Christopher is thinking about all this very logically, like financing and gas mileage and size (he is six-five and can’t fit into a lot of cars). I am thinking of my father saying, repeatedly, “The three worst possible investments are cars, kids and pets.”

INVESTMENT is a word I’ve been chewing on lately, because getting married involves all sorts of financial discussions involving the word MERGE and also we’re gearing up to buy a place (re: build equity, because every time I write a rent check I want to puke a little bit in my mouth). As if on cue, my dog (one of the two worst possible investments I’ve alreadly made) starts to snore, which he does when he sleeps on his back. Christopher looks at him and says, “Do you think he knows we took away his testicles?” I don’t answer this question, hoping that perhaps if I ignore a conversation about testicles it will go away, but Christopher just got home from dinner with his dad, and they like their margaritas, yes they do, so he gets on the internet and plugs TESTICLES FOR PETS into google and discovers Neuticles, so, of course, he has to read aloud from the testimonials for a while.

“I've put off neutering Crooked Joe for months and when I found out about Neuticles and spoke to them it made me feel better about neutering. Joe not only looks the same now—but doesn't know he's missing anything.”

“Frodo never knew he lost anything and is just a happier little dog since he's been neutered with Neuticles.”

“Neuticles were the absolute least I could do.”

I interrupt: “Hey, is it okay if I blog about this? About you being all drunk and reading to me about dog testicles?”

He comes and reads over my shoulder. “Margaritas?” he says, his voice full or reproach. “We didn’t drink margaritas! We drank MOJITOS! C’mon, get it RIGHT!” Then he says, “What you should really talk about is how we were test driving those Rav 4’s at the Toyota Dealership and you were all tense and upset—” he imitates me being tense and upset, his shoulders hunched over and his mouth set in a straight line— “and I said, ‘I’m not going to test drive anymore cars with you unless you have FUN! Have a ninja fight with me right now!’ and then I did all those ninja moves and kicked you in the butt, and then you kicked me back and said ‘Hee-YA!’ and we fought in the parking lot until you weren’t thinking about investments anymore!” at which point I start thinking about that word again—investment—and how, though I understand how putting money into cars, kids and pets can be viewed as bad investments insofar as FINANCES go (ie your money doesn’t make money back, etc.) they’re still totally not bad investments insofar as Making Life Worth Living. My snoring, non-testicle-having dog is a great example of this. He eats money as fast as we can make it (“When does he get big enough where we don’t have to feed him anymore?” Christopher asked last week at PetSmart, heaving the thirty pound bag of Science Diet over his shoulder) but then he sighs really loud, and snuggles up against me, and I cry, “YOU, Marc Jacobs! Design more argyle doggy jackets for me to put on layaway at Barker and Meowski! I don’t CARE that Mojo ATE the last one! Nary an OFF-THE-RACK jacket for my little guy!”

What I’m really thinking about, as I think about investments, is the whole wedding industry. Because I just spent the past ten days in Michigan with my parents (Dear Everyone Who Sent Emails Asking Why I Wasn’t Updating My Blog: I was in Michigan visiting my parents. Neither of whom has internet. And when I got back, late last night, and opened my computer, I had eighty new messages. Eighty. Let us all ponder that. Let us consider the influence of technology over our daily life and the consequences of unplugging. Let us attend numerous conferences about this issue, and read about it in Wired or Nesweek, and imagine all those Sci-Fi books we read in our teens coming true by the time we have our own children) and we talked a great deal about weddings, i.e. I told them we were eloping/the reasons why we were eloping/how excited I was to be eloping, after which my dad and I drank beer and took the dogs for a spin in the canoe and my mom and I drank wine and shopped for a dress.

SHOPPING FOR A DRESS
By Megan Stielstra

Megan and her mother enter an upscale bridal salon in Birmingham, Michigan. Upscale as in you have to have an APPOINTMENT. As in, they offer you TEA. As in, they tell you NOT what YOU want your dress to be, but what Monique LHUILLIER wants your dress to be. You want to ask if they can SPELL Lhuillier. The salon itself is pink and white, its walls lined with great big dresses. In the center of the store are plushy pink and white ottomans where, presumably, Ruth is supposed to sit while Megan disappears into dressing rooms and helpful pink attendants bring her gown after gown. Soon she’ll emerge from said dressing room looking like a live-action version of Cinderella post-pumpkin, in puffy, heavy layers of tulle covered with beaded, embroidered lace not unlike icing on a cake, her torso laced into some Turn-of-the-Century whalebone business that sends her bosom right up to her chin. She will stand in front of three-way mirrors, and everyone will go, “Awwww,” and then someone will yell, “WAIT!” and will rush over and put a tiara on her head. Ruth will cry, and get out her checkbook, and lay down next month’s mortgage payment. Megan will smile between clenched teeth, because if she opens her teeth all her breath will escape and she’ll pop out of this precarious balance of wire and net.

