I don’t have the patience to tap out a whole entry on the joystorm that was this past weekend, The Wedding, but I want to recount one story.

Sunday, at about 1:00 PM, I sat outside the salon where my hair had just been done. Now, I should explain that I had two responsibilities over the course of this weekend: to

(a) look progressively prettier, day by day, until finally my appearance could only be described in the language of the angels;

and (b) not fall down.

In service of (a), I was at the salon to have this crazy headpiece made out of pearls and fake white flowers and silver wire woven into my hair, and frankly, I was apprehensive. It had been last worn by a member of my family in the 1970s, although it also looks like it could do quite well in a regional production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hours after I went in, I emerged from the salon, headpiece attached, make up done, as classy as I was ever going to look, and as I sat on a bench wating for my brother to pick me up, I attracted quite a lot of attention from passersby. Trouble is, when people stop and stare at you, you can’t automtically tell whether it’s because you look like a semitic Jackie Onassis or because you look like you wandered out of their last acid trip.

Luckily, one lady didn’t just do a double-take; she actually doubled back to speak to me.

“My GAWD,” she twanged, hand over heart, “you look so beautiful! You look just like I did before MY first marriage!”

And that was how I knew everything was going to be all right.

Everyone keeps telling me how calm I am, which is rather funny, because I feel hyper in a sometimes-sluggish kind of way. I wish I had something to DO — sweaters to knit for soldiers, or a political campaign to manage (ideally one for a Person Of Cleavage). As it is, I just get to play tetherball with my anxiety and answer questions as they are sent from my sainted mother’s Blackberry.

Mr. Ben’s grandmother is somewhat responsible for planting notions of marriage in our heads. She visited our studio and, being at any point no more than fifteen feet from it, couldn’t help but notice the double bed. So! she said, sternly, turning to me. When do you plan on making this legal?

I fended her off as best I could. However, the onslaught continued. A friend of ours proposed to a girl he’d only met four months before and, when we visited, we found him and his fiancee sparring lovingly over who got to sit in the other’s lap during dinner.

THEN a couple Mr. Ben and I knew got engaged — we found out about it via LiveJournal. As a present in lieu of a ring, he bought her a tea set. That really hit a nerve with me, although apparently I wasn’t alone. Several other college friends noted how romantic it would be to receive a tea set of their own.

Still, I tried to tuck these thoughts away. What use would a tea set be, after all, if I didn’t want the three-bedroom two-bath house in suburbia to put it in?

Mr. Ben proposed like an Irish husband, with scarcely a “Brace yourself, Bridget.” I’ve had over a year to get used to the idea of being a “wife.” I’m not quite there yet. I am more comfortable with the idea of being a “bride,” anyway, but that’s largely because my mother has made it easy on me. And now the wedding is in five days. FIVE DAYS!

I go down to DC thursday evening after work. I just have to make it til then.

The most amazing question I’ve ever seen asked of an advice colmunist comes from this week’s Dear Prudence column on Slate. Viz:

Dear Prudence,
I am happy. I’m 23, and I have a wonderful life, the best husband (of three years) any woman could ask for. He is my soul mate. We crack jokes to each other, about each other, and we don’t take offense. We are honest and trust each other 100 percent with everything. We have two children, 4 and 2; they are happy. We take them out, we play with them, we read to them, they are our little miracles. They are so well-behaved in every way. We are not rich, in fact, we live paycheck to paycheck. We don’t have a lot of extra money, but I believe the things we really want will come in time, after paying what little debt we have left. We don’t have a lot of friends, mostly because all our old ones are off doing drugs and other things we don’t approve of. My husband and I come from really bad family situations, horrible divorces, abusive family members, and we have grown up less than fortunate. We made the best out of our lives so far and really look forward to our future together and with our children. Are other people this happy? Or are we just weird?

—Always Smiling

Prudence’s response was perfectly fine but I’d love to have a write-in contest for the best possible answer. The pithier the better, folks, although profundity is not prohibited.

This is how I’ve felt lately:

Now that Mr. Ben is taking the Bar even as we SPEAK, it’s even worse. I can’t concentrate on anything. My joints hurt; I’m tugging at my hair like I’m nine years old again and going to CTY for the first time with the big kids. … God, I remember how scary that was. The funny thing is of course that the fear never went away. Any time I approached a summer camp experience, even if I’d been at the very same place the year before, I worked myself into a Gordian Knot of anxiety about the unknown. Once I spent the first few days of camp in the infirmary recovering from what should have been excitement.

I’m older now! More resilient! And Xanax is my back up plan. (That’s a bit like “God is my co-pilot,” what?) I did manage to make gnocchi this weekend from scratch, with the help of a chipper friend, in between meals out with my two brothers and sundry male cousins. And I took my new shoes to Ditmas Park, to Chinatown, and, as a reward for them because they’d been so good, on a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. That last was a bit too much for them, or rather for me, but what is life if not one learning experience after another?