T-minus 8 and counting.

While I wouldn't say that I woke up on the morning of my wedding hungover, I would say that I was incredibly nervous and skittsh for the entirety of the day, making me look like something of a -- how shall we say? -- crack addict.

I woke up at 7 and couldn't get back to sleep, which worked out okay, I guess, because Bridesmaid Jenn was already awake and had already wandered into a local Starbucks. She then called me at 7:30 and instructed that we "stop having sex" and tell her what kind of coffee we wanted.

She came back to our room around 8 with coffee and fruit. I ate this coffee and fruit . . . and then I threw up in the toilet. Note to self: coffee is not a good chaser to a night of drinking wine and gin.

We met the family and the rest of the bridal party for hotel brunch at about 9/9:30ish and proceeded to pick at fruit. Note to all: I cannot eat when nervous. At speech tournaments in high school, I could never eat until after my first competition.

I go to my room and rest for awhile until I get a call from the florist at 11 a.m., asking if she can drop off flowers around noon. Bridesmaid luncheon is put on hold until the florist delivers incredibly gorgeous bouquets and boutonnieres to my room.

I had picked this florist off the internet, had never met with her and only exchanged phone calls and emails . . . and this was the result. Magfreakinificent!

My bouquet.

His boutonniere.

Bridesmaids and Bride's Mom joined me for lunch at Cheesecake Factory. We all went shopping in the Handbag Basement while waiting for our table. Despite touching beautiful purses for a half an hour, I still can't eat once we get to Cheesecake Factory. Pasta sits on my plate. Magen gives me Xanax.

I love Xanax.

By the time of our 3 p.m. hair appointment, my world is looking up. I do not appear like as much of a crackhead, and as my hair transforms itself in Angela's capable hands, I am becoming a very pretty crackhead as each minute passes.

We are out of the salon a little before 5 and are suddenly superbly glamorous. Here's what our hair looked like:





Kate took the pictures of Magen and I, but I didn't have any of her hair prior to the wedding. So here's her entire look, courtesy of Gabe, our photographer. (You can see her flowers, too!)



(Cassie and Jenn, being short haired, napped at the hotel during this time. Or hit the bar. I'm not sure which.)

We shielded ourselves from the wind before returning to the hotel to complete the movie-starlet transformation.

Randi helped me decide which underwear I should wear.



Yep, those cotton boy shorts were totally the winners.

The getting ready bit is all really a blur to me after that crucial decision was made. Jenn did our makeup, Randi, the unofficial bridesmaid, helped zip things and adjust things and lend moral support to Kate, the Best Kate. Cassie and Magen shooed my mom away when I was about to kill her. I think I ate two slices of rye bread . . .

Then at just past six we were spirited away to the ballroom by our less-than-stellar wedding planner . . .

In the bedroom.

Easily the most important room in the house, the bedroom was the first room we set up on our very long, very tiring moving day. This is the fantastic Cal King bed we got off Craigslist for $350. There is a large possibility that it could be one-of-a-kind, as we purchased it from a furniture craftsman with an obvious pituitary gland disorder. (He was a giant, close to 7 feet tall, and his larynx seemed too large for his throat, causing his speech to be strained in an unusual way.) He told us he had set it up to show some hotel clients and needed to sell the model. So I assume that we may be the only people in the world with this bed. It has a padded headboard, as well as padded sides, which seems slightly unnecessary. It is full of awesomeness.



The bedspread we got at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Those who know me know I prefer everything to be red, but in the interest of design and compromise, I have decided to limit redness only to the one room in the house that is truly mine: my kitchen. We had wanted to do something very Indian/Peacocky with this room, but The Perfect Peacock Sheets by Natori are $600 just for the comforter, we decided to Moulin Rouge the place, by which I mean made it match our set of Moulin Rouge promotional posters. So this was the bedspread we agreed on, and it should be noted that the copywriters at the Bed, Bath & Beyond website seem to think that the stripe with the burnt velvet is in a leopard print pattern. It even looks leopardy in the picture. But do not be fooled! The burnouts in the velvet are actually flowers, which makes a lot more sense, considering that the embroidered panels on the bedspread also feature flowers.

And here are the aforementioned promotional posters around which this room is based:



Another thing I love about this place is that my closet is mirrored--never again will I not have the joy of full-length mirrors! Of course, for some strange reason, our hallway closet is also mirrored, which just seems unnecessary to me. There's no point in giving a hallway the illusion of width. Also, the hallway mirrors are a bitch to clean. But I have no complaints about the ones in the bedroom, even if they make our TV seem minuscule.



Finally, my dresser, which is a new product in the Ikea universe. It's actually so nice that it doesn't look like it came from Ikea. (The black-stained wood helps.) It was $270, and sturdier than any Ikea dresser I've had before. Thus far, the drawers have not sagged under the weight of my many clothings.

Welcome to our evil lair.

I decided I would start sharing photographs of the house by starting with the least put together room so that your expectations have nowhere to go but up.

Welcome to our study/office/kitten restroom/evil lair/library/editing room/Marcus' closet.

We've got about five bookcases in here and all of them are full-ish. The anal retentive part in me spent about two days attempting to organize the books in some comprehensible fashion. Marcus has a shelf and a half of film books, nearly two full shelves dedicated to theatre books, and then the rest is about 4 shelves of text/reference books, an entire shelf dedicated to my thesis work (with Francesca Lia Block books stuffed in because they fit perfectly there) and the rest is all general fiction, divided either visually by size or somewhat categorically. (Black writers and poetry share a shelf, Dave Eggers and Chuck Palahniuk share a shelf with gay authors . . . It makes sense to me, and that's really all that matters.)

(That's merely a fraction of the bookage in this room.)

This is Marcus' command center of doom aka "editing suite." I tried not to photograph it too closely because, well, its the only area of the house that I've allowed him to control . . . which means its messy. (This is also the reason I did not photograph the part of the room that consists of his closet and the kitten's litter box.)



My current prized possession: antique roll-top desk circa 1930.



I actually just acquired this yesterday off Craigslist for about $60. That's an astoundingly good price for a roll-top desk, and if you actually looked at this thing, you'd know why. It is scratched to hell. It's previous owners obviously didn't love it quite as much as I will, but I do give them props for ruining the value of this desk by cutting out a hole under the roll-top hutch to run computer cables through. I mean, that's super clever and all, and I really appreciate it, but I'd never be able to resell this thing after I refurbish it for any decent value.



Luckily, I'm not planning on selling it. Ever. The desk actually has a wall-mounted shelf that goes above the roll-top, which I intend to refurbish before I screw it into the wall. (NB: None of the knobs on the desk are the original white ceramic ones. I've already replaced them with more attractive knobs.) I'm armed with wood filler, dark walnut stain and a satin-finish varnish. This desk and I will have a lifetime of fun together.

More to come, including the very odd shade of pinky-gray on our bathroom walls, my dining room chair project, the complete lack of wall-art in our living room and our impressive media collection.