But this can become complicated. It’s also led to some fascinating discussions with four, five, and six year olds. This discussion one called into question why I love Star Wars and why Inception is too complicated to be a kids’ movie. (Don’t worry, there are no spoilers.) Pretty heady for a five-minute conversation with a small child.

The six-year-old: “Monsters vs. Aliens is probably my favorite movie ever. Ever, ever. Well, maybe Cars, but that didn’t have monsters or aliens. What’s yours?”

“Star Wars.” I paused, wondering at my automatic response. Is Star Wars my favorite movie? I’ve certainly seen it enough to quote it — but by that criteria, I can also rank Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future up there with Star Wars. (All right, I admit it: the accompanying films in their respective trilogies, too, though I have Opinions about them.) What other criteria are there? A movie I would willingly watch on repeat all day long? (Under that category I can add most Disney and/or Pixar animated films; every Miyazaki film; a handful of Oscar nominated films of the last fifteen years and The Sound of Music; a handful of record-breaking blockbusters both of the critically-acclaimed and the revel-in-the-mediocrity variety.)

“Yeah,” I said, “Star Wars.”

“So why do you like Star Wars so much?” he asked. He knows exactly what movie I’m talking about although he’s never seen it. His friends have Clone Wars backpacks. He has a Star Wars: Heroes and Villains Young Reader book. He went to a birthday party where the theme was Star Wars and he brought home a lightsaber as his goody-bag prize. He knows who Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are. He understands Jedi and Sith. But he has never seen this movie.

“Luke is a farm boy who becomes a hero by rescuing a princess, eluding Darth Vader, destroying the Death Star, and saving the galaxy.” Another pause. Not only did I just give an example of Joseph Campbell‘s hero theory in a happy nutshell, but that same plot is also that of a ton of books and movies (just substitute different nouns).

He stared at me, skeptically, as if to say, “That’s all? Lame.”

I found myself compelled to add, “It’s not just the story. The characters are memorable, the action is great, and there are spaceships, blasters, lightsaber fights, and a really awesome world. It’s got the whole package.”

As I said this, I realized that part of the entire reason I love Star Wars is because it started what became a phenomenon, spawning sequels, prequels, merchandise, books (so many books!), video games — it’s a part of culture, a nerdy subset of American media culture that has influenced a generation (or two, by now) and helped pave the way for better technologies (ILM, THX, Skywalker Sound) that have influenced the way film and media have evolved in the past three decades. Not to mention Star Wars’ pop culture influences. (Just look at the Wikipedia articles.) So it’s not simply the first movie, or the first trilogy, but the entire technological and cultural phenomenon of Star Wars that makes it something I love, something I value and appreciate. I can no longer separate Star Wars the single film from Star Wars the cultural beast. As I realized this, I also realized that while I can admit the original Star Wars isn’t stylistically or artistically the best movie I’ve ever seen (and let’s not discuss the prequels, mmkay?), I can’t separate the film from the context of its time and its place in cinema history. It’s like trying to separate Dickens from nineteenth century London, or New York from its skyscrapers. For a fan of science fiction and fantasy, it’s impossible to separate Star Wars from the consciousness of American media and culture.

I think, at this point, the six-year-old was wondering why I was looking so lost. I was having something of a revelation — Do I love Star Wars because of what it represents more than the film itself? How can I even answer that? — but of course all he saw was a blank look. I have a tendency to get lost in my head and I think by now this six-year-old understands that.

“Oh, okay,” he said. His question had been answered to his satisfaction. “So what was the last movie you saw?”

“Inception,” I said. Without really thinking. Why do I do that?

He frowned. “What does that word mean?”

“Well. In the movie, the ‘inception’ is the idea of planting an idea in someone else’s head. In their dreams.”

“Did you like that movie?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“Why isn’t that movie your favorite movie, then?”

I stalled. That’s actually a good question, I thought. Stylistically, aesthetically, in terms of the effects and the vision, it was pretty excellent. Is it too new to be in my top favorites? Is it too controversial? In the days since, I have read quite a few reviews about it. I’m still wondering what to think, how to interpret it. I kept guessing throughout the movie, throwing my theories against the inside wall of my brain only to see the plot shoot them down later in the film. In a word, though, it was brilliant. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen it once,” I said.

“So it’s about dreams,” he said, going back to what I’d said earlier — did I mention he’s a very smart kid? — “dreaming and ideas?”

“Yep.” And, because I had only just seen it that same morning and I was still itching to talk about it to someone, I added, “It’s about what happens if people can go inside other people’s dreams and change them.”

He grinned. “Oh! It’s a kids’ movie!”

“Oh. No. It’s not.”

“But it’s about going inside other people’s dreams. That’s cool. That could be a kids’ movie.”

I imagined, for a moment, Inception as a kids’ movie and had a wild notion of kids playing with dreamscapes and getting in trouble. Star Wars, I thought, is something of a kids’ movie. But not Inception. Could I explain it to him somehow? Then I recalled the time when the six-year-old, at age five, asked me to explain multiplication and division to him. He’s a math whiz, so I did. I struggled to conceptualize it in a visual way for him to understand. Explaining about dividing apples among children as my example, he understood the principle of division — but didn’t want to try it in practice. (He was five. That’s okay.) Multiplication, though. That was hard. So to explain the complexity of this film to a young audience? One would have to be terrifically gifted or terrifically crazy.

