Groomzilla

Breaking the Fast with a thank you and two questions

2006-12-27T09:14:00.000-05:00

Dear Man Across the Subway Tracks,

Thank you for checking to see if the man laying next to the pillar on the Uptown C platform was dead this morning. While I was happy you found him alive and kicking, I was sorry to see him doing so in a literal manner and I hope he didn't scare you. I will have to get my Dead Homeless Man radar checked out, as his complete lack of motion and ashen pallor -- in addition to the curiously large puddle of urine circling back to his head, thanks to the unfortunate laws of gravity which apparently dominate the uneven floor work of the MTA platform system -- led me to the mistaken conclusion that he must be deceased. As you quickly found out, this was not the case! I, for one, was surprised at the energy with which he was able to scold you for rousing him from his concrete slumber, and I hope his response doesn't prevent you from future inquiries, unlike the seventeen other people who hopscotched over his puddled head as they exited the subway car.

Signed,

Passive Yet Concerned Bystander

***********

In other news, I am also breaking my 40 day hiatus to pose a question:

Is it a sign of codependence, or merely mental instability, that while M. has been gone on his four day trip Back Home, I've found myself going to extraordinary lengths for Personal Safety -- including drying my hands for twenty extra seconds before wincingly unplugging the Christmas tree, rather than my usual haphazard yank; placing both feet in the tub before closing the window in the shower, rather than my typical three-toed balancing reach; and avoiding altogether the need to replace the burnt out overhead light bulb in the entryway, rather than avoiding it only for a day or three -- all in the name of avoiding the electrocution, subdural hematoma, or broken neck that would result in me laying dead on the floor for three days before M. came home to find my unfortunate remains?

Also:

If, hypothetically, it's Christmas night and you're a gay white man who goes to see a movie made by other gay white men based on a musical made by gay white men celebrating young black women, and then after the movie you get gaybashed by two young black women after you ask them to sit down so you can watch the movie credits, does that count as ironic, sad, or just decidedly unChristmasy?

But I Can't

2006-11-17T18:39:00.000-05:00

Hypothetically, a complimentary physical fitness assessment thrown in in addition to one's complimentary workout training session should be both motivating and inspiring.

Then again, hypothetically, one should also be able to pull off more than ten little weakling push-ups.

Also, upon closer inspection, my gym appears to carry the sorry burden of catering to neither the young urban muscled horndog set nor the fifty- and sixty year old retiree set, but instead to a peculiar hybrid of the two, resulting in much leering and staring towards innocent and awkward young specimens like myself by an unsavory group of muscularly flaccid horndog retirees. One of whom looks like David Koresh, and whom I caught peeking at me in my shower from behind his own shower wall. But if creepy is the price of beauty, count me in. For now.

Working out; or, It Might Not Be

2006-11-15T13:30:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that I went to the gym not only on Saturday, but also on Sunday. And actually enjoyed myself. I started getting more comfortable with the layout. I started remembering to take a shower towel off the front desk when I first came in, and not after I'd already put everything in my locker. I figured out that eliptical machines are actually made for dancing, and I figured out which eliptical machines are stationed in front of ESPN and which ones are in front of VH1. I showered publicly in the rather public showers, and was both relieved and disappointed to find that My Gym is evidently frequented less by the young urban muscled horndogs that seem to populate everyone else's gym, and more by the fifty- and sixty year old retiree set. And at the end of my second session, right before engaging in my second 100 Daily Sit-Ups routine, I tore my chest open on the machine that grows your pectoral muscles, sending my weak little arms shooting into the middle of the Tae-Bo class on the other side of the gym.

If I had any hope of ever straightening my arms again, I'd totally go back for a third session.

Appreciation, Part III

2006-11-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

Dear Hateful, Spiteful, Miserable Woman Behind Me at Rite-Aid Ten Minutes Ago:

Well, I’ve been beat out at my own game once again. Imagine my glee as I stepped off the subway this evening after forty-five minutes of completely unscathed public transit use. My high but misguided spirits carried me right into the drugstore to purchase a padlock for the gym locker I thought I might use tomorrow morning during my maiden voyage to the Bally’s Sports Club I joined earlier this week in a clear fit of mental instability. Again, a relatively painless excursion into what is, typically, perhaps one of the most excruciatingly crowded and poorly managed Rite-Aids in the greater metropolitan area.

Then came you. Muffled at first, as I still had my earphones tucked into my ears despite the fact that Cassie was through singing “Me & U”, yet urgently loud enough to secure my attention.

“Separate lines,” you hissed, in your indiscernible Eastern European accent, your pasty features book-ended by a set of white earphones identical to my own..

“Hmm?” I smiled dreamily, assuming I’d misheard your innocent query as to where I’d purchased my new, price tagless fall jacket.

“Separate lines,” you gurgled, in a whining plea. “I live here, I know how it works. Separate lines.”

You’ll recall my peaceful but firm tone as I suggested to you that there was really nowhere for the 2nd line to form, as the cashier was planted squarely in front of the Entenmann’s discount baked goods display.

When you squawked that fine, you’d stand there if nobody else wanted to, you’ll recall that I then grasped the shiny red down vest of the innocent young woman in front of me and loudly, perhaps owing in part to my earphones, suggested to her, “You’re in that line, right? Right??”

You may then recall, though surely your vision was stymied by the smoke flowing from your nostrils, that the young woman politely conferred with the customers in front of her and then meekly stepped over to the 2nd cashier, while the customers in the 3rd, less confusing line simply stared at both you and I like we were part of some sort of shrieky, inpatient, earphone wearing, sundry purchasing clique.

I turned back to the front of the line and tried ignoring you, resolved that I would not let Another Long Week be capped off by you and your adorably inappropriate antics, but then you took the game up a notch by trumpeting over my shoulder to the cashier, “SEPARATE LINES, RIGHT? SEPARATE LINES?”

Clearly caught off guard, the cashier confirmed your assertion. Having removed my earphones, I distinctly heard the scraping of your claws on the linoleum behind me as you prepared to circumvent your fellow paying customers by line-hopping.

And that’s where you had me. That’s where I lost. That is where I lost all sense of decency, hurled myself in front of the cashier – past the older woman who’d been waiting patiently with her six-pack and enormous bottle of Tide, past the young man whose poor choice of lines had landed him behind the woman who was now on her thirteenth credit card swipe at the 1st cashier, past all of the unfortunate and lost and innocent souls who have ever waited patiently in lines across the world across centuries across mere boundaries of time and space – and slammed my padlock down on the counter.

“Separate lines,” you whinnied once again, perhaps failing to notice my embarrassing act of impulsive public disregard. My brain started to boil. “I live here,” you continued like some sort of otherworldly parrot of Satan, “I know.”

That’s when my head exploded twenty yards into the cosmetics aisle and my hands plunged into your chest and ripped out your filthy, inpatient Slavic heart as I screamed through my disembodied set of lips which were now sailing overhead towards Soaps & Shampoos, “YEAH, I LIVE HERE, TOO. WE ALL LIVE HERE.”

Time froze. People stared. A woman in line 3 stared at me with a look of either abject fear, concerned pity or, perhaps, proud solidarity, as if to say, “I, too, live here.”

I paid for my lock and left, unable to even give the nice cashier a discernible response when he asked me How I Was. “Grawd,” I slurred back at him, swiping my lock into my bag and reeling dizzily out the door.

You’ll be happy to know that it’s now been thirty minutes and my skin still feels like it’s going to fly off my white hot skeleton and go find an innocent basket of kittens to smother. You probably couldn’t tell by the twitch in my eye that I had only recently recovered from the second Migraine in as many days. No thanks to you, I have a suspicious feeling I’ll shortly be moving into number three!

On behalf of everyone else who waited patiently, albeit foolishly, in line, half of whom at this very minute are regaling their families with stories about the crazy Eastern European couple fighting in line at the drugstore, and the other half of whom simply hate me, thanks. Thanks for making sure that, once again, I didn’t make it through a full week in New York City without wishing that I could peel my eyeballs off and go live in the sewer rather than contend with the crazy people. I have a feeling I know who put you up to this, so you’ll be kind enough to extend my thanks to them as well. Maybe the four of us can all get together and be absolutely, indefinably, inexcusably, 100% unconcerned with humanity.

I’m actually super happy that you live here, because now after I go to the gym and get big and strong, it will be that much easier to pick you up by your earphoned ears and toss you in front of one of the Grey Line buses bombing down 8th Avenue! Ha ha! It will be fun!

See you never,

And seriously hope you choke on, or are mortally allergic to, or terribly disfigured by, whatever it is you bought tonight,

G.

Appreciation, Part II

2006-11-03T00:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Upper East Side Girl with the Hacking Cough and Obese Nurse's Aide who Couldn't Stop Sucking Her Teeth:

I'd like to thank you both for participating in the Who Can Ruin a Subway Ride the Best contest, and to announce that, after careful consideration, I've had to declare a two-way win.

Hacking Cough, I have to hand it to you -- and could do so quite literally, since your hands are perfectly clean, seeing as you refused to use them to cover your privileged horse-like maw when you hacked and coughed every three minutes like clockwork all the way from Mosholu Parkway to 86th Street -- the cards were not stacked in your favor, seeing as I was half asleep upon coming off of an eleven hour workday at the end of a Very Long Week. Persistence paid off, though, and by the fifth unnervingly loud cough you had my full attention. I hope you didn't take my sudden sidewards glares as indicative of some sort of congenital tic on my part, or of some sort of surreptitious enamored gawking. What I was trying to convey, silently, was Please stop that, you're rupturing my gall bladder. I especially liked how, given the late hour and the location of the subway station, you clearly work in a medical setting and, given your alarmingly tasteless but clearly overpriced gold purse, you clearly have some money to burn, yet you still managed to convey absolutely zero sense of public decorum and/or health awareness by coughing directly and forcefully into the middle of the subway car. I certainly ate crow when I assumed that the poor man entering the subway car and sitting directly next to you might prod you to cough more gently and perhaps into the safety of your coatsleeve - - I'm sure he'll be regretting his seat choice when he wakes up tomorrow morning with a case of tuberculosis, ebola and whatever else it was that was so clearly causing your uncontrollable cough. Or was it just a cold? And are you just an inconsiderate ass wad?

And Tooth Sucker.....dear, large, sleepy Tooth Sucker. I have to apologize to you as well, as I fear my stares in your direction were only half as guarded as the ones I shot towards the Cougher. It's just that you were sitting directly across from me and, well, I was honestly alarmed that anyone could possibly have both the stamina and the incredible public disregard to suck their teeth for a solid twenty minutes. You probably noticed that my first five minutes of staring were focused mainly around your mouth, as I tried to discern what you could possibly be eating that would cause such an oral fuss! Was it bubble gum? Peanut butter? Taffy? I mean, seriously, my last guess would have been your teeth! Guess I lost that one! The next fifteen minutes -- the ones that weren't already reserved for the Hacker, that is -- were really just me trying to gently communicate to you via telepathy several variations of the same basic message: Please stop sucking your godforsaken motherfucking hell-rotting teeth before I throw both of us through the emergency window directly behind your enormous and sleepy tooth-sucking head.

Anyways, it was a toss-up, so you both win. I'm still trying to decide on an appropriate prize but, for what it's worth, the lingering headache and foul temper you sent me off with look like they're going to last me well into tomorrow morning. TGIF!

Hope your teeth and vocal cords fall out,

G.

The look of love

2006-10-29T23:10:00.000-05:00

Appreciation

2006-10-26T23:21:00.000-04:00

Dear Everyone Who's Walked Behind Me At Any Point During the Past Five Days and Neglected to Point Out The Price Tag Hanging Off the Middle of the Back of My New Fall Jacket,

Thanks.

Luv,

Groomzilla

And yes, I did pay $49.99. And no, I'm not telling you where.

Awkward and Unprepared

2006-10-24T19:55:00.000-04:00

Awkward: Having a sex dream about a coworker.

Awkwarder: Have a sex dream about a coworker in which the two of you are laying in bed when you suddenly realize that your sleeping husband is also there, and in which you first debate and then succumb to the temptation to do it anyways.

Awkwardest: Running into said coworker first thing in the morning whilst still halfway between asleep and awake, resulting in a confusing mix of lust and embarassment and why-is-he-pretending-like-nothing-happened.

In more disappointing news: I am, as usual, running behind on Halloween, a phenomenon which continues to perplex me as Halloween is my favorite holiday. M. and I tried to find Girl Scout/Boy Scout (you guess) costumes on Sunday but the Salvation Army was closed. Thus Friday evening and/or Saturday morning will be consumed by my annual rush to find appropriate wigs and tights and blushes and, in this case, sashes and berets. If the Girl Scout doesn't pan out, I may go as a Girl Pirate. Or maybe just a psychopath. A girl psychopath.

Edit this; or, Every girl has her secrets

2006-10-20T11:28:00.001-04:00

In order to avoid the risk of alienating the small thimbleful of visitors who continue to stumble upon this weblog -- half of whom, granted, slither in hoping for a belated look at Katherine McPhee Nude or, better yet, for advice on How to Call Off a Wedding -- I have decided, upon careful consideration, that instead of choosing between sharing either a story detailing my alarm upon viewing the physical after-effects of the upper GI series barium x-ray tests I took this morning or a story about my distress upon sitting here on this very couch at this very moment and feeling certain that I smell Dead Mouse, yet equally uncertain that I truly want to investigate, I will instead share my joyful anticipation upon learning that there is a new Crate & Barrel package waiting for us at the UPS center. Much safer territory, and much more in keeping with the original intent and spirit of the site.

On a somewhat related note: according to M., as of 4am today, I have officially started sitting up in bed and sleep-talking. This morning's harmless message had something to do with asking M. if he'd remembered to "set all [his] alarms." In the interest of safeguarding my innermost thoughts and feelings, however, I am considering resuming the use of my retainer in order to keep my secrets suitably garbled.

