Friday, April 27, 2007

Singles vs. Couples

Geneva White's column in The Northwest Herald this week discusses how hard it is to be single when you are friends with couples, and she interviewed me.

We've all had those happy-couple (or not-so-happy couple) friends that force us to witness either their complete inability to use each other's first names:

"Oh, sweets, you are soo funny."
"No babe, you're the funny one!"


or their little tiffs and spats, without any regard for how uncomfortable it makes everyone else.

But the funniest part is how White talks about her friends "Stacey" and "Don," and their overzealous interest in her love life:
...they would eagerly inquire about my own love life, wanting to know details about any recent dates. Was this someone I could see myself with? Could he be the one? When do we get to meet him? I had the impression Stacey and Don wanted to indoctrinate me into their very exclusive club. And although I found their behavior annoying, I longed to be a member.


I told her it reminded me of the time when I was relaying my early dates and mishaps with S. to my soon-to-be wed friends. They gobbled it right up, and then said "You're like our very own Bridget Jones!"

I smiled weakly, and thought: Thanks. Glad my pathetic love life is pure entertainment for you!

Anyone else ever feel like the marrieds or soon-to-be marrieds are desperate for your dating adventures and misadventures?

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Give your bridesmaid dress a nobler second life

Any woman over the age of 25 has one of these beauties collecting dust in her closet. You didn't like it to begin with but you can't throw it out because you are clinging to the belief that you will wear it again. Get over it. It ain't happening. Instead, put your dress to good use by donating it to an organization that provides dresses to teens in need. Let's just hope they Pretty In Pink it and at least cut off the ass-enlarging bow.

Saw the below on DailyCandy LA. Erin and I tried to mention the Cinderella Project in our book, but like dorks we got the URL wrong! Anywho, this is sorta confusing because the link goes to "A Place Called Home" but the Cinderella Project is an organization that collects these dresses year round. Maybe they are connected? I couldn't find the donation info on the APCH site, but you can send your dress to the address below or donate to The Cinderella Project

Here is the DC listing:
GIVE
The Cinderella Project
What: A Place Called Home is collecting dresses for teens in Compton and Long Beach to wear to prom and graduation.
Why: Always a bridesmaid; never have to look at that dress again.
When: By May 3.
Where: Send dresses to Arlene Rosin, c/o The Cinderella Project, 1966 E. Via Arado, Rancho Dominguez, CA 90220.

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The difference a haircut can make

So I went ahead and chopped off my hair. I have an A-line bob now and I would include a pic but the Treo self-portrait is not the most flattering. I think that the haircut is just what I needed. Since making the decision to cut here is what I have gotten done:

1. Got a new tire for my bike (which has been flat for weeks) so I can ride again and not continue to stay inside all day or worse, drive inappropriately short distances
2. Went to a place for lunch, alone and with no distractions.
3. Rode my bike two miles to the vet where I picked up more food for my anorexic cat, Phoebe
4. Turned in my Step Up Women's Network newsletter and volunteered to be their official reporter.
5. Finally mailed a present for my nephew that has been sitting around for an embarrassing 3 months
6. Cleaned off my "desk" (dining table) so that we can eat at the table again.... though we'll probably still eat in front of the TV.

My head is lighter in more ways than one. My only regret is that I didn't get it long enough to donate to Locks of Love.

Onward and upward.

Time for a change

I have been growing my hair out since an unfortunate bob experience back in '04. I have never had hair this long in my life, and I don''t hate it, but I feel like chopping it off. I have been dealing with a lot of sick pet issues and some, shall we say, creative road blocks, for a few weeks now and for some reason I have decided that today is the day I cut off my halfway-to-my-hiney hair.

Is that just so contrived that I see cutting my hair as somehow symbolic? Like cutting it off is going to give me a new perspective on life, a new drive to overcome the blocks and better handle my pet issues. Who knows? Maybe it will.....or maybe I will chicken out and leave with a trim.

Any dramatic hair cutting stories out there?

Wish me luck!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Crazy cat women unite!


As cat lovers and advocates, Erin and I jumped at the opportunity to submit short stories to Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friendsand we were THRILLED when both of our pieces were selected.

