Thursday is the new Friday. August 30, 2007

Today is my Friday for tomorrow, tomorrow we move.
 
The Great Move-In Experiment of 2007 is underway, also known as FINALLY! (as has been the subject line of our emails for weeks now).
 
I haven’t really been obsessing (You: Liar! Me: No really!) as much as I have been anticipating. It’s like Christmas and also Easter and also my birthday and also the fourth of July and, literally, Labor Day weekend all rolled into one. I’m like a little kid, pacing and fidgeting and tapping my feet and OMIGOD, WOULD IT JUST HAPPEN ALREADY?
 
A little kid who, um, hasn’t packed a single thing. Not one. Single. Thing.
 
Ok, that’s not entirely true. I did take my extensive collection of headbands (I’m a headband girl; don’t judge) and stuff them all into an old make-up case so that I no longer, at 8:42am, when I should be halfway to work already, have to search through drawers and throw things around and grunt and berate myself for being so careless with my things because WHERE THE HELL IS THAT POLKA DOT HEADBAND (I’m a polka dot headband girl; again, don’t judge).
 
The hardest part of the weekend will be staying on track with Operation Buff Bride. I’m dedicated to eating healthier and less, all for the sake of photographs and my self-esteem on the Big Day. I do not want to be focused on the fact that I wish my arms were slimmer come July 25, 2008. I want to be focused solely on the fact that it is July 25, 2008 and I am GETTING MARRIED. Hence, I must take care of the arm (and all-over) slimming beforehand. Like, now.
 
Last night, there was a party for our office building. It screamed New York: a hundred or so hipsters people from various television and film companies gathered in a courtyard smaller than most suburban backyards, networking and hitting on and being hit on and reconnecting about that project they worked on long ago, and omigod, wasn’t that the worst? There was music and appetizers and, most importantly, free booze.
 
Normally, at these things, I am uncontrollable. Someone is always fetching me another glass of wine, I am always picking appetizers off of the trays making the rounds, sometimes two at a time, paying no attention to what I’m putting in my mouth because it’s a party! And it’s free! And my willpower is about as strong as (to shout out my heritage) a sheet of phyllo dough.
 
But not last night. Last night I plucked exactly three bite-sized appetizers off of trays and had exactly one glass of wine. And when I got home I didn’t feel disgusting and disgusted. Funny how that happens. Funny how I woke up this morning not hating myself. I like not hating myself.
 
So, yes, the long weekend, which I hope you all enjoy immensely.
 
Come Tuesday, there will most likely be pictures of our (!!!!) apartment (including one of the infamous Patriots garbagecan, natch). Either that or pictures of M lunging at the camera because CLINK, would you put that thing down already and, like, start unpacking because, like, this is ridiculous and I’ve had to do, like, everything.
 
Also come Tuesday will be the new job. The first time I will be “the boss.” I’m already practicing the many different ways one can say “bow down to me, the Almighty, you lowly assistant.” You’d be surprised.

The Wildfires. August 29, 2007

In many ways, Greece has always felt more like home than any of the other places I’ve lived: New Jersey, Manhattan, the suburbs of Philadelphia, London. 
 
My family is fortunate to have a house there, on a beautiful island, in a small town where everyone knows your name and then some.
 
I could kick myself for being the bratty teenager that I was, stomping my feet about the fact that we had to go to Greece again, and why didn’t we go to the Caribbean or Hawaii or Florida or the shore like the rest of my friends? Why couldn’t we be like everyone else? I’ve never even been to Disneyworld, Mom and Dad! GOD!
 
My kids will probably give me much of the same, pouting and complaining and wanting to be “normal.” They won’t realize until a little later that most people would kill to be “abnormal,” to go to Greece every summer of their lives to a house just a block from a crystal clear ocean and sand so white and fine it feels like sifted confectioner’s sugar between your toes.
 
Many of you have emailed about the fires, to inquire as to my family. That means a lot to me. The fact that you took time out of your day to shoot me a “hey, is your family okay? What’s going on with your mothership?” email just reinforces the fact that y’all are so awesome.
 