And....take 2.

2006-10-18T15:37:00.000-04:00

The good news about eating donuts and burritos right after your colonoscopy is that, apparently, they don't stay with you for very long.

The bad news is that I may have to angle my side of the bed into the bathroom.

--This message brought to you by Go-Lytely, the gift that keeps on giving. And giving.--

And....cut.

2006-10-18T11:55:00.000-04:00

Well that's over with.

I've survived with barely a scrape. Mainly thanks to my new best friend Diprivan, which was administered through my very first intravenous access somewhere between the time that I finally had to take my underwear off (they let you keep it on along with your assless johnny and your shoes-n-socks until the last minute) and the Moment of Insertion.

Seriously, I don't remember a thing. One minute the anesthesiologist was telling me I might feel a little sleepy, then I felt my brain pleasantly melting into the back of my head -- this, after I asked the nurse what the rapid beeping noise was and she told me it was my heartbeat and asked if I might be a little bit anxious -- and the next minute I was getting woken up by the nurse in the recovery room and asking her what train I was on.

It occurs to me that Diprivan should be sold over the counter and should come in 40-minute-subway-ride and 8-hour-airplane-flight dosages.

I was a little bit wary when the PA told me that "anything left in there before the procedure, we'll just suction it right out," but needless to say What We Aren't Awake For Can't Humiliate Us.

And I'm ashamed to say that even though I planned on celebrating my empty GI tract by filling it with only Good and Nutritious Things from here on out, the only thing I really wanted when M. escorted me out of the hospital was a toasted coconut donut. So that's what I got.

Oh, and the results were all fine. No colon cancer. No polyps. No what-have-you. Just a crazy owner.

Here we go

2006-10-18T06:19:00.000-04:00

Which is worse:

Getting on a subway when you're not sure if your Go-Lytely has, ahem, run its course (in fact you're pretty sure it hasn't)?

Or getting a forty (okay thirty) foot camera stuck up your bum?

Make it stop?

2006-10-17T22:03:00.000-04:00

Please?

Please Baby Lord Jesus?

I don't ever want to see my bathroom ever again.

In other news, M. just came bouncing back from the refigerator announcing how much he loves cheese slices as a snack. I can't wait to eat a cheese slice. Or my own hand.

Please send help

2006-10-17T20:15:00.000-04:00

NOT. FUN.

Good Lord

2006-10-17T19:42:00.000-04:00

Ruh-roh, Reorge.

Food Glorious Food

2006-10-17T19:32:00.000-04:00

The best thing about being a starving person presented with a bowl of freshly boiled chicken broth is, in my mind, the swiftness with which one feels free to depart from societal norms, toss the spoon aside and drink directly from the bowl. Less time washing cutlery means more time on the toilet, I say.

I am my own punchline; or, 30 is the new 80

2006-10-17T19:04:00.000-04:00

On tonight's menu we have me, sitting on the new loveseat, anxiously preparing for a colonoscopy which will take place in roughyl twelve hours. I have not eaten since breakfast - - strike that, yogurt at ten thirty - - in accordance with my colonoscopic instructions. I am dizzy, light-headed, sorrowful, angry and for some reason feeling just a lot bit paranoid. As in, everyone on the street is looking at me. I am considering the alternate explanation that they may have been staring less at me and more at the wild-eyed and panicked look on my hunger-starved face. It has occured to me more than once today, Gosh I finally know what it feels like to be a starving refugee. I've downed two of the roughly twelve, chilled glasses of Go-Lytely which await me tonight, to be consumed every ten minutes until the gallon-jug is empty, which will act as a gastrointestinal death brigade and clear the way for the forty-foot camera which awaits my bum. I've eaten exactly two-thirds of one Edy's Tangerine Flavored Fruit Ice, one-third per glass of Go-Lytely to cut down on the taste -- oh yeah, definitely tastes better chilled, thanks Pharmacist -- carefully rationed because I am fearful that the Strawberry and Raspberry Flavored ones have too much Red Dye #40, which is a no-no. If that camera sees red, I want no mistakes about it. I am also concerned that the Edy's box touts the fact that their product contains "real fruit", which could mean "real fruit bits", which are also a no-no, but I feel safe to assume that any stray bits of frozen, processed tangerine will not be mistaken by the colo-cam as anything alarming.

So now I sit here in T-shirt, boxer briefs and black socks, looking every bit the part of the octagenarian I seem to have become (last week was the Neurologist, and did I mention another one of my molars seems to be developing a dark spot?), patiently waiting for my hot pan of chicken broth dinner to cool. My stomach is already making funny noises, a full forty minutes ahead of schedule if I am to believe the Go-Lytely label. I am scared of what the evening will bring. I've suggested to

**break: glass #3**

M. that I will sleep on the new pullout sofa this evening, so as to be closer to the loo and so as not to wake him up every fifteen minutes, but the New Couch Owner in me fears that this is too risky a venture -- what if you have a dream that your Go-Lytely kicks in, and then it does, but you're still dreaming, or at least thinking you are? -- and implores me to just sleep on the dirty rug.

I will now pour my lukewarm chicken broth into a plain white bowl - - but first, Glass #4, which leaves me with no more than twenty minutes of freedom - - and sit here and eat it and whistfully yearn for the days when I was young and carefree.

Moonzilla

2006-10-14T18:59:00.000-04:00

Dear Mouse #3,

Well, it’s been a full week now since we came home from our honeymoon in Italy, only to find cute and adorable You waiting for us in the kitchen! I must say, the look on your sleepy little mouse face peeking out from the mouse trap was priceless. Someone doesn’t have a very good poker face! I don’t think I’ll ever figure out just how you managed to squeeze yourself length-wise through the entire trap! Needless to say, you’ll be receiving a bill from me in the mail for a replacement, since you weren’t exactly in a position to be easily disposed of! LOL!!! :P

Anyways, Italy was great! Now that I’m over my jetlag, I’ve been trying to figure out how to best capture our experience there. In the interest of time and space, I thought a top ten list might suffice. Here goes!

Top Ten Tips on Honeymooning in Italy

1) Keep your accommodation expectations low. One hotel may have comfortable beds and a modernized bathroom, but an underhanded management staff and tins of liverwurst on the breakfast table. Another may have a gracious staff and a community International Tabloid table, but a perpetually damp bathroom that smells of eggs. Then again, you may strike it rich with a place like La Poesia, in Monterosso al Mare, where the beds are clean, the showers are hot, and Nicoletta gives you prosciutto and cannolis for breakfast. Or, you may get bumped out of your hotel on your last night in Rome, but upgraded to a better place with an enormous bathroom and a suspicious but memorable mirror over the bed.

2) Eat and drink a lot. As in, constantly. After the third or fourth day, a casual glance at the locals’ tables will cause you to reconsider the need to order three courses each, and you will discover creative ways to have your prosciutto and gnocchi and lamb and veal and risotto and bread and pizza and focaccia, and eat it, too. Without spending needless Euros. You will also discover the joys of table wine by the carafe. Here you should feel free to ignore the fact that most of the locals order a half-bottle of wine and stretch it out between two people over two hours. It is a sin to leave an enormous 7-Euro carafe of wine unpurchased and/or unfinished. That goes for lunchtime, too.

3) Gelato. Don’t be the six hundredth annoying person to come back from Italy gloating to anyone who will listen about having found the best Gelato in Italy. Do eat it. Every day. At least once, maybe twice. You can even call it ice cream if you want, because that’s pretty much what it is. Common decency should restrain you from taking the Midwestern Tourist route of shuffling down the middle of the street trying to keep up with your tour group whilst negotiating your foot-long cone piled with 3 quarts of multi-flavored gelato, but two or three or four scoops are perfectly acceptable.

4) Speaking of which, swear right now on your mother’s mother’s grave that you will never, under no circumstances, without exception, travel to Italy with a tour group. They are evil and should be eradicated. They push you against the wall when you’ve only had three seconds to consider Boticelli’s Birth of Venus, and they ruin your trip to the gelato store. They cut lines at every museum, and their leaders confuse and irritate you with the multicolored umbrellas and scarves-on-antennae which serve as evil tour group rallying sticks. If you are low on cash and high on cunning, however, you will learn to look vacantly at a wall or a tree while the tour guide next to you unknowingly provides you with his or her expertise on the statue or painting or ruin at hand, free of charge.

5) Museums in Rome and Florence don’t appreciate amateur photography. While the man in the Sistine Chapel may sound as though he is groaning unintelligibly in an obscure Eastern European dialect, he is actually repeating, over and over, the simple transinternational phrase, No Photo. You will find yourself first sheepishly considering that your camera flash might have contributed to the premature peeling and fading of countless frescoes. Soon thereafter you will find yourself wondering why flashless photos are also prohibited or, more confusingly, what damage a flashless photo could possibly do to a marble statue. As you pass through the museum store on the way to the exit, you will appreciate the Italian Museum Bureau’s plan to steal your Euros with postcards and prints and coffee table books full of the countless pieces of art which were unable to find their way to your memory card. Unless, of course, you acted fast and carried your camera at your hip.

6) A reframing of point 5. Italy is full of statues and paintings and columns and whatnots. All of which look famous. Many of which are not. Only the most diligent of honeymooners will take the time to check their Rick Steves guidebook to make note of each and every piece of art they encounter. That being said, only take photographs of the ones you absolutely know are famous. Sprinkled in with a few that may not be famous, but which you really, really like. But don’t bother trying to remember what they’re called. Chances are you’ll get home and upload your photos and forget what any of them are, and then you’ll type “Uffizi statue” into Google Images to try and figure it out so you can label your online photo gallery, and you’ll get 50 pages of results documenting 3.2 million other honeymooners’ perfectly captured one-of-a-kind shots of the exact same stuff you photographed, famous and otherwise.

6a. Save yourself the trouble of lugging a camera around Italy and, when you get home, go onto Google Images and steal everyone else’s photographs. Because they will quite literally be identical to the ones you took. Photoshop your faces into the foreground.

6b. Rick Steves gets things right about 2% of the time. Do not read his book in public or you will be thrown to the tour groups and scowled at.

7) Speaking of which, if Rick Steves mentions a “long tunnel” leading to a beach in Cinque Terre, what he actually means is the most terrifying experience of your honeymoon, encompassing a rusty steel door that creaks open after the scary Italian voice over the intercom mumbles “Pronto” and then slams shut behind you, leaving you alone in a tunnel full of scary alcoves and lit only by the faintest of miniscule lights. A really long tunnel. Like, a mile. Literally. Your instincts will scream at you to turn around, to get out, to not be like the stupid girl who climbs the stairs in the horror movie, but you will press onwards, mainly because you harassed your new husband to go there in the first place, and you will lie to each other about how it looks like there’s daylight just around the next corner, and then you will come to a scary abandoned camper in the middle of the tunnel, and it is at that point that you fully understand that this is where you will die, this is where the scary tunnel people will come out of their camper to slit your throats and drink your blood. You will take unrecognizable pictures of the dark tunnel ahead of and behind you, and you will know in your heart that these will be the last pictures they see when they discover your lifeless and violated body three years from now, and it is at that point that your mother will look to the heavens and gnash her teeth and wonder aloud why her son would have kept going into the tunnel, and more importantly, a tunnel to a nude beach. Then you will come to the end of the tunnel, pay your 10 Euro ransom fee to exit the tunnel, and spend exactly nine minutes on a rocky, 50-yards wide beach populated by exactly seven nudists who will not stop staring at you in an unwelcoming manner. You will take off your bathing suits and sit huddled together on your blanket with your legs crossed and, when that doesn’t make the starers stop staring, you will put your clothes back on and go back through the tunnel. Sheepishly.

8) Cinque Terre is quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth. Definitely the most beautiful place in Italy. Best of all, between the claustrophobic and dark beach tunnel and the death-defying drops along the trail between Monterosso and Vernazza, all fears will be conquered. Go here for more than two nights or you will spend the better part of the first day trying to figure out why you didn’t.

9) The Cappucin crypt in Rome is the singularly most creepy-outy thing you will ever see. Everything is bones. Walls, bones. Ceilings, bones. Chandeliers, bones. Cappucin means creepy in Italian. Evidently.

10) No trip to Italy is complete without a final one-night stop in Amsterdam, where of course your friend is generous and savvy enough to score you a surprise private champagne canal tour with a lascivious skipper and a pan full of Bitterballen. Followed by Chinese Indonesian food and, of course, a stop at Lelebelle.

11) Cats in a boat? Cats in the forum? Cats in Italy are cat-dorable?

So that’s all for now, Mouse #3. I was sorry to come home last night to find your friend Mouse #4 in a similar predicament to your own. You can only imagine the guttural shriek that erupted from somewhere beyond my bowels when his little head started moving! The emotional distress of having to dispose of yet another trap, rather than simply disposing of its contents like the pack of the package said we could, was matched only by the emotional distress of having to quadruple-bag your tiny friend in the hopes that four plastic bags would suffocate him four times as fast. I hardly slept a wink, wondering what terrifying thoughts must have been running through his tiny, half-crushed head! If it weren’t for the venomous rage I felt towards him for having traipsed his dirty little paws through my kitchen cabinets, I might have tried a little harder for a rescue-and-release on 9th Avenue. Dr. Faustus was right, you little guys really do love Swiss Miss!

You’ll notice - - or your friend will, anyways - - that the pest man was here today to seal your entryway with poisonous goo. You’ll also notice that we spent the day performing a top-to-bottom cleaning in preparation for and celebration of the arrival of our Brand New Couches. Hadn’t noticed the collection of feces you’d accumulated behind the trash can!! Let it be said now that if we catch any of your little friends sullying our freshly cleansed living space, we’ll crush your tiny fucking skulls faster than you can say Arrivederci!