Here is the Publisher's Weekly review. Notice that Erin's story is mentioned!

McMorris (Women's Best Friend: Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives) collects 29 well-crafted and enjoyable short essays that often focus on how the writer's cat (or cats) has affected her love life—both for better and worse. Kristen Kemp relates how she collected cats to get the affection her boyfriend wasn't giving her. Editor McMorris describes how, after a rough start, when her six-year-old tabby peed on her boyfriend's clothes, he gradually learned to enjoy the cat. A sadder story is told by Susan Schulz Wuornos, evoking the death of her pet just one week before her wedding. The majority of the selections emphasize the individuality and independence of cats, who make certain that their owners know precisely what they want. Erin Torneo stresses that felines are not people pleasers: "They won't plunge into a relationship without careful consideration," And they always have an escape route, lessons she applied to her own relationships. This collection will appeal to all those (especially women) already seduced by the enigmatic feline. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


While we're on the topic of cats: My friend, Paddy once pointed out how visitors to Los Angeles feel it is appropriate to slam our fabulous city. They talk about how terrible the traffic is, the shallow the people are, and how devoid of culture Los Angeles is. No other city is so freely criticized. Cats get the same shabby treatment. Cat owners are thought of as strange, while dog owners are celebrated. Cats are vilified for their persnickity nature, and considered less intelligent than dogs because they can't be trained.

Sure cats do what they want when they want. They get love when they want and they give love when they want and, unlike dogs, who give it up for any stranger with a treat, it takes time to earn a cat's affection. Does that sound like the actions of a dumb animal? I love my dog, but she eats cat poo. Really, is that the sign of a more intelligent animal?

In my previous life as an advertising account planner I worked on a national cat food brand and spent hours and hours thinking about cat owners, cats and cat food. Being a proud cat owner, this suited me just fine. The funny thing is that some of my clients and fellow ad people were not fans of cats and really didn't get them, or their owners, at all. When we conducted focus groups to show consumers a new cat food advertisement I was told not to recruit people who had more than 3 cats, because that was indicitative of a crazy cat person. Likewise, I was forced to recruit only women, because of course only a woman would have a cat. So frustrating.

This book celebrates the relationship between women and their cats. I may need to send a copy of this book to those former colleagues and clients.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The NYT wedding annoucements as skewered by Gawker

You know, I never read the wedding announcements in the NY Times....too hoity-toity for me. But I am in love with Gawker's rating system for them. Here is a sample rating:

Victoria Potterton, Austin Zalkin: 13 points

Both went to Dartmouth: +3
Victoria graduated magna cum laude: +2
Austin graduated cum laude: +1
Victoria is graduating from Yale with a combined medical and MBA degree: +4
Austin is "ideal" man-age: +1
He's an i-banker: +2


and a bit of their scoring system:

Our patented rating system:

Investment banker: 2
Both Investment bankers: 5
Job involving the word "banker" OR "investment": +1
Both have jobs involving the word "banker" OR "investment": +3
Management Consultant: 1
Both management consultants: 3
Trader: 2
Both traders: 5
High-powered lawyer: 2
Both high-powered lawyers: 5
Works for Defense Department: +2
Doctor: +2
Both doctors: +5
Teacher at a New York City or Connecticut private school: 2
Parents from New York City or wealthy suburb in Connecticut: 1

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Take Her Dress


Besides the crime blotter, I love the local papers because you will find things out that you never would have anywhere else. This week, for example, the front page of The Brooklyn Paper has a story about a woman who is giving away her never opened, never worn $3000 wedding dress.

Apparently, Elisa Zuritsky bought the dress from an East Village bridal shop that ended up closing and the owner's "it'll be here next week" string-along lasted until the week before her wedding, when Elisa high-tailed to Kleinfeld's to get an emergency backup. Her original dress then did arrive--three days before her wedding, still needing alterations--just to mock her.

