Photos and Before

Hey yoooooouuuuu guys!!!

The photo shoot went well. I know you were all biting your nails in anticipation, wondering how that would turn out. Several people have asked me about my extensions, though, so I will briefly describe them now: they are clip-in type and made of real (human [haha]) hair. The tops are like a combination of a very short-toothed comb and the type of clip that if you bend it out, it’s open and if you bend it in, it’s closed (what is this kind of clip called!?). It was very convenient for the photos because normally at 95°F and 50% humidity, my hair acts like a real jerk, but since the majority of it wasn’t really mine, but instead someone else’s, more accommodating, hair, it continued to look normal/curled the entire time. Overall, the look was more Miranda Lambert than Botticelli’s Venus, but what are you going to do?

Also, fun story: while at Probate Court getting our marriage license, JP and I overheard a woman discussing the following with a probate officer:

Woman: So let’s say a woman marries a Mexican. Does he automatically become a citizen?

Probate Officer: No, there are a lot of other factors involved, and even then, it’s a lengthy process to citizenship.

W: What if she’s pregnant with his baby? After the baby’s born, do they both automatically become citizens?

PO: No, ma’am. They baby would be a citizen because the mother is American, but the father would still not be a citizen.

W: What if both the mother and the father are 17?

PO: Did your daughter come in here earlier this week to talk to me about this?

W: Yes, she said that you said the baby’s father still wouldn’t become an American citizen, I just wanted to double-check.

PO: Well, that’s true. And I also told her that both sets of parents had to come in and sign all the paperwork if they intended to get married.

W: Well, his dad won’t come over here. He’s in Mexico, and he won’t come here. They were thinking about doing it over there, in Mexico. Like, she would meet his dad, and then they would get married down there. Do you know how she would go about going down there?

PO: Does she have a passport? She could just get it cleared through the passport office.

W: No, she doesn’t have one.

PO: Well, she’d have to get a passport, unless you know some other illegal means to get her down there…

Let’s just say it digressed from there. As soon as the woman left, the probate officer just walked back to her desk, slowly shaking her head and kind of looking over at me. I could tell she wanted to talk about this wacky situation, but discussing probate court business with unrelated parties may be even worse than suggesting a woman sneak her pregnant 17-year-old daughter into Mexico.

Engagement Shoot

Today JP and I are having our engagement pictures taken. At this late date, you may be asking yourself. Why bother? And I agree wholeheartedly, HOWEVER, if I have learned anything from 26 years of living, it is to pick my battles with my mother, and this is one I chose not to fight.

From an email sent to the photographer:

ALSO, I know that you guys spend a lot of time editing these and choosing the best ones, but if you could send me like 2-3 pictures from the shoot shortly afterwards, I would be indebted to you FOREVER. My mother is really anxious for us to put our engagement in the local newspaper, and she has been driving me NUTS to go ahead and get these photos taken. We can get the rest of the pictures literally whenever, I just told her I would try to go ahead and get one sent in to the LaGrange Daily News ASAP. :)

His reply:

That’s fine. Your mom sounds awesome.

Ha. Oh, photographer. At least he’s accommodating. Also, I’m getting my hair done today as in having my extensions put in. This will be me:

Except with clothes.

The estimated temp for our shoot time is 95°F. Yes, August was definitely the best choice for this. AND I’m supposed to go by the florist and the courthouse beforehand to take care of other wedding-related activities. When I told JP we had to do the second thing together, he said: “Can’t you just take care of that yourself? I just want to go [to LaGrange] and relax.” To which I said: “Number 1, no I can’t, and number 2, relax this!” [As I punched him in the face.] Correct me if I’m wrong, readers, but getting your wedding license taken care of needs to be done by both individuals getting married, right? I mean, otherwise I could have just gone to the courthouse alone and “taken care of this” myself years ago, CORRECT? Ugh.

I’m sure everything will turn out fine. I’ll let you know how it goes!

So many things…

This post is going to be a mixed bag. I have a little to say about a lot of things. Sort of a post of all trades, master of none, eh?

First of all, I think my body is rejecting me. This happens pretty regularly.  If I really looked into it, I would probably find out I had some kind of food sensitivity/intolerance to something I’m currently eating every day. Either that or my generalized anxiety about everything is stressing me out, and I need to take up yoga. (Must add this to to-do list….)