Have fun in Hell!

Luv,

Groomzilla

The price of private dancing

2006-09-25T17:45:00.000-04:00

This weekend M. and I were in Provincetown for our friends' -- aka the Tallest and Most Outdoors-iest Gay Men We Know -- wedding.

I could describe the knot that caught in my throat when the officiant pronounced them legally wed in the state of Massachusetts and my subsequent discussion with M. regarding the actual-versus-perceived concrete and emotional benefits of that little thing they call a Marriage Certificate. I could.

Instead, I will simply declare how Grand it is to attend someone else's big gay wedding and revel in one's ability to sit back and seagull their raw bar, and see how they navigate the vows and the place cards and the first dance, and watch them sweat the small stuff...and then, at the end of the night, slice one's thumb wide open grinding up and down on their center tent pole. D'oh.

The good news is that we will be on a plane headed for Italy in just a little over 48 hours, where I can soak my thumb (and brain) in red wine and cannoli filling.

Me and my shadow

2006-09-20T15:18:00.000-04:00

When I was younger I used to lay awake at night, bemoaning my chicken boney shoulder blades and ribs and plotting vengeance against whoever had called me "skinny" that day.

Yeah...that doesn't seem to be so much of an issue anymore.

In Lieu of Dead Mice; or, where does Emmet Smith get off having such enormous hands?

2006-09-19T21:37:00.000-04:00

Wedding registries are the gifts that keep on giving.

Tonight, for example, I went to UPS to pick up a beautiful shesham rosewood salad bowl from one of our dearest friends.

Not as exciting, perhaps, as the Lite-Weight massage table the sketchy man in front of me picked up* but, still, it's like a little bit of Christmas every few weeks.

A little bit of Christmas which doesn't make everyone else in line look at me like I'm a filthy little whore.

*insert tossed salad joke here.

Where's Waldo?

2006-09-11T10:36:00.000-04:00

Highlights for Children: Can you find the mouse that two grown men couldn't?

Rhetorical update

2006-09-11T10:31:00.000-04:00

Which is worse:

Being filthy enough that a dead mouse needs to start decomposing before you have time to notice it's there?

Or live blogging about it?

Update

2006-09-11T10:22:00.000-04:00

D'oh.

Found it.

Dead mouse.

Hiding amongst a thousand dust bunnies.

Right under the end table.

Pretty much disgusting.

Helpless

2006-09-11T09:58:00.000-04:00

As of this morning at 9:53am:

1. My iPod still has the same sad face it has had since last night, despite my attempts at following the instructions on the iPod website.

2. My living room still has the same dead-animal smell it has had since last night. M. thought someone was cooking cabbage last night. But now...it has occured to me that it is most definitely a dead animal smell, a conclusion I have reached based on the comes-and-goes character of the odor. We're thinking maybe the other trap got tripped by Mouse #2 last weekend, who escaped with a mortal flesh wound and a) in my scenario, ran under the floorboards or behind the wall to die, or b) in M.'s scenario, ran under our couch and somehow climbed inside to die. The latter choice, of course, makes me vomit a little bit. Although it would give us that excuse we've been looking for (other than the complete discoloration and broken springs) to buy a new couch.

3. All of the above is going on while I'm sitting here taking a sick day (digestive bug) and watching the September 11th coverage on all three major networks, sitting in my underwear, at the computer, writing about insipid things and worrying about minor concerns, just like I was 5 years ago.

I Win.

2006-09-05T21:11:00.000-04:00

Family photos

2006-08-28T23:35:00.000-04:00

Our beautiful new bundle of joy, brought to you in part by the makers of VARDE(TM).

Our adorable little Staub, fresh from her first foray into the oven. Note the drop of sweat at her temple. Girl cooks a mean Oven Roaster.

Fresh fruit brought to you by the Amish Market, plucked from the tree before it ever stood a chance of ripening. Looks good in the bowl, though.

Mein Kampf, Part 375

2006-08-28T18:43:00.000-04:00

For the past few days - - okay, since yesterday at least - - I've been Seeing Things. This is nothing new to anyone who knows me, as I am often prone to sharing the fact that I Sometimes See Dead People. More than just at work, I mean. But it's usually late at night in the fuzzy territory between Asleep and Awake, so I can usually explain it away to my overactive subconscious playing tiddlywinks with my REM cycle.

But last night while M. and I were constructing our new IKEA(C) VARDE(TM) kitchen island - - more on this to follow, it has completely transformed my world in less than 24 hours - - I swear I saw little black floaties scurrying around the kitchen floor. More than once.

And so yes, of course, the rational answer was a) mice or b) dust rabbits.

But then it happened again on the subway this morning. So okay, maybe c) just a lingering floaty in my aqueous humor.

Until it happened again when I came back to my desk tonight.

This leads me to one of several conclusions:

1. I'm being followed by mice.

2. I'm being followed by dead people.

2a. I shouldn't have watched the show about mediums on A&E the other night.

2b. I shouldn't have pretended just now that I watched the whole show about mediums the other night, when in fact I only watched the first half, and have every intention of watching the second half sometime later this week, probably right around the time that my brain has started to forget about the first half.

3. I have horrifically sticky eye floaties.

4. I have final and conclusive proof - - in addition to the head aches, stomach aches, random skull bumps, dizziness and general feelings of panic I've experienced over the past sixteen years - - of an enormous brain tumor.

My doomed fate is mitigated only by the fact that I have our new IKEA(C) VARDE(TM) kitchen island waiting for me when I get home, and the recently reached decision that tonight will mark the maiden voyage of our Staub chicken pot.

I persevere.

The good, the bad and the awkward

2006-08-25T19:31:00.000-04:00

Awkward New York City social interaction No. 12,7322:
Bumping into your creepy middle-aged neighbor's HX Magazine "massage therapist" as he's fumbling out of your apartment building with his "massage" table bags. At 9AM, no less.

Best thing about working with anciently old ladies who are both cognitively impaired and hard-of-hearing:
When you go to shout in their ears, they think you're making a pass at them and they kiss you on the cheek while you're shouting. Every time.

Worst thing about deciding, with your husband, that you both officially hate doing laundry enough that you're going to start Having It Done Professionally (not unlike your creepy neighbor):
They may fold your shirts wrong and fail to use fabric softener, but there's plenty of other vendors to choose from. And there's no turning back.

Saved, Part II; or, That Damn Mouse

2006-08-25T10:24:00.000-04:00

Last night on the ride home from work, another exotic-tongued evangelical boarded the train and, in a tone similar to that of his predecessor, began:

"Men...all you men on the train...."

Okay, I thought, Brace yourself, here it is, here's the part where he skips women who wear pants and goes right for the jugular, right for the gays.

"All you men on this train," he continued, "who look at the women butt, all men who look at the women butt, God sent you right to the fire of Hell."

I breathed a weary sigh of relief.

One soul seated beside me, clearly desperate to claw his way out of the fiery pits, pleaded with the Messenger, "Aw c'mon man, ain't you ever looked at a girl's behind?" But is was useless, he was Too Far Gone.

The good news is that he disappeared into his next car of victims without tacking on the ever-ready, "...just like the homosexuals," which leads me to believe that God really does hate the pants-wearers and butt-starers just a little more than the gays.

Meanwhile, our traps are still sitting there in the kitchen, awaiting their victims. I've been creeping out of the bedroom for the past two mornings, certain that I would find a twitching little peanut butter-covered, dread-filled rodent, but so far...nothing. Either he was just passing through, or he's allergic to peanuts, or he's purely a carbophile. What do I have to do, roast him a chicken in my new Staub chicken pot?

Because I will. If that's what it takes.

I'm just that determined.

Mouse for Sale

2006-08-23T18:16:00.000-04:00

This morning, as is the case every Wednesday morning, I woke up at 6AM. Whilst standing in my dark kitchen making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch -- part of my new Monday/Wednesday Budget Lunch Plan -- I couldn't help but notice that something had chewed a whole in the paper-bagged loaf of Italian bread I'd left out on the counter overnight, leaving a nickel-sized spot of bare bread and a thousand shreds of white paper bag.

It would appear we have a mouse in our house.

Now all that remains is What To Do With It.

The savior in me wants to buy a Hav-a-Hart trap and set it free in the wilds of Ninth Avenue.

The realist in me knows that the only realistic route is going to be a snap-trap or one of those sticky pads.

Having recently entered my office to find a still-squeaking, still-breathing, still-kicking mouse stuck to one of these pads, and then watching helplessly and unhelpingly as my medical colleague disposed of it first in a plastic bag, then under his show, then in the trash basket, I am well aware of my weakness around sticky pads. I've also heard the urban legends about mice that chew off their own limbs just to escape the sticky pads, leaving a sticky bloody mess in their wake, and we only just recently cleaned our kitchen floor.

At the same time, the last thing I want to be left with is a half-dead mouse left twitching with its little crushed mouse trachea under the oppressive-but-not-quite-deadly bar of the snap-trap. The snap-trap is most likely a swifter and more painless death, but the sticky pads provide a more generous dead-mouse-to-human-hand berth.

I keep coming back to the 40-pound chicken pot sitting on the shelf but this only gives me the What, and not the How.

It's true what my therapist says, life really is Uncertain.

Train of the Damned

2006-08-14T22:04:00.000-04:00

Today on the subway, after a long day of hard work, following a long (last) week of hard work, a man came onto my subway car armed with a Bible.

I held my breath, waiting to be excoriated.

"Women who wear pant," he intoned in an unplaceable accent, "is abomination before God."

I swallowed a deep sigh of relief -- safe -- and glanced furtively around the car, taking silent, self-righteous stock of who would be Saved and who would Not. Three on the first sweep, with more likely waiting in the periphery.

"That is right," he intoned once again, slapping the Bible with his left hand. "Just like homosexuality...women wearing pant is abomination before the Lord."

Fuck. Three sets of eyes trained right back at me. Three cocked eyebrows.

Failing to find a willing, trousered ally with whom to share a quick one-liner -- "Well, looks like we're both screwed" -- I took solace in the fact that, in this subway car anyways, there were more of Them than there were of Me.

My Masseuse

2006-08-11T17:15:00.000-04:00

This afternoon, in lieu of yoga, I decided to test out the semi-new storefront Chinese shiatsu-foot-rub-reflexology-paybytheminute place around the corner, in an attempt to alleviate my chronic upper back and neck misery which has been particularly flare-y this week.

Here's a minute-by-minute internal account of my thirty minute massage:

Minute 1: Should I have taken my shorts off too? Why is she rubbing my back when I told her all I wanted was my neck and shoulders? What if she didn't understand what I was saying?

2. What's that funny perfume smell? What if she tries to love me long time? She looked fifty, surely she's too old for that. I wonder if the business men at the happy-ending places get a real backrub first? When is she going to get to my neck and shoulders?

3. Aaaahhh. Massage oil.

4. Does massage oil stain? She's touching my shorts with her massage oily hands.

5. Did she just swing her foot up onto the table? Did she just jump over the table?

6. How long has it been? I only paid for thirty minutes. What if she set her little portable timer wrong? Would she really cheat me? What if I fall asleep and the beeper goes off and I scream like I did last week when my yoga teacher rubbed my forehead during savasana?

7. I feel like I'm in a peep show. Or a women's shelter. Or an emergency room. Why don't they put up little walls instead of curtains? I wonder if the girl next door can hear my back being massaged as much as I can hear hers being massaged?

8. Has that tinkly New Age music been playing the whole time? Why aren't they playing Chinese music? Are they even Chinese?

9. What if its a pinched nerve instead of a neck muscle? What if I get paralyzed some day? What am I going to eat at Chipotle tonight?

10. She found the enormous knot over my left shoulder blade. Do her hands hurt? What kind of face is she making? Is she bored?

11. Holy shit, she's moving the knot down my back.

12. Where did she learn this? Is she magic?

13. How much more would it cost to come here every week instead of yoga?

14. Did she just swing her foot up on the table again?

15. Oh my God, she's squatting over my head.

16. I want to pick my head up and see if her feet are really straddling my head. Are her feet clean? What color nail polish is she wearing?

17. Oh no, my face is sticking to the paper on the table.

18. The new girl next door just told her lady she only wanted her shoulders and neck done, too. Does everyone say that? Am I a cliche?

19. I'm never going to yoga again. I'm only coming here. She's fixing everything. I love her. I need to come here every week. Why did she just bend my arm back like she's handcuffing me?

20. Whose phone is ringing?

21. Did that girl's massage lady seriously just stop the massage and start talking on her cell phone? My massage lady wouldn't do that, would she? Does she know she looks like Sandra Oh? Did she look like Sandra Oh? What did her face look like?

22. Do I have zits on my back? How did she get her hand in my skull?

23. Are those her elbows? Her arms must be covered in massage oil. Is she used to that? Does she want to wash her hands? Was she really wearing bright pink lipstick and teased hair? Or was that in a movie?

24. Wait, where did she go? I didn't hear her phone ring.

25. Why is she covering me with hot towels? Did she just cover me with a rain tarp? Did she just sit on my butt?

26. Are those her hands or her feet? Or both? How is it that she's nowhere at all but everywhere at once? Why am I always so stressed out? I am one with the Earth. Was she in the circus?

27. Is this when she lays her breasts on top of me and licks my neck and whispers in my ear that she wants to make me happy?

28. My God, I'm burning up. These hot towels. Did I just hear running water? Is she going to hose me down? Why am I wearing a tarp?

29. She's straddling my back. No, she's standing on my back. She's so light.

30. I can't breathe. She's heavy. Why doesn't she have a bar over her head?

31. OH my God, the beeper went off. That was frightening. Did she say "I'm all finished, you want more time?" or "I'm not finished, you want more time?"? Why is she still rubbing my back? Did she hear me say "No, that's great" or "Oh, that's great"? Is she still charging me by the minute?

