Notes

No wedding pictures yet, so no long wedding-post either. They'll be worth the wait when they arrive. I promise.

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I'd like to go on record as saying this has been the most absurd excuse for a summer I've ever seen, as far as weather goes. While Georgia has been hit with wave after wave of ninety-degree-plus heat, Washington has had the 50s and rain. Seriously, things could even out a bit. The sun bothered to push the clouds aside just long enough for July to pass, peeking out a time or two before and after. Last summer was chilly and messy enough, but this was worse.

On the other hand, fall weather looks promising. Rain and fifty-degree weather is just about normal. It makes me want to plan for holidays and make cookies and try out another butterbeer recipe. And the turning of the trees is perhaps the height of Bellingham's beauty.

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Lou and I and Beth and Todd met in Seattle the other night for a performance of The Phantom of the Opera, on account of which the songs have run through my head for a steady week. But it was thoroughly worth it. Having seen the movie but not the play, and considering the movie a favorite—Schumacher's cinematography and Emmy Rossum's voice being both outstandingly beautiful—I wasn't sure how high to set my expectations.

As it turned out, the effects were pretty astonishing, the lead vocals all quite good, and I have to give mention to André and Firmin, whom I found hilarious. Besides, it's such a splendidly poignant story that I could hardly help being moved. I'm not much of a cryer, but the end gets me just about every time.

After the movie came out, plenty of women and girls were heard to say that if they'd have been Christine, they'd have gone with the Phantom. But I always liked Raoul. I've never really been into the bad boys, I suppose—after all, I married a man who nearly became a monk.

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Being married surpasses even my expectations. People always told me, all those years I waited, that my singleness was a gift and I needed to view it as such. Nonsense, I say. Except for those who "have it of God", e.g., monks, and some foreign missionaries, singleness is a way of suffering, a long, slow via dolorosa. Especially for women, most of whom still think that having a family is an important part of life that they don't want to miss.

I love living in the same house, waking up to a kiss instead of just an alarm clock, making meals and watching him enjoy them, and making cookies to surprise him when he comes home from a meeting. I love a lot of things, especially him. He's so good I sometimes feel guilty for my humanness.

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Yesterday I read a bumper sticker that said "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." How true, I thought. Abortion is an excellent example of that. I liked it so much I read it aloud to Lou. "That person is talking about Christians," he told me, taking note of their other bumper stickers.

"Now that's an absurdity." I've never quite gotten the whole "Christians are like Nazis" thing. That's quite possibly the most unfounded proposition on the planet.

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Politics are interesting, but awful.

Mostly I just want the yelling to stop. It makes me wonder if Bellingham would riot if the election went for McCain.

In case any of them are reading this blog, allow me to express the opinion I now have of Obama supporters: The loudest of them, at least, appear to be some of the most arrogant, self-righteous people on the planet. They are worse about apparently willful misunderstanding and having to "be right about everything" than the 'fundamentalists' they hate so much (yes, I said hate, and I meant it.) And I have direct experience with the ire of fundamentalism—I've even seen my family suffer at its hands.

Maybe you people don't value my vote, but take care. Your attitude is intolerable, and sane people will not always put up with it.

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Here, on the other hand, is excellent opinion journaling on the election.