Which brings me to the fact that the wedding is only ONE MONTH AWAY! ACK! I am freaking out about this. Not the marriage part, that is fine (although let’s be honest, if it wasn’t, this is the LAST place I’d want to talk about it). The actual wedding part, though, is becoming a huge stress for me (see previous paragraph). One million things left to do! One million trips to LaGrange to make before the big day—which leads to one million dollars being spent on gas. John Paul is also driving me nuts because he is so laid back about everything BUT NOT in a positive way! More in an “Oh, yeah, I’ll get to it” or an “I haven’t decided yet…” way. PUNT!

HOWEVER, kudos to him because he (finally) finished painting the study! It looks awesome, and I want to hang out in there all the time now. The walls are this great muted orange color, and thanks to my fabulous soon-to-be MIL, we have these amazing bookshelves for me to display all my books. Actually, she gave us so many, I told her she’s just enabling my book addiction. Yikes. This room is part of my dream house:

Author Neil Gaiman’s Library

Anyway, times are tough, but not that tough. I may be stressed, but I’m super excited to be marrying the man of my dreams, THIS GUY:

The Green Album

I got really excited about Muppets: The Green Album as soon as I heard about it like a month ago. I mean, it’s clearly a part of some grand cross-promotional thing to help garner exposure for the upcoming movie, but I’m fine with it. As I mentioned not too long ago, I have a special place in my heart for good covers, and I love, love, love the Muppets. I grew up watching reruns of The Muppet Show, and The Muppet Christmas Carol is an annual Christmas tradition for me. Silly puppet humor + musical numbers = love.

The album itself comes out August 23, but it’s currently streaming on NPR’s First Listen, so I’m be-bopping to it in my cube. I like all the tracks, but my current favorites are “Movin’ Right Along” By Alkaline Trio (it’s so fun—it makes me want to take a road trip!) and “I Hope that Something Better Comes Along” by Matt Nathanson.

Just for fun, though, here’s a cover (not on this album) that Sarah McLaughlin did a few years ago of “Rainbow Connection.” So beautiful!

A Novel Home

My friend said something really interesting today that made me think. She said she would not mind living in the fictional Mitford Jan Karon writes about in The Mitford Years book series. Although I was not impressed by Mitford’s quaint charm, I definitely agreed with her re: living/studying at Hogwarts. That would be amazing! This led me to come up with a few more places I could definitely live and some that I definitely could not.

Live-Worthy:

Lyra’s Oxford (The Golden Compass)—A sort of alt-universe Oxford as imagined in The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. A place so neat that Pullman wrote a novella which strongly focused the place itself.

Avonlea, Prince Edward Island (Anne of Green Gables)—I have told JP I would actually visit here for a number of reasons: First, I just think it would be neat, and if I’m going to go to Canada, Avonlea is one of the places I’d like to visit. Secondly, and I think this is hilarious, PEI has a large tourism trade because of the book series, and draws women from the world who dye their hair red and have Anne-themed weddings there, specifically Japanese women. (???)

The Other Side of the Wall (Stardust)—Even though there are a number of things to concern yourself with, e.g. witches, murderous siblings, et al, I remember the setting as beautiful and idyllic.

Un-Live-Worthy:

Panem (The Hunger Games)—Yikes! I would not want to live in a society that forces child tributes to fight to the death. That is the worst. It makes for a fabulous book series, though.

Winterfell/The Kingdoms of Westeros (Game of Thrones)—Yeah, war-torn kingdoms loosely set in the Medieval era are not my idea of a fun time. Maybe the more dramatic the place, the less I want to live there?

Are there any novel settings you would really want/really NOT want to live in?

This Book Makes Me Want to Barf.

Oh my gosh, you guys. There’s this book I’m reading. It’s really good. It’s also THE WORST. I keep wanting to not read it, but then I tell myself that it’s quality non-fiction that’s very interesting, so I should probably just suck it up and finish it. Aghhh [general groan of frustration and indecision]!