32. That was amazing. How did I miss the Please don't take off your underwear sign on my way in?

A Mother's Shame; or, Chicken Pots at the Point

2006-08-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

Yes, clearly (or not so much, as the case may be), I need one of those newfangled telephoto lens.

They're just so hard to discreetly whip out in the middle of a Williams-Sonoma semi-annual sale to, say, take a picture of, perhaps, a chicken pot whose asking price has now been reduced by, hypothetically, 75%.

I blame myself, for focusing 110-percent of my energies on keeping my new marriage afloat while clearly neglecting the rest of my family to the point where their only source of empowerment comes through discount self-marketing.

But at least now she has a mommy and a daddy to come home to in the middle of the night.

Cup of sugar?

2006-08-06T21:38:00.000-04:00

I was going to write something nice and romantic about missing M. while he's out of town for a few days. I swear, I even had the haiku syllables worked out.

But then I sat down at my computer and looked out the window and saw what is evidently our humpy new neighbor, sanding or buffing something in his humpy new bedroom. Shirtless. And sweating. With his shorts teetering precariously on the edge of his sweaty, new neighbor buttocks.

And that's when I remembered that having one's home to oneself for a few days isn't the absolute worst thing in the world, because it allows one to take some Me Time and do the things one wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to do. Like pine at the window for thirty straight minutes waiting for the shorts to drop another inch.

And also, after putting it off for a solid twelve hours, finally sitting down to work on one's novella-in-progress after a three month hiatus. Which is what I'm going to do right now. Until M. calls to say goodnight. Or the shorts drop.

Vicarious posting

2006-08-02T11:54:00.000-04:00

I just read this tragic and angering but also romantic inspiring story on Towleroad.

Just watch me

2006-07-31T18:55:00.000-04:00

I've been struggling.

With a lot of things, really, but relevant here is my struggle with What to Write and When to Write and How to Write in a weblog which started out as a means to an end -- namely, facilitation of pre-wedding coping -- which has now come and gone in a flurry of paper lanterns and vellum.

For instance, in the past week I've been tempted to write about topics ranging from a disturbing dream about a talking cat, to my trip to the National Portrait Gallery, to the circuitous routes taken by discount busdrivers, to the effect of the weather on my personal hygiene.

The overarching connection between all of these potential posts is that they teeter dangerously atop the precarious perch of Boring and/or Unnecessary and/or Inappropriate.

The last thing I need is for my weblog to become the Master of Me, rather than vice versa. There are more than enough forces in the world jockeying for that position.

So I decided, propped stiffly upright in my discount Chinatown bus seat last night, that I am going to choose a Healthier Path and not worry about it. I'll post when I post.

This will have the doubly delicious effect of protecting an unsuspecting public from undeserved harm at the hands of my Need to Share, while also freeing up my mental and emotional energy for more immediate concerns such as staring at the wall, catching up on America's Got Talent and, perhaps, finishing that novel.

Fly, little birds.

Offer to blow retracted

2006-07-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

OK, nevermind -- thanks to my friend Pregnant Lady for pointing me in the direction of this, which has already made me feel miles better, and gives me the eerie but distinct feeling of having dodged a bullet.

This makes me feel better too. Poor awkward-looking, odd-man-out Lance. But good for him. And with that cute stick-o-butter Reichen, no less?

Who do I have to blow?

2006-07-26T10:50:00.000-04:00

So I thought I'd gotten past the emotional hurt of being jilted by the New York Times Weddings & Celebrations section....that is, until I just checked out this past weekend's W&C list and found three homo couplings, none of whom had anywhere near as interesting of a summary statement as we did. Closer analysis reveals that M. and I were lacking in three critical areas:

1. We are not members of the elite New York City intellectual/academic/artistic royalty. In other words, Daddy didn't used to run B.A.M.

2. We aren't former writers for the New York Times. In their 70's. Who've been together for 40+ years. And had to travel all the way to Canada just to get a little legal validation of their relationship. OK, this one kind of makes me want to cry, but...I mean, whatever.

3. We're not 20-something lesbian schoolteachers with no societal clout whatsoever who just happened to have been smart enough to get married in a month when nobody else in their right mind would consider getting married.

Between this and my Modern Love submission last year, this is twice that I've been burned by the NYT. Shame on me. Shame. On. Me.

This is the kind of cockadoodle they choose to print instead -- once again, by a published author.

I've turned into a very bitter kind of woman.

I need to go finish that novel in time for the birth announcement.

Signs

2006-07-22T10:58:00.000-04:00

Lately I've had trouble getting to yoga -- purely a logistical and emotional concern, as my yoga studio is directly across the street from our apartment. I could really just sit on my bed and look through the giant plate glass window and take the class for free, it's that close. But I don't go.

I'm also a believer in signs. So when I woke up and it was 9:11 (can't explain now, but about 65% of the time when I look at the clock this is the time that's showing, and it's not related to September 11th as much as it's related to my own psychological idiosyncracies, but I am more or less of a believer in synchronicity, so I've taken to soul-searching and inventory-ing whenever it happens) and then M. suggested off-handedly that I go to yoga, and then I was on the phone with my friend Pregnant Lady who concurred that going to yoga was a good idea, I decided Well I'd better just go with it, maybe the Universe is telling me I'm getting slovenly or maybe some Bright Idea will come to me in the midst of a half-moon pose, even though all I really wanted was an iced coffee and a donut.

So I pulled myself together and somehow managed to cross the street and walk up the flight of stairs to yoga and stand in line to sign in, and that's when I noticed that people were literally signing their names up the margin of the sign-in sheet, and then I looked into the studio and saw rows and rows and rows of yoga mats lined up shoulder to shoulder and head to tail so that there wasn't any visible floor space remaining, and then I looked at the sixty hyped-up 23-year-olds sitting and standing and chatting and looking thoroughly annoying on their yoga mats, and that's when it hit me:

Yes, I was meant to come to this yoga class to learn a very important lesson, but nothing along the lines of self-actualization or inner peace or emotional cleansing -- what the Universe was telling me, through this very yoga class, was that it is officially time to get the hell out of Dodge.

And I didn't even need to break a sweat.

And I still got my iced coffee.

Somewhere a Place for Us

2006-07-09T17:06:00.000-04:00

Speaking of cats, our friends are going to come home to find seven feet worth of claw marks on the walls leading out their front door, from where M. had to drag me out of the apartment to make the return trip to Manhattan. It's been that nice. Like, two-days-feels-like-five-days, been-on-a-caribbean-cruise, pass-the-Uncle-Louie-G's-holi-cannoli-ice nice.

The good news is that I've officially reassessed and retracted my red alert bulletin to get the Hell Out of Dodge, having realized that all that stands between me and a saner life in New York City is a spacious two bedroom apartment on a quiet tree-lined street with a private back yard in Brooklyn.

The bad news is that I have retained enough conscience to know that It Would Be Wrong to follow through with my plan to frame our friends for a semi-lethal misdemeanor and have them extradited to Istanbul so that we can squat on their apartment long enough to legally call it our own. Bad for my karma, bad for the cats, bad for our friendship.

We did see one studio in Carroll Gardens this afternoon, masquerading as a one bedroom, which was actually pretty sweet albeit Too Tiny For Two, plus there was the crazy unabomber child molester co-tenant who gets a break on his rent for showing vacant apartments and handling minor tasks like sweeping the hallways and burying his neighbors under his sink, not to mention a gigantic backyard laying a mere three tempting feet below the living room window which was completely overgrown and designated No Entry due to some sort of vague "insurance reasons".

We also saw a gigantic two bedroom in Prospect Heights, which we loved for its size and sunlight and quirky amalgam of oddly-shaped and -sized rooms, but hated for its dingy elementary school gymnasium linoleum tile flooring throughout the entire apartment.

So we'll wait until something better comes along, and in the meantime we'll recall our wedding vows and remember to be happy with what we've got (and that's a lot), and the insanity of 9th Avenue will be tempered by the secure knowledge that A Better Place Exists and, for now, the cats will keep their home.

Better than Cats

2006-07-08T19:42:00.000-04:00

Which is worse:

The fact that one of our friends' semi-identical uber-gay cats, Tony and Bruce, shamelessly looked me up and down while I was toweling off after my shower tonight....or, the fact that I kind of appreciated the attention?

Or the fact that less than 24 hours after arriving here, I've already evidently become One of Those People who can't get through six sentences without mentioning the cats?

It's been decided that we're moving to Fort Greene. As it stands now, to an empty refrigerator box on a sidewalk in Fort Greene.

At least it's an Amana(TM).

Take me home, country roads

2006-07-08T10:22:00.000-04:00

M. and I are spending this weekend house- and cat-sitting at our friends' place in Brooklyn, with the purpose of a) getting out of Manhattan for a couple days and b) looking at apartments so that we can get out of Manhattan for more than a couple days. So far, no bites, but as we were sitting outside eating dinner at Porchetta last night (great food, dismal service) amidst the relative peace and quiet of Smith Street, we both commented on How Different we already felt. It's a sad day when taking the train to Brooklyn has the same physical and mental impact as taking a wagon to rural Iowa, but I'll take what I can get.

More importantly, here are a few videos taken by our friend RJ on his digicam at the barbecue and the wedding, which may provide a poor but acceptable substitute for the Real Thing. Enjoyez-vous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_sW9M6m8kM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivcF-Fygg9E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0QwExv9ZA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlMXoCrd6vg

Also, this it Too Little Too Late, but if anyone can get their hands on the US edition of the London Times from July 1st, a Very Good Friend wrote an insightful article on the state of gay marriage in America, with a particular focus on our wedding - - I, of course, had planned on giving a heads up on here prior to its publication, but was still living on Neptune at the time and thus neglected to do so. I don't think it's available online (VGF, please correct me if I'm wrong) but maybe I'll ask M. to scan it at work.

Tonight, we're testing out the local gay scene at a quaint country bar called Excelsior. Which sounds like a gaudy hotel or a specialty prophylactic, and is therefore already near and dear to my heart.

Call off the wedding

2006-07-06T09:41:00.000-04:00

I was going to write a starry-eyed and hope-filled post about the New York Supreme Court's anticipated ruling on gay marriage today, and how maybe they'd give it the green light, and how then we'd get to reenact our whole wedding complete with cannolis and chartreuse lanterns and paper bag hats, but then.....

....they beat me to the punch. Mother fuckers.

I think this officially calls for secession.

My name is not Susan

2006-07-05T22:56:00.000-04:00

I think I may have digested the better portion of my creative juices along with that slice of cannoli cake.

I'm at a loss.

Meanwhile, all the other gay bloggers are out doing fun things like stripping or watching each other strip, while I'm holed up in my Easy Bake Apartment triple-checking our wedding registry for stray gifts and trying to manipulate Flickr into accepting 600 wedding photos at once.

It's like I've forgotten how to do anything that doesn't somehow relate to You-Know-What.

The good news is that in my therapy session earlier tonight, I was in the midst of making apologies for not allowing myself to simply enjoy the wedding and talk about how fun it was and how I love being married -- and instead rehashing the wedding-funeral analogy and trying to tap into the underlying sadness which seems to color any Significant Life Event and bemoaning the fact that I live so far away from my new favoritre person My Mother and generally Overthinking Things -- when my therapist interjected and told me, "But that's not who you are."

Which made me feel good, because it means that on the one hand, I'm kind of fucked up, but on the other hand, I'm a validated kind of fucked up.

Speaking of which, since Flickr is stonewalling my efforts at creating a comprehensive online multimedia virtual wedding tour, and since I miss my Mummy, here are a select few photos of my mother dancing with a bag on her head, me dancing like I should have a bag on my head, and both of us keepin' on keepin' on.

Apple? Fall? Far? Tree?

Blogus interruptus

2006-06-29T10:25:00.000-04:00

I swear, once the post-partum depression has lifted and I have some time to pause for reflection and take stock and clean house and shine the chicken pot, I'm going to post everything needed for a Virtual Gay Wedding Experience multimedia extravaganza -- including a 3D hysterically sobbing Groomzilla head that literally breaks through the computer screen and snots all over your shoulder -- but in the meantime, I'd like to direct everyone's attention to two weblog acquaintances who should be able to provide everyone with hours and hours of humorously productive blogscaping. Enjoi.

A Day in the Life
The Dewey Dismal System

I'm Alive

2006-06-27T22:35:00.000-04:00

Whew.

Well.....hmm.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

I'm still in blissy zoney outerspace mode so I'll keep this brief -- M. and I just drove back from Provincetown about three hours ago, followed by copious amounts of box-carrying and stair-climbing and unpacking and sweating and sighing -- but I figure I should at least make a brief post-nuptial reappearance, if for no other other reason than to announce that I survived The Event relatively intact, vomit-free, and with a smile on my face.

I'll try to think of something brief and creative to write. How about the Top Three Things I Learned At My Wedding:

1. They love me, they really love me. Both of us. And we love them. I've never felt as completely surrounded by and filled with and drunk from love as I felt on Saturday night. This was particularly evident during the final forty-five minutes of the reception -- and the thirty minutes after that -- during which I cried in a continuous and pitiful and auditorily alarming fashion and assaulted everyone from my highschool and college and post-college friends, to my mother, our DJ, our innkeeper, and one of our hors d'ouevres waitresses with a series of sweaty, tear-soaked, sobbing embraces. I think it had something to do with the whole thing Coming To An End, although of course Doing What I Do I managed to make an unnecessarily morbid connection to the feeling I would imagine one might feel if one were to visit one's own funeral -- not because it felt like a funeral in any way, just that the feeling of quite literally having everyone one holds Most Dear in the World all under one tent, and dancing and talking and drinking and laughing and crying with them all, and being with the Man You Love and standing up with him and proclaiming your promises to him and commiting yourself to him in front of All These People, and then hearing the DJ announce the last dance, and knowing that in a matter of minutes it's all going to be over, and then in a matter of hours they're all going to be gone.......well, it's just more than a little bit overwhelming. Thankfully, I'm not dead and I'll see them all again, but the feeling was there. Gulp.

