In less than two weeks now, Jen and I are getting married.  Five years, a wonderful daughter, building a house, and a whole buch of other stuff have gone by but I'm surprised to be saying that getting married is steal a big deal.  We are "very secular" as anyone who's met me or read this blog for very long can attest but despite the lack of moral pressure to get hitched it seemed to make more and more sense as time went on for reasons that should be obvious.  Also, Jen likes diamonds.  I am currently recovering from my bachelor party about which I will say nothing but that while I consider myself Young still I cannot shrug off an event such as this without at least two days of healthy food and a lot of I am never drinking agains.  I suppose that phrase is the Hail Mary of the repentant imbiber.  Despite his odd notions about "sins" and other strange ethical constructs my brother and best man did a good job of throwing me my last party as an unmarried man.  I am currently developing grass roots support for the notion that the bachelor party should be a yearly occurance similar to celebrating the wedding anniversery.  The debate and voting on this bill seems to predictably fall along party lines but bi-partisan support can surely be gained in the usual political ways: bribes and favor trading or pork legislation burried in a must pass budget bill.  More information on the Payne-Payne Bachelor Reform initiative as it develops.

It looks like all of my long lost friends and respected colleagues that I had room to invite have responded in the affirmative so none of the "You are dead to me!" cards I created will have to go out.  We've got to squeeze in some dancing practice and a lot of final details but at this point my main concern is just making it through the day without some idiotic disastor like dropping the cake or spilling coffee on The Dress or something.  There's also the final Packing to consider.  My folks have some sort of worldwide timeshare thing that led to us getting a week in St. Lucia immediately after the wedding reception.  By immediately I mean we might have time for a 1 hour cat nap before heading down to O'Hare.  This will be the longest vacation I've ever taken and my first time out of the country (Mexicali does not count) so I'm sure there are any number of things that could go wrong but I'm not going to let anything get to me.  As long as we're not demolished by an early hurricane and our daughter can handle a week without Mom and Dad I'll call it good.  The sure-to-be ridiculous spoiling that awaits her with my parents will probably have her forgetting boring old Mom and Dad in no time.

In all seriousness, Jen is fantastic, she's freaking awesome.  What higher praise could a woman want from a nerd such as myself?  I'm lucky to be with someone who is happy to do the laundry (folding clothes is the one domestic skill I never gained competancy in) in exchange for my often experimental cooking.  I brag to my friends that she's almost beaten Zelda on the Wii for the second time.  She does her best to tolerate my Capitalist rantings at 1am after I've just finished a new economics book.  She loves it that I slowly absorb medical terminology such that she can complain about sepsis or a sub-dural hemotoma without also having to serve as a dictionary (it really ruines the flow of a story).  Are these the most important things in a mate? Maybe or maybe not, but its hard to offer examples to outsiders when you just have a rythm that works.  Also, Jen is hot.  We've been through a lot together and the future looks pretty good.