"He's sooooo weird"

But that's why I love him....

The minister who's marrying us ask us to provide him with a brief description of how we met, our first impressions of each other, etc. for the wedding ceremony. In my feable attempt to delegate wedding tasks, I asked my goofy fiance to take a stab at it.......(now you'll understand why I don't delegate more....)

David and Karen's (Brief) History


David and Karen met in August 2004 after a whirlwind email courtship of high-flown allusion, entreaty, rejection, persistence and surrender. Use your imagination. Despite that tumultuous preface, they soon felt assured that they should spend the rest of their lives (gulp) together.

That was about it for tumult. They came to see me [Chris M] for wise counsel on their most pressing difficulty -- the almost complete lack of argument and conflict in their relationship. Now, some of that is doubtless due to growing up in families where argument and conflict were about as welcome as a broken hip or the pox. On the other hand, Karen and David discovered, over and over, that their thoughts and tastes and opinions were almost weirdly in tune, like a Texas guitar and a Midwest piano that automatically crank out "I Loves You Porgy" in perfect harmony.

To that I can only add, "Wait till you're married."

They also had the advantage of the accumulated wisdom of more than just a couple of decades on earth. Being of a certain age -- older than the average marrying couple, let's say, for the sake of concealment -- they felt they had a pretty good idea of what they were looking for in a spouse, qualities based on more than a cool haircut and favorite indie rock band. Although, let it be said, one ignores the importance of a cool haircut at one's peril.

That said, they quickly discovered what came to be known as The Three-Month Rule. In their conflicting tendencies toward caution and eagerness to get married and have it over and done with, they found a number of instances of similarly situated couples who got engaged three months after meeting and married three months after engagement. The most high-profile example is our current president, Mr. Shrub, and his beaming wife.

The Three-Month Rule would normally entail a February wedding for Karen and David, then, which would have worked out great for a Caribbean honeymoon while everybody else was suffering the doldrums and despair of a Midwestern winter. But it was not to be. Too darn complicated. That's why we're all here today and not when snowdrifts are piled outside the windows.

Anne Lamott and other things

I'm afraid my blogging will be more sporatic as "The Big Day" approaches. My mind is crammed full of wedding details and there's not much room for thoughts other than "have to remember to call the florist," or "is the caterer going to gouge us for including 10 more people to the list?"
In order to retain some sense of sanity, I try to read and keep up with the headlines. In Salon.com today there's a great article by Anne Lamott: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/04/27/gods_warning_signs/

The title of the article is something like "God doesn't take sides." If anyone has the email address of the White House, please forward...

The wedding of doom

On the phone last night my sister, Sara, told me she suffers from guilt for not helping me with my wedding. Since she lives in Ohio, I understand why she can't drive to Chicago to help at the drop of bridal bouquet, and I told her not to worry about it. But then I remembered her wedding, and it all started coming back to me. "Yes," I told her. "You should feel guilty."

Since my sister was teaching English in China for the year after she graduated from college and wasn't returning until the month before her wedding, my mother took on the task of planning most of the wedding herself. In my mother's mind, this was going to be the wedding to end all weddings. She made (yes, actually sewed on her Bernina sewing maching) my sister's wedding dress, all of the bridesmaid dresses, the flower girl dress, AND her own dress. There were many details, and my mother obsessed over every last one of them and drove us all crazy. She turned me into her own personal wedding slave. In our family, the wedding came to be know as "Ellen B. and the Wedding of Doom" after the recently released Indiana Jones film.

After being an indentured servant most of the summer, the August wedding of my sister came and went. Of course, my mother pulled it off and the wedding of doom was beautiful. My sister and brother-in-law have been married for 20 years and have 5 children. It was the wedding to end all weddings.

Now my mom is gone, so she's not here to help me with my nuptial planning. I guess I'll have to convert Sara into a wedding slave all by myself.....

