When Your Mind's Made Up

If I say I'm going to be at your house at 3:30, I'm going to be at your house at 3:30. Ahem.

And if it changes the rest of my life, so be it.

The problem with starting a blog when you're recovering from illness, unemployed and not in a relationship is that you hope that all those things will change. And while I can be healthy and employed while still finding the time to blog, it's a different story now that I'm in a real relationship.

Whatever that means, it's not anything I've done before.

So after a three day weekend celebrating love and luck, rituals and romance, I'm looking back at all the things I could blog about except that work is preventing me from going on and on long enough to cover even half of that.

Do I begin with the Prosecco kick-off to a six-hour meal at Dinamo, complete with drop-in guest for the much anticipated 3:30 toast with Gabriella Pinot Gris? How about the chocolate espresso torte taken home to enjoy rather than amongst the V-Day celebrants?

And don't get me started on the Year in Review, a photo album documenting 80 moments I may recall with clarity now but probably won't forever.

As for the cozy interlude at Lift to sip whipped cream-topped hot chocolate, well, that was just to take advantage of walking in the snowy/rain mix under a big umbrella together.

Or do I go directly to seeing "Once" at Virginia Rep and reveling in a 13-person cast, all of whom played their own instruments - mandolin, guitar, banjo, violin, drums - and a charming, if unresolved, love story? I first saw "Once" at an arthouse theater in Philly in August 2007, only to leave the theater in tears to drive back down I-95 south alone.

Let's just say it was far preferable to watch the musical love story unfold live with Mr. Wright and stroll home talking about it instead. Best line used 3 times: "I'm always serious. I'm Czech!"

For that matter, I definitely don't have time to go into details about going to see "From Here to Eternity" (a film I'd never seen before) at the Byrd Theatre. And because it was one of our themed movie dates, we followed up a classic film set in Hawaii with dinner at the Hawaiian-influenced Perch. Except that rather than tiki drinks, we went Spanish with Poema Cava to toast the future.

Favorite things about the movie? Burt Lancaster in fitted, '50s-style swimming trunks. Montgomery Clift in a pre-car accident role before his face got messed up. Outdoor Hawaiian Tiki bars circa 1953. Deborah Kerr in stylish high-waisted shorts. Raven-haired Donna Reed as a bad girl who wants to go "proper."

What I did have time for was wallowing in a long weekend with the most hilarious man I know without writing a single word for profit or for the online curious.

I can't promise that will be the case once the Year of Upheaval begins. But for now, I'm doing my best.