Pants on Fire

now there is ring. now there is engagement. now, the wedding vortex looms. you know the wedding vortex. like a black hole, the closer you get to a wedding the more space and time distorts until finally you enter the event horizon and space and time cease to have any meaning at all. everything is just wedding. what time is it? wedding. where are we? wedding. would you like some more pie? wedding.

wedding.

i am getting married.

i warn you now, in all likelihood this blog will be an accurate marker of my progress towards the wedding vortex. perhaps, like a 70's disaster film, this will be enjoyable to watch. or maybe we'll be so even keel that our particular journey to the vortex will be peaceful and humorous and full of happy dancing blueberry muffins named Tony.

we shall see.

last night i was kinda bugging out about it. all that "the rest of your life" stuff combined with the successful attempts to go one evening without drinking made me squirmy. she's got this blingy-bling ring on and i GAVE it to her and soon we will be united in holy matrimony.

hah hah!

i can also now tell you about the other thing that i've been hushedy hush about: the book idea. i'm thinking about writing a book about my journey into the wedding vortex. a book that describes all the things one does (as a man) to prepare for a wedding. not a "how to get married" book, but a diary one could glean information from. starting with knowing you're ready and ring shopping to the honeymoon. what is it actually like? how do you decide if you ask her dad for permission? what's it like to tell your mom? now that i think of it, it's really a travel book. the journey into the wedding vortex. hah hah! maybe i will structure/sell it like that! and it will have a picture of me at my wedding wearing a pith helmet on the cover.

there is some chance i will write all this stuff here, blog-style, and then just compile and edit it after the wedding. if i do so, you are encouraged to add comments on your persepective on all this (whether or not you're married or a man) and then perhaps i can use your quotes in the book with permission of course.

on sunday night, we got our parents together for dinner. but, okay, i'll tell you the proposal story first. so much stuff to tell now!

getting the ring was really really really really hard. this is exactly the kind of thing you do not think about if you are a man and have never tried to get engaged before. in my head, getting a ring involved going to a few stores and picking out something really purty and not too pricey.

hah!

a) 95% of all engagement rings sold involve from 1 to 3 big rocks on a band. they all look practically identical. maybe the big rock is round. maybe it is square. maybe it is set up high. maybe one of the rocks is blue. they all cost somewhere between one and four billion dollars. they are all completely inappropriate for a woman who is a scientist and who does not regularly ask to be taken to the ball.
b) anything with any style whatsoever is hard to find and godawful expensive.

oh. but i'm talking about the proposal. so i GET the ring (from Switzerland, special order). our anniversary was sunday so i made us reservations at Chenery Park for saturday night. i'm thinking, perhaps i'll ask her at dinner. perhaps after. perhaps she'll suggest we play a game of scrabble. we first confessed our love over a game of scrabble (10/10/02).

i've been carrying the ring in my pocket for a day, just in case the right moment appeared. it's making me into a total spaz. we spend saturday cleaning the house and shopping for groceries so we will have nothing we NEED to do on sunday and we can just turn off the phones. cleaning with madhavi is fun. this is how i know i'm ready to get married. i like cleaning when madhavi's around. we finish our chores around five and she says, "how about a game of scrabble?"

gulp. i realize this is it. the time is now.

earlier in the week, i'd rummaged through the scrabble tiles in both sets we own and pulled out letters M A R R Y M E and hid them in a little bag. i grab it and manage to get to my seat at the kitchen table without her noticing it. i'm having trouble breathing. i slip the ring box into my back pocket. i go through the bag in my lap, pulling out the right set of tiles and hiding them in my front pocket. i have no idea what to do with other set of tiles and just leave them in a pile between my legs. yes. i am cheating at scrabble.

she goes first. the word is BROACH. i am having trouble seeing my letters. i spend five minutes trying to find a good word and then realize it does not matter at all. points will not really be an issue in this game. i play JOGS. she then throws down a seven letter word. if you don't know scrabble, seven letter words are the ass-kickers. you get an extra fifty points for playing one. her word is TROUBLES. her nickname for me is Trouble. i was hoping to let the game go on a little bit, but really, it's a miracle i can think at all and she's already smoking me (no big surprise) so i try to casually transfer the letters from my pocket onto my holder. i say, "i'm not sure i'm spelling this right" and play, off the R in TROUBLES:

Y
M
E

then i pause and put down the

M
A
R

and look up at her. her expression of confusion turns to full-on deer in the headlights. she's known this is coming but i've managed to make her think i don't yet have a ring. that she's safe for another week or so at least.

i walk around the table and get down on my knees. i say some very romantic things in a very wobbly voice, pull out the ring box, and ask her to marry me.

she says, "you're heart is beating so fast!" then, "yes."

the ring fits, thank god, and she seems to like it. did i mention finding a ring sucks? i open some champagne and we sit on the couch feeling stunned for a few minutes, kissing and screaming and feeling woozy. then we call our families and tell them it's all official.

or is family now? whew. we no longer have families. we have family.

that's really intense.

we're getting married.

we get this great female cabbie to drive us out to Chenery Park and when we get there, the maitre d' says, "i know all about it" wink-wink and steers us to the bar. i've noted on my reservation that it was an anniversary, so i think he's just talking about that.

nope. we get to the bar and my parents have called ahead and ordered us champagne. the bar tender asks what's going on, then advises us never to play poker. i guess we look pretty happy or something.

dinner is perfectly delicious and when we ask for the check, we're told the meal is courtesy of zella and bluma, my nieces. my sister called ahead and paid for the meal.

i can't stop staring at the ring. it's so much more brilliant than i pictured. so solid and real on her finger. the diamonds so much brighter.

we get the same cabbie to bring us home and we go to bed. engaged.

i'm engaged.

happy day.