." You know who I mean, the couple at the bar that after 4 drinks you have to go talk to because they're cool. Like your parents. But we didn't care.

When we got home, we stayed up way too late watching TV and talking excitedly about different things the way people do when they're getting to know each other. And when we finally went to bed, we said "I love you" with shit-eating grins on our faces and after the lights were turned off I asked him, "Are you still smiling?"

"Yes." He responded.

"Me too." I said and then drifted off to dreamland expecting to wake up the next morning in an episode of Leave it to Beaver.

However, when we did wake up this morning, T and UnPlain had replaced The Cleavers and Mr. Cleaver was cranky from staying up so late. Trying to be understanding given the fact that I'd be pissed off too if I had to get up and go to work while T got to sleep in after a late night, I rolled my sore-ffrom-dancing-ass out of bed and described in detail all of the things I was going to do around the house today, in an effort to let T know that I too was "working." Eventually he headed off to work and I started to get a move on my day. Things were fine until a few hours later when we spoke on the phone.

BAM. Our first married fight. Well, our first REAL married fight. I don't really count every time he gets pissed off and starts an argument after I start eating his food because I've finished my own. No, this was a real fight and it was over what most couples find themselves arguing about often, money. Not real money mind you, it was over a minor expense which one of us considers a necessity and the other considers a luxury (I'll let you figure out who's who).

But of course it spiraled into a bigger argument on our disparate views and the next thing I knew I was lying in bed crying while spewing out emails with lines like, "What's it like to know that your wife is crying because of you? I hope it was worth the X dollars," as fast as the predictive text on my blackberry would let me. Then shortly after I updated my Facebook to reflect that my morning was "ruined" driving the guilt stake just a little further in, I realized it was now 11:30am and I hadn't done a single thing on my to-do list (even though one of those items is now off my to do list thanks to the fight). So, I got up, got dressed and went to the gym.

Now normally, I would've stayed in bed escalating the argument to the point where T would consider leaving work to come home, take me out and save the relationship. In the process I would've gotten in some over-top and deep-cutting one liners that would further prove my sainthood. But instead, I went on with my day.

Maybe it's because I was three quarters in the right during this argument or maybe because just as I was typing the best low-blow I could come up with and BBM it to my husband I realized that, shit, he's just that. My husband.

He's not the jerk who hasnt' proposed yet. He's not the jerk who doesn't understand why the wedding is stressing me out so much. He's not the jerk that got mad at me for staying out until 5am with my girlfriends letting dudes buy me drinks (ok, he gets that one). He's not any of these jerks. He's the jerk I married. He's the jerk I will buy a home with one day. He's the jerk I will raise my jerk children with some day. And he's the jerk I will retire to Boca Raton, take up Mah Jong and drive a massive Cadillac that we "bump into things" with.

Feeling good about revelation, half way through my workout, I decided it was time to email T and clue him in that I'd decided the argument was over. As we apologized and "talked it out" over instant messenger, developing a plan of action to reconcile our disagreement, I thwarted off the anxiety attack that usually comes with anytime I realized I've matured even the slightest little bit. Then I stretched, cleaned myself up and headed over to Sephora to buy some outrageously over priced beauty product, spending more than I would've in the first place. Sucka.

The best part of all of this is I realized that, wait, I'm sane. I'm sorta mature. I'm acting like an adult and not the bat-shit, this-relationship-will-never-work/why-don't-you-plan-the-damn-wedding-yourself/don't-even-think-about-having-more-fun-than-me bride I was for the past year and a half. Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the fact that I have issues, that I take arguing to a whole new level and that I have more than once ripped off my engagement ring and slammed it on the coffee table for poignancy. This is part of my charm. It keeps things interesting and gives me something to crack up about with my equally-issuefied friends over brunch while T roles his eyes. But I do realize that it wasn't entirely me. It was the beast known as a wedding.

Now, there's nobody asking, "when are you getting engaged?" There's nobody saying, "You know, you guys should really be doing for your wedding." And there's no more, "How are we ever going to make it through this wedding."

All that's left is me, my husband and two rings on my left ring finger that I didn't feel like ripping off for effect this time.

