So what am I talking about? Marriage and the peculiar nature of it. I've never been married, I don't even play married on TV, and really have no desire to ever be married, in fact I find it's almost an antiquated notion, no offense to those that are happily married, it's simply a comment on my personal comfort level with that entire institution. I admire what it means to other people, and in that admiration, I suppose I've had occasion to observe it in it's various stages, and the one thing that's always struck me about it, and is it's most appealing feature is it's chameleon like qualities. It's ever changing, and fluid, for all it's stability and commitment, I think it's fascinating to watch how it shifts and changes over the course of so many years, how the people in the marriage adjust to those changes.

I suppose it's the stable, unchanging nature of it's base that's the least appealing to me, because I bore easily. In fact I've been told before, that I always look like I'm searching for something, maybe I look so hard it's passed me by already. I guess I'm not sure that I could reconcile that kind of hunger with the stability of an everyday routine.

But that's the essence of marriage isn't it? The mercurial nature of it, how it's about routine, committment, sameness, under the surface, yet basic human nature works against it, as people evolve and change on a daily basis. And the good marriages are those that survive those changes and adapt to them, which brings me to Manny, and how TPTB have stumbled upon a way to write an interesting, synchronized, yet happy frontburner couple.

So many times you hear executives talk about how hard it is to write for a "happy couple", that I don't think they necessarily understand what the audience means when they say they want a "happy" couple. I know, at least for me, I don't mean I need to see a couple do hearts and flowers day in and day out, I just need certain truths to remain truthful in their story.

In the Manny story, I need to know that above all else Manny love one another, and will not stray elsewhere, no matter what outside forces surround them, and I need to know that they're learning how to live within the context of one another's lives. I don't really ask a lot, to me that's a happy Manny, with the key being no *contrived* misunderstandings or miscommunications, that above all else, even when they're fighting, I know they love one another, and that love will last. Give me that, and I can handle almost anything.

Guiding Light has happy couples, obviously, but I don't see them connecting, unintentionally, the way Manny has managed to, there's Rick/Abby, Vanessa/Matt who are backburner, but happy, and there's Phillip/Harley, but as I understand it up until recently there was Beth and Phillip's romantic past with her, in their way, and right now they basically have no story, other than the birth of their baby. I find them interesting, yes, but they're not on nearly as often as Manny, these days, and their inherent interesting conflict, was pretty much last explored the day Harley stomped out of the hospital, and Phillip got drunk. And need I even get into Reva/Josh and how out of sync they are right now?

It almost seems as if with each baby step, with each couple, the writers were finetuning that truly "never been done before" story, until they finally got it right with Manny, and truly I don't think anyone is doing marriage, and the spectrum of emotions and basic life situations, better than Manny is these days. I strongly believe that people are so vivid and different in actuality, that writing from a character standpoint should be the easiest thing a writer would ever have to do, and as long as you remain true to a character that it'll flow naturally. Or maybe I just find that's the way it works for me, and I expect the same from others, I don't know.

I just know I've been duly impressed by the handling of Manny's marriage, and the ever changing nature of it, and how interesting it's been, even with Manny basically happy. It's not necessarily about "conflict" so much as it's about a seemingly concerted effort to be as real and genuine with Manny as is possible. What I mean is that, though many were bothered by Manny blissfully happy, is that not a basic facet of marriage? Is there not a reason there's something called the "honeymoon phase?"

Manny seems to have been setup for that primal nature foundation, obviously we saw them pre and post nookie, many many times in the past month, and those results started playing out yesterday. Would it have been as effective if we had barely seen Manny happy and ready to conquer the world together? It would have been jarring, IMO.

And look at all the months of mistrust, and miscommunication and missed opportunities, before Manny started to move towards the same page, how the trust issue was played out so many times over and over, how it hung over their heads, and then finally... FINALLY... Michelle and Danny start moving in the same direction, at the same time, and they're happy and they're in love, and everything is wonderful, but reality slowly starts to seep into their perfect bubble, and that trust issue, though dormant for a while, takes shape again in little ways, reminding us that this marriage will never be *easy.*

Who could have guessed months ago that Danny would ever tell Michelle to her face, that she was the only person he could trust? Look at the past few months, the betrayal's, the hurt, Danny putting up a good front with his mother in Towers, about trusting Michelle with his life, and then confronting her ten minutes later about Mrs. Silva. And in telling Michelle, that she's NOW the only person he can trust, other than himself, he's denouncing not only his mother, but his beloved *sister.* He doesn't even trust her, probably knowing what a flake she is, that doesn't mean he doesn't love her, but she just doesn't the emotional strength he needs to pull him through. It's one thing to physically trust someone, it's another to trust them with confidences, etc, but the emotional trust, the openness it takes to put your heart, your life, and the most intimate of thoughts into another's hands, that's real trust.

And he's been displaying it over and over, he couldn't even begin to tell her his wishes on the bed in Laurel Falls, prefering that the marriage be all about Michelle and what she wants, but the closer he gets to her, the more they relate and the more she proves to him that she's sticking around, and that he's safe with her, the more he opens up. Her letting him walk out the door, even after trying to find out what was going on (a legitimate concern) with his business trip, reminding him ever so gently of his own losses thanks to "business," and letting him know she was concerned, was a very big step for Michelle, in trying to accept his lifestyle (and no I do not think she is or ever will be fully accepting, she has to learn to adjust to what she can and can't live with). I think Danny recognized that, and that was motivation enough to trust her with the secret.

