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Bridezillanoia

When it comes to weddings, it's amazing how heavy a cross the people you love will carry just so you can save face. In the last three weeks, I've read countless stories about brides and grooms and the extent of their presumption and lack of tact: inserting bank slips with their checking account number in the invitation; eliminating members of the wedding party minutes before the ceremony because a dress or tux didn't fit quite right; asking the punch server to man the bar for the duration of the reception; using thank-you notes to ask for a larger-sized gift because your initial one didn't cover the price of your plate.

The female half of this couple is known to all as Bridezilla, the woman who noticed you weren't wearing the right cut of underwear underneath your dress but conveniently overlooked the shade of blue you turned into when she told you the bridesmaids dresses were purchased in bulk on clearance at Macy's and that she got you a size 12, the size you wore in seventh grade back when the two of you were BFFs, instead of the 18 you are today, which meant additional fabric and hours of alterations and hurt feelings about being made to feel that you are the size of Moby Dick, the latter being the only thing you get for free. I wish I were joking, but Samantha recounted this story to me on Saturday, the date on the calendar marked for our wedding shopping extravaganza.

Since I've been engaged, my bridesmaids have asked a lot of questions about my expectations for their appearance. Apparently I should have a checklist for them in regards to how their hair should be worn, where to purchase jewelry, and what brand of shadow is acceptable to swipe across their eyelids. Apparently I have the ability to turn my bridesmaids into robots because it's My Special Day.

And my answers were: however you want, wherever you want (if you even want to wear any, because I'm not sure as hell not wearing any), and any damn color you want. However, I did make two requests: that all the dresses be the same shade of blue and that the shoes be dyed to match them. I came in that afternoon with twenty pages of computer print-outs and catalog pages and a shrug of my shoulders when they asked what they were trying on first. "You tell me," I said. And off we went.

The first hour was not unlike Goldilocks's trip in The Three Little Bears; the first four dresses were labeled Too Ichy, Too Sexy For a Thirteen-Year-Old, Pretty But Eh, and Too Light Blue, But Too Bad Frema Wasn't Going For Black, Because We Would Totally Wear This In Black. One dress we were all excited about was featured in the spring catalog but not scheduled for distribution until mid-February, so we said a silent prayer in its memory and tried our best to move on.

The next one on the menu didn't elicit a whole lotta wa-hoo, so we gave the catalog another flip-through, and lo and behold, every gosh-darn one of them fell in love with the dress on the left.

The shoes were just as interesting, with each girl starting out with something different but eventually choosing these. All my efforts to allow for individuality were for naught.

Or were they?

For the last few weeks my stomach has been in knots about this day, so much so that I actually understood why brides-to-be would come off so anal about hair and make-up and underwear styles. How much easier it would have been for me to just e-mail a link to a dress and shoes I liked and ask them to have both paid in full by such-and-such a date. It would have saved me one trip to Chicago, six bucks in tolls, five different opinions from five very different people, and two hours of everybody's time. And if that's what would've gone down, I would have gotten not one word of complaint. Like I said, the amount of BS your friends and family will take to make you happy is unbelievable. I don't know that I could be as gracious.

However, for as many mistakes I am destined to make throughout this process, the one thing I will pat myself on the back for is my flexibility in allowing these women to actively participate in the selection of their attire. Seeing as they're wearing the dresses and they're wearing the shoes and they're footing the bill, it's not only courteous but ideal for them to have that say. But the fact that they were so easygoing in order to avoid my having a nervous breakdown in the dressing room makes me love Samantha, Donna, Gina, and Trina all the more.

* Note to acknowledge that one bridesmaid, my sister Ryan, was unable to make the trip due to heavy-duty study plans for a test she has tomorrow, so I suppose during our shopping date there will be less "It's all about you" and more "Yeah. Here's your costume. Enjoy."

A Girl Can Dream, Can't She?

In the last two weeks, major changes have taken place within my company's managerial structure, changes resulting in unfortunate repercussions on my own position. Because I've learned from the experiences of others, I won't discuss it further, but that made it all the nicer when on Wednesday night, Luke and I took advantage of an engagement-inspired gift certificate to a snazzy restaurant downtown. We dined on appetizers, entrees, and desserts, and in between courses tried to talk about what we thought our life as a married couple will be like. I say "tried" because stuffing one's mouth with free bread and butter can put a damper on meaningful conversation.