Life After Wedding

Married life is one thing, as I described recently in this post, with its ups, downs and perks. Life After Wedding is something entirely different with it's own unique set of tasks, trials and tribulations.

The first few days after returning from our honeymoon, my husband, T, and I were on a total high. We could eat whatever we wanted, we could lay around all day not worrying about place cards or candy buffets or just how many pairs of underwear we would need to bring on the honeymoon. We would sit on the couch those first few days and every once a while glance over at each other to see our new husband/wife with one finger up his/her nose, one hand scratching some body part and his/her mouth chewing whatever "forbidden food" s/he wanted. These moments were truly magical and every now and then they'd be topped off with some sort of emission of gas. That's when we would look at each other, our eyes brimming over with love and say, "Married life is amazing. I love you so much."

One week later, Life After Wedding set in and brought with it the following:

Bed, Bath and Beyond

I have made more trips to Bed, Bath & Beyond in the past three weeks than I care to make in any given year. Contrary to my husband who practically creams himself at the thought of going into any store that sells kitchen/bathroom/organizing equipment, I hate it (which really doesn't make sense being that I'm the only one who actually uses any of the stuff). Life After Wedding forced us to take a full inventory of all of the gifts we had received and make one too many trips to BB&B for returns.

Excited at the prospect of BB&B's Cash Back Policy, I grabbed as much as I could carry and waited in the freezing cold, one shopping cart short of looking homeless and finally caught the M15 headed uptown to my favorite BB&B. Now, generally, I RAVE about their customer service. They're so nice, friendly, helpful and quick. Not so much this time. After using my chin to open the door since my arms were loaded down and the store's doorman thought it would be more fun to watch, rather than help me I was pumped to see that there was only one other person at the Customer Service desk. Little did I know that the only other person formed one half of the lethal Tiny Asian Woman/Slowest Employee On Earth combination that would result in me standing there sighing loudly whenever another employee strolled over, looked at me and then strolled away to text his baby mama, deciding I would be too much work to help.

When it finally was my turn, I was "greeted" by the most unfortunate mug any Customer Service desk has ever seen. Little did this lady know that I not only will I tell off a store clerk, I ENJOY it and so I made it my business to wait until she walked all the way to the end of the counter only to yell out "just one more question" so she had to walk her slow, rude ass all the way back over to me. I was only slightly frightened by the person behind me in line, who after closer inspection, turned out to be a woman and not a small man. It was hard to tell initially given the butch hair cut and sleeveless flannel shirt. I thought quick and bonded with the possibly-just-released-from-the-State Pen woman waiting for me to finish over cell phones and hating the Customer Service lady. Finally, I was walking out of BB&B with 300 bones, the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with pissing someone off and the comfort that if I ever ended up in the clink, I knew whose bitch I would be.

Thank You Cards

When I walked into our building yesterday afternoon, in a rush to make it upstairs since I didn't have the DVR set up to record Oprah, my doorman called after me, "Uh Jane, I have a package for you." I always get excited at the sight of a pair of tight brown UPS man shorts and I get a little rush whenever a package arrives even if I know it's just a box of contact lenses I ordered. I bolted from the elevator over to the closet where the doormen keep our packages and all but closed my eyes and held out my hands as my parents instructed me to do the Christmas morning they had bought us "black market" Cabbage Patch Dolls.

When I looked down at the box that the doorman placed in my hand after awkwardly waiting for the elevator with me, I saw the return address was from my favorite online stationery store. Realizing instantly that I was holding in my hand the cards that I had ordered to use as thank you cards for the wedding, I immediately instant messaged T saying, "pick up some wine on your way home, the Thank You Cards arrived." Now, thank you cards aren't just a post-wedding task. There are Engagement thank you cards, Shower thank you cards, Rehearsal dinner thank you cards, Thank you for slapping me across the face when I was freaking out over seating arrangement thank you cards; The difference is that those thank you cards are exciting, they are fun, they are all part of the "wedding planning process."

Once the wedding is over there is nothing a newlywed bride and groom want less than anything to do with the "wedding planning process" and while, we truly couldn't be more grateful for the gifts we've received and the people that celebrated with us, that stack of blank cards acts as a time machine set to transport you right back to the Xanax-popping days that made up the two or so weeks just before the wedding.

