Monday, April 24, 2006

Doing my part

I am presently the fourth listing on Ask.com when "face breaking out with hives and pimples" is entered into the question box.

Between this and "Nude Katharine McPhee", I think it's safe to say that I have the OCD/perv teen search engine market cornered, and safe to assume that my weblog will lead to an eventual groundswell in the gay teen wedding fad.

Just in case

For the past week or so, I've had this strange kind of fluttery pulse thing going on in my left temple, kind of like the twitch I get in my bottom eyelid when I haven't had enough sleep.

And because a) M. and I went to a memorial service yesterday for an acquaintance who died young and unexpectedly, b) I am unhealthily obsessed with and perturbed by death, c) I cannot escape said obsession and perturbance because, well, I work with dying people, d) I am insane, e) it is gloomy outside, and f) M. and I are flying to San Diego tomorrow night so that I can attend a conference on -- you guessed it -- dying people, I feel it necessary and prudent to make a few requests in the event that the rapid change in air cabin pressure sends my pulse flying out the side of my head, and subsequently leads M. to have a quick and painless heart attack from severe anxiety at the thought of possibly having to go on without me.

1) There is a box of thank-you cards on our dresser and a list of Who Gave What at the shower -- actually, that list will probably be with me and in an untidy state, but contact our List Maker who, I am sure, commited everything to memory -- which should be matched appropriately and sent out as soon as possible, in keeping with my latest venture to be the fastest gay wedding gift Thank You card writer ever.

2) Everyone at our funeral -- or mine, anyways, as M. is less in favor or need of public praise and attention -- should take turns standing up and commenting in 60 seconds or less (with flexibility as needed) on How Groom Zilla Saved Their Life.

3) No lillies. They make me feel sick to my stomach and remind me of funerals, which would be appropriate in this case, but still...no lillies. M. knows this, but he may not be there to protect my air space from their pungent assault. Not even Easter lillies. Or callalillies. I'm not sure what those smell like, but we'll play it safe.

4) The wedding should go on without us. Two volunteers should wheel our urns (a miniature chicken pot may be more appropriate in my case, and a tiny KitchenAid mixing bowl for M.) across the lawn in little red wagons to say our vows -- if there is enough interest, a public wake and viewing is acceptable as long as Kiki is allowed in to fix my hair, but after that I think I'd like to be abbreviated into a small can of ashes in the interest of ecology and portability -- and then guests should take turns holding us on the dance floor. When "Take my Breath Away" by Berlin comes on, and after everyone has commented on the unfortunate double entendre, we should be placed on the Lazy Susan I just registered for on Crate & Barrel and spun gently in a circle. Spotlight is optional. Cannoli cake is not.

5) On our computer there is a file marked "NY Times Announcement." Whoever will be most effectively convincing should fill in any missing information and submit to the NY Times with the photo from our invitation and an appropriately sobby story. If they are only willing to stick us on the bottom right corner of the Obituaries section, that's nothing to shake a stick at and should be accepted promptly .

6) When everyone has returned from scattering us into the Adriatic from a canoe off the shores of Mykonos, an orderly line should be assembled outside our apartment door and everyone should take one token of remembrance -- registry items and clothing only, as our mothers may want their furniture and family heirlooms back. The KitchenAid mixer and the clay brie baker should be left for them as well. If someone cannot find a token to his or her liking, there should be a small pile of gift receipts somewhere on the kitchen counter.

7) In the event that we do make it back alive, various Welcome Home-appropriate gifts are available on any of our three Safe Return gift registries.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. Bon voyage.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Booty Call

Last night, two of M.'s Very Gracious Friends threw us a wedding shower....
which,





according to all sources,






was a big,





big





success,



and once again raised the question of how anyone in their right mind could reasonably deny this most inalienable of rights to two gay men.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Driving Miss Crazy; or, Joint Custody

I spent most of Friday night in the fogged-up backseat of a souped-up sportscar.

