6.04.2010
laughing quietly to myself
About the sticker on my deodorant, EXTRA RESPONSIVE IN EMOTIONAL MOMENTS. People should come with these stickers.
5.28.2010
Goodbye Joey
Here's the funny thing that isn't really funny:
Moments before I learned something huge on Facebook, I read an inconsequential status update from someone. It was a throwaway comment along the lines of CAN'T DECIDE WHAT TO EAT FOR LUNCH!!! The kind of thing that makes me think we are all just wasting our time. I was toying with the idea of quitting Facebook and everything else in my life that might be a waste of time when I clicked on Joey's page.
I started reading his wall and couldn't believe - literally couldn't - what I was reading.
I called Kevin, my assistant tour manager, and asked him to look at Joey's page.
"I don't know if this is a cruel joke," I said, "But I think something's happened to Joey. Something bad."
I've worked with Joey for the last four years. Every time I'm in LA before a tour, Joey works as our rehearsal runner and I've spent between 3-6 weeks every year in an room with him working, laughing my ass off, talking, and appreciating how well he takes care of us.
I called him before I got to LA last week to reconfirm his start date. I didn't hear back so I emailed him. Last Friday I spoke with Kevin on the phone and told him how weird it was that Joey wasn't getting back to me because he's always the first one to call and check in. Maybe he's tired of us, we said, maybe he's peaced out. It doesn't seem like him but you never know, we agreed. I decided the next day to go to Facebook again and try to find him there one more time.
Kevin took one look at Joey's Facebook page after I asked him to, called me back, and confirmed what I didn't want to know: that Joey had passed away and was gone. He died the day before.
What I've learned is that he was having trouble sleeping and was having some problem with his hands going numb. He was going to have a surgery and was given painkillers so that he could sleep beforehand. He took too many. He turned blue in his sleep and was rushed to the hospital. He went into a coma and never woke up. Sometime later that week, the doctors told his dad that his brain had swelled and that if he came out of the coma, he would be brain dead. So his father gathered all of his friends around and they said goodbye and let him go.
Kevin and I tried to understand that Joey was gone. "You know what's crazy?" I said, "I was just thinking that Facebook is so useless, just a huge useless drain of energy, and I go to Joey's page and there all these people who love him are writing to him. Not about him, TO him. They're writing him letters like he's reading it."
In this instance Facebook wasn't a community of people broadcasting the fact that they'd brushed their teeth that morning, it was a central place for Joey's people to share with each other - and, oddly, with him - why he was special to them. I just never would have thought of that.
I did think about little things, about how last summer when I was still on my kick of wanting a pet pig partially out of seriousness and partially to antagonize Matthew, I told Joey and he got so excited for me. He told me about the pig named pumpkin that he'd adopted in Hawaii and told me how funny and smart and cuddly it was.
I thought about how he always seemed to be in the middle of or embarking on a creative project and I probably should have listened more closely. Unfairly I tend to turn off when people in LA talk about film and scripts because it's so pervasive. But Joey wasn't a stupid blockbuster type he was more about darkness and truth and I wish I'd asked more questions.
I thought about how our office sometimes resembled group therapy, all of us sharing what we were going through, the rest of us taking it in and offering our perspectives. Joey was thoughtful. I love it when the person who looks like the biggest hooligan ends up being the sweetest and the nicest. That was Joey. He would surprise you.
We'll miss you xx
Moments before I learned something huge on Facebook, I read an inconsequential status update from someone. It was a throwaway comment along the lines of CAN'T DECIDE WHAT TO EAT FOR LUNCH!!! The kind of thing that makes me think we are all just wasting our time. I was toying with the idea of quitting Facebook and everything else in my life that might be a waste of time when I clicked on Joey's page.
I started reading his wall and couldn't believe - literally couldn't - what I was reading.
I called Kevin, my assistant tour manager, and asked him to look at Joey's page.
"I don't know if this is a cruel joke," I said, "But I think something's happened to Joey. Something bad."
I've worked with Joey for the last four years. Every time I'm in LA before a tour, Joey works as our rehearsal runner and I've spent between 3-6 weeks every year in an room with him working, laughing my ass off, talking, and appreciating how well he takes care of us.
I called him before I got to LA last week to reconfirm his start date. I didn't hear back so I emailed him. Last Friday I spoke with Kevin on the phone and told him how weird it was that Joey wasn't getting back to me because he's always the first one to call and check in. Maybe he's tired of us, we said, maybe he's peaced out. It doesn't seem like him but you never know, we agreed. I decided the next day to go to Facebook again and try to find him there one more time.
Kevin took one look at Joey's Facebook page after I asked him to, called me back, and confirmed what I didn't want to know: that Joey had passed away and was gone. He died the day before.
What I've learned is that he was having trouble sleeping and was having some problem with his hands going numb. He was going to have a surgery and was given painkillers so that he could sleep beforehand. He took too many. He turned blue in his sleep and was rushed to the hospital. He went into a coma and never woke up. Sometime later that week, the doctors told his dad that his brain had swelled and that if he came out of the coma, he would be brain dead. So his father gathered all of his friends around and they said goodbye and let him go.
Kevin and I tried to understand that Joey was gone. "You know what's crazy?" I said, "I was just thinking that Facebook is so useless, just a huge useless drain of energy, and I go to Joey's page and there all these people who love him are writing to him. Not about him, TO him. They're writing him letters like he's reading it."
In this instance Facebook wasn't a community of people broadcasting the fact that they'd brushed their teeth that morning, it was a central place for Joey's people to share with each other - and, oddly, with him - why he was special to them. I just never would have thought of that.
I did think about little things, about how last summer when I was still on my kick of wanting a pet pig partially out of seriousness and partially to antagonize Matthew, I told Joey and he got so excited for me. He told me about the pig named pumpkin that he'd adopted in Hawaii and told me how funny and smart and cuddly it was.
I thought about how he always seemed to be in the middle of or embarking on a creative project and I probably should have listened more closely. Unfairly I tend to turn off when people in LA talk about film and scripts because it's so pervasive. But Joey wasn't a stupid blockbuster type he was more about darkness and truth and I wish I'd asked more questions.
I thought about how our office sometimes resembled group therapy, all of us sharing what we were going through, the rest of us taking it in and offering our perspectives. Joey was thoughtful. I love it when the person who looks like the biggest hooligan ends up being the sweetest and the nicest. That was Joey. He would surprise you.
We'll miss you xx
5.27.2010
I might as well have put it back in his pants myself
My wedding bouquet on a urinal: not cool. NOT COOL. But kinda funny.
5.26.2010
Geri Halliwell's abs
Every time I go into the copy room I pass a Spice Girls poster and I can't get rid of the feeling that Geri Halliwell's abs are mocking me.
5.22.2010
Dance party 3000 AKA my wedding
I was blown away by my own wedding and it's ironic because I can be kind of a hard sell. When I got engaged, those who know me best said things like, "Ohmigod, I know you're not the type of girl to get all into this but I'M so excited!"
All of the messages we are force fed about weddings: The Best Day of Your Life, Your Perfect Day, all of that makes me see red. I told myself that I wouldn't be the girl who cared if things didn't go as exactly as planned, I would be the girl who laughed. What I didn't plan for, exactly, was how moved I would be. I was so used to rejecting the crushing wedding images that I underestimated my own ability to be happily stunned.