However, I did a lot of thinking later, and it emphasized just how excited I am to get past this wedding planning and finally say "I do" to a man more wonderful than I ever could have imagined for myself in front of the people I love most. The moment our lips lock in our first post-marital kiss, we'll officially be a family.

Then it's on to the good stuff.

We'll spend a blissful three days at Niagara Falls and come home to find that my witty Web site has reached the eyes of a youthful, savvy agent with a keen eye for good grammar and an even better understanding of the human condition. She'll (of course such a person would have to be a woman) look beyond my smallish reading audience and realize that when placed on a platform for all the world to see, I will touch the hearts of millions. Millions!

With a twenty-thousand dollar tax-free book advance check nestled safely in my pocket, I will go back to my cubicle only to rescue my Wal-Mart floor lamp, grossly-out-of-date-for-Valentine's-Day Christmas tree, and framed picture of Luke in a sandhole at the beach. We'll use the advance to pay off our credit cards and the balance on my Cobalt, and with the last five bucks, we'll buy one of those "Get three cherries and win a million dollars!" cards, and oh my goodness, what are the odds, look, we've won! After paying off my student loans using only rolls of pennies (just to spite them, the money-hungry bastards), we will be completely debt-free and Luke will open the coffee shop he's always wanted while I stay at home and have a baby every year of my life until I'm forty-two.

But until then, lunch is over. Back to work.

All My Videotapes

Before I begin, I have to acknowledge a couple of things:

1) Yesterday I found the business card of the DJ in partnership with her dead husband, and listed under Acts was "Little People." This has cinched my "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" gut reaction, though a sliver of me is curious as to the events that would transpire at my wedding reception if under their wing. A belly-dancing dwarf would make a nice addition to the wedding album, don't you think?

2) Two important people in my life recently jumpstarted their own journey into the land of the World Wide Web, as documented on Lost a Sock and The Magic of Books. What most stands out to me about these women is that they've both contemplated this move for months but put it off because, as mothers of young children, they felt they didn't have the time. However, so powerful were their creative urges that they had no choice but to surrender to the seduction of the Internet.

Which kind of brings me to me, someone considered to be pretty busy herself, what with a job, fiancé, wedding in the works, teenage girl to mentor, and possible career change on the horizon (another post, but soon, I promise). My personal free time is limited to only a few hours a week and must be used wisely. Therefore, I have executed another bold decision:

The discontinuation of my All My Children recording.

...

OK, so maybe this doesn't inspire the kind of heart-stopping uproar my cable-scrapping did, but this is a huge milestone in the Frema-Useless Clutter household. Back when I had cable, I had SoapNet. I loved SoapNet. I could spend some time recovering from work before watching my favorite daytime characters in action at seven o'clock every night. Miss a show? No worries! SoapNet understands that life gets in the way of television; that's why they re-run the entire week's worth of episodes on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, giving you three chances to enjoy the comings and goings of the residents in Pine Valley. While I waited for little hand to strike seven, I passed the time by watching 90210, Melrose Place, and Days of Our Lives. Afterwards, if I was trying especially hard to avoid my required reading for school, I became re-aquainted with General Hospital.

What started as a piqued interest in a baby switch soon grew into an obsession. There were stacks of VHS tapes featuring weeks worth of episodes that had to be viewed before commiting to current storylines. Once I spent the entire weekend on the couch, ooohing and aaahing over staged love scenes and giving my thumb an intimate remote-control workout. I was bragging to coworkers that I hadn't missed an episode of AMC in almost a year. Scary stuff.

And then I moved to Indianapolis and realized I couldn't afford cable. Poof! went SoapNet. Poof! went the dedication to shows I had to sneak to watch as a kid. Poof! went AMC until recently because I was too lazy to program the VCR. And now it has Poofed! again.

Will I miss it? Hell yes. I like Pine Valley. I like watching people fall in love and out of love and poison their neighbors and kidnap their own baby because her first ex-husband said he died in childbirth but really was given to his barren sister on One Life to Live. It's easy to forget wedding dress worries and the realization that you're in the wrong field when you're nursing a bowl of Breyer's on the couch with the likes of Erica Kane, a woman far too sophisticated to be trapped in an abandoned wearhouse minutes before she's scheduled to interview Geraldo Rivera on her new talk show.

