It's 10 p.m. and I'm sitting at the kitchen table drinking Spanish wine and listening to Christmas tunes on Sunny 93.9. This means one thing, one very obvious thing: I am alone after a long-ish stint with an unusually social period, and I'm talking social for the girl who gets antsy after two nights of staying in. Now, anyone who this is news to: YOU DIDN'T PICK UP YOUR PHONE OR ARE LIVING IN A FAR AWAY COUNTRY THAT I CAN NEVER SEEM TO CALL AT THE RIGHT TIME. J and I are ENGAGED. And I've been contemplating "engaged" for the past couple of days, because it is precisely the past couple of days that the new title has applied to us. It means - basically - that I got a ring and everyone gets SO excited. But on a deeper, more serious level, it means that we are ready to move to the next step. While we drift from friend to friend to beer to beer to congratulations call to the next, my mother is on the ball. We spent nearly an hour in her NC office yesterday discussing potential plans. Do we get married in fall '05 like once upon a time it was planned, or do we wait longer, give the caterers and photographers and all the other integral persons more time to get their act together for us? Damn I want to buy a bridal magazine! Karla informed me last night over one such mentioned beer-and-friend gathering told me that she bought one of day TWO of being engaged and that means it's ok for me. This is so up my alley. Now I've got a really big party to plan.