“Maybe. But this one isn’t. It’s too complicated.”

“Too complicated how? You can explain it! Come on, come on, please?”

I really wanted to find a way to level with him, that impulse of being straight and honest with all kids as much as I can. But sometimes, it’s better just to give the simple answer. “I can’t explain it. Why don’t you go set up a game to play?”

“PLEASE!”

I sighed, seeing the look. The I-won’t-give-this-up-because-I-need-to-know-PLEASE-tell-me look. “It’s not a kids’ movie because it’s a grown-up movie. Okay? That’s just what it is.” Christopher Nolan, I thought, you have just made me give a blow-off answer to a small child because of your dastardly fascinating film. Why couldn’t Inception’s plot have been as simple as Star Wars’? But then, I wondered, would I have loved Inception so much had it been simple — would anyone have loved it? Its beauty is in its complexity, as perhaps Star Wars‘ is in its simplicity.

“Aw, okay, fine,” he muttered, then went to set up Connect Four.

Kids these days, I tell you. They make my brain hurt.

First of all, it’s June. Where the blazes did half of 2010 go already? Secondly, there are many happenings this month so far. It’s my last month of the day job before summer vacation (sweet!) and I cannot wait until I have all of that glorious writing time. Because it will be glorious. As it is, I can’t dig into a local café (and there are tons in Williamsburg) for more than an hour before I need to get back to work/life, and one of my favorite places to write is at a café, with an iced coffee or tea sweating on the table beside me.

Then, nearly every weekend this month we have friends visiting from out of town. It’s a magical time when friends visit. It gives us an excuse to stop being homebodies and actually explore this fantastic neighborhood and the entire city, making us feel better about the money we’re spending. We’re seeing a Broadway show! There are street fairs! Museum exhibits! Good times to be had by all! If left to our own devices I will hide in a corner with my laptop and the boy wonder will play a game (or, now, play with the kitten)… or I’ll play a game (oh, Little Big Planet, you are addictive), or we’ll cook or bake… But we live, as so many people remind us, in frakking New York City! Which apparently obligates us, by virtue of the necessity of allowing others far away to live vicariously through us, to go “out” and “have fun.” We do. Just last week, we were invited to Milk & Honey, a bar that is not myth! I had two of the best cocktails I’ve ever had in my life. But we don’t do that kind of thing all the time. We strive to live sustainable lives.

The “New York City life of a twentysomething” is one stereotype I’ve never fully understood. (There’s an episode of Sex and the City that goes into this; twentysomethings here are supposed to live lives of fun, carefree frivolity involving many one-night stands and much alcohol, the kind of lives that thirtysomethings and fortysomethings regard with mild jealousy. This confuses me!) But how can a twentysomething (who isn’t one of the rare 6-figure earning twentysomethings, or who doesn’t have daddy’s credit card) actually afford to go out all of the time, especially in an economy where so many people in our age bracket are losing their jobs? Unless you love dive bars, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, or you know someone who can pull you into a “cool” place, bypassing an expensive cover, going “out” costs add up. Usually going out makes more sense than, say, having a house party — especially when a lot of people I know are either renting rooms in multi-room apartments with relative strangers, living in a “box” of a studio (which we did! We did that!), or living outside the city entirely (which makes grabbing a group together to go to their place a trek rather than a casual jaunt).

This phase is a unique one: the post-college, pre-”real life” phase of learning to be an adult, finding a grown-up identity (because, yes, that identity we discover as teenagers gets smashed by college, then that collegiate identity gets ripped apart by the “real world”…) All of that fun stuff! I’ve been told a lot, by a various folks that the twenties are “a magical time” or somesuch, that I mustn’t “squander” my time, that I need to “live life while I still have one.” Um, what? (Does that mean that one’s life ends with marriage and/or children? Really?) Do those people realize that telling me that is akin to telling a teenager that they will “get over” all of their teenage drama and hardships, that they just have to “suck it up and deal”? (Because I was told that. That being a teenager was a phase I needed to push through, like slogging through mud, and I’d get through to the other side filthy but whole. Thanks, advisors, for telling me that. Helped so much with the day to day of teenage life, knowing that I was sunk neck-deep in mud out of which I’d eventually discover how to crawl.)

I didn’t know how to deal with that well-meaning advice then, and I don’t really know how to live without “squandering” my life now. What does that even mean? Perhaps it’s because I spend part of my days with a lot of New York City moms — every conceivable (positive and negative) stereotype of them — and all sorts of babysitter/nanny-types. A lot of them ask me the usual questions, get a little picture of me, then proceed to give me life advice. Sometimes there are some pleas — “Don’t have children yet! Please! Don’t! Doooon’t!”) Sometimes there are lectures: You should do this. You should do that. (Because I’m asking for it? Like I was when I was a teenager? I am definitely the kind of person who enjoys making and learning from her own mistakes rather than getting inundated with well-meant but not applicable advice, thank you!) I heard a peer say that the twenties are for partying, the thirties for marrying, the forties for kids. That was the life plan, and she was following that perfectly. Plenty of time, later, for “important things”! Some moms have made similar comments. Why are you married so young? The twenties are a time for freedom! (Because a marriage isn’t… free? Because one can’t do what one wants to do… while also in a committed relationship?) This is not to say that one ought to be in a relationship, please don’t get me wrong, but can’t we make our own choices? Can’t we decide that being committed is just as fun as being single, simply different?

