Wedded Miss

Scouring the Encyclopedia thick Knot’s Guide to Wedding dresses is an education wrapped in tulle and silk. From chapel trains to trumpet skirts, the variety is endless. Dog-earing pages and tagging items, I heed the voice of those who have gone down the aisle before me. “Try on Everything…Even if you think you will hate it.”

While those words ring in my mind, I stop on each page trying to envision each frock on me. While I am willing to bet the life of my first born on the fact that I will not be prancing down the aisle in high-neck lace number with puffy sleeves and a ballroom bottom bedecked with layers upon layers of bows and frills, I still pause to ponder. But what I can’t get past is the marketing of some of these dresses. So the old-fashioned days of a “white wedding” have obviously been discarded with the Bible-beaters tattered scriptures, but one has a difficult time digesting a bridal gown when it screams “Excuse me, are those inflatable flotation devices under your dress” or “Please return items to Pamela Anderson after use.”

Each turn of the page, I find myself blushing. Is this Brides magazine or Penthouse? Sexy come hither looks from emaciated models whose breasts explode from the top of a corseted gown, their eyes painted raccoon-like and lips stained blood red. Lace gloved hands caress the model’s turned hips as she bends in a pose which says “next on center stage” and not “til death do us part”. Does this inspire soon-to-brides? Or does this say I spent a night with Kate Moss in the gutter and all I got was this lousy dress?

I realize that the designers attempt to flag the reader’s attention amongst all the monochromatic white noise that screams from each page, but for the life of me, I cannot understand what a bride would be doing with a microscope and text book. Studying the sheets from the bachelor party weekend in her gown? It’s a bit late for that.

Or the bride who decides to forego white for some color and chooses a dress which looks like a costume from an Orlando theme park or a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float. Of course there is the common practice of strumming an electric guitar at one’s wedding. Most of married friends at one point during the evening picked up a Gibson guitar and rocked out to David Bowie’s White Wedding – this is tradition.

Then of course, I stumble upon my favorite photo. The photo which really captures what I am trying to say. The photo of a bride which completely destroys any lingering concept that purity or class exists. Swathed in silken whites, as she is about to walk towards her future – towards the man of her dreams, down the long aisle scattered with rose petals in a room filled with love and promise. The bride stops – just long enough to throw herself on the naked man leaning against the wall. Yes, folks – this is what makes me want to buy a gown. While this marketing may work for lingerie or perfume, show me a bride who finds this inspirational.

I just want to scream: “Get a Room.”

Taking Sides: Tales from the Bed

Taking Sides


In college I always took the same seat in the lecture hall. Although there were hundreds of seats in the auditorium room, I kept coming back to the seat I picked on the first day – on the end and in the back for a quick escape if the lecture was boring. While seats were not assigned in alphabetical order like in high school, it seemed people assigned themselves – taking the same seat every class.

The same unwritten and unspoken rule applies to seats at the family dinner tables, parking spots in your home’s garage and most importantly, which side of the bed you take as a couple. When M and I started our slumber parties during the onset of our relationship, we never discussed who was going to sleep where. We inherently fell into a sleeping pattern which has continued from apartment to apartment.

On our recent celebratory engagement trip to Montreal, we dashed into our hotel room at the St. Paul Hotel, checking out all of the exciting components of the room like we were completing a survey for Hotels.com. We unpacked our bags and lay down to take a quick respite before we tackled the city. Falling into the soft comfort of the well appointed bed, I noticed we took the exact same places as we do at home: him to my right, me to his left. “Hey, you realize we always sleep in the same position. We never switch sides of the bed. That’s so interesting.”

His response: “Zzzzzzzzzzz. (snore) Carrie, I’m trying to nap.”

While M drifted off to LaLa land, I started thinking about this topic. As singleton, sleeping alone in my full-size bed, I took up the whole thing – my arms and legs extended like an Olympic swimmer. Sleeping horizontally on an angle, I was able to toss and turn, kick the covers off and push pillows around creating a womb-like nest. But sharing a bed has taken some adjusting.

