Monday, May 07, 2007
seriously, what a fucking month.
i have six classes to go before i graduate and i'm actually considering just giving up. i know it sounds really ridiculous when you put it on paper like that, but i really am. i'm broke. not the kind of broke where people call you to go out for a few beers and you say, "sorry dude, i'm broke" but the kind of broke where you're just like, "huh... i actually have zero dollars."
DePaul, in their infinate wisdom, overpaid my loan this semester. Instead of getting the $1500 i usually get when i drop down to part time classes, i got $2900. perhaps you're thinking i should have questioned the issue or pursued the student loans dept. Actually i used the money to pay off two credit cards and get a much needed root canal. and buy some dresses... so now, i'm getting all these letters that they overpaid my loan because they didn't take into account that i lose my "continuing ed" grant when i drop down to part time and i owe them $2000. where am i going to get two thousand dollars? i don't know... in trying to fight the issue (basically retorting, "it's your fault you idiots! you sent me the wrong check!") their response has pretty much been, "ok. see if we care. don't pay it back. but we're putting a hold on your student account, so don't expect to be able to register for fall" sweet. really fucking sweet.
Plus, i was supposed to pay all these fees to take the LSATs and register with the online application boards and all that, which i haven't done yet. so it looks like i will be getting a year off before law school.
Plus, the eight hundred dollars i spent on a root canal went bad and got infected and i spent sixty dollars (so far) on vicoden and Amoxicillion
oh my gosh. ok. this is where i stop talking about money, i swear. this whole blog is turning into a financial rap sheet. you must be thinking horrible things about me right now. look, ok, at least i didn't spend the money on booze and cute shoes, right? i mean, at least i did something moderately productive, right? ok then. i thought i was getting out of debt!
On to a new subject... We are so excited about getting married!!
things were a little tense after that whole parents-finding-out-that-we-live-together thing. yeah. so basically orion was right. Ok orion? you were right: we should have told them in the beginning. but the fact of the matter is, whether we told them or they found out, the outcome was going to be the same either way. they're catholics afterall. Just wait til we tell them we're having a crazy hippie wedding in the woods. they.will.die.
Here's what's funny. in the past, on the rare occation i'd picture my wedding, it was always in the context of a broadway musical: the church decorated so ostentatiously, it's more moulin rouge than house of god. everyone in sequins and neon lined up in rows; my bridesmaids (the trio from dreamgirls or little shop of horrors) cooing softly and the groomsmen tap dancing around them. My adoring husband, beaming... when suddenly the opening strains of grease's "you're the one that i want" comes over the loadspeaker. the congregation all turns and there i am in the back of the church, stunning, in a totally blinding black sequin cocktail dress. i start singing. i have one of those huge silver eighties micorphones, and my hair stands out around my head in the biggest bouffant ever created, and i dance up the aisle slowily, greeting the guests and making charming witticisms until the big finale comes up... "you're the one that want, the one that i want...dodo do do do" and i come running up the chuch aisle at full speed and leap into the arms of my groom. kind of like the climax in dirty dancing.
it's sort of an understatement to say i've always been real big on spectacle. i'm the girl who, in high school, made her friends swear that if she died they'd create a huge scene at the cemetery culminating in one of them throwing themselves in the hole, on top of my casket, screaming "NO!! take me!" (the fact that, at sixteen, i was thinking about my funeral is an issue unto itself...)
I always do everything over the top, and my romantic life has always reflected that. i've dated a lot of characters, but no real people. i've been the character in many men's lives, but not a real girlfriend. when i think about my romantic history, it's funny how at the time, i always thought it was perfectly legitimate, but when my girlfriends and i talk about them, it's always by title: the italian guy, florida, the priest, J, africa... it's like a sitcom.
people keep asking me how i know i want to get married. and i might be young, and i might be naive and inexpirienced, but i don't think it's something you know... like an equation or something. it's not like memorizing timestables: his smile + my eyes = forever. It's something that you feel. My marriage will not be a guarantee. no union is. it will not be the culminating scene of lavish musical. it will be the beginning of the story and it will be real. i always pictured my wedding in these insane terms, but i see my life with orion as a reality. we're ourselves with each other. there's no soundtrack or ridiculous plot twist. There's no way i can say to everyone, "i know it's going to work; i know we'll be together forever!" because life is life, and things happen and people change and mental illness can strike at any time. but we love each other. a lot. right now.
I see the decision to get married a lot like the decision to get sober. In AA they're always telling you to take it day by day and not be thrown off course by life changes, to accept them. when you promise your life to another person, you're not promising that everything is always going to be easy or work out, but you are promising to take it one day at a time, to compromise on whose turn it is to clean the bathroom, to take a lot of deep breaths and recommit. marriage is not a finish line just like sobriety is not a finish line. it's not just a thing that you are, it's a thing that you do. i don't think age has anything to do with it: if you get married for the wrong reasons they're still the wrong reasons whether you're twenty or thrity-five.
so we're bickering about DJs and catering. august or june. barefoot or converse. but we're talking. and we're happy.
Currently reading:
Source: Poems
By Mark Doty
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