kerouac says

school was more fun before i knew about getting married.

don't get me wrong. it's still a revelation, but. it's a lot less effort to cruise the interwebs for reception sites with a view of lake union than it is to keep reading black feminist theory.

it struck me that to the extent that anyone really wanted further information, it was possibly about the proposal and not the less-consequential details of the wedding itself and exactly which weird bourgie yacht club it's going to happen in. so, just know that the proposal was lovely, stomach viruses notwithstanding, i was wearing four plys of clothing and unwashed hair, and the campfire watched the whole thing go down. i immediately asked him to ask me again, because (and i can't believe this is true, but some weird adrenaline fight-or-flight took over my joy mechanism and it was all just SHOCK SHOCK SHOCK or mostly anyway until the next morning when we had to strike camp and make it to the airport and navigate in my good friend's corolla through NoCal and we thank god stopped here for breakfast (i'm wearing the t-shirt) where, in case you're wondering, they have splits of napa valley sparkling whatever not-champagne and it got magnificently real in this one moment and i cried and he said, that's what i thought you were going to do last night. and it was just a tiny bit delayed, but so lovely.

and after he asked me again, i asked if i could propose to him, and it totally did not come out the way i'd planend for the pulitzer people to hear it. i'm relatively sure it started with, "well, we've been seeing an awful lot of each other," and finished with, "will you be my wife?"



anyway. it's about the yacht club or whatever right now (since when has it ever been so hard to know what i want? i'm just going to say that one of my friends who put the verbal poo-poo on a venue i liked spent her wedding night in a yurt, which is lovely, but, like, why would you care if there were cobwebs present in our venue of choice if you fucking liked the yurt?)

i have to go. school is still totally hard, i'mj just spending weird 90 minute segments trying to figure out where we're getting married in between chapters. ha.

yes, more about it!

so, the monkey managed to propose the marrying at precisely the point at which i would have no free time in the foreseeable future to carry on about things all wedding. this is probably for the best, as carrying on is a special forte of mine that needs no honing, and in any case couldn't be helped, since one's ready when one's ready, and stomach viruses and ridiculous class schedules just can't stand in the way.

still, though. i want very badly to be looking at pictures of stuff online rather than writing the term paper due at noon friday.

hardest is thinking about doing everything from afar. we're going to get married in seattle. there will be a Large Nice Party akin to a reception here in what my young friend bianca calls New Nork, but it seems righter to do the marrying over there. which might mean we'll end up deciding on a space before we've been out there to look at them, since outdoor spots on the water (I Feel Strongly About Water) go fast, and i can't leave this blessed city until after labor day without total academic implosion. which, whatever. it'll do. i just sort of want to be able to get in my car Right Now and tootle out to this rowing club to see how great a wedding we can throw in it on the day when we get married. holy. shit.

no news on when that day is, but probably mid-june-mid-july of next year.

the attendants, or whatever--the bridal stewardesses--have been asked. or, mine have. he's kind of doing his own thing over there while i read derrida. and there will be one male bridal stewardess, or bridesman, or whatever we're going to call him. my mom was really confused about how i could have more people standing up than the monkey was planning to have. "how will they walk down the aisle together if there's too many girls?" baby, there may not even be an aisle. this is not nancy reagan's wedding. she told me she wished she had been able to do that: "i had to pick only two bridesmaids because your father didn't have any friends." yeow.

okay! that's all i know! i'm not wearing a ring! i wasn't sure i wanted one, but it turns out that, concerns about symbolism notwithstanding, i Really Do. so we're going to pick one out together. in the meantime, i bought a six dollar plastic one at claires, which i think is hilarious and everyone else is vaguely discomfited by. it is huge and obviously fake, and people can't tell whether they're supposed to not notice or what. a disturbing number of them actually believe it's real, and that the monkey and i would mortgage our futures for a diamond the size of a piece of party ice. or that we have some kind of rich family that we have hidden really really well. my student loans and this generic mac and cheese i'm eating are apparently a great diguise for our vast wealth.

okay for real! that's it! more when i have it!

we were camping, in the middle of tall, old trees, sitting by a fire and having a companionable drink, when he asked me to marry him.

i remember getting dressed up once for a nice evening date, and telling chris that he smelled like handsome, and he said: you smell like the love of my life.

here it comes.

school is sort of seducing me. i get angry at things that take me away from speech-act theory. do i love speech-act theory? not sure. but i sure want school to like me back. i think school does like me back, but it might be like that time with the one guy who made out with me and then got married the next week.

(to someone else.)

school is turning me into one of those people who Freaks The Fuck Out. this morning i threw a tantrum because i can't parse alain badiou and don't know how to cite a court decision using MLA style. the tantrum made me throw things around, vaguely, and stomp, and then i hit myself on the forehead with a closet door, and i thought:

it's time to stop. please, someone make me stop.

and no one did, so then i spilled a bowl of cereal on myself and started crying while i still had my mouth full.

so, school: loving it. wishing it would call back quicker. wishing i was one of those five people who sounds really really good in class, the ones who you're like, ? what part of yourself did you sell to satan to get this way?

and, it's coming. swear. not that you care so much, but: so.

so, we did some contact improv in class on friday. and some capoeira. or, at least, we got on the floor a lot.

needless to say, Nosestrip was the best contact improvisor of the group. my own experience is limited (the last time i tried it out, i ended up flashing my ass to a group of tourists at bumbershoot when fell ass over teakettle in my sundress), but working with Nosestrip brings each of us a little closer to virtuosity.

afterwards, he asked me if i was a dancer. i blushed like a schoolgirl. when i asked what he was doing over the weekend he said he was going to hang out with his babies. he has babies! two babies. he is a dad. Nosestrip is ever cooler.




confidential to everyone: it's coming, i just . . . have to do a few things first.

if you were just thinking, hey, it feels like something big is coming,

man, you are right.