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May 24, 2007

A Thunder Clap Hey

Excuse my absence.

I know. I know. I have gotten your letters. I have been rightfully reprimanded. It’s been a while since I checked in. I understand what you mean. Some of you have been like, “Dude, we’ve been through six years with you on this blog. You’re so not getting away with not discussing your wedding…”

Some of you have assumed my hiatus is due to being in “wedding space” and I guess that’s not entirely inaccurate. I’m in wedding space but it’s not quite planning frenzy blissful cake tasting type shit. Technically, I have been thinking a whole bunch about weddings but in the process of really thinking about it, I have come to an awful realization.

A realization so awful that I have been paralyzed, entirely distraught with fear when it comes to writing. I want to write about this realization so badly, and it pours out of me when I sit down at the computer but then, I just x out of the document and say to myself, “I’m so incredibly rude.”

The guilt is overwhelming. I am so afraid to offend half my readers, real friends, friends in my head, cubicle friends and whomever else that I have not been able to graciously articulate this feeling.

But then it’s like, I know and understand that I am not “normal.” I feel very much like a regular girl on a daily basis, but my life has unfolded in such a way that something interesting happens to me at least 10 times a day. Like, how at Red Lobster last night as J and I were discussing an Oprah episode, a lovely young man named Hubert came to my table and introduced himself as someone from Guyana that both watched the show and read my blog in Guyana. Turns out, his cousin Rachael is really the one that reads my blog and she had spent a good ten minutes preparing him to come over to talk to me. Complete with Pussy Cat Dolls commentary. Rachael approaches and tells me she really really really loves my writing. I’m dying at this point, so excited. Completely forgetting that I’m without makeup, earrings or heels. !

She asked for a photo. When her mother couldn’t work the camera, she looked to me and said, “My mom is the Guyanese Mercy, I swear…” and I thought to myself, this girl really reads my blog. And I came right home and started to chip away at this fucking essay once and for all. Hi Rachael and Hubert. You are responsible for making me complete this entry. I was in a block, I was. And your kindness has moved me forward. For real dough. And I thank you so much. It was fantastic meeting you!

Now where was I?

I’m a fucking weirdo. My fiancé is a bit eccentric which is code for out of his fucking mind. We are not people who believe in formality and following the path of Long Island suburban life. I mean, hello, my future husband has hung a 14 foot Puerto Rican flag from the back of the house, visible to all who drive past, as his way of a) expressing his interest in that design and b) telling our neighbors that have no taste whatsoever to fuck off. Here's the thing. If they came over here and said they didn't like the flag we'd get to look at them sideways and be like, Why? (They started it by calling him “scary” and a “drug dealer” which was totally uncalled for. He’s a nice tax-paying law-abiding teetotaler vegetarian bearded young man over here. Don’t be making assumptions about my boo’s hustle.) It’s a long story involving the cutting of trees and selling off of land that he was promised and there was a court battle and town hall meetings and all of that and basically you had to be there. I have co-signed this behavior because he was totally screwed over. You have to understand.

So here’s my realization. And I am hoping I can say this, express this to you, and feel no judgment. I am hoping that you understand this is not a judgment on you if we happen to disagree on what a wedding should look and feel like. Totally, to each her own. Girl, do you. However, I have to say:

I hate planning a wedding.

Do not confuse this with I hate getting married. I’m all into the romantical idea of getting married. Trust. I am very much excited to go down to whatever dingy county building I have to go to with my $40 to get my marriage license. That, I’m excited about. To file the paperwork that makes it officially real, that makes me someone’s wife – that is truly exciting to me. I have thought about this day ever since we got engaged. I know that I will look over at him -- my true friend who happens to be hot, interesting, talented, smart, funny and different – with his Timberland boots on in 98-degree weather and that awful wool cap and that terrible ratty green tank top and I will say to myself, I accept him for who he truly is and I feel love for him. I love him. He will hopefully be looking at me -- still lovingly even after I have snatched the pen from his hand as he attempted to fill out the paperwork because his handwriting is atrocious – and be thinking I accept this girl for everything she is, stank and vain and kind and funny and smart and pretty (this is what he says to me so he must feel this way) and I am happy to marry her. For this day, I am excited.

