I really wanted to write some long, drawn-out, Diarist Award-winning entry about yesterday and what it means to my future and the future of my marriage... But as you can tell by viewing my archives, I'm just don't have many those left in me.

Yesterday's big event? A month and a half after getting married, Jessie finally moved in for good. After making two 180-mile round trips in as many days, we packed up the last of her stuff, turned in her keys and made the trip home.

She'd lived in her old apartment more than six years -- almost as long as I've been writing online. It's been her base of operations and my place of refuge through a lot of eras in our lives individually and collectively. I have a feeling that this is where this whole marriage thing will get interesting.

Nine days, twenty-one hours, ten minutes and a handful of seconds.
Well, I've got Brittany Spears & Jason Allen Alexander beat.

The honeymoon is wrapped up. Thanksgiving is over. But I still have not returned to reality. I'm crashing at Jessie's apartment in our hometown until I drive home and go back to work Friday morning. The upside of that is that I get to do a whole lot of nothing and spend time with my wife. The downside is that we're in the Internet dark ages here. Neither Jessie or my mom has online access at home... So my only option is to show up at Jessie's office and hijack her computer when she's in class (which I'm doing now).

There are stories to tell... Photos to share... And I promise that they are all coming as soon as I return to a place where household Internet is a common luxury. After that, I'll reply to comments and I might even start reading my friends page again. (If anything has happened in the last two weeks worth reading, please let me know so I can catch up.)

This is a public post to confirm what I had already announced in my friends-only voice post... As of Saturday evening, I am a married man. Everything went off without major incident and the shackle of oppression has been place on my left ring finger. Heh.

We've been home from the honeymoon for a couple of hours now. Of course, you can't consider the Thanksgiving holidays a return to normalcy... but it will be fun to do the holidays as married folk. I have several memory cards full of pics that I'll share soon enough.

Happy Turkey Day. I hope you have something to be thankful for. I know I do.

The older I get, the harder it is to define my particular brand of religion. However, when in need of a label, I consider myself Presbyterian because that's where I've spent most of my formative years... But my roots are a bit more diverse.

Growing up, we did the Presbyterian thing to follow my mom's family. Her dad had been raised Lutheran, but found there to be a shortage of churches in our part of the world and figured being a Presbyterian would be almost as good. On the other side, my dad's mom actually preached back in the day in a small country church and my dad's brother grew up to be a big shot in the Church of God. So, I guess it's no wonder that I'm a Presbyterian marrying a Baptist at her church in a service led by a Methodist minister.

The minister was my choice. Jessie got to pick her church as the venue, so I got dibs on choosing our preacher man. I went back in the time machine to do so.

In the early 1990s, I was spending most of my weekends at my mom's mother's house in a very small Delta town. Did I mention that it was very small? Our weekly attendance at the Presbyterian Church usually hovered around 10. I'm guessing that to an outsider, ours looked very much like a lost cause... But, to this day, I thikn there is something to be said for worshiping in small numbers.

It came to pass in those days that we found ourselves without a regular minister. And, fortunatley for us, there happened to be an unemployed Methodist minister in the next town over. After coming to the conclusion that the Methodists' God and the Presbyterians' God were the same one, we offered him a job. To this day, his sermons are the best I've ever heard.

From the pulpit, he was never bossy or preachy. His messages were always conversational. If you weren't careful, you'd listen to him long enough and start to think he was talking directly to you. Almost every sermon began with a joke. The joke led him into a story that he would take apart, explain what each part did and what it meant before putting it all back together again in the end for you to understand.

When it came time to get a wedding minister, I knew he was our guy.

Even though it had been more than a decade since I'd last seen him preach a sermon, we tracked him down shortly after Jessie & I were engaged. After catching up with him and explaining the Cliff's Notes version of the Fletch/Jessie saga of more than 11 years, he said that he didn't need to counsel us. If after such a long friendship, the two of us wanted to be married, he'd be happy to do the service. He marked November 18 on his calendar. We wrote him down on ours.

Fast forward to June, when many Methodist ministers do a shuffle or sorts and get moved from one church to another. You guessed it -- our guy was relocated to a different church. What complicated matters was that many of the church staff left when he did. So, when we called to firm up details later in the year, not only was our guy not preaching at this church anymore, no one knew where he'd gone. None of the phone number we had for him worked. We had lost our preacher.

As it turns out, he wasn't lost for long -- only a few days. Of course, a few days without a preacher is enough to hiccup wedding prep just slightly. For the record, I was never worried... But I enjoyed telling people that we had lost our preacher. It adds color to the engagement story.

Sunday, Jessie and I drove an hour and a half to the small-town church where now preaches. The sermon was exactly as I remembered from many years prior... The conversation format... The simple explanation of a complex message. After one service, Jessie agreed with me that his was the benchmark by which most ministers should be measured.

We spent Sunday afternoon hashing out the details of the ceremony. To be honest, I didn't realize exactly how much was involved from the preacher's standpoint. I thought he'd show up, ask if we would, listen to us tell him that we do and move on. However, there are prayers and blessings and a script, of sorts, even. Although it's obvious that with every passing day, the wedding has seemed more real to me... Hearing the preacher read the vows we'd take -- using Fletch and Jessie with those words -- made it very real... Goosebumps reals.

