I'm back, baby

Hey, it's been a while!

Ryan's been bugging me for ages to write a blog post. For some reason, despite driving me to work, exchanging an email or two during the work day, picking me up and driving home with me, going to the gym with me, eating dinner with me, sitting next to me on the couch while we plow through our Best Picture Winners project and snuggling next to me at night, he still wants to read about what's going on in my head.

Aw, we're so damn precious.

So what have I been up to? Turning 25 was, actually, surprisingly painless. Moving out of the old house and into the new apartment was not quite so painless, with a huge snowstorm slamming the Upper Midwest the night before. Nothing makes moving exciting quite like a foot of new snow and bitter cold! We had lots of lovely help from the Berglund-Husebys and the Rosoks... that sister of mine is a taskmaster, and I mean that in the best way! She was instrumental in motivating all of us to keep on moving heavy furniture.

Other than that, Ryan and I joined the YWCA; we bought a 42" LCD TV and schmancy new tv stand for it, along the way realizing that we have a lot of IKEA furniture!

I've also been attempting at wedding planning, although I am terrible at it. Really, awful. There are some people, some of whom I have called friends, who really excel at this type of thing. I don't excel at it and I don't enjoy it. But we have the church, the reception hall, the dress, the wedding party, the bridesmaid dresses and the date. We have a photographer and soon we'll have a baker. We need an officiant (um, very important) and a florist. Hopefully the rest will fall into place easily enough.

Reflections on the eve of a quarter-century

Contrary to personal tradition, I'm actually handling this turning-of-a-calendar-page fairly well. A small bowling party and a peaceful breakfast/lunch marked the occasion, and I'm more than okay with that. I have, notably, NOT aged well in the past but I've felt fairly peaceful towards the end of my first 25 years on Earth.

There are a lot of things I've been meaning to say. I sort-of compiled a list of "New Years' Resolutions" but didn't feel motivated enough to write them down (because the weren't fully fleshed out at the time) but I will disclose my big one, which (given the hype!) is INCREDIBLY BORING:

I am trying to eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup from my diet.

Lame, right? But HFCS is terrible for you--read any literature (that isn't paid for by the people that grow corn!) and you will learn some disturbing things about diabetes (and the switch of terminology from 'adult onset' to 'Type II' diabetes, that is directly connected to the nations' consumption of HFCS. It's pretty disturbing.)

So that's my big goal. Obviously once in a while I'll still have a regular soda, and I think that's okay. But it's my big goal.

Other than that, I must say, one of my bigger goals for my second quarter-century on Earth is to be a better friend.

I am, with my own awareness, a fairly shitty friend in a lot of ways. I get tunnel-vision, where I only focus on the 10-or-so people I see most often, and everyone else falls by the wayside. I don't mean for this to happen and I truly dislike it. This is something that I am aiming to change.

So, I must to big Adieu! to my first quarter-century of this life; I hope that I may live the second quarter century and beyond to its' very fullest. I hope the next 25 years are kind, honest, peaceful -- and, beyond all, -- fair, for all. (whether they read my sporadic thoughts or not).

I've Been Thinking 'Bout You

Just thinking about readings for the wedding:

XVII (Cien sonetos de amor)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


I love the last stanzas. They might be better in Spanish:

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

To any Alpha Gam friends who are coming to the wedding: You're readers. Plan on it. If you can't make it I will understand, but if you are going to be in Minneapolis on 10-10-09, you're in the wedding.

By the way, have I mentioned how much I miss Toronto lately? Not to say that I don't love Minneapolis, because I do. I love my roommates and my fiance and my family, and Minnesota will always be my home. But Toronto is my alma mater, the mother of my soul.

Someone asked me today exactly what it is, really, about Toronto that I love so much: I don't have an answer to that question. It's where I found myself. Toronto is where Lauren was born. Minnesota gets such short shrift; I was born here too in many ways! If I divided up evenly the pivotal moments of my short life, I don't think either side would win. So many influential times were split between the two places. But I miss Toronto in the way I would miss a lost limb. Toronto is, in every way, a part of my heart and my soul.