Top 10 things that are driving me crazy

10. A scatter-brained co-working who seems to have spent the past 15 years of her career scheming of ways to suck everyone around her into her dysfunctional work habits.
9. Banal wedding websites that tell me I'm four months behind on my "wedding to-do checklist."
8. Cold weather at the end of April
7. Republicans -- Tom DeLay specifically and all of those who voted for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
6. Beige cubicles
5. Day-old lettuce in the corporate cafeteria
4. Brides who are up-to-date on their "wedding to-do checklist."
3. Trying to organize transportation for the wedding weekend.
2. Reruns of "Lost"
1. Not having enough time to spend with my fiance

Psalm 40

I can't get U2's "40" out of my head....

"I will sing....sing a new song. I will sing....sing a new song."

I've been looking at the playlist from their "Vertigo" concert and the last four songs are "One", "All because of you," "Yahweh" and "40".

Psalm 40:
I waited patiently for the LORD ;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the LORD .

I once told David that I feel I spend my entire life waiting: waiting in lines, waiting for a spouse (who finally showed up!), waiting for a new job. I don't know that I can say I've always waited patiently. But looking back I have seen how having to WAIT has changed me. Made my faith stronger. Taught me how to trust in God's timing. I have been changed into a new person. I am singing a new song.....

Marriage at 40, part two

Feel I'm going mad. Wedding stress is coming out in strange obsessions. Like what my maid of honor is going to wear. Green dress? Purple dress? White suit? AHHHGGG! And I'm losing sleep over what jewelry would look best with my dress. Dangly earrings? Choker necklace? No necklace? Will my shoes make me look taller than David? Who's going to pick up our out-of-town guests from the airport? Is this wedding going to be a total disaster?

I think this is all a distraction from what's really going on: I'm getting married after being a single adult for 20 years and this is a scary leap of faith. I want to know how it's all going to turn out....what kinds of things we're going to fight about. Whether we'll get our debt paid off. If we really have the energy it takes to raise the kids we want to have. But these are all things I can't really know on this side of the "leap." And that bugs me. This has been my struggle all of my life -- wanting some kind of guarantee before I make any kind of decision. Which has left me paralyzed and risk-averse. Ultimately, I know I don't want to be like that any more. I want to know the joys on the other side of the "leap." I don't want to live a safe life. So on May 7 I'm getting married....and I'll start the adventure of marriage. Pray for me!

"Daily" entry

Okay, so my "daily" commentary is more like an "every-other-daily" commentary. My fiance pointed out that maybe I need to change the description of this blog. It's just that some days I feel I have nothing to say. Maybe it's because I'm out of practice. It's been a while since I've written on a daily basis...that is written anything other than insurance brochure copy. Yes, that's why I do for a living, I'm sorry to say. How did I end up here? When I finished my graduate degree in journalism, I envisioned a life writing stories about things that matter: women's issues, the arts, faith and culture, etc. And I did that for a while. I was a freelance writer and magazine editor. But somehow I ended up in corporate America and if I think about it too much, I get depressed. Life is funny that way. We make plans and have dreams, but somehow those dreams don't pan out and we're left a bit disillusioned. On bad days I fall into the trap of thinking that my job defines me. On good days I'm thankful I have a job that pays well, is somewhat secure, that I like my co-workers, and that lets me have 6 weeks of vacation. I can live with that...at least for a little while longer.

Marriage at 40

It's supposed to be perfect. We dream about it all of our lives. What dress we'll wear, who will be there, who our bridesmaids will be, what it will be like walking down the aisle. I want everything to be perfect, but seeing that my wedding day is only a month away, I'm coming to the realization that it won't be. I screwed up by inviting too many people. I'm not losing weight (guess what? I don't have a 25-year-old body anymore). I'm not sure I like my wedding gown. I have this fear that the whole day will be a train-wreck. Not exactly what I pictured.

But as my friends reminded me the other night....even if everything goes wrong, on May 8 I will be married to a man I love and want to spend the rest of my life with. How do I know this? Because when I told him this morning about all of my body image issues regarding my wedding day and how I feel so imperfect, he said "But you'll look perfect to me."