Not one to slack off, I ripped open the box ,right away and started writing and wrote until bed-time. This morning, after cooking T his usual breakfast of an omelet, English Muffin, oatmeal and tea, I got back to work and as I sat at the kitchen table, writing away, commented to him, "Ya know, I'm really trying to be original and personal with all of the thank you notes, it's really hard to not write the same thing over and over." From the living room, over the sound of SportsCenter (which he watches at unnecessarily loud volume every morning) he replied, "Yeah, I totally know."

I stopped dead in my tracks and thought for a moment making a mental catalog of all of the Thank You and, not to mention Holiday cards we have sent out since the very beginning of our relationship. Double checking in my head, I confirmed silently to myself that T had not so much as signed his name, let alone had he written a thoughtful note on a single solitary greeting over the past five years. I must have been silent a little too long, because he felt the need to walk into the kitchen and remind me, "Ya know. I did have a BAR MITZVAH. And I wrote thank you cards. And I wrote the same thing over and over. So I get it."

Was I supposed to respond positively to this? I honestly don't know. Is he justified in comparing the 60 or so Bar Mitzvah Thank You Cards he "wrote" (aka: transposed whatever note his mother kindly composed for him" to the 300 or so Thank You cards I'd written on behalf of the two of us over the past year? Did I not have a Sweet Sixteen in which I wrote my own thank you cards? Does one instance of writing Thank Yous 15 years ago excuse him for life just because he bought a ring?

Again, I must have been silent, deep in thought, for too long after his comment, because he continued on citing, "I've offered to help." Unprepared to deal with this conversation at 8am, I just changed the subject until it was time to kiss him goodbye and send him off to work. Men, sometimes it's better to stay silent.

KIDS

Many married couples will tell you that the minute you get back from your honeymoon, people start asking, "So, are you thinking about kids?" "Can we expect a honeymoon baby?" Luckily for T and I, we've been spared this Life After Wedding phenomenon and people aren't really bugging us about this. Perhaps it's because I'm unemployed; Perhaps it's because we are two of the laziest human beings on the planet; or Perhaps its because everyone is aware that the plant we bought three years ago lasted only about three months because we didn't always "feel like" watering it. Whatever the reason, people have (thankfully) left us alone on this topic. Even my mother who swears I'm a "natural" whenever she sees me awkwardly holding a baby leaves us alone when it comes to this topic, which incidentally will be the basis for an upcoming blog. Something along the lines of "What on Earth will T and I Spawn Should We Decide to Procreate?

In a nutshell, this is Life After Wedding. Forgive me for leaving out things like Gown Preserving, Arguments like "We Can't Put That Picture in the Album because I Have Fat Arm", and Let's-Throw-A-Honeymoon-Themed-Party-So-We-Can-Use-All-Our-New-Stuff Syndrome, but I wanted to keep this post under 2000 words.

Let's Talk About Sex Baby

While I normally like to entertain you with recounting the inevitable mishaps that occur as I try to go about leading my normal life, I was inspired yesterday to write a little commentary based on the topic of one of my favorite daytime activities.

When four o'clock rolled around, after running across the street for a fresh bottle of Malbec, I turned on Oprah and was greeted by an overly expressive, batshit-behind-the-eyes, loud-talker in a wig. No, I'm not talking about Oprah herself, but rather her guest of the day, former Evangelical Church Leader, Ted Haggard. In case you're not familiar with Ted Haggard he's the mega-church, right-wing, anti-abortion, gays-will-burn-in-hell preaching pastor who "fell from grace" in 2006 when it came out that he was buying both sex and drugs from another man.

As I watched Oprah trying desperately yet failing to be hard-hitting and non-judgemental, while of course learning something from the Pastor and his wife between lengthy commercial breaks, I started thinking about sex, sexuality and what's normal. His apologies, revelations, self-evolution and Invislign braces just confused me as he preached, and this is not a direct quote, "Deep down inside I DO want to bang dudes, but through therapy and my wife refusing to divorce me, I've made the choice not to." WTF?