Sometimes M forgets someone else is in the bed. Sleeping scissor legged with a pillow between his knees; M will yank the covers midway thru the night to create a tepee around him. Fortunately because I am a deep sleeper, I won’t wake up until hours later when I finally notice I am inches from plunging onto the dog’s head and have no covers on me at all. One good kick to his shins, M robotically apologizes in a sleepy tone and hands me one of his pillows – never waking up from his deep slumber.

My other bedmates haven’t been as kind. On a recent trip with my girlfriends everyone fought as to who would get me as their bedmate. “She snores,” complained Keri. “I slept with her last time,” Alissa whined. “I’ll sleep on the floor. I don’t care,” Jodi offered. “I’m not getting stuck with her - AGAIN,” Debra bitched. No one wanted to sleep with me. Yes, it is true I have been known to snore. “Like a lawn mower” it has been described if I have had an alcoholic beverage that night, but really guys – You are my friends! That hurts my feelings!

Sleep is a precious commodity. It is something which is limited in quantity by the hours we work and the hours we play, so the quality must make up for the lack of hours.

I did some research on the subject of sharing a bed -scouring the Internet and polling my friends. Strangely most of my friends and their significant other share the same bed layout as M and I: Girls on the left and guys on the right. Though my online digging expedition offered no reasoning for this, I did uncover some very interesting facts about sharing a bed:

*The sleep behavior poll suggests the most popular position is sleeping back-to-back but not touching.

Some 27% of couples are said to adopt the so-called liberty pose, with the second most popular position - cited by 23% - being back-to-back but touching.

The survey of some 2,000 people also found 92% of couples stick to the same side of the bed each night.

According to relationship psychologist Corinne Sweet, the most popular liberty pose means a couple feels connected but independent enough to sleep separately.

The second most popular, the cherish position of being back-to-back but touching, is a favorite in new relationships and shows a couple are comfortable, intimate and relaxed with each other, said Ms Sweet.

*Survey cited.

Ok, Ms. Sweet. That’s a nice interpretation of the facts, but seriously lady – did you read one too many Dr. Phil books or spend a little too long in Sedona? Doesn’t it simply boil down to the fact that it is more comfortable, more conducive for a good night’s rest to sleep on your own side of the bed without all the touchy feely BS – let’s leave that to teenagers.

Of course, Hollywood would like everyone to believe the whole world sleeps in the ‘spooning’ position, intertwined with their mate – the reality is that is about as comfortable as sleeping in your utensil drawer in the kitchen. People need space!


Another study which reported additional findings on this topic was done by Dr. Rosenblatt in a book called Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing. In his book, he interviewed 42 couples on their bed sharing practices. “The couples Dr. Rosenblatt interviewed described how they had had to adjust to sleeping with their partner. Many reported conflicts over bedroom temperature, where to locate the bed and how to make the bed. Watching television, reading and eating in bed were other contentious issues, as was sleeping in the nude. There were quarrels over the alarm clock and whether to allow children or pets into the bed.”

“The subjects he interviewed invariably had their own side of the bed, and responsibilities like putting out the cat or opening the windows before turning in. They usually had rituals like watching the television news before lights out or snuggling before falling to sleep. And they often had signals for when they wanted affection, wanted to talk or wanted to be left alone.” (from NYT article).

Like anything in a relationship, finding a harmony in sleeping arrangements is something which takes couples time. Or perhaps we wind up getting twin beds after a while like all of those couples in the sitcoms from the 1950s and I am sure like many of our grandparents. Sleeping is both art and science, but I think it boils down to two things: Tylenol PM and a King Size Bed. But that is just based on my own unscientific findings.

White Noise

White Noise

How many kinds of brides are there?

Well, until I was a bride-to-be, I assumed that number to be one. But low and behold, my eyes have been opened to the possibilities. Hallelujah!

As soon as that ring went on my finger, I rushed out to the local newsstand to purchase reading material for ideas on dresses, centerpieces, registries, guest gifts and a long list of other bridal needs. I walked out of the store with 7 magazines and as a Bridezilla in the making.