I'm marrying this incredible man. Here's what I love about him:
He thinks I'm beautiful.
He makes me think.
He's intelligent.
He has an incredible vocabulary.
He cleans the kitchen.
His hands are always warm.
He wants to grow.
He loves my cat.
He doesn't care that much about material possessions.
He's a wonderful musician.
He encourages me to write and sing.
He's a better writer than I am.

I could go on and on. When it comes down to it, while we dream of perfection, of how everthing will look and feel on our wedding day, maybe we have been dreaming of the wrong things. It's not how we look and how the cake will taste, but it's about two imperfect people committing to one another despite all of our faults and imperfections. It's about having the priveledge of loving someone who God has brought into my life. About getting outside of my self-obsession to give everything I have to him. If I can do that on my wedding day, it will be a perfect day....

Corporate swans

The swans are back. I think they're rented. Rented swans. They paddle across the man-made ponds here on our corporate campus every spring and summer, and remind me that this isn't all there is -- the grey cubicles, the button-down shirts, the insurance brochures, backstabbing, high-heels and proverbial corporate ladder. They bring a sense of...of...something. Nature, even though it's rented, contrasts with the everything man-made and modern. The building I work in was built in 1964, the year I was born. Typical, bland mid-centure architecture of concrete, glass, and beige brick blandness. Inside are cubicles filled with computers, stacks of paper, fax machines, telephones, and 5,000 people whose eyes are dulled by efficiency and busyness and the pursuit of something intangible and futile.

Last summer the female swans sat on their nests for weeks on end, barely moving. What patience. Finally, one morning I saw 6 gray furry heads popping up from one of the nests on the pond. Swan chicks start out grey or dirty white, and throughout the summer the shed their gray feathers and of course, turn into beautiful graceful swans. Sometimes I sit outside by the ponds during lunch and watch them paddle in a line behind their mother, mimmicking her as she preens and plucks at her feathers. I feel the warm sun on my face, and breathe the fresh air. To survive here, I have to have reminders of the outside world. Of nature. Of God's creation. And of the peaceful, quiet, patience of the mother swans. One day I saw one of the baby's curled up on the broad softness of its mother's back. How warm and safe it must have felt.

My first blog

Thinking about Terri Schaivo, the Pope, death, life, and what it all means. Unlike some people, I resist reducing Terri Shaivo's death into something as black-and-white and simplistic as what some of the "pro-lifers" are doing. I consider myself "pro-life", but what, exactly, does that mean? I hear President Bush encourage people to create a "culture of life," but is going into a pre-emptive war over oil and allowing thousands of young soldiers die cultivating a culture of life? Is supporting the death penalty pro-life? Is creating a national budget that takes money away from the poor considered pro-life? I just wish people would think a bit more. Not that I have all of the answers. If I had been Terri Schaivo's parents, I probably would have fought to the end to keep my child alive. But then I wonder why we cling so tightly to this life? For those of us who believe there is something greater than this mortal world, than this life, our faith helps us to keep perspective. This isn't all there is to the story. Maybe this life is just the beginning. Maybe Michael Schaivo, who let his wife be taken off the feeding tube, is the one who has the most compassion. What if, like Henri Nouwen (I believe) once said, that this life is like being in the womb. It's warm, and comfortable, and it's all we know. We want to stay in the womb, but we out-grow it. After the struggle of birth, we are ultimately in a much better place. Maybe this life is like a womb that we outgrow, and after the struggle of death we are ultimately in a better place.

I am not Catholic, but hearing about the dying Pope makes me sad and introspective. Either he is a special messenger of God, or he's just a regular guy, but either way he's been a great spiritual leader and seems like he's an all-around compassionate person. In some ways, having a spiritual leader like that makes me want to be Catholic. But then again, if I became Catholic I would probably end up rebelling against the all-male hierarchy and break all the rules and be excommunicated.