Oh Christmas tree, oh christmas tree - how lovely are your branches!

I’m serious, they look amazing. Have you been working out? No? Just watching what you eat? Yeah, I can definitely tell.

No, I didn’t mean to infer that you used to be fat, I just meant it as a compliment. You look really good.

Yes, you looked fine before, but just in a jolly-Christmas-tree way. Now you look fit and lean, both are nice.

Of course you don’t look inappropriately lean! What kind of stupid comment is that? People will obviously know that you’re still a Christmas tree because you’ve got all the ornaments on.

Look, I don’t know why I looked at that elm tree the other day! I told you I was sorry, but I still maintain that I wasn’t staring at it. What, a guy can’t admire a nice elm tree every now and again?!

Okay, I don’t want to argue about this - I just wanted to tell you that you look nice. So what if I used to have a elm tree in the backyard?! I cut it down a long time ago! I burned it as firewood for crying out loud, and you keep bringing it up!

Why would you even say that? Sure I’ve put on a couple pounds over the years, but that was totally uncalled for! Leave my mother out of this!

I’ve got to get out of here. No, I’m not going to the Christmas tree lot, I’m going to Embers! Get off my back already!

Bridgette and I made our first dinner together last night.

No, it wasn’t what you probably think. It wasn’t a meal of frozen pizza, or eating tuna out of a tin with our fingers since all the silverware was dirty or anything like that. We made some delicious vegetable wraps, using a simple recipe shared by our domestically-inclined friend Arlene. It was nice to prepare a meal together, although the cramped confines of our kitchen made it somewhat problematic. I would guess that Timothy McVeigh spent his final tortured days in greater luxury than our tiny kitchen affords.

I decided to spice my wrap up with a little chicken, since my wife is apparently a vegetarian. The meal was delicious, with the peppers and onions perfectly flavoring the chunks of poultry-flesh. Bridgette was noticeably alarmed when I barked hoarsely in satisfied approval of her food-offerings. I tenderly explained to her that shouting in haggard tones and squeezing meat and overripe vegetables in my fists was merely my love language, and that I wished to receive affection from her in the same way. Having explained these things, I then proceeded to belch the periodic table of elements, much to her satisfaction.

Yeah, married life is pretty much like I pictured it.

I’m now sitting at my kitchen table listening to Christmas music and using the new laptop computer that my family gave to Bridgette and I as a wedding gift. I have the day off work, and will shortly be going out to use Target gift cards to pick up a few items for our apartment. I just made Bridgette a bowl of cereal and sat at the table with her eating Frosted Flakes. It’s a rainy Monday out there, but that doesn’t bother me today. Yes, I’m enjoying the back-end of a pretty amazing weekend.

Why was it so awesome? Because the Vikings beat the Cleveland Browns. And I got married.

But mostly the Vikings.

As I write this, it is 8am on Wednesday morning. By the next time I post, I will be married.

All joking aside, that’s pretty awesome.

I feel tired and exhilarated this morning.

I was up way too late last night watching the punchless Vikings take out the Packers at Lambeau Field. As usual, watching Brett Favre’s completely predictable interceptions was worth a chuckle, and by the time Paul Edinger’s 27-yard field goal passed between the uprights it was very late, and I was wired. Watching the Packers lose to the Vikings on the week I get married is just so sweet, like witnessing a homeless man having his jaw broken with a wrench.

Other things in life that sweeten the pie:

-Swear words in other languages.

-Being asked to give a commentary for the “My Two Dads” Season 1 DVD set for some reason.

-Squishing centipedes.

-Rolling your jeans in 2005 without irony.

-The possibility of Julie Andrews getting a Mariah-style sexed-up makeover and comeback song with Pharrell Williams.

-Blurry 19th century photographs.

-Harrison Ford’s last six films.

My friend Thom is doing me a solid and making me a copy of Ken Burns’ mammoth documentary, The Civil War.

The film, which clocks in at well over 10 hours, is replete with rustic music, haggard voice acting, vivid storytelling, and enough unsavory closeups of Lincoln to cause gastrointestinal distress. The film has the power to mesmerize me with powerful history-lust at the first moment that a solitary fiddle breaks into “Dixie”.

Thom has already finished the first two episodes, and watching them again was like embracing an old, bearded friend. For reasons beyond explanation, the moment the film began I felt compelled to remove my shirt in the presence of Lincoln. I then squatted for two hours, transfixed at what unfolded before me on my substantial home entertainment system. When Bridgette entered the apartment, I ordered her not to make eye contact with me and to prepare me a burrito of unreasonable size and volume. So chastened, she did as I desired.

I ended up watching until the Battle of Antietam, where there were 26,000 combined casualties in one day of fighting. In other words, burrito time. I ate the said burrito donkey-style (using my knuckles instead of my fingertips), and emptied some of its contents onto the ground in memory of Jefferson Davis. Then I made Bridgette clean it up.

Feel free to join me tonight for another shirtless, donkey-style burrito-war party!