the title is the closest description to which I can pin the odd mezzanine-like feeling my wife and I experienced yesterday at a family lunch. It was as if we hovered somewhere in a alternating real/ethereal plain; the state of our existence fluctuating between “we acknowledge their presence” and “honey, I distinctly heard that bench over there utter the word ‘hey!’”

After two years of marriage, I assumed that my wife’s extended family would have given credence to the fact that we had arrived upon the social scene. After all, ‘marriage-class’ was the level I thought we would have to graduate to to become noticeable to our extended kin. Apparently not. Maybe it’s ‘married-with-two-kids-class’ that we have to aspire to.

the trouble with this way of thinking is that we’re going to have start becoming pretty inventive after having 5 children. I mean, what if, after having enough offspring to adequately cover months January through November, we’re still not included in the inner circle of trust?