I THOUGHT I just wanted to throw a serious party. And I did, with the help of many, many people, a long list topped by my parents who were - and I need caps for this - UNBELIEVABLY COOL. ABOUT EVERYTHING. I'd put all the emphasis on the party because that was the point, or so I thought.
After Matthew and I were legally married in all of four minutes in Vegas, my mom told me that I didn't really need to do a ceremony in May, it could literally be just a party. Instinctively, immediately, I thought no, it's more than that. I realized I'd been calling it a party to avoid all the connotations I despise about weddings. I craved, actually, ritual.
It came down to this. I believe in love. I believe in deep, searing, beautiful, painful, truthful love. It's the trappings I take issue with, the boring old shoulds and thoughtless expectations. That's what I run from. In a wedding of my own, could I focus on what I think is important and lose the stuff that pisses me off? Could we create a ceremony that reflects who we truly are?
At the Graceland Chapel we'd had a fifteen minute time slot, a fraction of which it took to be legally bound. Elvis was awesome, Allison, Jacky, and their two cousins were great guests, showing up on short notice and jumping up and down clapping when we sealed the deal, but the words we said weren't ours. They belonged to the state of Nevada, Jon Bon Jovi and everyone else who was married there.
Our May wedding invitations sidestepped the matter by inviting everyone to "celebrate our marriage" without saying what form that celebration would take. All I thought of initially was food, booze and music. Then, after my mom gave me the out to ditch the wedding part, I started thinking:
What did I want to say to Matthew and about Matthew? What did I want to say about how we view marriage? How would we articulate our approach? And if it differs at all from the norm, could we explain how? Our minister was to be Sara, my friend of 13 years and a new friend to Matthew. Sara and I have seen each other through much and I wed her to Michael seven years ago. What would Sara say to me, to us? This was a fantastic opportunity! To show off for 250 people!
Oh, that. Apparently I have some social anxiety. Because the thought of 250 people all looking at me, all at once, freaked me OUT. "That's 500 eyeballs," I thought. All watching me walk down the aisle with my mom and dad and watching me talk, assuming I'd be able to.
When I was going over the ceremony in the month before with Sara, I wrote hints to her in the script: Here you speak quietly to us to help calm me down. Here is where I'll be shaking. Here you hold our hands. Sara vetoed the hand holding, knowing we'd probably make a mess of that but she was ready to help me relax.
It didn't matter that I would be with people who love us, as everyone reminded me when I confessed that I was practically wetting the bed thinking about it. I was scared. But the weirdest thing happened. I have never felt so calm and centered and focused as I did during that ceremony. I was high, in a good way. And I don't think it was just the beta blockers I took.
When I stood there, in my blue dress and matching boots - a big honking coincidence, by the way - with my aluminum bouquet, in front of turntables and a sound system powerful enough to throw an actual concert, I looked at Matthew and Sara. I knew I was surrounded by many of the best people in my life. That thing I believe in? Love? It was palpable.
To think that at one point I had even worried that bringing together so many different friends from different times and places might clash. Oh ho, quite the opposite. They got along very well, some TOO well. As Bova stated afterward on Facebook, he attended a very sexy wedding. He may have even mentioned sporadic nudity.
All of the planning around the obscure location we chose with mostly do-it-yourself details had taken on a fevered state in the two days before the event. I was trying to be attentive to my job with American Idol while executing and dispatching rounds of airport pick ups and hotel drop offs and sleepovers at my house. The food for the sleepover house at the wedding, how much liquor to buy for the open bar, the directions for Gail's family who was driving from Minnesota to stay at our apartment and watch the dog.
It was all good stuff but it was compounding all at once. Various people told me that I seemed really chill which shows only that I hide mania well. I had a pit in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon.
I will tell you the exact moment that the pit disappeared. I watched Neil, my dear friend and ringbearer, dance down the last few feet of the aisle with the ring box in his hand and I started forward with my mom and dad. After agonizing over the procession song, I had finally chosen Auto Rock by Mogwai, a song that grows and builds and gets BIG. Auto Rock also means much to me as the first song on a mix I made in Berlin right after I met Matthew. I had listened to this song for hours and hours while walking around Berlin. It was a powerful, important time in my life and it's where I first got to know Matthew - corresponding from that city - to that song.
So I walked forward with my parents and and felt my face start to freeze and tic the way it does when I'm super duper nervous. But when we got closer, people stood up and started cheering. It was like a damn sporting event. It was INCREDIBLE. I started laughing and that's when the pit went away, never to return.
I mean come on, there were camper vans, tents, kegstands and scandal. Two of my fine, upstanding, civic-minded friends were too drunk to put up a tent and slept in their car. My brother, between seizures, stayed glued to my side, saying over and over, "Sister! Sister!" The kids I babysat in Cincinnati danced hard with the girls I ran with through the Amazon. I had friends and family making programs, party favors, and food.
I said SPACE CAMP and UNICORNS in my vows.
I love a good, good man and, conveniently, he loves me back. I don't know when I've ever been so happy.
All of the messages we are force fed about weddings: The Best Day of Your Life, Your Perfect Day, all of that makes me see red. I told myself that I wouldn't be the girl who cared if things didn't go as exactly as planned, I would be the girl who laughed. What I didn't plan for, exactly, was how moved I would be. I was so used to rejecting the crushing wedding images that I underestimated my own ability to be happily stunned.
I THOUGHT I just wanted to throw a serious party. And I did, with the help of many, many people, a long list topped by my parents who were - and I need caps for this - UNBELIEVABLY COOL. ABOUT EVERYTHING. I'd put all the emphasis on the party because that was the point, or so I thought.
After Matthew and I were legally married in all of four minutes in Vegas, my mom told me that I didn't really need to do a ceremony in May, it could literally be just a party. Instinctively, immediately, I thought no, it's more than that. I realized I'd been calling it a party to avoid all the connotations I despise about weddings. I craved, actually, ritual.
It came down to this. I believe in love. I believe in deep, searing, beautiful, painful, truthful love. It's the trappings I take issue with, the boring old shoulds and thoughtless expectations. That's what I run from. In a wedding of my own, could I focus on what I think is important and lose the stuff that pisses me off? Could we create a ceremony that reflects who we truly are?
At the Graceland Chapel we'd had a fifteen minute time slot, a fraction of which it took to be legally bound. Elvis was awesome, Allison, Jacky, and their two cousins were great guests, showing up on short notice and jumping up and down clapping when we sealed the deal, but the words we said weren't ours. They belonged to the state of Nevada, Jon Bon Jovi and everyone else who was married there.
Our May wedding invitations sidestepped the matter by inviting everyone to "celebrate our marriage" without saying what form that celebration would take. All I thought of initially was food, booze and music. Then, after my mom gave me the out to ditch the wedding part, I started thinking:
What did I want to say to Matthew and about Matthew? What did I want to say about how we view marriage? How would we articulate our approach? And if it differs at all from the norm, could we explain how? Our minister was to be Sara, my friend of 13 years and a new friend to Matthew. Sara and I have seen each other through much and I wed her to Michael seven years ago. What would Sara say to me, to us? This was a fantastic opportunity! To show off for 250 people!
Oh, that. Apparently I have some social anxiety. Because the thought of 250 people all looking at me, all at once, freaked me OUT. "That's 500 eyeballs," I thought. All watching me walk down the aisle with my mom and dad and watching me talk, assuming I'd be able to.
