Haight.
Today I -
- failed to cheer my almost-wife, who is anxious and in need of validation;
- failed to get out of the house early;
- over-reacted to criticism;
- all things considered, had a very bad start to my day.
All I ask of people at the moment is to recognise that Madam and I are under a little pressure, and to be a wee bit understanding.
Right now, I feel like a failure. This will improve, I’m sure. I hope.
Nein.
Today I -
- snuggled with my almost-wife before heading out at a truly stupid hour;
- managed to get out of the house without watching the rest of Heroes (only four episodes to go – no spoilers please!);
- assembled a big list for Mr Woody (Best Man/MC) to email to him tonight;
- began the process of clearing the decks at work;
- spent far too much time playing with my blog when I should be working.
Ahem. Nothing to see here.
Ten.
The first thing our Celebrant did, on turning up last night, was apologise for screwing up the appointment. Ha! *pumps fist* He is a lovely chap, and is genuinely interested in how we’re doing.
Madam is having a day off, and hopefully letting a tradesman in this afternoon to fix the bathroom light. Lucky her.
In random social news, work has announced they’re having drinks for me on Friday evening to celebrate / commiserate. Aww. I’ll let people know about the ceremony if they’re interested in coming along. I won’t be hanging around too late, as we have dancing to go too and I don’t think I want to be unsteady on my feet *hic!*.
Work folks are being really nice about the whole thing. Next week, I’m working half a day off site, then a full day at work, then I’m off for two weeks! Huzzah!
EDIT: I had to correct Big Boss’s email, where she announced the wedding was happening on September 11. Oops. We have no need to commemorate that series of events, nor do we need to save money and get married on a Tuesday!
Meep.
Yesterday’s wedding stuff went pretty well, up to the point where our celebrant announced he had a different appointment scheduled than the one he discussed with me last weekend. Arse. So, he’ll be around this evening, then we’ll have 99% of stuff sorted and paid for, not to mention most of my niggling worries will be sorted as well.
The majority of stuff is working out better than I had hoped. The meeting with our photographer went very well. He was very helpful, and had the correct attitude to the whole schmozzle. He shared a few disasters cautionary tales with us and set our minds at ease, though I’m worried Madam may have gotten a few evil ideas…
The dinner experiment worked out rather well too. I had burritos on the table ten minutes after walking in the door, which were *urp* most satisfactory. I even got the leftovers for lunch today, yummo.
I think we both want this waiting period to just be over. Work’s been very understanding (it’s not that long since my boss got hitched), which is a relief. I just don’t have the threshold for dealing with stupid people at the moment – when one works in an IT support environment, this is a bad thing. I’m hoping to take off a bit early on Friday and chill out a little.
Shorter version of the moaning passage above – Madam and I are both in need of hugs. Your generosity will be most appreciated.
Twelve Days To Go *squeak*
.. and the wedding schedule starts to get Interesting(tm). Tonight, we have our final meetings with the photographer and the celebrant. I have a draft of the ceremony on my desk, which I keep flicking through nervously.
Things are, for the most part, well organised (entirely thanks to Madam). Frankly, I don’t know how couples cope without having everything sorted, since there seems to be enough to panic about anyway. I’ve heard enough hardship stories along the lines of ”I organised my wedding in four weeks while nursing a newborn, plus we went both ways uphill in the snow to church. And we had our honeymoon in shoebox in middle o’road!” to last me a lifetime.
Dancing went really well, after a two week break. I was a bit wary of how I’d go, but things came together really well. I got lots of affirmation – as Madam and I are contemplating having more lessons after the wedding, I had lots of compliments and encouragement. Good men are hard to find, apparently! Because we skipped out of the previous week’s lesson due to general crapitude, we get one more lesson before the big day. This should be fun, as there is another social night immediately afterwards. This is a “bring a friend” night, where there will be classes, demonstrations and apparently champagne! If anyone else wants to come along or wants more info, let me know or see Madam’s blog for details.
Yesterday’s cooking adventures were a little involved. I made last night’s dinner, then cooked up burrito filling for tonight (something to scarf down between appointments), and finally made cookies. Madam finished them off while I was editing one of her job applications, and I must say the results are *munch munch* rather nice. The recipe is rather simple (and almost committed to memory). Using dark chocolate chips balances the sweetness of the dough rather nicely. I’ve never been much of a baker, but this could be something to work on in the future.
People, on the whole, seem to be very excited about the wedding. Thanks to the folks in need of assistance who have spoken to Madam. Thanks also to people for being understanding while we quietly gibber at them about the hugeness of the Occasion, about the hopes and nerves and fears. Anticipivalence, somebody called it once. Ah well. Back to work.
Me? Fanboy? Part One
Being a fairly cynical person (particularly with regard to the Arts) I don’t get worked up terribly about popular culture. I used to refer to myself as ‘hypersensitive’ – extremely allergic to hype – most modern advertising campaigns are enough to send me running screaming. As a result, I tend to discover cool stuff relatively late.
For example, Madam and I are house-sitting a friend’s DVD collection while he’s out of town, which includes a complete Buffy / Angel set. I still haven’t seen most of it, and I tend to wander in to it when there’s nothing else to do. Is it ground breaking? Possibly. Is it all that good? Mostly. Am I ready to finally watch Once More With Feeling? I can’t say *shiver*… anyway, my point is that cult TV, cool authors etc tend to pass under my radar until everyone else I know is well and truly over it/them. There are, however, a few people and/or works that I’m grooving on at the moment.
