For those of you who went to high school and seemed even marginally intelligent you'll remember a time of life - those "carefree" years from, oh, about 10th to 12th grade that were actually a motherload of stress - when all anyone could say, upon discovering your age and that you were, indeed, intent upon graduation, was "Have you thought about where you'd like to go to college?" And you'd say, "Well..." and launch into a rehearsed speech that you actually never meant to rehearse but were forced to once you realized that Oh MY GOD this is all you were ever going to be asked about ever again. First you were pleasant and then you started having uncomfortable desires to maybe maim these question-askers, maybe just a little bit because didn't they just hear you have the exact same conversation with that guy over there how could they not have heard that HOW???!!! Even if you didn't realize it, this is usually a young person's most memorable introduction to the notion that people - they get really really into stuff and sometimes they won't shut up and this sometimes lends a sort of warped importance to things and can really make a person tense.

It's a lot like that with the wedding. I have been introduced for the last nine months as "This is Cara she's getting married," and that is then all I talk about for the remainder of the social event, period. Ok, ok. A lot of the time I talk about my dogs, also, but I'm not exaggerating that much.

I'm not going to be a fool and say I resent this attention. We chose to have a big wedding and so that is what we will talk about. Plus, this engagement stuff - it's pretty great. There's all these parties. I'm wearing this kickass ring that I really like a whole lot. I'm going to Vegas. I'm using a new word (fiance) in regular conversation and I'm buying new clothes because I need new clothes for the honeymoon and parties and so I can be a properly dressed and very subservient wife (who wears ribbed tank tops from J. Crew that were totally, totally on sale big time.)

The point I'm trying to get at here is that people keep asking me these questions that I'm not sure I get - the number one question I don't get being: Are you getting nervous? Well. I hope not, right? That's the answer, isn't it? I'm a little nervous about how the gulls keep pooping on the pier my family just had fixed and how that's not the best for wedding day pictures, but even that sends a shiver of giddiness through me because all I can think is "WEDDING DAY PICTURES THAT IS SO FUN!"

See, we went to this party over the weekend. Our friend Tom and his family have an annual bash in their back yard. We all drink beer from kegs in bathtubs, and Tom and J and their friends play music and sing on a makeshift stage. Now my fiance (now regular in my vocabulary) was up there playing his guitar and singing and he looked very, very cute and I felt just like I did when I first met him in a crowded room the night before our mutual friends got married and he said "Hello" and I thought, "Oh dear Lord this is going to be a problem, but a good problem," so no, see, I'm not nervous. I'm just fulfilling this thing that started - this thing that had to happen - nearly four years ago. It's easy. The college thing? That's a little harder. People love to talk about college endlessly and how it was the best time of their life and all, and you should just tell them to shut it, honestly. Actually, I take that back. They could be on the board of one of your top five and could score you some points so talk the talk, but just don't worry is all I'm saying. Once you get in and situated you can sleep in late and eat pizza at midnight, drink beers out of the mini-fridge in your room and probably gain a little weight that first year but it's cool. It happens to everyone.

Sunday J and I gathered with the family at the bay house to pick up the dogs and have lunch before we hit the road home. I asked my brother, Vinnie, what he'd done the night before, to which he responded, "I went out." Of course. "Partied." Why not. "In the Presidential suite at the Ritz." What? WHAT? Vinnie explained that his friends, J.D. and Brendan, the elite founding members of Top Notch event planning in D.C., had gotten the soiree together. He'd been an innocent guest who'd just happened to join in the festivities and was not, he assured me, part of the Top Notch crew. The thing is, about these guys, Vin explained when I told him it sounded like they were actually pretty savvy, is that they're not really, um, established yet. Like they've thrown about two parties where they get a little classy, throw on some slacks, and give the ladies subtle hugs and a peck on the cheek at the door before delivering the goods: some Hypnotic and Hennessey. "Like they're mobsters?" I asked. "No," my brother explained. "Like they're rappers." There are differences. My dad asked if maybe they were drug dealers, in between bites of our brunch Sunday at Pirate's Cove in Galesville, where I forced my sibling to share his adventure with the entire table, Grandmom included, and Vinnie said, no, but they wouldn't mind doing that if, you know, it wasn't for the drugs. They just want to be cool guys. "Classic Fellas," said my dad and we all laughed, not because of his quick wit in naming them something as cute as "Classic Fellas" but because this is what Vinnie and his friends called themselves in high school. I'm not going to try and tell the story about the time the Fellas "fun punked" one of their buddies on a cross country trip this fateful summer several years ago - so much so that he ran away in the slums of New Orleans and caught a plane home without his belongings, including money and ID, because that story really requires a first-person telling. Especially the part where they captured the little sneak during his FIRST escape attempt in Las Vegas and stuffed him into the car while they played old Red Hot Chili Peppers as loudly as the stereo could go and told the guy, "Don't EVER, EVER try that again!!!" Oh those Classic Fellas! The thing is - it's that story, and others, like the time they acquired (stole) some lawn ornaments from around the D.C. area and "redecorated" their high school that make me think that if anyone is going to try and do something as insane as adopt the lifestyle of wealthy rappers when you're really just in your early twenties and actually pretty wholesome, good kids, and start a company called "Top Notch Productions" complete with business cards and establish yourselves by throwing parties in the Ritz, well, there really isn't anyone better for the job.