This could sound titillating if I were to, say, leave out the fact that it was not so much a sportscar as a two-door Chevy Cobalt coupe rental, and a bright neon yellow one at that, and maybe not souped-up so much as unfortunately burdened by an oversized and misguided spoiler.

Or the fact that the windows were fogged because it was, predictably, foggy and raining outside, because that's what it does outside every time we ever rent a car.

Or the fact that I wasn't sharing the backseat with a hot seventeen year old quarterback - - hold onto your bonnets, pedophiliaphobes, I'm a sixteen year old blonde cheerleader in this story - - but instead with one hundred-plus pounds of pressed particleboard shelving from IKEA, which M. and I bought on our way up to New Hampshire with the intention of folding the seats down and storing it in the car until we got back to Manhattan, except then the seats wouldn't fold down - - trust me, we tried, and hopefully no proud parents will be using the carseat attachment anytime soon, although they'd probably agree that it could just as easily be a folding-seat lever as a carseat anchor - - so we had to jam the six-foot long boxes into the main part of the car, which took some creative wrangling and gnashing of teeth and angry phone calls to Avis and venomous mutual glaring, but eventually we got them jammed, except then I had to sit in my petite backseat cocoon, which was okay with me because that way I could glare directly yet discretely into the back of M.'s skull.





The fact that I did not spend Friday night - - or Easter Sunday afternoon for that matter - - getting deflowered in the back of an I-Roc Z is not the important issue here.

The important issue here is that, with some cooperation and patience, M. and I managed to take an impossible situation and make it work.

And then we got home yesterday afternoon and managed to put together a forty-piece IKEA shelving unit with only the merest hint of discord, and one which was quickly squelched only two minutes into our project.

And if we can accomplish these two things in the space of forty-eight hours, I can't help but to assume that we are Simply Meant To Be.

Five hundred bucks worth of unreturnable booze purchased at the tax-free New Hampshire State Liquor Store - - combined with ten place settings, an abundance of glassware, a few heavy kitchen gadgets, the largest IKEA shelving unit ever to be assembled in a fourth-floor walkup and, after our impending wedding shower this weekend, what I can only assume will be a plethora of other assorted and expensive and mutually-owned items - - only reinforces the fact that they (or we) can (or had better) Never Tear Us Apart.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

This Just In

From: xxxxxxx@bellsouth.net
To: Groomzilla
Subject:
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 6:38:12 -0400

I accept your kind invitation. I will probably be arriving by boat if I
can make a reservation with the harbormaster and can find someone to
come with me Do you think your mother will want to stay on the boat?--Dad

Friday, April 14, 2006

On par with Nude Katharine McPhee

Which is stranger: the fact that two people in the past twenty-four hours have Googled "Nude Katharine McPhee" and ended up on this site, or the fact that one of them stayed and read this site for six minutes?

Big Ticket Item; or, Has meets Needs

I'm pretty sure it's considered inappropriate and uncouth to discuss one's wedding gift registry in a public forum, but since this is a (relatively) anonymous weblog in which inappropriate sharing is de rigeur, I'm pretty sure I can also set my own rules.

That being said, I have big news.

Big news which, admittedly, is really only big to me and to M. and to perhaps one or two other diehard wedding registry fans, but big news nonetheless:

Someone has purchased all ten of our Crate & Barrel Portsmouth creamware place settings.




No I won't shut up, I'm totally serious.

This news item should perhaps be preceded by an admission of sorts, which is that five times a day every day for the past thirty days, M. and I have been checking and rechecking our wedding gift registries, waiting for the "Has" columns to match the "Needs" columns on any/all of our wedding gift registry items. This is a practice/habit/addiction/shortcoming which, I have been told, is perfectly normal/acceptable/expected among the pre-wedding set.

By and large, for the most part, there has been little to no action on any of our three frontiers, but then last night, suddenly, *poof* the "Has" matched the "Needs".

