I’m in a holding pattern at the moment.
I’m waiting for tomorrow: Brunch at our favorite spot, lounging in the park with each other and a pile of wedding magazines, a rooftop barbeque to watch the fireworks.
I’m waiting for Friday: A barbeque at my parents’ home. Some suburbia - and some family - will do me good.
I’m waiting for Saturday: Driving down to my beloved Philadelphia for a weekend with two of my future bridesmaids. (PS - any cute ideas on how to ask them, short of blurting it out while drunk as I did when I asked my first bridesmaid?)
I’m waiting for next Thursday: Departing for Vegas, having packed my sluttiest dresses and tiniest bathing suits and tallest heels because if not in Vegas, then where?
I’m waiting for the sixteenth: Starting a new job. Should be old hat by now but there are butterflies. Yes, already.
I’m waiting for next July: Because, quite frankly, all this planning has made me ludicrously anxious and excited about the wedding.
Sigh. The wedding. Or, The Wedding, as it deserves to be capitalized because it is a Thing of Magnitude - lowercase does not do enough justice.
It has become The Thing We Talk About - between M and I and also amongst our families and friends. I’ll refrain from bringing it up - not wanting to be That Girl Who Can Only Talk About Her Wedding - only to be bombarded with questions and suggestions and opinions and “please do not wear a strapless poufy gown. You’ll look like every other bride. Also, a cupcake.”
Last night I had a dream that I tried on dresses. And - seeing as it was a DREAM and therefore NOT REALITY - every dress I tried on fit perfectly. From the sexy A-Line halter to, yes, the cupcake fairy princess happily ever after poufy dresses. I woke up smiling.
Way to set me up for disappointment, Subconscious, for when I actually do try on dresses and none of them look right and I’ll be standing there all “but they looked so great in my dream!” and then everyone will kind of give each other the “she’s officially lost it” looks and someone will hand me champagne and ask if I’m getting enough sleep.
Which, hello, I totally am. Because it’s while sleeping I look fucking amazing in every dress.
Have I lost it already? Possible. Also - a massive hangover (hi, four glasses of wine last night on a stomach containing nothing more than a granola bar eaten at 10am) combined with a massive dose of allergy medicine (really? With the allergies? Still?) does make for a bit of a fuzzy Clink.
Luckily tonight seems to be just the antidote: dinner and drinks al fresco with friends for Roommate’s birthday, and then a quick nap before a 2am (yes, you read that right) Revolutionary War tour of Manhattan - did I mention it starts at 2am? - because my fiancé is insane. Also, cute. So he can get away with it.
Plus I’m wearing a red and white polka dot dress (Fiance: You look like Minnie Mouse. In a good way) and that just makes everything - even a damn Tuesday morning holding pattern - better. Eh?
Holding Pattern. July 3, 2007
Bubble of Us June 21, 2007
The Publicist and I live vicariously through each other.
She tries on my ring, inquires about wedding plans. I try on her fancy shoes, inquire about that actor she made out with last week.
Our respective lives fascinate each other.
There was a time, in London, in 2002, when our paths were parallel. We recognized something familiar in each other those first few days in South Kensington and our friendship evolved fast, a whirlwind of short skirts and expensive drinks bought by strangers and secrets told in backseats of black cabs at 4am and late-night Indian take-out on my bed as we drunk-dialed our friends back in “the States.”
That experience bonded us for life, even if our paths now have split.
She lives for work. “Balls to the wall, Clink, like how I used to be about partying.” She’s at the top of her game at a very young age but all that success comes with consequences. Namely, not having an existence apart from work. “Sometimes, I just sleep on my couch in the office. It’s just easier.”
I envy her life, I do. In a way. I envy the glamour and excitement. I envy the fact that she goes to great parties (“I need a dress for the Emmys…”), has her own assistant, makes out with actors - like the most recent one, who insisted on sucking on her elbows. She always has great stories to tell, stories that we used to swap together, stories that really only come from her end nowadays.