Don’t worry, people. None of this happened. What happened was we stood in the doorway, gave it the once-over, and looked at each other. I mouthed NOOOOOO at my mom, and when the lightning-fast salesgirl approached and said, ‘Are you Megan? We’ve pulled out TONS of dresses for you to try!” my totally awesome mother lied in her face. “Oh no, we don’t have an appointment or anything. We just stopped in for fun!” and then we turned around and hightailed it out of there. To the nearest bottle of pinot noir.

So. Did I get a dress? YES. Do I love it? Does it make me feel really beautiful and perfect and happy? YES. Am I going to tell you anything else about it? NO—because in all the happily non-traditional details of my upcoming nuptials, there is one standard tradition I’m holding tight to: Christopher doesn’t get to see my dress before the wedding. And he reads this blog, and is very internet savvy, and if I say where I got it or who designed it or what it looks like, he’ll find it within the hour. There are some things, people, that don’t go up on a live journal. Wedding dresses are one of those things.

I will say that, as far as my finances go, my dress was not in any way an investment (i.e. I have shoes that cost me more than this dress). However, it is very much a Making Life Worth Living thing, because I now have very wonderful memories of a wonderful time with my mom, finding this dress. We had a ball that day, not only lying to that one salesgirl, but lying to all of them, ‘cause we blew not just one but SEVERAL bridal appointments that day. And now, there’s money left over for shoes.

And a new car.

But not Neuticals.

When I was single, I did this all the time: sat alone in bars, writing on napkins what I heard all around me. Call it what you will—observation? research?—what I was really doing was killing time, trying to wait out the inevitable loneliness of going home at the end of the night. Home was a beautiful one-bedroom that I loved, loved, loved during the day—waking up at six a.m. with sunlight flooding the windows, padding barefoot into my office with a cup of coffee and four whole hours before I had to get ready to teach. I’d read the paper, write in my journal, write stories, rewrite, random stuff, read books sometimes if it wasn’t coming, always quiet and perfect and bright, even in the winter—but at night, I loathed it. The silence was so loud! I couldn’t sleep! Couldn’t hear myself think! I’d play the Matrix over and over on the laptop (no TV) just to have some distraction—not watching it, just using it for white noise—but eventually it would be too much so I’d have to leave. Late night coffee shops or bars, like this one, and I’d sit alone with a stack of cocktail napkins and jot down what I saw. Why napkins? you ask. Easy. If you take your journal into a bar, it’s a sign for people to approach you. They can say, “OH! You’re a WRITER! Me TOO!” or, “What do you write?” (Uhm … words?) or, “You’re a writer? Have you read (insert whatever title here, but Ayn Rand is a safe bet)?” Napkins seemed safer, somehow. They don’t offer a common conversation topic, and, while I wanted to be among people, I didn’t want to TALK to any of them. I just wanted to kill time, and the best way to do that is listening.

Like now: I’m waiting for Christopher, and listening, and what I’m hearing does not disappoint.

“How do you expect me to marry you now!” says the girl to my right. I glance her way with that once-practiced look of nonchalance (“I’m not looking at YOU, I’m looking at something over THERE”). She’s turned in her chair to full-on face the guy to her right, so I can only see her back. Red sweater, expensive. Long blonde ponytail, dyed. Her shoulders are shaking, deep breath, deep breath, so I’m assuming she’s crying. On the bar in front of her is a vodka tonic and her left hand—yes, there’s the ring. Big and sparkly—and she lifts the hand a few inches and smacks it back down. The wine in my glass trembles from the gesture. “I’m so SICK of you doing this!” she says. The guy grasps her upper arm—I can’t see him, the girl’s body is blocking him, but I see his fingers just below her shoulder—“Will you lower your voice!” he says, and I think, No, talk louder! I can barely hear you as is! because the noise in this place is intense. The game (what game? I don’t follow that stuff) is on three screens bolted above the bar, and The Cure blasts through the stereo, and the bartender at this particular place is really awful. He stands at the far end of the bar inspecting his tattoos and the only way you can get his attention is to yell, so every five minutes there’s a “Hey, can I get a Guiness!?” or “I need another pitcher over here, Man!” or “Two Stoli cran and a Manhattan,” from customers or waitresses and I think, If this guy worked where I’ve worked he’d get fired in two seconds. But this isn’t one of my places.

