camp was great.

i didn't have to actually herd kids anywhere, or be responsible for their welfare, or chide them, or play dodgeball in the sunny oven that was arkansas.  that was for far patienter and more awesomer people than i.  i just got to hang out talking to them, eat good food in the cafeteria with them, and sing with them at the worship sessions. 
so i highly enjoyed it.

the day before i left for camp to play with the Joey Witham Band (that's how we were always introduced on stage--it sort of made me feel like a nightclub act or something, like we should come out all sparkly and dressed to the jazzy nines ready to croon some numbers to the crowd),
ben deceived me. 
he called me the night before i left to tell me that he wasn't at IHOP with his friend from work, like he'd said he was.
(in his defense, he wanted to talk to me in person,
but my phone had been off and i'd been running errands,
so he had driven around town looking through parking lots to try and track me down)
he'd actually been to my parents house to talk to them about us getting married. 
i knew he was going to do that sometime, but he wouldn't tell me when. 

so hey guys, now we're gonna get married.

i hesitate to even bring up the whole getting married scenario, because i am at heart a very individual individual; sometimes it's hard for me to be in community with people, or to tolerate the traditional, and as much as i appreciate that other people enjoy it, and would never want to dampen anyone's pleasure in whatever way they chose to celebrate their lives, it's usually not the way i would want to do it if given the choice.  that's ok, there are so many types of people in the world--why is there such a common template for getting married?  in truth, i'm tempted not to do the wedding thing at all.  in my little heart, i foster the fantasy of having already married and fast-forwarding about 6-months, so things have died down and i'm just hanging out with my bearded beau, Bood (<that's for j-rod.)

people inevitably get offended--family, friends, people who feel you're rejecting the way they chose to marry, and so by extension, are rejecting them as people.  i'm not good at reading people and predicting those things.  a couple times even in the last few days i've tripped up and fallen on my face navigating the tortuous paths of communicating well to people about all this.

here's what i know:

i love ben very much.
i think that people sometimes take your enthusiasm for what your wedding will be like to be the equivalent of your enthusiasm for your significant other, and the life you'll have.  sometimes people even take their amount of involvement in the planning and execution of the wedding and the announcement to be equal to their personal value to you as individuals or a couple.  true, occasionally those are directly correlated; lots of times they're not.

and i love you guys, my friends and family.

so, yes, you can be excited for me and ben.  it's a great thing!
no, i don't have a ring,
no, i don't know/(care?) what i'll wear,
i don't quite know when it'll be, (sometime around the end of the year)
no, you're not invited. (ha, just to the immediately family official thing.  i want you all to come to some kinda party to take place sometime after that, where we'll all hang out and be thrilled together.)

leave it to me to over analyze this and dampen the fun. :)
have a lovely day.
the end

p.s. this blog was actually composed a couple days ago, but then i realized i should probably talk to my mom myself before posting it all over the interweb.  see what i mean about not knowing how to go about things?  i'm a blunderer with big feet and poor social coordination.  *sigh*

my favorite favorite posted a great entry today.





dude, ap book club people--i totally killed next month's book yesterday.  (see: currently reading)
one sitting, 107 pages--i wish it had been harder to read so i could brag about it, but it was so fascinating and simple it just whizzed by. 
you'll love it. 

next book club!  the 12th!