She envies my life. She envies the guy I’ve found, whom she adores, and the inherent stability that comes with finding someone perfect for you. She envies the fact that I have a great job but I can leave that great job, with a clear conscience, every day at 6pm. She envies that I get to plan for a wedding, while her binders full of dresses and floral arrangements ripped out of magazines remain hidden under her bed. She envies that I have time to go to the gym, or get pitchers of sangria with friends after work.
Neither of us envy in a green-eyed monster, bitter sort of way. It’s more of, as I said, a fascination. Tell me, tell me, tell me is what we’re always saying to each other and when we’re told we shake our heads and smile and say “only you.”
I spontaneously asked her to be my bridesmaid last night. We were perched at a bar, five or six drinks into the tab. We had just assessed Helena Christensen’s rear as it bypassed us (“she needs a sandwich”) and Josh Hartnett’s straw hat as he sat across the room (“he’s gotta be balding, all those hats…”). We were laughing and take photos of each other and each other’s cleavage, to compare. We’re both D’s but “different D’s” and she told her client, a famous television actor, when he joined us earlier. (I’ll admit it, I snuck into the bathroom to call my fiancé to tell him that Famous Television Actor, star of our favorite show, congratulated us on our engagement and the size of the rock.)
Where was I? Oh right. So there we were, in the Bubble of Us that was created in 2002 and is impossible to penetrate when we’re together.
“So, this wedding…black tie? What should I wear? How about that dress I wore to the SAG Awards?”
I just smiled to myself. Because, duh, she’d be wearing what the rest of my bridesmaids would be wearing. She just didn’t know it yet.
“What’s that smile for?” Busted.
“Oh, nothing.” Except, I couldn’t keep it to myself. I couldn’t wait to make it formal and special and accompanied by a gift basket including a hand-written note about how much she means to me and piles of her favorite cookies. I blurted out the question. And then we both cried.
“OF COURSE. Omigod. Of course.”
We so rarely get to see each other, she is so rarely on this coast. Doing it in person - even as impromptu as it was - gave us the opportunity to see the other’s face.
We left the bar just before closing and hopped into a cab, opting to sit close together in the middle of the backseat, the sides of our heads pressed together.
“I love you, Clinky.”
“I love you too, Publicist.”
She once said, to a man who approached me at a bar a few years ago, “She’s lovely. And smart. And the most genuine person you’ll ever meet. And you’d be lucky to be a part of that.”
And all I can say, as I reminded her of that story last night, is “ditto.” And also, I’m so fucking happy she’ll be the one to calm me down before I walk down the aisle (just as she calms me down in ways no one else can while flying) in a white dress towards the man who is so lucky - and happy - to be “part of that.”
So, my first bridesmaid. Asked, accepted. One down, six more to go.
Vegas, baby. June 20, 2007
I had an interview a few hours ago, when it was raining.
Now the sun is out and taunting me, all “Look at me! Shining away! Rubbing it in your face that I wasn’t around earlier, when you had to make your way downtown in the rain! While wearing a white skirt! TO AN INTERVIEW! Sucka!”
A white skirt that now, as of a few moments ago, is dotted with droplets of VitaminWater (dragonfruit, which is pink - hot pink, because OF COURSE).
Note to self: no more white skirts because, really, who are you kidding you spaz.
The interview went well. In fact, I wasn’t nervous at all until I met the interviewer and he was tall and British and handsome with perfectly mussed hair and Converse and for a moment I was all, “this thing? On my left hand? The thing that is currently blinding you as we have a conversation? Oh it’s just costume jewelry. You know, to keep the men away at the bar. Now, tell me more about…”
Oh shut up. Like you’ve never flirted to get a job. (Wait, you haven’t? Really? Just me? Is the hair toss and flirty laugh too much? What about absentmindedly caressing my cleavage while answering a question?) (Note: I’ve never done any of the previous except maybe a mildly flirty laugh; I am six for six in post-college job interviews.) Alright. No one wants to read about my damn interview, I get it.
How about bachelor parties? Want to read about them?
I’m not going to give you my thoughts on them. Mainly because my thoughts consist of “eww dirty gross one last night of freedom bullshit fuck off marriage does not come with a damn pair of shackles you retarded frat boys get over it.” Ahem.