But the tapes, they've started piling up once again, and it hit me that spending three hours catching up on shows that aired around my birthday is not the best use of my time. For Luke, for my wedding, for my own sanity, it's time to cut the cord.

For now.

Third Time's a Charm

The old saying is actually true, because after three weekends of drama, it look only three tries for this bride to find her match. And I'll feed you good folks the same info I gave Luke: tea-length, white, and strappy heels. It's not too far off from the creation my mother designed for me the day we announced our engagement, titled "The Mommy Said Dress" because Mommy said I might like an illustration that showed just how pretty I would look in white--none this creme or ivory-colored nonsense. Not that she was inflexible; when I shared my decision to ditch the baker's hat-slash-veil and replace the Hawaiian flowers with roses and daisies, she took it very well.

(Note: I've spent the last six minutes unsuccessfully proposing and then promptly discarding jokes in regards to my alter ego's Rocky Mountain bustline, but it's too late and I can barely keep my eyes open as it is, so I'll just cut to the chase and say yes, the breasts, they are indeed huge, and hand-drawn huge breasts are funny!, so ha, ha, ha.)

Now that we're all able to finally move on from this stage of the game, there are still a number of decisions to make that are much less fun and much more time-consuming: for starters, we still haven't booked a DJ. Luke had an appointment with one this Saturday while I was off swishing around in fat dresses with heavy embroidery, but he wasn't charmed enough to part with a deposit. I don't blame him; word is that Pamela owned the company with her husband until he passed away last year. However, she has no problems continuing to pass out materials featuring their last Glamour Shots photo and perky language that states she and Lonnie do solumnly pledge to offer the best music service around. It's kinda like in the second season of Roseanne when Rosie was a shampoo girl for Crystal's beauty salon in Lanford where the boss always talked about her late husband Arthur, even though Arthur died more than thirty years ago and they were married a whopping eleven months. Suffice it to say that any references to deceased spouses that wrongly imply they are not deceased will not encourage future business.

But that's not all! In case we anticipate lulls or snags in the reception's schedule, Pamela is willing to treat us to a Polynesian belly dance. Interesting how Lonnie isn't mentioned at all in that service.

Other tasks we have excelled at avoiding:

• Nailing the wedding invitation list (which, due to a number of out-of-towners, is totally different from the wedding shower list, which is totally different from the head count for the meal, which is still totally "in progress")
• Blocking off rooms at a snazzy yet inexpensive hotel for the wedding night
• Selecting a snazzy yet inexpensive hotel for the wedding night
• Finding music for the ceremony, which has the potential to be a major pain in my @$$, as the deed is taking place outdoors and last I checked, the gazebo doesn't house an organ
• Selecting a hotel for our honeymoon. Destination: Niagara Falls, baby!
• Choosing a napkin color

But we did manage to witness the mediocre talents of Deborah "Don't Call Me Debbie Because Now I'm An Adult" Gibson and Todd "How I Survived into the New Millenium Without Additional Jail Time Is Beyond Me" Bridges on Skating with Celebrities. If that's not good time management, I don't know what is.

Resolution With China

The plate you see above has served as the answer to my china-resistant prayers. Turns out that Luke's grandma had earmarked her darling twelve-piece collection to him months ago, before the two of us were even engaged. I called my aunt tonight to give her the wonderful news, and she said that's wonderful, and isn't it nice that we're inheriting a wonderful family heirloom, and she would buy us something else equally wonderful. Everybody wins.

In a perfect world, after the wedding, Luke and I could store this china ourselves. Having room for delicate serving ware would mean that we've moved into our first house, a house boasting of spacious closets and a basement for storage and a backyard. It'd mean we worked extremely hard to save for a twenty-percent down payment and a few nice things to make the place ours. We'd have the proper accommodations for a dog. We'd have room for a baby.

