Apologies to anyone who was looking forward to today’s scheduled post, “20 Ways to Style the Top of Your Toilet”. Kidding, it was something about induction ranges, but I’ve got very important news, and I’m taking over the blog to let everybody know about it. Well, it’s actually meant for one reader in particular. The badass woman who said yes to a starry-eyed young dreamer with zero financial promise and a surprisingly bad hairstyle on his wedding day, twenty freaking years ago today! 

Emily is actually down in California, finishing up a big project she’s been working on for months, so she doesn’t even know this is happening on the blog today, so surprise Em! I hope that induction range post wasn’t too important. But as a bonus, there’s another surprise for you at the end. Keep reading…

Longtime readers may remember that Em wrote an amazing recap of our relationship for our 10-year wedding anniversary. But for everyone else, here’s a truncated version: We met young. Really young. Senior year of college, a week before Emily’s 21st birthday. We were babies, just figuring out who we were in the world. But the night we met, it was obvious to both of us, even at that age, we’d found our soulmate. Which was actually kind of annoying, if I’m being honest— see, I had spent the previous two years trying to get a different girl to go out with me. I’d been stuck in the friend zone and had JUST worked my way out; like a week before I met Em, I’d finally started dating this girl. And then, boom— I meet my soulmate at a cast party for a play I’m doing, and it’s like, “Welp, that’s it.” I actually remember thinking in my head that night that I was screwed, because I’d found the one. It felt existential. Like I’d somehow been- I don’t know how to explain it other than it was like finding a piece to a jigsaw puzzle I didn’t know was missing, that fit right into a slot I didn’t know existed. And once it was there, I would never feel whole without it. That literally happened in the span of one night. I’m telling you, it was nuts.

We stayed at the party after everyone left, talking about movies and art and life. Inhaling each other’s words like they were a new form of oxygen. I knew when I got home the next day that I would have to call it off with the girl I’d worked so hard to get. But I was also a dude, and that sounded scary, so I punted. Emily called me out, said that we needed to be together. That the universe had made its decision. She was right. I finally broke up with the girl and officially started my life.

We moved to New York. I started acting; she found her path into design. We broke up for a few months because I was an idiot and thought I needed to explore my twenties. But I came grovelling back after a couple of months because, of course, I did; how could I possibly find anyone like her? She took me back. With some conditions. She said that she could date other people, but I couldn’t (she never did). And that if we were going to get back together, it would be for good. I said yes. I just needed her back.

We got married on September 23rd, 2006, in my parents’ backyard. I was an off-Broadway theater actor, so basically a millionaire, and she was an assistant to a prop stylist, so totally loaded as well. Because we had no money, we did everything ourselves – assembled our own dance floor, made our own margarita batches, got a sheet cake from Albertsons, DJ’d with my laptop, and decided that weird, stringy yet oily bangs were cool for me to have for the most photographed day in my life. It was a small wedding, maybe 80 people, and everything was intimate out of necessity. The engagement ring and her dress were both vintage finds that saved us thousands. None of that mattered. We didn’t care about the pomp and circumstance; we just wanted to be together. And not to toot our own tooters, but I think if you were to ask anyone there, it was one of the most joyous and emotional weddings in history. We were just so madly in love with each other. 

We moved out to LA. She got Design Star and her own show. I got an agent and a couple of bad horror movies. We made lifelong friends. We had our two kids. Her company blew up. I struggled to find work. She supported me through a bout of depression (you can read more about that here) and a slew of career paths. COVID hit. We hunkered down in a cabin with our kids, and bonded more than we ever thought possible. Finally, we made the move to Portland, our new home, and settled into a suburban family life. 

It’s easy to settle into routines or patterns after twenty years, and we’re certainly not immune. We’ve had some major ups and major downs. We can bicker; we can nitpick. We can resent each other at times, and those are the worst. But over the entirety of our twenty years of marriage, I’ve never felt that jigsaw piece slip. No matter how rocky things get. Not once. Emily is a part of me in the way a root is part of a tree. Or, for you design folks out there, the way a roll-arm is part of an English sofa. 

I know I’m not the easiest person to be married to— My moods kinda rise and fall depending on whether I’m being creative or living up to an unrealistic version of myself. If I’m not writing or acting or, hell, emcee’ing a school auction, I get pretty down. And I can turn into a worse version of myself. I can get petty, but after two decades of riding this rollercoaster with me, Emily knows how to pull me back, how to get through to me. All she needs is a date night with a couple martinis (thank the Lord the kids are old enough now for us to escape for an hour or two!) to talk things out. 