For the wedding day? Pssssht. Not so much.

At first, I hated it because I was informed that my budget would be tiny. I quickly got over that with five days of Internet research. No wedding should cost more than what my budget is. If it costs 5 times what mine will cost, well DAMN I’m happy you’re rolling like that but you could have as J would say “dormered your house” or “renovated all three stories” or “gotten a fucking sick new house in North Carolina or some fucking place like that.”

Don’t get it twisted. I am not going the crawfish picnic clambake and beer route. I’m still a classy mother fucker. Because classy and mother fucker go hand in hand. Not that clambakes ain’t classy. I’m just saying, I am not interested in the bought and sold idea of a “wedding wedding.”

I have also found that if you make the call and say you want information about a wedding, the prices are insanity. If you say you are planning an evening cocktail party, shit’s all reasonable like. If it’s going to boil down to semantics, you will never hear me utter any of the following words: chateau, resort, hall, reception, plaza, terrace, country club, ceremony, gazebo, hair trial, up-do, cumberbun or is it cummerbund or cumber bun -- regardless, any word where the spelling is that obnoxious, I will take no part of it.

You get the picture.

My cocktail party (that terminology has replaced the word wedding altogether) planning dialogue has been relegated to words like “sick” or “holy shit, that’s adorable” or the ever so articulate “not wedding-y.”

I do not want ten hours of rituals. Quite frankly, I find half the rituals to be rude to my guests.

For example, the garter toss. Could you be more obnoxious toward your single female friends? Hey ladies. Be sure to catch this cheap lacy elastic that’s been both scratching and cutting the circulation off in my thigh because it’ll mean that maybe, just maybe, you will have the great fortune that I have and find someone you’re compatible with. This is just a reminder that if you do not, in fact, catch this disgusting sexualized accessory, you will be forever deemed a leper who deserves no love. Oh, and I expect you to hardcore dive for it in that faux satin ill-fitting not-really-cerulean-blue dress I made you wear so sucks to be you.

You think I’m judgmental, I know. But really, this is just my opinion.

Okay, maybe that sounds crazy but that’s how I see it. I imagine the feelings of my single female guests being hurt and that’s not the energy I want to put out into the universe. Yes, I said energy and universe in the same sentence and no, in fact, my mind is not elevated. Elevate yo mind, Craig.

I think party “favors” are rude as well. Really, let’s discuss this from a common sense perspective.

How much of a favor is it really if you give me a champagne flute, etched with the silhouette of a man in a top hat and a woman in pouf dress with the couple’s name and date of the wedding etched in that frosty white raised calligraphy text. I take this flute, this token that this day existed and happened right before my very eyes, and I get it home. It is on my kitchen table for, oh, five good days before I figure out what to do with it. By day 5, it is annoying me. I have wiped around it. I have moved it from one end of the table to the other. Where do I store it? Can’t put it with my real champagne flutes as I have glass cabinet doors. Everything must be lined up, matching, pretty and organized at all times because it’s blatantly visible to my mother-in-law and, quite frankly, to me. So I put the champagne flute in the office in the pile of Asian-y accessories that I haven’t found a home for yet.

Cut to one year later. There’s the flute. I’ve heard stories about this couple at this point. Loveless marriage, sister girl was drunk at the club, old boy has mean meth mouth (don't click that) since the day they exchanged those vows. I’m still looking at the flute. The fucking flute with no home.

I put it in a drawer.

Spring arrives. Must. Clean. House. Aha. Hello flute. You know what? I’m throwing this out. Picture this happening 250 more times from Manhattan to Montauk. Perhaps this couple spent $2000 on those flutes. That’s $2000 or 80 manicure/pedicures or one insane handbag or four pair of insane shoes or one amazing gift to a child who has no college fund – whatever it is – that’s $2000 gone. Poof. On a champagne flute with a Corel Draw looking image on it. You see where I’m going? I’m not into it. A favor has essentially become not a favor, and for what?

I’m trying to give my female and gay male guests essential oils, rosewater spritz, colored Nat Sherman cigarettes, Kiehl’s moisturizer. That’s a favor and a half. Were I to get that in a goodie bag upon my departure of a wedding, I’d be like GOOD FUCKING LOOKING OUT I LOVE Y’ALL! (Yell it.)