But right now, we live in a one-bedroom apartment. Our only storage facility is adjacent to our balcony and already filled to the brim with tupperware containers stuffed with holiday decorations, photo albums, movies we don't have the appropriate shelving to display, and our modest little barbeque grill. My home office is the space behind the TV, and our kitchen table is about five feet to the right of that. And it's going to stay this way until June 30th, at which time my lease on this place ends and we'll have made a decision on where to live next. It might be a neighborhood in which we contemplate buying property; it might be a trendy hot spot that will help us celebrate our last child-free hurrah.

The only thing we know for sure is it won't be a house. As it is, we're stretching ourselves to afford this wedding, and now I can't believe I spent the last few weeks telling everyone and their mother that our goal was to move right into a house, when really it was my goal, because dammit, I want a sense of permanency and a real home office and a place for this beautiful china and my God, I want room for a baby.

It's when stuck in such self-manifested crises that I most appreciate my husband-to-be, because Luke has calmly brought me back to Earth with the realization that life will not end if we spend another year in an apartment. After taking a minute to absorb that life-altering pearl, I decided it'd be kinda nice to spend the next twelve months just settling in and enjoying our new marital status. I want to get a new pair of shoes from Baker's without feeling guilty that I'm spending our mortgage money. I want to see a movie at the show more than once a season, and I want grab the good contact lens solution at Target. Besides, if we can hoard several thousand dollars in five months for a wedding, imagine if we took double that to save for the house that will symbolize our first step towards making a family.

In other words, I'm chilling the eff out. My brain feels much more awake. And that? Feels refreshingly nice.

The Retiring of the Meme

But first things first: the wedding dress.

I did not get a wedding dress. I DID, however, get a good dose of what happens when two very emotional people fumble through a miscommunication the night before a very emotional day. In short, the new shopping date is this Saturday at 1:00 p.m. And come hell or high water, a dress WILL be purchased. I don't care if I'm the only one who shows up and all the dresses are at least a thousand dollars and the color options are limited to bubble-gum pink, baby blue, or gray. Then bubble-gum pink it is.

While we're on the topic of unnatural coloring, a big thanks to everyone who had nice things to say about the hue of my roots. You'll all be happy to know that I have already scheduled my next cut and color with Brenda, which just happens to be the morning before Luke's and my wedding shower, which just happens to be on April Fool's Day, which just happens to be freakin' hysterical to me.

Now, on to business. The memes and I, we've had a blast. They've provided me an outlet through which to bare my soul about my five-year history, the Devil, and tapioca pudding. But the following meme will be the last I post on this Web site. Why? Because as much fun as the little buggers are, they don't inspire my best writing, and one of my goals this year is to really put my best foot forward in each entry, to give each post a purpose, even if that purpose is to simply vent my frustrations via one mangled run-on sentence or picture of me bearing an eerie resemblance to Severus Snape. That one sentence and one picture could tell more about Me than a blog survey ever could.

Here we go.

7 Things I’d Like To Do Before I Die

1. Marry the love of my life
2. Give him some babies
3. Find a job I truly love
4. Publish something not associated with urine
5. Jumpstart my own Web site, sans Blogger
6. Find eye makeup that eliminates The Crease
7. At least try on a wedding dress

7 Things I (Currently) Cannot Do

1. Declare myself debt-free
2. Finish The Chronicles of Narnia (In case you haven't noticed, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has been featured in my sidebar for like, seven months)
3. Sleep through the night without going to the bathroom at least twice
4. Tolerate seafood
5. Stop staring at my engagement ring
6. Book a DJ
7. Go one week without bawling about Life's Injustices Regarding My Special Day

7 Things That Attract Me To Blogging

1. The challenge of finding something meaningful to say at least three to four times a week
2. Instant publishing gratification
3. The ability to post an entry in draft form and tweak it at my whim
4. Making connections with a unique community that, for the most part, puts it all out there
5. Comments, both giving and receiving
6. Learning from the experiences of others
7. Having something else to do at work

7 Things I Say The Most

1. "What are you, eight?"
2. "You know, for shits and giggles!"
3. "May 12, 2006."
4. "Thank you."
5. "I love you."
6. "Quit making that face, I hate it when you make that face!"
7. "Hooray!"

