Sleepless in Sea Cattle
I find myself about two days from my wedding. I also find myself wide awake, albeit tired like a car. I do not believe the two to be related, though being awake, wedding plans, wedding shoes, wedding circumstances, wedding singers, wedding (lack of) funds, wedding weddings, wedding wingdings (try wingdings 2 for that newer symbolic look) are all on my mind.
One of the offices I've taken upon myself is corrector-of-common-misconception-misconceptions. For example, children learned in school that it's so often a mistake to say "So-and-so and me" and were so corrected to say "So-and-so and I," rather than being taught about subjective and objective forms of pronouns. Thus, we've ended up with a generation of Facebookers who caption photos as "Spock and I at the beach!" meaning to have good grammar, but in actuality having a common misconception about a common misconception. I generally hold my virtual tongue on the web, but in real life and with folks I know, I have a few less inhibitions. It's not something I pride myself in. To be honest, I dislike this tendency of mine, but it nonetheless remains.
So don't take this the wrong way. Stress isn't just a "negative" bucket of things. It's anything that is emphasized, like a stressed note in music or a stressed point in a political debate. Being so closely involved in a wedding and wedding plans stresses, magnifies and emphasizes all emotions to the point that most everything is overwhelming. My wedding is significantly less stressed and magnified than most and I'm still experiencing this effect. So to all you with large weddings, I salute you. Also, I thank you for your delicious cream puffs. And the punch. To all you who will attend any of my wedding parties, I hope you enjoy Twinkies and suckers.
Whoever thought of big weddings should be both honored and shot. The ceremony of marriage certainly provides quite a cause for great celebration and the difficulty of such an event warrants eloping.