There is Elegant Bride, Modern Bride, Contemporary Bride, New York Bride, Philadelphia Bride, Destination Bride and of course the one magazine which seems to condense all of this under one heading – plain old Bride Magazine.

How different can planning a wedding be from planning Playboy’s Super Bowl gala event? Sure I won’t have the million dollar budget that came from huge corporate sponsors or have Bunnies parading around my wedding in skimpy costumes, but the nuts and bolts of this operation has to be the same. I stopped at Staples and bought a binder, dividers, plastic card holders, glue and markers to create my wedding binder.

At home, I took over our office and re-coined it “Wedding Central”. I spent the afternoon carefully and thoughtfully tearing out pages from each of the magazines. What type of bride was I? I wasn’t sure, but the question was posed with intensity in each book? With each flip of a page, I began to feel more and more like a failure. Am I a casual bride; the garden variety who trades fanfare for natural unassuming settings? Am I a ballroom bride; who enjoys regal settings and fine china place settings? Am I a landmark bride; who wants soaring ceilings in an historic setting? What season bride am I? Am I spring with tulips and lilies, pastels and quiche? Winter with garlands and rich berries? Fall with a jewel tone palette and woodsy approach? Cup after cup of coffee, I couldn’t answer these questions. I started to feel like 'failure bride' (which surprisingly isn't a title to any publication) who couldn’t figure out the basic question of life: Who am I.

By the time M arrived home from work, the office was redecorated in scrapes of magazine pages. Taped to the walls, scattered across the floor white dresses and bouquets seemed like a bed of snow. I had cut off tops of one dress and paired it with another’s bottom. My Sharpie voraciously scribbled notes on each sheet. “Too long”, “too high waisted” “too many embellishments”.

“What is going on in here?” he asked. When he had left that morning, the office was a functioning spot to check email and print out spreadsheets, but when he returned he didn’t recognize the room. I sat encircled by dozens of magazines and web page printouts. “Did you shower today?” he asked me as he licked his finger and tried to remove the ink marks on my hands and face. “Have you been doing this since I left this morning?”

Embarrassed to honestly answer his question, I bounced up to give him a big hug and a caffeinated kiss. Talking a mile a minute, I spewed ideas and to-do list items. “We need to go and register. I was thinking we should probably register at like 4 or 5 places – maybe we can go on Saturday or Monday if you don’t’ play tennis, cause people are from out of town and we should make sure there is a selection of stuff from different places. We need All Clad pots, what else do we need? Oh. Wait. I had the best idea. So for those out of town people, well I want to create these themed gift bags – like maybe with a Philly theme with Tastycakes and Cheese steaks, you can’t really have cheese steaks cause they are messy, but maybe we could reinterpret that?. Do you think we can? You know, or maybe we can do that during a cocktail hour. Is that cheesey? No pun intended! Oh shit, do you think people will come for the whole weekend? Or like should I …..”

M closed all the magazines that lay in shreds. He removed them from my sight as I pleaded for just a few more minutes. Reaching down, he lifted me from the bed of wedded bliss I had created from cut outs and Post-It note memos. Removing the scissors from my grip, he took me in both his arms, grasping my wrists as they lay at my side. “Get a hold of yourself. We’ve been engaged for 72 hours.”

He was right, but in the static of white noise of gowns and gift bags, I had lost sight of enjoying the first few moments of engagement. I had become a reality TV show. I was becoming a Bridezilla.

I laid off the coffee for the next few days. I made a master To-Do list and meticulously began planning in a more sedate and organized fashion. I set a date: October 27th, 2007 – and from there everything else will fall into place…in time…without the caffeine. But I did get my scissors back.

Jurisrudeness

Jurisrudeness

It was the most beautiful fall day. The air was crisp with tinge of chill and the leaves sparkled with their new rusty shade of color. Newly engaged, I stared at my hand in awe unable to pull my eyes away from the glittering Jurassic rock which encompassed my ring finger. It was the perfect day for love. It was the most imperfect day for jury duty.