Maybe it was. But I’m not that girl anymore. I no longer live this life.

I look back to the girl on my right. Her breathing has calmed, her back is no longer shaking, his hand is still wrapped around her arm and I can’t hear what they’re saying. I imagine grabbing an empty pint glass, pressing the open end to the top of her spine and my ear to the bottom, listening in as if I were twelve years old and this girl was a door. I want to know what’s happening on the other side. I want to hear. I have questions: what did he do? What is she sick of? Who’s really in the wrong here? Did he do something stupid, or is she just overreacting, and why, why, why are they having this conversation in a public place? I realize—as I pause to grab more napkins—that I can probably guess the answers. Not because I write fiction and can make up what might happen next, but because I might have lived this fight they’re having. Not now. Not with Christopher, God no. But before. I’ve had her manicure. Her tears. Her sudden bursts of anger intensifying as this guy sushed her. Her hands are up in her hair now, patting it back into place. Now they’re at her waist, pulling at the hem of her shirt to smooth it over her stomach. Now they’re back to the bar and she’s leaning on her elbows. She’s hyper-aware of how she looks in this moment. How she’s holding herself. Whether or not she appears pretty because maybe, maybe she still doesn’t trust this guy to love her/want her if she doesn’t look good.

I look down at myself. I got caught in the rain an hour earlier, and my hair has dried all knotted, and I have that wet-humid smell. My dress is still water-stained and my shoes are still drenched. Ruined, maybe. In the mirror behind the bar I see my mascara is smeared a little bit and then—in that split second before I’m embarrassed by my appearance—I feel a hand on the back of my neck and I don’t need to see him to know his touch, I don’t need to turn around to know that it’s him and how, how, how lucky I am.

That said, I just finished one of those little blog-questionaire things (thanks, Carolyn!) about this very same issue: What can our music tell us about our lives? It was very interesting and very creepy and if you need to sit and veg out for an hour, I’d say give it a go (make sure you give yourself an hour, though, 'cause you have to google lyrics and contemplate your inner self and all that shit). Here are the rules:

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

HOW AM I FEELING TODAY? If I had a Boat, Lyle Lovitt
("Kiss my ass/I bought a boat/I’m going out to sea")

WILL I GET FAR IN LIFE? Redemption Song (live), Lauryn Hill ft. Ziggy Marley

HOW DO MY FRIENDS SEE ME? Canary, Liz Phair
("I work up to my potential/I earn my name/I come when called/I jump when you circle the cherry/I sing like a good canary/I come when called")

WHEN WILL I GET MARRIED? Yesterday, Eva Cassidy’s cover

WHAT IS MY BEST FRIEND'S THEME SONG? I Got that Feeling, James Brown

WHAT IS THE STORY OF MY LIFE? Only You, Yaz

WHAT WAS HIGH SCHOOL LIKE? Kung Fu Fighting, Jefferson Airplane

HOW AM I GOING TO GET AHEAD IN LIFE? A Song for You, Donny Hathaway

WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT YOU? Somewhere That’s Green, from Little Shop of Horrors

HOW IS TODAY GOING TO BE? The Times They Are a-Changing, Dylan

WHAT IS IN STORE FOR THE WEEKEND? Submarine, Bjork
("Do it now/Do it now/Shake us out of the heavy deep sleep/Shake us now/Do it now!")

WHAT SONG BEST DESCRIBES YOUR PARENTS? Piano Concerto No. 21 Mozart

WHAT SONG BEST DESCRIBES YOUR GRANDPARENTS? Road to Joy, Bright Eyes

HOW IS YOUR LIFE GOING? Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), Arcade Fire

WHAT SONG WILL PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Come Together, Beatles

HOW DOES THE WORLD SEE ME? Suddenly Everything Has Changed, Flaming LIps

WILL I HAVE A HAPPY LIFE? Just Like u Said it Would Be, Sinead O’Connor

WHAT DO MY FRIENDS REALLY THINK ABOUT ME? Combat Baby, Metric

DO PEOPLE SECRETLY LUST AFTER ME? I Want Candy, Go Go’s
(HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

HOW CAN I MAKE MYSELF HAPPY? Amazing Grace, Ladysmith Black Mombaza
(?)

WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE? Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

WILL I EVER HAVE CHILDREN? The Night Descending, Iron and Wine
("Trust that I'm still hoping, darling/Wooden coin, he called my daughter/No good knowing what came after")

WHAT IS SOME GOOD ADVICE FOR ME? Where does the good go? Tegan and Sara

WHAT IS MY SIGNATURE DANCING SONG? I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet, Carole King (AWESOME)

WHAT DO I THINK MY CURRENT THEME SONG IS? Crash, Dave Matthews
(Did I just lose some street-cred? Who the hell cares, the song’s right on)

WHAT DOES EVERYONE ELSE THINK MY CURRENT THEME SONG IS? Let’s Get Retarded, Black Eyed Peas (I swear I didn't make that up)

WHAT TYPE OF MAN/WOMAN DO YOU LIKE? Close Your Eyes, Bebel Gilberto
(you need to read the whole thing. Actually, download it, it’s a great tune)

WHAT KIND OF KISSER ARE YOU? Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy, The Kinks

WHAT'S YOUR STYLE? Lyla, Coco Rosie

WHAT KIND OF LOVER ARE YOU? Tsunami, Res

WHAT WOULD BE PLAYING ON A FIRST DATE? Into the Mystic, Van Morrison

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN TEN YEARS? I Can Hardly Wait, PJ Harvey

ME: Is there anything I do that you secretly hate?
CHRISTOPHER: [speaking very slowly and carefully] Are you reading that bridal planning book your step-sister sent you?
ME: She sent me the ANTI-bride planning book! Betsy gave me one, too! They’re the antithesis of bride-planning! They tell me to elope and wear a bustier and eat fried chicken!
CHRISTOPHER: Fried chicken sounds good.

—so whenever I hear the word “golf,” this girl’s incredibly nasty voice comes flooding back from wherever it was lurking in the back of my mind, and somehow translates into MEGAN YOU DON’T LIKE GOLF, even though I don’t know anything at all about golf and am therefore in no place to judge. Hunting, I can judge. Bowling, I can judge. Scrabble, too, and any myriad of board games, computer games, and other mental and/or physical challenges all of which Christopher does and, for the record, I truly love, and not at all because he always wins and I can stand there with that “That’s MY man!” sort of smug satisfaction. BUT, when he came home last week and said, “Hey, do you need the car Saturday? Tracy and I are going golfing,” I did do a double-take, yes I did. I did think, “Whaaaa?” And, “Since when did you become a GOLFER?” And then, “What’s your problem with golf, Megan?” and then, “I don’t know, it’s just this THING!” and then, “Regardless of how you feel about golf, we all grow and change and try new things, and we love one another during all this growth and change, this is what marriage is ABOUT!” and then, “Whoah, how did we get THERE?” and more back and forth (very much like Sybil with her multiple personalities, or Gollum talking in We’s) until I finally remembered the whole aforementioned Friend in Michigan Subconscious story, and I felt very hot shit with my own (free) psychoanalytical diagnosis. I thought, “How much better would the world be if we all took a deep breath, and tried to figure out the connotations of our reactions to things, especially if these things are more important in the grand scheme of things than GOLF.” I’m such a fucking philosopher. As a recent brunch customer of mine said after I helped her solve her very complicated Which Pancake Should I Order dilemma, “You should be on the U.N.”

Blah blah golf.

Here is what I learned from Christopher going golfing last Saturday: GOLF IS AWESOME.

Because here, in the city, golf is not golf but rather URBAN GOLF. Specifically, the Chicago Urban Devils Golf Enthusiasts’ League (CUDGEL), which, upon hearing the stories of their inaugural match, makes me want to rush out and golf. Perhaps, if you ask Christopher nicely in the comments, he’ll tell you about it. You can also check out their site (and photos/video footage—my man is in the purple pants) here. But most importantly, I will someday have my very own tee time. And have learned a valuable lesson about the inner workings of my brain.

AND, Columbia College students rock.

Enter Mucca Pazza, who we first saw last winter at Martyrs’. We were there for a Ulele reunion show (I was a fan, of the sound but mostly of the singer, Leina’ala, who I just heard is heading up a new all-girl rock band that I’m psyched to check out), and were just sitting there between sets, minding our own business, drinking our bourbon, and suddenly the crowd is peppered with a twenty-piece marching band in old-school, thrift-store, pimped-out uniforms. A guy playing the tuba pushed past us. A girl in pigtails on the trombone. Another guy marched with an electric guitar: he wore a motorcycle helmet with an amp welded to it and battery pack on his back. It was awesome. It was a party, goddammit. It was straight out of my imagination: you’re just sitting back in your life and suddenly there’s a marching band playing rock-and-roll.

