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• New Jersey drivers who cut ahead of you at the stop light by pretending they are going to turn.
• Wandering around campus looking for a meeting that did not specify the building it was in
• The NJ Garden State Mall
• Parking on campus, which is damn near impossible but it isn’t fair to ask Chris to ferry me to and from campus
• The fact that the air conditioning is still on in my building and we are all freezing
• Being so clumsy. So far this morning I have managed to knock my coffee all over Chris’ desk, hit several curbs when turning corners, fell down a flight of stairs, fell back up the same flight. What the hell?

I don’t know why more people don’t do it. There are many wonderful things about having a big wedding with a lot of family and friends to celebrate with you. There’s also something amazing about being just the two of us that was quiet and untouched and seemed to take place beyond the real world.

Chris and I were married on the front steps of a colonial farmhouse in Vermont. I wore a siren red dress, curvy and with a train and a white sequin flower on the right shoulder, right off of the 40s red carpet. When Chris saw me, he was literally taken aback — first, you don’t expect red and second, you don’t expect that sexy. But it fit us, just as being married on the front steps of the inn, with Willa tied to the hitching post next to us and wearing a big red bow. There was no stress, no worries that come along with large weddings and all the details. Just us, as we had cake and champagne and looked out over the fields. Later that night, a Harvest moon rose over us and the starred sky was bathed in milky light. I have never felt so right.

It was the right decision for us. We will see our parents in a couple of weeks, and the honeymoon isn’t over. I couldn’t be more happy we did it this way.

If you’ve ever sat in a meeting (say a national convention) where something has to be initiated, seconded, all the ayes and nays counted, then you’ve had an experience with Robert. He has no last name that I know of, and his sole purpose was to add time and complexity to the process of working together as a group. Anal retentives all over the world love him just because he gave them rules to follow and God help you if you don’t look through the minutes to vote if they need changes.

If you haven’t figured it out, I am on my way shortly to one of those meetings and I would like to slap Robert so hard his nose would spin around his head. But I’m pretty sure he’s dead, laughing from beyond the grave as we try to remember how to come to order and commit hierarchy — yes, like it’s a crime.

I am blogging with my students in READ102 -= we are writing a little bit about ourselves in order to create community and get to know each other. This class though, seems like it’s already a community — we;re laughing a lot and I have to say that one of the students came up with the best blog name I have heard in a long time. I won’t repeat it here, but email me for it. It’s classic.

To know about me –

• I have a 2 year old 90 lb Black Lab mix who broke my nose once cause she was so excited
• We just adopted a 8-week old kitten who weighs less than a lb and chases the dog around
• I am getting married in a week
• I keep getting the days of the week mixed up, maybe because I taught so much.
• This was a tough summer for me, in terms of the teaching, but it was also a good summer for Chris and I and for that I am deeply thankful
• Yes, I am getting married in a red dress and Willa the Wonder Dog is my maid of hon

Anything else you want to know, I’m afraid you’re going to have to ask.