At 8am, I arrived at the courthouse looking haggard. Since M’s proposal came after midnight, I was unable to make the necessary calls that such a momentous moment required. Exhausted from lack of sleep yet propelled by excitement, I stood on line with the miserable others holding jury summons and waiting to go through the metal detector.

I slid my bag onto the belt, removed my shoes and walked through. “Ma’am, I’m sorry we are going to need to confiscate your cell phone,” the security guard said as he rummaged through my bag in search of my Blackberry.

“What? Why?” Suddenly I was jolted awake. “You don’t understand. I got engaged last night. I have to call my friends, my family. This is a once in a lifetime thing!” Were they kidding? Not only did I have to sit in a room for hours on end, but now they were taking away any form of communication I had with the outside world. Even criminals got one phone call.

“I’m sorry. It’s your civic duty and no cell phones are allowed. Those are the rules.”

“But it’s a Blackberry not a Glock! I just got engaged!! I haven't even told my parents yet. Why can’t I have…” my voice trailed off as they handed me a claim check for my cell phone and put it in a room off to the side like it was a coat.

In the large auditorium-like room a group of two hundred or more shuffled in taking their place in the rows of chairs that faced a large screen and high bench where the court officers waited. Once everyone had assembled, the court officer began his lengthy dissertation on the process. Part tutorial on the US judicial system and part “Idiot’s Guide to a Waste of Hours I Will Never Get Back” we were forced to watch a video that could only be described as cruel and unusual punishment. Thirty minutes into this video which looked as if it was made by the worst aspiring film maker in the world replete with actors who would be thrown out of SAG for their blatant inability to master the craft of acting, I laughed out loud. All eyes turned towards me. Oops.

By lunch time, we still remained sequestered in the jury room. No one had been called and I was about to tear my hair out from boredom. People quietly read the newspaper, the moron next to me doodled circles and squares in the sidebars of his paper while gnawing on his pen and a woman in front of me finished knitting a scarf which, at the start of the day, was just a ball of yarn. I felt as if I had been banished to detention or study hall with the shop class flunkies. I had read the Post, Newsday and the Times. I futilely attempted to get a wireless Internet connection so perhaps I could share the good new via email.

“Excuse me,” I said as I marched up to the bench in the front of the room where one court officer sat presiding over us like the Principal stuck watching the degenerates from Breakfast Club. “Where can I get wireless Internet?” She peered down at me as if I asked her where I could get bomb-making materials.

“Nowhere,” she said curtly.

“Well how much longer are we going to have to sit here? Are there any cases coming up? I have work to do and this doesn’t seem like the best use of our time?” I said speaking on behalf of the others who surely agreed with my position but were too afraid to vocalize it for fear of being called onto a case. She hated me and I was pretty sure that I cemented my name onto the list of those who would be called. C’est la vie.

After lunch I smuggled my cell phone back into the courtroom putting it between the fold in my laptop the security people missed it on the X-ray. I spent the next hour locked in a bathroom stall calling my friends. “I’m engaged,” I whispered in hushed tones as I sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat. A flush in the stall next to me was audible to Melissa. “Are you in the bathroom,” she asked.

They had dismissed three quarters of the perspective jurors before lunch, but unfortunately I remained in the pool they had on reserve. “Everyone get up, gather your belongings and form two single file lines,” a bitter court officer commanded as if she was a drill sergeant and we were boot camp newbies. “You have been summoned to the judge’s courtroom.”

If I hadn’t been newly engaged, my head swimming with To Do lists, ideas, phone calls to make, perhaps I would have been more interested in fulfilling my civic duty and even found enjoyment being a part of the great judicial process of the United States of America. But screw that noise, my head was elsewhere. Everyone is guilty to me today. “Tell them you just got engaged and you really can’t focus on a case,” my mother suggested. Um, Mom great advice– how do you think that would go over in a courtroom? I would be spending my first night away from my fiancé with a girlfriend named Butchy in the shower room in jail for contempt of court. No, I would just tell the truth and truthfully, no judge in their right mind would put me on a jury.