2. Wedding planning is a cruel mirage meant to keep us busy and think we're in control and prevent us from letting our attentions stray from our Betrothed. In other words, our wedding got rained out. As in, Record Rainfall. And I panicked. And the walk up the aisle was three paces instead of twenty, and instead of Posed Photos framed by sand and sailboats and sunshine we had ones framed by tent and...more tent. And and and. But, it all worked out. Just like it always does. Maybe even better than it would have otherwise, because once you get Rained Out -- or Rained In -- all bets are off, and everyone can just relax and have fun and take a load off because, let's be honest, The Wedding's Ruined, right? That's the way it felt, anyways, until everyone had the best time ever, and Goth DJ rocked the rock of all rocks, and the food was delicious, and the signature cocktails were a hit, and there were five straight hours of pure and unadulterated and did-I-mention-sweat-soaked dancing, and Everyone Loves Cannolis, and everyone talked with everyone and danced with everyone and loved everyone and why didn't I think of this, of course this is perfect, I love the rain, everyone should have such luck to be rained in under one enormous and music- and food- and booze- and love-filled tent, and I wouldn't have planned it any other way.

3. I'm a Crazy Person. This has already been established as fact. But seriously? I amped up the crazy at least 20 notches on Friday night, when I was forced to excuse myself from the Beach Blanket Barcecue to go stand in the men's room and rub my face and mentally will myself to exit the bathroom as a different, calmer, saner man. Which, predictably, had short-lived results. But by the time M. and I had led the Chicken Dance, the knots released and the butterflies died or flew away and my stomach loosened its grip on my esophagus and I Just Had Fun. Just Let Myself Have Fun. This continued, more or less, through the rest of the weekend, other than the moment when I went to hand someone something three minutes before walking down our three-foot aisle and saw for the very first time what my hand might look like if I had Parkinson's disease....but that's probably normal. The moral of the story is that, yes, I am insane, potentially certifiably so, but I am also trainable. My psychosis is maleable. I can change. Even if it's only briefly, or if I learn a Huge Lesson from simultaneous vomiting and pooping and then completely forget that lesson a mere two days later when it becomes clear that the beach blankets for the Beach Blanket Barbecue were a terrible idea and everyone may as well just go home. Because yes, I am cursed with mental illness, but part of that mental illness is Multiple Personality Disorder, which allows me to talk Groomzilla down from the ledge and swap him out with little pigtailed Susie who likes to laugh and eat cheeseburgers and do the Chicken Dance.

It's late, and I'm tired, and I need to go to bed with my new Husband -- keep saying it keep saying it keep saying it -- but, for what it's worth, and I hate to break the fifth wall and address my audience........a) Thanks for Listening, and b) It Was All Worth It.

More to follow.

Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Wedding; or, Think Twice Before You Read This

2006-06-20T09:20:00.000-04:00

Last night, a mere five days before I am to realize my Very Greatest Dream, I experienced my Very Worst Nightmare:

Throwing up and pooping at the same time.

I started feeling sick right after my Sicilian slice and Diet Pepsi at the pizza joint around the corner from the hospital, a feeling which progressed throughout several visits with patients and conversations with colleagues, until finally I was riding home on the subway, tapping my feet and breathing through the stomach cramps and dizziness and willing myself to Just Make It Home Without Humiliating Myself.

I got home, made a brief visit to the boys room - - nothing unusual so far - - and put myself to bed, where I proceeded to writhe around and contort myself into various pseudo-yoga poses as I tried to quell the rumbling and the moaning and the General Feeling That Something Wasn't Quite Right. Then I went back to the bathroom, and that's when it happened. The certain knowledge that I was about to vomit. Complicated by the certain fact that I could not remove myself from my current seated position.

It wasn't nearly as flawlessly executed as I had always hoped it might be, whilst worrying that it might Ever Happen over the years, but it also wasn't nearly as violent or horrific. I simply picked up the trash can and went to town, staring down at the empty toilet paper roll, used dental floss and discarded Irish Spring box and wondering if perhaps an empty can might provide for a purer, more simple, less encumbered experience.

The next hour was spent sitting on my come-to-find-out Filthy bathroom floor wrapped in M.'s towel (after a brief attempt at propriety, I'd wrenched mine off the towel rack to mop my sweaty and sullied brow), returning to bed, shivering and sweating and shivering again, more writhing and positioning, more moaning (it's interesting to discover what words one locks onto as one's mantra during these situations; mine are, apparently, "Jesus" and "Fuck"), and then returning to the bathroom where I turned around in panicky circles like my dog used to do before he vomited, before finally throwing up like a Normal Person into the toilet.

Then M. came home with Saltines and Ginger Ale and Advil and played nurse while I lay in bed watching Wifeswap and Super Nanny and How to Get the Man on our screwy antenna-less bedroom television, before finally passing out on the couch with the fan blasting on my face.

It's over now, save for a generalized feeling of weakness and battle-weariness and the sense that the fire blazing under my skin all night has now died down to a smoldering pile of dying embers.

There are suspicious rumblings from Myself and Others that there is a psychosomatic wedding-related element to all of this, although I feel like if it was all in my head I would have at least enough mind control to spare myself the embarrassment of the Double Whammy. Then again, I did tell my body, in a very stern tone, that it had exactly one night's sleep to enjoy its little party, but after that I didn't want to hear any more about it. And it listened.

So who knows.

The Lesson Learned is that I need to relax. This came to me his while propped up against the side of the tub last night, pondering whether or not there might be an element of emotional stress or mental anguish involved in this Whole Disaster. I thought to myself, God, if any of this could have been abated by a little less internal tension and anxiety, you really ought to reconsider how you handle things.

So, psychosomatics or otherwise, maybe this is just what I needed as I enter the Final Countdown. Because no matter how bad things get, how neurotic I am about the decorations or the red wine or the vows or my father or the weather, nothing can be as bad as last night.

Unless Goth DJ doesn't show up. In which case I will internally combust and disintegrate into a billion little pieces which, while unsightly, won't be nearly as drawn-out or humiliating or untidy.

Deep breaths.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

2006-06-19T11:01:00.000-04:00

Well, it's back.

My 'Zilla, that is. My neurotic, nervous, anxious, overpowering, overcontrolling, micromanaging, stomach-churning, hive-producing, impatient, hot-tempered, psychopathic Inner Child.

Seriously, I feel like my hands are going to shake right off my wrists and go scrambling back home to fold wedding programs or send hysterical emails or crawl inside the safe confines of the chicken pot with a bottle of vodka and a few Xanax.

No particular reason, to speak of. Just back. It'll pass. I hope.

Pant pant pant.

Where My 'Zilla At?

2006-06-18T17:49:00.000-04:00

If the last remaining shard of sanity in a gay Groomzilla's brain peels off and melts out of his ear, but nobody's there to see it, did it really happen?

I'm feeling an eerie sense of calm which I feel can only be attributed to some crucial synapse in my head overheating, or combusting, or running off to the beach for the weekend. I'm like one of those buddhas floating on a little cloud in lotus pose, or like one of those guys in the Matrix movies who just kind of hang out while the world spins around them, or one of those - - what do you call them? - - oh, right, one of those deers you see standing in the middle of the road zoning out in the warm glare of your headlights right before you send them floating off to the happy deer farm.

Maybe the rollercoaster metaphor was more effective.

We're tying up loose ends here. Gift bags bought. Programs printed. Wedding Readings Version 23.6 agreed upon.

I had a day of beauty yesterday which included a pleasantly intense massage, a manicure and pedicure during which Laura the Russian pedicurist told me I had to stop cutting my toenails so short because they looked like a baby's (I chose not to mention that I do not cut them, I pick at them violently while watching television to offset my mental anguish at not allowing myself to bite my nails anymore), and a tune-up with Kiki - - who, earlier in the week, suffered the tragic and unfair and existential angst-eliciting death of a man he was only just beginning to know and to love, which at the very least served as a sad reminder of the Fleeting Nature of Love and Everything Else.

I spent Friday night and today doing very un-NYC things which almost made me forget how much I want to leave NYC:

Friday, M.'s office had a surprise shower for him in Staten Island at Danny O's, which is one of those bars one walks by in the middle of the day and wonders what travesty must have occured in the lives of the three 70 year old men sitting inside to make them...sit in a bar like that in the middle of the day. The bartender's name is Trish and she's seriously the coolest bartender ever, and this bar used to be a gay bar in the 70's but now it's just kind of old and musty and there are literally cobwebs hanging eight inches off the ceiling in the men's room, but...we had the best time there, and there's a lot of potential, plus you get to take the Staten Island ferry there and back for free, and drink 16oz cans on Budweiser and eat cheap hotdogs, so it's like a little mini cruise. Kind of. For poor people. Like us.

And then today, in between printing the program covers and making our Costco list, M. and I walked over to the 54th Street Beach to get some sunburns that would heal nicely in time for the ceremony, only to find that the city now sponsors free kayaking in the little mini-harbor/cess-pool right there - - M. was a little bit braver than I was when it came to entering the questionable world of the Hudson River, but when he came back thirty minutes later and hadn't grown an extra arm or lost any visible epidermis, I decided I'd try it too. And it was great. The Hudson didn't even seem that dirty, and floating out there in my own little kayak with a cool little pool of water under my bum and a nice breeze coming in from New Jersey, I almost forgot where I was. Until the trailer truck barreling down the West Side Highway gunned its engines towards the Lincoln Tunnel and the barge carrying 600 tons of Lower Manhattan refuse came sauntering up the river and the family of swimming sewer rats squeaked at me to watch where I was fuckin' goin'.

And now here I am. Sitting on the couch searching for Beach Barbecue music while M. sits hunched over the printer waiting for his ninety-seventh program cover to come out the other end. We sat down calmly this morning and calmly read through our ceremony readings and calmly decided what would stay and what would get tossed, and then calmly talked about some of the vows we'd include in our vows and calmly laughed about the funny ones. In fact, other than a brief bump about the awkwardness of wedding finances, I'd say it's been at least a week of relative calm.

Part of me wonders about all the waves we've (I've) created over the past year, but a bigger part of me is just happy for the calm.

Interestingly enough, a sudden and pervasive outbreak of tiny bumps on my stomach and back would appear to signal that this Calm is somewhat of an illusion, and that my body has done me the favor of channeling the better portion of my anxiety into miniscule blips of subcutaneous agita which, while giving me pause for concern, are also well-concealed under my clothes. Unless I'm shirtlessly kayaking or weblogging.

Of course, anyone who's superstitious knows that all of this writing about Peace and Calm will all but ensure that the Peace and Calm will soon cease and desist.

The solution to this may lie in the ten equally tiny Pills of Tranquility sitting in their peaceful little orange ashram on the kitchen shelf, which a friend of a friend a friend prescribed for us Just In Case of Emergency. Or in deep and pensive staring into the caramel-glazed eyes of my newfound friend in the neighboring cubby.

For posterity, here's a sentimentally significant card my mom included with our shower present a couple months back, which was temporaily lost in the post-shower shuffle, but which now rests - - peacefully, calmly - - on my bedside table.*

*and also just happens to be the very same card which accompanied our chicken pot. Everyone likes the paper cut-out gays.

Loss for Words

2006-06-16T15:24:00.000-04:00

I'm running out the door but will be doing so in a completely tenuous state of physical coordination, as I am completely weak in the knees with joy that finally, at long last, I have been reunited with my 50-lb caramel-colored bundle of joy, and I owe it all to my Official New Best Friend Erin Turkey, whom I will now be marrying on June 24th. Here's a preliminary picture. I'm tempted to stay home and cuddle with her on the couch, but I have to go pick up a belated paycheck so that I can afford to feed her. More to come...

No Whammies No Whammies

2006-06-16T09:59:00.000-04:00

Let's everyone all hold hold our breath, shall we? The Friday and Sunday bookends make me feel a bit queasy...although, really, nothing says Beach BBQ and Goodbye Donuts like a good thunderstorm.

The other good news is that the ABC weather guy announced this morning that it will only take about 30 minutes of direct sunlight to get a sunburn today. Can anyone say shirtless social worker?

Me Yin, You Yang

2006-06-14T18:12:00.000-04:00

Something's horribly wrong.

Suddenly, M. is staying up until 3 in the morning doing online searches for replacement wedding readings and creating our Weekend Itinerary Handout and making extensive lists of Things Still Left Undone, while I'm going to bed at 10:30 and sleeping like a brick and feeling like we can just write our vows in the car ride up to Wellfleet or maybe just on our way up the aisle.

Is it the nighttime dental guard? The self-tanning lotion? The moon cycle?

Or are the two of us simply destined to live in perpetual, sometimes tragic, but ultimately beautifully simplistic and dysfuntionally functional, equal and opposing life spheres?

The price of beauty

2006-06-13T11:05:00.000-04:00

Perhaps weary of listening to me drone on and on and on about my lack of golden skin tone for the wedding, M. went out on Sunday and bought us some moisturizer with "subtle self-tanners." Which we both proceeded to slop on, remarking on how nice it smelled. Now, two days and nine bucks later, I'm less concerned with the perhaps slightly more orange tone of my skin, and more concerned with the unpleasant odor emanating from my forearms. Hard to describe, except to say that it is the very same smell which pervaded my body following my first and only foray into spray tanning four years ago, when I found myself shedding large sheets of burnt umber-colored skin and leaving a trail of indescribable stink in my wake for a full five days. More or less of a just-stepped-out-of-the-swamp kind of scent.