And it's very exciting. And I feel okay admitting that. And there has been nary a peep on either the Bed Bath & Beyond or Williams Sonoma registries - - therefore leaving my poor little chicken pot to remain cold and lost and unpurchased* - - but this too shall pass.

Not that this wedding has anything to do with consumer consumption. It's 100% about love and commitment and mutually ecstatic longterm bliss.

Or maybe 90% that, and 10% creamware.

Plus the cast iron chicken pots and KitchenAid mixers.

So maybe 80-20.

50-50 at the very least.



*in all seriousness...if and when that chicken pot does get purchased, expect this weblog to cease, as I will be laying at the bottom of the Hudson with a chicken pot tied around my neck. Or perhaps just a very heavy rock, as M. will not have wasted the unwanted and godforsaken chicken pot on my demise, but will instead have exchanged it for something he desperately wanted. So everyone should save a life and leave the chicken pot alone. Unless they really love me and value my happiness over my heartbeat. Which I'm hoping they do.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Without further ado...









Tuesday, April 11, 2006

I had another dream

Last night I had a dream that I was sitting by a babbling brook, and suddenly there was a brown and white spotted cow standing across the way. And then the cow started walking towards me through the water, and we were talking, but I don't remember her lips moving, so I guess we were meta-communicating. And then we were in my kitchen on 9th Avenue, and the cow was kind of halfway through my wall, and then I opened the cabinets so the cow could see what it wanted to eat, and she picked the no-boil lasagna noodles. One of which she proceeded to eat, but then spat it all over my kitchen floor. Then I turned around and she was a girl instead of a cow - - an actual girl, not just a girl cow - - and we started looking through my cabinets again, and she said she wanted beef bouillion but I reminded her that she was a cow and it would be kind of creepy if she ate beef products. Then I asked her if she wanted me to Google what cows liked to eat, but she said no. Then I think I woke up to pee.

I also had a dream last night that my dead dog was a puppy, and once again I was meta-communicating with him and he was asking me to tell him some jokes while he licked my face repeatedly. There was also a badger wearing a child's sundress on the couch, being bounced by my sister. I spoke to her as well, but the crux of the conversation eludes me.

I'm at a loss.

It may have something to do with the fact that my often-overbearing and sometimes-creepy but well-meaning neighbor had, earlier in the evening, cornered me in the hallway and tried to convince me of the merits of Hot Nude Yoga - - emotionally stressful in and of itself, but compounded by the fact that I was holding my Crate & Barrell box which I desperately wanted to open (champagne glasses) (from oprahinwaiting).

Or maybe I just want babies.

Or to talk to animals.

Or just more presents.

Animal-themed presents.

Like...a chicken pot.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Give it to me now

When I got home tonight, after nine hours of unadulterated social working, preceded by three nights of going out and acting like I was 20 rather than 30, accompanied by various aforementioned dental-, podiatric- and intestinal-issues, the only thing I could imagine doing was laying on the couch to die, or perhaps to sit through my third attempt at Flight Plan.

But then we got a postcard in the mail. From UPS. Stating that there was an unclaimed Crate & Barrel package waiting for us.

So now I'm headed back outside, my eyes half shut, my muscles aching, to trek ten street-blocks south and two avenue-blocks west to pick up my package.

Because, having tasted of the fruit of the gift registry, I find myself now motivated by one thing and one thing alone: Greed.

Pure and simple and unmitigated greed.

And I want a goose that lays gold eggs for Easter.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Progeria

You know that dream everyone has, where you're standing in front of the bathroom mirror watching all your teeth fall out?

No?

Well I do. Except, once again, the dream has become a reality.

At lunch on Tuesday, I took a bite of salad and suddenly found myself enjoying a piece of clam shell. Which was strange, as the salad I was biting into was a Caesar salad and therefore theoretically devoid of shellfish, but which was quickly clarified when I spit out a small chunk of decidedly unshellfish-like tooth. Which, again, was disturbing, as I wondered which absent-minded salad maker had dropped a dirty little piece of his tooth into my salad, but which was soon also clarified when I looked in the bathroom mirror and found a medium-sized divot in my rear-most bottom right molar.