Now according to Haggard, his homo-sexual acts were the product of mental illness requiring the help of a therapist. With that, I started to wonder if every barely legal skank posting photos of herself making out with her best friend on MySpace is mentally ill or as Haggard referred to himself, 'a heterosexual with issues.'

It wasn't until Oprah methodically brought the conversation back around to focus on herself that I became completely confused. As Haggard openly admitted to having 'homosexual inclinations' inside of him, Oprah responded by announcing she wonders what that must be like for him because, "as a heterosexual woman," she "does not know what it's like to have homosexual thoughts." Now, I know the majority of my straight male readers out there are not going to openly admit to even ever having the slightest curiousity about being intimate with another guy, so I'm not going to push that issue, but come on Ophs!! You're going to tell me you've never been curious to see what it might be like to play Tune in Tokyo with Gayle? I have to disagree.

I don't know a girl who hasn't made out with her best friend in the second grade, picked lesbian porn over the regular kind or enjoyed a trip to the strip club? Now, either it's just me and all the girls I hang out with are a bunch of Big-Ass-Lesbos or, contrary to Oprah's personal experience. getting the tinglies from a same-sex thought is pretty normal. Whether we chose to admit it or not we are all curious creatures especially when it comes to doing the nasty. There's a good reason it is the one topic we loath discussing openly with our parents no matter how old we get.

The only thing that irks me more than intolerance is ignorance. I'm equally annoyed by people who preach tolerance while they make certain to announce that they could never be affiliated with whatever taboo they are begging you to accept. So after one hour of watching Oprah (which consisted of maybe 20 minutes of actual show and 40 minutes of commercials) I'm left left being told that because my girlfriend "N" and I dry humped (before I even knew what dry humping was) and played kissy-face in the fourth grade I'm going to either a) burn in hell or b) I'll never be as good as Oprah, but luckily she sympathizes.

Discuss.

UnPlain Jane will return with frivolous tales of life as an Unemployed Apartment Wife shortly.

A Good Day (to stay the hell inside)

My morning started out extraordinarily positive. I was overjoyed when T hit the snooze button on the alarm in order to snuggle up with me all warm and cozy with me for 9 glorious minutes until it went off again and he bounced up out of bed and into the arms of his true love, his Blackberry. I looked out the window and saw the snow swirling around, rooftops powdered white and thought to myself, "Awesome, the gym is going to be empty this morning since only us really dedicated (read: neurotic) members troop it out in the bad weather." When warm and cozy time was over, I popped out of bed made breakfast for T and myself and we discussed, with excitement, all that I was going to accomplish today.

Now, just three hours later at 11am, I'm contemplating slamming my laptop closed and heading to Hoboken for an impromptu pub crawl with my bestie, but no amount of booze and gossip is worth trekking anywhere beyond a one block radius from my apartment today and here's why.

Before I even started my first set of Abs the smile had been wiped off of my face and my positive attitude had started to go south. Stepping out of my building, I was hit with the realization that what looked like a winter wonderland from the 14th floor actually looked more like raw sewage from ground-level. I slipped and slid my way the four blocks to the gym, trying to desperately not to fall down, eat yellow snow, or get hit by a car while staring down out my Blackberry in the rain. True to New York, as I walked along, a complete stranger yelled at me. His concern was not that I was going to get hit by a car, but that I was going to ruin my Blackberry if I kept using it out in the open while the sleet was falling from the sky. Rather than thank him for his input, I snottily responded, "Yeah, that's why I have insurance DAD." (As I've mentioned before, telling off complete strangers is one of my favorite things about living in New York.)

Crossing the street and thinking I had made it all the way to the gym without incident, I tried to be cute and workouty, by daintily jumping over the final puddle that stood between me and my sweat-fest. Almost. Instead, probably because I was chatting on the phone with my mother, I misjudged my take-off point and river-danced my ass straight into a giant, brown, slushy puddle. Praying it wouldn't be too bad, I jumped out and went sliding three feet down the sidewalk miraculously staying on my feet. Cutting off our conversation by blurting, "MA, I gotta go!!," as she told me about her days plans in excessive detail, I walked into the gym, my feet growing colder and wetter by the second and asked the girl at the front desk if they sold socks.

