Attacking Life with Comedic Jaws of Sarcasm. Recovering Dating & Relationship Blogger - Made it to Step 12 When I Got Married.

Category: X: The Love of My Life

Take Out Some Insurance on Me

X is having a love affair of epic proportions with his bachelor pad apartment. I swear to Gucci it’s taking him forever to get the hell out of there. He keeps saying he threw out and/or donated a lot of stuff, and that “there’s not that much left.” But then I go over there and his version of “not that much” is my version of “ohmygod we need a Hoarders style intervention.” He’ll be in good company though since my family should be there too. In fact, gotta love them, we dumped a ton of X’s stuff off on them. They don’t even ask questions. They just opened the garage and took it all in, right in the middle of Sunday’s blizzard.

To be fair, X says I have a problem not with hoarding, but with saying no to my mother. She has dumped more sheets and towels off on me over the years, most of which are obsolete because today’s deep mattresses just don’t accommodate sheets from 1954. I’m learning, though. Before we left their house this time my mom tried to pawn her wares off on us.

Gloom: Do you want the king size sheets I have upstairs?
Me: We don’t even have a king size bed.
Gloom: Well, in case you get one.
Me: We’re not getting one until we move, and at this rate, it will be forever. Besides, all the sheets you give me don’t fit the bed. Then we go sliding off the mattresses I wake up with fitted sheet in the crack of my ass.
Gloom: Okay. I’ll keep them upstairs for you. Let me know when you want them.
Me: No more linens. We’re drowning in linens!
Gloom: They’ll be here when you’re ready.

Okay, Okay, I know. I didn’t exactly ward that off, just postponed it until a later date. Baby steps.

When X went to pick up the rental truck at Budget, they asked if he wanted insurance. He said that our insurance covered him, and the truck rental guy said it probably didn’t. X called the insurance company to find out it would cover liability but not damage, so he opted for that insurance. I grew up with a dad who laughed at all those add-ons, sniffing them out as a profit center. He always took his chances and I never saw it backfire. Because the Baklava doesn’t fall far from the tree Box from Swiss Colony, I never added any type of insurance to any car rental. The one time I bought that Circuit City extended warranty for my Sony Walkman in 1994 I was almost disowned. But when it comes to insurance, my husband is a different story.

X loves insurance. If X could manage this, he would cheat on me with insurance. He would have a three way with his car insurance and life insurance. When his health insurance showed up, it would be a disgusting, no holes spared, orgy. They do not make insurance the man doesn’t have. He would buy insurance insurance if there were such a product. I have cheated the insurance thing left and right in his eyes – most notably when we rented a car in Napa and they took two hours to process us and we had been first in line (also Budget rental by the way.) I was so hungry that when they asked if I wanted insurance I practically gouged their eyes out. “GIVE ME THE CAR AND NO I DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING INSURANCE!!” X told me I would regret this. I didn’t. However what I did regret was not upgrading to a luxury car because the morons forgot to charge my credit card. For any of it. Score!

Anyway, back to the truck rental. We went outside to inspect the truck, noted the existing damage, and X said he would meet me back at his place. The truck rental guy said, “Do you want me to pull it out for you?” X said he could do it. I heard the guy say “Are you sure” and X again declined his offer. As I was walking across the parking lot to my car (which is currently idling like it’s driving through the Sub-Sahara!?!) and started the engine. I went out a different exit and was waiting and waiting and waiting, and no X. I gave up and headed toward home when he called me.

Me: Where are you?
X: Just got out of the parking lot. Did you see what happened?
Me: No. I totally lost track of you.
X: When I was pulling out of the parking lot I hit the trailer next to me.

Great. I just got home and found a sock on the doorknob.

