Anyone have photo-sharing tips? I've put up some links to guests' Picasa albums on our wedding website, though we're trying to figure out the best way to host the various photos that doesn't require people signing up for a service or downloading Picasa. Flickr's user interface drives me crazy, and I'm also not a fan of Shutterfly - after signing up for it I couldn't actually download any files, though their photo-to-product services are lauded. Oooh, C just told me about smugmug...trying them now...

(I tried combining them all into one album, but that was like 52-card shuffle because some timestamps were off of the cameras, though the idea of real-time many-camera angles seems cool. Also, if you've got a set of photos I'm happy to add them to the list.)

Of all the wedding-related stuff that's going on, the one that I'm the most worried about and has been the most time-consuming is the table seating. I keep revising it, thinking that people would prefer to sit with people they know rather than strangers, but then what's the point of having everyone together if they don't mingle with each other and start dating each other and then have babies? Yeah babies! In any case, it's been like one of those word puzzles where Tom is to the left of Jack but then Suzy needs to be in the middle of them and Jane and Suzy will fight if together but not if Bob is around.

Rules that I should have come up with a spreadsheet for and made C script:
Certain exes can't sit next to each other. I mean heck, certain family members can't sit next to each other.
Family and friends should mostly be kept separate.
As even of a male to female ratio as possible.
Everyone should each have someone that they know and feel comfortable with, but also someone they don't know that they may enjoy talking to.
Conversely, the people that have travelled the most probably want to sit with the people they know because they get to so rarely.
Parents sit with kids.
Singles sit with at least 2 people they know.
At least 1 outgoing person per table.
People that don't like kids can't sit next to them.
Commonalities sit together: entrepreneurs, climbers, athletes, geographic locales, etc.

But then I get side-tracked trying to figure out whether people would rather get to know other people in their same geo or ones that kayak, and it all gets overwhelming again.

So, the new optimization rule is this: you all get at least one person you know, and up to 7 you don't. I hope you still end up having fun! (If you don't, don't tell me because I'll feel personally responsible and then miserable.)

C found this thread on Reddit, and wow, self esteem +10 indeed! I also now realize that what I thought were obvious signals were not nearly as bold as I thought they were.

OMG, I love this. Ke$ha haters like Patrick probably should stay away.

A big stack of invitations (but not all of them) is sitting on our dining room table and freaking me out. It is freaking me out because:
1. They're addressed, stamped, and sealed. Now we have to finish the rest of them - the handwritten ones and the foreign postage ones. Our chicken scratch handwriting - blah.
2. I'm pretty sure the name/address aggregator script that C wrote to print out the address labels may or may not have disregarded some individuals choice in their married names. So, if you are a married person, and your address label says your "maiden" name + partner's name, or says Mrs. HisName, and that is wrong, I apologize. It certainly wasn't intentional, or even thought out. Proper address grammar blows.

I also just found this blog, which is amazing, and the specific post linked to back there may have my new strategy on married name changing. I don't think I am going to change it. Yet. But our kids may have some spanish patralineal/matrilineal system that I think is genius. The blog also has this post and another on money matters and marriage, in which it is nice to know that other people wonder how the hell this is going to work too. Oh, and my last link for the day is this article in the NYT, which is a crazy account into the world of marriage-counseling-before-you-need-counseling.

I've been doing this one-hundred pushups and two-hundred situps thing with a group of college people, and today is the 2nd day of it. I'm sore! But I think it's a fun, easy way to fight the never-ending battle of staying in shape, and definitely being held accountable is good motivation for me.

I have a built in excuse to stop though - if I stop fitting into my dress because my pecs get too big it is soooo off. Or if my goods start shrinking a la a certain girl we knew in high school that benched a bit too much. I'm definitely not willing to risk my bff(plural friends) for the sake of fitness. That would be crazy-talk.

I was throwing things away earlier today, and I realized how much I've changed in the past 10 years. I used to find so much joy in buying things and bringing them home, and now I think it's awesome when I find something I can throw/give away.

