After we had been dating for a couple of months, Jess turned to me one morning and said out of the blue, “it’s nice to have a friend.”

It is. A year ago, I said yes and she said yes and we got married, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done.

So today is our one year anniversary. Though, to be frank, the whole anniversary thing always seems a bit odd to me, because our first date was on a June 20th a few years before we got hitched, and shouldn’t that time count for something, too?

Anyway, I think we love each other even more now than we did a year ago. Or, at least, we’re better at loving each other, having faced together another year’s happinesses and disasters, big and small, knowing that much more of each other’s heart and mind. We’re an even stronger team. And, to a possibly sickening degree, we still just like to be with each other all the time.

As is apparently traditional, we froze the top of our wedding cake a year ago. I put it in the refrigerator on Saturday, to thaw out in time for our having a few anniversary bites today. Jess has pointed out that this is basically the scene from Mother where Debbie Reynolds serves Albert Brooks three-year-old frozen cheese. And also that, by now, the cake has doubtless taken on the flavors of the spinach and gelato and chicken nuggets stored adjacent for the past year. All of which likely makes it totally inedible.

But, still, we’ll have a few bites, and it will be terrible, and we’ll laugh and have a wonderful time. It’s nice to have friend.