How I got engaged

In one of those ironies of life, the man probably most responsible for my imaginary engagement to Janeane Garofalo is a marriage counselor, Russell Grieger, one of the leaders in rational-emotive therapy. I ran into Russ at a New Age bookstore on the main drag in Charlottesville and he suggested a book called "The Path of Least Resistance" by Robert Fritz. Since Russ had already tried to get me into EST, it would only have made sense to take a pass on reading this, but I was an open-minded bastard then. Fritz promised that once you made a fundamental choice to become the predominant creative force in your life, your life would be changed forever. It took a while, but damn if it hasn't.

In another one of those ironies of life, Russ' own marriage to Ingrid ended rather acrimoniously, having witnessed one interlude myself in which you could have cut the tension with a knife.

Anyhoo, in yet another one of those ironies, as Janeane and I were picking up steam, Russ contributed to a Valentine's Day piece in the Cville Review called "25 tips to improve your love life":

Maybe your last date was during the Clinton Administration. Maybe you refer to your spouse as That Guy Who Uses All the Toothpaste. Maybe you just need a little tenderness tune-up. Fear not. As Valentine’s Day approaches, C-VILLE gets to the heart of the matter. Enroll in our Woo U, listen up and find how to make love exciting and new….

Russ' tips include:
See it [my advice too]
Russell Grieger, a local marriage counselor, directs couples to draw a “marital vision.” Create your ideal relationship and then figure out together how to get there.

Listen harder [one of Janeane's suggestions for a great marriage]
Show love to your sweetheart “in a way that matters to them,” says Russell Grieger. “I may be really good at buying you flowers,” he says by way of example, “but if it really matters to you that I help out around the house…I have to know what it is you want.”

These tips will improve your love life, but Russ' one, back in the early nineties, to read "The Path of Least Resistance," certainly improved mine big time. Anything he does after that is gravy as far as I'm concerned. "It's all gravy, every day the rest of your life, gravy." - Platoon.