I am going to ask your thoughts on joint bachelor/ette parties. M and I both want to have ours in Vegas. Because, why not. When we both realized this, we kind of looked at each other across the table and were like, “why don’t we just do it at the same time?” Because, truth be told, we’d rather be there together, with all of our friends, than be there separately, missing each other (dependent much? Shut up.)
Is that lame? (Answer from M’s friends, I’m sure: A resounding YES!) I’m thinking we don’t have to do everything together, as in - he can have dinner with the boys and us girls can have dinner elsewhere and then, sometime during the night, we can all meet up and get drunk and I can make out with my fiancé instead of sitting in a corner with a damn veil on my head, drinking a Cosmopolitan out of a penis straw, watching my single friends make out with random men while I dream about making out with my fiancé who is all the way back east in our apartment in New York City.
It’s so far in the future and I really should be more productive with my time for there are color schemes to be picked out and venues to be looked at and blah blah blah, all I can think about is “oooh where would we stay?” and “oooh, which of our friends will end up hooking up?”
Because I may be engaged, but I’m still 25 years old. And while I’m ready to be married, of course, planning the bachelor/ette (Jack & Jill?) party is a lot more appealing and a lot less stressful than planning a wedding. Trust me on that one.
INTERVIEW-RELATED UPDATE: Guess who just got an offer? For an awesome job? Making a ton more money? Aww, that’s right…seven for seven, baby.
Case of the Mondays. June 19, 2007
Yesterday afternoon, I stood in a bathroom stall at work and called M and cried.
It wasn’t a cute “sniffle sniffle” cry either. It was the ugly cry - when the snot and the tears run together and your face is red and your eyes are puffy and you think it’s the end of the goddamn world and not even a glimpse of your ring can make you feel better (that’s when you know it’s bad.)
It was just that kind of day.
Any woman planning a wedding is already at a heightened state of stress and sensitivity. If you yell at her, for not asking you before ‘borrowing’ an intern, an intern she HAD NO FUCKING IDEA ‘BELONGED’ TO YOU LIKE A FUCKING COW IN A FUCKING HERD OF CATTLE, then, well, she will cry in the bathroom to her fiancé. Because she has already had enough, what with being locked out of her computer for four hours due to a glitch in the company system that registered her last day as Friday, June 15. And with trying to print out approximately 100 film stills with two broken photo printers. And with having eaten five pieces of cut-up pineapple for lunch because she was too stressed and busy to leave and get something substantial. And with her rage at the total ineptitude of her boss, and everyone else at the company for that matter.
Things are better now. Things were better last night, actually, when M met me outside of my office building and gave me a bear hug and took me out for sushi and wine and wedding magazine shopping. Martha Stewart’s Weddings truly has healing power, you didn’t know?
That’s all I want to do these days, dive into the world of glossy magazines and pretty planners and books with beautiful pictures. I feel safe there, surrounded by ideas and my fiancé and a vision of what ours will be like.
I do not feel safe out here, in the real world, where someone who is pissed at you for getting assigned to a kick-ass project will then berate you for BORROWING AN INTERN in order to get out her aggression.
I know. I need to grow a thicker skin. Wah, wah, Clink got yelled at and it reduced her to a puddle on the bathroom floor.
I’m just so happy right now. There’s a glow that surrounds everything having to do with love! And the wedding! And how much I love the guy that put a ring on my finger! So when something threatens that glow, takes it away, makes me feel bad or embarrassed or hurt, well, then there I am. Crying in a bathroom stall. Wishing that somehow someone would pay me to plan my wedding.
Hungover. No title. June 15, 2007
It was a bagel (everything, toasted, cream cheese) and Gatorade kind of morning. It will most likely be a pizza afternoon.
My poor, poor body. I get engaged and what do I do to it? I fill it to capacity with alcohol and food, night after night, in celebration of the diamond ring on my finger.
Tonight is no different. Different set of friends, different bottle of champagne. “But I’ve gotten loaded every night this week. Every night!” is not going to fly. Because the proper response to that is: “But you haven’t gotten loaded with us. Happy engagement!”
