Paige & Zach: The Syndicated Version

Our friend Christy told me not long ago that I had started laughing like Zach. This is somewhat disturbing since Zach's laugh is very distinct and is often the source of rampant fun-poking. Zach's laugh is high-pitched and involves a lot of 'hissing' sounds resulting from his spastic intake of air mid-laugh. Though I don't necessarily *think* my laugh sounds like this, her comment made me a little paranoid.

Christy also told me that my handwriting is turning into Zach's writing -- she produced the thank you card I sent her after our wedding -- which I wrote -- and a separate card -- which Zach wrote because he didn't realize I had already sent one. It was pretty compelling. Sigh.

I fear our trip has caused us to meld even more. Since approximately 99% of our experiences are shared we've become...well...predictable. We tell the same stories, over and over again (this is aided by the fact that folks tend to ask us similar questions about the trip). In any given conversation I usually know exactly what Zach is going to say before he says it. In any given conversation Zach usually knows what I am going to say before I say it. I think this is pretty typical for couples -- especially the longer they are together.

This hasn't been a problem until just recently. See normally as a couple you interact with the same people on a regular basis...you see your good friends a couple times a week, your coworkers daily. This means you're in the habit of keeping your material fresh. You wouldn't tell your hypothetical friend, Bob, on Monday about Zach's strange devotion to Meryl Streep or about my inability to entertain myself at a campsite for more than 48 hours, only to turn around and tell him the same tid-bits on Wednesday.

Because Bob knows. He knows that I want to see Clash of the Titans because my sister and I used to watch the original all the time when we were growing up. He knows that Zach makes me listen to books on tape even though I don't like them and that he thinks I am horrible at picking them out. Bob knows how we listened to the "This American Life" on Penn State and that we're still disgusted about what that guy said about cleaning his yard after a big football weekend. He knows I'm sick of PB&J and addicted to coffee. He knows I wish Zach would drink it too, so we could bond in the morning, and that I kinda resent that he drinks Dr. Pepper in the afternoon instead. Bob knows all of this.

Of course Bob knows. BECAUSE WE SEE HIM ALL THE TIME.

When you don't see the same people all the time, you scrap that whole "keep it fresh" thing because no one's heard your material lately...at least not the people you're hanging out with right now. You can just recycle your material over and over again. You become the syndicated version of yourself. You're the same show on a different network every time you hit a new city. All this happens subconsciously, of course. You don't even notice it.

Until someone points it out to you.

Sigh.

Sorry Anna and Dan -- you're the first people we've spent more than 48 hours with in a long time. We promise we'll have some new episodes of the Zach and Paige show next time we see you. In the meantime, thank you for being patient with the reruns. ;)

In other news, we've made it to Vermont and New Hampshire since leaving NYC yesterday. Turns out, Vermont is amazingly beautiful. Today we enjoyed all that Vermont is famous for -- ice cream, cheese, and syrup.

Apparently it's Spring Break this week, which means a lot of other people had the same ideas we did -- visit Ben&Jerry's for the ice cream tour, visit Cabot Creamery for the cheese tour, and visit a sugar house (where they make maple syrup). Everything was tasty. Instructions on how to make cheese coming soon.

We're headed to Acadia as soon as the east coast storm passes, and we're definitely pumped.

We'll post pictures soon of these adventures as well as give you the gory details of our awesome meal at Nobu 57. I'm going to let Zach do that post since he took notes on his phone as we were eating (yea, he's a huge dork, but the food was so good it was warranted).

A big, big, big thank you to Andrea, Anna and Dan, and Meena for hosting us while we were in the city. We couldn't do this trip the way we want without folks like you...

Much love.