7 Books I Love

1. Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
2. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
3. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
4. Animal Farm, George Orwell
5. Flowers in the Attic series, V.C. Andrews
6. Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
7. The Complete Series, Beatrix Potter

7 Movies I Watch Over and Over Again

1. When Harry Met Sally
2. The Wedding Singer
3. High Fidelity
4. Father of the Bride
5. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
6. While You Were Sleeping
7. Alice in Wonderland

7 TV Shows I Thank God For

1. Friends
2. Sex and the City
3. 24
4. Scrubs
5. The Suze Orman Show
6. All My Children
7. My So-Called Life

(I made that last one up because I don't want to steal Number Twelve's tagging thunder. She and I were both originally tagged by Lisa, so I know it's coming soon.)

Medusa Lives!

When I sat down in the stylist's chair on Wednesday to FINALLY recolor and trim my hair, I held in my heart a renewed excitement about shopping for my wedding dress, because come Saturday I'd be Fresh! and Pretty! once again. My rejuvenated appearance would allow the Real Frema to shine through, not this Tired, Worn-Out version that's been dragging her feet the last couple of weeks. Feeling Fresh! and Pretty! in my new cinnamon-brown mixture would make all the difference.

And that would have happened, if Christy didn't think THIS color would look more natural and I hadn't hesitantly agreed with her.

So, instead of being the woman who radiates an Inner Glow, I have morphed into the newest Christina Ricci-From-The Addams-Family, the latest Winona Ryder-From-Beetlejuice. Behold Gothic Suicide.

On a more life-affirming note, when worn curly, the cut actually looks pretty good. The above "style" was achieved after Christy broke into hives at the idea of doing a blow-out with a round brush. "I can't do it, I just can't do it!" she cried before proceeding to wave the dryer around my head and nip at the ends with a flat iron--a far cry from the smooth and savvy look Brenda gives me back home.

My hope is that David's Bridal won't be surprised when a Medusa look-alike walks in on Saturday morning demanding a dressing room and virginal attire. Maybe they'll take bets on whether or not I can keep a razor away from my wrists long enough to make it down the aisle.

And you wonder why I still get my hair done in Chicago.

To Plate Or Not to Plate

While trying to fudge with the margins of a balance sheet I'd just pasted into PowerPoint at work, I received a phone call from my aunt, my father's sister, who also happens to be my godmother. It had been a few months since we last talked, so she asked about my job, offered congratulations on Luke's and my engagement, and wished me a happy birthday. We were on the phone no longer than five minutes before she got down to business.

"I want to buy your china," she said.

"Oh?"

"I'm looking at the catalog for Carson's, and they've got like seven patterns on sale for fifty percent off. I wanted to get you white, you know, so that they could go with everything, and they have different trim colors. Do you want blue, silver, or gold?"

"Oh!"

"If you don't get it now, you're never going to get it, you know? I figured that since you're a professional, you'll need it, you know, to entertain."

"Yeah.... Thanks, Auntie. I really appreciate you wanting to do this for us."

"So which one do you want?"

"Can I talk to Luke first?"

"Sure, sure. I wanted to get you something special, honey, since I'm your godmother. I want to do this for you."

"I know, and I appreciate it. But.... Auntie? I don't have people from work over for dinner. And we kind of weren't even thinking of china right now. We were just going to look some regular dishes--ones we could use every day."

"Well, I'm not sure how long this sale is going on...." (Flip, flip says the pages of a Carson Pierre Scott catalog, because my aunt believes that Carson's is the Greatest Store on Earth.)

"It's really nice of you to want to do this for us. But I don't even know where we'd put stuff like that right now. We don't even know where we're going to live afterwards."

"I have a girlfriend who got into a house with almost zero down. You could do that, couldn't you?"

"Yeah, but...."

And so on and so on.

I have no doubt that her intentions were sincere. Throughout the years, she's made a conscious effort to remember my birthday, buy me gifts at Christmastime, and generally establish a relationship that better mirrors one that's shared between girlfriends. And I'm grateful for that.

But that's not the point. The point is this whole china thing. I don't want china. Luke doesn't want china. Luke and I don't want china! We eat soup out of bowls from the Dollar Store that have been disfigured by the microwave and spaghetti off of plates that bear rust stains on the rim. We're simple folk, really, and have no need for plates that cost more than ten bucks apiece and/or could inspire the makings of a family feud years after our death.

"I want Momma Frema's white gold china with the blue trim she and Daddy got from Carson's!"

