Coming to the end of her career as a student, my wife is going through a signifcant change in her life:

Having to sit in one place all day for work.

Since the inception of our relationship, my wife has never had just one job. She’s always been at this place for a couple of hours, there for a couple of hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and over here every other weekend. And in between all of that, she was going to class.

But then she found out about this little thing called internship, which for doctoral students is like a job where you get paid minimally and work to the max. That, she was ready for. What she wasn’t ready for was the fatigue involved in being stationary.

For someone who’s moved around constantly throughout her adult life, sitting down is quite the arduous task. Having to be singularly focused after years of frequent engagement in a variety of tasks can be frustrating, to say the least.

Not unlike how being a new spouse can be.

For all your life, you’ve looked out for number one. No one else but you. Sure, you had some moments and flashes of responsibility for someone else. Helping a friend out or supporting a family member, but nothing like being fully responsible for the total emotional, financial, sexual and physical well-being of another person.

If that ain’t daunting, I don’t know what is.

You have to keep reinventing yourself, every single day to make it work and worthwhile for your partner. I’ve said that before, but mostly on the positive side. Now for the negative. Some times you have to be lazy and lethargic to let the other person know that you aren’t a sham. You can’t be perfect all the time, or else the luster and excitement of romanticism and thought loses its novelty.

You have to be able to play both sides of marriage coin. Wonderful and worthless, all at the same time.

So that brings us back to my baby, who is struggling to get acclimated to the 9 to 5. She’ll get there, and she might learn to enjoy it, but for now, it’s worthless to her sense of being a constant go-getter.

Which is a perfect indication of what her life will be once her she gets going out of school.

A word to all of my believers out there. The devil is a liar.

I know this to be true, as fatigue can be one of his most powerful weapons.

Fresh off of a wonderful vacation, which was capped off by the second-most emotionally fulfilling day of my life, I compose this entry from the living room of my home, watching my dear wife bake a cake nearby. It’s 6:15 A.M. here in Baltimore. She is tired.

Tired of the hours she’s putting in at her internship, tired of volunteering, and tired of me for whatever reason she can think of once she gets home.

Granted, the internship thing has only been two days, as have the volunteer hours, but its taking a lot out of her already. And understandably, she’s taking a lot of it out on me.

The object of her angst yesterday was my lack of initiative on housework, especially with the pending visit of a house guest. She’s made clear to me in past discussions that she does the lion’s share of straightening, polishing, waxing and spritzing the house from clean to pristine when folks come through. And while I’ve never been a lazy dog who won’t load a dishwasher, throw in a load of laundry, vacuum or scrub, I’ll be the first to admit that I lack her intensity and drive to complete this list in an expeditious fashion.

Honestly, a brother just hates house work.

But I’ve tried to step my game up for her. It’s the least I can do for someone who means everything to me. I’ll never disregard her feelings, and I’ll always put what she needs ahead of what I want. 95 percent of the time, she knows this, recognizes this, and expresses her appreciation for it.

Not today.

The tiredness has her this time.

She knows it, and I know it. The issue is whether she knows that I know.

I don’t know if she knows that I know, but what I do know is that I’m in the kitchen missing out on two hours of valuable sleep, because she woke up extra early to make a cake for an event that I’m having on Friday night. I tried to dissuade her, but that’s the kind of sister she is. A black woman making it happen, all day everyday.

So I’m with her. Not just to amend for her disappointment in my lack of chore doing, but because what’s joy together without suffering together? I can’t work the same amount of hours she is outside of the house right now, but one day I will.

And she will be up with me. Trying to make up to me for reasons she shouldn’t have to, not because she should, but because she knows that the tiredness brought it out of me.

And we’ll both be tired of being tired.

Apparently, the entire world.

You have to forgive my bitterness on this issue. Today is my first wedding anniversary. It’s interesting because the same physiological changes I went through on my wedding day are the same one’s I’m going through today. Minus the excessive sweating.

I’m so blessed. I’m so happy. I’m so thrilled to be with such a good woman, that it’s hard to contain in my spirit, let alone communicate through words. And yet, everywhere I turn on my Google reader, there’s some kind of report about Alex Rodriguez’ divorce.

Dude makes more money in a year then I’ll me, my children and my grand-children will see in a lifetime. Women all over the world love this guy, probably even more that he’s broken up with his wife and is banging Madonna. I’m certain he’ll recover, just like every other celebrity and athlete who thinks side tail is the best tail.

Truth is, I’m insanely jealous. I’m in a relationship that should be the hot topic of every talk show, radio call-in and magazine, because unlike 50 percent of the marriages out there, ours works. Are we perfect? Hell no. Do we fuss and fight? Of course. Do we have a lot of work to do? Absolutely.

But we cherish all of that, and commit to all of that. So much of the world’s attention is dedicated to what goes wrong in marriages, and the dirt that flies when they are over. But I won’t get buried in it. I’m on Cloud 9 looking down at the muck and mire that marriage has become in our society.

So, good luck to Alex Rodriguez and his family, but please excuse me for enjoying something much more interesting than his crumbling relationship - then extension and celebration of my own.

My wife and I attended the funeral of a very sweet lady today. She lived a long life of service to the Lord, and kind deeds and words unto all who knew her. Her life and passage into its next phase gave me reason to consider the parallels of life and death within a relationship.

Joy and pain, happiness and remorse, good times and arguments.

Prior to the funeral, my wife and I spent approximately five hours arguing about a wide range of faults and inconsistencies. It was as heated as we have argued in a long time, heated without yelling and screaming, which was a good thing.

