craving clockworks

You know, apparently I'm supposed to be getting married someday. I have a ring. I have a fiance. I also have a future mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Things I don't have:

1. Wedding site.
2. Wedding day.
3. Wedding dress.
4. A clue.

There's much to be said for this period of engagement before full frontal nudity and the finality of an actual service. (Not in that order.) For one thing, not having anything to worry about yet, I'm remarkably free of ... damn this thesaurus. Worry. I'm remarkably free of worry. Of course, everybody who has ever gotten married has promised me that once I get a site and a date, everything else will fall in line. To me, this suggests that people have some bizarre notion that I have vendors and organization already in place, hovering overhead like misplaced dominos just waiting to be knocked over by some brilliant, dizzyingly organized pinky of perfection.

Problem. I haven't bought the dominos yet. Where exactly do you go for that?

"You'll need," said Tara, "A florist, a caterer, maybe some staff, a dress -- that'll probably take the longest, so you should get on that right away -- music . . . "

Meanwhile, The Guy is still lazily informing friends about his engagement according to some easy-going, hit-and-miss schedule of his own. I received some congratulations the other day from a friend of his who had just found out. I fully expect to continue to get engagement congratulations from belatedly informed Guy friends and family four or five years from now, well after this hypothetical wedding.

Yes, let us do wallow in the crapulence of our lethargy.

***

Later...

Have a wedding site. Yay, us!

***

Later still...

Have a wedding date. Yay, us again!

***

June 6, 2004. How far away is that, exactly?

Six months? What do you mean, six months?

Back at the beginning, when we first got engaged and friends poured heaps of advice on our heads, I was informed that some people gather data from multiple places, visit them, (sometimes up to twenty or thirty sites) get price ranges, haggle -- did you know you can haggle about prices, depending on when and where? -- and weigh the options until they find the perfect place. "Don't worry if you don't find the place you want in the first ten you visit," they assured us. "You'll probably go to fifteen or twenty or so, then weed out the ones you don't like until you have a list of about five, and then go through those until you get the price you want and the date you want--"

The Guy and me, we visited a grand total of . . . let me think. One, two . . . five . . . nine . . . .

Three. We visited three.

We are not energetic people.

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

And later...

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

And later still...

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

Detecting a trend?

And later still...

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

I take it back. We visited four.

We narrowed it down to two after a couple of months; not, perhaps, the most impressive of accomplishments when you consider the number we'd started out with. Our method of weeding? Sheer arbitrariness. Mine. The Guy, being amiable and indifferent, ambled contentedly behind my every randomly quixotic whim. I am not renowned for making well-reasoned decisions based on logic.

Me: "This place is stuffy. Let's not do it here."

The Guy: "Okay."

Don't get the wrong idea, here. The Guy has, when inclined, a stunningly broad and catastrophically creative vocabulary. Unfortunately, having expended those colorful and descriptive words in the workplace, he has been reduced in wedding-related discussions to a limited range of two words, which I must say he has been wielding with great effect. "Okay" is obviously the powerhouse in the pair, true. Still, "It's," while lacking somewhat in punch by itself, dons a certain uniquely laconic style when matched with such a broadly comprehensive adjective.

Me: "I'm tired of looking at places. Let's do it here."

The Guy: "Okay."

Me: "Do you want to do it here?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

Me: "Damn you. Fine. We're doing it here."

The Guy: "Okay."

Communicative bastard. The man never stops talking.

***

I've learned that someone kindly sent me an item on my wish list some time ago. To whomever that might have been, my sincere apologies for not thanking you sooner; fact is, it turns out that the address I had listed for my wish list deliveries was for my office in Excite@Home.

You remember Excite@Home, right? The company that went bankrupt about three years ago and closed its doors? Yes. That one. Obviously I haven't been maintaining my Amazon wish list as well as I ought.

So the reason I never thanked you is because I hadn't gotten anything, so I hadn't realized you'd sent something, and I'm truly sorry about not noticing sooner. Thank you for the thought. I grovel at your feet.

***

I've added a new link to my list o' links, an excellent blog about Diabetes news and events called, appropriately enough, Diabetes News. I highly encourage those of you with diabetes to go and check it out. If you are the friend or family of someone with diabetes, you should also go take a peep. The maintainer of the blog is a very intelligent and knowledgeable woman who would like it to be known that she does not work for Ruby Tuesday's, news about Ruby Tuesday's new low-carb menu notwithstanding.

Don't bother trying to understand that part about Ruby Tuesday's. Just read the blog, that's all I'm saying.

On a not entirely related note, I have decided that my first child will be named Hamster. The Guy is skeptical. However, I point out in my favor that his initial suggestion for a child's name was Obediah, because difficult names build character as a result of frequent poundings in the playground, while my sister insists that "Furnace" would be a perfect name for any child, boy or girl. This would be, yes, the same girl who had a pet rat named "Rabie" because "Rabie" was, in her mind, the singular of "rabies."

***

And last, but not least . . .

A few minutes ago, I received one of those little spam emails that usually get entangled in my spam filter before dying a soundless and accommodating death in my junk mail folder. This only really works if I'm using my Mozilla email client, however; when I check my emails through my shell connection, I view all, junk or no.

Today, for whatever reason, I abruptly decided to read one of these delectable morsels of sexual promise and anatomical expansion. I reproduce for you verbatim a portion of that email below.

Important Penis enlargement info/update

Dear Member, We would like to tell you about the latest scientific breakthru!!

VP-RX - Doctor approved penis enlargement pills! No hanging weights, or
painfull excises. You will see results after only 2 month!

Simply take VP-RX and your penis will become thicker and longer, within a
matter of weeks!!

100% MONEY BACK GAURANTEE!!

I admire the confidence in their product that prompts these people to promise a 100% money back "GAURANTEE!" My company is unwilling to extend itself that far, but then, they make no promises that using their product will do anything of an expanding nature to body parts or wallets. Kudos to them. I doff my hat.

The part that does perturb me about this email, though, was the part about "hanging weights" and "painfull exercises." Does hanging weights on body parts confer "enlargement" leading to "thicker and longer" bits and pieces? In my youth, I often yearned after plumper, 3-dimensional breasts. If I had attached weights to them, would they, too, have defined me as a woman and helped me discover my femininity? I have to wonder.

The Guy is a fairly self-confident man -- witness his humiliation in the gun range at my hands, and his equanimity in that regard -- but I have to admit, he perked up a little when I relayed this email to him.

"I have to try that," he said.

Which all goes to show that you never really know a man until you've attached weights to his penis.

***

Six months. Stupid clock. Keeps ticking.

(Tock.)

Posted by yhirata at November 21, 2003 04:37 PM