After standing in the hall outside the courtroom for an interminable amount of time, we were instructed to go into the courtroom and take a seat in the galley. I was pretty sure the court officers despised me and thus I had ensured my selection so when my name was called to sit in the jury box there was no surprise. We were handed a leaflet which explained some details of the case and the questions which the judge would pose to us to determine whether or not we were suitable jurors. I scanned the sheet, smiled and knew in just a few moments I would be free.

“This is a firearms trial,” the judge explained. The lawyers stared at the fourteen of us in the jury box, examining us from every angle as if we were fruit in the produce department. The judge continued to read from the list of questions asking us to raise our hands to answer ‘yes’.

“Do you know this defendant?”

“Are you familiar with any parties involved with this case?”

No hands went up. “Have you ever been a victim of a case involving a firearm?” Ah, my escape. My hand shot up like gunfire at a Redneck picnic.

“Yes juror number 8, please provide the court with the details,” the judge directed his attention towards me as did the entire court.

“Well, my family was extorted and they got a note threatening to kidnap and kill my brother and me. And while the note did not specifically state the type of weapon which would be used, we assumed it would be a gun – cause well, it’s the most likely. And then the person who extorted us, well turns out it was my dad’s assistant who had been embezzling from him and then she blew up her house and killed her mother. Oh and I also had a stalker too, but that’s a whole other story.”

The courtroom fell silent. One lawyer’s mouth unhinged and his jaw dropped like one of those hippos from the Hungry Hippo board game. The accused even looked shocked. The court officer who had been my nemesis since the morning dropped her pencil and I shot the judge a smile. “It’s a really long story.”

“I am going to dismiss you from this jury,” he said.

As I grabbed my coat and exited the silent courtroom, my cell phone buzzed at the bottom of my bag. I was free. Justice was served!

Ice Age

M and I have a great relationship. It is the healthy kind where you can speak your mind, where nothing is taboo. “Look how swollen my tonsil is! Does it look like there is puss on it?” I asked him one time, my hair matted down with a layer of grease thicker than a grease monkey’s hands at Jiffy Lube and my mouth open like a Hippopotamus. We don’t mince words.

As our relationship progressed and engagement loomed on the horizon, I would pester M. “When are you popping the question?” I nudged. “My finger hurts. I need ICE.” Ice became the code word for DIAMOND. The long sought after Holy Grail in the realm of dating. I managed to work it into every conversation.

“I want ICE cream.”

“I want an ICED coffee.”

“It’s getting cold outside these days. Ice is coming.”

The Iceman Cometh. Ice Tea. Icing. Icecapades. Icy Hot Patches. Ice Pop. If the word ice was in it, it became part of my vocabulary.

As I turned off CNN and began to crawl between the sheets for bed the other night M stood at the dresser removing his cufflinks to place them in their box. “You’re up. Can you bring me water,” I asked him hoping I wouldn’t have to budge from my warm nest. “Feel bad for me. I have jury duty tomorrow at 8am. You have to feel sorry for me.” I made those puppy dog eyes that he cannot ignore.

A few minutes later, after I had lathered my hands with lotion and tied my hair in a bun for bed, M returned from the kitchen with a tall glass of water and a large grin on his face. Maybe it was a smirk, but he looked funny. “Ice Water as you requested,” he said handing me the glass and sitting next to me on the bed.

I reached out eagerly for the water and began to drink it. “What’s that face,” I asked as I emerged from the glass wiping the dribble off my chin. “Are you smirking at me?”

“Stop drinking that! What are you doing? Look in the glass!”

“What? I’m thirsty. Come on. I just wanna go to bed.”

“CARRIE! LOOK IN THE GLASS.”

