Agent of Distraction

more proof that if we were anymore relaxed about this wedding we would be horizontal

A few nights ago, a conversation with the best man concerning wedding preparations

B.M.- looking over the sample wedding ceremony we got from the minister. OK, it says next is The Sharing Of The Common Cup. What is that?

N: I have no idea. I am not sure if that’s happening. I guess if someone hands us a cup we’ll take a swig from it.

B.M- OK then, it says next Music of Hymns.

N: I don’t think we’re having that. But you know, if music comes on then just listen. Or sing. Whatever. We’re just playing it by the ear.

B.M. So basically your whole wedding is an exercise in improvisation.

N: Perhaps you could convey your reading through the medium of dance.

   

   I've also realised another wonderful thing - my wedding is the same day as the same day as my favourite exercise in insanity - the Eurovision Song Contest. As far as I'm concerned the only thing more fabulous than that is that this year Serbia&Montenegro will not be entering because they could not agree on whether it would be a Serbian of Montenegran band that should go.

Also the Croatian entry is being sung by a woman most famous for an intimate video of herself that was stolen and widely distributed through all the ex-Yugoslav countries. Her song is called "My High Heel" and it contains the refrain :

Oy da da oy da oy da da da
Oy da da oy da
My high heel

      

   As far as I'm concerned these two facts are enough to secure her my vote.

I'm also enormously looking forward to Finland's 'melodic hardcore rock' entry "Hard rock hallelujah"

When I was in high school I wrote an emotionally intense adultery-and-bloodbath play called Insanity and it got put on and performed by other people in my school and represents the summit of the earthly success of my writing career so far.

Also it serves as a neat opening line to the other mad things my head is reeling about today.

Namely: my wedding. Two weeks from now! With a guest list whose numbers are rollercoasting madly due to people cancelling for various reasons but mostly because vast amounts of parents have died of cancer in the last month, and other keen friends flying in from overseas. It is all terribly exciting, more so because we haven't sent the official invitations yet, or bought any of the food (one more task for this weekend!). Two weeks! Two weeks! A stunning number ringing with insanity mostly because it's sooo soon and it feels like we haven't done much to this point to prepare for it beyond send out more cheques than I want to think about.

And while the nearness of my matrimonial union draws ever closer and the wedding cake exists in my imagination and invites sit on the printer and the hen nights exists only as potential and my future husband asks why he can't practice his archery in the garden, the only thing CRAZIER than all that is my Italian neighbour who enjoys a lively relationship with alcohol and likes to shout things from her window whenever anyone happens to be in our garden.

Things like: "You steeenk! This whole place it steeenk! I call the poliss! Drug addeects! I leeve ten years with a drug addikt, and now you! I call the police! Steeenkeeng addicts!"* Goodness knows how she'll react to a wedding reception underneath her window but I'm sure it will be blogworthy.

This leaves Z and me to wonder whether she's talking to some junkie/dealer in the building or whether she is mistaking our flowerbeds for a hotbed of narcotics.