I recently started a new job, that I love, which has the one downside of increasing my commute from five minutes to 45. One of the ways I've started dealing with this is by downloading various podcasts to listen to when I drive - it's much, much easier of a drive listening to stories and discussions for me than listening to music.

Now, I never listened to podcasts before about three weeks ago (I know), so I'm starting from scratch, looking at popular stuff on iTunes, whatever. And I found "Penn's Sunday School."

I love Penn & Teller. My family has a thing for magic, and they've always been a family favorite. Even though I'm a practicing Catholic, and this podcast was advertised as atheist, I wanted to listen to it.

And I suddenly had an understanding of why a person might listen to something that infuriates them.

This podcast drives me nuts. Absolutely nuts. But I can't stop listening to it. Part of it is that some of the anecdotes are funny, some of the stories are interesting. A lot of what he says is interesting to me and not annoying. However, every now and again, Penn says something just reeking of privilege. Straight, white, rich guy privilege.

Example - he told a story the other week about how he loves to get pulled over because he loves to play around with cops. He's at his best when performing for them. And then he made a comment to the effect of "ideally, only guilty people would be afraid of cops - innocent people should have nothing to be afraid of when it comes to the police." Now, I recognize that he said ideally, and he did go on later in the show to stress that he knows there are people out there who are afraid of cops for good reasons even though they are innocent. However. It is still an extremely privileged point of view that basically assumes racism (and a whole host of other "-isms") don't exist.

So I ranted in my car at my radio for a bit. And you know what? It helped me sort out my opinions and arguments in my own head. I think that the types of statements he makes and the types of issues he makes them about are at a good level for me to firm up my own ideas and opinions, if that makes sense.

Part of it is that I'm bad at argument - at formally arguing my viewpoint. So hearing someone say something I know I disagree with, but not in the context of trying to convince me of anything, is giving me the chance to say to myself, "Hey now, I don't agree with that!" and try to formulate in my mind why I don't and what I have to say about it.

So I continue to listen. And yes, sometimes I'm aggravated by what I hear, but for the most part, I'm interested, entertained, or take the opportunity to think about my opinions and more fully develop them. Even when they don't agree with what the host has to say.

I know I graduated college a few years ago now, but sometimes I really, really miss EARS. There are days when I can barely remember what the skills were we used as part of counseling our peers, but I remember the feeling in staff meetings, and what it was like chilling in the EARS room with your partner. There was just this...openness between people on the staff.

Not everyone, I guess. I don't want to over idealize. But I do believe that, with extremely few exceptions, we were all conditioned such that you could comfortably go up to any of the staff, unload anything on them that was bothering you, and the person you were talking to wouldn't bat an eye, no matter what you had to say, and would listen to you and interact with you non-judgmentally.

It's just something I miss, sometimes. When I'm having a bad day, or something specific happened that I need to talk about, I never know who to talk to. Who is going to quietly accept that I need to vent, and maybe need a hug, and don't want a lecture or a solution or whatever. I just want to know that I can safely tell the person what's on my mind and not end up feeling worse when we're done talking.

I don't think I realized what a gift that was until I didn't have it anymore - what a relief it was to know that I could dump on these people - many of whom were near strangers to me - without fear of any negative outcomes and walk away feeling better. Now, I have to carefully pick and choose who I call and when and why and I generally have to remind myself that whoever I'm talking to isn't an "EARS-y person" and I can't expect them to react the way I want (need) them to.

I don't even know what the point of this was. I think I'm just frustrated that whenever I want to TALK to someone, it comes with baggage and strings and a lot of lectures that are not helpful. Sometimes I miss how simple it was to walk through a door, plop onto the dilapidated couch, and just trust that the person in front of me knew exactly what I was looking for.

I have a half-formed idea to write reviews of books I read, because, why not? I figure I might as well start somewhere so...

I just finished Outside In by Maria Snyder. I have to start with a minor confession - I love Maria Snyder, pretty much exclusively because her first book, Poison Study, was the first book my little sister recommended (and lent) to me. So there is a lot of sentimental value there.