And here’s the other thing. I live on Long Island. This community is built for this shit. I am an outsider here. And I’m visibly out of place because I don’t have silk-wrapped tips on. I just ducked as though I were being slapped upside the head by an all-encompassing imaginary Long Island woman for having a smart mouth.

I have a wedding nightmare experience once a week. It’s called The Nail Salon Exchange. Without fail, one girl will come in and start flipping through all the wedding magazines. Another woman will say, “You’re getting married?” and it’s like clockwork. Old girl can’t wait to get to discussing all of the details. And the exchange goes like this:

Have you set the date?

Where are you getting married?

Did you go to such and such for flowers?

How many in your party?

Where are you registered?

Old girl will have HELLUV information too. She will rattle that shit off like planning her wedding is her only job. As though she doesn’t have laundry or drinks with The Gays or America’s Next Top Model or something.

The one time that a woman struck up a conversation with me after she noticed my ring which is so fucking sick I can’t take it – because let’s face it, wearing a ring means strangers can ask you all kinds of personal information about the most amazing person in your life – it ended disastrously. Woman had no sense of humor.

Have you set the date?

No.

Where are you getting married?

Manhattan, I hope. Someplace sick. I thought about the Hamptons and I decided I’m too lazy to drive out there so…

Flowers?

Um…

How many in your party?

Oh, like 80.

Eighty people in your party!

Yeah, it’s going to be a small affair.

No, your bridesmaids and everything.

I’m not doing that.

You’re not.

No.

(Silence).

Where are you registered?

Um, we have a house together already and he’s not that into getting gifts. He says being “self-congratulatory” is gross. I like it with my vain ass but he finds it excessive. Don’t get me wrong. I always want new towels and sheets but you know, it’s not a necessity. I think my future mother-in-law is going to take me next week which will be nice because I like hanging out with her. She’ll be cute with the scanner thing and all. You know…

What does she think of all this?

Of all what?

You know, you seem so…

Not into weddings?

Right, right (said as casually as possible but with blatant judgment in her eyes).

Um, my boyfriend told her we had it covered. If we needed help, we’d let her know but he’s also the guy that didn’t go to his mother’s lifetime jeweler. He just kinda bought the ring, proposed and called people, like, a week later to say Oh yeah, we’re getting married. People that know us know this was bound to happen so he’s not really a news-sharing kind of dude. He is kinda just in his own little world. You’d have to meet him to understand. He’s just – different. He’s not that guy.

Well, he’s your fiancé.

Yeah. But I don’t really like saying fiancé. It rhymes with Beyonce and that makes me nervous sorta.

(Silence.)

Have you got a band?

We’re not doing a band. But I wonder if the hip hop magician is expensive.

Uncomfortable too long of a stare and then I force myself to dart my eyes downward to the quietly working CeCe, pedicurist extraordinaire.

I just went back to flipping through Vogue. That woman looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my face. And hello, like I’d really hire the hip hop magician. I mean, that’s not to say I didn’t think about him for like a barbecue this summer, but for my wedding? Come on, I’m not that um, avant garde. Regardless, I brace myself for this conversation daily. It happens all the time. I have now succumbed to the pressure of NOT being myself and have just agreed to all recommendations. I say, “Oh, the whispering chateau overlooking the bay. Nice. I’ll Google it. Thank you…”

Oh, and I have a couple of wedding magazines. Not into it. First of all, they’re heavy as hell. I can’t carry that and my big bag on the train. I have to flip my ring around, diamonds in palm and then lug all that shit while keeping my mind on safety? Not happening. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll carry a heavy ass Vogue, but that’s Vogue. Suffering to give off the air of being fashionably minded – that I’ll do. But wedding magazines, no. The only thing I found in a wedding magazine that I liked was the cutest little matchbook I ever saw. I am ordering it. Don’t front.

Pretty much, I’m planning a sick ass cocktail party, nighttime in Manhattan should the space and price line up the way we’d like. When you get my invite, there will be no beautiful calligraphy, no extra envelope, no thin sheet of paper that sounds pretty to crinkle in your hand. Come or don’t. It’s cool. But you’ll probably want to make it to this affair. I assure you.