She’s Picked Out a King Sized Bed

I’d like to say that the swift pace at which X and I have been making wedding decisions has endured for each area of decision making. But when it came to the dress, progress came to a screeching halt. Let’s review my thought process as it unfolded in my brain:

Wearing dress for a couple hours. Frugal. Don’t like spending money on things. Decide to buy off rack. Hate frou frou stuff anyway. Loved Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s dress since the day I saw it. Looked for a sheath. Wonder where hers is, she’s clearly not going to use it again. Oh. Going to hell. Looked at my stomach. Wondered about reality of a sheath and my stomach taking a meeting and realizing they don’t like each other very much. Must lose extra 10 lbs that arrived since January. Must get back to working out. Nachos. Tacos. Pizza. Okay. No sheath. Something else. What though. What.

The idea of a sheath has been in my head since the 90’s when JFK and CBK got married. Simple, classic, very, um, me. Shut up. I am old enough now to qualify for classic! But there are an additional 10 pounds on me since the mid 90’s. So the hunt began. First, I had this Carmen Marc Valvo dress shipped to me:

 

As I suspected, the sheath and my fat pockets had a big fight, the fat won and the sheath was boxed right back up and sent back to where it came from. For a split second, I entertained my “dream” wedding dress. It’s clearly this Halston:

 

But then I had to slap myself. This lady wants $2400 for it, she wants all cash (um, hello?) and I think that price is pretty ridiculous. It doesn’t mean that I won’t one day write her a check for it and buy it just to try it on but for now, it’s back-burnered.

Okay, other dream dress? This! EEEEE!

 

Yeah, I know. They aren’t easy to see. Believe me, witches, I had a hard time too. What the deuce is wrong with all these photogs putting pictures of white wedding dresses against white backgrounds? I was turning el lappytop in all sorts of contortions to try to get a visual on some of these dresses.

Anyway, Bottega Veneta dress above? $6000 and sold the eff out anyway. Onwards.

You may recall that J Crew was in the throes of filing bankruptcy when one Michelle Obama wore something of theirs to some stupid event and the entire brand was resuscitated. Well, J Crew has a wedding department and they have some awesome dresses. Here’s my favorite, and by far the one that rose the ranks quickly:

 

Love it love it love it. Fabric? Something I never heard of.   I swung by the store in Georgetown to check it out and was told, “Even the skinniest girls have to wear spanx.” Let me tell you what doesn’t sound fun. 1) Wearing a girdle. 2) Wearing a girdle in July in Connecticut on the swampy humidity of the freaking Long Island Sound. Effectively back burnered. Say Hi to Halston!

Next!

My lovers at BCBG never fail to disappoint. I hopped on to Nordstrom and bought a handful of dresses from them. Why didn’t I do it at BCBG? I’ll tell you why. They don’t have a return policy. Are you people joking me? You know we’re in a recession right? I’m not going to tape the tag inside my dress and do the wear/return, but still. NO RETURN POLICY? Within 10 days you get a store credit with a receipt, but you will NEVER EVER get your money back from Bon Chic Bon Genre. Bah. So Nordies. Here’s what went into my cart and on to my credit card:

 

 

 

I like them all, but I don’t love them. However, I resigned myself to the fact that this may be what I’m destined to have.

And during this whole process, I can’t stop thinking about this other dress I saw online but called every store as well as the maker, and cannot locate one anywhere:

 

So it’s been a mess. For something that was supposed to be so simple, and that was going to be a minor part of the budget, this whole shebang has been causing a lot of heartburn. Just like with the man, everyone said, “When you find it you’ll know.” Bah. What the f*ck ever. X and I danced around being in love for 4 years before we got together, all the while I was entertaining YOU people with a dating blog. Ugh!

After a day at Tysons (I and II) and then out to Fairfax to a bridal place to see a dress similar to the one just above, I was a mess. I called X, because I value his opinion so much and because his taste level is so on target. This is evidenced, in fact, by the ring that he got me all by his wittle self. And no I’m not posting a picture because here’s a cold hard truth: It’s f*cking tacky to ask people to see their ring, to ask for a picture of it or to make comments about it one way or the other. Is anyone listening? I hope everyone’s listening. Tacky.   And that’s why for anyone who has asked me for a picture, I haven’t sent one. So there’s your answer to that quandary.