When I was dating J, I really struggled with the shopping aspect of our relationship. We loved finding things on sale, which meant shopping more, which meant both buying and then giving things to Goodwill. A lot of girls would kill for a boyfriend who wants to go shopping with them and give them fashion advice, and at first I really enjoyed being pushed to be fashionable. For once in my life, I had all the right shoes and jackets for different occasions! But eventually I started resenting the superficial and commercial aspect of it. He was unhappy with my weight(which has been relatively stable for the past 10 years, so he was the only one unhappy with it), and we both were spending ridiculous amounts of money - money that he as a student shouldn't have had, and me knowing better shouldn't have spent. I remembered too well the days of my bio-lab dishwasher salary and living off of 20k pre-tax easily, and I was burning through my engineering salary. It didn't make any sense at all. (I am really lucky that I've always contributed at least 10% to a 401k, so at least I saved some money out of the 3 years we dated.) In any case, by the time the relationship ended, I was Done with shopping. I still enjoy finding cute things and buying them when necessary, but I don't ever want it to be the way I spend quality time in a relationship again. And I really don't want to be pushed to be more girly ever again.

I love that growing older has giving me this understanding of relationships. Sometimes you can enjoy someone, but need to go in different directions with your lives. Of course, I didn't know that was what was happening with J, I just knew I was unhappy.

One of the things that I immediately connected with C over was the lack of Things in our lives. I really liked the fact that he was not emotionally attached to Stuff, and didn't own much. He is a bit of the polar opposite of J in that sense, and I find it much easier to live with. As my dad says, "You can't have two spenders." (Aside: I hate grammar rules regarding punctuation, parenthesis, and especially addressing cards because it's outdated. Mr. and Mrs. John Smith? Bite me. Why does the female lose her name?) I worry so much less about us combining our finances than I used to with J, because I know and trust C's spending habits. There are none, and necessary items come from a drugstore/Amazon. It's awesome, and I've tried to adopt a similar mentality. I'll never be as austere as C, and my kitchen breaks all of the rules, but for the past two years I've been a saver and not a spender.

Today I was reading Unclutterer and found an article on how often you should throw away make-up, mostly because bacteria grows in it. I didn't want to read the time limits they listed, because I knew everything I had was over the limit. And when I look through my big red make-up box, I like seeing the pretty colors and shades in it. Even though I rarely wear anything inside it, my make-up box makes me feel feminine. Besides C and various emotional tendencies, my make-up box is the only other thing in my life that does this. I've known make-up goes bad since I was 16, and today was the first time I was ready to act on that knowledge.

So I took out the big red box, and pulled out everything that I haven't worn in years, and played dress-up with it. For the record, 5+ year old lip gloss and lipstick taste really f-ing foul. But green eyeshadow is still fun. And wow, I can't believe my friend bought me that Chanel make-up so long ago, with it's fancy velvet pouches and shiny compacts. And then there was that MAC kick I went on...this stuff is expensive!

And then I threw it all away.

Who's ridiculously late to this party? We just got a wonderful wedding gift, and of course immediately opened it and ran out and bought LittleBigPlanet. And now I'm completely confused why people are willing to walk me thru levels online, but whatever!

Txt, post, or email me usernames please - my system needs friends!

I've been absolutely obsessed lately with Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series. The problem with it is that there's no good way to recommend it to people without them judging you some kind of sexual deviant. This is how I tried to explain what I was reading to C:

M: Well, there's this semi-orphan who grows up and finds out that she's marked by a god and is really into pain and submission...
C: So it's an S&M romance novel?
M: No! It's totally fantasy, because she's also trained to be a spy while being a courtesan...
C: There's a half-naked lady on the cover, and she's a courtesan? It's a romance novel.
M: It doesn't have nearly enough sex to be a romance novel!
C: ...

It is a romance novel in the sense that Twilight is a romance novel, except this heroine could actually have been conceived after the feminist revolution and isn't waiting for some freaking vampire to go save her ass all the damn time.

The blog that made me curious enough to borrow it from the library has a better, more humorous description of it here. However, even if you like the first book, you should stop after reading the second book. I've read the first four, and the plots get less and less believable, and this is a Fantasy series we're talking about. K.C. only likes the first two books as well - she got stranded at our place after the Iceland volcano blew up, and we were talking about these books, and I totally think she's a deviant now.

