Where did the idea for the essay come?
MM: A big catalyst was my parents, who had this crummy marriage, and my mom, who was intent on telling my sisters and me to be careful who you marry, that when you’re in love you can’t see and you’re blind to things. I knew Rich was a great guy, but I had this small fear in the back of my head — what if there’s something I’m not seeing? In college, I was also an anthropology major and I really liked research anthropology. There was one study where they found, by just going through grocery store receipts, that when a person bought diapers after 5 p.m., the next thing they were most likely to buy was beer. From this they deduced that they could increase the sales of things like chips by putting them in the diaper aisle, which they did. So, I liked the idea that in everyday data you could find meaning. When Rich and I moved in together, I was so afraid that there was something I wouldn’t see. I wanted everything to go smoothly, so it freaked me out when food — what had been our biggest