Don't get me wrong - I very thoroughly enjoy her writing (the style is pretty distinctly YA) and I think her stories are enchanting. But I don't think I would have picked up the first book of the Inside series (Inside Out, which I also read recently) if it weren't for loyalty to the author.

The universe is a sort of sci-fi distopian world called Inside. The world is basically a four-story metal cube that is completely self-sufficient and currently houses about 2,500 people, who are divided into two social classes -- uppers and lowers. Uppers do all the "easy" jobs - making sure the life support systems are running, keeping the electricity flowing, etc. Lowers do the "dirty work" - cleaning, cooking, growing food, and managing waste. The first book deals primarily with the social order of things, so I won't go into that much. The second book deals a bit with social matters, but mostly with an outside threat to Inside (dubbed, obviously, the Outsiders).

In general...I wasn't real excited by the premise of this series. It ended up being slightly more interesting than I thought it would be - enough so that I read both books. The plot was predictable to anyone who read either her Study or Glass series and is fairly straight-forward. Some of the details of the world are interesting, but the characters seem more...flat to me in these books than any of her others. Less full-formed, I guess? In some ways, parts of the world reflect current events (for example, only uppers have access to birth control; lowers aren't even aware such a thing exists), which may be the reason the story seems less developed - perhaps she was inspired by current events and rushed the writing a bit. Or it may be me - I enjoy her fantasy works more, and it may be that this world just didn't appeal to me as much.

Hmm. This isn't a very helpful review, is it?

Well, here's the bottom line -- like all of Maria Snyder's books, Outside In is a fairly straight-forward fictional story taking place in a specially-developed world with a reasonably well developed set of rules. This one makes you think a bit more than most of her books as it has some themes that are semi-relevant to reality (dare I say, it is a distopian view OF THE FUTURE??), but in general is a light, enjoyable read that's a good way to occupy a rainy weekend. However, if you're new to her books, I would really recommend Poison Study as a place to start, unless you really, really prefer sci-fi to fantasy.

I know it's been a long time. But I needed to vent to the interwebs.

A few years ago I joined the Catholic church officially. I really really enjoy the Catholic faith - I do. But I haven't been to church in...probably 6 or 8 months. And it's totally out of anger.

Not the anger you'd expect - oh no. This is not about the scandals or the political involvement or anything like that. It's about the young adult group I belonged to.

It's not all bad - I mean, I did meet my husband and my three closest met-as-adults friends there. However. Things have changed and they make me crazy.

Allow me to explain. No, it's too much. Allow me to sum up.

When I first joined this group, it was very new and had a lot of potential. The meetings were mostly chit-chat and bible study - I wanted more. I wanted support - a safe environment to talk about what's hard about being a "good Catholic." The leadership of the group, I learned over time, were more interested in proving they were "good Catholics" to the point of actively discouraging people from talking about their lives for fear of being shamed. It's this horrible, fake reality where everyone smiles and talks shallowly about things like "proper gender roles in marriage" and how "scholarship leads to the devil" because the leaders of the group aren't knowledgeable about academic theology or history and whenever those of us who are interested in scholarship bring up something historic/formally theological, we get shut down as quickly as possible. It's stifling and backwards and fake in a Stepford Wives kinda way and I can't stand it. At all. At. All.

I know it's a bit weird to hold something like that against an institution like the Catholic church when there are so many better things to hold against it, but really, think about it. I love the philosophy of Catholicism at the end of the day. And I've always said I wouldn't hold the decisions of the authorities against the local church because it's the "little people" who are important to the institution and blah blah blah. But. This is basically the opposite - I can't stand these people (one of whom was one of our parish priests for a while - he's been transferred in the last year) and I hate being around them. They've tainted the parish for me. If we moved, I would likely go back to church in my new parish, or I suppose I could start going to a neighboring parish here. I just...I'm a big believer of attending the parish you live in, because it's about community. It just so happens that I have come to hate my community. On a lot of levels, not just the church. And I can't get past it enough to enjoy my faith or even want to experience it really anymore.