I love dancing! I took a hip-hop class a few weeks ago and it was so silly and fun, and this 60-year-old, tiny asian dude was kicking my ass with his fly moves, and the white dude teaching the class had some serious skill, and wow it turns out I'm remarkably uncoordinated. I'm glad skill has no correlation with fun.

I really can't wait for our wedding! And Patrick's wedding! I LOVE dancing at weddings! Dancing at a club is ok, but at a wedding, no one grabs your ass. That, I think, is AWESOME.

Let's have more spontaneous dance parties!

I wrote an email to myself almost 6 years ago listing out my life goals. I was stuck in a job I hated, living with mom and dad, and it was my first step to codifying what I actually wanted to do with my life. This was before The Bucket List (movie), so I'm proud that it was also somewhat original, even though I probably found the idea on some career website. I found that email today thanks to a random gmail search, and I found it entertaining and a reminder. So I added all the things I've accomplished since then to the bottom and added some more things to top, and emailed it to myself again. Here's hoping I'll find this in another 5 years.
---
Have spent at least a month (in total) on every significant land-mass in the world.
Extra points for Antartica.
Fill out a county map.
Learn how to play the electric bass, saxaphone, and trumpet.
Extra points for playing every instrument ever imagined.
Speak Mandarin fluently. If time, Japanese as well.
Become a black belt.
Go spelunking once.
Learn how to kiteboard and wakeboard.
Windsurf the Gorge.
Hike the Grand Canyon.
See lava flow in Hawaii.
Scuba the Great Barrier Reef.
Swim with dolphins.
Hike in New Zealand.
Eat my way through India.
Eat my way through Italy.
Go on a furniture buying spree in China.
Name my Greater Swiss Mountain dog Cocoa.
Name my daughter Mia.
Still play soccer at age 80.

Things I've accomplished. (that I can always do again)
Ice Climbing.
College Diploma.
Survived.
Skinny dipped w/ glaciers.
Lost myself in music.
Fallen in Love.
Spent a month in Malaysia.
Three weeks in Japan.
Visited Thailand.
Visited Singapore.
Visited Hong Kong.
Eaten chicken feet.
Learned how to lead climb/rappel.
Hugged trees in the Redwoods.
Learned how to surf.
Hiked among the Bristlecone Pines. (One piece was older than Jesus)
Hiked the Subway in Zion.
Ran a Marathon.
Led a Trad climb.
Climbed in Joshua Tree.
Free climbed in Yosemite.

I don't know who I'm posting this for. But if there is any chance that you want to know how the US started torturing people against the Geneva Convention, there are 289 pages in a declassified PDF here.

With all the excitement lately I forgot to mention the end of the Couch Safe story.

At some point C's sister J ran into a lady who lives in her apartment building. She mentioned that she felt like she'd lost something when the couches disappeared, but couldn't remember what it was. J, being very excited to clear up the whole thing, immediately went and got the safe with the bead case inside it, and presented it to her. The lady then said something like "Oh! It's so big! No wonder I put it in the couch!"

The End.

Alternate title: Weddings - The Most Inefficient Transfer of Wealth From One Generation to the Next.

I wonder if my teenage rebellion against authority has morphed into a rebellion against tradition, or generalized into a rebellion against all industry. I didn't want a diamond because I don't want to support a controlled market that I see as an inefficient waste of lives and resources. I hate diamond commercials and ads, thus my view that anything bought from the Shane Company should get flushed down the toilet. And I tried to avoid supporting the ridiculous market that is the wedding industry. But maybe I'm just cheap.