His smirk had turned to fear as he was staring into the glass like it was an aquarium. My eyes shifted to the glass as something shiny caught my attention. Floating between two ice cubes, a diamond ring bounced like a buoy at high tide. I jammed my hand into the glass retrieving the ring and throwing ice and water all over the bed.

“Oh My God,” I said trying to catch my breath.

“Will you marry me?” he asked calmly, assuredly.

“Of course. Yes," I said without hesitation reaching out to grab him. The moment felt surreal. I had always dreamed of this moment, of hearing those four words, of finding the perfect person with whom to share my life. I dried the ring on my perfect white sheets, looked at my perfect fiancé and stared at my perfect ring. It was a perfect moment – something which is rare in New York or anywhere in this world.

The ring was spectacular. Better than spectacular, it was unbelievable. Glacier like – a brilliant round diamond surrounded in an eternity band of diamonds, M slid it on my finger and held my hand as I sat mystified. It took me 32 years to find the love of my life, but I had arrived. (Mushy line extracted due to M’s allergies of mushiness).

The next night we went out to dinner to celebrate. The waiter placed a basket of bread in front of us. “Ice water?” he asked as he held the silver platted pitcher over our water glasses. I smiled. Ice Water will never be the same again.

"Ho"-Loween

“Ho”-Loween

We celebrated the adult version of Halloween on Saturday night – instead of door to door candy romps on October 31st, M and I headed out to a few Halloween parties at bars and our friends’ apartments. Lemon Drop shots instead of Lemon drop candies seemed to be the theme for the evening.

“What do you want to go as?” I asked M trying to assess whether or not he would embrace the spirit of the holiday. M was more a “Mischief Night” kid than Halloween kid. Egging people’s cars was more entertaining than unwrapping a stale Clark bar and searching for puncture wounds in candy wrappers. But I have always lived for Halloween – planning my costumes once the first leaf turned a shade of fall. There was the year I was Scarlet O’Beara – a complicated costume of part teddy bear and part Scarlet O’Hara, then there was the “Wonder Woman Era” which lasted from 1977-1982 where I used my mother’s hair rollers as golden wristbands, throw in a few fairy princesses, an Olivia Newton John a la aerobic video and a few members of the Brat Pack and those were the costumes of my youth.

But some inspection of the available adult pre-packaged costumes sold at Ricky’s offered less innocent options. Halloween has become Ho-loween. Every costume out there is a whored-up version of the original. Sexy Witch. Sexy Fairy. Sexy Cat. Sexy Maid. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a Sexy Nun costume featuring a bare midriff and habit with glitter and hooker rhinestones. “Halloween is the one night out of there year you are suppose to look like a slut. It’s ok. It’s welcomed. It’s encouraged,” said Stacy.

M considered his options for Halloween as thoughtfully and quickly as he ponders which scent laundry detergent to buy. “You pick for me.”

Knowing getting M to dress up as anything which required wearing anything uncomfortable, feminine or cumbersome was never going to happen – I went with what he knew and love: Andy Roddick.

Roddick is M’s favorite tennis player whose skills on the court may not be on par with Federer but whose skills off the court make him a stud. To me, he looks more like Stiffler from American Pie than anything else. But I knew getting M into some tennis whites and throwing on a Lacoste hat would be like getting him to eat Filet Mignon. I didn’t want pushback. To “match” his costume, I went as Maria Sharapova. Conveniently using my tennis racquet bag as a purse, I added a touch of country club tennis player to the outfit with a string of pearls and some of those Sharapova dangling earrings. Another simple “already-in-my-wardrobe” costume which required no purchases, only I traded tennis sneakers for heels – well, because everyone else was going to look sexy in their ho-d up costumes that I had to do something.

That night at the parties, there were Pimps and Ho’s, Sexy Cops, Sexy Firefighters and more Borats than you would see in a Fun House Mirror. But the best costumes out there, were the ones which required a little elbow grease and some creativity. My favorite (picture to come): The Royal Tenenbaum clan. Halloween shouldn’t be about how much skin you show, but how much ingenuity you show. That is something which you can’t buy in ready made packages at Ricky’s.