S.O.S.

A Sad but Acceptable Substitute

Walking up the subway stairs at 49th and Broadway on my way home from work tonight, I was greeted by the dazzling, lush red warmth of the sun as it set over the ocean, sending tendrils of light dancing across the water's surface until it was so bright that I literally had to stop, close my eyes, and allow the crimson and golden and white heat to sweep across my chilled face before it disappeared below the distant horizon.

This experience brought to you by Lehman Brothers, 21st century technology, and my frail and impressionable brain after a twelve-hour day at the hospital.

MOTHERFLIPPINGFUCK.

After sitting in our living room for the past two hours trying to calmly discern Who is Going to Sleep Where in June, I proudly announced to M. that our wedding is exactly six months from today.

At which point M. calmly put down the mouse and demonstrated, using only the fingers of his right hand, that our wedding is, in fact, five months from today.

At which point I threw up, passed out, woke up, pooped my pants, and threw up again.

Chicken Pot Pickle

Tonight, sitting in my boudoir amidst the contents of M.'s closet, which he is in the process of thinning out -- not that finding a spot for the 12x15 framed portrait of my mother in her wedding dress should necessarily fall on his shoulders; to the contrary, if Mother as Blushing Bride at Tender Age of 21 is going to reside in anyone's closet, it should probably be my own, although that would require that I displace my barely-used, rock-n-roll-dreams-never-die White electric guitar and/or my large box of long-forgotten He-Man action figures -- my belly satisfied by a lovely Winter meal of sauteed pork chops, asparagus al dente, and winter squash en microwave, I find myself at an awkward impasse.

I created this blog with the intention of writing about planning our wedding. That, or locating other 20- and 30-something blushing gay grooms-to-be with whom I might find a sense of collective Team Sympathy, or being discovered by a wayward literary editor and scoring a six-figure book deal, or at the very least landing a spot on some failed-before-it-even-began gay wedding reality show. Mainly, though, the wedding planning thing.

Yet, whenever I find myself In The Thick Of It -- scoring some minor triumph in the bloody, ongoing march to the Altar of Eternal Bliss and/or Nuptial Parity -- and skip gaily to the keyboard to share my mirth, I am not halfway through my first sentence when I find myself betrayed by my own gag reflex (no minor feat), horrified that I am about to publicly announce my glee over the fact that we have decided on a color scheme for the invitations, or have had a successful preliminary meeting with our sister-of-a-close-friend photographer, or have found a potential DJ with a penchant for New Order as well as a reasonable pricetag.

Seriously, who wants to hang out with that guy?

Who wants to listen to him natter on about navy- versus powder-blue, gardeniae versus gladioli, cucumber cups versus salmon cakes?

Who really cares how many boxes he's checked off on his Perpetual Mental Checklist?

Other gay grooms, that's who. Which, as best I can tell, do not exist, or at least have not yet found their way to this safe haven.

So instead we discuss things like subway rides and body hair and, perhaps, the occasional coveted Staub chicken pot. Which, by the way, M. refused to let me visit at Williams Sonoma yesterday afternoon, even though I begged and pleaded, because I had already visited her last weekend and, evidently, one supervised chicken pot visit per month is all a girl's entitled to these days.

In the off chance that there is one other sad and lonely groom lurking out there in the ether, however, I shall present a choice tidbit of wordly wisdom, if for no other reason than to get my mind off my poor caramel-skinned baby, shivering pathetically atop her display case, dreaming of the day when she will find a warm home on Ninth Avenue.

Here it is.

Rule #7 in Planning a (Gay) Wedding: Connections, connections, connections.

We met with our aforementioned photographer this afternoon, who has graciously offered her services at bargain-basement prices as well as set our anxious minds at ease with her cool and calm and collected demeanor. Not only that, but she also directed us to the best and cheapest paper procurer in town and, as if this weren't enough, may also be putting us in touch with a cash-strapped graphic design undergrad to help us with layout and printing. There is a book called The Tipping Point by someone whose name presently eludes me, in which the author talks about "connectors" (I'm paraphrasing), which are People Who Know Other People and connect them with one another to make good things happen. Applied to the present situation:

Planning a Wedding + Knowing the Right People = Avoiding Financial Ruin.


And for those who are not planning a commitment ceremony anytime soon, I'm pleased to announce that, after weeks of fruitless searching, I have finally found my Dream Jacket, which is puffy, down-filled, reversible -- shiny-green-on-the-outside/black-on-the-inside (or, I suppose vice-versa) -- and topped with a faux fur-lined hood. There is vague concern that I look like a 6'3", pale, male L'il Kim, but I'm pretty sure I can work it.

At the very least, my newfound power of reversibility will allow me to make an additional incognito monthly conjugal visit to Williams Sonoma.

8 Placesettings of Prozac, hold the Silicone

In true male fashion, with a mere five days passed since M. and I completed our online and in-store registering, I have already started to compare.

As in, looking up every person I can think of who has gotten or is getting married within a three-year radius, and seeing what they chose from Crate & Barrel.

This can get ugly, leaving me to heartlessly question other brides' tastes in glassware and gadgets.

Mainly, though, it has exposed me as the insecure and vulnerable and impressionable wreck that I am. For instance, why is everyone ordering the Madison Wine Tower but me? Why didn't I think of ordering the Set of 12 Packaged White Square Plates? How come my place settings cost thirty dollars less than hers?

