Now it’s back to real life, where I have three different “jobs”- in the morning I’ll be working on getting a small business off the ground. The afternoons will be spent working with a friend on a computer program that’s going to be a blast- and hopefully do some good, too. And at night there’s a new writing project.

Wonderful things all. For the first time in a long time I feel really excited about everything on my plate, scary as it is.  And returning to journaling is one of the things I’m looking forward to doing, so…apologies for the extended vacation, and there’s lots of buckling down in store.

I’m really not much of a beach person, and this year less than most, because there’s so much going but I knew that if I didn’t go he’d be so miserable there’d be no living with him. And of course, it was subject to ‘trip bloat.’ “We’ll go overnight” became 2 nights, and soon 3 while my friends wanted to pop me upside the head for whining about “having” to go to Florida.

So yes, it was very sad, how I was made to endure the unendurable…

You can go ahead and hit me now. I totally understand.

As it happens, I’ve been thinking a lot about Chip and his wife Cindy, because there’s nothing like planning for a wedding to make you go over your mental list of friends and family.

I had been remembering their support, way, way back in the day, and in particular something that literally changed the course of my life.

I’d been separated from my husband for some time, but we were living in different bedrooms in the same house for financial reasons. I was young, broke, and muddling through, but finally moving into my own place when a man appeared on the horizon. I didn’t think I was anywhere near ready to deal with any kind of relationship, plus the guy was not without his own complications- it would have been an entirely unorthodox match.

We were sitting in their backyard, laughing, and when I told her I didn’t think I could handle anything else on my plate right now- never mind a man! – she sat forward with great intensity. “Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t you joke about happiness. There’s not nearly enough of it in the world, and you don’t know if it’s ever going to come around again. If you think you’ve got a shot, you’d better take it.”

Chip had come up behind and put his hand out to squeeze her shoulder, nodding. “We would know.”

So now, having followed that advice, I find myself planning a wedding to that same unorthodox man. Life has taken us in different directions, but I’ll always love Cin & Chip and this accident has just reinforced their words.



They found happiness and clung to it for all it was worth. They made a good life together and adored each other like few I’ve ever known. As horribly unfair as the accident was, they had something precious, and they were smart enough to know it.



May we all be wise enough to go forth and do likewise.

If I don’t do something about planning this wedding, Charlie will kill me if my sister doesn’t get me first. Though the venue and date are now set at least…which happened just yesterday. I know, I know, I’m a bad bride, but this should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, really. It’s hard for me to worry about those kinds of things. It’ll happen, it’ll be fine, it’ll be a party, and that’s that.

Honestly, the idea was that simple- although I should’ve seen the signs. Originally it was going to be dinner with the family at Commander’s, but it had grown to renting out a local haunt for an evening. It’s a strange little place with a good vibe and a lovely courtyard. The food’s decent, they weren’t going to charge us a venue fee, and the price was fantastic. It was going to be simple.


Done and done…except that I’ve discovered that having a wedding is like having a tube of toothpaste pierced by a thousand needles. Once you announce you’re getting married it starts oozing out of the pinpricks- the money hole, the friendship hole, the money hole, the tradition hole, the money hole, etc… and we all know you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube, so the pile of goop just grows and grows.


Now I realize that I must’ve accidentally purchased the extra-large economy size of Wedding brand ® dentifrice, which lurks on store shelves, hunting unsuspecting women to capture and transport back to its corporate headquarters on Brideworld.


Previously, the two ladies who jumped in to help me navigate the savage unknown of this alien plant were dragging info out of me. These are actual (I swear) examples:

Q: What are your colors going to be?
A: Colors?

Q: Okay, well we can take the colors from the flowers, then. What are your flowers going to be?
A: cheap?

Q: What do you want me to wear?
A (pause for thought): Well, not shorts. (in fairness, this was back when it was in the park.)

Clearly, I am not equipped to do this, and even a little proud of that fact, truth be told. This was never something I dreamt of as a little girl- the dress, the princess thing, the public validation of something private etc.