And that’s exactly why I’m so indebted to her. Not only did she teach me that love can be eternal, but she taught me the power of talking and made me a better man. It’s funny, I’m actually trying to coach my almost thirteen-year-old how to be a boyfriend right now (he got his first gf, and it’s the cutest thing ever!), and the first thing I told him was, you have to talk. Because I see it in him, the same thing that’s in me and most men – a kind of deficit in communication. We need to be coached. Lucky for me, I married the Phil Jackson of opening up. It’s her superpower, and it’s what has kept us going for so many years. We have been able to get over our rough times—and there have been some real nutcrackers— by talking openly.  And that’s all her, y’all. She isn’t pushy or passive-aggressive; she doesn’t guilt trip me into it; she’s just super fun to talk to. Like having a really optimistic fan. Which makes me want to do the same for her. And even though I fail a lot, I keep trying, because she deserves it. 

But let’s not go crazy; she’s not perfect. I mean, she still leaves jar lids unscrewed in the fridge, so when you pull them out, they drop all over the floor. And her enormous cache of supplement bottles has quite literally taken over half our pantry. But I guess she’s okay.

All kidding aside, I’ve been together with Emily for over half my life, I’ve seen her at her best and her worst, and I’m still as crazy in love with her as the day we blubbered, “I do,” through sheets of tears. Which brings me to the point of this whole post.

Our wedding song, which was also the song I had my musician friends play from the shadows the night I proposed (shout-out to Henry Gummer and Steve Kazee), was ‘It’s Only Time’ by The Magnetic Fields. If you haven’t heard it, please fix that right now:

It’s a relatively obscure track for a first dance song – from an indie band that almost no one at our wedding had heard before, with a melody that’s a little odd. We didn’t choose it to be punk rock or nonconformist; we chose it because the lyrics perfectly captured how we felt for each other as wild twenty-somethings madly in love. So much so, we put them in our vows:

It had been a long time since I’d heard it. But a few weeks ago, we were in one of those kind of “meh” routines – hadn’t connected in a while, too much logistical family stuff – and it happened to come on my headphones while I was cleaning the kitchen, and I sat down and privately wept. Not because I was sad, or because I missed that sense of longing, no. I cried because I still felt the exact same as I did that day in my parents’ backyard. So unbelievably in love, and so incredulously mystified that I’d found my soulmate. If anything, these twenty years have made the meaning of the song even more appropriate:

Why would I stop loving you
A hundred years from now?
It’s only time
If rain won’t change your mind
Let it fall
The rain won’t change my heart
Not at all

And in the spirit of those words, here’s the second surprise, Em.

For those who don’t know, I’ve got tattoos on my right arm for all the members of our family – A bear, a bird, and a moon. The bear is for our Charlie Bear, the bird is our little Birdie, Elliot, and the moon is for Emily— an ode to the song “Dancing in the Moonlight”, which was what we always danced to in front of our kids. But I knew she never really loved it. No one could ever say she’s the embodiment of a moon; it’s just a little lackluster for someone so luminescent. Elliot made her feel better once by saying it’s because she reflects all the light in the world, but still… It’s not a great fit. I admit it. I’ve wanted to find something better for a while but never knew what to get. 

Until that song came through my headphones a few weeks back. 

So in anticipation of our 20th, I commissioned a hand-drawn piece from a local artist up here (shout-out to the amazing @decoartsclub), and while you were in California, I got it tattooed yesterday. I think it’s more worthy of you than a moon. 

It’s of a figure walking through a landscape and a figure swimming in a sea, separated by a bridge.

And no, this isn’t your anniversary present; that’s going to be our couple’s bike trip to Norway next Summer. This one is mine. It’s all I want. Because it’s the story of us.

The bridge is Gapstow Bridge in Central Park, where I lined each side with tealights in paper bags, got down on one knee, and had my friends play “It’s Only Time,” until you said yes.

The two landscapes are direct lyrics from that same song that we danced to twenty years ago today— the section that makes me cry the most—  a few simple words that describe how it feels to want to experience every aspect of another person, to spend decades discovering all the different landscapes they contain. And still want more.

I’ll walk your lands
And swim your sea
Marry me

I asked the artist to leave the figures ambiguous so they could represent either of us. Lord knows you’ve shlepped through my highs and lows, helped me through times it felt like I was drowning, and pushed me to expand my sense of self. I’m so, so grateful to have you as my wife, Emily. I would marry you every day if I could. 

Happy 20^th, my love. Here’s to a hundred more… it’s only time.