We interrupt this blog for nuptials

I was told once by a friend made through blogging never to write about my own relationship on my blog. This advice came one girlfriend and one blog entry too late. I rushed the disintegration of one relationship with a short treatise on shopping trips in the company of women. Otherwise, I may have never met Jessica and the following entry may not have been necessary. Thank goodness for sporadic idiocy, I guess.

I'm getting married. And just once (and briefly), I'm going to write about it.

"Alright, let me be the first to say congratulations to you then. You get one vagina for the rest of your life. Real smart, Frank."

—Beanie, from Old School

In just a little more than three weeks, I am going to stand up in front of a crowd of friends and relatives and publicly vow to love, cherish, adore, remain true to and usually obey this one extraordinary woman, through sickness and in health, for richer (yeah, right) or poorer (more like it). Till death do we part. A very nice man with a Christian background and a white goatee who looks about 203 years old and still rides a motorcycle (yep, he's in the club) will preside and read a short Baha'I prayer as a nod to my own amalgamated spiritual background. Then we'll exchange rings we probably will buy at Claire's the day before, but the symbology of the whole ritual will hardly suffer.

Then we will be joined legally and spiritually as man and wife. Beer drinking will ensue. There will be dancing and merriment and hopefully it won't start raining frogs just because one of South Georgia's career bachelors is retiring.

Jessica will change her last name, which will be weird to me, but exciting. No hyphens, either. The Garners of Bulloch County officially grow from four to five members.

That, then, will officially close the book on Chapter 14 of Memoirs of a Pretty Average Dude, "Our House (Is a very, very, very messy house)." After the breakneck pace of Chapters 9 ("Dude, I just threw up on your truck") and 10 ("Understanding the signs of a potentially fucked-up relationship, pts 9-13") and the introspection of Chapter 11 ("My cubicle smells funny"), the story of finding, falling for and eventually marrying Jessica was fairly average. Some drama. Some conflict. Nothing to dig up Stanley Kubrick and have him shoot a movie about. Mostly just love and snuggling and farts and laughter and Jessica learning enough about baseball to suggest lineup changes in the middle of the Southern Conference baseball tournament like Annie Savoy sending notes to the Bulls' dugout. Good times.

<--Actually, after Chapters 9-12 (and two St. Patrick's Days working for a beer company), the Dean has had quite enough of the bachelor's life, thank you.

I'm not sure what Chapter 15 will hold, although I'm excited about it. Jessica is in graduate school and working full time. I'm freelance writing regularly and beginning to get very serious about the play I'm writing (that blog, by the way, is soon to get a major facelift and content change). Work is also keeping me moving at a breakneck pace.

So for a few weeks, posts here are going to be fewer and farther between. The "Cult of I-AA" will be on hold for a little while, but will hopefully resurface as "The Cult," a standalone sports blog I hope to originate with the help of some other folks. It will be dedicated to FCS/I-AA football, mid-major basketball, the enduring love of hardcore fans who follow otherwise crappy teams and other under-the-radar aspects of sports culture. In the meantime, I'll still be writing player features for the GSU football game program, "GSU Endzone," and posting my regular "Thursday Thousand" feature about Georgia Southern football on SouthernFACTS.org. I'll reprint my player profiles here after publication. "The Cult" will hopefully come to life in late October, just in time for the playoff push in I-AA football.

Here at the Institute, we'll resume our long-overdue lesson on the Six Laws of Pop Culture, which have undergone some minor tweaks. Rest assured: all six laws will get covered.

For my six faithful readers and the ever present J.P. "Blossom's Brother" Lawrence, I'll try to offer up at least one short blog (possibly just a few links and a minimal narrative) a week. Please understand that although the Bride has been more than gracious in giving me time to write even when it wasn't going to earn us money, she deserves my more-or-less full attention these next few weeks.

I hope to see many of you at the wedding October 13 and will miss those of you who can't make it or whom I stupidly failed to invite. Jess and I aren't much in the way of planning and would have been up shit creek in a wire canoe if not for parents, friends and well-wishers pitching in to make sure that we didn't just off and elope (which would have been cheaper).

And in case I failed to mention it, I have never been happier than I am right this moment. (Single people are allowed to barf now.)

I'll be back soon.