The lady doth protest too much

It’s been a month and I’m still bitter about the Wedding of the Century, where only about 60% of those who RSVP’d showed up to the reception dinner, judging from the numbers of empty tables.  The head table, on the other hand, was crowded and overflowing. Just a little insane, if you ask me. Oh, and there was a 3 hour photo shoot after the ceremony, 2 hours of which was spent freezing outdoors.

I still hate traditional weddings. My friend turned into Bridezilla. I thought the fact that she is a schoolteacher by trade meant that she would handle the planning better. She developed a martyr complex that really made me want to slap her. Having a wedding is a totally voluntary project. I do not understand the need to blindly follow tradition at the expense of your mental and financial health. When you have to borrow money from your 401k to fund what is essentially a big party, I think you’ve crossed the line to insanity.

I used to love her. Now, not so much.

Seething (Not Just Mildly Disgruntled)

D is delusional and generally incompetent at planning. On Tuesday, 4 days before her wedding she decided on the colors for her reception. Last Friday was the meeting with the florist to decide on flowers. Because the invitations were so complicated, they went out late. I recieved my invitation about 30 days before the wedding date. Yesterday she sent out an email requesting delivery of Mac and Cheese and Trash Bags because they are holed up with “work” on the wedding. She’s still looking for wedding shoes. She has to have her waxing, facials, and nails done. She’s still in the process of finalizing reception details. Errr.. Shouldn’t she have had the details finalized a month ago? All she should have to do now is confirm.

There is a “head table.” I am baffled and sickened by the existence of said table both because I object to the exclusionary principle and because it has precluded me from dining with my significant other in peace and happiness. I requested to exchange my seat with someone else in order to be with E, who, by the way, would not know anyone there but me, but was sternly reprimanded by the bride that it was my solemn duty as a bridesmaid to eat at the “head table” with her, and that “just Saturday you will have to work as a fulltime bridesmaid… then you can go back to loving E.” Work? Ummm, last time I checked I was not being compensated for the role. Furthermore, I’m coming out worse with the associated costs. And I find it not a little ironic that on a day that’s supposed to be a celebration of a relationship, she’s inflexible about letting two people in another relationship just sit together. Head Table, Bah…like you’re fucking royalty.

My opinion of D’s sanity and sense has dropped to abysmal levels.

Mildly Disgruntled

When D first asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, I felt happy and honored. Ten months later I just want the dratted thing to be over. I, in my naivete, had underestimated the costs associated with being a bridesmaid: dress, dress adjustment, shoes, gift for bridal shower/bachelorette party, wedding gift, makeup/hair products, not to mention to the time invested in helping to pick out shoes, bridesmaid dresses, and assembling rather convoluted wedding invitations that require an assembly line of four people and two shifts. Gah. There are TWO maids of honor. I can see wanting to honor certain people but, cripey, that’s one too many. The original idea was to have a casual bbq reception at a park. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe D was seduced into purchasing a reception package. Maybe she was pressured into having The Wedding by her close family.

Things That Could Be Dispensed With:

-Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Gifts: Do you really need 15 sets of lingerie? And bath and body products out the wazoo?

-Design Your Own Wedding Gown: If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want, this is an exercise in futility, especially if you are trying to combine 2 different dresses in 1.

-Scads of Bridesmaids, Maids of Honor, and Groomsmen: The more people you have in your wedding party, the harder it is to coordinate everyone’s schedules. I understand wanting to be inclusive, but do you really need a damn entourage? Why not just rename the bridesmaids ladies in waiting?

-Complicated Wedding Invitations: The more complicated your stationery, the more likely it is that your supplier will get something wrong. And glue dots are EVIL, I tell you. EEEEVVIILLL.

-Wedding Registry: Great. More shit to fill your house with. I much prefer the Chinese tradition of giving money.

Blues

Soooo tired… I don’t know where this achiness is coming from. Having Monday off was lovely, but I got so very bored. I thought I’d do some sketching, but everything that came out was crap. Sigh. I don’t think I’d ever be able to become a full time artist ‘cuz I need something to rebel from, if that makes any sense.

I have all these ideas in my head, but trying to get them down on paper is the most tortuous experience, particularly when my skills have atrophied.

hostility

I don’t know why some weeks I feel full of seething rage. It’s not just pms. That week has passed. There’s a deep feeling of dissatisfaction and impatience with myself, my job, the way other people treat each other (like when two friends of yours don’t get along), the careless things people say, and with random preventable accidents (like knocking a glass over and spilling sticky juice all over the counter). Sometimes I try to take a step back and say to myself, the reason you’re feeling all this frustration is that you want control over the outcome, and when it doesn’t happen, you feel unhappy. It works to some degree. There are some days that when people talk to me, all I hear is, “I want, I want, I want.” Maybe my negative thoughts are running away from me.

desperation

I think I am going to hurt someone if we are snowed in again. Especially if my roommate E’s boytoy stays over. Please, please, please let it stop snowing! Oh god, no more snow…

I’m going to sit in a corner now.

complain, complain, complain

Jet lag is a bitch. I’m tired, cranky, sleepy, slightly nauseous, and I’ve got a headache from going to work in the morning when I really just want to sleep. Right now my brain feels like its melting. Can’t seem to hold a conversation. I was going to write about the books I read in November, but that would require more focus than I have right now. Argh!

Also, my roommates are being loud sexaholics. I can hear them through the adjoining wall. Mostly, its the woman moaning. I don’t have a problem with them having sex, I just don’t care to hear them going at it. Too much information! Its not like we live in separate apartments. Blegh.

drowning

I’m drowning in accounting, what with bookkeeping by day and studying for FAR by night.

On the bright side, the New York Times published an article about the food scene in Taipei (Feasting at the Table of Taipei). Yay!!

may books

Hurray! No more school, no more internship.

Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding- v.g.

Solstice Wood, Patricia McKillip- I was in the mood for urban fantasy and it really hit the spot. It feels very American and young adultish.

Dragonhaven, Robin McKinley- It reads more like a blog than a novel. There wasn’t very much in the way of conversation, but there was A LOT about what it’s like to be mother to a baby dragon, and how much pain and suffering is involved, but also how good it is to watch something grow up and develop a personality. There’s also a really interesting theme about the differences between human language and dragon telepathy via emotions and images.

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco- Really good writing. Monks. Medieval philosophy. Political games. Mystery. Murder. History.  This book makes my head hurt (in a good way).

visual block

I started working on a wood burning weeks ago but haven’t finished it yet because I’m terrified of ruining it. This is a rather bad habit of mine to leave drawings half finished. I have little tiny germs of ideas of what I want to do with the other sides, and lightly coloring the wood with paint, but its oh so seductive to leave it up to the imagination. This is where I start to understand the appeal of abstract art. Its like a visual representation of your subconscious all vague and glimmery. Its very visceral.

Anyway, I’m going to try to start a portfolio. I’ve got this idea to come up with illustrations to go along with the story of Allerleirauh, which is the German variant of a fairy tale I read as a child called Donkeyskin.