Monday was Italian and sangria. Tuesday, Asian fusion and mojitos. Wednesday was Mexican and margaritas. Last night? Japanese barbeque accompanied by pitchers of Kiran. Tonight is steak and I would give anything to get away with just a Diet Coke.
“Hi Clink? This is your liver. STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE.”
My Gatorade is now warm, but I’m still sucking it down, hoping that it will do what it says right there on the bottle and replenish some electrolytes. I don’t know what electrolytes are, but I hope they are somehow instrumental in making this headache of mine go away.
I need to stop drinking. There’s a fine line between Fun Drunk Clink and Mean Drunk Clink and last night I crossed it, picking a fight with M for no reason and then erupting in tears because I started a fight! Less than a week after we got engaged! (Liver: “I repeat, STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE.”)
I didn’t post yesterday and I hesitated posting today because the only thing on my mind is the engagement, but I don’t want this to turn into Such Great Heights: All Engagement, All the Time! I still want to write about other things. Like, um. Right. The weather? The sun is back! Hoo-rah!
No? Ok. What about the evil person I work for - think Lumbergh, but younger and more hipster and EVEN MORE OF A LOSER. Luckily this project is quickly coming to a close because if I have to hear one more “Yeahhhhhhh, sooooooo….I was thiiiiiiinking…” It’s gotten to the point that when he talks to me, I barely look up from my computer for fear that my superpower death rays will spring to life after being dormant for 25 years and then I’ll have to go to jail for homicide and they probably won’t let me keep my ring.
I’m excited for this weekend. M has been working and I have been drinking and the quality time has been reduced to “I love you, goodnight” at one in the morning. It’ll be nice to have some time to spend with him, that fiancé of mine. (Sorry, I’m trying to incorporate the word “fiancé” more and more into my daily vocabulary in hopes that one day, hopefully soon, it won’t sound so goddamn weird.)
So that’s all! Hungover Clink is trudging through the day and Drunk Clink has one more celebration, for now, to get through. And then she is being laid to rest, in peace or in turmoil who really cares, for a very long while. (Liver: THERE IS A GOD.) (Me, to Liver: Dude, with the all caps? Really? Let’s take it down a notch.)
Seven Facts. June 13, 2007
I’ve been tagged by the lovely Bev (ten diamonds! TEN! I apparently got gypped) to reveal 7 facts about myself. However, since I am recently engaged and therefore all I can talk about is being recently engaged, I’m going to do 7 wedding-related facts. And yes, I apologize in advance.
1. I kind of want to wear my blue Converse Chucks under my wedding gown. They’re my favorite things to put on my feet and I’ll never complain about them hurting or pinching or burning and also, they would most certainly cover my “something blue.” (Also, ‘something old’ as I’ve had them since my sophomore year in college.)
2. I envision getting married in a loft setting with floor-to-ceiling windows and a spectacular view of Manhattan. I’m thinking tall vases filled with dogwood branches that reach almost to the ceiling and are decorated with hanging votives. I want it to feel like walking into a garden (note: the chicest, most elegant garden in the known universe) floating in the middle of Manhattan.
3. I wish people would stop asking me if we have set a date yet. We’ve been engaged for five days and we’d like to enjoy it for just a bit longer before we bog ourselves down with “logistics” and “budgets” and all the other stuff that ends up shoving the romance of it all to the curb.
4. I don’t want to spend a lot on a dress. I know, I know - this from the girl that spends over $200 on a pair of jeans and more than that on a pair of shoes. But I can wear both jeans and shoes (and tops, and bags, and accessories) more than once. I probably won’t be slipping into my wedding gown for a night on the town or a breezy afternoon of shopping anytime after the nuptials. So, I want to keep it relatively inexpensive. Except, you know, I keep dog-earing the Monique Lhuillier ads in all of the bridal magazines so there’s a very good chance that while I’m all “oh me, I’m simple, nothin’ fancy” now, it will be a very different story when I start to actually try on dresses.
