uptight

Call it what you will, but I am so happy these looks are coming back. Perfect timing . . . I love them!

Instead of . . .

. . . ordering seafood like I normally do, I went for the madeira mushrooms over a potato galette last night. It was the right call.

. . . working diligently, I have been procrastinating and then slamming things through at the last minute. I feel sort of bad about it, but not that bad.

. . . remembering to turn off the space heater in my room first, I went ahead and began drying my hair in the bathroom, and blew the fuse again this morning.

. . . watching the Super Bowl, I think I will listen to Alan Watts tapes this weekend. I've been on the verge of contemplative, lately. It sounds cozy.

friday five

1. It's cold as balls here. R and I debate over which is worse, January or February. i trump when I argue that January is worse because you still have February yet to endure! And it won't even SNOW, dammit. I want a snow day.

2. Though I watch poshgirlvintage.com like a hawk, I think I am going to get my dress made after all. This weekend I am going to check out a huge local fabric store and see if I can't get some recommendations, and hopefully a referral or two for a dressmaker.

3. We've decided on a honeymoon destination: SE Asia! Oh my goodness, the more I read about Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, the more excited I get. I'm giddy, seriously. I don't think two weeks will be nearly enough, but I guess we'll make it work. I GUESS.

4. Shrimp with white beans
saute garlic, sliced celery and raw shrimp in a little olive oil. splash on some white wine and season with salt and pepper, continue to cook and reduce the wine sauce. when the shrimp are just done, remove from heat and add a can of drained and rinsed cannellini beans. throw in some chopped fresh herbs like parsley, cilantro or dill -- or all three. squeeze half a lemon over, adjust seasoning. serve on a bed of arugula or other greens with a hunk of crusty bread. total time -- about 15 minutes.

5. P made it to Dallas. S bought a car. A has a boyfriend. C is laying low. 2008, y'all. So far, so good.

Bonus: I had lunch with Judy yesterday. We both agreed DC is lame. I love her!

soupçon

Work is busy these days, and these day slip away quickly. God, I can't believe it's January. I've never been a big fan of January. Cold. Baited. Uncomfortably inevitable. But here we are.

January has brought a renewed obsession with food and exercise, which is a welcome compulsion. My pants fit better already! Thankfully the time I'm spending in the gym is all benefit and no cost -- literally. I love that I have a free facility!

The food side of things has been unexpectedly vegan recently, without any conscious effort to make it so. I've been cooking a lot of soups and other vegetable dishes that just end up animal-free. Often the only sin is a rind of parmesan reggiano slipped into the broth -- and if that's wrong I don't want to be right. It adds such a rich silkiness to my italian soups. Delicious! I threw together a minestrone last night that was lovely, but I just know it's going to be much better today. And this time I made a ton of it so there would be leftovers -- a rare thing in our house.

R and I have been having anxiety dreams. Nothing like a wedding registry to make you feel like a real asshole. He dreamt I left him, and he had to deal with boxes and boxes of gifts. Sometimes I think about something happening to him and panic fast and hard. I remember Day telling me she experienced that too. Today he drove me to work, and sitting there beside him in the cold car, in the severe January morning light, I loved him so much it terrified me.

grouchy

Today I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And that's because I woke up on the futon, not the bed. SOMEBODY was snoring and I had to evacuate the bedroom at some wee hour to try and salvage the remaining hours of potential sleep. So I'm not feeling 100 dollars. As a bonus, it's hump day. I've never understood Steph's appreciation for Wednesdays; they've always depressed me, the whole stranded between weekends thing.

Last Friday, I was looking forward to the weekend and a quiet return to taking out the recycling, doing laundry and eating eggs with the Rooster. I took down the holiday decor and washed the last of the guests' linens. That was all good, but somehow there was also this undercurrent of irritability. R has been incredibly stuffed up though his cold is improving, and it makes him so dejected and ornery. And I've had this low-grade anxiety about planning the GDBD that I fixated on the need to get organized, whatever that means. But it just wasn't happening. Then we saw his parents on Saturday evening and finally updated them on our plans, and his mom flipped out a little when we told them the guest list was less than 40 people. We worked through that, mostly, but by Sunday night I was alternating between angry, stubborn, tearful, panicked and resentful and knew I had to take a step back.

I've decided I have to get philosophical about this whole GDBD. See, I went for years with this lame nonchalance about how maybe I won't ever get married, and how I certainly won't be wearing a white dress, and how the whole wedding industry is a scam anyway, yadda yadda yadda. All that was coming from a sincere but also confused place, and a deep inability to envision my own future self, let alone myself walking down some aisle. That arm's length attitude has made it really really tough to be enthusiastic and positive about planning my own God Damn Big Day, despite the fact that I am madly in love and feel wildly lucky that I met R and we want to live our lives together.

So I took that step back. I'm thinking about how much fun I had planning our little new year's eve thing, and how not stressed I was, and how wonderful it was to have so many of our darling friends there to celebrate with. If I can capture a modicum of that spirit and let it bloom into the GDBD, we're all good.