Shari as my maid of honor (November 1993)

This Saturday my best friend, Shari is getting married and I am delighted to be her matron of honor.  However, as the matron of honor,  I am required to give a speech at the reception and it’s giving me a bit of stress.

I am no stranger to public speaking, having given speeches, conducted training classes, and addressed groups as a subject matter expert — but that is much less intimidating than going before a crowd that expects me to be entertaining.  I am notoriously poor at delivering punchlines and can ruin the most hilarious joke just by attempting to tell it.  If there is laughter in the room, it will likely come at my expense rather than by my deliberate prompting.

Due to my anxiety over the delivery of the speech, I have been procrastinating on the writing of it.  I finally took some time yesterday during Baby Champuru’s afternoon nap and got my thoughts down on paper.  I injected some humor into the text, but we’ll see how well it comes across when it actually comes out of my mouth on Saturday.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it. And lots.