Jeez, it's raining out! Could you give the drum circle a rest?

Sox, my condolences to your DH & family. It's never easy, but it sounds like it was as peaceful as it could have been, and I hope that's a comfort.

The truth is that I didn't. I was never good at it and actively disliked doing the cute thing to get boys. Always have. But it meant that I wasn't part of the cadre of chicks reading "the Knot" and planning the perfect Napa wedding the next summer.

javachik, reading about those women, I also wonder how many of them are actually happy in their marriages (or still married) now. I mean, I certainly hope they are; I don't wish them unhappiness. But I'd guess it's not uncommon for someone who really, really wants to get married NOW -- in other words, someone for whom the goal is "marriage," not "finding the right person" -- to end up marrying someone with whom they're not super happy or compatible, long-term.

I love reading Burrell's and Teppy's and beth's and Scrappy's stories of finding the right person. I sometimes think about how M and I were at just the right stages in our lives to meet and fall in love with each other; if we'd met five years earlier, we might not even have liked each other all that much, and we probably wouldn't have had enough experience to understand all that was right about each other. We both did a lot of growing up in our 20s, and it got us to the place where we *could* be right for each other.

(As a side note, it does sometimes feel strange to have moved across the country together, less than a year into the relationship. Strange in the sense that, while to us it's still unexpectedly wonderful that we found each other, to our friends in Nashville we're just... Kate & Mark. Just another couple. Whereas our friends back home *know* how long it took, and how frustrating it was for both of us to be single for so long while they all got married and started having babies, and consequently they still tell us sometimes how happy they are for us.)

From DH, when I passed on messages just now: "Thank you all. Brought tears to my eyes."

Shallow: I haz new glasses - [link]

Shallow: I haz new glasses - [link]

Very nice!

{{Sox's DH and all of your family}}

Pretty glasses, Jessica! I have to go back on Tuesday for another appointment--my new ones are a bit off in the left eye, and they have to redo the back of the ear piece which is digging into the skin behind my right ear.

I've been teling some co-workers/friends here about my plans for my England trip next summer, and it's starting to get a bit annoying how many of them are saying "Maybe you'll meet a guy over there!" Now that I'm in "acceptable" shape, they're thinking all I want is to snare a guy, and if I get one with a cute accent, all the better. Believe me, if it happens, sweet! But that's not why I'm going there.

I have to admit, I do encourage friends and family that are travelling to get foreign nookie. But that's because I've liked the overseas ass I've gotten very much, as opposed to thinking there's some righteous value to being paired off.

There's a big difference between meet a guy and bring him back, and meet a guy and leave him there!

Relatedly, I was randomly wondering about a guy I hooked up with in college who (last I heard) was in Chicago and divorced from his college girlfriend, since I'm going to Chicago, but I just heard he's apparently married again. Ah well!

I liked the article in the Atlantic, but I did kind of think the writer is a dork. (Not that that is anything I can hold against anybody.) I'm beginning to think there is no available person who is right for me, and I'm starting to think other people think that too, because the examples I get now are like Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, and (naturally!) Helen Keller. Accomplished women, all, but seemingly not sexually fulfilled. sigh.

and it got us to the place where we *could* be right for each other.

Timing, as they say, is everything. I *wish* I had met Tim in our 20s because I want as much time as possible with him. (I met him at 35, and I don't think 50 years is an unreasonable expectation, damn it [but I also tell the dog he has to stick around for 50 years -- it's going to be a long haul with those 2 stinky old guys]), but I wasn't remotely ready for a healthy relationship until I was in my mid-30s. I did a lot of work in therapy on the whole issue of don't-be-with-someone-who-wants-you-to-change. A LOT. And then I met him.

Also, if I had met him earlier, he would have been already married, and that would have sucked. For me. So while I don't believe in fate, I do think that our timing was excellent.