Neil Gaiman has become my idol of late. I read Good Omens and Sandman many moons ago – while I’m not really a Pratchett person or a graphic novel reader, I enjoyed both of them a great deal. A few months ago, I bought Fragile Things, and I was hooked again. I’m a lover of short stories, and this collection of literary morsels never fails to satisfy. I moved on to American Gods, which I also loved.
So, I’m enthralled by his writing, envious of his lifestyle and (thanks to his blog) very impressed with him as a person. Doug Jones met him on the set of Hellboy II, and wrote of his down-to-earth attitude to being famous. I was particularly touched by this recent anecdote – Neil writes here about travelling, and the hardship of being separated from his children..
When Maddy was that age and younger I went away for several months to work on American Gods, and I’d still read to her every night, over the phone (she’d have a copy of the book as well at her end), which somehow helped. She’d still get half an hour or forty minutes every night, and I’d read her a chapter and then we’d talk. We’d also write poems in email back and forth. It helped — having a rhythm, having something predictable and time that was hers. And trying to make it as much of a game as we could. But it’s not perfect. And it’s never easy.
That’s very touching, and will ring true to those who read his blog. It speaks volumes that he managed to balance caring with his children with his need to hide away from the world. As someone who withers without hermit time, I’m impressed. I worry sometimes about the sort of father I’ll be; it gives me hope that I might find a decent life balance for myself.
Now that he’s enjoying a certain amount of fame, and may be on the verge of The Big Time (we’ll see how Stardust and Beowulf and Coraline (oh my!) fare at the box office), he’s still happily wandering around the world signing books and posing for photos. And now Maddy’s stepping up as occasional guest blogger and stand in at red carpet events, we’ll see how she turns out. I can’t stand twelve year old girls as a rule, but she seems pretty cool to me :-)
So yeah, I guess I’m a fanboy. Go me. More meanderings to follow, I’m sure.
All right, I have to say it..
Shorter “Strippergate” – like this incident merited a title, for God’s sake.
The fallout from this beat-up, as I see it -
- People who already hate KR now have another reason to hate him. No change.
- People who like KR will either forgive or forget. Little or no change.
- People who are thoroughly sick of the muckraking and haven’t made their minds up yet? Flock to Labor in droves.
- Kudos to Bob Brown for his killer quote – all the cries of ‘me too’ are frankly embarassing.
Bob Ellis, in one of his rambling missives, related an amusing tale. After President Carter admitted in a candid Playboy interview that he had ‘looked upon women with lust, and committed adultery in my heart many times’, Prime Minister Billy McMahon saw the opportunity and apparently pestered the poor Australian Playboy editor for his chance to show his mettle. Imagine McMahon’s quavering voice down the phone, “I too-oo have had lust in my hea-a-art..”. Folks, if it ain’t true, it oughta be. Bob, if you’re reading, please don’t sue. Cheers, mate.
- Apparently Glenn Milne has the good oil on how to behave in public when alcohol is consumed. No, I don’t have any sympathy for him or care about any mitigating circumstances – if you’re gonna play dirty, you deserve to have past indiscretions rubbed in your face.
So, no gain to be had from the whole sordid display, and the Government (and their cronies) still know no shame. Pass me the keys to Room 101 when you’re done. *sigh*
T minus 18 and counting..!
Final meetings with Useful People continue, in an attempt to stave off final week angst. We saw the DJ and the cake company on Saturday, and Madam is seeing the florist this week. Photographer and celebrant both get squeezed in on Monday evening, and we need to meet the function manager to play the great game of Table Solitaire some time. I think *deep breaths* that things are mostly sorted. Madam and I are both collapsing in a heap at regular intervals, but that’s mostly to do with the hugeness of the occasion, rather than any organisational problems.
A plea to interstate guests - given Madam’s generous offer to find accommodation for the income-afflicted, please let her know ASAP if you still need any assistance. Things are about to become frantic at Chez Nous, and much as we love you, we won’t have a lot of time to spare.
Writing has completely fallen by the way due to recent pressures, but I’m trying to pick it up again. Expect some completely random missives from my world – I may even get around to posting some writing examples. We Shall See (we’ll have the laptop with us during the honeymoon, who knows?)…
And today’s award goes to..
Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya, who has managed to get an injunction in the Turkish courts blocking access to wordpress.com. The announcement from WordPress is here - you can read more about the man and his particular flavour of barking creationism here and here.
While it’s a step back for a relatively progressive Islamic nation, and for law in general (he’s demanded that all blogs featuring his name be removed) it’s not the end of the world. Apparently only those using Turk Telecom’s DNS are blocked, and various workarounds are being put in place by Clever Folk.
Some of the comments on the WordPress post are depressing – I’d like to think people were prepared to stand up to this sort of bullying. (Now watch me close my eyes and repeat, “I am not writing an activist blog! I am not writing an activist blog!”) We now return you to the usual wedding angst HOLY CRAP^H^H^H^H^H
Did you ever have one of those days…
where you took a Mental Health Day hoping to get a whole lot of crap sorted out?
And at the end of said Day, none of the crap you had planned to sort had been dealt with, but in the corner of your headspace was a big pile marked “crap I plan to never deal with” by the trapdoor?
And with a great deal of effort (and a fair bit of emotional pain) you shoved this pile of crap out the door, and were left thinking, “Wow. That was unexpected.. but good.. I think. Oh Gods, my head hurts.”..?
Or is it just me?
BTW – I understand that we haven’t picked the standard “Toast To Music” for our wedding songs. Well, since we won’t be having a toast to the IV movement, and there will be no doubt be a few rounds of Laudate on the day, I’m not inclined to change the program. Hope folks are OK with that!