We eventually finished up the fight around 5:00 A.M., with an approximate wake up time of 8:0O A.M. to prepare for the funeral. Everybody out there that argues with a loved knows that you really don’t sleep well with an argument not having a resolution, so you’re probably talking three hours of shut-eye between us.

But when we woke up, bleary-eyed and wary of each other’s feelings and intentions for the day, we some how managed to hash things out. In a fraction of the time it took us to pridefully boast about what we don’t do wrong and how right we are, the short words of “I’m sorry,” and “I was wrong” buried the anxiety borne in the midnight hour.

Just like that.

And that’s how life is. You spend so many years building towards these professional, social and spiritual goals, with disappointments and failures along the way. You struggle, shed tears and second-guess yourself all along the way.

And then one day, it’s all over. Gone in an instant. Everybody else is stuck with the memories good and bad, and the results of how you governed yourself.

When we argue, we don’t forget the terms, the tone or the time it takes to get to a place of understanding. But when we decide its time to bury the hatchet, it’s over in a flash. Each of us is left with the result of the fighting, but we’re willing to leave that result six feet under to rejoice about time well spent.

Knowing that you don’t have much time to do as much as you can, a true sign of relationship maturity is making the most of the fleeting period of love and happiness. They buoy us in times of hardships, and provided the burial ground for our less-than-favorable moments.

Even basement dwellers need a break every now and then, so imagine how a full-time blogger/pr professional would feel?

To that end, the wife and I are headed west to Las Vegas. Sun, shows, shopping and slots are ahead, worries can stay here in Baltimore. I’m too lazy to write posts ahead of time, so I will see you all when I get back.

Regular activities will resume on July 3.

Peace.

Killing your son’s daughter? Because she’s not Indian? Is it really that serious, people?

I can’t even get to the racial implications of this case without first mourning how a father could destroy his own son like that. Sure, this goes a long way in showing how culture can be blinding, but murder?

Whatever happened to " I’m not speaking to you," or "I totally forgot it was your birthday?" People are killing over marriage now?

What a sick world in which we live.

I just heard today that one of my good friends called off his wedding. And not like one of those, "I’m nervous, but I’ll be right back on track" faux cancellations.

I’m talking about throw the girl out, change the locks, don’t pick up your phone cancellations.

I really feel for the brother, because even though I don’t know the whole story, for something to be drastic enough to reverse field on a marriage has to be major. Major enough that you should have seen it coming before you asked the big question.

But it also brings up the question of how do you communicate in the toughest of times? What happens when you want to blame the world for something gone wrong, but only your spouse is around?

What happens in times of crisis?

I can honestly say throughout the course of my relationship, we’ve never really had a major crisis. We’ve blown things out of proportion and acted like it was a crisis, but nobody was dying or dead, we weren’t bankrupt, and no one’s trust was betrayed.

By profession, I know how to deal with crisis situations. You assess the problem, acclimate yourself and your constituents to how it can be best addressed, and move towards fixing it. Somehow, the seamless plan always seems to burst at the seams in times of high emotion and confusion.

But with time, you learn from your partner all of the buttons to push and not push. You learn about buzz words, buzz topics, and how they buzzzaw right through your partner’s heart. Whenever you have a big fight? You can take it as a lesson on what not to say or how not to say it.

Some things you just can prevent, like a sudden traumatic experience or a devastating loss. What you can do is learn that silence is good medicine in matters of the heart. It allows personal reflection on both ends, and for the need to reach out to flourish.

I hope that’s what my buddy learns to do. Because if you don’t learn to reach out, you eventually withdraw so much that no one can reach you.

I have to admit, I did become a fan of ‘Sex and the City’ before I met my wife, but the debates about the show’s themes were not as poignant or as meaningful before her. The movie debuts tomorrow, and while I would prefer that my wife make it a girls night out event, I’ll probably be tagged along to make up for her viewing of ‘Iron Man.’

The show has excellent writing, is well acted, and dutifully maintained its character arc without jumping the shark. But, there was a real and present lack of minority representation in the show, and aside from Blair Underwood playing a fleeting love interest for Cynthia Nixon’s character Miranda Hobbs, I really can’t remember any people of color.

My favorite marriage blog has a really great post on it, and it’s from a woman’s perspective. For the movie, they did bring in Jennifer Hudson, but clearly Effie White isn’t going to pardon SATC for seasons of colorless drama. In the meantime, I’m trying to get my mind right for what’s sure to be two hours of inside women’s jokes, stories from episodes I may have missed, and squeals of delight out of my beloved.

Chris Cooley is a tight end for the Washington Redskins, and he’ll be getting married soon. He recently wrote about it on his blog for Yahoo! Sports. If you ever wanted to know what a rich, young and handsome pro athlete thinks about marriage, try this on for size.

While I can’t wait to put the ring on I’ve had some resoundingly bad conversations over the last couple of months. Golf may have an uncountable list of ethics, though bothering a complete stranger about getting married is not one of them. First of all, I’m excited for the big day, so please don’t feel sorry for me because marriage
sucks for you. No, I’m not nervous, I don’t want any marriage advice, and yes Christy’s mom is still hot.

Consider my attempt at cornering the young married man’s blogging niche GONE.

Right about now, my wife and I are jumping back and forth between the American Idol finale and Game 1 of the Western Conference finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs. If I had my druthers, David Cook and David Archuleta would be on the morning Internet check, but since I’m married, their competition is required viewing.

Does it suck? Of course. But is it important? Absolutely.

After all, the Spurs and the Lakers have seven games to get it right. Cook and Archuleta have this one night. But in both circumstances, the magic of Comcast DVR perfects the art of the marital compromise.

As long as the Lakers play it out like David Cook, I have no beef.