A lot of people know this, and no doubt it will come up (a lot) this weekend, but J and I met at a wedding, and to think that we're going to have our very own wedding this weekend is kind of unbelievable. I mean, it's not unbelievable when I think about all the work we've been doing ironing out the nitty gritty details, and there's been work sufficient to produce a wedding let me tell you, but it is when I think about that first night we met and how improbable it was that we'd get together. Then again, I never doubted that we would. I remember my mom telling me when I was at the oh so malleable age of 12 or 13 or so that not getting into trouble had a lot to do with making decisions before you were in the difficult situation. Like drinking. If I didn't want to drink (What? Amaretto stolen from the liquor cabinet turned up randomly out near the garage? Me and my friends? Gin? Gin and juice, a concoction obviously made by high schoolers? What?) then you had to decide you didn't want to drink before you were at the party and the 17-year-old was waving vodka and Hawaiian Punch seductively in front of your face. Because, she explained, if you hadn't firmly decided at that point, you'd probably do it.

But when I met J I rejected that good line of reasoning because I just couldn't firmly decide not to want to be with him when we were together. And the moral, I think, is that sometimes you have to decide what it is you really want to do when you're close, when you're right there in the midst of the action and the only thing you can go by is your heart. Except, of course, in certain cases, like maybe if you are getting a full-body tattoo, or if you are in a whorehouse - in those cases I think you should put some thought into the consequences of your actions before you go buck wild.