The book is Columbine by Dave Cullen. I’ll give you one guess to what it’s about. It’s neat because, like I said, it’s well-written non-fiction, and I like that stuff. (Other examples include: The Devil in White City, Under the Banner of Heaven, and anything by Mary Roach.) Reading Columbine is horrifying because it’s like watching a train wreck (or, specifically, the train wreck from the beginning of Super 8, if you took my advice and saw it). You see each element as an individual link in a chain of events that will ultimately culminate in massive collision, and from your vantage point you can even see the alternatives; but you’re too far away, and by the time your thoughts are even verbalized, the train is crashing in front of your eyes…

Seriously, I am so moved by this book. I feel simultaneously disgusted, heartsick, impotent, and intrigued. It’s interesting because so much of what the media was saying about the tragedy at the time turned out to not even be true. The scene was so chaotic and people were so desperately seeking answers that rumors and misinformation became the truth. Yet it is only from historical distance that the author was able to go back and sort through the information/misinformation that led to this clarifying work. I would definitely recommend it if you’re not too put off by the subject matter.

Are there any books you’ve read that have simultaneously interested/disgusted you?

Love It (x3) List of the Week

What am I loving this week? I’ll tell you:

Breaking Bad

JP and I are watching the previous season (Season 3?) right now on DVD. I like it, although I am sometimes horrified by the choices the characters make, e.g., one of the guys uses rehab to surreptitiously market his meth to recovering addicts (“This one kind of meth is sooo good, I don’t know how to not use it.”). My favorite part about it, though, is that it’s something JP and I can watch together. He rarely gets into series of shows and typically watches only sports or the History Channel, so whenever I find an engaging show we can watch together, I plan entire evenings around it. Seriously.

Tiny Dancers

We’ve started taking dance lessons again, but this time it’s just us and our instructor Natalie. I’ve found it really hard to concentrate the last few times we’ve been, though, because there are these two couples who are so talented it’s hard for me not to stop and watch—and none of them is more than nine years old! Seriously, they are so talented and all their little moves are so exact, I am jealous of their skillz. If only JP and I had started our lessons like 15 years ago, we’d be dominating the dance studio today.

These are not the actual kids, but their moves (and my intimidation level) are the same.

To-Do Lists

I am knocking things off my to-do list like they are hot. I’m trying to get a lot of this wedding bologna taken care of early, so when things really get down to the wire I won’t have one million things left to do. Although I feel like the work for these kinds of things really expands to fill the time you have, so maybe I should just take a snoozer instead…At least for now, checking things off is making me feel mega-productive.

What are you love, love, loving this week?

A Holly, Jolly Post

Exciting music news! One of my fave bands is coming out with a Christmas album! I am doubly pumped about this because I love, love, love Christmas music. No lie, I think I started listening to it in October last year. So I am for sure going to want A Very She & Him Christmas. I already told JP to add it to my list (because he keeps a massive list of gifts for me [he definitely does not do this]). And he was all “I don’t know who that is.” And I said, “You know, it’s that band I like with Zooey Deschanel in it.” And he says, “Oh, right. Dr. Brennan’s sister.” SIGH.

Anyway, to get you just as excited as me, here’s the lady half of She & Him singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.

What I Really Want to Know Is...

Ok, friends, so even though I’m approaching the finish line of all this wedding planning stuff, I’ve got some other things on my mind, and I need to get your opinion.

Because of the wedding, I haven’t auditioned for a show (play/musical) since I did Hairspray last year, and I am definitely looking forward to getting involved in something after the wedding. BUT THEN I found out that this show I really want to do is having auditions August 9 and 11 (beginning rehearsals in the middle of August), AND the show itself is not even until the end of November/the beginning of December. ALSO, this group only practices on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons. AND OBVIOUSLY I would tell them up front that I would have to miss the two-week span around my wedding/honeymoon. So I should totally do it, right? You guys all totally agree that this would be a reasonable and definitely non-stress inducing thing to do? There are definitely enough hours in the day for all these activities.

Me (at left), backstage at Hairspray. As you can tell from the date in the corner (who does that?),
it has been a while.

Actually, the current count is one in favor and three against, the three being my mom, my fiancé, and my voice teacher. Hmm… Is it really going to be that stressful? I mean, I am kind of stressed out right now, but it’s hard to know because I live my life at a moderate level of anxiety anyway, so…

Yeah, I seriously want to know what you think. I had pretty much convinced myself to do it, but then this morning I woke up and was feeling very indecisive. Let me know! If you can't figure out the comments (like me—seriously, what is my problem?), just email me at eyparrish (at) gmail.com.