It's worth noting that two of my friends celebrated milestone wedding anniversaries this month.

In 1989, we celebrated S's wedding. It all seemed a bit surreal, especially given that I wasn't finished with school and getting married was dauntingly grown up. I went back to my job as a copy editor the next day and edited numerous stories about the Tiananman Square Massacre.

In 1994 we celebrated N's wedding. It was a boiling hot weekend. After the rehearsal dinner we took some time out to hang in a goth bar and watch the OJ Simpson chase, close-captioned, on TV.

My own wedding took place in September 1998. It coincided almost exactly with the release of the detail-packed Starr report, which already feels like a document from another century. The irony that E. and I would finally become a "legitimate" couple (much to my mother's relief) at a time when almost everyone in the country was talking at the dinner table, and everywhere else, about oral sex was not lost on me.

Most significantly, we have all stayed married.