I'm hoping that soon I'll mentally feel better about it, and go back to thinking of my faith as a personal thing and not about community (even though it is *supposed* to be) and I'll start going again because it's something that was important to me, and faith in God still is, so...well, we'll see.

I just pray that I don't have to spend time with those people any time soon. Because I will end up making someone cry.

/Rant

So, first of all, I did find a card for the flower place we'll be using in my things. This goes to show that:

1) I really do save everything
2) I am hopelessly unorganized and forgetful.

But that's ok. Because at the end of the day, this is basically what I do for a living. I'm a project manager. And in my day-job, I find lists to be really helpful. So here is a list of little details I need to get done this week. In no particular order:

- Mail deposit and contract for band
- Start filling addresses into guest list spreadsheet
- Call contacts for FOCUS and pre-Cana (Catholic stuff)
- Call florist for appointment
- Design save the dates
- Book honeymoon
- Research transportation for wedding day
- Research gift registries; discuss with Honey where to register
- Bug my boss for her photographer again

Huh. That's actually a lot less than I thought it was. See? Lists are helpful, for me anyway. That made things much less intimidating for me. Now I just have to schedule with myself to do them...



On a more personal note, every year my office does a weight loss competition from now until March, in line with the season of the popular show our comp is based on. Every year, I do not join, even though last year I was trying to lose weight. However, it was pointed out to me on New Year's Day that I am perhaps not exercising my competitive spirit nearly enough, so I thought "why not?" And let me tell you. I know it's wrong, but I don't think I've ever been so motivated to take care of myself. I always have a lot of trouble taking time for myself or sticking with things that I know are good for me in the long run over stuff that is gratifying in the short run. But I guess adding the element of competition makes it about winning not about doing what's right for myself. Now, my promise to myself was that I would do this in a way that is healthy and in line with how I would do things if I were better at taking care of myself for my own sake, and I think I will stick with that well. I'm hopeful that by dedicating some of my time to meeting my personal goals through this competition (my personal goals include things like "excercise regularly" and "tone!" so it's a bit less about numbers than I'm letting on) will help me find ways to motivate myself outside of competition.

Sigh. Back to work!

Which brings us to today's update -- where things stand, 12 days into official "Seriously, Girl, Plan Your Wedding" time.

Ceremony -- check! The original Catholic church in my parish, 5 pm, the day after Thanksgiving
Reception -- Check! A local restaurant, 6 to 9 pm for an extended cocktail party (with plenty of food)
Honeymoon -- check! We will go to Panama!
Wedding party -- mostly check! Everyone is selected. Not sure all the groomsmen know they are asked to be groomsmen.
dress - check! Has been ordered.

Now, there are odds and ends up there - the dress will need to be fitted, I haven't actually booked the honeymoon, and I have to do some Catholic stuff for the ceremony. I need to start moving on that one, too, because Pre Cana is only offered in March and November in my parish and I'd like to get it over with in March. And of course, the reception is barely begun -- all I have is a room and food, which I have to pick when we're closer to the day.

But, most of the major things left include the following:

A band -- we say The Vibe Tribe at my company holiday party and loved them. I've contacted them for a quote and sample contract, so we'll see how that goes.

A photographer -- I adore my boss's wedding photos, and she and one of her bridesmaids (who also works with us) both loved working with them. I need to get hte name from her.

Flowers -- I got a recommendation from a girl who had her wedding at the same place as me. I'm just biding my time now because it's way early to book flowers.

My major drama though? The guest list.

See, we did a draft guest list in July, in order to know how big of a place to book. This makes sense, right? However, I thought it would be worth looking over our draft to see if we (by the way, "we" here is me and my honey - no one else) had any changes we wanted to make since we did the list a while ago. Well, there were a few, but not many. But at the same time...

Our original thought was "let's just write down everyone we think we'd want and see where that gets us." That got us about 85 people, so we figured we didn't need to make any additional rules, weed anyone out or add anyone. That would make a party of about 60 or 70 people, and that sounded grand to us. Why make this difficult? Why do other people say it's so difficult? Hahaha!