Now, being a writer (she wrote for SATC and Six Degrees, the latter of which I actually watched but seemingly no one else did. Digression: I realize I saw Hope Davis the day before the show was cancelled at a preview of The Year of Magical Thinking. Fab purse, but she didn't look very happy. Probably b/c her show was getting canned.), Elisa decided someone with the best tale of woe should get her dress for free, so the dress has the happy ending it was supposed to have:

I want to know that all the time and aggravation and money spent finding a dress in which to get married was not in vain, but rather to ease the path of another bride-to-be, who's trying to hold onto her sanity, savings, and sense of humor against all odds.

No money is needed to enter this contest, just your own personal Tale of Woe. Right about now, you might be wondering why being engaged isn't the happiest time of your life. Maybe it's been incredibly stressful. Maybe, in other words, you're normal. Consider this your invitation to vent, kvetch, whine, complain. I promise not to judge you.

Well, that's not entirely true. I'll be selecting the winner, so technically I will be judging you. It's hard to say what I'll be basing my decision on right now; I'm just looking for Ms. Right.

When I find you, I'll open the box, say my good-byes to The Dress, and send it on its merry way, free of charge. The only thing I ask for in return is a photo of you, in The Dress, at your wedding.

At the end of the contest, the winning entry will be announced on this site and posted here, along with excerpts from some of my other favorites. (If your Tale of Woe implicates a family member or friend and you don't want more woe, feel free to specify that your story be posted anonymously.)

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The Gregory Mantell Show - Everyone Getting Married But You?

Check out Valerie's interview!

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The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #6, Part 3

and now, for the conclusion of our tale....

Ah, but the fun wasn’t even about to begin. Sunday morning, I awoke and there is something terribly wrong. My stomach hurt so bad. I only had 2 glasses of champagne and this was not a hang over. Nope, it was war. I had to bolt to the other bathroom in the back of the house the bathroom next to me was out of order. I barely made it. I have only been this sick once before; it was horrible. Once I make it back to bed, I feel someone crawling in bed with me. One of the girls was looking for her boyfriend. I told her to get off me and try the next room. Then I was sick again. Plus I had to be on a plane in about 4 hours. I finally got out of bed and packed while I lay on the floor. Debbie and James had to help me get into the car and I slept all the way to the airport. Flying with the stomach flu/food poisoning/heat exhaustion was not on my list of things to do before I die, but I did.

Debbie doesn’t call much anymore. But I wish them well. And when I get married I will not expect my bridesmaid to buy a plane ticket to fly out and be my wedding planner/caterer/baby sitter/hairdresser/therapist. P.S. Anyone want to by a Medieval Bridesmaid Dress?

Friday, April 06, 2007

It's a Gay World, After All

This just in: Disney will open the Mickey Gates to gay couples who want to plunk down the money to exchange vows in front of Cinderella's castle. Yay for progression and equal rights, but methinks this is a case where the motivation is less political and more monetary.

The Fairy Tale Wedding Service packages run from $8000-$45,000.

Will the rest of the wedding industry follow suit and begin to aggressively market to same-sex couples? What do you think?

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #6: Part 2

and so our tale continues...
Friday AM-I awake to screaming baby, Debbie on pain meds, and Debbie’s mom asleep at the sewing machine. We all gather into the cars to go to the courthouse to get Debbie and James married the day before the wedding because the priest doesn’t do Saturday weddings. After, we go to a reception held at Denny’s like restaurant. Baby still colic, manages to smack his head on table. The groom gets stomach bug and is out of commission for the rest of the day. We head back to the hottest house in all of PA where I continue to clean the house. I find dried ferret poop everywhere. Don't ask. Debbie’s mom is still sewing dresses. At 4 pm we trek to Super Wal-Mart to get wedding feast supplies and the rehearsal dinner that night. Debbie and I begin to cook everything and the rest of the wedding party trickles in. We run through the rehearsal and get everyone fed. The Groom and his buddies go out for the Batchelor party. I take Debbie to Wal-Mart for her Bachelorette party because we need more frosting for the wedding cake and can’t really do anything else because the wedding is in 20 hours. By midnight I am making a wedding cake, getting turkeys ready and standing in to try on all of the wedding clothes for Debbie’s mom. The rest of the in-laws to be are watching TV, not budging a bit. It is hotter than hell.

