Ketchup

i thought, whew, i've finally managed to buy a ring that doesn't suck and actually pull off a proposal that sounds cute/romantic/not lame when repeated seven gobtrillion times a day because everyone wants to hear the story [please note, future proposers: do not propose in the midst of acrobatic sex -- this will make an uncomfortable story when told repeatedly], now i can take a bit of a break. not deal with anything looming for at least a week or so.

nope. we now have less than a year to plan a wedding! less than a year! we must find a wedding site! now! go go go go go go!

but first, Team America: World Police. this movie has acrobatic marionette sex. and a song about how bad a movie Pearl Harbor is. a puppet sings from his puppet motorcycle: "i miss you the way michael bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor." it was so ridiculous that it actually made me stop and look at the state of the world and try to determine which was MORE ridiculous. i'm going with the state of the world.

so yeah, got a little stressed out about the wedding-to-be this past week. i think i'm afraid that for the next year there will always be something i need to be on the ball about. first finding a site. then picking a date. then trying to determine whom i'm going to be close enough to next year that i'll want to spend $150 a plate on them to the detriment of someone else because you can only fit so many people in a quaint garden setting, etc. etc.

i think i need to develop a new mantra. something like: i'm getting married for fun!

or:

this was my idea!

or:

every rose has it's thorn. just like every night has its dawn. just like every cowboy, sings his sad, sad song. (guitar solo).

hah hah! wedding! wheeeee!

i feel the pull of the wedding vortex. i will not give in to hate. to the anger. the dark side is strong, but i will not fight. if i fight, i will have already lost.

i will however continue to consider walking down the aisle to the darth vader march! dum dum dum, dum da dum, dum da dum! bum bum bum bump-a-dum, bump-a-dum!

it would be cool, more so if i wore a big black cape and had a head cold at the time.

tempting, isn't it?

so we're going to start checking out wedding sites next weekend. it will be fun! i hope. and if i start to get twitchy, i will use my secret weapon.

i will repeat this tiny little phrase which makes me smile and go a little squirmy. the phrase is:

madhavi kushner

hah!

whew. deep breath.

speaking of hah and whew, last night we went to madhavi's advisor's house for a potluck for people in her lab. i was a little worried at first because they turned off the sox-yankees game (what a finish huh? go sox!) to watch, get this, and i'm totally serious:

a videotape of an old dive transect.

a dive transect when you dive along a set path for a set period waving the camera back and forth to see what fish are there. you don't focus in on the cool fish or pause to investigate interesting things. you just wave the camera about like you have giardia and need to find the restroom quick. all the people sat around shouting out: surf perch! garabaldi! hey, that's a bonito! surf perch!

uh.

i'm sitting there, thinking about that scene in The Station Agent where they go to the train-geek club to watch film some guy shot while driving alongside a train in canada. the guy says, "this is a very dark tunnel" or something at one point, "it goes on for three minutes."

we watched two tapes of dive transects.

but at one point, i chimed in and said "hey! that's a treefish!"

this is remarkable for three reasons:

1) treefish are the fish madhavi studies
2) i have only seen one treefish in my life and that was over two years ago
3) i was watching a dive transect tape

then we ate the yummy food and i surreptitiously turned off the dive tape and everyone was really cool and we played this new game by the Cranium people called Hoopla. it was fun because it did not have a board and it's one of those everyone wins or everyone loses games. and at no point do they make you sing or answer trivia questions.

then i stared at the ceiling for half the night trying to fall asleep.

tonight my sister and her family are coming over to see our place and see the ring and this is extra significant because my brother-in-law has agreed to perform our wedding next year, so that means he is now "our rabbi" and we are meeting with "our rabbi."

hah! whew.

madhavi kushner.