And then our families got involved. My parents (who are paying) originally told me to do whatever I want and invite whoever and they didn't care how we did it as long as it was what we wanted. But then, my honey's mom said "well, and of course I'll want to invite [list of friends]," and his sister says "and my boyfriend [of 11 years]'s family wants to come - that will be 12 seats" and then, when I'm venting to my mom about this I get "oh REALLY??? Well then, I'll just have to invite my friends." And it is getting ugly. And irritating. Who are these people? Do they really not understand that the wedding is about me and my man? Not about them. Not about their friends. About what we want! If we wanted tons of money and gifts and to show everyone that my family can spend all this money on me, then yes, we would have ASKED for people. I would have gone to everyone "hey, we decided we wanted a huge, 300 person wedding. Please donate names to the list because we only came up with 80 people we want." Heck, I would have just invited all my family -- I cut the list for myself at 1st cousins, because they're the ones I'm close to. But if I went to 2nd, I'd have to invite over a hundred people.

So I decided the best way to deal with this was finalize the list pronto and just tell people the list is closed. I did want to consider what everyone had to say, and talk it over with my honey, but then he got fussy. He doesn't like confrontation, and so he doesn't like to disappoint people and hear it from them later. So he waffles. Refuses to give me answers. Makes excuses. Gets angry at me for wanting him to give me an answer. Finally, I think today we pinned it down -- there was one more person he wanted added to our original list and then he didn't have any problems with it. Now, I caught him in a really bad mood. So the question is, was he blowing me off to be done with it? Should I take him at his word just so that we're done and face the possible consequences later? Or should I wait a few days, and for him to be in a better mood, and double check that he's ok with it? That could also risk another freak out, to be honest.

I'd really like to just add his one friend and call it a day. But I'm not sure that's for the best. We'll see - maybe we'll talk about it again tomorrow...

And then the next adventure -- getting everyone's address and letting people know that the list is closed :)

So, the next thing in my mind was the honeymoon -- I wanted to get it sorted out and not have to worry anymore. Luckily, as this is being back-posted, you don't need to suffer through my waffling on the half-dozen different ideas we had.

We decided to keep it simple - something easy, relaxing...something that would force us to sit still.

So yes, we decided to take a cruise. I know - kinda trite. BUT it is something we enjoy a lot. We went on one over our birthdays in 2009, and it was perfect. We like when you have "sea days" where you're not in port at all -- you are stuck on a boat with a limited amount of activities, so you are actually forced to take it easy.

Our last cruise was to Bermuda for 4 days, and while it was wonderful...we wanted something a bit more for our honeymoon. I mean, how often do we have the excuse of getting married to go on an awesome big trip?

So we're taking a 13 day cruise through the Panama Canal! The first two days are at sea. Then we stop in Columbia for a day, cruise on back to Panama, take a full day to go through the canal (should be amazing -- you end up really high in elevation as I understand), then a stop in Costa Rica and three in Mexico. We start in Miami and end up in LA. Sounds like a very nice trip for a late fall-early winter wedding :)

So, wedding stuff is in FULL SWING now! I am going to do a bunch of mini posts (and probably back-date them) to catch everyone up, since I've been very delinquent. But I'm hoping that I get a bit more on point with this as I'm finding I need a place to put my thoughts and it turns out that sharing them with people (READ: my mom) causes me more problems.

So.

The Great Wedding Caper kicked off early this year with dress shopping on January 2. I had gone in July to take a look at a few dresses, but Trish, the shop owner, wanted me to come back and see the new fall merchandise. I will say, dress shopping is awesome. Some tips:

Don't bring a ton of people. I had my sis and my mom, both times, and one friend the second time who was in from out of town. Also, the shop is owned by a family friend, so the owner herself helped me and can kinda count as one of "my" people because I've known her half my life.

Also, trust the sales associates, but make sure they understand what you need. So, I trusted Trish on cut and fabric, but only after telling her the sort of look I was going for (slightly vintage, but still elegant...not to ridiculously dramatic...). Originally, I had wanted a dress with sleeves, but everything Trish pulled for me was sleeveless. About two dresses in, I understood why - my shoulders and chest look awesome in a sleeveless gown.

