There is no doubt in my mind that we had the best wedding we could possibly have dreamed of for us. The Natural Bridge hotel and confrence center was very accommodating for us and all of our out of town guests. While my parents would have liked us to have the wedding nearer to our homes in Northern Virginia, we strongly believe that the Shenandoah Valley is the most beautiful part of Virginia and the only place we wanted to get married. We fell in love with the bridge on our first visit down there, it’s sort of a forgotten natural wonder. I think the heyday of the hotel may have been in the 1960’s as things don’t seem to have been updated since then, which is fine with us. The main hotel has a certain charm to it of an older elegance and the staff are very nice and will go out of their way to help. Maybe it’s because we were the bridal party but we never heard a word about our whole wedding taking over the cottages and partying late for 2 nights. At one point we even joined forces with the noon wedding and partied into the night. It was an incredible experience and the hotel was great about it.
Women
I like them… most of the time.
All Good 2009 – The best part.
Life, Women
All Good 2009 will always be remembered for one thing, it’s the place I asked Laurel to marry me. It was on Friday, close to sundown. I had chickened out/drank too much beer on the first night and didn’t ask her. I had been carrying the ring around for a few days trying to find the best time to “pop the question”. It’s not like I didn’t know what the answer was going to be, I just wanted the surprise to be perfect. We had talked about marriage and the ring before so I knew that she wanted to pick out her own engagement ring.
But that’s no fun! I wanted a surprise proposal.
So I found the perfect ring on Etsy, it’s a traditional solitaire diamond shape but artfully cast sound of sterling silver. I loved the mix of traditional shape with unconventional material. She did too!
So on Friday night in front of Erin, Kevin, Mark, Sarah,her brother Adam, and all of All Good I got down on one knee and asked my best friend to spend the rest of her life with me.
There was also music and stuff at this concert…
Men, we are never going to win.
Life, WomenI don’t like arguing with women in general, but with Laurel it’s like going to the dentist… on fire… and then being attacked by ninjas… who are also on fire. Most women are good at pushing our buttons while we are at our angriest. I think Laurel takes this to the next level. I have never been more confused in my life then when I’m having an argument with her. Most of the times I forget why the argument started and just give up… or I apologize, for what I’m not really sure, but at this point I’m pretty sure I’m wrong about something.
Sometimes we have arguments where even in the beginning she’s not sure why she’s mad at me, but somehow three hours later, my brain is melted.
My theroy is this, I didn’t write many papers in college, I think the longest one was about 15 pages. I remember nothing from that paper, even what it was about, but I do remember the incredible level of stress that I had while writing it… and it took me weeks. Laurel can crank out a 15 page paper in 2 days. I’m not talking about 2 days of solid writing, I’m saying on the morning of day one she will start by PICKING A TOPIC and by the night of day 2 she will be done proofreading the paper… and she will get an A… in a masters program. How am I supposed to go up against someone like that??? I have a degree in ART!
It’s like playing one-on-one with LeBron James, I may heave up a lucky bucket once in a while but most of the time he’s going to walk on my face while throwing down a reverse windmill slam.
She’s like the terminator of arguments. In a world where women have this ultimate weapon, Men, we are never going to win.
by the way,
I’m Sorry.
The why of the Laurel
Life, WomenThis is the synopsis of my day and by proxy the whole Laurel experience.
We walked to get coffee at Jammin Java, decided to see a revival screening of Labrynith this week, then spent the rest of the day watching episodes of “Weeds” and drinking old champagne that I picked up out of the trash on the side of the road.
This is why I have so much fun with Laurel, she has fun doing the things that I would be doing anyway. I don’t have to try, it just comes naturally!
who throws away wine anyway?
Women that I probably shouldn't google at work
Life, The Interweb, WomenNuff Said.
Mark
Her name is Laurel and she dances in the sand…
Life, Women
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land…
I don’t usually write about girlfriends in this blog because I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable and I don’t like going back and reading old blogs about them. But I’m going to make an exception here. She’s the first girl I’ve dated in a long time that I feel I can be myself around. With Faith I had to be much more religious than I really am and with Ellen I had to be much more intellectual and political than I wanted to be. (Plus I apparently make weird mouth noises) But Laurel and I just get along so well.
I met her on the internet… Myspace actually, but the internet seems more mature. I got a message from her and I let about a week go by because I thought she was a fake person. (hard to explain, but Myspace is full of fake profiles who just want more friends)It’s hard to believe she even sent me a message, I had a picture of a skull as my profile image. (though it was a totally sweet skull door knocker that I made myself!) So after a few weeks we decided to meet for a date in real life. Which was the best decision evar.
It started out with her getting all my quotes obscure from movies that I’d seen. But that just seems like second nature now. We talk in a language of Simpsons and Zoolander quotes. (I’ve got the black lung, Pa… cough) Then it went on to being able to see what the other person is thinking. You know how couples will finish each other’s sentences? Well I think we start each others. I can’t remember how many times we’ve said “I was just about to say that?!”. Which needless to say is totally sweet.
It’s really weird that we hadn’t met before. We’ve found a couple of our friends know each other. But always 3 degrees away from us. I’d even met a couple of her friends before, but never her. They’re all cool people and we get along really well. It looks like I’m in this for the long run and I couldn’t be happier.
Later!