You will get the invite and you will say, WOW, that’s very Beck and Melissa. And you will come in your hot going out Tuesday outfit (The Gays say weekends are amateur nights). You will drink. You will say, “all night cocktail hour is the best idea ever” because you will be relieved that you have not been put at a table with his lawyer or my talkative goth niece. You will dance to Lil Jon and nod to him when Usher’s Yeah comes on because, you know, Lil Jon is so invited. That was the jam. I still listen to it like it's brand new, top down. Heeeey.

Anyway, you will have a cupcake (or three). You will listen to Shorty say inappropriate things. You will think the wait staff of alarmingly attractive gay men is just next level. Have I gone too far to make them topless? J’s not having it anyway so don’t get too excited.

When the party is over and we are gallivanting to the next situation that may or may not be spontaneously created, you will decide whether or not you can make it. Are you drunk? Just tipsy? Probably. But you’re not tired from boredom or watching rituals so maybe you’ll come to the next thing. And most importantly, you will say to yourself, “This marriage will work” because you will get the sense that we are each entitled to be our true selves and that we genuinely like each other. Like is just as important as love, you know.

Yes, ladies. I have done the unthinkable. I have already expressed to him, to his pure elation, that he will not be required to wear a tux. That, in fact, he can wear whatever the hell he damn well pleases because this is his day too. He should be comfortable on his day. And yeah, I might look overdressed next to him but that’s us all day every day. That’s standard. A part of me is praying he won't wear the Timberlands but that's who he is and I love him.

Mercy will still have her own makeup artist. I would never leave my mama hanging like that. Sister girl is getting false lashes and everything. Go girl, dreams coming true all over the damn place.

There might be a rabbi who specializes in unions of Jews and non-Jews and yes, I will have my cute little biracial ketubah. It’s not called the biracial ketubah, but I like calling it that. There will be some elements of tradition but you’ll have to look hard to notice them. For the most part, I want you to feel like you’re at the best party ever. I want to feel like I’m at the best party ever. And to achieve this, I have abandoned all thoughts of wedding wedding and tried to execute, in my mind, what I would find entertaining. And basically, it’s Lil Jon (roookay), nighttime Manhattan and J being himself without any fear of anybody looking at him sideways for whatever just randomly flew out of his mouth. Shit, I need that concession my damn self. Oh, with hot cotton candy wrapped around a (non-personalized) champagne flute. Put those on a platter and pass them around. Ooooh.

So there will be no discussion of wedding planning here. However, once the party is over I will share the details. The invitation, the dress and maybe even some photos. You know how I hate photos. I’m thinking of hiring a sports photographer though. They capture movement and I want my album (did I just say album?) to tell a story. Movement. No poses. No tallest to smallest line-up shit. We’re all the smallest so it’s not going to work anyway.

But after I get married, I am sure I will want to shout that shit from the mountaintops and you will be a part of that. So please don’t judge me. I am only being myself. And now I will graciously thank all of you for writing in, telling me you missed me and for saying that you actually care. That is awesome. Really. And I am prepared for you to hate my wedding-hating guts after reading this, but maybe you can understand.

Oh goodness, I just forgot. Is it really vain to say that there will be no hora business? The things is, I paid way too much for these teeth to be thrown about in a chair in the air. If I lost my front four veneers on my wedding day because Uncle Corn didn’t have a good grip on the chair, I will forever associate wedded bliss with jack-o-lantern mouth and I’m not having it. Sorry. Oh, and my dress will be tight. Read: fitted sheath to my moms. But really, I just mean tight.

Cue up self-congratulatory comment that makes you roll your eyes.

I made it to age 30 in essentially the same body I had since 10th grade and that alone is reason enough to celebrate, damn the engagement. Look at what my genes gave me. Thanks Shorty and Mercy! Your five foot tall asses had something goin’ for ya all along! That’s on some celebratory shit. Throw rice in my face right now. I don’t give a damn.

But yeah. Get there.

Now, I know you want to hear about the Shorty and Mercy trip. In like, a couple hours, you can click on their names and get the whole story. I’m working on it.

Love y’all. Come back.

Posted by melissah at May 24, 2007 01:02 PM