Part of me still thinks about skipping the whole wedding thing and eloping. I mean, conflicting emotions and expectations abound, I get anxious planning a dinner party for 8, and add to that 30k of cost to my parents? No wonder this stuff drives people crazy. And did I mention the constant focus on what the bride wants? There's nothing like having 5 different vendors ask you what your color palette is to make you suddenly decide that you Need a color palette. Beyond that point is a slippery slope to a nervous breakdown about ribbon and throwing someone headfirst into a foam cake display. But everyone keeps deferring to me with lines about "this is YOUR day" and "whatever you envision, we'll make happen". Um...don't people know that absolute power corrupts absolutely? I'd like things to be pretty and not cost too much. I probably should hire a wedding planner who could make that happen, but that, to me, seems like an overwhelming task and plus, it costs more money. And, full disclosure, there is a part of me that is enjoying exercising control, and a part that sees this as a Challenge. And so far, it's been something new and different to do, and fun at times. Especially cake tasting.

Here's the low-down: my dad has planned more for this day than I have. I want a big party with all of my friends and family, and I want there to be lots of dancing. The specifics seemed unnecessary at first. But how do you make a decision on any of this stuff while trying to remember that the details are unimportant? And what's the line to walk when you're lucky enough to have a father that wants more than anything to make you happy and yet has very strong opinions and expectations on how things should go, especially when you've spent most of your life just being contrary to him? Let's have a Baptist minister officiate! (Yeah, that one was a fun conversation. I might as well bring up how Bill O'Reilly is a bastard son of satan while we're at it. God, if you're there, I swear I'll try to believe in you if Bill O'Reilly gets caught fornicating with a goat. See the issue with the Baptist minister yet?)

Also, I'm sorry if I'm not inviting you. I'm sure there are going to be some awkward conversations in our future, and it's probably more a logistics decision than a personal one, but boy feeling obligated to invite people sucks balls, as does not being able invite others to for headcount reasons.

So, in summary, my life is not very tough. I'm super lucky that I get to throw a big party for the people I love, and I really don't want to elope. It will be completely awesome to see everyone, like a reunion, and I can't wait to see all my friends together again. But I have been thinking about this stuff a lot, and wow it feels good to get this crap off my chest. Me, C, our siblings and parents, on a beach somewhere warm, with a respectable old dude telling us how to love...sometimes that sounds really damn good.

I am so amazed at how much work Cliff put into the whole thing. About a month ago, he decided that he'd propose the next time I went to Oregon, so when I told him I'd be gone from Dec 3-5 he started planning things. He measured my brass rat even though the sizing may have been different for the right and left hands, got the ring from Amazon (a blue emerald-cut sapphire solitaire in white gold), went out with a friend to help him get a spiffy new suit (grey with light blue pinstripes) and french-cuffed blue shirt and then get them tailored, his sister helped him find shoes and accessories, and since Monday he'd been telling me that he kept having all-day meetings, so I wasn't expecting him to be answering IM at all. Monday he casually asked if my social schedule was full, and not suspecting anything I said that game night was Wednesday but that I actually had some free time Thursday, this ime…which then magically filled up with this "charity dinner". Tuesday he'd mentioned he'd gotten dinner with his sister at a place downtown, which he'd really done after the accessory shopping. He flew into Portland Thursday morning, called my mom's cell phone which Patrick gave him, and asked to meet with her and my dad sometime that day. Since they weren't free until 5pm, he checked into the Riverplace hotel, walked to the Fossil Cartel and got a backup ring in a bigger size (emerald obsidianite, or helenite, or shiny green glass from mount st. helens, depending on your take), and logged into IM at the hotel and chatted with me a bit, further convincing me that it just wasn't possible that he was in Portland! Then he drove out to west Portland, met with them and got their blessing, and drove back to east Portland to the restaurant and waited for us.

Also, can I throw in a shout-out to Patrick and Jen for totally having me conned?

Last night after dinner, we went back to my house and celebrated with my mom and dad, then I stayed in the first hotel in Portland ever - Riverplace gave us a little box of Moonstruck chocolates as a congratulations and a sweet note. I emailed my boss to tell him the news and that I'd be in pretty late, and then today we went and had an almond and chocolate croissant at St. Honore for breakfast, and split up - him back to the airport and me to finally get into work, where my boss had rounded up everyone to sign a card and gotten me a bottle of Asti.

I still can't believe it! Everyone has been so nice, and it's just been an amazing whirlwind. I think the back-up ring will be the "official" once it arrives, but I've now got two shiny new pretty things, and a shiny new "fiancee"…things are awesome!