When I was going over the ceremony in the month before with Sara, I wrote hints to her in the script: Here you speak quietly to us to help calm me down. Here is where I'll be shaking. Here you hold our hands. Sara vetoed the hand holding, knowing we'd probably make a mess of that but she was ready to help me relax.
It didn't matter that I would be with people who love us, as everyone reminded me when I confessed that I was practically wetting the bed thinking about it. I was scared. But the weirdest thing happened. I have never felt so calm and centered and focused as I did during that ceremony. I was high, in a good way. And I don't think it was just the beta blockers I took.
When I stood there, in my blue dress and matching boots - a big honking coincidence, by the way - with my aluminum bouquet, in front of turntables and a sound system powerful enough to throw an actual concert, I looked at Matthew and Sara. I knew I was surrounded by many of the best people in my life. That thing I believe in? Love? It was palpable.
To think that at one point I had even worried that bringing together so many different friends from different times and places might clash. Oh ho, quite the opposite. They got along very well, some TOO well. As Bova stated afterward on Facebook, he attended a very sexy wedding. He may have even mentioned sporadic nudity.
All of the planning around the obscure location we chose with mostly do-it-yourself details had taken on a fevered state in the two days before the event. I was trying to be attentive to my job with American Idol while executing and dispatching rounds of airport pick ups and hotel drop offs and sleepovers at my house. The food for the sleepover house at the wedding, how much liquor to buy for the open bar, the directions for Gail's family who was driving from Minnesota to stay at our apartment and watch the dog.
It was all good stuff but it was compounding all at once. Various people told me that I seemed really chill which shows only that I hide mania well. I had a pit in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon.
I will tell you the exact moment that the pit disappeared. I watched Neil, my dear friend and ringbearer, dance down the last few feet of the aisle with the ring box in his hand and I started forward with my mom and dad. After agonizing over the procession song, I had finally chosen Auto Rock by Mogwai, a song that grows and builds and gets BIG. Auto Rock also means much to me as the first song on a mix I made in Berlin right after I met Matthew. I had listened to this song for hours and hours while walking around Berlin. It was a powerful, important time in my life and it's where I first got to know Matthew - corresponding from that city - to that song.
So I walked forward with my parents and and felt my face start to freeze and tic the way it does when I'm super duper nervous. But when we got closer, people stood up and started cheering. It was like a damn sporting event. It was INCREDIBLE. I started laughing and that's when the pit went away, never to return.
I mean come on, there were camper vans, tents, kegstands and scandal. Two of my fine, upstanding, civic-minded friends were too drunk to put up a tent and slept in their car. My brother, between seizures, stayed glued to my side, saying over and over, "Sister! Sister!" The kids I babysat in Cincinnati danced hard with the girls I ran with through the Amazon. I had friends and family making programs, party favors, and food.
I said SPACE CAMP and UNICORNS in my vows.
I love a good, good man and, conveniently, he loves me back. I don't know when I've ever been so happy.
5.05.2010
I'm a Man
Oddly, the only way I'm able to soothe myself right now is by playing I'm a Man by Black Strobe at top volume.
4.28.2010
you know you're tired
When your dog wakes you up barking in the morning and you lay down in her dog bed with her to doze off again.
4.26.2010
Project Runway binge: coping with stress
I can't make up my mind whether I'm fine, as my exterior calm suggests, or so deeply stressed that the panic is simply gasping for air under ten tons of to-do lists and can't make a noise. Last Wednesday I told I felt really good. I had a slick spreadsheet of details to accomplish but most were final touches for the wedding, some of them almost fun. More worrying than the wedding was work.
The tour for the summer has been slower in coming together than usual and by now I'd expect to have put in 4-6 weeks of planning. As of last week I'd done next to nothing. It isn't my fault or anyone's in particular, it just IS. And I was starting to think that I wouldn't get the info I needed to start until the week or day of the wedding. I would be expected to be on, available, and in overdrive and I would be distracted, to say the least.
The good news is I have now started working on the tour and am thankful to have this week to get as much done as possible. The bad news is that the day after I waxed so positive about my state of mind, I developed a jackhammer of a headache that all but forced me to lay on the couch and watch ten consecutive episodes of Project Runway.
p.s. So pleased that Seth Aaron won. And does anyone have Anthony's digits because I want to be his friend.
It was suggested to me that the headache was stress-related and that may well be true because what other kind of headache doesn't respond to Tylenol, Excedrin Migraine, coffee, water, snacks and ten hours of Project Runway?
The day after that my Project Runway binge I was back to normal. I woke early, spent a few blurry hours wandering around the Internet before attacking my lists with renewed vigor. I then largely took the weekend off and have been slammed ever since Monday. And that's where I'm like I am REALLY straddling the line that separates calm and cool from edgy and self-destructive. I'm obsessing about taking things to Goodwill and it took seven days of broken deadlines for me to pick a procession song for the ceremony and I might be drinking more wine at night than medically advised but overall, I'm good (ish) (I think).
I'm thrilled to imagine so many people I love in one place at one time, a remarkable thing in that my crowd has always been so spread out. And I'm psyched that my wedding dress came back de-egged: the yellow is now a dark charcoal grey. And I know that the tour will come together because it must. There is no alternative. It's possible that what I told people last year - that I'd be able to plan a wedding and a tour at the same time - is actually true.
The tour for the summer has been slower in coming together than usual and by now I'd expect to have put in 4-6 weeks of planning. As of last week I'd done next to nothing. It isn't my fault or anyone's in particular, it just IS. And I was starting to think that I wouldn't get the info I needed to start until the week or day of the wedding. I would be expected to be on, available, and in overdrive and I would be distracted, to say the least.
The good news is I have now started working on the tour and am thankful to have this week to get as much done as possible. The bad news is that the day after I waxed so positive about my state of mind, I developed a jackhammer of a headache that all but forced me to lay on the couch and watch ten consecutive episodes of Project Runway.
p.s. So pleased that Seth Aaron won. And does anyone have Anthony's digits because I want to be his friend.
It was suggested to me that the headache was stress-related and that may well be true because what other kind of headache doesn't respond to Tylenol, Excedrin Migraine, coffee, water, snacks and ten hours of Project Runway?
The day after that my Project Runway binge I was back to normal. I woke early, spent a few blurry hours wandering around the Internet before attacking my lists with renewed vigor. I then largely took the weekend off and have been slammed ever since Monday. And that's where I'm like I am REALLY straddling the line that separates calm and cool from edgy and self-destructive. I'm obsessing about taking things to Goodwill and it took seven days of broken deadlines for me to pick a procession song for the ceremony and I might be drinking more wine at night than medically advised but overall, I'm good (ish) (I think).
I'm thrilled to imagine so many people I love in one place at one time, a remarkable thing in that my crowd has always been so spread out. And I'm psyched that my wedding dress came back de-egged: the yellow is now a dark charcoal grey. And I know that the tour will come together because it must. There is no alternative. It's possible that what I told people last year - that I'd be able to plan a wedding and a tour at the same time - is actually true.
4.20.2010
laughing quietly to myself
About how after watching House Hunters International last night, Matthew and I both want to move to Panama.
4.16.2010
Lasik round 2
So it seems, as far as my eyes are concerned, that I'm out of the woods. I had my second round of Lasik surgery two days ago.
