I’m going to go ahead and acknowledge that the posting around here will be light for the next two months. As much as I want to document this time in my life, I’m probably going to be a little too busy actually living it to be able to keep up.

I hit another life milestone this weekend, that being my bachelorette party. I was mostly excited for the weekend — I chose to do a weekend trip to Atlanta as all of my best gal pals are spread out, mostly around the South, so doing a night of debauchery in Knoxville wasn’t necessarily the best choice. And since going anywhere would require people to travel, I didn’t want them to go to the trouble for just one day.

Anyway, I was excited, so excited on Friday morning I could barely think straight. But I have also been crippled with this irrational fear that no one would show up for any wedding things (they did) and apprehensive about being the center of attention. Not that I always have a problem with being the center of attention — I love to hold court from time to time — I just didn’t feel comfortable with being celebrated. It’s not my M.O. I don’t want to be my beloved Gladys Knight. I’d rather be a Pip.

I told myself a few weeks ago as I was getting a facial that I would allow my friends and family to celebrate the Modern Love Machine and I over these next few weeks. The facial itself was a splurge, but I felt so happy and peaceful after it was over. I realized that a lot of things in my life cause me stress, and yet I usually only allow the MLM and maybe my parents to help when it comes to trying to counter that stress. I realized it would be OK and incredibly normal to just go with the flow and allow my friends and family to celebrate me, even if I felt weird about it. I’m sure Gladys allows herself to be celebrated and pampered.

And now that I’m on the other side of the party, I am so glad I did. I had an amazing time with some fabulous girls who treated me so wonderfully. I could not have asked for more, and I think any more would have been overwhelming. Sure, I still can’t get used to people watching me open gifts and it felt weird to not be involved when it would come time to split the dinner bill, but I had so much fun otherwise that I’ll let those things slide. When the gay fellows at the table next to us at dinner on Saturday stood up and toasted me with their pink martinis, I ate it up. And I gladly chatted up every single person who offered their congratulations while we were out drinking and dancing.

I won’t give you a blow-by-blow recap, although suffice it to say nothing was so inappropriate that I wasn’t able to give the Modern Mom full details of the weekend. I’m finding that the older the bachelorette and her friends get, the tamer these things are, and that’s fine by me. I was a complete sport and wasn’t going to say no to any activity or thing that was suggested. The highlights of the weekend included a visit to Jonathan Adler’s store (which holy crap, I want everything there), some amazing meals, a free behind-the-scenes private tour of the Fox Theatre, joining the band on stage at one of the bars to sing ‘Creep’ (I’m still not sure how that happened), a blissfully hangover-free Sunday despite hitting for the alcohol cycle on Saturday night and a postmortem meal of chicken and waffles at Gladys Knight and Ron Winans’ restaurant.

The Jonathan Adler store manifesto. Hey, Modern Love Machine: Take note of the second one.

Thank you, ladies, for making me feel special, and thank you, Gladys, for making fabulous music and the most amazing fried chicken I have ever tasted.

One of the greatest meals I’ve ever had.