Will my meals be thirty dollars less enjoyable? What will my 12 guests eat their hors d'ouevres off of? Will my lone wine bottle be left to continue to inhabit its sad and pathetic residence next to the microwave oven?

More to the point, why do I no longer have online access to the Red Orka Silicone Oven Mitt or the Rectangular Wine & Dines? How foolhardy was I to completely ignore my obvious need for both a Brown Swing Organizer and a Batter Bowl With Handle until it was too late? What kind of bride will I be when I can't even get my shit together enough to see the perfectly visible holes in my own household? How can I possibly expect to raise children, let alone plan a wedding or keep my husband happy, when they will quite inevitably be sloughing through the streets wearing ill-advised loafpans on their feet and impulsively-chosen Melamine mixing bowls on their heads?

I am a failure, an underdeveloped and illiterate and colorblind brideling, watching the other girls as they glide proudly through the locker room, nude atop their Madison Wine Towers, while I cower meekly in the corner getting changed behind my Upright Bag Holder.

In other news -- and really, doesn't all my anxiety probably stem from this more than from a silly old (desperately coveted) Batter Bowl with Handle? -- I placed an ad on Craigslist for a DJ and now have the onerous weekend task of sorting through email replies from at least 90 percent of the available and existing DJs in the greater New England area, right after I translate* and/or vomit on** them.

Not to mention trying to figure out what type of Godforsaken, second-rate, finger-burning, cotton-based oven mitt I'm going to have to settle for until this unfortunate and ill-timed Red Orka Silicone embargo is lifted.


*Slide A: "I am a DJ for 10 years I have club and wedding background I am interested in speaking with you I can set a appointment too speak with you."

**Slide B: "My husband is a fabulous DJ..."

On the Subjectivity of Necessity

The best and the worst part about gift registries can be summed up by one object, an object which coincidentally happens to be the most recently coveted object of my innermost desires.

One romantic evening to go, hold the prostate

One of the great things about living in New York City is that you can take your boyfriend out for a deliciously economical, economically delicious birthday dinner right on your very own block, and then a mere ten blocks later you can be ice skating under the stars, and it's so much easier than you remember it, certainly much easier than your questionable attempt at roller-skating several months earlier, and right at the perfect moment Stevie Wonder comes on the sound system with "My Cherie Amour," and as if things couldn't get more perfect, your boyfriend looks over at you and calls you his Cutie Patootie, and you look longingly into his eyes (or would, anyways, if it wouldn't make you lose your concentration and fall on your back) and you tell him how sweet that was, except then he tells you that in fact what he had said was that he keeps tooting....and normally at this point you might curl your lip and skate away in mock disdane, except that on this particular evening, New York City is the perfect place to live and you are full of prosciutto and pumpkin ravioli and mussels and red wine and profiteroles and the air is cool but not too cold and you remembered how to ice skate and you're glad your boyfriend got born, so instead you just slip your arm into the crook of his elbow and keep on skating.



In other news -- and I only turn to overly-personal life details to counterbalance my complete and utter lack of recent postings -- my doctor thinks I have a prostate infection (hence the New Years Eve antibiotic tequila cocktail nightmare), which seems to have now disappeared, except I researched prostatitis this evening, and the suggested homeopathic remedies include:

1.Drink plenty of water.
2.Limit or avoid alcohol, caffeine and spicy foods.
3.Urinate at regular intervals.
4.Have regular sexual activity.
5.If you're a cyclist, use a "split" bicycle seat, which reduces the pressure on your prostate.

My avoidance of contact sports such as cycling renders number five a moot issue, and number four should be easily remedied with some persuasive health-oriented pleading, but as someone who forgets to drink his water, likes his booze and coffee, and whose profession has required that he become necessarily adept at holding it, I seem to be on a clear path towards chronic, vomit-ridden prostatitis. At least it sounds cool.

January 1st what?

Nothing says New Years like spending the evening with one's nearest and dearest, enjoying good company...good food...good drink...and then making a panicked exit out of the bar at 2am because of the impending feeling that one is going to vomit...

Which does indeed come to pass, after a brief and prematurely terminated cab ride, on 18th Street, outside of a bar called, appropriately, Splash.

And then happens again, after a second unsuccessful cab ride, at the corner of 37th and 8th Avenue (that's right, the one right smack dab in the heart of empty, desolate Times Square).

And then again, for the next two hours, into the comfortable safety of one's own toilet.

And then, after a fitful, shivering night on the couch, again at 1:30pm.

Oh, and again at 3pm*.

Lucky is the future bride, however, who can accomplish all of the above under the kind and sympathetic and McDonalds-fetching eye of her betrothed.

The good news is that today -- the first true day of 2006 for this lucky bride-to-be -- has been marked by the most auspicious of omens, my new favorite show, Rollergirls, which the entire free-thinking world should DVR right this very minute.




That, plus the fact that M. and I chose the day before my downward spiral to make a final, thrilling registry run-through at Crate & Barrel.


*there is a reasonable excuse for the above involving an unfortunate mixture of 10 glasses of (free) cheap champagne, a little tequila, some Sesame Chicken and supposedly routine antibiotics.