I was talking to Sunny the night before I went under the laser for the second time. I told her how the first round back in January worked well on the left eye but not so much on the right. I can read and use the computer, everything close up is great but long distances and low light are hard. So I haven't liked driving at night and my depth perception is janky. Oh, and grocery stores. Grocery stores are a mess.
"It is so hard not to knock over the pyramid of cereal boxes," I said. All the different colors and signs and displays confuse me and I walk around squinting and blinking, trying to tell what's what.
According to my doctor, my right eye was regressing. My right eye had been trying to grow its cornea back to its former curvature, the curvature that made it nearly legally blind in the first place. WHAT A JERK.
"But it's okay," I said to Sunny, cautiously preparing myself for failure, "Even if my right eye doesn't get totally fixed, I'm still much better off than I was before. I could wake up without glasses in the woods now and get out without being eaten by a bear!"
Because this is a very likely situation.
"Well, with your left eye," she clarified.
"You're right. My right eye would lead me straight into the den but my left eye would get me out."
Here's the thing about my second corrective surgery or "enhancement" as they called it at the doctor's office:
Surgery #1 was a procedure called IntraLase and it was bladeless and all-laser. It was very early in the morning so I was deliriously tired AND they gave me Valium so I was what we would call relaxed. I was nodding off in the cushy little pre-op waiting room when the nurse put numbing drops in my eyes and led me into surgery. They taped my eyelids back and propped my eye open with an eye speculum. It was at this point, I swear to God, that a song came on the radio, Blinded By The Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Are you serious?
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
I didn't know what that means but through the haze, I knew that it was deeply funny.
They told me to keep still and to keep watching the orange dot, a pinhole of a light from the laser machine. I had no problem whatsoever doing this, I was chill. Even when the laser started making a zapping noise and I smelled something burning - my EYE - I really didn't care. Evidently I respond well to Valium.
This time around I expected the same. In fact, I thought it would be better because I knew more and had already been through it. I knew I would be terrified of getting shower water in my eyes in the first few days after surgery so I took extra care to do my hair on the day of in hopes that it would look cute if I didn't wash it for a day or two.
Kind of embarrassing to admit but true.
"Your hair looks really good today," Matthew said in the waiting room.
"Oh? Thanks," I tried to be nonchalant.
They called me back to the exam rooms to run a few final tests. At my appointment the previous week, they couldn't get my eye to dilate so this time they gave me Valium (sweet!) to relax and try the test again. They lowered the lights and left me for ten minutes to think happy relaxing thoughts. For the record, Valium is fast-acting; I was GOOD after about 30 seconds.
They did the test but still my pupil did not want to dilate.
"Okay, wiggle your left pinkie toe," the nurse said, "That helps the pupil."
I started trying to wiggle my pinkie but it suddenly seemed really difficult and then the nurse said, "I know it sounds gay but just wiggle it for me."
Wow. Did she just say that? My pupil suddenly dilates.
I expect to go into surgery at this point but they send me back to the waiting room. I plunk down next to Matthew and tell him I'm on Valium. I really want to smile. I want to smile so much that I become self-conscious and try very hard not to smile because I know there is nothing to smile about. I am acutely aware that my body language has changed from when I was last in the waiting room: instead of primly reading a magazine, I am slouched in the chair, legs stretched out, arms folded over my stomach, trying desperately not to smile.
Matthew can tell that I'm self-conscious about being drugged so he decides to run an errand instead of laughing at me. After he leaves I watch FOX news for about three minutes until I'm getting so pissed that I think it's going to make the Valium wear off and I switch to the History channel. Finally they call me back to surgery.
I spend a few minutes in the comfy pre-op chairs where the nurse briefs me and puts the attractive shower cap thing on my head and then? THEN? A song comes on the radio, a song by Foreigner called Double Vision.
Fill my eyes with that double vision
No disguise for that double vision
Ooh, when it gets through to me, it's always new to me
My double vision always seems to get the best of me, the best of me, yeah-ah
Are you KIDDING? I can't believe this! Is this radio station rigged?
Something Sunny had said to me on the phone was, "I hope you don't get a wandering eye from this surgery." This was purely hype on her part, an attempt to wind me up and get me going. She even said something about me becoming walleyed.
"Well," I responded, "If I do get walleyed, it will sure come in handy on the wedding day when I have to talk to so many people. I can kill a lot of birds with one stone, talking to my mom with my left eye and Aunt Joann with my right."
Anyway.
They put numbing drops in my eyes but instead of laying beneath the laser machine, I have to first sit straight up in another chair. "We're going to loosen the flap first and then use the laser," my doctor says.
FYI: the flap is the circular patch that they cut out of my eye and reattached in January.
"Okay..." I say. My doctor sits across from me with a sharp instrument in his hand. It's a cross between a scalpel and the pick that dentists use to get at the plaque between your teeth. All I know is that he's holding my eyelid open and aiming the scalpel pick thing at me. I see it getting closer and closer and then I CAN FEEL IT. It's not horrible but it's enough to make my face start to crumple and my whole body tense.
The surgical assistant who I keep thinking of as an orderly even though he's not an orderly notices and says, "You can feel that?"
"Yes," I gasp, wanting to cry because suddenly I feel like a big fat baby.
They put more drops in and my eye is totally numb but I am now trying to concentrate on breathing and not panicking. My doctor cuts the circular flap in my eye and leads me to the laser table. I feel nothing but I'm freaked so it doesn't matter. The zapping and burning smell starts and the nurse is counting backwards, I hear her say "Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen..." and I try to blink and I move enough that the laser automatically stops. It resumes and I stay still but I'm telling myself the whole time, "Breathe, breathe, breathe," and reminding myself that I have a mouth and that I should breathe through it.
It's over quickly. My doctor, the orderly, the nurse, the receptionist at the front desk, everyone is so nice. I am prepared to go home and face the uncomfortable sand-in-my-eyes feeling that I had the first time around and I cajole the nurse into giving me the special anesthetic drops that they won't name, the drops that they say only to use in case of severe pain and to throw away after 24 hours.
They give them out in an unmarked bottle and I am convinced they are narcotics. I am fixated on the mystery surrounding the drops since no one says what they are but I don't even need them this time. The pain is minimal. I keep my eyes closed as ordered and immediately fall asleep for five hours.
My greatest fear has been clawing at my eyes in my sleep. After Lasik you aren't allowed to rub your eyes and, after my first surgery, I didn't know how to keep myself from rubbing and tearing the flap open in my sleep so I slept with a bandanna over my face. This time they gave me safety goggles, clear plastic eye masks not unlike the ones you wore in tenth grade chemistry class.
I, however, remembered the eye patch that Rose made for me last summer when my eyes had so many problems with infections and irritations, the reason I decided to get Lasik in the first place. Rose rhinestoned a somewhat creepy and too-large eye onto a patch for me and this week I'm wearing it to bed every single night.
When I wake up, I can see.
I was talking to Sunny the night before I went under the laser for the second time. I told her how the first round back in January worked well on the left eye but not so much on the right. I can read and use the computer, everything close up is great but long distances and low light are hard. So I haven't liked driving at night and my depth perception is janky. Oh, and grocery stores. Grocery stores are a mess.
"It is so hard not to knock over the pyramid of cereal boxes," I said. All the different colors and signs and displays confuse me and I walk around squinting and blinking, trying to tell what's what.
According to my doctor, my right eye was regressing. My right eye had been trying to grow its cornea back to its former curvature, the curvature that made it nearly legally blind in the first place. WHAT A JERK.