This whole sensation, this well-meant advice about how I ought to be spending my twenties, is very similar to what people said when we got engaged. That for a forward-thinking, modern, feminist woman to be engaged! Before thirty! Oh dear me! What is the world coming to? My response then was, well, wasn’t the feminist movement — isn’t it still? — ultimately about freedom of choice? The ability for a woman to make individual life choices that suit her, not ones that should suit all women or ones that used to suit most women? So why am I supposed to be living my twenties in one way? It’s almost as if there’s this implication that my example pulls down the average for all free, single-life loving twentysomething women everywhere. I’m ruining the curve, oh no!

If I lived in a different state, in a small town, would it even be weird for me to be married? Some kids I went to high school with have kids now. I read a piece in New York Magazine this week, a brief spot on 26-year-old Leelee Sobieski. About being a “young” mom, she says,

“People in the middle of America have babies at my age,” Sobieski says. Had she and Kimmel planned to be parents this early? She pauses. “We fell in love,” she finally says. Still, “I wish I had a girlfriend that had a baby. That would be so nice. I feel like I’m doing this thing that’s really weird, but I look around me and realize that everyone has babies. Look at all these people! So what?”

This is, I think, what some people who have urged me to “live life!” in my twenties are worried about happening to me. That now that I’m married, logic says BABIES! and clearly, babies will ruin my stereotypical twentysomething fun. Some mothers (especially some of the mothers I’ve met who had their first children rather “late in life”) have even expressed mild skepticism when I say we’re not planning on babies yet. (Clearly, I must be mistaken, because I am married. CLEARLY. Women who want no babies, who are married? I feel your pain. Why does society insist on it? Can’t it be up to us?) If I spend a Saturday night — or Memorial Day Weekend — at home, watching TV, cooking dinner, playing the PlayStation… why is that wrong? Someone asked me recently what I’d done over my holiday weekend. Did I go on vacation? Did I go to the beach? Did I leave the city as one ought? No, I said, we stayed in. We adopted a kitten. We made hanger steak. There was a significant pause. “Why didn’t you go out?” I paused. “Should we have?” They paused. “Well, we had fun this weekend! We went to X, we did Y…” Well, good for you. No, really — good for you; I’m not bitter. I had fun. You did, too. Yay for all!

I don’t know where this rant is going — do rants go to any sensible conclusion? But the bottom line is that I am in my twenties and I am having fun. I’m not living my life with any regrets and it bothers me that some people assume I am because I’m married, because I’m… I have no idea! Well, people will assume and I can let them. I’m happy and I’m enjoying the experience that is my life, in all of its uncertainties, new experiences, and happy days of relaxing in front of the television or cooking dinner with my husband (and kitty!). We do things, too. Maybe they’re not the things other twentysomethings do, but we’re not interested in being them. We’re interested in being us. A lot of the “grown ups” I’ve gotten to know the last year assume that there’s something wrong with my life because I’m not following the life path they followed. Some have blatantly judged me for it. To them, I say: I’m doing just fine, thanks.

Tomorrow night I have the opportunity to represent Carnegie Mellon at a college fair in Staten Island. The idea of representing CMU is exciting, but the idea of trekking an hour and a half to do it… well. I’m less enthusiastic. The boy says he will accompany me (as he’s also an alum) but he has the obligations of the office to attend to first, so he may not make it. Leaving me to brave the wiles of Staten Island and its transportation system alone. I am not afraid of the Staten Island Ferry. Nope. No sir. I’m not afraid of the Staten Island train and/or bus system. Noooope. Maybe anxious about being late. But I have optimistic hopes about my ability to navigate correctly! So long as the subways are operating and they can get me downtown in a timely manner, things will be all right. Is it weird to say I am valuing this experience as an adventure? As G. K. Chesterton said, “An adventure is merely an inconvenience rightly considered.” THUS. Adventure. In Staten Island.

In between the work I need to get done this week, I’ll have to finish packing. Friday we have the closing and other such wrap-up events, followed by our thrilling trip to IKEA Brooklyn in Red Hook (which, for those of you as almost unfamiliar with Brooklyn geography as I am: it’s far from Williamsburg). Once we buy up half the store, we’ll give it to them for delivery. Then we’ll go home, get a meager amount of sleep, then haul ourselves (with supplies) down to the brand new home and get to painting. Two rooms, one day of mayhem. I’ve painted rooms before (with help) but the boy hasn’t — not really. So it’s yet another inconvenience we must rightly consider to be an adventure. We’ve chosen the colors (yellow for the living room, blue for the bedroom — let’s call them that instead of the palette color names for them). My only sticking point with painting is that I must have a Home Depot painting hat. MUST. Even though it’s water based paint, I am paranoid. That, and a yellow glob in my hair will happen, given my nature, so I’d best be prepared.

At some point during the weekend, a fellow will arrive to measure the windows and attempt to sell us expensive window treatments. We may actually buy them from him. At another point, FreshDirect will arrive and bring us delicious groceries. See how I’m planning this? See how many ways this could all end up crazy? Or maybe you’re not like me, not looking for the possible ways everything could Murphy’s Law on us. Maybe I am, again, exaggerating.