Still, we were doing this, and there were protocols to be followed, so I was getting the Save The Date cards (seriously. me. doing save the date cards. sigh.) together to start mailing when my sister reminded me that the venue hadn’t sent the final confirmation, which would be an excellent thing to have before we start telling people to buy plane tix, etc, so Charlie and I stopped over at the restaurant for a drink and to pick it up. The owner told us that “he’s just juggling so many balls right now it slipped his mind” and “could you sent me another email to remind me?” and my very favorite: “I’ve also been working days as a carpenter to get some money coming in.”


Pride, meet the stairs.


That was a little over a week ago. Since then I have:

• Panicked. Repeatedly.
• Called/visited/googled 3 dozen alternative sites
• Hyperventilated at the prices.
• Attended a bridal expo
• Signed up for 3 different wedding websites
• Begged friends for help, and through them…
• …found only place in town that costs less than one kidney per attendee
• Discovered they had exactly 2 dates available for the entire spring, one of which is while we’ll be gone on our honeymoon.
• Snatched that one remaining date like the life raft that it was, and counted ourselves lucky to only be paying 2.5x the original cost to get it…even though it’s Mardi Gras week, and a whole month earlier than we’d planned.
• Realized that the venue upgrade turned it from an easygoing lower case ‘w’ to upper case ‘W’edding and I was going to have to really get serious.
• Bought an economy size bottle of Jack Daniels and a case of Coke (REAL Coke, dammit, not diet, even though I am, like every bride everywhere, working out like a fiend).

And this is where I find myself now. Deadly serious about things like flowers, colors, knicknacks and dresses with actual, shocking interest that borders on obsession. Shooting out rapid fire emails: “Will this go with that?” “Do we need these other things?” “What about those useless gee-gaws? Will people expect them?” (Bonus bridal hint: etsy.com is your friend here. Stuff that doesn’t look like it was plucked from a store shelf. Handmade, gorgeous stuff for cheap.)


Periodically I try to grab the remnants of the me that was. I stand on the surface of this new planet and look fondly back at earth, reminding myself that really, it’s just a party for friends. The venue is beautiful all by itself- any decoration is just lagniappe. The menu is wonderful, the bar is open. If I only get as far as hiring a band and an officiant, we’ll muddle through. Everything else will take care of itself. Our friends are not the sort of people who will snigger if we don’t have the $300 silver etched cake servers.


Cake? OMG. Cake! Who are we going to get to do the cake? What colors? What flavor? How many layers? Who’s going to cut it? Did you know that some bakeries charge as much as a dollar a SLICE to CUT the cake for you? Why? Isn’t that stupid? It’s a cake! Or is it really stupid after all? Maybe there’s some mystical property of wedding cake that makes it impossible to cut unless you’ve earned some kind of certification??


And so…zzzoooooop! Just like that Brideworld has sucked me back in.

It’s been a real roller coaster of a month, good and bad. Kids to get home from college, puppies to deal with (more later on that disaster), existential crises to wrestle with…

The bad is obvious- the oil spill (Spill. Right. Gusher, more like) hangs over the city like the slowest moving category 5 ever. It’s been a time of weird dread and helplessness, and it’s left everybody listless and depressed. Just when things were getting better it’s back to volunteering and bootstrapping.

And yet in the middle of the city’s misery there’s great personal happiness. Alison survived her first year of college like a champ. She was happy and healthy enough to use her world-class arguing skills to drive her mother crazy before heading to see her father in NJ for what’s likely to be her last “kid” summer vaca.

While she’s gone I’m going to have a busy summer, thanks to amazing and generous encouragement from Charlie to stay home and focus on the things I enjoy most- writing, photography, research- and see how I can make my passions pay.

It means a lot of things- for starters, shit or get off the pot, not to put too fine a point on it. (who, me? vulgar? lol) Stop dabbling, get serious, get to work, to be more precise.

It wasn’t easy to make the decision, but I took the plunge. Gave notice, and today starts my first week out in the great wide world. So wish me luck, don’t hesitate to hold my feet to the fire, and keep your fingers crossed for me.

More to come. Soon. I promise.