Give me a break. Twice.

I broke my hand last year, about mid-December. I didn't whine about it by posting here because there wasn't really anything I could do about it. No medical coverage and, of course, no regular income to pay for anyone to wrap it up. Besides, it was probably only a fracturing of the bone. nothing to do but take it easy. Right.

I spent most of December and January working as a photographer. All the while, shooting with a broken hand. It had finally started to heal enough that I didn't notice it any more. Until this week. That is, when I broke it again. Using my hand as a hammer to close shut a metal container. It wasn't that I was unaware of it, I was. And I was being careful.

It just so happened that the lid started to open again, and I hit it harder than usual. At the wrong angle. As the tears welled up in my eyes from pain, I knew exactly what I did wrong.

I still have full use of my hand, so I know I probably only aggravated the fracture. But, Man! Did it ever hurt.

H-U-M-O-R!

0k. I had thought by now that so few people were following me that I could get away with posting a bit of humor as I see it. I received a couple of comments recently on my latest post from a couple of women who were nonplussed by my stab at "prison" humor. Since deleted, in case you're looking.

I can see that my humor has clouded the point of my post, and while I won't remove it because it completes the point I wanted to make. I am not "a macho, chauvinist pig," as one woman commented. Or "an insensitive, unprofessional, and brainless brute," as another put it. Remember, I am posting semi-anonymously. You do not, I repeat, NOT get to see me as an entire person.

I won't deny that on occasion, my sense of humor might cross some boundaries. However, I am professional and intelligent enough to determine whom might not take these quips of mine very well. Nor, do you see when and where I make these comments.

And sometimes, I say them anyway to garner a reaction. Which has certainly happened here. In a most spectacularly negative way.

*shrug* I think that's enough on this. I don't feel annoyed enough to write more. Now that I read those phrases out of context, I think they're quite amusing. I might even write a post on what I might think of the feminist movement just to provoke more of these phrases. <--- You see, H-U-M-O-R! A sense of which you might lack.

A hypocrite in a tux?

I read an article in the newspaper that less 6% of couples who get married last 50 years. Only a third make it to 25 years. I have observed wedding receptions where the MC asks those dancing couples on the dance floor who have been married less than a certain amount of time to have a seat. Eventually, everyone sits.

Now granted, those numbers don't take into account the number of couples who were married, and had a spouse pass away. Yet, to me, to see the astonishing few who make it to 25 years, a mere 1 in 3, is disheartening. Is it because we, as a generation, are getting married later? Is it because couples are comfortable as a pair that doesn't want to get married? Or is it because couples are making the wrong choices and calling it quits instead of working through things?

I have always maintained that I want to do it right, or not be married at all. Now that I'm in my thirties, I begin to wonder if marriage is really where I want to be. I think I've gotten comfortable doing things my own way, never having to answer to someone else about my decision to do something I want to do.

I am in a unique position, because I also photograph weddings. Yes, I photograph weddings, but I am a bachelor. I capture all those happy moments, and sometimes I wonder if people are pushing too hard to get married.

Ironic, isn't it? Here I am, a bachelor going to weddings and taking the pictures that celebrate a couple's commitment to being one but in two bodies. Sometimes, I am wistful. Sometimes, I am glad it isn't me. Sometimes, I feel entirely hypocritical.

I almost always tease the groom about being sentenced for life. I get a grin (or is it a grimace?) every time. Yet, those statistics from the article tell a different story. They say that half of the couples married don't make it past 15 years. Being from the other side, I have to wonder what goes wrong, because I surely do not know what it is like.

I have known about these statistics, garnered from other sources, but the numbers are mostly the same. So, as I ask the bride and groom to smile, in the back of my mind, I know that they have a 1 in 2 chance of staying married before any kids they have make it to college. Shouldn't I warn them?