I’ve got a few dozen balls in the air at the moment. On the one hand, having so much to do stresses me out, but on the other hand, most of those balls are pretty damn awesome, which makes the day-to-day work a little more pleasant.

Grand Taiko. It’s this weekend! Can you believe it? I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas. Yesterday’s set-change practice was made tense by a couple of unnecessarily-last-minute decisions, but all in all, we are SO ready for this show. Loading, spiking, and tech rehearsal Wednesday, dress rehearsal Thursday, performance Friday and Saturday.

I’m especially excited about our brand new song, Hanadokei. I helped write it a tiny bit, and I get to play in it*. It’s the most exhausting song in the whole set, for me at least, but it’s so much fun to play. You’ll love it.

Because you’re gonna be there, right? Miller Outdoor Theatre, this Friday and Saturday, 7:30 PM? That’s what I thought.

Wedding Planning. We’re thinking early 2011, so it’s still a year and half away, but I’m already deep into the planning. I’m discovering that my mother has a strong vision of what my wedding will look like, and it’s not much like mine. Getting married by a friend or relative instead of a “real” minister? Disappointing. A dress in any color other than white? Even light gray? Disappointing. A wedding palette of yellow, gray, and black**? Disappointing.

Sure, it’s our wedding, and my mom had her chance, but it makes me sad when she’s sad. She just makes this one face, and I’m like, crap, I’m letting you down. And you, you know, gave me life and raised me and even now lend me rent money when my student loans run out. So there’s that. I think I need to figure out what her vision is, exactly, and then we can work on a compromise.

But before I get too caught up in centerpieces and cake flavors…

Engagement Party. My parents are throwing us a party October 24th (save the date!). My mom and I are doing most of the planning, and my dad is doing most of the criticizing. We had a big discussion about it last night, and he wants us to hire a party planner. We’re not going to—it’ll be fifty people, tops, in my parents’ backyard. Fairly casual. Dinner buffet, cake, drinks, backyard games.

My mom’s looking into the catering and tables/chairs/tent rental, and I’m working on the guest list. Because we have several distinct groups of friends and family who don’t know each other, we’re inviting as many people as we can stand to make it less awkward. So if you live in the Houston area** and John or I talk to you regularly, you’ll probably make the cut. Consider yourself on notice.

We’re getting engagement photos done at the beginning of October. The scheduling is tough because John wants to wait until he gets a cyst on his face removed (two weeks from now, plus healing time), but I want the pictures to be ready before the party. Fortunately I get the sense that our photographer is flexible.

Journal. I made the business and tax journal, which turns out to be a better deal than I’d thought. Fully one third of the articles they publish are about IP, so this is probably the best journal for me, content-wise. And you know what? Law Review may be prestigious, but it’s a ton of work. I think if I were on Law Review, I’d have already gone insane.

Business & Tax is still a decent amount of work. My first cite-check packet is due today, and the topic for my article (to be written by the end of the school year) is due on Thursday. Yup, that would be dress-rehearsal-Thursday. I haven’t done much actual research into topics yet; so far my thinking has boiled down to “something about the internet…like YouTube and stuff…and copyright…maybe Creative Commons…wasn’t there a Viacom thing?…and then the Google book thing?…or something.”

School. Sometimes I forget that I’m still going to law school in the middle of all of this. I’m staying about halfway on top of the reading so far, which I figure is pretty good, considering. My schedule is awesome: class all day Tuesday/Thursday, evening classes only Monday/Wednesday, no class Friday.

Taiko Admin Stuff. I’m in charge of the merchandise (T-shirts, CDs, DVDs) and the website. Getting our shirts printed for this year has been more of a headache than I expected. I was all set to get everything done a couple weeks early, but various forces conspired to bring everything down to the last minute.

I’m trying to “own” the shirt-management process, mostly because I don’t know any other way to get things done. The problem is that the “owning” is imaginary. The decisions get made above me. Heck, sometimes the work even gets done for me. Right now I’m feeling a little out of the loop, so I’m just hoping it all turns out all right.

The website, on the other hand, is all mine. Mine and John’s really, because he’s done most of the technical work in the background. My job is maintenance and content production. Right now I’m working on building an online shop for our shirts and things, and it’s turning out to be a huge project. I never imagined how tedious it would be to get this thing running.

We’re using ZenCart, and the user interface is PAINFUL to work with. John thinks it’s actually the server that hosts the website, but whatever it is, changing one tiny setting takes four or five clicks, each of which takes about five seconds to process. Grrrrrrargh.

I want to have the shop finished, or at least open, by Grand Taiko, but it’s coming down to the wire.

Blogging. Ha. Ahahaha. You can see how well that’s been going.

Sewing. I just finished a set of bedsheet curtains for John. They came out well. Now I’m working on my own Ikea-fabric curtains, which will take a bit longer. Once I finish those, I really need to get started on the Ren Fest costume I promised I’d make for John this year.

Now that we’re engaged, I feel more obligated to get involved with his family, particularly when it comes to birthday and Christmas presents for his nieces and nephews (five total). I can sew a little girl dress or two, right? And then…a wedding dress? I’m thinking of redoing my mom’s. But that’s a ways away. I’ve got to clear off the rest of my plate first.

———
* When you see three girls up front with two drums apiece, I’ll be the one on your right.

** For the record, she also disapproved of navy+gray and red+white+black. I thought the latter, at least, would be so classic that she wouldn’t say no, but I guess she wants all pink or something. The point is that our tastes definitely don’t match, so I’m making my own color decisions.

*** If you don’t live here but will be in town on the 24th, let me know!

Tags: engagement, journal, law school, list, Mom, party planning, taiko, wedding, writing

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