The Mezzanine

*flings confetti at the world*

I am, in many ways, rather weird. And while I knew this already, this whole wedding thing keeps finding ways to remind me.

It's slightly surreal to find yourself locked in a two-hour argument about precisely how many minutes the speeches will go for, and exactly who is going to speak in which order, when you know perfectly well that you do not care in the slightest about the speeches. You can get very invested in astoundingly trivial things.

Like speeches.

Or nails.


How Much I Do Not Care About This Thing I Suddenly Have To Care About

I take little-to-no care of my nails, normally. This is slightly because they suck, and tend to tear off at random intervals, and slightly because nails (like "fashion", and "sports") are just not really something I'm interested in.

My sister, on the other hand, is a Nail Afficionado. She has several dozen nailcare tools at her disposal, and uses them all with great enthusiasm. As a result, she tends to have gorgeous nails.

So, since I'm getting married, my sister suggested that I try paying slightly more attention to my nails than normal (ie: any attention whatsoever), because then I would have lovely nails for my wedding, and she would be very thrilled with this. Hence, I have dutifully been using nail strengthening stuff, crystal nail files, and other weird things.

And, let me tell you, even if you don't care in the slightest about concrete, if you spend an hour a day smoothing out a section of concrete then you will come to care, passionately and deeply, about keeping that concrete smooth. The same applies to nails.


A Terrible Problem, And A Worse Solution

So, last week, my nail tore rather dramatically. And after spending several days dutifully reinforcing it with tissue and extra nail polish, it was clear extra measures were called for.

I went to the nearest nail salon. This was a bad idea.

(Sidenote: My sister interpreted my interest in nail salons as a fixed idea, and so did not bother objecting to it. I interpreted her nodding her head – rather than shrieking in dismay and dragging me away – as approval. In future, I want to install Subtext Interpreters in every location I frequent, to prevent further mishaps.)

The nail salon fixed the broken side of my nail! Yay! And utterly destroyed the other side of it! Woe!!! At which point, being overly invested in my smooth concrete lovely nails, and not a little highly strung from wedding prep, I collapsed in a wailing pile of RUINED FOREVER.

My family tried to fix this problem by pointing out wonderful solutions to make it not show up in photos - which I did not take well. Because, really, I don't care about having nice nails for photos! I don't care about nails at all! But I'd taken SUCH GOOD CARE of them, and now they were DESTROYED, and MY LIFE WAS OVER!!!

In the end, everyone shrugged and started telling me about all the things that went horribly wrong at their weddings, which made me giggle.


Yes, I Am Insane, But In A Productive Way

The thing that really made me feel better?

You're going to think I'm weird...

But anyway...

It was Buffy Summers. Specifically: the scene in which Buffy is talking about fighting vampires, and complains, "I broke a nail, okay? I'm wearing a press-on!"

Buffy fights vampires! She has no ability to keep her nails nice, because of all the vampire slayage! Woo!


Here is my new head-canon for my own totally imaginary life: I have been out fighting evil marauders for months on end, with my brilliant sword fighting skills. Which has totally destroyed my nails – so, upon my return to the castle to prepare for my upcoming wedding, the Royal Nail Fixers did the best job they could of giving me pretty nails, but were of course unable to replace the bits that had been sliced off by my opponents' swords.

Yes, I am very strange. BUT I'm a strange person who is ALSO a cool arse-kicking sword fighter, who lives in a CASTLE. I AM TOO AWESOME TO BE FAZED BY HOW MY NAILS LOOK. I FIGHT EVIL, BITCAS.



...whatever works. *shrugs*

My taste in music is really not wedding-compatible.


The reception venue asked us to write down our favourite artists, so they could get a good idea of what we like.

And I thought...
Pink. Except her music is kinda inappropriate for weddings.
Alanis Morrisette. ...even worse.
Taylor Swift! She writes romantic stuff! ...except the songs I like from her are all the snarky breakup songs.
Miranda Lambert! ...who writes about cheating on her multiple boyfriends.
Sunny Sweeney! ...whose best song is called "Drink Myself Single".
Sara Bareilles! ...who writes snarky refusals to write love songs.
Enimen! ...
...
...no. Just... no.


