Another weekend lies in ashes. Kind of fun, though. The mega-bridal show my mom kept going on about was actually a good time. For 2 hours, Mom, Scout, the Boy & myself were bombarded with flyers, displays and low-low-low rates. It's the kind of thing that would really knock the breath out of you, if you showed up with nothing decided. A seemingly innocent query ("do you have a dj?") could start off a hysterical storm ("no! No! We don't have ANYTHING!!"). Or so the Boy likes to say. For well-put together folks like us, it was just fun.

I mean, an alarming number of wedding industries play on a couple's insecurities. It can indeed reduce you to a shivering mass. But the Boy & I have fairly a well-developed sense of what we want, even if it's largely defined by what we don't want. Example: generic bomenieres & invitations, bad music that's currently popular, embarrassing & syrupy self-written vows, the song "Daddy's Little Girl," most "profound" secular readings (see: anything involving The Prophet) and/or making the vegetarians uncomfortable. With parents as bossy as mine, it's inevitable that I'll get screwed out of soemthing I want, but I can try to be myself, damn it.

Okay, chances are that by now you're either bored or offended ("but what he says about the mountain is so profound!!"), so I'll be moving on. Although I'll stop briefly to say that some secular readings are just lovely and very spiritually appropriate (as soon as Agamemnon arrived at his Loyolan pre-ordination monasterial retreat, they handed him The Velveteen Rabbit to meditate upon. And there you go.)

So: wedding show fun. I had planned to shoehorn in a visit to the Garden upon our return to the city, but it was too tired and too cold. Ain't that the way? I can remember going out in fishnets during the middle of last year's city-paralyzing snowstorm, but that brave courier-de-goth seems to be on vacation. Thus my beloved, my maid of honour and myself went through all the wedding show literature, encouraged the cat to attack the tuxedo catalogues ("look, Ceilidh! It's Tuxedo guy again! Get 'em"), and took in a cable access show about "polytheism and idolatry" in Hinduism. Sometimes, the low budget stuff is the most fascinating teevee ever. You can just tell that the guy doesn't give a wet damn about looking pretty or emoting convincingly.

Real life is the cheapest entertainment there is. And that's the truth.

Went to Smoky Tom's this morning to see Agamemnon serve, then went to work. Now I feel tired & useless & dull. As an extra-added bonus, I can feel my lymph glands aching slightly...as if they're just waiting for their cue to make me utterly miserable. It won't be a long journey, I can tell you that.

I wish I could have a few days off. And I wish I wasn't mopey bride-to-be. But wishes : horses as...oh, forget it.