don miller needs to meet me so we can get married

So I've mentioned Donald Miller here before.  He wrote one of the ten most important books of my life.  And I've read some of his other books and am anticipating reading another very soon.  Last year at church we watched a short video series of his, and I liked him just as much as a walking, talking person as I did in print.  A few weeks back when I wasn't meeting all of his blogging needs, Mac, the same cousin, theologian, scholar, and number one blog fan who first introduced me to BLJ several years ago, sent me a link to Don Miller's blog.  Mac is always looking out for me like that. 

(Let me interrupt myself briefly to say that while I  am mostly addicted to blog reading and that Google Reader fills a hole in my soul, I sometimes am driven crazy by stumbling across a well-established blog.  In just the same way that I don't start reading book series at the fourth installment or pick up tv shows mid-season, I don't like starting a blog in the middle.  I know that in reality blogs aren't one continuous story.  Most are episodic, and any blogger worth his or her salt is going to link back to anything that's vital to understanding current posts, so it's not truly necessary to start at the beginning.  But it's vital to me because that's the kind of hairpin I am.  But since going through months or years of archives in order to read up-to-date posts is rarely practical, I muddle through as best I can.)

So I've been enjoying getting a little dose of Don Miller most every day for the past few weeks, but today I've decided that it's time for us to take it to the next level.  What is the next level, you ask, imaginary reader.  Well, if I believed in starting small, it might be logical for me to become a fan on facebook or follow him on twitter or sign up for his newsletter or interact with him through comments on  his blog so he can start to get to know me as I feel I know him.  Those comments might eventually lead him to my own blog here where he could start at the beginning and find out about the Christmas music that I love, what tv shows I watch, my various projects, and how I'm a failure in most respects.  But I'm a go-big-or-go-home sort of girl, so I've decided we're going to skip starting small and move straight to getting married.  And since we're going to be married someday, I've decided I'm not going to call him Donald or Don or waste time typing out his whole name anymore.  Henceforth, he shall be known as FHDM (future husband Donald Miller).  And because I'm a responsible blogger and worth my salt, any future posts that make reference to FHDM will be linked back to this one so that people know who I mean and why he's called that.  Because you're worth it, imaginary reader.

Tuesday FHDM's book To Own a Dragon was re-released with some new chapters and other updates under a brand new title.  Father Fiction is geared less specifically toward guys who grow up fatherless and underwent some rewording to have more universal appeal, but the advice is the same.  Plus one of the new chapters deals with FHDM's reunion with his own absent father.  I read ToaD several years ago though I was not a fatherless guy, and I got a lot out of that process.  The new chapters sound like great additions, so I'll probably be on the library lookout for the new format.  In the meantime, FHDM is including excerpts from the new chapters on his blog this week.  Tuesday's post "Why You're Attracted to the Opposite Sex" has a really interesting theory/premise that our subconscious is attracted to people who share the negative characteristics of our parents because we are looking for ways to fix those negative traits or representatively the relationships with our parents.  I'm intrigued by the notion, and I think there's some truth to it.  But FHDM doesn't stop there.  You should just go read the post and not listen to me about it.  There's some good stuff there.

I didn't get around to reading Wednesday's post "What Women Really Need from Men" until today, and for the future of my relationship with FHDM, that's probably a good thing.  After I read it today, I was a little disappointed.  It was fairly brief and mostly basic, and I didn't strongly identify with it.  It seemed a bit too simplified.  I understand that it's difficult to come up with universal traits that would be true for most women and I don't think the things he came up with are necessarily false, but they also didn't seem that insightful.  The responses in the comment section were quite mixed, so it wasn't just me that was underwhelmed (can you ever just be whelmed?) by the post . . . but since I was reading this today, I could immediately go to the Thursday post "What Men Really Need from Women" and truly feel engaged and impressed by FHDM's insights.  Read both posts, and even if the first leaves you cold or makes you mad, I think the second will make it better.  FHDM is an honest guy always, but the plain-speaking in this post really struck me--and is, I suppose, the reason I decided to marry him today. 

And don't worry, imaginary readers, you'll all be invited to the wedding.  After all, you were here watching it all unfold.