Once we finish the weekend chores, it’s back to the rental for packing the remainders. The computers, the electronics, the clothes, the dregs. Monday morning, at the shiny hour of 8 o’clock in the morning, the moving folks will arrive and we’ll begin the day of mayhem. (I plan to wake several hours earlier, because I am a masochist, and finish the last-minute stuff then.)

That is, of course, assuming the potential doorman strike in New York City, planned to potentially start tomorrow, doesn’t happen. If it does happen — and if it continues all the way through to the weekend, we may have to cancel the move. The building may allow us to move in anyway — it’s up to management, regardless if there are building staff on premises — but I’d need to double check. So maybe if I wasn’t articulating the Murphy’s Law paranoia potential clearly enough, it’s clearer now? This whole thing is actually nerve-wracking. After all of the packing, the buying-a-condo stress… to have the strike happen, to complicate our move? Not that I am taking sides in the conflict, mind you, but I just really want some resolution so that life doesn’t get too interrupted for anyone. We can’t be the only ones moving this week. (Some buildings will not allow a move at all during a strike.) Insanity! Okay, not really, but you get what I’m saying. (See? I really have to work at overcoming my hyperbolic tendency, don’t I?)

The thing about the strike that’s been annoying me — the way it’s been handled in general by the media in New York — is this: it’s not about doormen holding open doors. That’s not really what a doorman, or building staff, is really responsible for, though it’s the most visible thing they do. They are behind-the-scenes miracle workers, really. The entirety of a building staff — and it’s not just “upscale” 5th Avenue buildings, mind you! — are involved in every aspect of making one’s life in an apartment a seamless living experience. The trash, for instance. That doesn’t get picked up by sanitation by itself. The recycling, the UPS guy, the overflowing toilet. These things get taken care of by the lovely people who work in our buildings. So when I hear people saying, “Open your own doors!” I get annoyed. I don’t live in an expensive building, nor are we moving to some posh ridiculous building. But these large buildings function much in the same way companies do, and the “little guy,” shall we say, is just as valuable in a building as he is in the corporate structure. Not to take sides, but really, I dislike when people misunderstand all the building folks do — or treat them as less than human beings (which I see happen! AHHH!). So basically I’m just saying I hope it gets resolved and everyone’s happy, because I hate to see these sorts of conflicts escalate.

So this is my week. Not too crazy by normal standards, but I’m still anxious it’s all going to work out. Not to mention the fact that I have queries and partials and fulls in the tubes, and I am worrying incessantly about them, too. But there’s nothing I can do now that my writing is in others’ hands except wait, so I may as well put my worrying energy elsewhere. Like into packing. Or reading. (Did I mention I have a ton of to-be-read books still on the bookshelf that haven’t been packed — because somehow I am convinced I might read one or two this week? Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs, Tales of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing V. II by M. T. Anderson, Senrid by Sherwood Smith… I really should pack a few of them up, huh. Not yet…

The most intriguing change, though, is our search for a house — and by “house” I mean “apartment” or more specifically “condo” — in New York City. Oh, the joys of experiencing the real estate market! Since the husband’s promotion (probably didn’t mention that, did I? Yeah… he got promoted. Smart boy!) he’s been on the hunt to buy. Buy. This is both exciting and nerve-wracking. I am not mentally adult enough to think that we belong at this point, but it’s been a year since the wedding and, well, when is one “ready” for a step like this, anyway? Disregarding my artistic contribution as stay-at-home-writing-machine (along with my occasional small-child-supervising gig) we have the ability to buy a house. (The boy is a numbers man; I believe him.) So the prospect of no longer paying rent to the rental property gods of Manhattan is actually realistic. Exciting!

As to where we may move… that’s the interesting part. We’re looking at Brooklyn, as well as other parts of Manhattan, but mostly Brooklyn. Having spent years in Pittsburgh with its small-town artsy/industrial neighborhoods, Brooklyn hits us as home in a way that surprised us. (That, and the commute for the boy is great.) I’m looking forward to the change and hoping the whole buy plus move endeavor isn’t as stressful as my mind is beginning to think it may be. Everyone I’ve talked to about buying versus renting agrees it’s a change but then, it’s not a huge change. It’s just something to which to adapt, just like any other change — right? I hope it turns out that way!

So in the next month I may find myself a soon-to-be Brooklyner. Is that the vernacular? I guess I’d better start researching on the Interwebs. In two and a half years I’ve become so much of a Manhattan girl that thinking of labeling myself as a Brooklyn girl feels a bit strange. But then, it felt weird to move to Manhattan after Pittsburgh… and so on. I think of this, this entire year ahead of us, as an adventure. I love a good adventure.

Well, not really. I’ll explain.

