10 years ago today jparks and I were gearing up to go to my Junior Prom. And by gearing up I mean he was probably sitting around with some boys scratching his balls and grunting. I was probably running around like crazy, making sure the stockings I had were the right color and my deodorant was the invisible kind.

I went to pick up jparks as I had a car and he didn’t. We then went to a friend’s house to meet up with everyone and hop on the limo bus that would later break down on the side of the road and we would all get locked out of. The boys would have to break in through a window and open the door for the girls while the driver was off somewhere calling his friends to say how lame it is to drive a bunch of pimply high schoolers around when he could be at home drinking beer and watching tv.

Once at the dance we will socialize, take pictures, and then the moment that will cause the demise of our relationship will happen. “Brown Eyed Girl” will begin to play and I will ask jparks to dace with me.

His dancing skills will piss me off as I assume he is dancing badly on purpose and making fun of me for wanting to dance. I will run off to cry in the bathroom as only a very emotional goth teenage girl can. After regaining my composer, I will go out and dump him. Although I don’t remember dumping him that night. Maybe it happened the next day.

Somehow we will remain friends and bounce in and out of each others lives at various points in time. Of course, these points in time will not be convenient times for either of us to start dating each other again, nope, that would be too easy. Finally, after much bouncing, we will realize that we need to stop pretending and just get back together. A hurricane will try to prevent this, but we are stubborn and finally say “screw having the big wedding, let’s go to Vegas.”

10 years ago, I would have never believed that one day I would marry jparks. But I’m pretty damn happy that I did.

This weekend I was talking to Lauren about how great eloping was. While I love going to weddings, I learned that planning one is so all encompassing that you will wake up in cold sweats thanks to nightmares about the chair ties not matching the exact color of the bridesmaid dresses. The only solution is to try to locate the Pantone number for the dresses to give to the reception place. And this must happen right then, at 3am, or else your wedding will be a failure and your marriage won’t survive longer than 5 months.

Eloping was a piece of cake compared to that. Chapel? Booked days before going. Dinner reservation? Booked days before going. Dress? Ordered days before going. Flowers? Ordered days before going. The only thing we really did ahead of time was order those beautiful announcements.

I was telling her that I have no regrets about my wedding, but later that night I realized I did have one. Most couples take engagement pictures before the wedding and jparks and I did not. It’s not the engagement picture experience I miss, it’s the pictures themselves. Jparks and I really have no pictures of us. Us in a park. Us smiling cheesy in posed positions. Us being cute together.

I would love to have these done now, but isn’t it corny to take family pictures when you don’t have kids. Or, the real reason, can I justify the cost of a photographer to take pictures of just jparks and I? Probably not. You can justify that when you’re planning a big wedding because really a photographer can be small change compared to other wedding expenses. But in daily life, a photographer is hella expensive.

So there you have it folks, my one and only wedding regret. Well, that and that I married a monkey.

No really, I love my husband

Recently the blogging world (note it’s not the blog-o-sphere as that phrase sends jparks’ into a long winded rant about how he hates the phrase and all that it stands for) has been taken over by the Five Things post that everyone seems to be doing.

What is the Five Things post? It’s a meme (don’t ask me, I still haven’t figured out what meme stands for) where you reveal Five Things no one knows about you on your blog. Miranda tagged me and I am going to accept the challenge of doing this, but I’m not sure what people know about me and what people don’t know. So if I’m just stating old news, then oops, my bad.

1. I always wanted to get married, but when I was planning my first wedding (I was engaged before jparks, I know some of you know that, but some may not) I could not picture the actual wedding part of it, the part where my fiancé and I stood up in front of people and said “I do”. I encountered the same thing when jparks and I started wedding planning, so I knew it wasn’t a cold feet issue. I just couldn’t imagine standing in front of a bunch of people and exchanging vows, it seemed too private to share. I could, however, picture us (us being jparks and I) eloping, so that’s what we did. It worked out well for us.