"But it's okay," I said to Sunny, cautiously preparing myself for failure, "Even if my right eye doesn't get totally fixed, I'm still much better off than I was before. I could wake up without glasses in the woods now and get out without being eaten by a bear!"
Because this is a very likely situation.
"Well, with your left eye," she clarified.
"You're right. My right eye would lead me straight into the den but my left eye would get me out."
Here's the thing about my second corrective surgery or "enhancement" as they called it at the doctor's office:
Surgery #1 was a procedure called IntraLase and it was bladeless and all-laser. It was very early in the morning so I was deliriously tired AND they gave me Valium so I was what we would call relaxed. I was nodding off in the cushy little pre-op waiting room when the nurse put numbing drops in my eyes and led me into surgery. They taped my eyelids back and propped my eye open with an eye speculum. It was at this point, I swear to God, that a song came on the radio, Blinded By The Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Are you serious?
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
I didn't know what that means but through the haze, I knew that it was deeply funny.
They told me to keep still and to keep watching the orange dot, a pinhole of a light from the laser machine. I had no problem whatsoever doing this, I was chill. Even when the laser started making a zapping noise and I smelled something burning - my EYE - I really didn't care. Evidently I respond well to Valium.
This time around I expected the same. In fact, I thought it would be better because I knew more and had already been through it. I knew I would be terrified of getting shower water in my eyes in the first few days after surgery so I took extra care to do my hair on the day of in hopes that it would look cute if I didn't wash it for a day or two.
Kind of embarrassing to admit but true.
"Your hair looks really good today," Matthew said in the waiting room.
"Oh? Thanks," I tried to be nonchalant.
They called me back to the exam rooms to run a few final tests. At my appointment the previous week, they couldn't get my eye to dilate so this time they gave me Valium (sweet!) to relax and try the test again. They lowered the lights and left me for ten minutes to think happy relaxing thoughts. For the record, Valium is fast-acting; I was GOOD after about 30 seconds.
They did the test but still my pupil did not want to dilate.
"Okay, wiggle your left pinkie toe," the nurse said, "That helps the pupil."
I started trying to wiggle my pinkie but it suddenly seemed really difficult and then the nurse said, "I know it sounds gay but just wiggle it for me."
Wow. Did she just say that? My pupil suddenly dilates.
I expect to go into surgery at this point but they send me back to the waiting room. I plunk down next to Matthew and tell him I'm on Valium. I really want to smile. I want to smile so much that I become self-conscious and try very hard not to smile because I know there is nothing to smile about. I am acutely aware that my body language has changed from when I was last in the waiting room: instead of primly reading a magazine, I am slouched in the chair, legs stretched out, arms folded over my stomach, trying desperately not to smile.
Matthew can tell that I'm self-conscious about being drugged so he decides to run an errand instead of laughing at me. After he leaves I watch FOX news for about three minutes until I'm getting so pissed that I think it's going to make the Valium wear off and I switch to the History channel. Finally they call me back to surgery.
I spend a few minutes in the comfy pre-op chairs where the nurse briefs me and puts the attractive shower cap thing on my head and then? THEN? A song comes on the radio, a song by Foreigner called Double Vision.
Fill my eyes with that double vision
No disguise for that double vision
Ooh, when it gets through to me, it's always new to me
My double vision always seems to get the best of me, the best of me, yeah-ah
Are you KIDDING? I can't believe this! Is this radio station rigged?
Something Sunny had said to me on the phone was, "I hope you don't get a wandering eye from this surgery." This was purely hype on her part, an attempt to wind me up and get me going. She even said something about me becoming walleyed.
"Well," I responded, "If I do get walleyed, it will sure come in handy on the wedding day when I have to talk to so many people. I can kill a lot of birds with one stone, talking to my mom with my left eye and Aunt Joann with my right."
Anyway.
They put numbing drops in my eyes but instead of laying beneath the laser machine, I have to first sit straight up in another chair. "We're going to loosen the flap first and then use the laser," my doctor says.
FYI: the flap is the circular patch that they cut out of my eye and reattached in January.
"Okay..." I say. My doctor sits across from me with a sharp instrument in his hand. It's a cross between a scalpel and the pick that dentists use to get at the plaque between your teeth. All I know is that he's holding my eyelid open and aiming the scalpel pick thing at me. I see it getting closer and closer and then I CAN FEEL IT. It's not horrible but it's enough to make my face start to crumple and my whole body tense.
The surgical assistant who I keep thinking of as an orderly even though he's not an orderly notices and says, "You can feel that?"
"Yes," I gasp, wanting to cry because suddenly I feel like a big fat baby.
They put more drops in and my eye is totally numb but I am now trying to concentrate on breathing and not panicking. My doctor cuts the circular flap in my eye and leads me to the laser table. I feel nothing but I'm freaked so it doesn't matter. The zapping and burning smell starts and the nurse is counting backwards, I hear her say "Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen..." and I try to blink and I move enough that the laser automatically stops. It resumes and I stay still but I'm telling myself the whole time, "Breathe, breathe, breathe," and reminding myself that I have a mouth and that I should breathe through it.
It's over quickly. My doctor, the orderly, the nurse, the receptionist at the front desk, everyone is so nice. I am prepared to go home and face the uncomfortable sand-in-my-eyes feeling that I had the first time around and I cajole the nurse into giving me the special anesthetic drops that they won't name, the drops that they say only to use in case of severe pain and to throw away after 24 hours.
They give them out in an unmarked bottle and I am convinced they are narcotics. I am fixated on the mystery surrounding the drops since no one says what they are but I don't even need them this time. The pain is minimal. I keep my eyes closed as ordered and immediately fall asleep for five hours.
My greatest fear has been clawing at my eyes in my sleep. After Lasik you aren't allowed to rub your eyes and, after my first surgery, I didn't know how to keep myself from rubbing and tearing the flap open in my sleep so I slept with a bandanna over my face. This time they gave me safety goggles, clear plastic eye masks not unlike the ones you wore in tenth grade chemistry class.
I, however, remembered the eye patch that Rose made for me last summer when my eyes had so many problems with infections and irritations, the reason I decided to get Lasik in the first place. Rose rhinestoned a somewhat creepy and too-large eye onto a patch for me and this week I'm wearing it to bed every single night.
When I wake up, I can see.
3.24.2010
I Was A Teenaged Peep: A Lifetime Movie Special
I didn't want to make a big deal out of this because I live in fear of being a "bride", the high maintenance, impossible-to-please beast that I blame on the wedding industry. Yes, Bridezilla. Perhaps you've heard of her? I don't know when this term took over but I wonder if it was shortly after the TLC channel aired Say Yes To The Dress and WE tv began broadcasting Bridezillas.
If you've never seen Bridezillas, don't start now. It provides a terrible ratio of amusing to depressing that I doubt your life is missing. See Monday's show description:
Karen continues her reign of terror! When Karen can’t find anyone willing to do her hair, she is forced to revisit her original stylist for round two—and it isn’t pretty! Later, Karen has a hissy fit when asked to accommodate a wheelchair bound relative in her seating chart, and has a history-making meltdown during a dress fitting. Meanwhile, Natasha insists on driving two hours into the desert to find sand for her unity candle...
Okay, maybe that part about sand for the unity candle is kind of funny.
