Down to the wire

In exactly a week, I'll be waking up and driving to a church in Lewisville to get hitched. There is still much to be done. Today is our last Saturday to do things like go to Hobby Lobby for decorations, buy punch cups at Sam's, and get an engagement picture framed so our guests can see our smiling faces when they sign the guest scrapbook. It's slightly scary. Tiny details still have not been done (things like the bubbles I ordered for the sendoff arriving in the mail). And then there are the big things: printing programs, arranging flowers, picking up my dress, and getting a marriage license. And so, I've decided I do not recommend weddings to anyone. Just elope. Take the money and run. Have a fabulous honeymoon. Oh, right. We haven't booked our honeymoon yet either. Nervous for us? You should be.

In these last few days before Brandon and I tie the knot, I'm trying to observe keenly what it has been like to be single for my few years of adult life. I'm trying to mark in my head the whole Crazy Aunt Katy thing.

In college, when I lived with Mandy and Amy next door to Nicole, Natalie and Mel, Matt and Nicole would sometimes see me reading through my upstairs bedroom window when they came inside the triplex next door. Nicole told me once that Matt would look up and say, "Poor lonely Katy" because I was just sitting up there reading (probably Harry Potter) instead of out and about in the world. We had a good laugh about this, but the fact still stands that I wasn't actually lonely. I like to read. I like spending hours of time alone and just doing the things I want to do. I like going where I please. I like not worrying about what other people think. I like that I could go out for dinner with friends just as easily as I could stay home and read. I didn't mind it at all. And yet, I can't imagine going back. Never again in my life will I simply read a Harry Potter book without looking forward to someone coming home and climbing in bed with me.

A popular mantra in Christian circles (particularly at tiny evangelical Christian colleges like mine) is that you have to be "content in your singleness" before expecting to find someone. There's this sort of flawed idea that if you are "content" being single, content focusing only on God, he'll bring you a man/woman. So, people (particularly young Christian women) spend all this time focusing on being "content in their singleness" (or trying to convince God that they are). And there's this sort of stigma that seems to be attached to the very idea that anyone would want to be in a relationship or a marriage. Even though it was part of God's plan from the very beginning. The thing is, God didn't create us to be "content in our singleness," and he didn't make us solitary creatures. He created us for each other, for community. Thus, it makes perfect sense that we should want that kind of relationship.

Anyway, I think I was "content in my singleness." I know Brandon was. But, it doesn't matter. That's not why we ended up together. We both knew we wanted to get married eventually. I just figured it might not happen and managed to find a way to be OK with that. Maybe I wasn't "content in my singleness." Maybe I just figured there wasn't anyone for me. (I know, I know, I'm only 26 and was being dramatic, slightly.) I don't believe for a second in the magic formula of being content in your singleness so God will bring you a man. But I do believe that being content then led to me being content now. And I'm thankful.

Open letter to all y'all in charge in Washington

Dear George W. Bush, Ben Bernanke, members of the Senate banking committee, and top dawgs at all, uh, banks and stuff:

Please do not be the worst Republican, economist, banking committee members, and greedy bastards (respectively) um, ever.

Your friend,
Katy

In all seriousness, the $700 billion bailout might be the worst financial decision ever to come out of Washington, D.C., Social Security notwithstanding. We are not in a financial crisis now (no matter what every journalist insists on writing...write a new story already for the love) but we will be once this stupid bailout has been approved.

Let's see. The country is in debt (to itself) to the tune of $9.7 trillion. TRILLION. Which looks like this: 97,000,000,000,000. And yes, that would be 12 zeros.

How can you be in debt to yourself? Well, let's assume I am a bank, the Bank of Katy. I have $100,000 in a little suitcase that I carry around with me. I write promissory notes (like checks) to people when I want to buy things or watch television or eat dinner at a restaurant. At the end of the month, those people all send the Bank Me a note saying that the Bank Me should give the business money to cover the things the Real Me bought. And the Bank Me gives them cash out of the suitcase. Except that the suitcase ran out of cash back in, oh, 1998 (tip of the hat to Reaganomics), and instead of paying all those people for the Real Me's expenditures, the Bank Me just writes an IOU to the business and sticks IOUs in the suitcase to pay back later with interest. Even the business, which may say it had a profitable year, is in debt. Because no one freaking paid. They wrote notes. For which the government gives them an out (declaring bankruptcy) if they decide suddenly that they made a stupid decision and can't actually pay what they owe.

So, we live in houses we can't afford, drive cars that depreciate in value (but on which we still owe massive sums of money), and commute to work on roads that were financed with, you guessed it, more debt. Bonds to be exact. Which we voted FOR. God help us. Especially if a Democrat gets elected in November. With this financial bailout, we're basically promising ourselves higher tax rates, increased inflation, fewer jobs, higher interest rates, and limits to what the market can do if the government would just leave it alone. And that's on top of the taxes we're guaranteed to have if a Democrat wins in November.