The breakneck pace of my NaNoWriMo project this year was due in part to a lot of factors. It was a story I first wrote, in a version absurdly different from the way I see it now, back in 2000/2001. I’ve rewritten it top-to-bottom at least three times now, and in each version markedly different things happen but it’s the same world, same basic story. The three main characters are always the same three folks. I know them absurdly well. I even transposed their odd story onto a screenplay I wrote in college, for no other reason than I couldn’t think of what else to write for my assignment and these characters are old friends. But back in 2007 I imagined a vastly different background for the characters which gives a different gravity, a weight to the story that was never there. But I never wrote more than a vague scene and some notes on this new direction. I realized that this change was so big I had to delete certain characters I’d known for a draft or two, create entirely new ones, re-imagine old ones, and utterly alter the nature of the plot’s movement. (And that was scary and a huge thing to just… start one day!) My ideas for this draft were the same but the events leading to them were different, things like that. I was afraid to actually write it at last, I think. But I needed a project for NaNo and I think NaNo is the perfect opportunity for a writer to just take something off of their already large to-do list and just do it (as opposed to the way a non-writer approaches NaNo).

So I approached this year’s NaNoWriMo as my excuse to finally write this idea down, as I said a few weeks ago here. That helped my ability to punch this story out in 20 days, certainly, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t pretty much flying by the seat of my pants every day all the same. I also devoted a good 8, sometimes 10 hours a day to the endeavor, and had a lot of output as a result of the time I put into it. (And no, my fingers can’t fly over keys for all of those hours straight. I am easily distracted.) Some fascinating things happened. I was confident in my point of view and its changes. (Point of view is usually my hardest single choice in a draft! I agonize! Not so in this one.) I seamlessly slid into the persona of these old, beloved characters, even though I threw things at them I didn’t even know I’d hidden up my subconscious sleeve. It was glorious fun.

But now that I’ve done all of that, finally written down the meat of the story (and I’ve outlined what the rest of the story will be) I am looking at December quite differently than I looked at October and November. I’m realizing that while I can probably sit and finish my NaNo novel and make it what I know it will be now, I also have an obligation to myself to finish my 2009 WiP, the very same one I started during my self-imposed JaNoWriMo last January, the one I’ve been working on in earnest rewriting and polishing since the summer. I’ve made the [rash?] promise to myself that by 2010, I will finish it. Which means… 31 days from now. It’s only about 20 or 25,000 words away from completion. That’s half of NaNoWriMo’s sheer output demand. Theoretically as I wrote 50,000 words in 20 days, this 20,000 word chunk should be… well. Shouldn’t be too onerous for a 31 day task.

Now that is a hell of a lot scarier to me than NaNoWriMo. My WiP is a rewrite. Granted, I’ve diverged [at times majorly] from my first draft in this rewrite, but I still know where I’m going and [pretty much] how I’ll get there. (Rather, I know the major things I need to hit and where it will end, but the details are foggy. I am a write-to-know details person.) But finishing denotes… finality. I think I need to do it to prove to myself that I can wrap this thing up tight. Then, once I’m content with that, I’ll go back to this year’s NaNo, revisit my other drafts set in that same world… oh, the many things I must do. Oh, yes, and begin the query process. For the first time ever. The funny thing is I’m not nervous about querying so much as nervous about what happens when (“when” because, recall, I am cheekily optimistic) it all happens. When this amorphous agent wants me as a client, when they sell my book to a publisher…. I’m nervous about being a real grown up. Not about being a writer — I’ve been a writer since I was twelve, for goodness’ sake; I have a degree in writing! — but about being a real freaking grown up. I am too old to be nervous about that! But… still. Part of me wants to go tell my story to my Barbies and call it a day, like I did when I was twelve. But I’m too old for that, too.

Oh, December… how exciting you shall be…

I have to post today, if for no other reason than to electronically shout, “September 9, 2009 — 09/09/09!?” and giggle. When the year 2000 came upon me, it was something of an amusing idea that the next twelve years would be filled with one day a year of “02/02/02″ and other such dates of default awesome. Once we have 12/12/12, though, that’s it for a century. I used to think that meant I was living in special, auspicious times. Perhaps numerically, that’s still true.

Today was another significant day around the neighborhood, though it mostly passed me by. Dozens of school children were on the neighborhood streets today. It was the first day today for most of them, which always makes me feel old now a days. I get nostalgic, too; I actually glanced at kids’ sneakers and backpacks today and yes, they were all brilliantly un-scuffed and hardly worn. As a kid, that was always my favorite aspect of going back to school — the new stuff. New clothes, new shoes. For years I’d had to get a new pair of school sneakers (had to have them for gym class) every year and retire the old ones, which always struck me as both a fun rite of passage but also something of a sad one. I have fond memories of some of those shoes. One pair I’d worn mostly to pieces; years later I found sand and grit still embedded in the blue canvas fiber, leftover from all the times I’d gone sloshing in summer mud with them.

In other update-type news, I’ve been busy. I’ve been rereading some stuff and writing — writing a lot and often — which has been both successful and marvelous, but I do admit, part of me wishes I had both the time and the inclination to read as many new books as I did months ago. In 2007 and 2008, for instance, I devoured book after book on a weekly, if not occasionally daily, basis. But I think my college-starved voracity has stabilized.

(I didn’t read for pleasure in college — at all — until some time during my senior year, which left me feeling quite vaguely bereft until I got my New York Public Library card and its attendant addictive benefits. Studying abroad was probably what ignited the passion for reading once more; turns out when you don’t have a TV in your dorm room in a country where the TV is also not in your native language, but you discover their bookstores carry English language books… well. The rest is chronicled in back entries of this blog.)