About a week or so ago, I woke up in my bunk at work with a very anxious feeling. In my deep sleep only moments before, I'd been having thoughts of my wedding. It wasn't a dream with a full storyline, but instead quick flashes of images of me at the alter.

There was no haze or gap between asleep and awake. In the time it takes to snap your fingers, I was very awake and very scared. There was a heavy weight on my chest and a shaky feeling throughout my whole body. For a brief moment, I was convinced that the world might just end if I went through with the wedding.

Yeah, I know. You'll never hear the kids telling that tale on "A Wedding Story."

The good news is that I hadn't felt that way before that morning and I haven't felt that way since, either. I'm not really sure what brought on those feelings in my sub-conscience, but if I had to put money on it, I'd bet on Alex.

As you know, we haven't spoken since December of last year. As you also know, she is one of probably only two women that I have ever really loved. Not talking to her this year has been the absolute best thing for me... It's also been the absolute worst.

For several weeks last month, every day brought a debate to my head whether or not to call Alex. A huge chunk of me knew that the silence hadn't betrayed me so far, so why chance things? The other part of me knew that this was a person of immense importance to me... and that I was leaving her out of one of my biggest days. I swayed back and forth between sides so much that it literally made me sick.

I passed within a few hundred yards of her house on my way to south Louisiana last weekend. I thought about taking that exit off the Interstate. I thought about what I might say to her. I wondered how I would explain the last 11 months. I went so far as to compose a text message to her.

Alex had been the one that put the idea of not drinking Cokes into my head. I thought it only appropriate to let her know that I'd made it a full year without one. I typed out the message. I pulled up her number from my contacts. I clicked on "save draft."

For as much as it hurt me inside to want to talk to her, I had no idea how the conversation might go... And I was too chicken to find out. I could see her upset with the silence -- hurt that we'd come together so passionately last year to split into completely opposite directions. I could see where she'd be pissed that things developed with Jessie so quickly after they had ended with her. I could see her pissed that Jessie is "getting her shot" and I denied Alex hers.

Of course, I won't lie. I was also afraid that she wouldn't care. Maybe 11 months without Fletch was enough to prove that she didn't need me in her life -- in any form -- any longer. Maybe I'd find out that she didn't miss me the way I've been missing her. I remember a time in college when her heart wanted to be with me and her mind refused it the chance... She tried so hard -- and unsuccessfully -- to dismiss me. I could hear that tone in her voice come back from the dead to tell me once and for all that she didn't need me.

I know I've thought about this way too much. I know that I just should have called her up long ago and let us make peace. I'm not sure it will ever get easier to do. The longer I wait only adds time between us. And if I think it's hard to explain being engaged to a former lover, it's probably harder to explain being married.

The bottom line is that I wish she were in that church on Saturday... No, not as my bride, but as my friend. For as more time passes without us talking, I think it will be her friendship that I will miss more than any romantic moment.

My wedding countdown clock now shows less than five days until I'm no longer a free man. In fact, it's ticking down somewhere in the neighborhood of four days and 17 hours. The closer it gets, the less my reaction changes -- "Wow."

This weekend, I took my last bachelor's road trip. In the span of five days, I racked up some 1,300 miles on my truck -- and on my ass. The trip took me to southeast Louisiana where I visited some friends and watched a college buddy of mine make his final walk as a single man. As far as long-ass road trips go, this one yielded no great stories to tell. No major epiphanies were to be had. But it served it's purpose by letting my clear my head before the big week.

Not that I wasn't ready before... But I'm definately ready now. Less than five days to go. Let's go.

Okay, so I figured that would get your attention.

I know that I have at least one Canadian on my flist and a few more with ties to that big country to the north. So, I'm needing advice and suggestions for a potential Canadian honeymoon.

As you know, the fiancee and I bought a house. This means that we don't have any big bags of money lying around -- all that's left are the small ones. In addition to the lack of money, I've put the honeymoon plans on the back burner because there really isn't any one place that we must absolutely visit. Of course, we do want to go somewhere we've never been before... And as much as we shouldn't waste money on intercontinental airfare, we would really like to leave the country for a spell. So, you can see how Canada -- as a nation -- might fit the bill.

As casey98 was happy to point out, "Canada is a huge country." So, I'll probably need to narrow the search down to specific cities. I've heard things about Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver... But mostly only because they have/had professional sports teams. Shame on me. I should really know more about my neighbors.

Just as there isn't one city that we must see, there are no real activities that we must do. We're basic folks -- a bit of shopping, a tourist trap or two and a bed that isn't crawling with bugs usually makes us happy. We just want to do those things in new -- and slightly foreign -- environs.

So, what say you? I'm taking any and all recomendations.

A week or so ago, we lost our minister.

No, he didn't die. We lost him.

A few days later, we found him again.

If I don't write and tell this short story in a few days, please e-mail me over and over until I do. I don't want these wedding-prep stories to slip through the cracks that have become my journal. Also, remind me that I need a wedding icon.