All of which leaves me feeling torn between my desire to perpetuate the acceptably natural-looking glow I've developed since Sunday - - a glow which is a poor but adequate substitute for the actual sun tan I won't have due to the fact that I am constantly indoors either working or planning seating arrangements, and which will offset my khaki suit rather nicely, certainly moreso than would my previous Winter brine - - and my sense of being cheated by a company which, granted, makes a mean body wash, but which really ought to substitute "subtle" with "starts out pretty, ends up stanky."

Shame on you, Dove(TM).

And shame on me for needing you so badly, even though you hurt me.

addendum:
One of the doctors just told me I had a nice tan. Any and all complaints about NEW Dove® Energy Glow™ Daily Moisturizer with Subtle Self-Tanners, which gradually adds a beautiful summer glow to skin and is fast-absorbing and with a delightful fragrance, and also moisturizes and gradually enhances your natural skin color, should be disregarded as bitter, jealous and uninformed hearsay.

To Whee or Not to Whee

2006-06-12T12:13:00.000-04:00

Greetings from halfway down the second 90-degree drop on the great big rollercoaster ride of impending union.

I'm feeling rather calm and taciturn this morning, so maybe I'm on one of the loops. Right at the top of the curve. Stuck upside-down.

The rest of the pieces are all falling into place. M. and I both found our shirts yesterday, mere moments after I'd finished declaring that Banana Republic was Officially Dead To Me, and in the very same hues that we'd hoped for. We bought paper for the programs. We bought new underwear. We realized that the color scheme from our invitations is the same as the color scheme for our tent decorations is the same as the color scheme for our shirts. Luckily, Old Navy doesn't sell boxer briefs in Citrus Green and Sky Blue. We've got our Participant Gifts. One of which was all dented, which prompted me to fire off a letter of complaint to the meek and mild manager at the Participant Gift place which included a hastily drawn diagram detailing the extent and location of the damage - - a response which nicely matched my newfound interests in letter-writing, wedding-planning and obsessive-compulsing, but which may have turned mild manager's hair white. We've got our party favors. We've reestablished meaningful contact with Goth DJ - - come to find out he had a collapsed lung, the same of which cannot be said for the butterfingered Participant Gifts guy - - and agreed on a tentative and mutually-loved song list. We're making place cards.

I've been soliciting advice from other Married Friends, sometimes actively and more often passively, as they attempt to squelch the fire blazing atop my head.

My married friend FBZ suggested that we Delegate Tasks to minimize wedding-day stress. I'm not so sure that this is a good idea for someone with my Control Issues, but I'll try. It may turn out to be a bit of a slippery slope, but if anyone complains that they don't want to help me pull up my new underwear, I'll just have to direct them to her.

My married friend Bronx Betty normalized, just like a good Social Worker Friend should. She also gave me our cream and sugar set, which is always a helpful distraction for the greedy.

My married friend Bobby suggested that this should be the fun part, where I've done all my planning and can just sit back and relax and enjoy. Clearly, she doesn't understand that even when I am dead and buried I will still have at least a few things remaining on my Internal To-Do List but, again, I'll try. Actually, I did try, just the other day on the subway. I sat right there on the subway seat and willed myself to stop considering the merits of sixty-seven paper lanterns over sixty-three, and By Golly she was right, it did feel kind of nice, and for just the briefest of moments I took my hands off the safety bar and tentatively raised them up in the air even though I could still feel the certain and troublesome rumbling beneath me, and I felt what it could be like to just let myself Enjoy It, and it was good. Short-lived, but good.

I would end with something sage and optimistic about how I'm going to post this entry and then go try and Enjoy It again, but I think everyone would agree we're beyond that.

The good news - - to continue a metaphor - - is that I'm pretty sure M. and I have moved beyond the part of the ride where we're fighting over who has the better seat, and into the part where we wrap our arms around one another and dig our fingers in and hold on for dear life.

Ineffective Coping Mechanism

2006-06-10T09:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a growing protuberance around my midsection, it occurred to me yesterday morning, as I felt my tummy rumbling, that perhaps now would be an appropriate time to rediscover the fruit-yogurt-water-KashiGoodFriends(TM) diet I had going a few weeks back. Better yet, the Self-Starvation thing I had going a few weeks before that, an ill-conceived but undeniably creative synergistic solution to both my physical and financial woes.

And I'm pleased to announce that when I bought my iced coffee yesterday on my way to work, I resisted the beckoning - - nay, pleading - - calls of the Amish Market pastry display, and my coffee and I went solo.

Until I ran headlong into a coffee cart at the next street corner, and there was a Don't Walk sign so I was pretty much stranded there, and I thought to myself, 'What, you're going to stand here stranded for who knows how long on this desert street corner and just let yourself starve to death until help arrives?' So, in the interest of survival, I bought a donut.

Okay, that's a lie. I almost gave in, but I resisted that donut.

And then spent the next three blocks desperately sniffing out another coffee cart like some sort of lard-thirsty attack hound, and then walked a full block out of my way when I finally spotted one, even though I had a perfectly timed Walk sign which would have led me safely and swiftly into the breakfast-less depths of the 49th Street N/R station, and that's when I bought my donut.

An enormous, half-cooked, glazed donut.

The good news is that pregnant brides are kind of a Thing in my family.

Coulda Shoulda Woulda

2006-06-08T23:48:00.000-04:00

M. and I spent the latter portion of this evening figuring out how much beer and wine to buy for the wedding (hint: too much) and we stumbled upon costco.com in the course of our research.

I don't know if I should be duly impressed or truly haunted by the fact that one can not only buy a cherry wood casket, gourmet cheese and a vending machine all in one place, but one can also buy all three online.

And have them delivered overnight.

I'm beginning to think someone could have been a bit more prudent and efficient with her wedding registry.

Oh, and the wedding is going to cost us, like, ten thousand dollars more than we expected. -ish.

Attack! Attack!

2006-06-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

Seems like the good people over at Macy's find it easier to cave in to The Crazies than stand up for The Gays.

I'm just glad we weren't desperate and/or greedy enough to open a fourth gift registry. Because Lord knows my need for presents would surely have eclipsed my need for self-respect and public acceptance, and while my kitchen cabinets would be full, my soul would be black and empty.

To anyone who's listening, I'd encourage you to Bring Your Business Elsewhere until Macy's mends their wicked ways. Better yet, email them!

Moral Support

2006-06-07T10:02:00.000-04:00

Here's a supportive email I just got from one of my mom's favorite (and only) bad-ass Leftist pals. She's so taking home a centerpiece.

From: Bad-Ass Leftist Friend
To: Groomzilla
Subject: Bout 2 weeks and counting
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 01:01:40 -0400

Whhhhheeeew!!!!!!
The countdown begins!! Are you really excited??? We can't wait to be there for/with you, and of course party with you later. So happy that you picked this June......as we watch Beavis Bushie scrambling hard to pull a 21st century Lester Maddox move with his constitutional amendment brainstorm. You go, you two.
xx oo

My Retainer!

2006-06-07T09:51:00.000-04:00

After waking up in the wee hours of yesterday morning in searing and agonizing pain, having worked my jaw at just the right angle so that the prong of one of my upper molars nailed my freshly-crowned tooth square in the middle of its most sensitive spot during the course of my nightly bruxism, I decided that Something Must Be Done.

So I did my online research, got me to Duane Reade, and last night placed this in my mouth before going to bed:

And I'm happy to report that I did not wake up in the middle of the night crying in agony or choking to death on a half-swallowed piece of silicone-based dental equipment, nor did I have any nightmares that M. was forcing me to eat a dental guard-sized computer mouse, or a hockey puck, or a miniature rubberized chicken pot.

I did, however, suffer immediate and traumatizing flashbacks to the last time I'd worn a mouth guard, which was during my ill-fated experiment with Pop Warner football in 1987, otherwise known as the Watershed Year During Which I First Learned To Question My Allegiance to Contact Sports, Physical Exertion, Hand-Eye Coordination, Protective Cups, and the Hegemony of Western-Based Myths of Masculinity, but also to Appreciate Men with Fiery Tempers and Tight Pants.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

2006-06-05T22:43:00.000-04:00

(if you listen hard enough, you'll hear the soft tinkling bells of an angel getting his wings)

A lesson

2006-06-05T22:16:00.000-04:00

Today my married friend Kathy Cockpit reminded me about a Very Important Thing to Remember: When it comes to planning a wedding, none of it is really all that important.

In other words, it's a Very Special Day, but it's not the end all and be all, the end of the world, the What Have You.

As I ruminate on how the wrong First Dance song or tent decorations will inevitably lead to unsatisfactory wedding cake and an all-but-certain dismal first year of marriage resulting in miserable children and a bitter divorce after fifty years following a spiteful and indiscrete liaison with a pool boy who was only in it for the vintage KitchenAid Mixer in Pistachio, it occurs to me that this will be a rather important reminder to remember.

While we're on the subject, though, we did end up with the exact perfect number and colors and sizes of Wedding Tent Lanterns yesterday at Pearl River, which I can only assume will be an auspicious sign of things to some.

Catharsis; or, three weeks from this very minute, I'll be probably pacing, possibly vomiting and definitely crying

2006-06-03T13:55:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't you know it, I'm crying again.

M. and I just got off the phone from our first conversation with the priest who will be conducting our ceremony. And it was great, a relief, a comfort, a validation, a calming exhale. But it also made me terribly sad, and scared, and wistful, and ten thousand other things.

The priest was terrific - totally on the same page as us, totally wanting to celebrate this thing with us in as full-flowered a way as he possibly could. And as a queer and questioning Catholic whose life has felt somehow less-than since I stopped going to Church, talking to a Man of God brought up all sorts of good and peaceful and comforting, but also somewhat sad, things, and probably made my inner subconscious guilty altar boy feel like maybe he might go to Heaven after all. But it also made me sad that we even needed to be discussing some of the things we discussed - - the particulars of what he would and would not be allowed to say or do as an Episcopal priest celebrating this union, some of the current goings-on in the Episcopal and other churches, how our parents and my dad in particular have handled the Whole Thing - - and that's when I started to cry (the first time). And of course this is nothing new, but between M. and me and the priest, all of us were clearly wishing we could just focus on who was walking in when and who was reading what, rather than on how we could maneuver and sidestep and negotiate in a way that made everyone, church hierarchy included, happy. And then, like I said, we started talking about our parents, and I started talking about my dad, and as M., my mother and my therapist know all too well, sometimes all it takes for the floodgates to open is for me to verbalize something out loud......so as soon as I started talking about my dad, and to a priest no less, the tears started to creep up again. Then the priest started suggesting some possible blessings for the end of the ceremony, and he just kind of pulled this really beautiful one out of thin air, and suddenly there I was standing on the lawn in my suit and facing M. in front of everyone and hearing the priest delivering this blessing, and that is when I had to hold the phone away from my face (I was in the bedroom on one extension, M. was in the living room on the other) and take my glasses off and heave and sniffle into the crook of my elbow.

Whew.

Anyways. It was all very cathartic. And I think between the pain of having to talk about Things Which Shouldn't Need to Be Talked About, and the simultaneous joy and pain of talking about my dad, and the sudden Holy Shit It's Really Happening feeling of discussing the specifics of the ceremony, and the glowing relief and ecstasy that It's All Really Happening and I'm in love and getting married and Won't It All Be So Fun, and the mixed emotional bag of doing all of the above with a Man of God - - between all of these things, I think perhaps a certain gay groom-to-be just needed a little cry. Because she's just a bit overwhelmed. But in a good way.

She's also grossed out by the fact that even though she just swiffered and swept and vacuumed her apartment, her feet are still black on the bottom from the unending supply of dust and grime floating through the window and onto the floor from Ninth Avenue.

And also disgusted, but in kind of an exhausted and Calgon Take Me Away kind of way, by the fact that mere minutes before this whole cathartic telephone conversation, President Bush was delivering a national radio address telling the country that Gays Aren't Good Enough to Get Married.

And also more than a little bit guilty and hypocritical and am-I-apathetic about missing the HRC Wedding March across the Brooklyn Bridge, but the priest took precedence, and plus it's raining, so I'll have to get over it.

Meant To Be

2006-05-31T23:13:00.000-04:00

Three Weeks From Tonight I'll Be Stringing Lights on Cape Cod

2006-05-31T22:17:00.000-04:00

Tonight, after (an extremely cathartic and clearly much-needed) therapy, I walked all the way home

from way down here,

in large part so that I could eat dinner from here

without being consumed with too much self-loathing and guilt and fear related to expanding too much here

and not being able to fit into here

In other news, my mom left me a message earlier today telling me she was walking through Home Depot and stumbled across a 50-pound bag of sand, which she bought so we could use it in our centerpieces, even though she had to ask three people to help her lift it into her cart, out of her cart, and into her car.

I'm pretty sure she's pretty much the cutest mother of the bride ever.

Tooth Hurty

2006-05-31T16:00:00.000-04:00

Well that hurt.

And this is coming from someone who has more teeth with fillings than without, in addition to two other crowns over the past four years.

I don't know which was worse, the fact that I was literally lifting my butt off the seat and yelping, or the fact that my special root canal dentist kept calling me "Buddy" and "Big Guy" and telling me how he was really putting me through torture and he hated to do that but really he found his job on the whole very satisfying.

Anyways, 5 extra vials of novacaine later, it's all over. Until I get my permanent crown placed on Monday.

I may have to look into just having them set up the wedding tent outside the dentist's office. Or over my insurance guy's freshly dug, shallow grave.

The only thing that gives me any consolation is that someone bought us our brushed steel Cuisinart food processor. Which should come in handy when I'm eating strained foods for the rest of my life.

Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

2006-05-30T22:49:00.000-04:00

I’ve got a whole lot of feelings going on tonight.

