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We had one of those conversations that starts in one room and ends in another days later after having the conversation separately, at work, and even sleeping—and in sleeping, dreaming about the conversation only to wake up and remain nacreously crummy until the shampoo you’re using turns out to be body lotion and you decide to rewash your hair even though it’s all brittle now and you’re going to be late and just whose fault is that, really? Again.

It’s a worn cliche that relationships require compromise and it’s probably so worn because everyone before you has been running their grubby hands over it and everyone after you is tugging at your sleeves to have a turn.

You’ll get a turn.

As near as I’m able to define it I was in love twice before. Both started well, middled for a bit, and ended so badly I’ve had to change my name to get over not just the woman but myself. But there you go. Once I negotiated the price of sanity the construction of a neo-personality was a playful and expectant enterprise. But suppose you find yourself living with the other, bound by lease if not affection, and just as argumentative as your pseudo-selves of the past?

Therein, I’ve learned, is the keen edge of Occam’s shaving cream. When you’re suddenly clear-headed enough to realize that the madness you endure on a seemingly daily basis is steadily causing you to deal head-on with your problems rather than forcing you to steal the nearest credit card numbers and forge a new identity—Hell, that your domestic partner has a point every once in a while and that, yes, YOU may actually be the asshole here, pal—it’s worth rinsing and repeating.

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