Anyway, X pretty much said I had to do this on my own. (Don’t even ask me why my mom wasn’t with me. You all know the answer to that. Oh, you don’t? Because if I wanted someone telling me how fat I was and how I don’t even fit into the moo moo size dresses when I’m a god damned size 8, then I would have invited my mom.)

I waltzed into Macy’s Bridal on a whim, shook up what I wanted, and spit it back out. This lady pulled a dress about 4 times my dress budget. I put it on, and it literally took my breath away. She said, “This is it?”

Yes. This is it.

She’s Telling Me We’ll Be Wed

We have very little requirements in the way of locating a Justice of the Peace.

1) Must be non-denominational since X and I are basically atheists.
2) Must be open and willing to performing same-sex marriages. No, this is not when I unveil that X is really a female. But, I strongly believe that anyone should be able to marry anyone else and so I want to know that our JP won’t deny anyone else the right and privilege of being married because of who they want to marry.

Doing a ceremony in the town in which I grew up has some really funny townies sort of things that crop up. I found a list of town approved Justices of the Peace. I forwarded said list to my parents and said, “By chance, anyone on here an enemy?” See, in addition to living in this town for 40 years, my dad was also a lawyer for most of those years. And he found himself on the opposite side of the courtroom with, well, everyone. Oh the times bumping into people in town and hearing “I sued that bastard,” or having the doorbell ring and being forced to hide in the dark because my dad was going to be subpoenaed. Or his client was. Can you imagine how bad that would be if I randomly picked one of them to marry me to X? “Well well well, I’ve been waiting for 38 years Mr. Velvet’s Dad. You’ve been served!”

Anyway, after I sent this email to Gloom and Doom, I continued perusing the list. Several names jumped out at me but I couldn’t place who they were or how I knew them. This of course means that I could never pick any of these people because, Pete DiLeo, I don’t know if I dated you, or my slutty friend did, but I can’t risk you showing up to marry me to X and busting out with some story about a broken heart, a broken marriage and a broken car window.

Then I see it. There it is. Even the phone number is vaguely familiar from when I called it.   So I texted K.

“OMG OMG OMG, only you can appreciate this. I’m looking for a JP in CT and Teresa’s dad is on here! Remember when I had that fight with him?”

K texts back, “Yeah, to tell him to get his psycho daughter off your back and to leave you and your boyfriend alone!”

Then I drew a blank. I remember the call. I remember it was to tell the girl off and her dad picked up. But a boyfriend? Huh? I texted back and said, “I cringe to ask, but which boyfriend was this?” K had to enlighten me. I forgot most of those details. You know, when you move away from your hometown, and then move several times in a decade, you lose entire blocks of time filled memories. They somehow fade away each time you pack and unpack a box. Or maybe it’s from the drinking. Hmm.

Anyway. There was no response from Gloom and Doom. When I asked my mom in an email, she said, “Your father is working on it.” Oh no. OH NO! The town only allots a certain number of JP’s and if anyone can manage to piss all of them off between now and summer, it’s my dad! Shit!!!

My mom emailed back to not worry, so I said to X, “Well, the more involved they are, the less of a chance they will come up with some stupid reason not to show up like, ‘We went to the movies, and your father got his hand stuck in the butter dispenser.'”

X: Yeah, but the Justice of the Peace baby? I mean, can’t they work on the flowers or something?
Me, not really listening to X: Oh! Wait, I know, maybe my dad knows someone else in another town in CT that he wants to ask.
X: I hope you know what you’re doing.

Then, 3 full minutes of silence.

Me: It just occurred to me where your thinking is. I’m thinking they are just going to hire some flake they are friends with, you’re thinking they are going to hire someone who doesn’t show up. Or that they are not going to hire anyone at all….
X: Yeah, there she is everyone. She finally got here.