My heart is broken for the lives lost, the towns destroyed. Luckily, my family is fine.
 
Initially, I dismissed the fires as the media playing up something that is so commonplace in Greece. We have had wildfires on our island, Kefalonia, almost every summer that I can remember. And, while it is a terrifying sight to see fires raging up on the mountains, normally it looks more threatening than it really is. In fact, there’s only one summer I can remember that it threatened us directly.
 
I was going into third grade at the time, woken in the middle of the night by my mother urging me to put on my sneakers and grab a few of my belongings – things that would’ve been inconceivable to live without at the time, like Pink Dog and my journal. Also, Gameboy.
 
They rushed us down to the ocean, where many in the town had gathered. It looked like an impromptu beach party, without the laughs. Everyone was drinking wine. I remember being carried by my father down the road that led to the beach and sneaking a look back at the fires that were closer than I had ever seen before. Smoke so thick that everything beyond our orange and lemon groves was not visible, not even in the slightest. Miles and miles of road and homes and hotels leading to the mountain that looked like they had just been erased.
 
We were lucky enough to have a rich and generous uncle who ferried everyone out to his yacht, docked in the Ionian, where his staff served bread and feta and olive oil and ouzo.
 
I remember crying because my grandmother and my great uncle – hearty Greek stock that they were and are – refused to leave. They were going to resist the fire with garden hoses. They had worked hard to build the house that still stands, the place where we go every year, that gorgeous refuge, a maze of white washed bedrooms and marble baths and beautiful verandas and balconies off of each room. My mother and father pleaded and begged, to no avail.
 
To hell if they were going down without a fight.
 
My parents – of less hearty Greek American stock – weren’t taking any chances.
 
We stayed on the yacht until the early morning, until the relentless dumping of water from the planes overhead finally made some headway, until it seemed safe to return home.
 
We went back to the house, to my grandmother who was already cooking the afternoon meal, shaking her head at the “idiot shepherds.” She was cursing in Greek and in English; she rarely ever cursed in either language.
 
Apparently, the fires – on our island, at least - are usually set by shepherds so that the grass will grow fresh for their herds. Idiots, indeed.
 
I don’t know if that’s the case in the fires that are currently raging in Southern Greece. There has been a lot of speculation. I do know, maybe, why some have died: we Greeks are stubborn.
 
I read about a couple who perished because they refused to abandon their only donkey. They rejected a drive to safety in a police car because of a donkey. That’s love, that’s loyalty. That’s also part of the problem.
 
My parents’ (American?) sensibilities told them to get out and fast that summer. My grandmother and great uncle’s Greek sensibilities told them to defend, go down with the ship. Luckily it all worked out for them but that story could have had a very different, very tragic ending, as it has for so many in Greece recently.
 
I read about the graves being dug for a mother who died with her arms around her children, a teacher who died in a futile effort to shield her students, people too sick or disabled to flee in such a short period of time. I cried at work. These are my people and many of them are in peril and the government is playing a blame game. It’s oddly Katrina-esque, on a much, much smaller scale.
 
I’m not a very religious person, but bless everyone over there that has been affected.

Fine China. August 28, 2007

I whined as we walked in. 
 
“Do we really need it? Are we ever going to use it? It’s just so expensive.” 
 
My mom, who has been hearing me whine for twenty-five years, ignored me. In true Clink’s Mom fashion, she alerted a sales assistant, had a table set with four different types of china that she thought I would like, picked out table linens to complement each setting and had already entered the vital information to jump start my Bloomingdales registry. 
 
All before I got back from the in-store café, where I went to get a lemonade.  
 
The saleswoman – older, the type who proudly announces that she polishes her silverware on a regular schedule, who refers to brides as “the girls,” as in, “all the girls are doing silver instead of gold these days” – encouraged me to sit down at each place setting. 
 
“Pretend to sip some coffee. Pretend there is lovely roast chicken on your plate. Envision how this will look in your home. This is what your guests will see when they sit down at your table.” 
 
