News!

Ok, I can't hold out any longer! Since my parents read my blog, I have been trying to hold out until I have a chance to talk to them both, but I cannot hold on any longer.

Ali and I are now engaged! We plan to get married next summer in July (July 19). It will be an unconventional wedding ... more a party, a celebration of life, rather than a stone engraving of tradition and dreams, hopes too large to fulfill. It is very good. I have never loved a woman so much or felt so close in heart. Her compassion alone makes me happy enough to marry her. Still trying to figure out whether I should call her my fiance, wife, partner, spouse. So many of those words are worn, darkened. We will figure it out. Instead of getting me an engagement ring of some sort, she bought me a cat ... a new kitten. We actually still have only three cats, since one of them ran away during a thunderstorm while I was going to work ... it's sad, perhaps we will find her some day. We are thinking of having a BBQ with live plants on the tables instead of flowers. Some small ceremony for the actual wedding, speeches only if volunteered (and therefore heartfelt) and a big party that night.

This is a woman that I can share everything with. Someone with whom there is understanding: she looks beyond my words into my meanings, with whom I can walk with pride. My beautiful Ali-kat. Soon to be my ____.