Which is why I love Ryan so much more when I mention Toronto and he says, "We're going to move there soon!" He knows how important that place is to me; he knows that half my heart lives there. Well, half my heart lived there, before I met him: he owns more of it now than any mere city ever could. We likely never will live there, though it is a nice dream... he knows that I love having that dream.

In Memoriam

Jarrod Saltalamacchia

Jarrod Saltalamacchia, a life-long resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota, succumbed Sunday evening to an unknown illness. He was 14 months.

A Betta fish, Jarrod is survived by his human mother, Lauren Poulter, human step-father Ryan Glanzer, and roommate-family Sarah Domenichetti, Roscoe Domenichetti and Nick Sandbulte.

Jarrod was known by all to be a kind and scholarly fish. His brief life was punctuated by some excitement; at age 3 months he was nearly murdered by a cat. His happiest moments were when he was fed and when he was given fresh water to swim around in.

A memorial service is planned for 8:30 pm on Monday evening, December 8th in the downstairs bathroom of his Minneapolis home. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Poulter-Glanzer Fish Memorial Fund.

The editorial staff would like to make note that Jarrod Saltalamacchia is alive, well, and training for the 2009 baseball season in the Palm Beach, Florida area.

Holy crap!

We're really doin' it, guys, we're really doing it.

We have a date.

October 10th, 2009.

We have a location: the Profile Event Center.

I've been excited to marry Ryan since, well, before he proposed to me, but now... it's so real. We're going to put down a deposit and apply for a marriage license and pay for flowers and catering and liquor and a pretty white dress and ten people will stand up there with us (still an insane number of attendants if you ask me...but of course I love all of them!) and we will get MARRIED. Holy crap.

So, save the date, y'all.

Gimme Gimme Gimme!

I kid, of course. But I have seen quite a few Christmas wish-lists popping up on blogs that I read lately, so I thought I might as well jot down a few ideas for gifts:

- Anything from the ol' wedding registry. Many lovely items to choose from there!

- A knitting machine. I love to give scarf, hat and mitten sets as gifts but I hate knitting scarves. Hate hate hate HATE. I would love to have a tool that I could use to make scarves and other square things.

- Any one of these classic knitting books.

- The Options Interchangeable Circular Knitting Needle Set. Droooool.

- New iPod. The ancient 512mb Shuffle just isn't cutting it anymore!

- Some kind of basket for knitting/sewing notions.

- Scrubs: Season Seven
- Dexter: Season Two

- Hockey tickets!

- Please, no yarn. I have too much of it and I want to get through as much of it as I can before I accumulate more! However, gift certificates to Joann, KnitPicks, Needlework Unlimited, or Linden Hills Yarn would be lovely.

- Cookbooks. I don't have anything specific in mind, but anything that's well-reviewed in the vein of eating healthy, local, and for busy people would be wonderful.

All in all, though, I really don't need anything. I'm sure I don't need to mention the economy, but it's relevant and I would sincerely appreciate someone teaching me a skill (like crocheting or a refresher course on using my SLR) rather than spending money on things I that I do not need. I would also love handmade things. Preferably not baked goods, as I'm hoping to reduce the level of tummy paunch before I don an expensive white dress, not increase it! But any other sort of handmade gift would be lovely and greatly appreciated.

More engagement shots!

Ryan's sister Jordan did an engagement session with us a few weeks ago during a trip back to the farm... and here are the results!!

Some of them are hilarious and awkward, showcasing Ryan in his full bootylicious form. And my hair looks completely crazy in about 85% of them. But we're both quite happy with the results regardless! Many thanks, Jordan!

We'll have a disc with the proofs in high-res so that all you out there who want an 8x10 (or 16x20!) of Ryan and I in our full glory can have one, or many!

(Upon review of my archives I noticed that I never posted the link to the original engagement proofs... interested parties can find them here!)