I’ve actually been buying books lately, too. For a writer, I don’t really own as many books as I’ve read, which has always struck me as practical (I love my library and my library card!) but also a bit strange. I actually started acquiring new additions to my permanent collection for the simple reason that I wanted to reread them and well, that’s usually my only criteria for a bookstore run. If I’m going to read a book more than once, I will own it, otherwise it’s wasted shelf space. I suppose this means my permanent collection is very well-distilled, by default — only what I consider “good” or those books I’ve gotten as gifts usually end up there. The bookshelf it’s currently piled on (a Billy bookshelf from IKEA, a classic) has shelves stacked two rows deep. We should probably invest in a second bookshelf — well, technically the collection has spilled onto other shelves, but I’m not going to count those — but meh. I know where all of my books are, even if the 800+ page ones are stuffed in the back behind the 300 page ones. (Spine-reading efficiency, you understand; my entire bookshelf is categorized by sizes and shapes, then author and genre. Aesthetics come first on the bookshelf.)

September is probably my month of nostalgia. I do feel it, a little, in May and December (May for school, December for holidays and the new year), but in September that feeling is compounded by my love of learning. I do miss school, the regimented feel of it, the focus and definition it gave me, though strangely I really have no particular desire to go back there now. I just miss the first day of eighth grade. The first day of second grade. Those first days when the binders were too new to have broken rings, when you could make promises to yourself you’d end up breaking  (“I’ll do my homework this year the moment I get home. I won’t procrastinate.”) and you could at least try to reinvent yourself. I have no desire for any of those things now a days, not really, but there’s no real “first day” for me anymore, not in the same way. January 1st is just cold. I think I’m finally starting to understand why parents make such a big deal out of the first day of school for their kids. Maybe the importance of the ritual, the time of year, the newness and excitement of it all isn’t just for their kids.

It touched me. The American Express customer service representative really hit a nerve with that, in a good way. How often does that happen?

I considered: no one has ever said that to me regarding this wedding, not my mother, not my future mother-in-law — not that I’d expect either of them to say it — but it really hit me: This is my wedding. My one wedding, knock on wood. All of the absurdities, the last minute expenses, the details, all of the silliness and the stressful things and the addenda… this is all for this one important thing. And it’s a small wedding, nothing major, and it’s very laid back, but it’s also the only one I’m getting. We have a reception in May with my in-laws and their extended family/friends, but this ceremony, this thing… this is it.

Having realized that, I am determined to stop stressing so much and just float along the next few days. All of the pieces of the puzzle are laid out on the table and they’re sliding into place one by one. It’ll all be done, regardless of how smooth it all ends up being, by March 7th.

Meanwhile my writing muse has fled in favor of the minor deity of wedding planning, and I’m trying not to obsess over it. Whether or not I finish the draft before the wedding is immaterial, I’m trying to convince myself. Because I will finish it and really, no one will fault me for [finally] hunkering down and getting all of the last minute details figured out for the wedding. I only have a bit more than a week left and I’m determined to do this wedding right, just as the lady said. Even if it — sniff — means I’ll have to put the draft on hiatus until it’s done and done. But that’s okay. I don’t want to have any regrets about the could have, should have of the wedding planning. So far I’m satisfied (with everything but the amount of money we’re spending, ugh) but it’ll take work to keep it that way.

I’m excited.

Yes, it’s old news, generally, for people who know me, but it’s also shockingly real all of a sudden. Between today and yesterday two boxes from Papyrus Custom Printing arrived containing — hoho, you guessed it — custom-printed wedding announcements and thank you cards. So it’s all slowly becoming more real. That and the fact that the year is currently 2009 and is thus the same year (two thousand nine) that is printed on everything it’s no longer a vague “future” thing. It’s rapidly becoming a now thing.

The funny thing about all of this is that the actual exchanging of vows — or, well, not that; the actual signing of the documentation legally declaring us husband and wife – is the easiest part of the thing. It’s absolutely everything else that’s going to have the possibility of driving me crazy.

stress vs. willingness to spend

I’ve decided it comes down to something that can be explained graphically, and so I made a quick graph in MS Paint, old-school style. Basically I believe that the more or less you’re willing to spend, the less stress you have because if you’re not willing to spend much at all, you can’t have much, and if you’re willing to spend endlessly, you can hire someone to stress out for you. But if you fall any where in the middle, you eventually succumb to a certain amount of stress. The middle is where I estimate you’re willing to spend enough money to get everything exactly the way you want it to be but you’re not willing to go the extra step and hire a wedding planner to do it for you. I bet there’s a lot of room for argument with this graph but for the point’s sake, let’s go with it.

I’m somewhere on the rapidly increasing slope of the first part of the curve, where we’re not willing to spend much but by that token that means we have to do everything ourselves and we have to make certain sacrifices in order to ensure we don’t spend more than we actually want to spend. This complicates matters rapidly. Like choosing a photographer. Do you all have any idea what photographers charge now a days, especially when you have Keyword: Wedding as part of the transaction? Or a florist? If it’s just for some event, that’s one thing, but you throw in the word WEDDING and the prices skyrocket. It’s annoying. Really. This is part of what I hate about the wedding industry. (Other things include special cake servers encrusted with pearls and your monogrammed initials, EW; the list goes on.)