My home? Oh, you mean my 800 square foot apartment with room for four at the dining table, and even that’s pushing it? My guests? Oh, you mean all those people who are also in their twenties who eat off of paper plates and drink wine out of paper cups because we’re all too lazy to do dishes? What do I want them to envision? And, um, I don’t even know how to make roast chicken. 
 
I sat down at each setting anyway.  
 
Like goldilocks, the first two were all wrong. One was too formal – china that would look at home in a palace, circa Henry VIII. The other – even though it was Kate Spade, even thought it was polka dotted and I love polka dots – wasn’t right. I can’t really articulate why. It felt too girly, too whimsical, too single-in-the-city and not at all “we are a couple, here are our dishes, enjoy your roast chicken.” 
 
The third one, however. Well, there was something different about it. Maybe it was the fact that it was Vera Wang and I’ve always felt that if I were a designer, much of my stuff would look like hers. Maybe it was the fact that it was modern, but not in-your-face-look-how-fashion-forward-we-are modern. Maybe it was the fact that, um, yeah, I could actually picture my guests sitting down to a table set with that china. That I could actually envision loving it for many, many years. Plus, I’m really into light pink and silver/gray and my mom – because she is my mom, because she has impeccable taste – chose very light pink placemats and napkins to accompany the silver/gray china.  
 
I felt, in that moment, that something snapped. Up until then, this whole wedding thing has felt a bit like pretend. Everything having to do with weddings feels is so surreal. Trust me. Like some sort of real-life fantasy game that M and I play to pass the time. For example: writing checks – deposit checks – that are larger than my paycheck just feels like we’re moving around Monopoly money. It’s like we’re playing The Sims: Wedding Edition. 
 
But the china. Who knew it would be the china? The china I was so adamantly against (“Seventy-five dollars! For a plate!”) turned out to be the one thing that made me feel like, oh, hey this is it. You are becoming an adult. You will have fine china that you serve to your guests with wine other than, you know, Yellowtail, during dinner parties where there will witty conversation and intellectual debate.  
 
Or, you know, an analysis of Rock of Love. Whatever. 
 
I’m actually excited about the damn china. I still think it is unbelievably expensive and I’m still a bit creeped out about this whole registry thing but, damn, it’s beautiful and damn, I can’t wait to throw a dinner party just so I can whip it out and stare longingly at how beautiful it is. 
 
I just have to learn how to make roast chicken first.

Would! You! Be! Mad?: M Edition August 27, 2007

It’s time for another round of Would! You! Be! Mad?! Except this time, it’s a limited-edition M version. As in, some things went down at the bachelor party he attended this past weekend (no, not those kinds of things; there were no strippers) and he was suitably appalled, as was I. However, we can’t tell if we’re overreacting or not. I told him I’d ask the Wise Internets, as the Internets – and my readers especially – are very, very smart.  
 
(By the way, hi, tangent: Whenever I talk about the blog now, M sings to me “secret blogggggggg-er” to the tune of that song “secret lovvvvvers.” You know the one. T-Mobile commercial. It cracks me up, without fail.)  
 
So, M is the co-best man for his close friend, who we will call Adam, who is getting married in September. He organized, as per Adam’s suggestions, a weekend for the boys in Atlantic City: steak dinners, gambling, more gambling, yet even more gambling… 
 
All was going fine on Saturday. They had played a few rounds of golf, hung out on the beach, won money at craps, and were getting ready to go to dinner at the most expensive restaurant in the most expensive casino in Atlantic City (it rhymes with Schmorgata.)  
 
M and Adam shared a room for the weekend – all the boys had chipped in to pay for Adam’s half, just like they were going to pay for his dinner, just like they had been buying him drinks left and right.  
 
But no, Adam felt the boys weren’t doing enough. So, as M shaved, Adam suggested that M pull aside the rest of the boys and get them to pony up $30 a person (as there were 12 people altogether, that would’ve been a tidy sum of $360) so that Adam could “gamble for free.” He went on to tell M that he didn’t feel the guys were “doing much” and since they “hadn’t gotten him a gift” (um, SINCE WHEN DO MEN GET GIFTS OTHER THAN FREE LAP DANCES FOR THEIR BACHELOR PARTIES?), he felt that asking everyone to pony up money was a reasonable request. 
 
