june 5, 2000.

Do not expect miracles of this missive, dear friends. For I have been travelling in the desert of wedding preparations, and I have not very much to report, other than the commonly known fact that I am uncommonly weary. Bah.

Let's see. On Friday I renewed my acquaintance with the Boy, travelling up to see him in the city. My parents couldn't understand why I didn't ask him to come down to the house instead. Because, I seethed inwardly, because we're not allowed to sleep in the same bed here. Now be quiet and let me have my sin.

Honestly. I can understand and even encourage a certain amount of comforting blindness to this aspect of my life. But to keep pressing the point! Give it up, parents. As much fun as it is making up a bed on the basement couch for my betrothed, there is even more potential for amusement in my plans.

On Saturday we hammered out some ceremony details with the Preacher Lady who's currently in charge of my parish. I quite like her; she's not serious in her manner, but she's quite serious about things like liturgy and appropriate hymns. I appreciate that kind of structure, as you can only have so much freebooting in organized religion before the word "organized" stops meaning anything.

My only concern is that Agamemnon has enough to do in this scheme. I'd hate to offend him with too little responsibility, and I do want him to marry us, but I can't simply give everything to him when he's coming in from both another province and another faith. I'm terribly afraid of everything blowing up on us. I'm terribly afraid of having to open the top secret emergency plan (called the Omega Plan by those in the know.) We'll see if the world ends or not.

After the visit to the church, we drifted off to the mall, on the lookout for wedding bands and other items of coolness. It wasn't as productive as it could've been: a series of clerks misjudged the size of my finger and encouraged me to force the ring in question...meaning that after a half an hour, my third finger left hand was red, throbbing & skinned. There's just something about terror that mangles - that and I was horribly afraid that I'd have to buy whatever wouldn't come off. To make me feel better, the Boy bought me a $5 ring with stars on it that is just perfect for my third finger & more than big enough for my ring finger. A little glittery piece of trash, but I love it.

I have been spending entirely too much time in that mall, though. On Friday night I stopped off to get some office supplies, ran into Edgar Allen (Alexi's former best-friend) and ended up chatting for almost an hour. I got caught up on a whole bunch of gossip about former friends, which is always a strange experience. Lots of people getting married, getting muscular, getting business degrees, getting around and getting bored of strip clubs. Akasha, one of my best friends from ages 16 to 19 and now someone with whom I don't care to speak, has lost a lot of weight & hit a soi-dit "sexual peak." Apparently this is synonymous for "will fuck anyone." I'm not sure how I feel about the tramp part, but the weight part depressed me. I seem to have taken her place as the heaviest, and because I am superficial, this bothers me. Sure, I could use the motivation to get off my ass, but I'd much rather waste time & feel sorry for myself. Hey, who wouldn't?

Sunday was a long day. In the afternoon we attended a reception celebrating my cousin Nic's confirmation, and it seemed to last forever. We used to baby sit this boy pretty much from birth to school age, and my family is, well, emotionally involved with him. He's turned into a very nice boy, but our conversations are somewhat cramped by the fact that I can't quite believe that he's a sentient person and not a baby.

(Holy cow, I just had a moment of empathy with my parents. Shit.)

The lunch was extensive, and I paced myself badly. By the fish course, I my biggest ambition was to crawl into the backseat and take a nap. The Boy took up my social slack by using the mussel shells as both puppets and castanets in a spirited rendering of "America" from West Side Story. Then he and my brother had a half-hour conversation about professional wrestling. And you wonder why I needed to escape.