However the real trust was shown during last Thursday's show, letting down his guard, as slowly as humanly possible, by revealing how stifling and lonely the house had always been to him. I'm sure she could have guessed, but hearing it from him, as uncomfortable as it might have made him, was a turning point for Danny. In order for this marriage to go anywhere, it was eventually going to have to become as much about him, as it was about her, and the only way for that to happen was for Danny to begin to open up to her, about Danny, not about all these outside antics. And she didn't reject him, he didn't fall dead away when he admitted something personal, she comforted him.

I can't begin to describe the warm fuzzies these scenes gave me. As the day progressed and Danny became more and more vulnerable, thanks to equal measures of exhaustion and emotional attachment to Michelle, I melted more and more. I thought it was particularly effective, that GL put these scenes in a pillow talk context. It's inexplicable, or at least escapes me, the description of the difference between a heart to heart on say a couch, and a heart to heart laying bare next to someone who has the power to wrench your heart out, if they so choose. It's more of Manny, acting out that primal instinct, connecting in that manner, but showing the ways human beings have changed in the billions of years since evolution began, and communication/language has evolved with it, but not necessarily just words. The way Danny rested his face in the nook of her neck and leaned his cheek, with closed eyes (another sign of trust, not having to look at someone constantly) on her own cheek, are all types of physical communication, that your partner can read, signs of trust and security, and of course love.

We hear it in words, obviously, as well, declarations of committment and hopes, dreams, fears, but it's the little phrases that get to me and none has quite gotten to me the way yesterday's "hi sweetie" did (and yes this may well top "are you okay" and "do you," for me). There was something so pure about it, so *real* and honest in it's delivery.

I adored the blocking of this scene, not being able to see Danny, only seeing Michelle's reactions to him coming in, and his voice offscreen. It was almost as if we welcomed him into that bed along with her, like we were daydreaming and that voice saying "hi sweetie" was interrupting us, along with her. The lighting was beautiful, the long shot of Michelle all wrapped up in that bed, cozy, that's the word I'm looking for. It was cozy, his voice was cozy and familiar.

Familiarity, yet another facet of marriage, that's begun to play out in Michelle and Danny's lives, him climbing into bed next to her, giving her that so sweet kiss as a greeting, and asking her if she was feeling okay. This is it, this is normal, this is real, this is a happy marriage and it's the most interesting thing on GL! And out of that burgeoning familiarity, comes Danny's assumptions, and how easily the trust and vulnerability issues rear their head again. I couldn't have asked for the birth control discussion to go any better, if I had written it myself. It was so, so... so... I don't even know, the word I'm looking for, gratifying and emotional, for me to watch Danny get choked up in front of Michelle, over something so deeply personal to him. He tried to put up a good front, but Michelle recognized the level of hurt she was causing him, the way she touched him, like she'd literally just burned him, gently and reassuringly.

I don't know how many times I've said this, to the point of being nauseating I suppose, but a Manny baby, even the discussion of one is *so* incredibly important to this story, and incredibly important to the characterization of Danny who has his wife on a perfect pedestal, that the realization that she's taking birth control pills, doesn't knock her off of it, it just makes him think once again, that he's somehow proving himself unworthy of her, that child born of them is his ticket to being worthy of her, of the life she leads. It's his way out, and she's preventing it, but he understood at heart, why.

That was the magic of the scene for me, that neither of them were wrong and both of them were hurt, and they actually discussed the issue and the reasoning behind it, and the questions linger between them, when will it be "perfect" enough (again Danny with the image of "perfection"), what if it's never safe enough, when is sooner rather than later? These questions aren't going to go away, and now we know that Danny will have added motivation in trying to legitimize his world, in the coming months, because though he has the woman he loves, she's still scared of his world and the implications it could have on her, and her children's lives.

This is marriage, this is the mercurial nature of it, the stability that Michelle provides him, the love she gives him, the vulnerability he shows her and she in return, the way they relate to one another and make one another want to be better than they are (isn't it funny that this is what Michelle told Abby she wanted and what Danny tells her she makes him feel all the time), but it's also what each individual brings to a marriage and how it changes them.

Danny brings that lonely, suffocated, childhood and all the excess baggage of his family, and Michelle brings the safety, stability, yet totally unstable vulnerability thanks to her missing father and her mother's death. They even bring the recent past, the instinct to mistrust one another, at certain points, and the still somewhat insecure nature of their marriage. Not only are they happily married and interesting, but it's coming from who these characters are, how they would react, Michelle strong, independent and cautionary, and Danny passionate, family oriented and impulsive. Yet they each have to give a little in order to make a life together and that's what GL has been showing us over and over, and look how that fits into the larger landscape of Michelle's "world" with the Lewis', etc. and Danny's mob "world" and how that theme has been playing from the beginning.

How each will have to adjust to one another's worlds, and how it won't be easy, for either of them, because they bring so much of their past to the present (look how much has been commented lately by Carmen on Michelle's inherent "Bauerness").

The foundation has been set now, for the future of the Santos family, of the way the Bauers will seep into it, and how they'll change one another, and most especially for the Santos-Bauer contingent and their possible children, and through all of it Manny is basically happy, even with "conflict" because they're communicating, they're letting down guards, they're understanding marriage better than people three times their age, it seems.

All this and they say they can't write happy couples?

Hint to TPTB... you already are!

Tracee