Well, I’ve been married for a whopping eleven-ish days—and I love it! Specifically, I love my wife.
Naturally, a good chunk of those days were spent living the sweet life aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise. We went down to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic and to Royal Caribbean’s private island, Coco Cay. It was my first cruise and I loved spending all of that quiet, relaxing, unstructured time with Dr. Wife.
Now, it’s back to Reality for both of us. Dr. Wife is finishing up her residency in North Carolina and I’m still at my school in South Carolina, so we’re living apart during the weeks until she wraps up residency next summer. That means we’re delaying the usual first-year-of-marriage stuff, like adjusting to living together full-time.
It’s hard to believe looking back at this post that Dr. Wife was Dr. Girlfriend around this time one year ago. It’s wild to contemplate how much can change in a year.
Dr. Wife and I have this conversation frequently, especially when enduring some trial or difficulty: it doesn’t last forever. Indeed, things can change very quickly. It’s also a reminder to enjoy the good moments—and with Dr. Wife, there are many of those!
We’re honeymooning, so I actually wrote this post while Dr. Wife was still Dr. Fiancée! I’m thrilled that she is not the former. I’m very thankful for her, my family, my friends, and God.
Well, it’s finally here—your portly is getting married. By late afternoon, Dr. Fiancée will be Dr. Wife.
It’s been a pretty wild week, as I imagine most wedding weeks are. It’s been fun, too, to celebrate with friends, family, colleagues, and—of course—Dr. F.
I told her that there would be some weird feelings and thoughts this week as we processed this massive life change. We’re both beyond ready for it. At the same time, it feels like we’re formalizing before God what He Has Done.
It was about a year ago that Dr. F—then Dr. Girlfriend—and I realized that we wanted to get married. It was quick, but each passing day has only cemented that initial conviction.
I’m so, so thankful for her.
Thanks to everyone who has sent along well-wishes and kind words. If I don’t respond to new comments imminently, please know that it’s because I won’t exactly be hanging out online today—ha!
It’s been a wild and wooly wedding week for yours portly and Dr. Fiancée. Our closing on Monday went well, and I spent Tuesday morning visiting the DMV, the courthouse, and the city hall of our new town to get everything setup. I was apparently so quick, the attorneys had not gotten the updated deed to the courthouse yet!
I also picked up our marriage license. Dr. Fiancée and I applied for it on Monday, but South Carolina requires a twenty-four waiting period, I suppose to allow cooler heads (or shotguns) to prevail in the event of impulsive (or coerced) marriages.
The past few days—even the past few weeks!—have felt like a marathon of threading needles of time. But it’s all coming together!
Now I’m just praying my tuxedo arrives at my local Men’s Wearhouse this afternoon, so I don’t have to make a special trip tomorrow. If that’s the only snag in this wedding week, though, I’ll be very pleased!
Dr. Fiancée and I are super excited. We’re also ready to disconnect for the honeymoon.
To that end, I’ll be running TPP’s Greatest Hits (or something like that) next week. I’ll catch up on comments and such when we are back.
Today Dr. Fiancée (she’ll be Dr. Wife as of Saturday afternoon!) and I are closing on a house in the small town where we’ll be moving once she completes residency. We weren’t going to purchase a home at this point, but when another house we’d looked at went under contract, we started looking again.
The house we’re purchasing today had gone through a couple of price reductions since we’d first seen it on Zillow. Dr. F looked at me and said, “I want this house,” so I went to work.
As noted on Monday, yours portly has been tied up with some major life stuff—all good, but all quite time-consuming. Indeed, today marks one month to my wedding! Dr. Fiancée and I are excited, and most of the details have been hammered out (I know that I will regret writing that overly optimistic assessment). At this point, it’s mostly just paying the vendors.
I’m also gearing up for the Spooktacular, which is this Saturday, 25 October 2025. Yours portly is not the best about maintaining a clean home, as it’s not a high priority to me. As long as the kitchen counters are disinfected and the toilet is scrubbed, I’m content. Naturally, dust and crumbs accumulate like the ash from a volcano; somehow, I’m incapable of eating breakfast without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Murphy and I both do our share of shedding, too. I imagine the tops of my ceiling fans would give housewives the hives.
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As my grasping promo paragraphs suggest, yours portly has some new music out there, with Triple Deluxe releasing this Monday, 15 September on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms. I’m also currently working on Spooky Season IV, which is running a little behind schedule—gulp!
SSIV likely won’t be as long as SSIII, which clocked in at nearly forty-two minutes. But it will hopefully capture the fun, spooky, ghostly feel of Halloween.
My fiction writing has cooled considerably, but I did finish a draft of “Tap, Tap, Tap,” a creepy little short story about a telepathic beetle that feeds on human emotions; I’ll likely upload that as a PDF and/or in-body text for paid subscribers in the near future. I’m also working on a pulpy barbarian story, although I have not been putting in my daily quota of words in weeks.
Otherwise, I’ve been keeping busy with school. I’ve got two solid ensembles this year, and my Middle School Music Ensemble in particular has impressed me with their musicality. The High School Music Ensemble is doing well, too, tackling pieces like Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” (which features irregular phrasing of ten and then eleven measures) and Herbie Hancock’s fusion classic “Chameleon.”
As a bit a preview for SSIV, here’s the short piece “Red Ghost”:
I wrote the main theme in F major by hand, and it feels rather truncated. Inspiration struck, through, and I wrote a three-voice fugue section in D minor, which I think came out quite well.
More updates to come, dear readers. Thanks for your support!
Yours portly is back into the swing of things at school, and therefore have not had much time to write. I meant to hammer out a post last night after work, but the siren song of Civilization VII, coupled with post-teaching relaxation, was too strong to resist. As such, here’s a quick update:
Yours portly has been busy at work on wedding planning, and generally getting things squared away on that front. I’m also using this week to knock out all of those quotidian little things that make up life: dental cleanings, haircuts, oil changes, etc. July is the slowest month of the year for lessons, and this week is particularly dead: I’ve already taught all of my lessons for the week! So it’s the ideal time to take care of things that need doing, but which get pushed onto the backburner the rest of the year.
The blog has been running daily for over 6.5 years at this point; I believe that 1 January 2026 will mark seven years of daily posting. That is pretty wild to contemplate.
The Portly Politico 