Then yesterday morning, I was brushing my teeth and *crack* another little piece of tooth comes sliding down the floor of my mouth.

Intersperse all of this with three trips to three dentists in three days - - including one where they told me (me!) I needed tooth whitening, one about an hour from now, and one at the Medicaid dental clinic here at the hospital, which was horrific, and the visual and olfactory memory of which will remain with me until the day I die - - and copious amounts of banging my head against the desk and sticking needles in my eyes in attempting to negotiate my nonsensical health insurance plan, multiply it a few times, and one might get a general idea of how I was feeling by the end of the day yesterday.

Luckily, a band named Heart had enough foresight to record "Crazy on You" in the year I was born, knowing that one day thirty years later I would have a hellish and agitating and tooth-crumbling day and would need to listen to this song and feel a little bit better.

Seriously, try it. By the time all the guitars come in, you'll wonder why you ever thought you needed teeth in the first place.

The upside of the story is that, between my crippled tooth and my prostatitis and my broken calf and my overwhelming addiction to fiber pills and my bad back, it is readily apparent that I will be the oldest gay groom to ever step foot in Wellfleet, a distinction which will surely land my photo below the fold on the front page of the Wellfleet Daily News as I am pulled down the aisle in a wagon, waving to the crowd and getting my frail arm tangled in my oxygen tubing, but waving all the same. Until I get a cramp, which will probably be about halfway down the aisle, at which point I'll need a nap and some Ensure pudding.

Monday, April 03, 2006

The End is Nigh

This weekend, in what must surely be the earthly fulfillment of the third sign of the Apocalypse, I - - me, Groomzilla, lover of all things bridal and matrimonial and nuptial - - almost became mentally overwhelmed by a sudden onslaught of wedding planning. Almost.

Aside from a brief break on Friday night to celebrate our Sixth Year In Love and a few drinks on Saturday night and a few hours of fitful sleep, M. and I have spent the past 48 hours Getting Ready for June.

We figured out room rates. We assigned rooms. We cut and trimmed and smoothed and glued invitations. We went to Crate&Barrel and Williams-Sonoma and Bed Bath & Beyond and fine-tuned our gift registries. We held our tongues, mostly, and settled - - M., for the old granny place settings, and I, for the KitchenAid mixer in Caviar. We made maps. We agreed on appropriate dress code verbiage. I bought a suit in just about the exact color and style I'd wanted. We stuffed, double-checked and sealed envelopes.

I couldn't even make it through a ninety minute yoga class without finding myself perpetually distracted and redistracted by the nagging questions of whether or not I had remembered to delete the Henckels knives from the BB&B registry after adding the Wusthof knives to the C&B registry, and whether there was some sort of glaring error on the invitations that we'd somehow overlooked which would cause everyone to show up in July or in 2009, and whether the stray thread that the suit lady pulled out of the inside of my suit jacket would leave me stranded one-sleeved at the altar.

And and and.

My yoga teacher kept telling us that the true meaning of life was in the journey, not in the arrival. Which sounds good on paper, but I'll be damned before M. and I allow all of this Journeying to result in anything other than a huge and rousing and spectacularly successful Arrival.

And then this morning at roughly 8:17am, standing under the fluorescent haze of the 52nd Street branch of the U.S. Postal Service, I peeled and stuck the final 87-cent stamp on the final envelope, carried all 68 of them (minus 5 internationals) to the Stamped Envelope slot, praised Allah and Yahweh and Buddah and Mother Moon and Anyone Else I could think of, and let 'em drop.

Other than the fact that the man presently gracing the 87-cent stamp (they make these, you know) is Albert Sabin - - noted virologist, discoverer of the polio vaccine, assumed nerd and loser in love - - it was, all in all, despite the emotional duress, a Very Successful Weekend.

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