Eleven dollars later I had on a fresh pair of socks and was blowdrying my sneakers in the locker room, an area I usually try not to spend any extended period of time in thanks to the New York phenomenon of old-ladies loving to prance around nude at gyms. When I finally started my workout, I had regained a little bit of motivation in the only way I know how. It's embarrassing, but whenever I work out and I need a boost, I pretend I'm a personal trainer and that I'm training myself and I will silently say things like, "This is where the change happens UnPlain, just one more rep!" or "I know you had wine last night UnPlain, let's DO THIS!". Otherwise I just pretend I am a celebrity/athlete/model getting ready for my next appearance/game/gig and avoid making eye contact with anyone so they won't ask for my autograph. Ridiculous? Yes. Does it work? Sort of.

So today, as Trainer UnPlain did her best to "take it to the next level" on the Ab Incline Bench, I felt, for a splitting second, an excruciating pain in my lower back. Immediately, I hopped off the bench, did some stretches and decided I would finish my workout no matter what, because my fragile psyche can not handle the thought of missing another day at the gym. I finally finished and left the gym with pockets full of socks and 180 degree change in attitude from when I woke up.

I shuffled my way through the sleet for the four blocks home and one extra block to the drugstore. Remembering only three of the six items on my mental list, I opened the door and figured that the rest would come to me as I wondered the aisles contemplating the purchase of things I neither need, nor enjoy, like Kettle Corn. First on my list was lotion and I was expecting that like most NYC drug stores, this particular one would carry the type of product I like. I like my lotion thick and prefer Body Butter to anything that comes out of a pump. I like to feel sufficiently saturated and creamy and when I stuff myself into my tightest pair of jeans, I like to feel like I've lotioned to the point that my jeans every so slightly stick to my skin and won't move. Unfortunately for me, I had no such luck finding the product I so desired at this particularly shitty drugstore chain outpost.

In the "ethnic" section, I spied a lotion that boasted it was an Oatmeal and Sheabutter blend. Afraid that I would make the same mistake I made in college when I was sure my unruly hair was ethnic enough to warrant the use of a chemical relaxer meant for African American children, I decided it was best to test this lotion out regardless of the store's no testing policy. After about fifty twists of the pump top while glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching, I finally squeezed out a nickle-sized dollop of the above-mentioned lotion. At first, it felt great. Thick, creamy, and even though the smell was a little too coconutty for my personal taste, it seemed to be seeping into my skin just the way I like it. That was until this nickle sized dollop seemed impossible to fully absorb. I rubbed it all in my hands, went as far up my arms as I could and there was still more.

I had no choice but to plop myself down in the middle of the Ethnic Aisle, pull up my pant legs and start rubbing the-lotion-that-just-wouldn't-die into my legs. As I did this, I looked up only to be met by the disapproving gaze of the drugstore's star employee. Of all employees it had to be this particular woman with whom I have a torrid, love-hate relationship. We consistently alternate between exchanging pleasantries to making snide remarks to each other depending on the day. It's a miracle she didn't drag me out of the store, but she's far too lazy to exert any sort of physical force, let alone pick up her step when she strolls back to her register when a customer needs to check out.

I quickly picked myself up off the floor, grabbed the few items that I could remember I needed and slid myself down the block and into my building. I did my best to smile at my friendly doorman and at the same moment the elevator dinged, announcing my arrival on our floor, I remembered everything I forgot. Letting the door slam behind me with the knowledge that it was the IMPORTANT items I had forgotten, I stripped down out of my wet clothes, and marched my cranky ass into the kitchen.

Now, as I sit here in my undies, typing away, I've made the conscious decision not to venture out into the wet streets again today. (Until it's time to get dressed and go get a bottle of wine anyway).

Old, Fat and Drunk

Old: It was around the time that my now husband, T, proposed to me that I started to feel like an actual grown up. Since then, I've been waiting for the day that I wake up somewhere in my late forties, the proud parent of a teenager who hates me and the worst part of it all: I look the part. Even at twenty-eight years old, I wake up every morning and look in the mirror expecting this to be the day that I am officially old.