I’m feeling depressed, because we returned last night from our whirlwind four-day bachelor party tour extravaganza in Montreal, the self-proclaimed (kind of) slut capital of Canada, which was loads of fun and filled with Labatt’s Bleues and hommes nus – all in mostly tasteful moderation – and mainly just a very nice Break From It All, which only served to enhance my depression because I still live in New York City….

....and yeah yeah yeah, everyone complains about living here and the love-hateness of it all, but seriously, I think I’m just about through with it, and every time we leave and go someplace smaller and perhaps quieter and certainly more livable, it just makes me remember that life in the Big Apple seems to have some rather deleterious effects on me and my anxiety and tension and focuslessness. I’m also feeling hot and muggy because, well, it’s hot and muggy, but I’m also feeling cranky because my tooth still hurts, which maybe I should have just sucked up but instead I drove our rental car to my dentist on Friday morning and was told the only solution to my pain is a root canal, which I’ll be receiving tomorrow afternoon and which makes me feel somewhat uneasy and irrationally vengeful, the former of which is further enhanced by the fact that there are now less than four weeks until the wedding which makes me feel just a little bit freaked out and scared and nervous and excited and like I might quite possibly vomit or laugh or cry at any given moment. I’m like some sort of mutant pregnant woman, my emotions are now dictated by some sort of invisible cosmic cycle of lunacy and I’ll be sitting on the subway and imagining M. walking towards me at our ceremony and I’ll start to cry but before the third tear is shed I’ll get frantic at the thought that we still haven’t ordered our Wedding Participant Gifts but by then I’m already remembering how pissed off I am that the Goth DJ has fallen off the face of the earth (the good news is that, as of last Thursday, he fell back on with a nice apologetic email), and all I can really do is sit here with my enormous belly, sweating and cranky but also excited and impatient, waiting to Birth This Sucker and see what it finally looks like after all this gestation…..and I hate to turn this into an e-diary or an emotional expose rather than a silly piece of bloggy fluff, but I think it’s all par for the course and so I will end with a picture of a dog under a dining room table, which is always good for a titter.

A Whole New World

2006-05-25T18:02:00.000-04:00

Today, on my last 25th-day-of-the-month as a bachelor, I learned a very important lesson:

Just because a Vicodin pill happens to be from a prescription filled in early 2001 does not mean it's not wondrously, perfectly and indisputably effective at making everything -- from a malingering toothache, to fifty pounds of laundry on a sunny day, to planning a wedding, to getting financially raped and pillaged by the drycleaner altering one's wedding suit -- feel just a little bit less mentally oppressive.

If anyone's looking for me at the wedding, I'll be the vacant-eyed addict laying facedown on the lawn and pulling on my cheeks to see if they're real or not.

Over-reacting

2006-05-24T15:24:00.000-04:00

I'm faced with a predicament. Or maybe it's more of a stew. A pickle, perhaps.

I was talking to a colleague in the hospital this morning and, as is sometimes wont to happen even though I usually try to bar it from doing so, my personal life came up. With someone who evidently didn't know I was gay. Or, if she did suspect or know, it hadn't been put on the table. And as soon as My Sexual Identity was on the table, I witnessed an immediate and predictable shift in her whole demeanor. She changed. She cocked her hips. Twiddled her fingers. Put on her best (but sub-par) Jim Jay Bullock voice. Started substituting fabulous for every fifth word in her lexicon.

And I thought to myself, Well color me crooked, bitch is trying to speak Gay!

It's certainly not the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

It gives me pause for thought because, on the one hand, it feels a bit patronizing and/or offensive and/or oogy, but on the other hand, it's nice to know people Like the Gays and want to Accept Us and Speak Our Language.

And watch our TV shows (as long as we don't kiss).

And have us redecorate their homes (as long as we don't move in next door).

And get our advice on their relationships (as long as we don't ask for legal validation of our own).

It suddenly occurs to me: Gay is the New Black.

Just like George Jefferson and Richard Pryor and all of the minstrels and the rappers and the comedians and soul sisters that came before us, we Gays are funny, fashionable, daring, pretty, rhythmic, exotic.

Everyone wants to be our friend, add us to their nightly line-up, invite us to their party (as long as we provide the entertainment).

Which feels great, until one develops the distinct feeling that what they really want is to suck our lifeblood, to tap into our brains and siphon out all the humor and style and sparkle and glitter until all that remains is the subtle, rattling slurp of our empty, well-groomed skulls.

I'm being dramatic. So she flared her eyes at me, added a couple extra s's, tossed out a few fabulous's. No harm, no foul. Better that than a withering look of disapproval, a turned back, a brick through the bedroom window or, better yet, a brick to the head. Besides, think of all the people I know who aren't like that, who accept me and treat me as the mentally ill, neurotic, compulsive just-happens-to-be-gay man that I am.

It's not that bad. Right?

I suppose it just feels, occasionally, like it's all part of a bigger problem, part of the double-edged sword of Acceptance, Normalization. To be accepted and to feel normal are nice things, but to do so On Our Own Terms, without needing to wonder how our Blackface make-up looks, would be even nicer.

Someone had better distract me with a chicken pot photo before this soapbox caves in.

Amber Alert

2006-05-24T09:12:00.000-04:00

*************
dm said...
The chicken pot was recently sighted at the williams sonoma @ columbus circle, in case anyone is interested... can we add this to the gawker stalker map?
1:52 PM
*************

It has now come to my attention for the second time in a week that there exists a small, starving surviving population of refugee chicken pots living in various Williams-Sonoma's throughout the greater tri-state area.

If further sightings occur, the general public is encouraged to submit photographic evidence to Concerned Homosexual Mothers of Chicken Pots (CoHoMoChiPo) at groomzillanyc@yahoo.com.

The most creatively photographed submissions may be eligible for a special prize.

Bronx Fashion Rule #435

2006-05-23T19:19:00.000-04:00

Morbidly obese women -- or men, or children -- standing in line at the Post Office on Jerome Avenue should not be allowed to wear Phat Farm tank tops unless they demonstrate a clear and indisputable acknowledgment of self-deprecation.

Why I Hate Williams-Sonoma

2006-05-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

Yin and Yang; or, Burn this Post (but save the puppy)

2006-05-22T11:04:00.000-04:00

Things presently causing me great agita:

1. The resulting tension headache from having spent the last fifteen minutes on the phone trying to delicately negotiate our Flower Lady down from $750 to $500, a Flower Lady who is every bit as lovely and non-confrontational as myself but who also needs to make a living, all of which can make for an awkward bargaining-down of gardenias and delphinia and posey callas and green hypericum. We compromised just a little over halfway in between, after taxes. Moral of the story: always go in with a firm and clear budget in mind, because if you don't, you end up telling the Flower Lady, "Uhhhh....I dunno, hadn't really come up with a number," and then you end up having to make a deal in such a way that feels like you are playing tennis with one hand nailed to the court.

2. The fact that FedEx did not deliver our Tester Ring on Friday morning, despite my firmly resolved presence by the door buzzer from 8am to 2pm, thus relegating our Tester Ring to the dark confines of the FedEx holding pen all weekend, and relegating my Impatience and Need To Know to the dark confines of my mental holding pen.

3. The several-thousand dollar increase in catering costs which M. and I discovered last night whilst determining how many dishes we will have to wash or kidneys we will have to sell to pay for this motherflipper.

4. My perpetually unhealed tongue wound which resulted from my too-hasty post-crown still-Novacained enchilada lunch, and which causes me great ebbing-and-flowing waves of pain as it remains unable to settle on whether or not it wants to heal, much like I would imagine that man in the Greek myths who had his guts eaten by that big bird every day. You know that guy? I've also been biting my nails again and managed to cut my upper left gumline. And my new crown is achey.

5. The sudden disappearance of Goth DJ, who has not responded to my last two emails, nor to the voicemail I left him last night. Perhaps he's just having a bad month.

Things presently causing me great hope and/or inner peace:

1. The flowers are settled. Credit card number given. Verbal telephone handshake with the Flower Lady. And they're going to be really, really beautiful. And she refuses to use roses because they're not interesting enough. And when we got to my parents' house on Friday night, my mother presented us with an enormous box of store-bought shells and starfish and sea glass and other assorted oceanic minutiae which could easily veer into Tacky, but which somehow don't, plus she came up with a centerpiece idea which totally trumps the idea we had in mind (think: styrofoam cones, glue and sand), so now we get to knock off the flowers for the card table and the flowers for the plate table (don't ask) because we have supplemental decor. Plus we're not going to have a Port-a-Potty, which relieves us of the need for a Port-a-Potty bouquet. The nodding of heads and feigning of interest would be an appropriate audience response at this point in the post.

2. I think we're really going to love our Tester Ring, even though it comes from a slightly Less Distinguished Source. I'm going to assume that it's of the same quality as the one from the Other Source, and that we will be able to gloat and preen about yet another Wedding Planning Bargain. And FedEx is open until 9:30 tonight, which gives me great glee.

3. We tested more food from The Caterer, and damn me to Hell if it's not the best Wedding Food I've ever tasted. Seriously, it's good. She does sushi like nobody's business. Plus we talked to the Cake Lady, and figured out the finer points of cannoli cake, and it might be one of the cutest wedding cakes ever.

4. I came home on Thursday to find a message from the Herky Jerky Union Insurance Guy, sounding very conciliatory and making sure I'd received the letter telling me I could get my dental work, which I am (probably mistakenly) assuming came at the behest of the Executive Directrix I cc:'d on the letter. Either way, it feels good when The Mighty Fall.

5. I have no positive counterpoint about the Goth DJ, except that Hope Springs Eternal, and I'm going to assume he's just at a Goth Convention, or a Goth Spa. With our deposit. Instead, I'll focus on the fake puppy which my mother presented to us, which snores and looks like it's breathing, and does so for 3 full months on only two D batteries. We named her Sleepy, and I think she will be a bastion of plastic peace and calm in the coming 5 weeks.

Red Alert; or, I Need a Baby

2006-05-19T11:51:00.000-04:00

I spent the last hour and a half curled up on my couch in absolute tears, watching my illegally downloaded copy of All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise.

Which can only mean one thing: starting June 25th, it's gonna get real ugly.

Post Prandial

2006-05-17T22:56:00.000-04:00

What is it about New York City that makes me feel more ashamed to walk into a McDonalds than into a dirty book store?

Not that I've been to either. But still?

Alive and Clucking

2006-05-17T16:29:00.000-04:00

Sent to me by an anonymous and assumedly well-meaning and not at all mocking source...........

And just as I was about to lose all hope, it suddenly occurs to me that Sally Field was right the whole time, I can't just run off to Wellfleet and get married like everything's normal, like nothing's wrong, I can't just go on pretending like there's not a chicken pot-sized hole in my heart, I just can't do it....not without my daughter.

I will scrimp and I will save and the other children will go hungry for as long as it takes, but I will find her. By God, I will find her.

On the Subtle Interplay Between Shy Bladder Syndrome, Dental Work and Therapy

2006-05-17T13:24:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my department held a day-long retreat to talk about a lot of things which don't really involve me, but nevertheless provided me with an opportunity to get out of the office for the day.

It also provided me with an opportunity to have two extremely disconcerting and uncomfortable urinal incidents with top-level department heads, the first of whom was already at his urinal when I arrived and proceeded to first greet me and then stand with both hands on his hips while he alternated between drinking out of his coffee cup resting conveniently atop the urinal and looking around at various focal points in the men's room, including me standing at my own urinal pretending to urinate even though any chance of doing so was now nullified; and the second of whom is someone who just started at the hospital and is the Boss of the Bosses and so I wanted to meet him, just not in this particular setting, but then he said hi to me while we were making our simultaneous ways to our respective urinals (this was later in the day) and continued to talk to me throughout the duration of his own urination with his distal hand cocked on his hip and his face completely turned towards me standing at my own urinal trying to simultaneously hold some semblance of a meaningful conversation and be happy that the Boss of the Bosses was talking to me and do times tables in my head so that I could pee. Which I did, somehow, but only through sheer determination and my preternatural ability to place mind over matter.

Some day I'll share the story of what made me a Pee Shy Guy in the first place, a story which, in a nutshell, involves a 1987 basketball tournement, a locker room in a rival school's gymnasium, and three terrifying twelve year olds with a penchant for torturing younger children from other schools trying to peacefully urinate in a private stall.

I'll tell that story another day because right now, today, I am freshly arrived from getting my Brand New Temporary Crown placed, having finally received authorization from my insurance company to do so, but only after sending my Threatening Letter. It took so long to happen and I fought so hard for it that I kind of forgot what little fun it is to actually get a crown. So now I'm going to have to sue my insurance company when I bite my Novacained tongue off or burn my Novacained cheek off on my piping hot Trader Joe's Enchiladas Verde.

I'm going to speak for everyone involved when I say that it's a Good Thing I have therapy tonight.

Just One of the Guys

2006-05-14T18:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday M. and I spent half an hour in the new Trader Joe's wine store downtown, trying to pick out some suitably delicious, yet economically sound, wedding wines. We had two different Trader Joe's wine guys helping us. We discussed cabernets and chardonnays, pinot grigios and pinot noirs, the merits of Two Buck Chuck versus one of their other 4- and 5-dollar contracted labels. For thirty minutes, we talked about our wedding, our friends, our mothers who like Chardonnay way more than we do.

And then, when we'd finally achieved a reasonably confident short-list of wines, one of the wine guys looked at M. and said, "Now you'll just have to see which ones your girlfriend likes."

And my sister doesn't get it when I talk to her about the minor subtleties of being gay which make life just a little more awkward and uncomfortable.

