As someone who just made it past my 12 year anniversary, let me offer my congratulations on your marriage! Just remember my basic rules for a happy marriage:

1. Complete honesty. If your hubby makes dinner and it's awful, you're allowed to say so. If you buy a shirt for him and he hates it, he's allowed to say so. It's better to do this than letting this "little white lies" fester.

2. When a guy wakes up in the morning and decides not to shave because he's only going to hang around his wife - he's got an attidude problem. Not that you or your spouse can't see each other at their worst (personally, I think my wife is cutest just when she wakes up and she's wearing her glasses and not her contacts, and then - well, we'll leave it at that). But take the time to appear nice for the other in your life.

3. The most important rule of them all: never, ever let your spouse see you - or you see them - on the toilet. The only times I've seen my wife on the potty is when she's been in labor. Othewise, there are some places that just stay private.

That's it - congratulations again, and we wish you all well!

Rock on, H. Congratulations.

1. You watch too much television

2. Marriage is a trap for guys. It saves time in the long run to just pile up twenty thousand dollars and set fire to it.

At last! I now understand why women generally find (real) pornography so distasteful. They have mistaken goldigging for doctors, neurotic pensiveness, furtive romance in obscure locales, and much lip-smacking and thigh pressing for really hot sex. These things have nothing to do with pornography. Pornography is the art (yes, I said ART) of fetishising sexual acts. All the rest is filler.

It is also now clear to me why I've never been able to make it through a single episode of 'Grey's Anatomy.' It was just too soapy, too 'General Hospital' for people who work, too, yechy! The characters are all self-obsessed, over-privileged whiners, who can't get laid without causing someone else to get used, hurt, or die on the operating table. It all smacks of lechery and purile dime-store novels, with pictures of big breasted nurses staring salaciously at the young, firebrand doctor across the cover.

Ah, well, it's too late for the writers to have an "E.R." moment and drop an airplane on the whole bunch of them! But a guy can wish!

When I first heard Jeff Probst describe the Survivor: Exile Island cast as "likeable" (unlike Gang Guatemala), I knew we were in for a long, dull slog -- and I wasn't wrong. It was halfway through the season before I got a handle on ANY of these miscreants, even the fabulousness that is Cirie Fields. But once Cirie was gone, who the heck even cared? It was another dull finale like last season, right down to the finalist with big fake boobs named Danielle; the colorful, entertainingly moronic hunky alpha male dogs were all gone by F5 and the likeable, under-the-radar older woman was out at F4.

As for Gray's Anatomy: I've never understood what people see in this show. When I was in my 20's, I dated a few doctors, and none of them were hunky, and all of them were either perverts, sociopaths, or really boring. It's amazing that after 40-some-odd years of General Hospital, the Myth of the Hunky Doctor is still alive. And they don't even make a lot of money anymore.

I'm not sure if HH knows what 'Passive-Agressive' actually means.

As far as I'm aware- it means to delay and deliberately idle in order to not have to confront doing a task. I'm a past master at this, so I know whereof I speak.

This seems to have morphed into the current usage (and also as used by the Rabbit) to mean insulting behavior delivered in a calm cool manner so as to appear 'passive' whilst actually being 'aggressive'.

I've found the best way to respond when being accused of acting 'passive-aggressive' (in the modern sense) is to start acting 'aggressive-aggressive'. That way people know where you stand.

(although I still think marriage is a scheme designed to separate women from their property), and thank you for writing so well about the TV drug that I can read your column and avoid the shows themselves. I still get an intoxicating diversion from the man in my life, but because I'm reading, instead of watching TV, I can rationalize it as "academic". My partner, in our 16th year together, has begun to turn every comment into the foundation for an impromptu song, and the need for drugs to help me cope is as strong as ever.

Couplehood is hell, except for those moments when it is everything that you want and need, all in the same package. Somehow, those moments make us cheerfully willing to find ways to cope with the songs and smells and the rest.

(Disclaimer: I did have to rent the DVD's of Deadwood after reading your stories about it. I'm eagerly waiting for Season 2 to come out.)

Since I am an RN I pretty much hate every medical show on TV because there are no RNs and when these dumb ass shows both to show an RN she is young and giving a bedbath instead of the other five hundred things we actually do. Half the shit you see the MDs do we all do. I am thinking that nobody wants to see an accurate show. On the one hand I adore my profession, on the other hand if you actually saw what RNs did you would agree they were vastly under paid.

Most medical shows act as if RNs don't exist.

In my humble experience there aren't many hunky doctors either. They are usually hard working schmos with limited social skills. They are often rude and we often tell them they are rude. They are also often just decent people who don't really make as much money as they should either.

How about a show that depicts what it is really like for patients and the medical staff? Okay, yes, I have a better chance of winning the lottery or even a reality show.