Fat: I've been fat before so I know it well. And while I don't actually enjoy being fat, I certainly enjoy getting fat. I could go 7 rounds with the best of them and find the strength to gnaw on that last helping of Prime Rib even when I am physically uncomfortable from whatever ungodly amount of food I've already eaten. I am missing that mouth-stomach connection that lets a person know what they put in their mouth affects how their stomach will feel. I love getting fat. I hate being fat.

Drunk: Since the very first time, when at 16, my friend and I raided my parent's basement bar and put together a lethal combination of a little pour from every bottle they had so no one single bottle would look any emptier, I've enjoyed a good night of boozing. Sometimes I get too drunk and start a fight with my husband/best friend/a bouncer. Sometimes I don't get drunk enough and decide I'd rather be somewhere else. And sometimes, I get just drunk enough, dance all night and happily skip home sweaty and ready for a 3am feast.

There you have it. Old, Fat and Drunk: Three things I don't aspire to me, but three things I found myself feeling after the 48 hours that made up this weekend. Is this married life?

When I woke up Sunday morning, with bleary eyes and a headache, I had to log on to UnPlain Jane and read what I had written the night before. I remembered the basic premise and bits and pieces of what I wrote, but to be honest, it was somewhat of a blur. It's not that I went out boozing all night, came home tanked and decided to write my blog. I didn't go out at all. Instead I sat on my couch, in front of my laptop and downed a bottle of wine.

As I did this, T sat as his desk doing work and downed his own bottle of wine. Next thing we knew, it was after midnight and we were hammered and looking for more wine. Left with only the option of popping a bottle of expensive champagne that someone had bought us for our wedding, we began racking our brains. For some reason drinking that special bottle of celebration bubbly didn't seem right given that we were a) already hammered and b) had basically only communicated with each other via Instant Messenger all night from our respective computers . Always the optimist, I insisted to T that one of the two wine shops on our block HAD to be open. This is New York and more importantly the guy in the store told me just the other day that he works until 3am every night. (It seemed to make sense at the time.)

T, insisting that I was wrong popped his head out the bedroom and saw that the shop across the street was closed. "Mall za deedle-dum!" I slurred. What I was attempting to say was, "Call the other one!", and either because he was equally inebriated or because I said it at the same volume my grandmother uses when she's talking on 'one of those cell phones', he understood me and started dialing. When nobody answered, we looked at each other silently contemplating getting ourselves dressed and going to see for ourselves, until T came to the rescue remembering we had enough Vodka in the freezer to feed my Russian-waxer's family for a year.

With nothing to mix it with, we clinked our Vodka on the Rocks' together and what happened next was a blur. At some point I went to bed and at some point T fell asleep on the couch watching an infomercial for gardening equipment. He made it into the bedroom sometime around 6am and when we both woke up around three hours later, I had the kind of headache I usually reserve for nights that involve out of town visitors and my need to "show 'em how it's done." As we snuggled up, smelly and hungover to watch a back episode of Scrubs in bed, I realized that some might say we were losers, but given that we had both gotten a bunch of work done the night before, I would just say we are OLD and, of course, DRUNK.

This brings me to FAT. For the six months leading up to our wedding T essentially became Manorexic and I shunned bread like it was a pair of Payless shoes and on January 3, 2009, in the best shape of our lives we tied the knot. As the band packed up, I began shoving chocolate covered pretzels into my mouth with full anticipation that this was the beginning of what would be a two-week binge. All throughout our engagement as we turned down seconds, skipped dessert and ordered our Chinese food steamed, T and I found ourselves talking dreamily about the "Fat Phase" we were going to enter once the glass was broken and the hora was danced. A slight snag on the honeymoon caused us to lose 5 pounds each and we spent the last three days of this vacation gorging ourselves. I wouldn't even allow myself to sleep during the entire 10 and a half hour flight home, but rather I made sure to wake up every hour or so to inhale a cookie or six, because I knew the minute we touched down in NYC, I'd be back on a diet.