See? No good for anybody.

But I couldn't make my aunt see that. It makes me wonder if the gift is about me having the china or my aunt being able to say that she bought me the china. I couldn't have been any nicer about not wanting the china, any more appreciative about appreciating the sentiment but not appreciating the china. Yet still, it's all about the china.

China, china, china! And while we're at it, Appreciate!

I suppose this was to be expected. When my sister got married last summer, HER godmother was also insistent about purchasing fancy plates and went so far as to tell her to register for a nice pattern at Marshall Field's. Samantha didn't need the china, either, but she didn't want to appear ungrateful, so she went downtown at the height of the Wedding Crazy and picked something out. A few days later, the godmother, the person who asked Samantha to register for the dishes in the first place, called her back and suggested that maybe she would consider a lesser pattern at Sears?

Samantha said a paper shredder would do just fine, thank you very much.

Her godmother bought the china. One setting, to be exact, as in one cup, one plate, one bowl. Samantha returned them all and got her very first Coach purse. This is quite distressing, as I am the oldest sister and I don't even have a Coach purse.

Maybe I should reconsider my aunt's offer after all.

Until I Can Come Up With Something Better...

...I invite everyone who reads this blog to leave behind a little hello. You have no idea how much your comments brighten my day.

Not sure what de-lurking is? Here's a definition:

De-lurk: v. to come out of the blog-reading closet and acknowledge your www presence with a comment. Frema will cry into her container of beef stew if you don't de-lurk this very minute.

While you're at it, please tell me how long you've been reading and which entry you've enjoyed the most. After a year and a half of verbally exposing myself, sometimes I still feel like I'm grabbing at air.

26th Birthday Suspense

But not about my wedding dress, even though I don't have one yet, even though I had plans to get one this past weekend. Apparently, I'm an idiot to think I can have dibs on a dressing room without making an appointment. New date: January 14th. I will break down and get thee to a reputable salon before then, because when people you haven't met offer to dye your roots themselves, something's got to be done. Maybe the whole scheduling debacle was a sign from God that my hair deserves some TLC before I start squeezing into white dresses.

Also, there are no longer any surprises about my ISF fees from the bank. Apparently, I'm also an idiot who forgets to record transactions in my register. On Saturday night, after checking a voice message from one of the tellers, I went through the last three statements online and discovered about a hundred dollars' worth of missing receipts, receipts I remember vividly and just assumed I had accounted for. Debit cards and Frema do not mix as well as she previously thought. (Quick shout-out to bank branches with Sunday hours who post deposits that same day. I love you, Yolanda!)

However, there is an air of mystery surrounding today, because at 10:00 a.m., Luke will begin an interview with one of the area's weekly newspapers. His qualifications would sooo kick this position's @$$. Send positive vibes his way. And mine, because, apparently, it's my birthday.

A Rusted Root

In the 1989 love ballad "Sacrifice" by Sir Elton John, the appeal of the extramarital affair to a married man is discussed and discarded in fewer than four minutes. Though Sir Elton admits that "temptation's strong," he argues avoiding a booty call isn't really a sacrifice, because a hot night of passion has less to offer the human spirit than a loving, respectful bond between two consensual adults. I think. In a nutshell.

But when a twenty-five-year-old-soon-to-be-married woman and her fiance decide to cut back on living expenses in order to pay for their spring wedding in cash, and said woman does her part by not having her hair trimmed or recolored for almost three months, surely even he would agree on its significance. Why isn't anyone singing about THAT?

Luke and I strengthen our money-management muscles a little bit every day. Sometimes it's turning down a matinee because that ten bucks could contribute to the deposit for the DJ. On other occasions, it's refusing an offer to go roller-skating with your sisters, even though one of us LOVES roller-skating and still has visions of making it around the rink with one of their legs gracefully floating in the air like Nancy Kerrigan except on a hardwood floor. And even sometimes when somebody is preparing to celebrate her twenty-sixth birthday on MONDAY, JANUARY 9, DON'T FORGET TO SEND WELL WISHES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, and desires nothing more than to partake in spinach-and-artichoke dip and babyback ribs, to hell with high cholesterol!, at the local Ruby Tuesday, that someone is still adamant about enforcing the "No eating out" rule. We are redefining the definition of restraint.