A few months later, we saw them again in Wicker Park (the park itself, not the neighborhood) during, I think, Around the Coyote. All twenty of them were on their backs in the grass, totally rocking out and surrounded by this huge crowd of people. After a while, they got up and, still playing, marched off, and the crowd followed them. Like in Forest Gump, how everybody follows Forrest when he runs? (I’m sure there’s a better example I can use. Probably a biblical one) Anyhow, it was a riot. Two parts music, two parts public performance and a shit-ton of fun. We’re going to see them June 10th at Martyrs’ (scroll down) where they’re playing with the epiphany of a shit-ton of fun: Lord of the YumYum. Should be a great show, folks.

Check ‘em out on Conan.

All I know for certain is the following: 1. Christopher will be there and 2. I will look hot.

In lieu of the Me looking hot thing, I've been looking at dresses. Because I will need one. And many of them, the ones sans bows and lace and puffy skirts and tiaras and tulle tulle tulle ballerina-style with pearls or any sort of off-the-shoulder madness, are very awesome. And of the very awesome ones, I just need to find the one that isn't the down payment on our condo. Christopher is trying to help. "You should get this dress," he said. "It's made out of baby legs."

"It's okay," I called out, as I always do. "He's friendly!"

"So's he!" she called back, and we both relaxed our grips, and smiled, and our dogs sniffed each other with waggy tails.

I'm thinking now about how great it would be if it could go like that with people. You get to a certain distance with someone and they'll call out, "I'm friendly!" or "I'm a good person! I won't look at you weird or ignore you if you say hello!" or "I'm an asshole today, don't bother smiling at me!" or whatever. The older I get, the less patience I have for nastiness. Especially my own.

Here, slowly, are the above blah blah’s (re: what I’ve been doing instead of writing here)

1. Reading student work (my students kick ass).
2. Getting engaged (which involves lots of dinners and parties and space-cadetedness)
3. Christopher’s birthday
A. Dave & Busters

CHRISTOPHER: (four months before his birthday) What are we doing for my birthday?
ME: I haven’t thought that far ahead.
HIM: I totally wouldn’t mind if we went to Dave & Busters. Here’s the link. You can kill zombies, and race kayaks on the Hydro Thunder, and die in an electric chair, and win all sorts of tickets playing ski ball and you can turn those tickets in for fantastic prizes!

In the end, the eight of us got very, very drunk, and gave away some two thousand amassed ski-ball tickets to a seven-year-old kid whose facial expression communicated that we’d made not only his night, but his entire childhood a worthwhile venture.

B. Spamalot

My man done loves his Monty Python. He’s the guy who will sit at the bar and recite the entire script of Holy Grail (especially the part with the French guards on the other side of the wall). So we went, and it was wonderful. I’ll only give away one little part: the Knights who say Ni, who then become the Knights who no longer say Ni and instead say, "Ekky-ekky-ekky-ekky-z'Bang, zoom-Boing, z'nourrrwringmm," THEN become the Knights who sing, “It’s hard out here for a pimp.”

4. 2nd Story (last Saturday was so sold out I couldn’t move. It was awesome).
5. Getting ready for this.
6. And this.
7. Painted Mz. Lacey’s house for Rebuilding Together.
8. Went to D’nell Larson’s opening at the Bodybuilder and Sportsman Gallery

I’ve been a fan of D’nell’s work for years, ever since I saw her piece 100 Miles For You at Gallery 312. One hundred miles of curling ribbon. The girl CURLED a hundred miles of curling ribbon. I remember first seeing this thing—(seemingly) just a pile of ribbon on the floor—and then reading the title and getting it. She physically went a hundred miles for someone, sitting there, sliding ribbon between scissor-blades. That was one of the first moments I understood the necessity of process in visual art: how the way the art was created was just as meaningful, if not more so, than the final product.

9. Got addicted to Twin Peaks (remember, I didn’t have TV growing up. So I missed that whole bandwagon and do not—DO NOT—tell me who killed Laura Palmer)
10. Went to see that movie that I’m not going to admit in print I paid money for.
11. My mother came to town, which was awesome.
12. Dia and Jessica came to town, which was also awesome.
13. Did I mention that I’m reading a lot of student work?
14. And 2nd Story, did I say 2nd Story? There’s three more days: you can check it out Wednesday night, when I’ll be reading about technology with The Dollar Store’s Jonathon Messinger, or Saturday, when I’ll be reading with Lord of the YumYum, or Sunday, when I’ll be reading with Scotty Karate. Get yourself some tickets, people, the weekends are almost sold out already.