Having grown up the way I did without a dad, moving around a lot, my mom sometimes gone because of the nature of her work, it was very important to me to be a good dad. Part of, I think, the attraction to Michelle originally, in addition to her being really good-looking and smart and tough and funny, was she had this opposite experience growing up. It was really Leave It to Beaver: Dad, mom, brother. Lived in the same place for her entire childhood. Family everywhere, and so she helped ground me in a way that allowed my kids to have this base for themselves that I never had.
Conversely, I think Michelle would be the first to admit that part of her attraction to me was that her living in the same place all her life in this very traditional sense sometimes made her less adventurous and less open to doing new things. She has seen me as a way to instill in our kids this willingness to take a flyer on something, try it out, do something new.
When we first started dating I’d always give myself kind of a fifteen-minute leeway in terms of showing up and getting to stuff. I used to say, “You know, why are you stressing me about being late? I’m just fifteen minutes late, ten minutes late, what’s the big deal?”
Then, I don’t remember how long we were in the relationship when she described how her dad had to wake up an hour earlier than everybody else because he had multiple sclerosis. Just to put on his shirt and button his own shirt was a big task. If the family wanted to go see Michelle’s brother play basketball, this was before the ADA—the Americans with Disabilities Act—they’d have to get there early so that her dad on crutches could hobble his way up the stairs to their seats. That mentality of not wanting to stand out and not wanting to miss something, it was a very emotional thing. It wasn’t just about being late.
ROB REINER—DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, WRITER, ACTOR
I’m the empty nest now, so my wife is stuck with me. We’re married now twenty-seven years. You have all these distractions. The kids, the things to think about, and then all of a sudden, “Oh, it’s you? Do I like you?” But what we’re discovering is that we do like each other, we really do. We like to hang with each other.
ALI WONG—COMEDIAN, WRITER
I met my husband at a wedding. He went to Sidwell, which is where the Obamas go to school. A private school in D.C. I went to the Sidwell of San Francisco. We went to school with all Jewish people. We went to this wedding in Napa where I went to high school with the bride and he went to high school with the husband.
We were the only Asian people at the wedding and everybody else was Jewish. I saw him and I was like, “We were probably raised in the same economic bracket. He’s hot. I’m going to make this happen.” And I did. He turned out to be a lot more interesting and weird and fun than I had expected. It keeps going that way.
JUDY GREER—ACTOR, WRITER
I’m into being married, I’ve got to say. I don’t think I would like it if I didn’t like my husband so much. I can see how marrying the wrong person would make you want to kill yourself or make your life miserable. I totally married the exact perfect person. I would recommend marrying Dean Johnsen. I can’t say I would recommend anyone else.
We have two different houses. We do spend the night together somewhere but we don’t—
Marc
At a third location?
Judy
Ha-ha, yeah. We have a conjugal visit trailer between the two houses. I’m kidding. I’m kidding about the trailer. I have a house that I had when I met him and then he has a house that he had when he met me. We didn’t change that setup.
Marc
This seems unorthodox but interesting. That seems like almost a perfect situation.
Judy
Yeah. It works out pretty well. Once we got married, I was like, I’m going to try to spend every night with him because we’re married, but every once in a blue moon, we won’t spend the night together.
I really feel like this is going to solve the seven-year-itch problem because when the seven-year-itch happens, if that’s really a thing, we will be moving in together for the first time because his son will then go away to college.
Marc
Do you think it’s going to come to a point where you’re like, “I don’t need this house anymore”?
Judy
No. I really like my little house. I’m an only child. I like having my space. It’s working. I have a lot of crap in my car all the time, but it’s working. I remember my first few years having boyfriends and I’d have a bag in my car all the time, full of stuff. Then it’s like, “Yay, I own a house and I’m getting married. I’m not going to.…” Now I’m back to the bag in my car.
SCOTT IAN—MUSICIAN
I met Pearl in 2000. She is absolutely a transcendent type of person and I saw that in 2000 when she was in a blue latex rubber cop dress, singing backup for M?tley Crüe, who Anthrax was opening for. It was like love at first sight, but I have no game, nothing, I don’t know how to pick up chicks.
We became drinking buddies because it was a sober tour at the time for M?tley. Pearl and the other backup singer Marty, this other girl, they were hanging out with Anthrax on the Anthrax bus. As a band, we hit it pretty hard every night. They started hanging out with us, so we were drinking buddies for a month. Then M?tley’s management calls and says we need to take a cut in our pay on the tour because tickets weren’t selling so well, blah blah blah. We can’t, we’re just scraping by as it is on this. So they say, “We can’t keep paying you, you’ll just have to go home.”
Bummer. I had nothing against the dudes in the band. I get it, it’s business. I was bummed because I wasn’t going to see Pearl for six more weeks until she got home to Los Angeles.
I was losing my mind, so I would go to this bar, Daddy’s, every night on Vine, where my neighbor worked. I would get a ride with him and I would start drinking at five and then drink until the bartenders were done drinking at like four.
Then I would walk home, I lived right by Canter’s Deli at the time. I would walk back home four miles because I think if I didn’t walk, I would literally die, I would be so drunk.
But I had this light named Pearl. I had this focus and I knew she was coming home at the beginning of September. She gets home from tour and I call her, “Hey, there’s these bands playing at the Troubadour tonight. Do you want to go?” She was like, “Sure.” I had written her a letter. Wrote her a letter and FedEx’d it to her on tour, and I told her how I felt about her. This was a really heartfelt four-page letter. She never answered that. We would talk all the time, but she never brought it up. Like, “I’m in love with you.” We would still talk, but she never brought up the letter and I didn’t have the balls to ask her about the letter. I just figured we’re friends, that’s it. I’m crushed but we’ll be friends. At least I can be friends with this rad lady.
We went out that night to the Troubadour. I brought my friend Kenny because I was nervous. We just fell right back into the same thing. We ordered some drinks and hung out and watched some bands, hung out that night and then wound up saying, “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you want to hang out?”
That was September 9, 2000; we’ve been together ever since.