Even before I got in line, I knew there would be trouble. The woman was my age or a little younger. She was traveling with two small children and an extraordinary assortment of personal effects. She held the baby in her arms and pushed a stroller loaded with a diaper bag, a teddy bear, and an overnight bag toward the American Airlines check-in counter. A little boy danced along behind her, pulling a large suitcase on wheels as if it was one of those rolling, squeaking, wobbling basset hound toys.

Last week, I put myself through hell. I went shopping for a bathing suit.

For months, I’d avoided this miserable chore. I knew it could take hours, if not days. My friend Lynn offered to join the expedition. She and her husband were off to Santa Barbara, and she was suitless. It would be painful, she knew. She had a baby about three months ago, and despite hard work on her part, she hasn’t quite regained her figure.

There’s a slight problem in our house, and I’m sorry to say that it’s hereditary. I’m going to look older. I know I am. I can already see creases in my forehead and lines around my eyes, especially if I stand in the bathroom in the sharp light of late afternoon and stare at myself in the mirror. To my astonishment, I find that I no longer look like a schoolgirl.

Once a week, I relinquish my compulsion to be busy every minute. I drop in on Lisa, who goes to work on my fingernails. It’s a luxury, I know — it costs me 10 bucks — but for one hour, I sit as still as Whistler’s Mother. We talk. She asks me about my life. To her, it seems exotic.

I just got back from a trip with my husband. We drove around the fat midsection of France for two weeks, in Burgundy, Brittany, and through the green, river-abundant country that lies in between. This is not the amazing thing: We did not fight in the car. Until recently, we have had serious navigational problems, leading to what we call “Car Wars.”

Several female readers are under the impression that I think a woman is incomplete without a man. This, they say, runs contrary to what they’ve learned from years of therapy.

They say they wish I’d shut up.

I’ve given them the wrong idea, and I apologize. No doubt, I’ve dwelled too often on the wonders of my first year of marriage. The truth is, finding myself in a wedded state came as quite a shock. It was not what I expected.

Last week, my husband announced that he wanted to invite six guys over for an old-fashioned poker party. This was a surprise. His idea of entertaining normally leans more toward a cozy dinner for eight, with his wife as chef. What would I think, he asked tentatively, of having a bunch of beer-swilling, cussing, cigar-smoking, gambling guys in our peach-and-white dining room?

Six months ago, I made a note in my black leather book: “Write about restraining orders and why they don’t work.” I was thinking about a weekend I’d spent with my friend Barbara and her son four summers ago.