By 4 am on Saturday morning, I go to flip the bottom layer of the wedding cake on to the board and it falls on the floor. Future in-law says “Oh that sucks”. I do everything in my power to not shove her face in the cake. It is now 4 am. I call it a night and head to bed.

So by 6 am, it is officially T minus 12 hours and counting before the wedding. I get up and let Debbie go to bed. I make the frosting and peel potatoes and check the turkeys. Debbie’s mom is once again passed out at the sewing machine. At 7 am, Debbie gets up to feed the baby and we can’t find the baby formula. We go to Wal-Mart. Later I find out that I confused the Crisco with the formula and put the formula in the pantry. By noon, Debbie is icing her wedding cake, and I am making salad, finger foods and making a large vat of margaritas. Finally the future in-laws get off their asses and help set up the wedding reception area outside and put the wedding arc up in the backyard. At 3 pm the wedding parting comes in and gets dressed. Debbie’s mom is frantically trying to get the groom’s outfit finished as well as the bride’s dress made. Yes, it is 2 hours until Debbie walks down the isle and the wedding gown isn’t finished. At 4 pm everyone has discovered the vat of margaritas and things are going even further downhill as Debbie needs to shower and write her vows. I haven’t had a shower is 3 days. So we hop to the bathroom and take turns in the shower. It is so hot that after the shower we sit in a bathtub filled with cold water. As I am dying her hair, she writes the vows. At 5:30, half an hour after when the wedding was supposed to start, her mom comes in with the dress. There is no zipper, so we have to sew Debbie into the dress. Sweaty, I shimmy into my burlap gown and do Debbie’s hair. A neighbor is cleaning the living room when we come out. She helps me make a veil. Debbie looks good and out the door we go. Her brother, drunk and weaving, volunteered to walk Debbie down the isle. Finally, Debbie and James have their wedding. Photos are taken and tears shed. But my job is not over yet. I have to hustle back into the kitchen while everyone else sits down for the dinner. I grab all the food and set up the buffet, momentarily stopping to participate in the wedding party’s first dance. Lucky me, I get the best man with a bad marriage and two kids who wants to play grab ass with me. In between playing hostess and watching everyone else eat and drink, I manage to toast the happy couple and set up the wedding cake. At the bouquet toss, I hit the ground and barely missed it. Finally, people start to tear away from the food and I was able to change out of my 20 lb. cocoon of a bridesmaid dress and put on a t-shirt. After thwarting of the advances of a soon to be divorced father of two, I bid the couple well and went to bed.



The wedding's over. How much worse can it get? Stay tuned to find out.

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Thursday, April 05, 2007

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #6: Part 1

Dear readers, this exceptional tale is very long, so we're going to serialize on the blog bit by painful bit. Here goes:

I liken my last stint as a bridesmaid to that of going into battle. I was drafted in to the service of my high school friend, let’s call her Debbie, for her second trip up the isle. Her first marriage was doomed from the start when her then bridesmaid quipped “Oh, if it doesn’t work, you can always get divorced” as Debbie was donning her gown:. Lovely, just lovely. She should have saved that for the toast. Anyway, years later, I another call. “Lisa, will you be my bridesmaid?” Caught between dread and delight, delight won over. “Sure” I said. And thus began the nightmarish tale of the wedding that almost killed me.

Roughly a year before the blessed day, Debbie began planning her dream day. They were going to do everything by themselves: invitations, flower arrangements and by the way, the entire wardrobe for the wedding party. Why you may ask? Because it was going to be a theme wedding and the theme was Medieval. Okay, I can do this. The wedding is taking place 2,000 miles away from anyone else I know. Then about two months into planning the wedding, Debbie is pregnant. No problem, Debbie says she’ll have the baby in March and the wedding is still on for June.

Months pass, seasons pass and Debbie has a baby boy on March 23. April passes, and I hear nothing of the wedding. Finally on May first she calls to say the wedding is still on, but she may need me to fly in a few days early to help. My stomach drops, this is not good.