M was very taken aback, especially because Adam is very soft-spoken and kind and not at all materialistic. 
 
“It screams of something Marley told him to do,” M told me later, Marley being Adam’s bride-to-be. Marley is very materialistic – she’s the Platinum Bride I’ve referred to in previous posts.  
 
So M awkwardly asked all the guys to throw down $30 each so that Adam could gamble for free, despite the fact that they all paid to get down to AC and paid for their own hotel rooms – and Adam’s – in AC and the fact that they were paying for all of Adam’s meals and drinks. Clearly, that wasn’t enough. 
 
“It was awkward. And the thing is,” M said, “I saw him play one game of poker for the rest of the weekend. Seriously, one game. Other than that he was just drinking or hanging around the other guys who were gambling, but not laying any money down himself.”  
 
If that wasn’t fishy enough, here is the final twist: 
 
Before they departed for home, Adam told M he was just going to slip into the Coach store. He emerged with a gift for Marley. 
 
So, yeah. M and his friends threw down their hard earned cashed so that Adam could essentially play one game of poker and buy a new purse for Marley. At least, that’s how we see it.  
 
I’m supremely disturbed. It’s not the fact that it was $30 because, really, $30 isn’t going to break anyone’s bank. It’s the fact that he asked for it, the fact that he felt it was owed to him, the fact that Adam felt that his friends weren’t “doing enough” for him (the pleasure of their company, clearly, was not even a consideration) that makes him a grade-A prick in my book.

Letters. August 23, 2007

Dear The Sun, 

Hi! It’s me! I miss you! Where have you been?  

What’s that? On the west coast?  

Ok, fine, whatever, yeah there are prettier people out there but you know what? They are sun whores. They get you all the time. All we’re asking is for a brief respite from this five-day, all cloudy, all the time, could-be-November-out-there bullshit.  

Did you by chance get us confused with London?  

Come back soon. LYLAS. 

Xo,  

Clink  

*** 

Dear Interns, 

You’re lazy. Not incompetent, but lazy. I just don’t understand the entitlement of your generation.  

Yes, we work in TV. Yes, we work for a pretty cool company. Yes, it’s fairly relaxed around here. Yes, I am not that much older than you. 

That, however, does not mean you can brush me off with a “yeah, one second” as you update your Facebook page when I ask you to help me out with something.  

And yeah, I took it to the big boss. And, yeah, I was thrilled when he called you in and told you that if I ask you to do something, you should act as if GOD HIMSELF asked you to do something. And, yeah, I’m only here for another week but I’m enjoying the fact that you no longer walk around like you are the princes and princesses of this place. 

I was an intern once too. And you know what? I worked my ass off. And I did it all with a smile. That’s why I am where I am right now. You should probably take note. 

-Clink 

*** 

Dear Family, 

Welcome back from Greece! I missed you. I am jealous of your tans. I am sorry that the sun has taken a brief hiatus from this area. I can’t wait to see you this weekend.

Love,

Clink

*** 

Dear Future Husband, 

You made last night so special: the reservations at our favorite place, the stop at Cold Stone afterwards, how you said that you are so proud of me and you get so happy when someone else (as in, my future boss) realizes how much I rock.  

I love you more than you could possibly imagine. Think of how much you think I love you and then multiply that by eleventy thousand million trillion and then you’ll be somewhere in the ballpark. 

Thinking about you still gives me butterflies. 

Yours, 

Clinky 

*** 

Dear Reality Television, 

You rock. For reals. Even when you break my heart, like you did last night, when Tre got kicked off of Top Chef and I kind of wanted to cry. Ok fine, maybe I did cry but Tre! So poised, so professional, so likable. He had one bad night and he gets sent packing but Howie, Mr. I Couldn’t Get My Frog Legs Plated In The First Episode, gets to stick around? 

But Fashionista Diaries, last night? So good. And The Hills, even if I’m starting to suspect that it is, indeed, fully scripted? So good. And Big Brother? SO GOOD.  