But here's the deal: I got my wedding dress in the mail and it looked like an Easter egg.
After sending Matthew a photo, I called Jocardo and he and I decided that it also looked like:
1. A baby nursery
2. A gay dinosaur laid an egg
3. A Peep
Or more accurately, I would look like a giant Peep when I put it on. The dress was baby blue and yellow. It was very, very pastel. It was, we all agreed, a lovely dress. For another girl.
I don't know how the miscommunication happened with the dressmaker but it did and I just DON'T get along with pastels.
Before I decided what to do, I considered making art out of the situation. I would, with a photographer (Jocardo), go to as many Easter services as possible and we'd document me and my dress at all the socials, eating sweets, chit-chatting and being Eastery. I would try to get an invite or two to a garden party, if they actually exist. We would photoshop Peeps into the shots and make an album called Me and my Peeps. These all seemed like great ideas and I was howling with laughter.
Then I hung up the phone, plowed my way through an entire bag of cookies, and watched the E! True Hollywood Story on Jennifer Aniston. I was officially bummed.
One thing Jocardo said to me on the phone when I was trying to wave off my reaction was, "Darlin' you're allowed to be disappointed. You can have an emotion about this."
But won't I seem like Bridezilla?
Matthew put an end to it, right about when I told him that I was going to do a funny art project with the Peep dress and would just find something else to wear to the wedding. He said that if I didn't write the dressmaker, he would, so we sent her an email asking if she could re-dye it.
She wrote back right away. No problem, she said. She could get rid of the yellow but the rest of the dress would be a darker blue. It can be black for all I care, I told her. Just get me out of these disgusting infantilizing shades of puke and puker.
Which also makes me wonder: Why is it so hard for me to tell people when I hate what they've done to my appearance? I've been given some of the most rotten haircuts over the years and even when I've walked out of the salon looking like one of the Three Stooges, I've thanked the stylist nicely and given them a big tip because I believe in tipping.
A few weeks ago I jokingly got fake nails in New York. Because I've never done gel tips before and didn't know what I was getting into (I have since ripped them off my fingers in a semi-drunken state to reveal cracked and bleeding stubs underneath, pretty! And so worth it!) I didn't know when the nail lady glued the three inch extensions to my finger that she would cut them to a less talon-like length.
I sat there with a heavy heart while she bantered in Mandarin to her colleagues and I accepted my fate as a disabled person who could no longer use her hands. I whispered to Laura, "I didn't think they'd be so long."
She laughed at me, "They cut 'em down, goofy!"
I felt such relief followed by shock that I was going to let someone fuck up my hands. Out of what? Politeness? The feeling that I had agreed to do something and couldn't back out now even though I totally actually could?
As for the dress, the reason I chose that dressmaker was because her dresses come in all colors and aren't so wedding-like that I can't wear it again and again. But not if I look like a piece of Easter candy, something I was willing to accept for many hours. What the hell?
If you've never seen Bridezillas, don't start now. It provides a terrible ratio of amusing to depressing that I doubt your life is missing. See Monday's show description:
Karen continues her reign of terror! When Karen can’t find anyone willing to do her hair, she is forced to revisit her original stylist for round two—and it isn’t pretty! Later, Karen has a hissy fit when asked to accommodate a wheelchair bound relative in her seating chart, and has a history-making meltdown during a dress fitting. Meanwhile, Natasha insists on driving two hours into the desert to find sand for her unity candle...
Okay, maybe that part about sand for the unity candle is kind of funny.
But here's the deal: I got my wedding dress in the mail and it looked like an Easter egg.
After sending Matthew a photo, I called Jocardo and he and I decided that it also looked like:
1. A baby nursery
2. A gay dinosaur laid an egg
3. A Peep
Or more accurately, I would look like a giant Peep when I put it on. The dress was baby blue and yellow. It was very, very pastel. It was, we all agreed, a lovely dress. For another girl.
I don't know how the miscommunication happened with the dressmaker but it did and I just DON'T get along with pastels.
Before I decided what to do, I considered making art out of the situation. I would, with a photographer (Jocardo), go to as many Easter services as possible and we'd document me and my dress at all the socials, eating sweets, chit-chatting and being Eastery. I would try to get an invite or two to a garden party, if they actually exist. We would photoshop Peeps into the shots and make an album called Me and my Peeps. These all seemed like great ideas and I was howling with laughter.
Then I hung up the phone, plowed my way through an entire bag of cookies, and watched the E! True Hollywood Story on Jennifer Aniston. I was officially bummed.
One thing Jocardo said to me on the phone when I was trying to wave off my reaction was, "Darlin' you're allowed to be disappointed. You can have an emotion about this."
But won't I seem like Bridezilla?
Matthew put an end to it, right about when I told him that I was going to do a funny art project with the Peep dress and would just find something else to wear to the wedding. He said that if I didn't write the dressmaker, he would, so we sent her an email asking if she could re-dye it.
She wrote back right away. No problem, she said. She could get rid of the yellow but the rest of the dress would be a darker blue. It can be black for all I care, I told her. Just get me out of these disgusting infantilizing shades of puke and puker.
Which also makes me wonder: Why is it so hard for me to tell people when I hate what they've done to my appearance? I've been given some of the most rotten haircuts over the years and even when I've walked out of the salon looking like one of the Three Stooges, I've thanked the stylist nicely and given them a big tip because I believe in tipping.
A few weeks ago I jokingly got fake nails in New York. Because I've never done gel tips before and didn't know what I was getting into (I have since ripped them off my fingers in a semi-drunken state to reveal cracked and bleeding stubs underneath, pretty! And so worth it!) I didn't know when the nail lady glued the three inch extensions to my finger that she would cut them to a less talon-like length.
I sat there with a heavy heart while she bantered in Mandarin to her colleagues and I accepted my fate as a disabled person who could no longer use her hands. I whispered to Laura, "I didn't think they'd be so long."
She laughed at me, "They cut 'em down, goofy!"
I felt such relief followed by shock that I was going to let someone fuck up my hands. Out of what? Politeness? The feeling that I had agreed to do something and couldn't back out now even though I totally actually could?
As for the dress, the reason I chose that dressmaker was because her dresses come in all colors and aren't so wedding-like that I can't wear it again and again. But not if I look like a piece of Easter candy, something I was willing to accept for many hours. What the hell?
laughing quietly to myself
About the email Kelly sent me two weeks ago, right before I saw her for the first time in several years:
"Can't wait to see you! Should I be expecting any surprises visually? i.e. third tri-mester baby bump, face and/or neck tattoos? Wooden leg? Large hump on your back causing you to bend over severely? Malformations of the hair (mullet perm)?
I just want to be prepared and do what I can to avoid saying "Hi!" followed by a clearly shocked/nervous swallow. I will love you though, no matter what. You know that right?
Good. I look the same, except MUCH hotter. ;)"
"Can't wait to see you! Should I be expecting any surprises visually? i.e. third tri-mester baby bump, face and/or neck tattoos? Wooden leg? Large hump on your back causing you to bend over severely? Malformations of the hair (mullet perm)?
I just want to be prepared and do what I can to avoid saying "Hi!" followed by a clearly shocked/nervous swallow. I will love you though, no matter what. You know that right?
Good. I look the same, except MUCH hotter. ;)"
3.18.2010
laughing quietly to myself
About how when I got into bed last night, Matthew, asleep, thought I was Patsy and kept pushing me away with his feet and saying, "Down! Down!"
