I don't know why I write best when I should be sleeping...

Someday, I'm sure, I'll be able to coordinate this whole writing thing to times when I shouldn't be sleeping or otherwise doing other things. But when the urge strikes and the thoughts continue to circle, it's either getting it out or slowly driving myself crazy.

But then the thing that kills me is that I feel like I don't have anything that's worthy of saying. Everything that I want to express is so much bigger than me, and my attempts to nail it down into a blog post do nothing more than strangle the life out of anything interesting that could be going through my brain right now.

I could elaborate at how everything in my life is changing, and has been changing for the past year and a half, but... a growing life is something that's always in flux. Change is nothing new. Change is actually welcomed. Change pretty much scares the living shit out of me, but is ultimately for the best.

To follow that theme, I probably should say at this point that I'm engaged. It's been a fairly surreal experience. That's not saying that I'm not happy, because I am. Besides a short, ring-less engagement when I was 19 years old, I've never done this before. Completely new and foreign territory for me. Sometimes I look down at my engagement ring and it seems like it's been beamed down onto my hand from some kind of foreign planet.

I think the thing that scares me the most is how much the Wedding Industrial Complex has gotten completely out of control, because after all, now I am a BRIDE, and I should be compulsively researching weddings on The Knot, picking out ugly, expensive dresses for my friends to wear, and picking out the *perfect* party favors. Things that I could seriously care less about. In fact, the more I think about the kind of pressure involve in a big (or even a small wedding, because they are never *small* weddings) wedding, the less I want it. Too much fuss, too much money. Money we could put into a really awesome honeymoon or first house. Which, since we'd be footing the bill for whatever we do, is what I'd prefer, and thankfully, Andrew agrees.

This week, I go back for another diabetes checkup. I've been diabetic for a full year now, this month. My side project has been sadly lacking, because I've been entirely too busy fighting the diabetes to write about it, but I plan to pick it up soon, to fill in my story before I completely forget it. I've lost over fifty pounds since January of 2009, and I have about 30 some more to go before I am finished. While the numbers on the scale haven't changed in a while, I am so much stronger than I ever was before. I actually have some pretty serious arm and leg muscles now. And I can do a wheel pose without trying really hard. I promise, that's pretty impressive. I keep chipping away at it, and I feel that soon, I'll be finished. I was able to cut my medicine by 50% my last checkup, and there's an outside chance I could get off of it for good by this checkup. Striving to be the diabetes valedictorian has its plus sides, I suppose.

Last month I got to see my very favorite band, The New Pornographers, in Chapel Hill. They brought an awesome show, of course. Dan Bejar came to the performance, and stumbled on and off the stage like a drunken uncle, singing his songs and playing with his back to the audience, and generally just being delightfully weird. We had seats on the mezzanine, and I got to bang my hands into the railing in time with the music, and I bounced so hard in my seat I was pretty sure I was going to owe UNC a new one by the end of the performance. I could see everything and everyone without having to fight Tall Guy Syndrome (TM), which was really nice.

Before the encore, Andrew and I raced downstairs and bought a signed poster that's now hanging in a space of honor in my apartment. And I do metaphorically squeal like a little girl at the thought that for at least five seconds, I have something that Neko Case touched. She'll be filing that restraining order any day now, I'm sure. :) It was a perfect night. Standing during the final encore, with Andrew's arm around me, thinking about just how far I've come as the music swirled around me. How lucky I was to be with someone who's been patient and supportive while I put my life back together. There was no false note to break the moment, and I got to float back to the car, singing and dancing the whole way. One of those nights that you file away in your memory, if only to remember how wonderful life can be.

I've started reading again, with a vengeance. I bought Blankets at a used book store during that Chapel Hill trip, and it was beautifully written and illustrated. I hope to get myself together to start doing book reviews for the newspaper soon, Heather's been sending me great autobiographies of women in rock. Thanks to my downstairs neighbor, I've finally read To Kill a Mockingbird, and I wish that I'd had to read it for something long before this. I really love Scout.

And now it's almost 2am, and time to try to sleep again.
m.