I’m starting to think we have a bit of a unhealthy relationship but I’m clearly not going anywhere anytime soon. Fall TV is right around the corner. 

Kisses,

Clink 

*** 

Dear Readers, 

I am so sorry for this crappy excuse for a post. I’m all out of ideas and who really wants to hear me squee about my job, or bitch about how my mom thinks my registry isn’t well-rounded enough, or complain about how I have no motivation to go to the gym? No one, that’s who.

Feel free to suggest post topics. Otherwise, there might be more of this (*nods upwards*) to come.  

Also, you look really skinny today, have you lost weight? 

Best, 

Your Clink

I got it. August 22, 2007

I feel like I could kiss everyone. Seriously, everyone. Even you. Pucker up.  

This is the first time I will be working with a team under me. Like, a real team. Not just PA’s and interns but like, people who will call me their boss. I’ll be working on a show I love, I’ll be setting my own hours, I’ll be working for someone I adore at a great rate.

Life is good right now. I can’t even deal.

Out-Brided. August 22, 2007

I thought I was doing pretty well. If Bride-to-Be were a class, I’d surely be earning at least a B+, if not an A. I mean, it’s eleven months from our wedding and already M and I have secured the church, the reception site, the registry, the bridal party and the band. Not bad, right? I mean, I should probably start thinking more seriously about dresses and we do have to get all that stuff to the church that we’ve been too lazy to compile and my diet has been more like a non-diet and damn it I had an egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast today, but hey. All in all, I’m proud of us. Or, at least I was.  
 
Then I talked to M’s friend from college, Emma, who is getting married a month after us. 
 
Emma not only has everything that we have but she also has her dress, and her invitations, and her bridesmaids dresses and her florist and an appointment for her first hair trial in just a few weeks. 
 
But that’s not even the most disturbing part. I mean, some people are overachievers and I’m okay with not being one. (Besides, the overachievers never had dates in high school.) 
 
The most disturbing part is that, in order to get in shape for her wedding (please note: this woman is a size two, on a fat day), Emma wakes up at four thirty in the morning to go to the gym. That’s 4:30. A.M. 
 
It’s okay, I’ll wait for a few moments while you pick yourself up off the floor, no worries. 
 
You back? Ok good. 
 
Because FOUR THIRTY IN THE MORNING? FOUR FUCKING THIRTY? IS SHE KIDDING WITH THAT? I WAKE UP FOUR HOURS AFTER FOUR THIRTY IN THE DAMN MORNING AND I THINK THAT’S TOO EARLY TO DO ANYTHING, LET ALONE GO TO THE GYM. 
 
In a way, I admire her dedication. She (despite being a size two, did I mention that?) wants to look good on her wedding day, so she’s making sure that she does.  
 
On the other hand, FOUR THIRTY? IN THE DAMN MORNING? (I’m a little afraid that all of you will respond to this post with “yeah, uh, duh Clink, we all go to the gym at four thirty in the morning, we’re part of an army of people slipping into gym clothes at four thirty in the morning, you hadn’t heard, you fat ass you?”)  
 
I’m kind of inspired. I’ve never been a competitive person but hearing that kind of got my juices flowing. She’s out-briding me at the moment, but it’s still early, and that doesn’t mean I can’t pull a come-from-behind victory. Ok, I know this isn’t a head-to-head challenge for who can be the hotter bride and have the better wedding, but anything that motivates me to get turn off The Hills, put down the remote and go to the gym, is welcomed.
 
Except, I plan to be going at six-thirty in the evening because REALLY? FOUR FUCKING THIRTY?

Oh, and a job-related non-update: I haven’t heard yet and I feel so sick, down to the very core of my stomach, about that. I am literally staring at my phone, urging it to ring out of SHEER WILL. One of my references emailed to tell me that she gave maybe-future-boss a stellar recommendation, so that’s all I have to go on right now but GOOD FUCKING LORD this is so painful. I need some wine.

The drowned rat might just get the job. August 21, 2007

I just came back from an interview.  
 
I was soaking wet when I got there, I am still soaking wet now that I’m back at the desk of my current job. 
 