5. Speaking of, I refuse to try on dresses until I get back down to a size four. Which means lunch now consists of some fruit and some coffee and dinner is a salad and the gym is my new home away from home. It also means I am cranky and craving melted cheese on a plate (yes, you read that right). However, once I get over the hump and my body gets over the fact that I’m no longer feeding it rich, delicious foods consisting mostly of pasta, then all will be well. And I’ll fit into the sample sizes.
6. I think M and I want our first dance to be to “Kingdome Come” by Coldplay. It was at that concert, two summers ago in Philadelphia, that I realized that I loved him. A few days later, in bed, in the dark, we verbalized it. I want my dance with my father to be to “My Girl.” Coincidentally, “My Girl” played during my walk to work this morning, which meant that the minute I arrived at the office, I ran into a bathroom stall to wipe the tears before I could present myself to my co-workers. Hi, I’m Clink and I’m a total sap.
7. It all still doesn’t feel real. In the best way.
So now I’m supposed to tag seven people (coincidentally enough, I’m also supposed to pick seven bridesmaids and I’m having a hard time with that as well). I’m Little Miss Indecisive (Libra stereotype alert!) these days, so I’m putting out an open invitation. If you feel you have seven things about yourself to share with readers then, by all means, go for it. I, for one, love reading interesting facts about other people.
The Engagement Story. June 12, 2007
Every single morning for the past four days, I have woken up and felt the ring and, for a moment, I’ve laid in bed confused. Then it washes over me in alternating waves of tingles and warmth.
I’m fucking engaged.
“Omigod, how does it feel?” they ask, as if I’m pregnant.
“Surreal,” is my go-to answer, mostly because it’s true. Having an oddly dreamlike quality. Yeah, that’s about right.
Some moments I forget. In fact, it happened this morning, on the subway. I looked down at my iPod to change the song and caught a glimpse of my ring and got a jolt. A reminder jolt. A “this is your reality now” jolt. And I smiled to myself, which made the people seated across from me wonder what I was up to.
I’m up to being engaged.
It happened on Friday, June 8. I love Fridays an I love even numbers and I love June - the month, the word - so, really, it was the perfect day.
The week preceding it? Not so perfect. It was hellish, last week was. I was busier than I’ve ever been. I skipped lunch three days in a row. I subsisted solely on coffee and sheer will to make it to Friday afternoon. By the end of the week, I was exhausted. Exhausted and all too ready to leave behind a cluttered desk and a cluttered mind.
I went to the salon to have my dead ends chopped off. To be styled. To sip white wine and flip through magazines. I thought - sitting there, having my hair washed and my head rubbed - that that was as good as the weekend would get; little did I know.
M met me outside of the salon with a bouquet of flowers. I didn’t think much of it because M is the type of guy to know I’ve had a hard week and surprise me with flowers (see why I love him?).
We went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and topped the meal off with one of our favorite desserts - an ice cream sandwich sundae the size of our heads, perhaps slightly larger. It took the edge off, more so than the three sangrias that preceded it.
We were planning on heading up to Connecticut that evening, as M had a book signing the next morning and we figured that a night in a hotel (hotel sex! Room service! A bathroom that we don’t have to clean!) would do us good.
As we got into his car, in Manhattan, M informed me that we had to make a pit stop at his apartment, in Queens, so that he could pack.
I may or may not have rolled my eyes and sighed loudly and asked, in a not very tolerant tone, “OMIGOD, WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ALL DAY? WHY DIDN’T YOU PACK EARLIER?”
I did not know, at the time, that he had spent the day with my family. He went with my mother to the family jeweler to get the ring set, after which he popped by my dad’s office to show it off to my dad, my brother, my sister (and all of my dad’s squee-ing colleagues).
Had I known that at the time, there would’ve been a lot less eye rolling and sighing.
We went up to his apartment and, curse of the runty-pea-sized bladder, I immediately went into the bathroom.
When I came out, M was sitting on the couch in the living room. “Um, why aren’t you pack–“ And then I just knew. Something in his eyes. It just hit me. “Are you about to propose to me?”
He smiled, ignoring my question, and asked me to sit down next to him. He then launched into a speech that I’m sure was very delightful and flattering and emotional, but TO HELL IF I REMEMBER WHAT HE SAID.