Six weeks and counting

2006-05-13T11:27:00.000-04:00

My date-night with M. last night proved three things once and for all:

1. Titanium is the new platinum.

2. Amber Tamblyn is my new idol.

3. We desperately need to move off of Ninth Avenue and into Brooklyn.

A Shocking Realization; or Nude Chris Daughtry Trumps Accupuncture

2006-05-11T15:51:00.001-04:00

Every Wednesday and Thursday morning, my weblog is inundated with a relatively large onslaught of visitors. A cursory glance reveals that 99% of these visitors are fresh off of Fox and hungry for some nude You-Know-Who. This fact has, of course, already been discussed. What has been less discussed is that my special Visitor Recording Device shows that some of them find their way to this site and then stick around, sometimes leafing through 6 or more pages.

And this is where it gets sad, because somewhere along the line I got it into my head that perhaps these blue-balled McPhee-o-philes were able to place their sizzling hormones on the back burner, quickly recognizing the meritous and thought-provoking nature of my online endeavor and happily choosing to assuage their burgeoning curiosity about same-sex nuptials over their originally intended yen for nubile Photoshopped flesh.

Then, just five minutes ago, the lightbulb over my head flickered on with a rusty creak, and it occured to me: they're not thumbing through my blog because they want to see how the mind of a gay man ticks or find out how it all ends, they're doing it because the painfully blinding testosterone coursing through their sleep-deprived eyeballs has made them certain - - absolutely certain - - that somewhere, somehow, if they can just get past all the chicken pots standing in the way, there has got to be a nude picture of Her hidden amongst the pots and pans and slicers and dicers, because Google and Yahoo and Altavista have deemed it so.

To which I say: keep reading, all you dirty basement uncles and 3am WebTV sixteen year-olds. For if Nude Katharine McPhee is satisfaction, and satsifaction leads to enlightenment, and enlightenment to nirvana, then I've got your fix.

***

In other news, I got a free acupuncture session today - - my first ever - - and, aside from the slight burning in my ears and the awkwardness of laying on an examining table at my place of work, barefoot and unbuttoned, it was remarkably relaxing. My acupuncturist-in-training even shared some insights on my relationship with my father merely by looking at my tongue, and could tell I had good kidneys (I do!) just by checking my pulse.

And if that doesn't beat nude songstresses who should have been kicked off last night but weren't, then I don't know what does.

Speaking of which, how come nobody's getting on here by searching for Nude Chris Daughtry? Because Nude Chris Daughtry is something I would sell my proverbial chicken pot to see.

God I hope I get It

2006-05-09T09:22:00.000-04:00

Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 23:43:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: society@nytimes.com
To: Groom Zilla

Thank you for your submission. Your material will be reviewed by one of the paper's editors. If your item is chosen for publication, a member of The New York Times staff will contact you a few weeks before your event.

It's Over

2006-05-08T16:11:00.000-04:00

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT, M. and I finally started looking at wedding bands yesterday, in the Diamond District of all the Godforsakenest of Godforsaken places, and it was all very overwhelming and disillusioning and awkward (e.g. "Here, look at zees, eez the zame one Brad Pitt wearink"), but then a co-worker directed me to this place and I've now found several rings that I might love, all of which would force me to get over my lifelong dream of having a platinum ring like my mother's, but all of which are also handmade and beautiful so it wouldn't really matter, but they all evidently require at least six weeks of handmaking time, plus M. knows someone who knows someone who works there whom he doesn't like or who doesn't like him or who bought me the chicken pot or something and I knew this would happen, I just knew I'd let some major make-or-break thing slip right through the cracks, it probably happened while I was sitting shivah for my chicken pot or writing thank you notes or comparing shades of ecru, but now the whole precious thing is tarnished or it seems that way anyways and I'm going to have to go to Zales(TM) like Crazy Judy Who Sits Next To Me suggested, and when my great grandchildren come to visit and start to finger my tarnished and rusted and fake 8-karat aluminum wedding band and ask me to tell them the story behind it, all I'll be able to say is, "I got it at Zales," so at this point I may as well just sell the KitchenAid mixer and the crock pot and the cookbooks and bundt pans and split the money with M. and move to a deserted refrigerator box on the outskirts of Duluth with all the other Failed Brides.

Then again........

I could be watching my hands peel off as I swim around in my own urine inside a giant glass ball.

A One-Way Ticket on the T-minus 47 Day Express; or, Hold the Vomit

2006-05-08T11:21:00.000-04:00

It dawned on me this morning, mid-Loofa, that my life at present is a little bit like those last ten clackety-clackety-clackety feet of rollercoaster track before one goes hurtling over the pinnacle: the assumption that it's going to be just as fun as it looked from the corn dog kiosk, the hypothetically secure knowledge that it's the only ride you really wanted to go on and certainly the only one that was worth the three hours spent in the burning sun with shrieking children and hairy-backed men and heavily hormonified teenagers, the precursory excitement at the thought of everyone getting out when it's all over and screaming about How Fun It Was and rushing to the video monitor to see their expressions during that fourth big drop, the too easily-forgotten security of the familiar sweaty hand gripping your own under the safety bar - - and the somewhat pathetically sincere hope that you don't pass out, have a heart attack, or experience multiple episodes of vomitous along the way.

Crazy for Crowns

2006-05-04T13:15:00.000-04:00

This is what I do at work, when I'm not searching the South Dakota Craigslist for unused Staub chicken pots. Or, I should say, this is what they force me to do. Just think of all the poor and helpless, social worker-less dying people left to suffer while I fight for my right to dental work. Shame on you, union.

The good news is that it prevents me from delving into the more shallow recesses of my brain which, with just over seven weeks to go, are percolating with a million and three Things Still Left Undone Before the Wedding. Trust me, one peek would turn your hair white.

And now, your dinner (imagine the important parts in bold print):

May 4, 2006

Mr. X
Supervisor, Dental Department
xxxxx National Benefit Fund
xxx West 42nd Street, 4th floor
New York, NY xxxxx

Mr. xxxxx:

This letter is to detail in writing the efforts I have made thus far in obtaining authorization for a porcelain crown, following a partial break of my rearmost right bottom molar on April 4th, 2006.

· April 4th, 2006: I received a dental exam and a full set of dental x-rays from an associate of Dr. Samuel X(212-757-xxxx), whose office number I found on the 1199 dental provider online directory. Dr. X's associate examined my broken tooth and advised me of my urgent need for a crown, but then told me that they would not accept full payment from xxxxx, and that I would be responsible for at least $1200 of the fee.

· April 5th, 2006: I received a list of Members Choice xxxxx dental providers from your office, all of whom were either no longer participating with xxxxx, no longer present at the listed address/phone number, or otherwise unavailable.

· April 5th, 2006: Due to my inability to locate an available participating provider, I visited the dental clinic at xxxx Medical Center, where I was once again advised of an urgent need for a crown, but was again told I would be responsible for a sizeable fee.

· April 6th, 2006: I received a dental examination from an associate of Dr. Jay X (718-652-xxxx), to whom I was referred by another xxxx member. Dr. X's associate examined my tooth and once again advised me of my urgent need for a crown.

· April 7th, 2006: I hand-delivered a pre-authorization request for a porcelain crown from Dr. X's office to a woman in your xxxx dental department. When she advised me that the approval might take up to 8 weeks, I told her that I was in serious pain and that three dentists had advised me to have a crown placed within the next week or two. At this point, your associate told me that the authorization should be reviewed within a week or two.

· Week of April 17th, 2006: I called your office to check on my authorization and spoke to several people, including yourself. At that time, your office advised me that my authorization had been denied due to insufficient x-ray evidence of a need for a crown. It is unclear when your office would have alerted me of this denial, had I not contacted you myself. At that time, you personally advised me that you would resubmit the request for authorization. You did not advise me to have another set of x-rays taken at that time. I reminded you and your associates that I was in pain and that I was fearful of developing an infection and/or losing more of my tooth.

· April 25th, 2006: I again called your office and spoke to a female associate, who advised me that my authorization had not yet been re-reviewed, and that it might be another “few days” before it was reviewed. I once again reminded your associate that I was in pain and fearful of an infection or further tooth damage.

· May 1st, 2006: I again called your office and spoke to your associate Mr. X, who advised me that the authorization had still not been re-reviewed. After placing me on hold and speaking with you, Mr. X told me that, according to you, you had advised me on the week of the 17th that I should have another x-ray taken of my tooth, and that this should be submitted with my renewed request for authorization. I advised Mr. X that no such guidance had been provided, but that you had instead told me that the request would be resubmitted as-is.

· I spoke to you personally later in the day on May 1st, at which point you also suggested that you had advised me on the week of the 17th to have another x-ray taken. As I told you then, I am certain that you offered no such instruction. Obviously, as my consistent contact with your office would indicate, I am eager to resolve this issue, and would have gladly and swiftly walked to Dr. X's office at that time to have another x-ray taken. You advised me that once I had received the new x-ray, I could hand-deliver it to your office and that you would expedite the review. You also told me I could make an appointment with Ms. X for an in-person examination of my broken tooth, but you could not tell me if this would expedite the approval process.

· May 2nd, 2006: I received a fourth dental exam from an associate at Dr. X's office, who took a single x-ray of my broken tooth and assured me that the x-ray clearly evidenced a need for a crown.

· I plan on hand-delivering this new x-ray to your office on the morning of Friday, May 5th.

As you can see from the above timeline, as of May 5th, four weeks will have passed from the time I first provided your office with my authorization request. My tooth has remained partially broken for over four weeks, causing me physical discomfort. A dentist first advised me of the urgent need for a crown over four weeks ago, stressing the real possibility of further damage or infection, which could lead to complications including endocarditis, a serious and potentially fatal heart infection. I have been forced to endure the physical pain and discomfort of a broken tooth, and have been unable to chew food on that side of my mouth for over four weeks.

I work very hard at xxxx Medical Center as a member of the xxxx union, paying my union dues every month and representing the union in my capacity as a social worker with the terminally ill. I have made every possible effort – including hand-delivering my authorization request to your office on 42nd Street, an hour-long commute from my office at xxxx Medical Center – to expedite the review process and receive a dental intervention which three different dentists have advised. It has been more than frustrating to receive inconsistent information and guidance in such a prolonged time period from your office, when I am only trying to receive dental care to which I am entitled and which will have an impact on my overall health and well being.

As a social worker with the terminally ill, I pride myself on my patience and composure, as well as my knowledge of the complications and intricacies of the health care system and its various bureaucracies. It is not easy to “rattle” me. At this point in time, however, I must again advise you that I expect this matter to be resolved as a first priority for your office. Your failure to follow through may result in further harm or damage to my physical person, which would leave me with no choice but to explore legal action against xxxx, an entity whose purpose is to protect me and not to cause me further pain and suffering. This issue goes above and beyond the regretfully inadequate and restrictive level of dental coverage provided by xxxx.

I appreciate your understanding in this matter, and look forward to having this issue resolved in the next week. As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions at (917)xxx-xxxx.

Most sincerely,

________________________
Groom Zilla, LMSW
Social Worker
xxxxx Medical Center
xxxx, NY

Cc: Ms. X, Executive Director xxx NBF
Mr. X, xxxx Organizer, xxxx Medical Center

Looking Back

2006-05-02T23:50:00.000-04:00

This coming Sunday marks the one year anniversary of my own private weblog.

And what do I have to show for it?

A kitchenful of Crate & Barrel boxes, fourteen new grey hairs, and a sudden, startling surge in viewership.

At least one of which -- perhaps two -- is due to young basement-bound teens hungry for Nude Katharine McPhee.*

*I should acknowledge my clear and intentional understanding that every time I reference Nude Katharine McPhee (there she is again), I maintain my firm grip as the number one search result for Nude Katharine McPhee, thereby ensuring a steady viewership well into Sweeps Week. And an inevitable lawsuit from (Nude)Katharine McPhee's mother.

In Memorium

2006-05-01T21:06:00.000-04:00

Happily, M. and I survived the weekend unscathed.

Sadly, everyone else cannot say the same.

They say there's no word for a mother who loses a child.

Doing my part

2006-04-24T16:19:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-24T14:34:00.000-04:00

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.

Booty Call

2006-04-23T22:38:00.000-04:00

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.

Driving Miss Crazy; or, Joint Custody

2006-04-17T17:43:00.000-04:00

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.

This Just In

2006-04-16T10:48:00.000-04:00

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

On par with Nude Katharine McPhee

2006-04-14T11:35:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-14T10:59:00.000-04:00

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.

Without further ado...

2006-04-12T22:20:00.000-04:00

I had another dream

2006-04-11T11:17:00.000-04:00

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.

Give it to me now

2006-04-10T19:51:00.000-04:00

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.

Progeria

2006-04-06T10:18:00.000-04:00

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.

The End is Nigh

2006-04-03T09:52:00.000-04:00

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.

Feeling unrequited, and also maimed

2006-03-31T18:05:00.000-05:00

Question of the Day: Is it possible to break one's calf?

And, if so, what's up with the three day delay on eliptical machine injuries?

Also, M. and I have two separate packages full of wedding registry goodness waiting for us, which we are presently, unpleasantly, unable to obtain. One is from FedEx and is currently locked inside the evil mailroom at M.'s work until Monday morning. The other is from UPS and is currently stuck on the evil UPS delivery truck for the rest of the night, but really until Monday morning, because then it will be locked inside the evil UPS pick-up center which is closed over the weekend. Pardon my French, but can anyone say blue balls?

I had a dream

2006-03-31T09:07:00.000-05:00

Last night I had a dream that I was Katharine McPhee from American Idol -- only blonde, and with shorter hair -- and that I somehow got into Keven Federline's wedding gift registry closet, which was lined with stacks and stacks of drinking glasses, which I proceeded to demolish and shatter and destroy. Then I got into my mother's car (my real mother, not Mrs. McPhee) and we sped away.

I don't know what any of this means. But it felt really good to break all those glasses. Also, I hated my (Katharine's) hair.