3.15.2010
3.12.2010
How I came to own a crock pot
The summer of 2003
I remember clearly the summer of 2003. It was the summer I said to one of my New York roommates, Joleen, "If I ever act like I'm gonna get married, please remind me of the summer of 2003." She laughed and promised to do so.
She didn't come through, however, mainly because she fled to New Zealand on a ship, leaving $11,000 in debt, no forwarding address, and a roomful of crap for me, Roopa, and Lee to get rid of. Not that we weren't thrilled to sift through her old sweaters, dildos, and handcuffs, DON'T GET ME WRONG.
It was in the summer of 2003 that everyone in my life got married. And by everyone I mean five friends, which was a lot in three months. It was a lot of travel - to Alaska, Washington State, Michigan, Cincinnati, and England - but that was no problem, I like travel. It was some responsibility - as the minister in two of the weddings - and while that was slightly nervewracking, I pulled it off and was happy to give that gift to Sara and Gail.
No, it wasn't really the logistics, it was the emotions that got to me.
I was in a "relationship" at the time - a sort of maybe kind of relationship with someone who would never be into me enough to lose the quotes around our so-called relationship and who wasn't supportive of me the way I was supportive of him. I imagine that some part of me knew this and was envious of my friends. Not for their marriages so much as the love and trust that their marriages represented and that they'd found, that which eluded me.
Okay, the details of weddings bugged me too. I could not relate - painfully so, at times - to the things that crop up around weddings. Buying houses, remodeling houses, wanting stuff for houses you are buying and remodeling. Starting a wedding registry to tell people what stuff you want to put in your houses. I rented a teeny tiny room that I filled with my teeny tiny possessions. I shopped at thrift stores and sales and sometimes put things on credit. I didn't get it and I didn't think I wanted to.
I remember when Sara was in town before her wedding. We walked around the city, drank mimosas at a bar in Grand Central Station, and then she dragged me into Williams-Sonoma. She ogled kitchen goods while apologizing for it, brushing it off as just a weird wedding phenomenon as inescapable as gravity. I was a good sport, mainly because she was cracking me up by being such a little bitch to the store worker who asked us like three times if we needed help. Each time she'd answer, "I'm sorry, whaaat?" until he shrugged and left.
In the end I enjoyed each wedding even if I didn't get it and seriously doubted that I would go through such a thing myself.
My very own wedding registry
I was resistant. The stark consumption made me uncomfortable. Apparently it's rude to announce your wedding registry on your wedding invitation but it's equally rude NOT to have a registry. I'm okay with being rude unless there's a good, practical reason not to be.
Conflicted, I called Sara.
"Look," she said, "It's a guide for people. People who know you well may give you something more personal but you're having a lot of people come to your party and many of them will want some direction. You help them out and you get some things you need. If you don't do a registry you'll end up with fifteen salad spinners and no easy way to return them." (Note: I may have paraphrased some of that.)
Something about that sunk in. I am morally opposed to salad spinners and don't want one, much less fifteen. And now that I like cooking, I've learned a lot of new words, like dutch oven, and it would be awesome to have one. And I've been tenderizing meat with a Patron tequila lime squeezer that I thought was an ice cream scoop for the longest time. This damn registry might actually come in handy.
That doesn't mean I didn't get in a really bad mood while walking through Crate & Barrel zapping things with my registry zapper. Quite a few people told me how much fun they'd had zapping things they wanted. I want that. Zap! That's shiny. Zap! How many do you want? Four? Zap Zap Zap Zap! It made me sullen and short-tempered. The zapper started to feel like a neon arrow pointed right at me, the materialistic one. It was far easier for me to handle on the internet so we finished the registry online where, I have to say, I ended up picking out some stuff that would be rad to own. I am not gonna lie.
Things have started to show up at our house, gifts that are sent to us, waiting on the porch outside our door. It is bizarre and, because I am so unfamiliar with the process, practically magical. I didn't know people sent gifts ahead of time, months before you are married or in my case, in between your Vegas wedding and your Kentucky wedding. I thought you carted your gift to the wedding and made someone cart it back home. This whole SENDING concept really streamlines the process.
So where am I now? Somewhere in between where I was and, most likely, where I'm going to be. How is that for obvious yet vague? I'm looking forward to using my new crock pot.
I remember clearly the summer of 2003. It was the summer I said to one of my New York roommates, Joleen, "If I ever act like I'm gonna get married, please remind me of the summer of 2003." She laughed and promised to do so.
She didn't come through, however, mainly because she fled to New Zealand on a ship, leaving $11,000 in debt, no forwarding address, and a roomful of crap for me, Roopa, and Lee to get rid of. Not that we weren't thrilled to sift through her old sweaters, dildos, and handcuffs, DON'T GET ME WRONG.
It was in the summer of 2003 that everyone in my life got married. And by everyone I mean five friends, which was a lot in three months. It was a lot of travel - to Alaska, Washington State, Michigan, Cincinnati, and England - but that was no problem, I like travel. It was some responsibility - as the minister in two of the weddings - and while that was slightly nervewracking, I pulled it off and was happy to give that gift to Sara and Gail.
No, it wasn't really the logistics, it was the emotions that got to me.
I was in a "relationship" at the time - a sort of maybe kind of relationship with someone who would never be into me enough to lose the quotes around our so-called relationship and who wasn't supportive of me the way I was supportive of him. I imagine that some part of me knew this and was envious of my friends. Not for their marriages so much as the love and trust that their marriages represented and that they'd found, that which eluded me.
Okay, the details of weddings bugged me too. I could not relate - painfully so, at times - to the things that crop up around weddings. Buying houses, remodeling houses, wanting stuff for houses you are buying and remodeling. Starting a wedding registry to tell people what stuff you want to put in your houses. I rented a teeny tiny room that I filled with my teeny tiny possessions. I shopped at thrift stores and sales and sometimes put things on credit. I didn't get it and I didn't think I wanted to.
I remember when Sara was in town before her wedding. We walked around the city, drank mimosas at a bar in Grand Central Station, and then she dragged me into Williams-Sonoma. She ogled kitchen goods while apologizing for it, brushing it off as just a weird wedding phenomenon as inescapable as gravity. I was a good sport, mainly because she was cracking me up by being such a little bitch to the store worker who asked us like three times if we needed help. Each time she'd answer, "I'm sorry, whaaat?" until he shrugged and left.
In the end I enjoyed each wedding even if I didn't get it and seriously doubted that I would go through such a thing myself.
My very own wedding registry
I was resistant. The stark consumption made me uncomfortable. Apparently it's rude to announce your wedding registry on your wedding invitation but it's equally rude NOT to have a registry. I'm okay with being rude unless there's a good, practical reason not to be.
Conflicted, I called Sara.
"Look," she said, "It's a guide for people. People who know you well may give you something more personal but you're having a lot of people come to your party and many of them will want some direction. You help them out and you get some things you need. If you don't do a registry you'll end up with fifteen salad spinners and no easy way to return them." (Note: I may have paraphrased some of that.)
Something about that sunk in. I am morally opposed to salad spinners and don't want one, much less fifteen. And now that I like cooking, I've learned a lot of new words, like dutch oven, and it would be awesome to have one. And I've been tenderizing meat with a Patron tequila lime squeezer that I thought was an ice cream scoop for the longest time. This damn registry might actually come in handy.
