I’m participating in a thread on Literotica about marriage. A couple of people said that they are only planning to have quick weddings, because they want to be married, not get married.

I have a different take on the matter. I want to get married. I’m not looking for a big church wedding or weird expensive dresses, but I’d like to have some kind of event with a pretty outfit (worth maybe about $200) that I picked out for the occasion. I want to send out invitations to my friends and circle a date in red on the calendar. The “be married not get married” thing doesn’t fly with me. We’ve been together for seven years now and we’re essentially married (witness the rings), but I’m not satisfied. It doesn’t even have to be a real wedding - we could just have a party and send out invitations and have people dress up and rent a private room at a restaurant somewhere. But I want something. Part of the reason we’re waiting is because of A’s previous experience. She was married for ten years, and she’s still very close to her ex-husband but she knows that relationships can go sour even after a very long time. So I’m basically showing that I can last longer than ten years before we get to have that party.

The reason this makes me so frustrated is because I have so many friends who are getting married and having kids. My sister-in-law got married in summer 2003, a good friend of mine got married in fall 2003, my brother-in-law’s mother got married somewhere in there, and now my sister-in-law is going to be in the wedding of another friend with whom I’m also acquainted. Plus I know a slew of people online who are getting married, having commitment ceremonies, etc. And I’ve been with A longer than any of these people have been with their partners, so every time I see somebody make an announcement part of me sneers inside my head that they’re moving too fast. I’m just jealous, of course, but I’m a bit self-righteous about it too.

Yes, we’re already married. Yes, we wear the rings. But dammit, I want that party. And don’t even get me started on all the babies everybody has been having…

Not to be confusing or anything, but I think about thinking about things. Like right now, I’m thinking about the fact that I’m thinking about writing this entry. It goes on and on in this horrendous circle until I get distracted by something else. I don’t know if anybody else does this or not! As another example, I’ll be planning out a conversation I want to have with someone, and then I start thinking about the fact that I’m planning a conversation, and then I start thinking about the fact that I’m thinking about it…well, you get the idea!

Wow, I’m actually posting in my philosophical category. Now that doesn’t see too many posts.

It occurred to me on my way to work this morning that if the world is going to change radically, today just might be the day. Why? Because of John Kerry’s planned acceptance speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention. Sure, Boston’s set up great security and all that, but I have complete faith that if terrorists really want to blow up the Fleet Center, they will. And they’re more likely to strike the DNC than the Republican convention, because they know they can keep trundling merrily along as long as George W. “Inept” Bush is in office, but Kerry might actually do something. So they’d attack Kerry, not Bush, and they’d do it today. In fact they may yet do it tonight. So I’ve kind of got this feeling that the world as we know it (even post-9/11) just might end today.

I just got out of the shower. Before I stepped in, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I think that sometimes, in the right light, I can be beautiful.

The “One Hit Wonders” show just included OMC’s “How Bizarre” in the list. The last clip from the video was the line wanna know the riffs? hey, buy the rights! I have always believed they included that because they took the damn tune from the old “Spanish Harlem” song.


Okay, I better get out of here. I just remembered I have to run by the post office too, because I think the mail has already come and I wanted to send back Memento.

Now that I have become girl-with-friends, I have also started needing to help everybody. My self-esteem is poor enough that in my head I dream of telling my friends “I’m not worth being friends with, don’t waste your time on me” and for some reason nobody around me seems to believe I could really feel that down on myself. But if one of my newfound friends needs help, I scramble to do everything possible to help them out, just so they’ll think I’m worth keeping as a friend.



Oh, and after developing and then breaking the nervous habit of chewing the flesh off my lower lip, I have picked it up again. This is not good, because it gives me headaches and makes my jaw hurt and tears up my lip and indicates I’m unhappy.

Oddly enough I find you are all special to me, even those of you I don’t know outside of LJ and don’t really communicate with much. By reading your journals I feel somehow closer to you and interested in your life. I wonder sometimes if anybody is interested in me, but I suppose people read me from time to time. Even if you didn’t I suppose I’d keep writing. But right now I’ve mostly been reading - except that I haven’t gotten caught up and I’ve got to quit. I need to cuddle with my girlfriend a bit and not still be geeking when she goes to sleep, and I need to get some sleep myself.

I was thinking “wow, the brain is a really remarkable instrument” when I realized I really hope nothing ever happens to mine. I’d hate to have any kind of terminal disease or be in any kind of major accident. In a way I feel like I already have - the battle with the urticaria - but there are things that are so much worse that could happen and I’m scared of them. I know that’s normal, but I feel like I’ve already done my cosmic time because of the hives and the mental issues. If something additionally horrible were to happen, I’d feel terribly cheated. I hope I have a healthy life. I guess I’m thinking about this more deeply than I’m expressing here, but…I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.

I wonder why I make friends and then drift away from them. I guess I’m very self-absorbed. I have a couple of people I’m really close to and stay close to, but then sometimes I’ll make a friend, talk with them a lot, get sort of close, and then - stop. This has happened a couple of times with varying consequences. Sometimes the other person is upset and thinks I’m ignoring them and manages to convey their understandable confusion - “why don’t you like me anymore?” Sometimes it’s more a mutual thing - we just stop talking. I miss the person, but we just don’t talk anymore; when the opportunity is there I don’t take it. In some of these cases I’d like to repair the friendship, but I don’t know how to get it back. Then there are also people I’d like to be friends with but just don’t put enough energy into for some reason.



I realized that for at least a couple of weeks I’ll have something to look forward to after every workday. Mondays I have class, Tuesdays will have a new Buffy for a while, Wednesdays I have class again, Thursdays I can pick up the City Paper, and Fridays I can get the Blade and then hey, it’s Friday.

Okay, so, about this candlelight vigil thing. I’m not planning to do it.



It’s not that I’m not upset, it’s not that I don’t want to show sympathy, it’s not that I don’t feel for the dead and those they’ve left behind. It’s not even that I won’t take time out from a busy evening of video games. I just don’t particularly care to participate. The flags are boring me, too. Yesterday Metro’s electronic signboxes displayed five little flags and the message “IN COMMEMMORATION” over and over when I just wanted to know the time (which is what they usually display). There were flags on the streets of my town and this morning there were flags on the front of every Metrobus. (I’m willing to bet plenty of laws about the flag will be broken.)



The thing is, see, I’m not proud to be an American. I don’t feel the need to show any solidarity. I enjoy my freedom quite a lot, but this president is not my president and this country has plenty to be ashamed of. In fact the attacks are even partially our own fault (though not the fault of pagans and queers as Falwell claims) - this foreign policy is not my foreign policy.



I realize I have not really set up my argument well here. It’s in my head, I’m just not sure how to say it. Please feel free to challenge me, ask questions, and disagree with me. Help me think about what I’m saying.



And yet I might go out anyway because I’m curious to see if anyone else does. And if I go out, well, I might as well bring a candle and light it.