And I was. Our flight landed at 6am and I was at the gym by 11. For the next three days I re-shunned bread, ordered my usual steamed vegetable dumplings and turned down dessert. I was down three pounds by Thursday and after watching T make up for those three days of not eating on the honeymoon, I was starting to feel a little deprived. Why should he get to suck down an entire bag of Weight Watchers chocolates without guilt and truly believing that because the bag said Weight Watchers it's OK to eat the whole thing? Why should I, hammered and hungry on Saturday night settle for a 100 calorie bag of popcorn? I shouldn't. And so, Sunday morning when I woke up feeling old and having been drunk, I was well on my way to achieving the Married Trifecta of Old, Fat and Drunk.

We started off our Sunday with brunch with some family members. With a hangover stomach ache as an excuse, I allowed myself to pound through the better part of not one, but two baskets of muffins. And thank god our nephew hasn't yet developed an adult sized appetite because I was more than happy to inhale a good part of the French Toast and Sausage he wasn't going to eat. It was tough because the three year old didn't feel like sharing, but T and I were sneaky enough to steal it off of his plate every time he got preoccupied shouting "Taxi!" out the window. Luckily for us a Taxi drives by every 3 seconds in NYC. Combine that with the fact that I all but licked my own plate clean, we left brunch full enough to warrant a gym visit later in the day.

So after an hour of cardio, during which I could feel the muffins swirling back and forth in my stomach, I felt I had sufficiently thwarted the extra pounds I was eating my way into. Or so I thought. Cut to a few hours later. Enough time had passed since both my workout and my last meal to dissolve my resolve and once again, I was on my way to FAT. It was Sunday night, our first week home had come to and the only way I saw fit to finish out the day was with a fried appetizer, a tortellini dinner and a hearty helping of ice cream for dessert. I'm sometimes amazed that T manages to remain attracted to me after watching me eat. As if fighting with him over the last tortellini wasn't enough, perhaps hopping into bed with a piece of buttered bread would send him over the edge? Not so.

Now here it is, Monday afternoon and I'm sitting on the couch feeling married, which is to say, feeling OLD FAT and DRUNK, well not drunk, but ready for a glass of wine. Luckily we have plans next weekend and that's usually enough motivation to keep me on the straight and narrow in order to look my best by the weekend. What's better is that we're going out and raging Saturday night, so I can wake up Sunday feeling Old and Drunk once again and have the entire day to complete the circle once more. Life is good.

The Return of UnPlain Jane

After a much-too-long hiatus, mostly due to wedding planning and partially due to a hearty combination of wine and Oprah, UnPlain Jane is returning to the blogosphere with tales of life as an unemployed New Yorker attempting to feed her spending habits and achieve her life goals with nothing but a pair of Prada pumps and a new laptop.

The wedding was beautiful, the honeymoon was fabulous and each had its fair share of emergencies, disasters and typical-of-UnPlain Jane-rediculousness. I would go into the specifics, but they are the basis of my latest project, Wedding. Honeymoon. Disaster: A Collection of Essays from a Calamity Bride. So rather than crack you up with tales of a broken dress, a stomach virus and a renegade mouse (the breathing kind), I'll do my best to earn your guffaws through the continuing saga of my life, as it is, with a new last name and a new lease on life.

Upon returning to NYC as a married woman I somehow expected my priorties to shift. The minute the plane touched down, the Xanax wore off and I no longer had a good excuse like, "It's our Honeymoon", to devour six scoops of ice cream in one sitting, I assumed that my brain would shift into adult mode. I assumed that some switch in my now-married mind would click and I would become consumed with thoughts of a mortgage, babies and fine china. I was wrong. Yes, I am nesting and have the smallest urge to throw a dinner party as an excuse to use my new servingwear, but at the same time I have an even bigger urge to use a chunk of that wedding stash to buy myself something in Chincilla that I can show off at the opening of a new lounge, which, at 28, I am probably too old to even know the name of, but narcissistic enough to diet myself right past the velvet ropes.

Now, as I procrastinate on writing 200 Thank You Cards and tell myself over and over that I SHOULD be spending two hours a day lounging, reading and napping, I have noticed a few ways in which life as a married person feels a little different.

