I just received a phone call from my the AA at the theater department I work for because one of our graduates last year was killed yesterday in a car accident in the British Virgin Islands, where she was working. Although she wasn't she was an actor, not a costume student, she was someone I worked with quite closely, building her a vintage cheer leading costume and also because, rather strangely, she played ghosts two plays and a dying woman in a third, and needed lots of make-up help. I am more upset than I would have thought, but she was such a sweet, kind and patient young woman with a whole bright future ahead of her.

I don't exactly wish that I'd eloped, but I sometimes wish we'd *either* put more time and energy into certain aspects of wedding planning *or* eloped. Certain bits were kind of slapdash and last-minute, and if I had it to do over again, I'd make them better. Or not bother at all. OTOH, I'm glad we lavished attention on the vows, the music, etc., and I'm glad my dad walked me down the aisle, the more so now that he's gone. So, on the balance, I'm happy we had a fairly traditional wedding.

However, the weddings I've written for my fictional characters? Thus far they've all either been elopements or tiny, hastily arranged affairs. Partly that's because I write Regency/Napoleonic era, and the Big Production wedding is more a Victorian phenomenon. But who knows, maybe there's some wish-fulfillment there.

(Oh, and I'm back from Alabama, procrastinating figuring out what did and didn't get done in my absence at work. Hi!)

Ann Arbor is wierd. Everyone else tests them on Saturday.

Evanston tests theirs every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Our office is pretty close to one of the sirens.

Here's how I envision my wedding ceremony: The bride and I each roll down the aisle in our own human-sized hamster balls. Then, at the moment we're pronounced husband and wife, we each climb into the same, larger hamster ball and roll back down the aisle.

Are you wearing a ruffly blue tuxedo?

I'm so sorry, Sophia.

DeKalb tests on Tuesdays at 10 too.

Sophia, I'm so very sorry.

I'm going to be in y'all's neck of the woods at the end of September for Folsom Street Fair.

How did I miss this?? SWEET! Vortex is also attempting to beat the universe into place so she can come, and Aimee was making noises about coming, too. I will, of course, be rumbling up in my bike. Need a ride?

Sophia I'm sorry.

This is a cool photo - a two million dollar yacht was being carried in a sling high above the water. It slipped out and plunged vertically into the water. Two people were on it when it happened....

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