“Five Years Ago I Met Claire, And I’ve Not Looked At Another Woman Since”

That’s one of the things the people who don’t know Claire and I very well may be expecting to hear in my speech at QParty on Saturday. I’ve finally managed to finish writing everything I wanted to say and trimming it all down so nobody gets bored to tears waiting for me to finish. Better yet, I’ve stripped back out all of the actual content and reduced everything I’ll say down to eight bullet points averaging less than four words each, so there’s plenty of room to ad-lib. Yes, this’ll be me making a fool of myself in the best possible way. Somebody make sure I have a drink in my hand before I start.

Other cliches you won’t be hearing in my speech include:

  • "It was love at first sight."

  • "I finally plucked up the courage to…"

  • "…to honour and obey…"

That’s not to say, of course, that there won’t be plenty of opportunities for loved-up soppiness: I’m sure there will. I just wanted to get back without any of the done-and-dusted lines that seem to make it into every wedding, civil union, and commitment ceremony since the dawn of time. I guess I just wanted something different… that seems somehow appropriate.

Also, I wanted to make a blog post which I knew would momentarily confuse the crap out of people who read my blog in feed-reader programs that only show them the title until they click through to the post itself.

I’m really looking forward to QParty. Despite various hitches and mishaps and stress, it all seems to be going to plan. Thanks to the great people who’ve been supporting us (both with practical and financial support and with keeping us calm and generally sane with emotional support) both in Preston and elsewhere, I’m actually feeling relaxed and optimistic about the whole thing. Bring it on.

For those that are interested, by the way, we’re planning that anybody who’s still in Preston on Sunday morning can join us in a Laser Quest battle or two at Preston Megabowl at about 10:30am. There are works underway on the railway lines that morning, so if you were planning to take a train out of town (think again!) you’d do far better to come play with us and then catch an afternoon train.

Right – suppose I ought to read through these speech notes once more to make sure they make sense, then go to bed – there’s a lot of packing and travelling to do tomorrow!

Love and hugs to everybody who’s earned them. You know who you all are.

9 comments

  1. Can we not call it a commitment ceremony? I know they’re the best wors to describe it but it’s awfully wanky, don’t you think?

    See you later on today!

  2. Instead of “It was love at first sight” How about “Amazingly it’s love at first sight in the morning”

    Instead of “I finally plucked up the courage to…” how about “We seem to have stopped looking for now…”

    Instead of “…to honour and obey…” how about “…to destroy illogical arguments and laugh when they do something silly…”

    And “…I just know that Claire is the person with whom I want to spend the rest of the party..”

  3. Claire Claire says:

    Aww, yours are so much sweeter, Matt!

  4. Dan Q Dan Q says:

    Matt said: Can we not call it a commitment ceremony?

    Who’s calling it a commitment ceremony? Not me, nor anybody else who understands that that’s not what it is!

  5. Katie Katie says:

    I have to say, your choice of subject title was the second shock of the day for me, as although I do get to see posts, I scan subjects for the more interesting posts before reading properly.

    (The first shock being that as Google Reader was failing to work the last couple of days, I have 326 feed entries to read, meep!)

  6. Dan Q Dan Q says:

    Whoops! Sorry!

    But not really very sorry. =op

    You’ve had Google Reader trouble? Mine’s worked fine. Hmm.

  7. Kit Lane Kit Lane says:

    er

    “Ten-second summary of the party

    We’re having a party to celebrate our love and commitment to one another, starting at 6pm on Saturday 8th September 2007”

    That kinda sounds like you saying its about commitment to me. I mean that is taken from qparty.info

  8. restlessboy restlessboy says:

    maybe compromise and say it’s a ‘commitment party’ rather than a ceremony? ‘love party’ sounds like it’s probably something erm… else.

    laser quest though, ace!

  9. Katie Katie says:

    I’m so rubbish, I’ve only just got round to looking back at this. It’s only taken me, what? Almost two months. For shame.

    I’d completely forgotten what this post was about, spotted it in my feeds again and immediately thought “filthy liar!”.

    Google stuff often fails on me, but I’ve tracked the problem down to Opera :/ yay for multiple browsers, though :-)

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