Reason # 1: Sex

Being that half of my readership is in someway related to either my husband, "T", or myself, I'm aware that this is not a topic anyone wants me to delve deeply into so I will tread lightly. However, this is probably the first area, since arriving home, I've noticed any sort of "married feeling" with. Honeymoon Sex is the equivalent of Vacation Sex and feels no different as a married couple as it does as girlfriend-boyfriend, fiance-fiancee or bridesmaid-groomsman-who-just-met-at-the-wedding. It involves a hotel room, a bikini wax and a king size bed roomy enough to allow for no physical contact while sleeping after the deed is done. Sex changes when you get back from the honeymoon.

A) You're a little bit fatter. After two weeks of four square meals a deal, each complete with dessert, there is bound to be more Cushion for the Pushion.

B) You're a little bit more tired. There's a great likelihood that upon returning from your honeymoon, one of you is or both of you are, returning to work. Without twenty-four hours to devote to relaxing, eating and having sex everyday, your stamina level is bound to go down.

C) You're legal. Unless you're a Mormon, Staunchly Catholic or a Chasidic Jew, as a married American there is no stigma to consumating the realtionship even if you are double-fisting birth control. Sex is something I never felt guilty about, even long before the ring hit the finger, but somehow as a married person, I feel entitled. No, we're not doing it to have kids, but we are married and we're doing it and that's good enough. More than ever, I feel that it's OK to say the words, "Mom, the other night when T and I were doing it...." even though I have no desire to open that can of worms, it feels good, as a married woman, to be able to open any can I want.

Reasone #2: Security

The ring. As a married woman you start to feel that the anywhere between 10 and 50 diamonds adorning your left hand ring finger marks you as someone's property not to be bought drinks for. There also is the comfort that your husband is now a marked man as well. And while his new bling is not flashy and goes so far as to make him MORE attractive to single hotties, it also serves as a reminder to him, the man you married, that even though this hot single broad wants to challenge herself by breaking through the "married barrier", he is wearing a constant reminder that not only did he commit himself to you for life, but moreover, he spent the majority of his savings trying to get you to agree to do the same. And he's not going to throw that out the window to see the same pair of boobs he can see by turning on an episode of "The Girls Next Door."

Reason # 3: You're calm.

After a few pre-wedding months of Xanax, Drunken Fights and Questioning "Is this relationship a Mistake?," you start to truly believe "normal relationships" invole panic attacks and fist marks on the wall. Cut to returning home from your honeymoon. You're married, you have nothing to plan, no twice-removed family members to call and convince you are dying to see or new seating arrangments to arrange. The multiple outside stressers that once ruled your life in the form of wedding-related tasks have disappated and you're left with "win the lottery" and "Bed, Bath and Beyond" as #1 and #2 on your To Do List. Without 4697 small things to stress you out, everything and anything that in the past, would've pissed you off, now seems like no big deal. So Today, when my husband, entirely joking and without thinking.called me "an idiot" in front of the twenty year old BestBuy clerk that sold us my new laptop, I stayed calm. Instead of flipping, storming out of the store and crying as his finace would've, I calmly stayed in the store, waited for my moment and eventually mentioned, "Do you know you called me an idiot in front of that child?"

As his finace, I would've flipped out, stormed out of the store and fought myself into an expensive NYC dinner. As a wife, I walked out of BestBuy with a brand new laptop, two bottles of wine, and sincere apology and a promise to "never do that again" in the future.

Married life is good. So good that UnPlain Jane rec omends it.

After only one week of arriving home from the honeymoon, I've realized that two rings and a bunch of diamonds don't turn me into a boring a schoolmarm. Instead, they turn me into the doubly-happy, hotter-since-working-off-the-honeymoon-weight, confident twenty-eight year old at the bar who will get you to buy me that bottle of Vueve NYC chick. I will ruin your night by going home to my husband and not with you, AND I will always be fierce.

The ring makes me stronger and that is something I wouldn't understand until two weeks after the wedding, when I strutted out onto the streets of yuppie-infested midtown as another one of those married Mid-town Jews that half the people in my neighborhood long to be.