That doesn't mean I didn't get in a really bad mood while walking through Crate & Barrel zapping things with my registry zapper. Quite a few people told me how much fun they'd had zapping things they wanted. I want that. Zap! That's shiny. Zap! How many do you want? Four? Zap Zap Zap Zap! It made me sullen and short-tempered. The zapper started to feel like a neon arrow pointed right at me, the materialistic one. It was far easier for me to handle on the internet so we finished the registry online where, I have to say, I ended up picking out some stuff that would be rad to own. I am not gonna lie.
Things have started to show up at our house, gifts that are sent to us, waiting on the porch outside our door. It is bizarre and, because I am so unfamiliar with the process, practically magical. I didn't know people sent gifts ahead of time, months before you are married or in my case, in between your Vegas wedding and your Kentucky wedding. I thought you carted your gift to the wedding and made someone cart it back home. This whole SENDING concept really streamlines the process.
So where am I now? Somewhere in between where I was and, most likely, where I'm going to be. How is that for obvious yet vague? I'm looking forward to using my new crock pot.
3.10.2010
my new favorite greeting
Renee got in my car and asked me:
"Yoda or The Incredible Hulk?"
"Yoda!" I replied.
Then she handed me a Yoda Pez dispenser but that's beside the point. I just think her question is a good way to say hello.
"Yoda or The Incredible Hulk?"
"Yoda!" I replied.
Then she handed me a Yoda Pez dispenser but that's beside the point. I just think her question is a good way to say hello.
3.09.2010
How to get on my bad side
Yep, strangers telling me to smile - especially men, oh wait, it's always men - infuriates me as much now as it did when I was a teenager. Today I was crossing a street and he was in a pickup truck waiting for the light. I wished I carried a knife like my husband. I wanted to slash his...tires.
3.08.2010
I take photos in bathrooms
Usually the photos just make me laugh. I am, sometimes, very easily amused.
I originally snapped this for the Archaeologists Rule! part but then I was like Aimee? What the hell is up with your handwriting? I am convinced that Aimee wrote that about her own ass, is living in an 80s teenage movie, and has big, permed, hard-as-a-rock hairsprayed hair. The bangs are especially huge.
I like the bag of dicks expression. It has not yet reached the threshold of overuse that makes me crazy.
This one sums it up. Someone thinks the bathroom stall is a great place to be clever - YOU SAT ON MY CLYMIDIA - but they misspell chlamydia and thus don't seem as clever as intended. That, however, makes for a fantastic opportunity for someone else to be mean - TOO BAD YOUR DR. DIDN'T TELL YOU HOW TO SPELL IT DUMB ASS.
On a gentler note, I was at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park yesterday and I used the bathroom. I was thinking when I walked in, "This is a great bathroom. So huge. And clean. With dressing room lights, nice." Then I looked up from the confines of my stall and saw these strange yellow trees, which I would call art.
I originally snapped this for the Archaeologists Rule! part but then I was like Aimee? What the hell is up with your handwriting? I am convinced that Aimee wrote that about her own ass, is living in an 80s teenage movie, and has big, permed, hard-as-a-rock hairsprayed hair. The bangs are especially huge.
I like the bag of dicks expression. It has not yet reached the threshold of overuse that makes me crazy.
This one sums it up. Someone thinks the bathroom stall is a great place to be clever - YOU SAT ON MY CLYMIDIA - but they misspell chlamydia and thus don't seem as clever as intended. That, however, makes for a fantastic opportunity for someone else to be mean - TOO BAD YOUR DR. DIDN'T TELL YOU HOW TO SPELL IT DUMB ASS.
On a gentler note, I was at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park yesterday and I used the bathroom. I was thinking when I walked in, "This is a great bathroom. So huge. And clean. With dressing room lights, nice." Then I looked up from the confines of my stall and saw these strange yellow trees, which I would call art.
3.05.2010
Dog etiquette
The face of a ho?
I was at the dog park with Patsy. There was only one other dog there - Rufus - and the two of them played hard, roughhousing, chasing, and rolling around in the dirt. Right at the end, just before we left, Rufus jumped on her back end and tried to hump her for all he was worth.
Patsy didn't go for it and snapped him off. She isn't into ass play unless it's herself licking herself for A REALLY LONG TIME, JESUS. No one else is allowed to go there, not the veterinary assistant with a thermometer, not Rufus, no one. But when Rufus chased our car and barked at Patsy through the window, she whined and barked for him inside and I commented that they seemed into each other. Does one attempted hump in dog language equal love?
Two days later Patsy's eye was pink on the inner rim and goop was seeping out. We took her to the vet and she was diagnosed with pink eye.
"That slut Rufus!" I said. "He totally gave her pink eye!"
I took her back to the vet a few days ago because we were out of antibiotics and while the eye is no longer gooey, it still seemed too pink on that one edge. Dr. Baker checked it out and told me that she didn't think it had been contagious in the first place, just an irritation, that pink eye is rare for dogs and that it would have spread to her other eye.
Apparently Patsy's third eyelid - Dogs have three, I did not know that - is just plain pinker than the other one. Fine. The other vet must have called it pink eye so we'd wash our hands 3,000 times more daily than usual, it's cool. Perhaps we inadvertently escaped succumbing to H1N1, I don't know.
ANYWAY, with the new non-contagious bill of health we were finally allowed to go to the dog park again and the last two days were sunny and warmer so all humans and dogs were happy. I was standing in the grass yesterday watching the dogs when I recognized Rufus' pizza delivery guy owner on the other side.
"Rufus has arrived," I texted Matthew.
And 30 seconds later, "And he's eating Patsy out."
She didn't put up a fight.
I was at the dog park with Patsy. There was only one other dog there - Rufus - and the two of them played hard, roughhousing, chasing, and rolling around in the dirt. Right at the end, just before we left, Rufus jumped on her back end and tried to hump her for all he was worth.
Patsy didn't go for it and snapped him off. She isn't into ass play unless it's herself licking herself for A REALLY LONG TIME, JESUS. No one else is allowed to go there, not the veterinary assistant with a thermometer, not Rufus, no one. But when Rufus chased our car and barked at Patsy through the window, she whined and barked for him inside and I commented that they seemed into each other. Does one attempted hump in dog language equal love?
Two days later Patsy's eye was pink on the inner rim and goop was seeping out. We took her to the vet and she was diagnosed with pink eye.
"That slut Rufus!" I said. "He totally gave her pink eye!"
I took her back to the vet a few days ago because we were out of antibiotics and while the eye is no longer gooey, it still seemed too pink on that one edge. Dr. Baker checked it out and told me that she didn't think it had been contagious in the first place, just an irritation, that pink eye is rare for dogs and that it would have spread to her other eye.
Apparently Patsy's third eyelid - Dogs have three, I did not know that - is just plain pinker than the other one. Fine. The other vet must have called it pink eye so we'd wash our hands 3,000 times more daily than usual, it's cool. Perhaps we inadvertently escaped succumbing to H1N1, I don't know.
ANYWAY, with the new non-contagious bill of health we were finally allowed to go to the dog park again and the last two days were sunny and warmer so all humans and dogs were happy. I was standing in the grass yesterday watching the dogs when I recognized Rufus' pizza delivery guy owner on the other side.
"Rufus has arrived," I texted Matthew.
And 30 seconds later, "And he's eating Patsy out."
She didn't put up a fight.
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