First acceptable artist I came up with was Billy Joel. *shrugs*

House Hunting

So far, we've put in offers for two houses. Didn't get the first; waiting to see if we got the second.

Buying houses is this weird kind of psychological torture in which you guess random numbers until you hopefully get one right. It is like no other buying experience on Earth: it would be so much more convenient if houses came with price tags attached, or at least with the ability to bargain with the seller. I know how that works; but this? Not a clue.

The house we're currently after is an absolute wreck, but a salvageable one. It would require an awful lot of immensely difficult work – and I would so enjoy watching it turn into something better. (Also one of the reasons I like editing, so...)


Parties and So Forth

Had an engagement party last weekend, at my parents' house. We packed out the house, with heaps of people ...who I mostly remembered the names of! Go me!

My sisters organised for every person at the party to have their photo taken holding a sign or a funny prop. I would really recommmend something like this for anyone having a similar party; it was so much fun getting to see what everyone did, and now we have a guest book full of photos.

I don't think I have to send thank-yous about people giving us cards – which is good, because we have the most enormous stack of cards, matched only by the enormous number of comments on our facebook pages.

Despite saying 'no gifts', we also have a table stacked high with presents from everyone who decided to give us something anyway. Rather fun, looking at all the pretty things and figuring out how we'll use them...



Still so much to organise – but we'll get there.

So... you might have noticed, from my previous post, that I'm engaged. :)

Yay. :)

Because of the levels of secrecy that have been in place for the last couple of months, I haven't been able to make many posts about my life and all its engagementiness. So... here is one big bumper post in which I shall talk about many things.

( the juicy details )

( the big day )

( the vendor rant )

( the dress begins )

( the house hunt )


....that's all for now. :)

I am currently waiting for Nathan to wake up from a very long nap, and slightly bored. So I thought I'd take a moment to tell you all my theory of women's clothing. (And possibly men's clothing, but I'm less sure about that.)

Briefly, most clothing will emphasise three different parts of the body:
- the bust or shoulders
- the waist or hips
- the bottom or legs
It's very rare to find clothing that, for instance, emphasises both the waist and the hips. You have to pick which one you want to go with.

So, you figure out which of each pair you should emphasise, and then always pick clothes accordingly. For me, it's:
- shoulders; generally v-necks, halter tops, or other things which create diagonal lines
- waist; stuff which comes in very sharply at my waistline
- bottom; flared jeans, bustle skirts, or fishtails

And that's how it works.



Questions? Comments?

Quiet evening at home. Hurrah! Haven't had one of those in quite a while.


TV I am watching
Recently, I have been re-watching episodes of:
- Sarah Connor Chronicles
- the Lizzie Bennet Diaries
- Once Upon A Time
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Leverage
- Yes Minister

All of them are very awesome, but in very different ways.


Lent...
...will start in about a week. In previous years, I have done many different things, including giving up chocolate, television, and unnecessary spending. The unnecessary spending worked well; the chocolate less so. It's not that I can't give up chocolate - but instead of making me focus on God, or on how little I need possessions, or on more spiritual things, it just makes me focus on how much I love chocolate. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

This year, I'm being a bit restrictive: I'm sticking to only fair trade tea and chocolate. Inconvenient? Focusing on other people in financial difficulty? A good discipline? Yep, yep, and yep. We'll see how it goes.

(One year, I'm so going to give up electric lighting. But that will not be this year.)


My washing
I just did it. For the first time in a month.

I can tell this, because my clothes-horse is now holding 25 pairs of undies. I didn't even realise I had 25 pairs of undies...


iPad Apps
There are so many.

Just about anything you could ever think of trying to plan - seriously, anything - will have an app already waiting, with in-built checklists ready to go. Very helpful. (Except that the app will be totally convinced that no-one could ever colonise Mars without inventing faster-than-light travel first, and will keep putting little "remember to install your FTL drives!" reminders in your to-do list, even though you have no intention of doing anything of the sort. Kind of irritating - and makes me feel like I'm terribly untrendy because I'm not fixated on conquering hyperspace and just want to get to the fun part of the Mars colonisation project*.)

* This, for the record, is the bit where we discover the ruins of the ancient Martian civilisation underground, and decipher the codes for creating wormholes using Martian technology...