The hair, though, is not on board. Instead of being on its best behavior during this time of financial conservatism, it is unruly, beastly even, and my dark brown roots are dangerously close to eyebrow level. Roots, people! So much root that I should make my own Lifetime drama called Roots, which would be much rootier than that one movie with Oprah Winfrey. Behold the catastrophe that is my head:

Painful even for you, isn't it?

This has become a constant source of unhappiness for me, as I was used to keeping hair appointments every six weeks and firmly believe a good hair day can overpower a breakout, bad outfit, and if you're REALLY on a roll, the imposition of Aunt Flo. Now I frequently feel the need to justify why my Cute Working Girl facade is in shambles and why product can no longer keep The Curl from becoming The Afro Poof, or even worse, The Flat Yet Still Slightly Poofy Afro Poof. Pretty soon I'll be handing out business cards with a pre-emtive apology to all those forced to be within ten feet of its presence.

In the grand scheme of things, I realize and acknowledge that these problems are small. Last night, when I was holding Molly's newborn son in my arms for the first time, I knew that cable television and pretty hair were just two on a long list of items I'd gladly give up to experience the Heaven of being a mother and taking care of a family.

And P.S.: In case it's not evident by the tie-dye, clothing was the third thing to go.

Belated Apology

The last three days have been a whirlwind of activity centered around cake testing, tuxedo shopping, invitation choosing, and birthday celebrating. Plus, my good friend Molly gave birth to her second son, Jack, this morning, who just happened to be the New Year's baby for their hospital, so a big hip hip HOORAY! to the Ray family, PLUS, I've caught up on the first of two weeks of All My Children tapes and discovered that Dixie is alive! Could life get any better? I think not.

Our experiences over the weekend bring with them the potential of amazing blog entries, but I'll let Luke handle that. The thing I can't stop obsessing over is the etiquettenesss (is that even a word?) of the whole thing. Dates for singles? Kids or no kids? Perform or forgo bouquet and garter tosses? Make room for or scratch off "The Chicken Dance"? The pressure from all this decision-making is enough to break my body into a thousand tiny pieces.

However, the most interesting directive falls upon the shoulders of your guests: Guests, if you RSVP for the ceremony and reception, please plan to the attend the ceremony and reception. When you agree to take part in somebody's special day, please don't show up at the church and leave the bride and groom with apologies that you won't be at the hall because your boyfriend wants to take a nap and you are too much of an @$$wipe to stand up to him.

That @$$wipe? Would be Trophy Frema. She did it to baby Jack's momma on October 28, 2000--her wedding day.

During the ten months that Mike and I dated, I ran myself ragged trying to please him. I bought him cigarettes even though I despise them and to this day still attempt to wiggle out of my mother's requests to pick up a pack for her at the corner store. I charged extra cell phone minutes on my credit card so he could call his buddy from the aisles of Best Buy to get the name of a Nirvana CD he had to have. And I acted like it was no big deal that he didn't want to go to Molly and Kevin's wedding because it was the same weekend of his annual Halloween party, and I didn't think I was a good enough reason for the party not to go on.

I eventually guilted him into agreeing to be included on the RSVP, while he eventually guilted me into skipping the reception, saying he'd worked a long week and was really tired and just wanted to go home and sleep. So, instead of expressing my excitment at the night's upcoming festivities, I gave Molly a hug and shook Kevin's hand after their beautiful ceremony and left them standing there at the end of the service with nothing but a congratulations and our regrets. Turns out The Powers That Be found a way to punish me for my faux pas, because that same night Mike patted my stomach and casually remarked, "You didn't have this when we first started going out." Karma, she's a bitch.

Today, as I reflect on all the time and effort Luke and I have funneled into this wedding to date, it crystalizes for me just what it means to be included on somebody's guest list. It means you are wanted. It means you are loved. It means your relationship is worth a twenty-dollar meal and the price of an open bar. In other words, you are not expendable.

I also realize how lucky I am that Molly never called me out on the rudeness of my behavior, that she never tried to make me feel bad, that she continued to be my friend. During these next few months, may God bless me with the same grace and understanding this incredible woman exercised with someone who should have known better. For what it's worth, Molly, I know better now.