Sparkle

I am a spoken for woman.  Enfianced.  A ball-and-chain in the making, a bride-to-be, one half of an old married couple in its pre-married days.  As of February 14, 2006, I have been shackled (by means of 18 carat gold and a princess cut diamond) to a man for life.  How do I feel about this?

Professor, you read this – how should I feel about this?  What will it be like to be married to you?  Let’s take some examples from our history together and see if we can project what the future will be like . . .

Example #1 – The weekend we met.  We were in South Carolina, at your parents’ house, thrown together by their wicked design.  They knew what they were getting us into.  The weekend begins, we talk; the weekend continues, we share pictures and exchange numbers; the weekend ends, we sit on the porch and you pay me lavish compliments and ask permission to write to me.  You do not kiss me at this point, though it is a moonlit romantic evening and for the first time all weekend none of your family members are watching us (just my two girlfriends, giggling in the kitchen and peeping out the window).  MORAL OF THIS STORY: Professor will pay me lavish compliments, Professor is a polite gentleman, Professor is not easy.  Good, good, and good.

Example #2 – The week in Denver.  Two days after our fated meeting, you were off to Denver to spend a semester trying out teaching, and bide your time until your PhD program began.  I was back at my Midwestern college, finishing up some theater commitments and working in a bakery.  We talked a few times a week on the phone, into the wee hours.  You were funny, I was smitten, and I decided to come and visit you for a week after Christmas.  What a week that was!  You wined and dined me – ice skating, snowshoeing, hiking in El Dorado Canyon, lunching in Breckenridge, our first official movie date (Cold Mountain).  It was the best week of my life.  At the end of it, we watched To Catch a Thief, and you asked me to be your girlfriend.  From then on we were exclusive.  MORAL OF THIS STORY: Professor makes good conversation, Professor is a good date planner, Professor has good taste in movies.  Check, check, check.

Example #3 – Skipping over many more meaningful events in our life together (this is already getting long!), to the past year and a half here in North Carolina.  I had decided to move here before I even met you – you had gotten accepted to Chapel Hill and chose it over Tulane (and aren’t we glad you did) – it seems we were fated to be together.  We move into apartments across the street from one another in the summer of 2004, and settle in to life as a no-longer-long-distance pair.  Some highlights from this period are: you bringing me a pot of marigolds when I was sick, which I promptly killed; buying the cat together, which you reluctantly agreed to because I really wanted a dog and you were willing to compromise; the week we were sick and laid entwined on the couch and watched the Black Adder series from start to finish; when you helped me make a smart decision about which house to buy, and then spent your whole last week of summer vacation painting it; being the Three Musketeers with my sister, who you (fortunately) get along with swimmingly; trips to Asheville, Kings Mountain, Canada, Clemson, Virginia Beach, Wisconsin, Indiana, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Atlantic Beach, and anywhere else we could go in a weekend.  MORAL OF THIS STORY: Professor and I were fated to be together, Professor gives me flowers, Professor and I are good at compromising, Professor and I both like Britcoms, Professor is a good house painter, Professor gets along with my family, Professor and I both love to travel.

CONCLUSION: It seems, based on our previous experience together, that this is what is in store for me for the next, oh, 70 years (if we eat vegetables):

Happiness.

COUNTDOWN – One Year, One Month exactly until our projected wedding date.  Professor wants to get married on St. Patrick’s Day.  I say OK (provided we can find a reception site, pastor, etc.), but ABSOLUTELY no shamrocks allowed.

PLANS SO FAR – I have picked my attendants.  They don’t know who they are yet.  I want to ask them in a cute way.  Any ideas?  We have also picked a tentative location – somewhere on the coast of the Carolinas/Georgia, between the Outer Banks and Savannah.

FIGHTS SO FAR – 1: Professor – 0, RG – 1  It was a question of attendants, and I prevailed very quickly.  We did not come to blows.