Don't be afraid to say what you do and don't like about the gowns you try. That will help the associates narrow things down. But at the same time, again, always be willing to try their recommendations - you may hate it (and that will help them, too) or you may adore it.

Bring water. My first appointment went long and I was dry and headachey afterwards.

Anyways, so I did pick a dress! This is probably the one thing I won't link to or post a picture of, on the off chance my honey finds it. But it is Sophia Tollis. I believe it is from the Spring 2009 collection, which is no longer on the website, but for a similar dress, see Fall 2009, Jacinda.

So, moving, as we know, is a bitch.

It turns out that moving into a house you now own is even more of a pain. At least, it is when you're remodeling as you go...

The house is coming along - it's about half-way painted, all but one of the holes we had to make in the walls are patched and just need Spackle, the floors - thank the good Lord Almighty - the floors are FINALLY done except for odd spots (like, where we need to rip one board lengthwise next to the dryer, and the goofy triangular section of floor in the guest room).

However, Ryan is pissed. I think he's feeling frantic about how much there is to do, and there is a ton. And we didn't really give ourselves realistic timelines, I think. Well, let me restate that - we had assumed that Ryan would use a few weeks of his being unemployed to work full-time on the house, and instead, he's been pitching in at a friend of the family's business for cash. Definitely a more urgent need, but sets us back a tiny bit.

However, I did take this week off. I've not really been able to help as much as I wanted for a variety of reasons (mostly that it turns out I'm allergic to the saw dust from the floors) and my general hope of getting to finish painting this week was thwarted by the walls not really being prepped and the enormous amount of crap in the various rooms that needs to be moved or rearranged before I can paint. To be honest, I've kinda given up on the hallway and the guest room temporarily -- I really think I should at least finish the master bedroom since it's halfway done, but I'm terrified of getting paint on the new floor...

Right. Rambling. ANYWAY so I've mostly been cleaning. I finished unpacking the last couple boxes we have, I put all the paperwork away that's been laying about, I did about 4 months worth of home book-keeping on my personal finances...it's been a productive week. Today, I wasn't really sure what to do, so I checked with Ryan and decided to start cleaning the sawdust out of the guest room. Very carefully with a vacuum. See, our next project is to move the desk upstairs to reclaim the living room. Ryan asked me to clean the guest room and move all the stuff from the desk upstairs so that we could haul it up together over the weekend. He also sounded super stressed about the amount of stuff he has/wants to do. So, once I was done prepping, I started to wonder - what was stopping me from moving the desk on my own? Mostly that it weighs a ton. Well, it's from Ikea -- some judicial use with a screwdriver and I could reduce it to manageable parts. Not how Ryan would do it - he's not a fan of breaking stuff down and putting it back together - but I knew he wouldn't be home for HOURS (he started a job at a hospital, but it's second shift so he won't be home til about 12:30 am) and he wouldn't care if that's how I did it by myself.

So I did :)

I broke down the desk, brought it up here, put it back together and move the rest of the crap (chairs and stuff) up and reassembled our work station. I even think I did it a bit better than the first time - there's more work-space.

So now I am taking a quick break to have some water and post about my success and then I will go downstairs and start rearranging the furniture the way we talked about it and also maybe as a treat to myself bring down the Christmas stuff and start setting up the tree. I don't know if I'll decorate tonight, but I can let it breath and work on it tomorrow...


Sigh. You know, as much dust as I picked up in here, I think I still kicked a lot up because my throat is closing up a bit. So I think I'd better head downstairs for Part 2 and let the dust settle in here...

Random entry.

I bought a house. It was exhausting, and thus the lack of posting. Wedding stuff will start again soon, so hopefully, I'll be posting a lot as I need somewhere to think out loud on...

Also, time to go to Basel again. It's a great opportunity for my career, but seriously, do NOT really want to go. There's more than enough going on here to keep me busy, thank you very much.

Ok, that was really it. I don't post nearly enough, I know, and I'm sure pretty much no one reads this anymore. But I like having it - like having the forum to let my brain stretch and back it self up. That's all.