It’s apparently November in New York. It’s cold and wet and have I mentioned COLD and WET because I just can’t seem to emphasize just how cold and god damn wet it is. 
 
Nothing like showing up for an interview for a job you want more than, oh, ANY OTHER JOB looking like a drowned rat. Yup, nothing inspires confidence quite like that. 
 
So everyone who knows and loves me and therefore has to put up with my neuroses (hi M, hi Dad, hi Roommate, hi Molly) knows that I’ve been freaking out about this interview for a few days. As in, last night I was curled in the fetal position unable to speak, that’s how nervous I was about doing well on this interview. I didn’t even eat dinner! Me! No dinner! When I don’t eat, you know it’s bad. 
 
But all that freaking out was (hopefully) for nothing, because the interview rocked. I kind of want my hopefully-soon-to-be-new-boss to be my best friend. Once we got all the boring stuff (past experience, what the job entails, etc) out of the way, we ended up talking about our engagement rings and our weddings and how we’re both on diets and how we both used to be 20 pounds skinnier before we took jobs that made us eat too much to deal with the stress. She even gave me a hug at the end of the interview.  
 
Seriously, if this whole her-giving-me-a-job thing doesn’t work out, I may just call her to get some drinks.  
 
But I think it’s going to work out. I hate putting that out there because that gives the universe license to fuck around and say “think again, Clink! SUCKA!” or something but I got a good feeling. Could have something to do with the fact that she said she really liked me and wanted to hire me. However, she does have a few more interviews and I’m afraid that one of those people might blow her away even more than I did.  
 
And then I will cry and drink lots of wine and then cry some more because FUCK I want this job. If you knew what the job was, you would know why. Dammit, sometimes I feel like throwing anonymity to the wind and just telling you guys because, seriously, hi, DREAM JOB FOR CLINK.

Thinking. You know, about…stuff. August 20, 2007

Much of my Sunday was spent in my pajamas, in my bed, messing around on M’s laptop. 
 
Some of the resulting evidence (please excuse the wet, tangled hair; I was post-the only shower I took all weekend):

       
 
The weekend was non-eventful. I did get out of my pajamas a few times – to go shopping in SoHo, to eat lobster rolls in Nolita, to see (and laugh very hard at) Superbad, to inhale Mexican on the Upper East Side, to spend $54.98 at Duane Reade when I only went in for paper towels.  
 
But mostly, it was me and the laptop and M beside me, with his books.  
 
Mostly, it was me staring at a blank screen, waiting for divine inspiration to come and possess my hands and type the sort of short story that brings prizes and accolades and financial independence in the form of feature film rights.  
 
I haven’t been writing. Other than, you know, this thing that I do here. I haven’t been writing fiction, I haven’t been writing the short stories that prompted one of my professors – himself a published author – to tell me mine was the best undergraduate writing he’d seen in years and years of teaching. I haven’t been writing and, as a result, and I know this is going to sound odd, and I don’t really care – my soul feels cluttered. 
 
I have all of these half-ideas and characters and storylines running through my head and they have no home. To paraphrase that song that was very popular as a result of Grey’s Anatomy, if I get them on paper they can stop threatening the life they belong to. So I should do that, get them on paper. Or up on screen. Or anywhere but my head, where the ideas just tend taunt me, upset about the fact that they are just that – ideas.  
 
I’m curious as to how many of you bloggers also write fiction. I know that they don’t go hand in hand, but I also know that in many cases, they do. I know that blogging, for many, myself included, is a form of exercising the muscle. If you write every day, the bicep of your craft is going to be toned, is going to look stunning in a halter. (I think of the writing muscle as a bicep; I have no explanation). Some of you (hi, Pete! How are things in Canada today?) incorporate fiction into your blogs, which I so admire. I’m more terrified of presenting my fiction than I am of laying my neuroses bare to be judged.  
 
So, tell me. Do you blog just to blog? Do you blog to keep the bicep fit, or get it into shape? Do you blog in lieu of fiction writing? Or do you (cough overachiever cough) manage to do both?