I? I was in shock. Not fake, omigod, hands-to-face, wide eyes shock, accompanied by tears. It was genuine, omigod, I can’t move, or react, or do anything shock. I apparently did manage to get out a “yes” because a beautiful, round-brilliant solitaire in a white gold setting somehow ended up on my ring finger.
He later told me there were plans, big plans. Complicated plans, involving plane tickets and a surprise getaway to a romantic locale. Except, in true M fashion, he couldn’t wait. He got the ring and, on the drive home from New Jersey, he decided he wanted to do it. Spontaneously. To catch me by surprise. “I couldn’t wait, Clink. I had the ring and I just…couldn’t wait. To be engaged. To you. Plus, I knew it would totally surprise you and you wanted to be surprised.”
Mission? Accomplished.
I eventually came to, though the emotion preceded the realization. (I still don’t think the realization has fully settled in, to this day.) I called my family, all of whom were on high alert and ecstatic at the news.
M packed and we got in his car at around 11pm, to head to Connecticut. We were armed with champagne and chocolate chip cookies and a bridal magazine he had so thoughtfully picked up. We were also armed with adrenaline, bucketfuls of adrenaline.
Car rides are not normally romantic, not outside of a lazy drive through the country in a convertible with a head scarf and sunglasses circa 1950, but this one was. It was a misty, foggy night, which added to everything feeling blurred and dreamlike. We blasted music and sang along and lowered music and talked and kissed when the road was clear and it was safe for M to takes his eyes off of it. We held hands. We (okay, mostly I) stared at the ring. We finally - finally! - freely discussed wedding plans without feeling like we were jumping the gun.
The two of us, in his car, in love, engaged.
We’re still going to take the trip he was planning. The engagement trip. “You would’ve known,” he said. He’s right. Had he whisked me away on a few hours’ notice, I would’ve been anticipating a proposal at every moment. Tonight at dinner? Today on the beach? When I come out of the shower?
I didn’t anticipate this one at all. And it floored me. And damn near knocked me unconscious from the weight of the surprise. And, it was perfect. Perfect for us. Like our relationship, the proposal was no-frills and spontaneous and full of pure, unadulterated love and adoration for each other.
And now I’m a bride-to-be. And he’s a groom-to-be. And we’ve stepped into this adventure - first the wedding planning, then the marriage, then all the rest - together. There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side, come hell or high water or venue costs bordering on obscene.
Somehow, someway, against stacked odds, we managed to find each other. And now, well now there’s no letting go.
Me again. June 11, 2007
Hi there, how are you? Whatcha up to? Oh me? Nothing much. You know, just sitting around, BEING ENGAGED.
It’s the strangest most satisfying feeling in the world. Also, the hardest to process. I’ve tried to write the “I’m engaged! And this is exactly how it happened, down to the flavor of my lip gloss and how exactly M’s hair was parted” post. Except every time I try, my inner writer - usually dormant, lazy, aloof - starts piping up with the “ugh, really? You’re going to POST THAT?” or the “wow, you really didn’t do it justice you untalented whore.” So, please forgive me (I KNOW NOT WHAT I DO! Ahem, sorry). I will get to it. It will come. My mind is just still processing it all. I will tease you with: it wasn’t what I was expecting. It probably wasn’t what you were expecting either. But it was so very us.
While there’s no engagement story, there IS a list! And photos! Hurrah! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to staring at the ring. Full-time job, really.
THINGS I SHOULD PROBABLY NOT BE ALLOWED TO DO (ANYMORE):
-Refer to the ring as “our baby.” Related: Make M say good morning/goodnight to the ring; ask M to get me a glass of water from the kitchen because, well, the ring demands it and I can’t control the ring.
-Refer to M only as FIANCE. As in, “can you pass the ketchup, FIANCE?” “What movie would you like to see, FIANCE?” “FIANCE, let’s watch something else.” It’s probably only cute to us.
-Spend over $100 on wedding magazines and books.
-Be left alone with my camera and my ring:
Updated to include non-blurry photos (thanks, guys!):