June 9th, I catch a red eye to fly from LA to Buffalo, NY on a Wednesday night. The wedding is on Saturday. I land 8 am on Thursday. Debbie is nowhere in site. I wait for 40 minutes before calling her house. Nothing. Finally her fiancé calls and Debbie has overslept. The baby has been sick for the past few days and Debbie has a back tooth that is causing her whole mouth to swell. Oh and the whole family has been up for days while Debbie’s mom has been sewing all the wedding clothes.

Three hours later, Debbie, the baby and Debbie’s mom arrive to pick me up. Everyone looks horrible. The baby screams for the next hour and a half; Debbie’s face is all swollen, and the mom has been taking a prescriptive form of No-Doze. We arrive in some small town in Pennsylvania where a record heat wave is in full swing and there is no AC.

Let me break the days down by events:

Thursday afternoon we have to take Debbie to dentist. The fiancé and I bond while Debbie is having a tooth pulled. We then meet the groom’s family at the grocery store where they work. The groom bails on us, leaving me to drive back woods roads with Debbie fading in and out of consciousness. We arrive at base camp where Debbie’s mom has been sewing all day. By the way, the wedding is to be held in the back yard and the house looks like a land fill. So I start to clean the house and I am sweating like a pig. I pass out from exhaustion as does the bride.

The worst is yet to come...

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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Bridesmaid Dress Donation Resources

Thanks to reader Kirsten H. for catching this! In the book we suggest that one of the things you can do with your collection of never-going-to-wear-it-again bridemaid dresses is donate them. When we went to The Tyra Banks Show last year, two of the guests were from an organization called The Princess Project, which takes donated gowns (from the last few years only--don't try to dump your 1995 prom dress with them) and makes them available to girls who don't have the resources to buy their own prom and school dance dresses.

In the book, we mistakenly called it The Cinderella Project, because there is actually a regional organizations that does the same thing:
http://www.cinderellaproject.net/


Stay tuned for the upcoming tale from our Annals of Being a Bridesmaid where the dress is not exactly donation-worthy, unless the prom was being held at Medieval Times.

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Are celebrity relationships ruining your love life?

Saw this article on Yahoo! about how saturated we are with stories about celebrity relationships, and how that could impact your personal life. We talk about this a lot in Chapter 6: Reality Check. While watching hook-up to break-up trajectories among the celeb species is nearly a national sport, it may have some negative consequences for you. As David writes:

Celebrity Message: Commitment Schmommitment

Really, the biggest message we get from celebrity hook-ups is that marriage is the commitment equivalent of dating. Find someone you like, get married. Don't like that person any more, get divorced. It's hard to understand why celebrity couples seem to rush into marriage faster than Sanjaya fans rush to the phone lines. We see it all the time -- quick marriages, quick divorces. And I think that can send the dangerous message that marriage doesn't really matter. While I'm certainly not one to say that there's only one traditional way to have a relationship, I think that the message being sent -- a wedding is as casual an occasion as happy hour -- cheapens a tie that ought to be more precious. The celeb warning: A wedding is more than a party with cake. The positive lesson real couples can take from it: Listen to your wedding vows, and honor them.



Let's also look at the top five lessons learned from romantic comedies from The Bridal Wave and think about this: if these are "date" movies, what kinds of messages are you sending to someone you might end up in a relationship with?


1. Love happens in a moment, and no one really minds it if
you end up with your boyfriend’s brother, because, you
know, he’s “the one.” In this oeuvre of film even the most
unacceptable behavior is acceptable so long as it’s in the
name of true love. Source: The Family Stone.
2. It’s all right to screw someone over as long as she is uptight
or somehow unlikable. Feel free to leave her at the altar;
she’s a bitch anyway. Source: Four Weddings and a Funeral.
3. If you think you hate him, he may be “the one.” Source:
You’ve Got Mail.
4. Hiring a hooker is a shortcut to finding your soul mate.
Source: The Wedding Date, Pretty Woman.
5. There’s always a gorgeous girl hiding behind glasses and
bad clothes just waiting for the right guy to reveal her.
Source: She’s All That.

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