Update to a previous post: Oh, and Mike - Molly’s boss and one of my true BlogFriends - has put up his own take on the Great Patriots Garbage Can Debate of ‘07: http://mikesgotnothin.blogspot.com/ It helped me to understand why the damn garbage can is so important to M. I think I’m going to, reluctantly, let him keep it. But I’m going to make sure it is stored out of view, UNDERNEATH the desk. See? Compromise.

V.I.B. August 17, 2007

I went to a bridal expo last night. 
 
I did not seek out the bridal expo. As with all things that one should be wary of in life, the bridal expo aggressively sought me out via emails from some “future bride” list that I apparently stumbled onto (The Knot, I blame you) and phone calls from one of M’s friends – a fellow bride – who heard a rumor about “free drinks” and “lots of swag” and thus convinced me to attend.  
 
I could sum up the experience by saying this: we walked in at 6:37pm and walked out at 7:28pm and were sitting in a bar, two rounds each in front of us, by 7:36pm. I exaggerate not.
 
The minute I was handed my V.I.B. sticker (that’s Very Important Bride, duh), I knew I should’ve turned around and walked out. However – as I am very, very good at ignoring my gut instincts (it’s an art, really) – I did not. And before I knew it, BrideFriend and I were quickly escorted from the peaceful lobby of the hotel into a ballroom that… 
 
Well, there’s no good way to explain it. The best picture I can paint is this: you know when you’re walking through a department store to get to the rest of the mall? And inevitably you have to walk through the cosmetics section, because the cosmetics section is usually the part that connects the department store to the rest of the mall? And suddenly you go into ninja mode as you are forced to dodge aging women who took their make-up cues from a pastel clown as they try and spritz you with “this season’s hottest scent”?
 
Yeah, it’s kind of like that. Times five hundred. Except, instead of perfume, you are bombarded with pamphlets (tuxedos! Limos! Cake! Zoom tooth whitening system?) and it’s kind of like a casino in that it is designed to keep you in at all costs. And there is NO BAR, as we found out after a few laps around the perimeter. We even eventually asked one of the women running the expo about, you know, whether there was any place to get a glass of wine or eleventy thousand and she looked at us as if we had just asked if we could eat her arm, as we hadn’t had lunch and were kind of hungry…that’s how horrified. 
 
There were brides everywhere: fat brides, skinny brides, young brides, old brides. And all of them were pushing and pulling and basically acting the way you expect people to act during a riot or a Barney’s warehouse sale.  
 
“This is, like, our Bridal Class of ’08,” BrideFriend said to me, wide-eyed, as we got jostled near the Fortunoff booth. 
 
“I weep for the future.”  
 
Ultimately, we did what any self-respecting anti-brides with slight claustrophobia would do: we quickly hit up all the tables that were handing out free gifts (I now have enough Redken hair products to keep an entire southern sorority coiffed for two semesters) and then we got some cake (delicious! Though when is cake not delicious, I ask you? Or am I just very liberal with how I feel about cake?) and then we stood awkwardly against a wall while waiting for the bridal fashion show – the “highlight” of the evening - to begin. 
 
“So. Um. Yeah, this fashion show should be, um, interesting and, um, I’ve never really been that into David’s Bridal but, um, I hear they have good bargains and…” 
 
“Do you want to leave?” 
 
“I thought you’d never ask.” 
 
We ran out of the ballroom like we were being chased, which we probably were, because those tuxedo guys were aggressive. We made a beeline for the first bar, even though we happened to be in Times Square, threw our 547 (approximate) bags in a booth and begged the server to bring us drinks (and fried food, natch) as fast as he possibly could.
 
I was overstimulated for the rest of the night, unable to focus on even The Fashionista Diaries or Big Brother (that’s when you know its bad). I know that this all sounds dramatic – I mean, it was a glorified trade show for brides, no one should have left feeling like they’d just been through a warzone – but for someone who values her personal space and her unbruised skin and the fact that no means no (I’m looking at you, tuxedo guys), it was kind of a traumatic experience. 
 
However, as I emailed to BrideFriend this morning, we may never be the same, but at least we got some free cake out of it.