countdown, baby!
i don't think i'll ever have this sort of feeling again. the rest of the Big Things that are going to happen to me are, most likely, going to be surprises. i know that at 4:30 on saturday (well, it'll be more like 5:30 when it's all done), i'll be married. fucking married!. childbirth, death, etc., aren't going to be anywhere near as precise, as scheduled. nor anywhere near as painful, but that really doesn't help the point i'm trying to make.
regardless, here's a brief run-down on what is going through someone's mind at such a Big Thing point in their lives:

all my friends hate me and only talk about themselves, unless they're bringing up the wedding and how exciting it is to people who aren't invited.

i dream about melissa joan hart as a high schooler taking oboe lessons with the same teacher as me.

i have dreams in which aforementioned high school melissa joan hart responds when i call her "clarissa."

i dream about going to a wedding coordinator job interview with aforementioned oboe.

i can't for the life of me remember all the songs i put on mix tapes with the words, "this song is totally being played at my wedding reception" scrawled beneath the song title, taking up valuable tape-insert real estate. now would be a good time to check any Julia Mix Tape inserts and get back to me. preferably by friday.

some of my parents friends are already in town from england, notably the Amazing Bernadette. i want this woman to follow me around everywhere and crack jokes. also, after maybe 5 minutes of her company, i've already slipped back into a deep cumbrian accent, including dialect slang and foul humor. erik is startled, but i think he's still going to marry me anyway. he didn't even blink when i turned to him and said something resembling "hod on t' this, eh?" and handed him some trifle.

mmm, trifle.

despite saturday night's Authentic English Meal of Carbohydrates, Fat, and Trifle, i still managed to fit into the wedding dress this afternoon.

i had the most verklemptest of the verklempts the other night when i reconnected with an old friend - i was in her wedding. i was the bridesmaid (you know, that one) that fell off the face of the Goddamn Married Couples Are Everywhere planet. we all stopped having things in common when their kitchen started to smell of fresh calphalon and "what to expect when you're expecting" books. but i digress. these reunion things are poorly timed. i'm starting to realize what sort of companionships mean the most to me long after wedding invitations went out, long after final headcounts were turned in to caterers, long after bridesmaid dresses were fitted. they may be poorly timed, but i wouldn't change a thing. it's hard to say that i would have valued her friendship as much had we never lost touch. it was a sense of pure elation to see her again, totally overcoming the superficial barrier that i've become accustomed to making over the last year while interacting with People Not on the Guest List. i think i'll call them tomorrow and see what they're doing on saturday.

i promise to remove the word "verklempt" from my vocabulary after the wedding. i PROMISE!

granted, i used to love the odd "clarissa explains it all" episode, but COME ON!

since i'm pretty much finished being able to catalog what is going through my mind, here endeth the bulleted list.