I hate that you can’t have an inexpensive wedding yet classy wedding. (Another graph: cost vs. “class.” You can imagine how sharply the slope inclines in that one.) It’s impossible. We chose up front to do the one thing guaranteed to keep one kind of cost down: we’re inviting only a select group of people, not all one hundred plus potential people we listed early on in the process. I just mailed twenty — twenty – invitations today. That basically amounts to forty people, maxiumum. That few meant stamps, invitations, and up-front costs are down. Favor costs are down. Food and drink costs are down — there just aren’t that many mouths to feed, so we can get elegant in food and beverage choices instead of going hick to be cheap. Reception site: we were able to get one that fits 100 people reaonably comfortably which will be just roomy for the forty of us.

However, regardless of how many people are going to the wedding, the photographer still charges for X amount of time and X amount of photos. There is a limited window of negotiation. We’re going to negotiate the heck out of it. Florist — there’s going to be a cost to that because of the Keyword: Wedding issue, but we’re only ordering a handful of tasteful little — tiny, really — arrangements for little tables, plus the usual lapel & bouquets. But as there’s only one Best Man and one Maid of Honor, no additional wedding party folks, that means we don’t have to go crazy expensive by any stretch. (I also have flower tastes that run basically only to peach/cream/white roses, nothing like orchids or calla lillies or gerber daisies, nothing crazy unusual or expensive.) So that’s one thing.

All of it, regardless of our cost-cutting methonds, makes Bryan and I wince a little. We knew from the start we’d be doing this wedding ourselves — our invitations are written from us, as etiquette states the people who pay for the party are the ones who are “hosting” thus from whom the invitations technically come. We also knew we wouldn’t want to wait very long to be able to really afford more (we were more inclined to go to City Hall and get it done, really, rather than waiting another two years to save up to have a big wedding). Honestly, even if we could afford a BIG wedding, neither of us wanted one. Neither of us is into complicated things. We like simple. Easy. Stress-free. But unfortunately even this path that we’re taking, while it looks on the outside to be stress-light, is actually more stressful than we really anticipated.

Or maybe it’s just me. Bryan is more or less mellow but I find I am starting — starting — to agonize a little about the details. I really know I shouldn’t. I should really stop thinking about any of it. All of it. I went ahead and did all that I’ve been able to do this early in the game and I think that’s a lot. I’ve been trying to keep on top of everything. All of the details. It’s agonizing, really, when it comes down to it, because I am a detail person. I can’t even write if it’s not in the right font. When anything remotely associated with the wedding comes across my vision and it’s not the way I want it I have to struggle to tell myself not to get involved or worried about the details where I can help it.

This morning at the post office, I discovered that the “wedding” stamp, a white heart on an ivory background, was 59 cents but because our envelopes had something “three-dimensional” (i.e. a ribbon) in it, I needed to pay a surcharge per envelope, making the stamp cost 62 cents. The 62 cent stamp was a green dragonfly. The envelopes were ivory; the wedding stamp was ivory. I had a moment — a fraction of a second moment — where my inner monologue was made up entirely of shrieking, agonized profanity. The perfectionist in me was clawing at my insides, desperate to make myself say, “Let’s go with two 59 cent stamps per envelope because they are the wedding stamp and they match so perfectly. The unnecessary cost is worth the effect of the cute little stamps on the envelopes.” Instead, I decided to go with the green dragonfly stamp. It’s classy. Yes it is. I tell myself this. I have been telling myself this. It’s also better than the 59 cent stamp and a 3 cents stamp (or 3 1-cent stamps) per envelope. I had to strike down the urge. It’s only the envelope of the invitation! You’ve written out every single address in the proper etiquette with your nice script handwriting and it looks lovely and classy but it’s only the envelope! The clerk at the post office looked at me strangely. She looked so regretfully at me, too. It was as if she anticipated the breakdown or the hissy fit. She looked at me, rumpled layers of clothing, damp ski jacket, pink extremities, and I swear her look told me, “You can break down, now, I’ll understand and sympathize.” It was surreal. I calmly and detachedly stamped all twenty envelopes, dropped them in the box, and walked out. Do you see what I mean about willingness to spend versus stress? I might have paid $15 more for double the unnecessary stamps to make ‘em all “pretty” but I’m not willing to, so I sacrificed that for a brief moment of stress indulgence. Sigh.