2. Some other things I’ve never been able to picture happening to me include walking across the stage for high school graduation (I came down with chicken pox two days before the ceremony and had to miss it) and graduating from college (that’s looking like a long shot right now). I seem to have a solid grasp on what I will do and what I will never do.

3. Most times I cannot picture myself as a parent. I hope I’m wrong about that one.

4. I think I dress like a stay at home mom that never ventures out of the house to that foreign place called a mall. This is sad really, since I love clothes and even have a subscription to a magazine dedicated to shopping.

5. I see nothing in ink blot tests. Nothing. I’m pretty sure this means I lack an imagination, which might also explain why I have trouble imagining myself in various life situations.

I’m only going to tag jparks to do this mainly because I want to know what secrets he might produce.

Last night was a wonderful dessert party at Joe and Miranda’s apartment to celebrate Jason and my’s elopement. We had a great time hanging out with friends, eating tons of cake, and drinking lots of champagne. And of course we played my favorite party game: Taboo.

If you’ve never played Taboo, you’re really missing out. And if you’ve never played Taboo with me then you’re seriously missing out. When I play Taboo all of my common sense, dignity, and volume control go right out the window. Jason even stated very matter of fact-ly “You are drunk” a couple of times but I wasn’t, I was just playing Taboo.

My favorite guess from last night’s game was this (and let me apologize now to the easily offended):

“I hate when you come up behind me and do this!”
“donkey punch!”

I can’t believe my guess was not correct.

Pretty flowers:

I went to the social security office and changed my name to Regan Marie Parks today. This was not as scary as I thought it was going to be, especially after hearing other peoples tales of how wretched and miserable it is to change one’s name.

And I’m sure some people are thinking I’m horrible for not keeping my maiden name in there somewhere, but for me that was not the right decision. Regan Weymouth Parks looked funny to me and Regan Marie Weymouth-Parks was too damn long. Plus, hypenated last names confuse me. Do people call me Mrs. Weymouth-Parks? Do my kids get a uber-long last name or are they just Parks? If I hypenate their names it doesn’t sound right: Piper and Pippen Pickled Pepper Picker Weymouth-Parks. See, it just messes up the flow.

People keep asking what Jason and I want as a wedding gift. Thus far the best answer I can come up with is hookers and blow. I really would love some hookers and blow just to see how they come all giftwrapped with a pretty crackwhore bow tied on. But something tells me hookers and blow can’t be shipped across state lines and I don’t want people to get in trouble for illegal shipping me a phat hooker. Or a fat bag of blow.

There isn’t much we really want. But what would be really nice is this. I kid you not, I would love a toilet bowl scrubber. Why? Obviously you haven’t seen my toilet.

We’ve lived here since May and I haven’t cleaned the toilet yet. It’s not been for lack of trying, but without a scrubber it’s pretty dang hard to clean a toilet. I tried to just squirt the toilet cleaner fluid into the toilet and let it sit, but that didn’t clean anything. Then I remembered that I read if you dump a can of coke into the toilet the acid in the coke will eat away the filth. This tactic didn’t work, and I wasted a can of diet coke. hmmm, I wonder if using diet coke rather than regular made the project fail? I haven’t gotten to the point of actually reaching in and wiping the inside down with a kleenex because that would be gross, but I can tell you, we are headed that way.

So please, save me and my hand and buy me a toilet scrubber for my wedding gift. And then when you come to visit I promise to have a clean place for your butt.

Apparently my sarcasm here in the comments section was lost on a few people. couch cough Drew cough cough So just to set the record straight:

Jason and I were not, repeat were not married at the Star Trek Experience. The ceremony was not performed in Klingon and Spock was not my Maid of Honor. (But he would make a good Maid of Honor you know. He could get through the toasts without getting all weepy, and could do the Vulcan mind melt thing on the groom if he gets cold feet.)

I’m sorry I got your hopes up Drew. Apparently my sarcasm font was not quite working that day.

And if you’re confused about why you are freaking out, give it a day or so, I’m sure it’ll become clear.