FIFTEEN DAYS.

i am alternately exhilerated, nervous, stressed-out, and on top of the world. there are still a hundred little details to be done for the wedding, but there used to be a million. progress is being made. after a dozen little family-and-friend dramas, eight-hundred ribbons tied into bows, five containers of rubber cement, and a whole lot of help from my friends, i'm well on my way to having a beautiful wedding and marrying an amazing man. What a wild few months it's been.

my last project has been to put together a slideshow of david and me and our bridal party. we've been gathering pictures for the better part of a year, and now i'm just finding quotes that i love to intersperse the pictures to draw it out a little bit. there were several obvious quotes that i placed in right away, and a few brand new ones given to me by friends. finally, at this point, i still need a half-dozen more and i've resorted to searching on line for some famous words on love and marriage.

what i'm finding is pretty disappointing. there are a hundred quotes on love - love as friendship, love compared to a flower, promises of love, disappointment that love has not worked out but gratitude for its presence anyway. then there are the quotes on marriage; all but two that i've found have been pessimistic. apparently humorous marriage-bashing is what is popular. it's such a shame. dave and i have received the same response from a majority of people we meet in the public arena. a verizon sales guy, for example, sold dave and i a razr and bluetooth last month. "buy a text message plan," he says. "that way you can check up on each other without having to talk." "but we love to talk," we explained. "oh no, wait till you're married," the guy chuckled. "the sound of her voice will be the last thing you want to hear."

we didn't buy the text-message plan.

it keeps happening, though, over and over. a librarian mentioning that we'll have a couple good years in the beginning "if you're lucky. you'll see," he smiled. no wedding ring, i noticed. another man in a grocery story put his hand on dave's shoulder and told him to run while he can. i was standing right there. argh. i know divorce rates are rising, but what happened on such a large scale to make everyone so set against marriage?

these interactions, rather than worrying me, make me so very glad that i am marrying david. apparently there are a lot of pansy-ass men out there that haven't owned up to their half of a failed relationship. it's one thing to go through a divorce - i have watched them tear people apart - but it is the situation, not the institution, that has missed the mark.

please, if you have a few good words about marriage, send them my way. i'm still 7 slides short.