Thinking about it more, I realize I’ve gotten the look a few times now. The “Oh, she’s the bride, if it doesn’t go her way she’ll throw a fit, so let’s be prepared for it” look. Sometimes it’s tinged with sympathy, as if it’s really fine — accepted and expected! — for me to indulge in a fit because it’s practically my duty as a bride to throw a fit or ten; sometimes it’s tinged with resignation. The David’s Bridal clerk was looking a little resigned to me throwing a fit when the gown I wanted wasn’t in stock pretty much anywhere so I’d have to order it blindly if I really wanted it. But I didn’t throw a fit, I approached it all with an almost clinical practicality. If anything I was actually a bit snarky, more or less because I hate dressing rooms. Hate. Hate. Hate. (If she would have tried to come into the room with me I would have thrown a fit. Yep, and it’d be my ordained right to throw a fit, too.) I tried on 6 dresses and each one was not perfect and I was shrugging about it, dancing around in the gigantic flourescently white things, saying exactly whatever popped into my head. “Meh, this one’s too crusty with sequins. I’m not getting married in Vegas.” Or, “This one’s visible boning makes it look a little cheap. I’d much prefer the hidden boning.” “This one’s bodice is a little low and slices into my boobs uncomfortably. I don’t want to be a slutty bride, thanks.” And what was really funny was that the bridal consultant still didn’t get a sense of my personality after all of that, even after I really blatantly said I can’t wear strappy heels because my feet will hurt so stop pushing them on me or that the ridiculous foam thing they pretended was a bra was actually horrifically uncomfortable so I don’t want to buy it for $75, thanks. Hm, I suppose I was sort of rude. I said it very politely with a smile, maybe that helped. My mother was also there being judiciously practical with a hint of emotion leaking through now and again. (I think she too is realizing the ritualistic aspect of this is just about real now.) Also, the more I think about it, I think I was deliberately pushing on the snark because I was refusing to get all gushy about it. (High gush factor in a bridal store dressing area. HIGH GUSH FACTOR. I hate being gushy. Hate hate hate. Just like dressing rooms!) I refuse to be a girly girl about a lot of things, and being all “Aw! I’m in wedding dress! Prance, prance, prance!” probably would have made me vomit a little. Thus the snark. Make everything into one big joke or criticism fest and the sentimentality gets shoved aside. I couldn’t even bring myself to smile in the pictures my mother took of me in the trial gowns. 

(Naturally I ended up ordering my dress blind — the size will work, no worries — and I figure that’s the best thing all around. Dressing room was for almost naught, though, tear, tear a little for that.)

I think as things move along, I’m going to either get snippier, snarkier, cooler, or gushier. (I’m going for snarky cool — detached from stress, staying far away from gush.) Though the bridal shower might be hardest. That’s pretty much the ultimate estrogen gush fest. Please, someone get me a provocative gift or toy so I can open it in front of a bunch of middle aged women and have a good belly laugh. I really think that will be essential in keeping away the gush factor. Oh, and beer. I think I will need beer at my shower. Or a nice margarita. 

So many things to come in the next month or two. The bridal shower. The bachelorette party. (I am staying out of planning that one — I am not Scrubs‘ Elliot, thank goodness. So long as I am not forced to do anything inappropriate with a man who is not my husband to be, I think I will tolerate pretty much any curveball the ladies decide to throw at me.) The only (unfortunate? fortunate?) thing is that the wedding festivities don’t end after the wedding. In May there will be receptions held for us by Bryan’s family, which means we get to have more opportunity for by-proxy stress and gush. Oh, joy. The funny thing is that throughout all of this, Bryan has agreed with me. He hates all of this as much as I do but unlike me he dismisses things. No worries. He puts it out of his head. He knows if a matter needs fussing over I’ll be fussing, so he doesn’t have to worry about fussing. It’s funny, really; we just want it to be over. Or, rather, we want the day to be here already so we can just stop worrying about the planning. Or maybe I want that more than he does. The marriage thing is exciting but the wedding thing is more stressful than anything. I think I’ll get legitimately excited when it’s here. It’s the agony — borderline, borderline agony — now I can really do without.

Repeat the new mantra: Low stress, low gush, happy times will come. Breathe.

If you’ve been redirected from the old blog, Fairytalehero, welcome! Please take note of the new domain; this is where the updates will be happening from now on.

To stumblers: It’s purdy and new and shiny here and this makes me exceedingly giddy, so please excuse the rambling!

Despite having owned this domain for years, I’ve never really used it until this week. I finally got around to getting my own hosting this year (as a holiday gift) and I’ve gone ahead and plowed into this endeavor, despite being entirely (okay, 90%) self-taught in things regarding running a website. (Thank you, Carnegie Mellon, for the rest of that knowledge; the little I actually paid attention to has actually given me more confidence than hardcore knowledge.)

The front page of the site is, more than likely, going to change in the [unforeseeable] future. Knowing that, this blog is over here instead of over there. Oh, the logic is convoluted but sensical, I assure you.

That’s all I have to say for now… oh, not so rambly after all. (What a shock!) Tune in next time for more pondersome rambles; I’m halfway through Robin McKinley’s Chalice, which is shaping up quite interestingly, so I’ll be posting on that soon.

Lately I’ve been focusing a lot on the news, on politics, on the election coverage, instead of doing what I need to do. In defense of that, the last two or so weeks have been chock full of stuff — two presidential debates and the first and only vice presidential debate of the election. Wow. By and large I agree with the New York Times‘ many — many — editorials on the subjects of John McCain and Sarah Palin and what they’ve been up to, what they’ve been saying, and the frightening reality of a possible McCain-Palin White House. I’ve also been watching the news coverage (mostly on ABC, CNN, and MSNBC) and it’s both interesting and exhausting. At least SNL has made a “comeback” with its sketches involving Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. I usually don’t talk about politics on this blog (the last mention was of the Iowa caucuses, I think) and I don’t mean to take much time on them now. I believe that we’re a great country and we need a great president and great leader — not just an average American, but someone above-average. Our president is someone we should be able to look up to and admire. Politics aside, even, I can’t admire John McCain or Sarah Palin. There are a lot of other reasons why I’ll be voting for Barack Obama, and that’s one of them.

Now, back to work.