Daily Newsie

It is now less than two weeks until our wedding, and I’m beginning to get nervous. I am by and large incapable of seeing the “big picture,” so I tend to move through life a day/week/semester at a time with no real goal in mind — I figure I’ll get there when I get there, and then I’ll see what’s going on. So making a commitment like, oh, spending every day until the end of time with someone is a little new and a special blend of exciting and frightening.

“So what are we going to do?” I asked my fiance’ as we waited for our entrees at our favorite steakhouse last night. “You know, with our lives?”

He had some good answers: travel Europe, be the cool aunt and uncle to our nieces and nephew, adopt a handful of dogs. Maybe buy a house, maybe not. Take fabulous vacations. Eventually find a place between Indiana and Pennsylvania so we can help take care of our parents when they get up in years. Climb our way out of school-related debt and sack away all we can for an excellent retirement. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I would like to take the time to be the kind of volunteer who always has her fingers in something, become a master of the kitchen, and learn how to keep a clean house.

I suppose that’s enough to keep us busy for the next 50 years or so, huh? I’m trying hard to see past the end of my own nose, since lately I’ve been buried beneath a deluge of marriage-related material (completely coincidental) that’s scaring me a little, and I’m trying to picture what’s going to happen to us in the coming decades. I guess there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to take the plunge!

I generally avoid blogging at work because I would really rather not get caught, but a great injustice has just been visited upon me and I am not happy. I wanted to chronicle this outrage before my indignance wears off.

So I’m sick today, right? I feel awful, and it occurred to me a short while ago that an orange juice and sausage-cheese bagel from Speedway would really hit the spot. I normally work alone, but I left a note on my keyboard anyway and ducked out. And wouldn’t you know, I learned from the kind man at the register that Speedway quit making sausage-cheese bagels, and instead now makes everything on a biscuit or a croissant with egg, which I find gross.

I am aghast, but sadly, I am not a stranger to companies taking away the things I love most. Crunchy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey’s Cookies-n-Mint candy bar, Dr. Pepper Berries and Cream, Ocean Spray Juice and Tea, Spatini spaghetti sauce flavoring packets … I could go on, I’m sure. Instead, I will nurse my orange juice and eat the Donut Gems I got in place of my sausage-cheese bagel, and possibly weep softly for humanity.

Confidential to my father: If you haven’t opened your gift yet, don’t look!!

Waiting in the lobby of Carter’s Tattoos.

Cole applies the design onto my leg as I begin to wonder what exactly I’m doing here.

After four other tattoos, you’d think I’d be used to this feeling by now.

Cole pins down my leg so I don’t thrash around and screw everything up.

Closeup action shot.

Is it over yet?

I love you, Daddy.

That’s red ink, although the way my leg hurt I thought it was blood.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!

(That lyric is from James Taylor’s My Traveling Star as performed on One Man Band, and it seemed to me a perfect line to capture my father.)

Every year I go to the card store and stand in front of the racks, perusing Father’s Day cards. I know I’ve found the perfect one — or two — when I start to cry like a girl in the middle of the aisle. I can’t help it. My dad is my hero, and this is the one day out of the year I can pay a few bucks for Hallmark to say what I can never articulate.

It was only a few years ago that I realized my father worked two jobs to support his family — factory worker by day, Realtor by night. I remember counting the Band-Aids on his fingers at the dinner table and visiting the Century 21 office, but somehow I never put the two together. He certainly didn’t act like he had two jobs, at least not in front of his children. He used to take my brother, Betsy the dog and me to the creek in his old blue truck, graciously allowing me to pretend I was driving over the rutted carnival grounds on the way to the water. If I was ready when he got home from work, and if I had proper shoes on instead of my jellies, he might take me for a quick ride on the back of his motorcycle before dinner. He helped me balance on my purple two-wheeled bicycle until I could ride it without training wheels. That’s what stands out throughout my childhood: He was never too busy, never too tired to do something fun.

In my teenage years, we would sometimes sing together, although not as often as I would have liked. He taught me to saddle a horse, to drive a stick shift, to take care of the family dog. Without saying a word, he showed me what to expect in a husband — someone who brings coffee every morning, helps with the dishes, and means every part of those vows. He cheered for me when I ran cross-country, sacrificed who-knows-what so I could study abroad, bought CDs of choir performances (and actually listened to them), sat through endless 4-H horse shows in the sweltering sun, rushed to the emergency room on his day off when I burned my leg with hot glue, and gave his permission for me to marry the only man I’ve ever met who comes close to the standards my dad set. He knew when to let go and let his little girl make her own mistakes. He is amazing, and I am so proud to be his daughter.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. I hope you like your cards.

Eww. I’m two days into The Fiance’s five-day business trip and I’m already stir-crazy and unable to sleep. My plans for this evening with a former coworker fell through — that newspaper is still ruining my social life even though I haven’t worked there for nine months — so I played the Sims for a while, read a magazine, watched Hell’s Kitchen, and ate the following: a cookie, a string cheese, several marinated mushrooms from the olive bar at Kroger, some jelly beans, a few bites of ice cream, and a handful of Tostitos. I’m listless and lonely and still have four nights to go. How utterly pathetic.

I used to really love living by myself, in cute one-bedroom apartments with my tiny TV and broken-down computer desk that creaked under the weight of that gargantuan monitor. I could come and go at any time of the day or night without leaving a note; I hosted dinner parties on the floor for my bachelor friends and housed a temporary roommate on the futon without worrying what someone else had to say about it. I slept in the exact middle of my Ikea bed, one arm flung wide and the other clutching Bearby, and never had to close the bathroom door.

I thought for sure I would sleep better without The Fiance’ here (I wouldn’t be woken up by a 4 a.m. alarm, for one thing) but last night I tossed and turned on a mattress that suddenly felt king-sized. I feel silly — there are far worse things than business trips — and girly and juvenile, but that won’t stop me from taking a Tylenol PM to give Mr. Sandman a kick in the posterior tonight. At least tomorrow night is Karaoke Night at a local bar with my college friends, and I’m sure some pizza and Shiner Bock will do me good.

Yes, ladies and gents, at 2 p.m. on July 4 my beloved and I will become husband and wife here in beautiful (I presume) Shelby County, Kentucky. I spoke with the very nice officiant on the phone today, and she is more than happy to preside over our little nuptials. I’m guessing we’ll have a makeshift weekend honeymoon in Louisville, but it’s just as likely we’ll return home to southcentral Kentucky to watch “Unsolved Mysteries” DVDs and eat Lucky Charms.

Less than a month to go now. I get dizzy just thinking about it!