how did we get here?

Everyone keeps telling me how calm I am, which is rather funny, because I feel hyper in a sometimes-sluggish kind of way. I wish I had something to DO -- sweaters to knit for soldiers, or a political campaign to manage (ideally one for a Person Of Cleavage). As it is, I just get to play tetherball with my anxiety and answer questions as they are sent from my sainted mother's Blackberry.

Mr. Ben's grandmother is somewhat responsible for planting notions of marriage in our heads. She visited our studio and, being at any point no more than fifteen feet from it, couldn't help but notice the double bed. So! she said, sternly, turning to me. When do you plan on making this legal?

I fended her off as best I could. However, the onslaught continued. A friend of ours proposed to a girl he'd only met four months before and, when we visited, we found him and his fiancee sparring lovingly over who got to sit in the other’s lap during dinner.

THEN a couple Mr. Ben and I knew got engaged -- we found out about it via LiveJournal. As a present in lieu of a ring, he bought her a tea set. That really hit a nerve with me, although apparently I wasn't alone. Several other college friends noted how romantic it would be to receive a tea set of their own.

Still, I tried to tuck these thoughts away. What use would a tea set be, after all, if I didn’t want the three-bedroom two-bath house in suburbia to put it in?

Mr. Ben proposed like an Irish husband, with scarcely a "Brace yourself, Bridget." I’ve had over a year to get used to the idea of being a "wife." I’m not quite there yet. I am more comfortable with the idea of being a "bride," anyway, but that’s largely because my mother has made it easy on me. And now the wedding is in five days. FIVE DAYS!

I go down to DC thursday evening after work. I just have to make it til then.