When will the pre-wedding insanity end??
Let me just say one word: Argh. Yes, argh. And for proper effect, it needs to be uttered in a gutteral wail of anxiety.

I feel so overwhelmed with things! There's all these THINGS to get done before Saturday. All sorts of things, big and small. But a lot of the things that need to get done can only be done the day or the day-of the wedding, so it's just this icky anticipation and worry that we just won't get it all finished, or...

...we WILL get it all finished, but collapse of stress-induced heart attacks before we can enjoy the various fruits of our labors. There they are, the lovely bride and groom. Dead. So sad.

Actually, no, it's not so bad. But yes, we are quite busy this week. People are arriving, dogs need to be shuttled away to the dog sitter's house, food needs to be prepared and houses--OK, just one house, and it is ours--need to be cleaned. And then there's the little wedding details like decorating and getting everything ready to go. It's a lot to do, and it's sort of surreal that It, The Wedding, happens in just a couple of days. Wow!

It really is going to be a LOT of fun. I'm excited as hell.

However, it must be noted that the fun of our wedding will pale in comparison to Office-Sanctioned Wedding Celebratory Luncheon(TM).

Today, my co-workers did a nice thing and threw me a luncheon in the training room here at work. They put a lot of effort into ordering good food (Italian, just the way I like it), decorating with my color and having a delicious rum cake on-hand to cap off the festivities. But you know what, though...it was STILL an office thing. It's just weird to do this at work. I don't like it, I feel uncomfortable and today, when it was my turn to be the center of the workplace attention, I wanted to puke a little in my mouth.

Not because I hate the attention, but because of the phony, trite small-talk I heard coming out of my own mouth as I tried to be cordial and smiley. I understood the importance of being smiley today--if I was scowling and my usual bad-attituded self, that would give a strange impression to everyone that I was not happy to be getting married. I had no choice, I HAD to be smiley, you see.

It could have been worse, I suppose. It could have involved music and mandatory participation in a Corporate-Approved version of the Electric Slide. Or they could have ignored me altogether and just glossed over doing anything nice at all for the "quiet girl in the corner." This was the best the officemates could do, under the corporate circumstances.

Feast your eyes on the special bride's chair they set up for me:

Now I liked this; I thought it was sweet that the ladies went to the trouble to decorate and go all out with the tulle and gasp--a feather boa! They made it feel like an actual wedding-related event. That was very nice and I don't criticize what they did. However...

You can't mask the fact that it is still an office chair, sitting in a bland office room, at a conference table that has brought me nothing but boredom and misery in my previous moments spent sitting at it. This picture amuses me quite a bit. Festivity! Gaiety! Conference Room!

Yup, so, the world knows now that Armsweat's getting her ass married. No mistake about that. I am just really ready to leave the office today and not come back for a week and a half, already. I don't want to be doing this when there are wedding-things I could be doing, where I free to go. This is probably the hardest thing; sitting in the office trying to work when I am only thinking about a pile of other more interesting and exciting things. And crap that needs to be done. There is crap, after all. But the good stuff outweighs the bad.

All this business with my schedule being packed and stress making an idiot out of me has meant there have been sacrifices. I haven't worked out, I have been eating weird (eating only twice all day some days, and bingeing on others), and most of all I have yet to see Borat. This pains me, for I know how hilarious this movie is reported to be. And I love the character so much. I could totally use a few hours of hard laughter in a dark theater. I can't wait until we can go see it!

I'm all over the place with this blog. I should be working. Either way, it's crazy times and despite my extreme happiness at getting married to Greg, I repeat my affirmation over and over to get through the week: I will NOT cry due to stress, I will NOT cry due to stress, I will NOT cry, damn it! I'm a tough old broad, and we tough old broads don't cry. We might get a little loud and shouty, but that's it. NO TEARS! Be tough, slap myself in the face a little, get a beer and DEAL. I mean...fuck. I can do this!

I once organized a gigantic charity march to raise dollars for children afflicted with cancer of the ass; 500 million people across the nation came out to walk for the Ass Cancer Kids, and it was all because I was the seed that sprouted into the glorious plant of a Great, Selfless Idea. I was the change I wanted to see in the world, Mr. Ghandi. I DID it. So yes, if I could pull that little trick off, I can certainly handle a small wedding! Shyeah!

I won't even get into the time I developed a vaccine that will undoubtedly eradicate the horrors of the common cold, or when I worked with an international team of experts to build the perfect human being, capable of great feats of strength, skill and endurance; the perfect soldier, if you will. My point is, to paraphrase the feminist icon, Barbie, we girls can do anything. And that includes me, for I am a girl and I am not made of molded plastic, giving me an automatic edge right there.