The _______ Life of Brent and Erika

I have three visible scars: one is on my forehead that is the result of ice, an open car door, and my head meeting each other abruptly on my way to a dance class; one is a stubborn pimple scar on my face that I'd rather not discuss; the final visible scar is the Frankensteinian zipper scar on the back of my hand where I had a cyst removed not because it was essential but because having a garbanzo-sized bump on the back of my hand bothered me. Scars are the body's way of remembering pain, a visible reminder to please not do that thing again. Tissue heals and generally regains its ability to function normally, but not without making a stink about it first. That first scar, the one that is faint but discernible even though the injury happened 22 years ago, is my head's way of saying, "I met a car door while running too fast and I'd rather not do that again!" The body can mend itself, it can move on, but scars are a tactile memory, a way of returning us back to ...

I've been thinking a lot about "small talk" lately, mostly because the scenario I'm about to describe has happened to me so often that I've started to wonder if we're really actually thinking when we ask these sorts of things. About a month ago, I was helping a patron in the Internet area of the library. Brent is the one who works there, not me, but I happened to be there and Brent asked if I could help while he dealt with another issue. The man was having some difficulty moving things from the computer to his flash drive, so I sat down to help him out. This man is a regular at the library, so he knows Brent. He told me how nice he thought Brent was, and I made some comment like, "Yeah, I thought so too! That's one reason I married him!" "How long have you been married?" "Seven years." This is the point in the conversation where my stomach seizes up a bit, because having lived in Utah county for all of those seven ye...