On yet another call to my mom, she said they were indeed working on it. I said to make sure whoever they pick will actually show up. I didn’t even bother making my second request on the whole gay marriage thing. That would really be pushing my luck.

Gloom: Oh don’t worry. Your father knows most of those people. He just wants to ask his friend which would be the right one.
Me: Okay.
Gloom: Do you think we have to feed this person?
Me: I think we have to feed the photographer.
Doom, from the background before I could even answer: NO WE’RE NOT FEEDING THEM! THEY CAN EAT AT HOME.

If This is Just the Beginning, My Life’s Gonna Be Beautiful

The fifth and final place we went to check out was up in good old Connecticut, the land of hedge funds and million dollar houses. After we left my parents non-million-dollar house, we stopped by the restaurant/hotel on the way out of town. This hotel was known by another name when I was in high school, and I always thought of it as a shithole. My mom said they renovated it, changed the name and it was supposedly gorgeous. It is also on the water.

 

X and I went in and I was instantly thrown back in time into all things Connecticut. Blonde hair, headbands, Range Rovers and Jaguars. When you leave Connecticut and spend   many years traipsing around with rednecks in the south and then with gays in D.C., you forget that there are places like Connecticut on earth. Not a blade of grass in town is anything other than bright green, not a hair on any head is gray and unprocessed, not a forehead in sight unbotoxed. So at the restaurant,   they bust out the book and showed us the “other weddings” that occurred here. I was scanning the pics to see if I went to high school with any of the people, so I missed half the stuff she said. But several magic words did register in my subconscious:

All Inclusive 5 hour package
Top Shelf Open Bar Included
$125 a person

No venue rental fee
Ceremony outside on the deck, under the trellis which will be covered with flowers by summer, saving us any money spent on flowers.
Oh, and the deck is on the water.
Available dates this summer!   (The beauty of planning a wedding during a recession is that you can pretty much get any date you ask for.)
Eeeee!!!!

 

We walked around the room where the reception would be, and I tried to hide my happiness but I wanted to   make out with every Tory Burch clone in sight. When we left, X said, “Well, they were nice.” Then I must have temporarily blacked out, but apparently X tells me that I started blubbering my case for wedding/near parents house/don’t have to buy flowers/on the water/ and topped that off with the heartwrenching “this is the town I grew up in and it would be really cool to get married here” and X was sold.

Apparently 4 hours in Connecticut was too long. You can take the girl out of Connecticut, but you can’t take the Connecticut out of the girl. I freaking subscribed to Town and Country Magazine when I got home. God. Damned. It.

 

My Head Keeps Spinning, I Go to Sleep and Keep Grinning

We’ve had some serious progress over here in Velvet World the last few days.

Regarding the piece of shit doctor, we filed complaints with the Virginia Medical Board and HHS for HIPAA violations. I cannot wait until he gets those notices.

X and I had a busy 38 hours between Friday at 7 a.m. and Saturday at 9 p.m. We left DC and drove to NYC where we had meetings with Wedding Coordinators at 2:00, 3:00, 4:30 and 6:15. Up. Down. Across the city. All on foot. With Sammy and Thora. It was a feat, to say the least. Our base of operations, the W, where we were staying, was also conveniently our first stop.

2:00. W Hotel, Midtown. This happy little coordinator showed us around their conference rooms which were very…”conferency.” He told us we wouldn’t like our next stops on the tour from hell because they were “stuffy” and “basementy” respectively, but the W is sort of an odd hotel too. It seems more suited to business meetings anyway.

That is NOT X with the white gloves by the way.

3:00. Waldorf-Astoria.   Apparently unless you have throngs of people, they won’t even discuss sharing their precious banquet space with you. You have to rent a suite. I was like, “wha???” But then I saw their suites. Holy crap. They are indeed gorgeous, but for $6000 a night, I would expect them to be gorgeous.

I wouldn’t expect them to also be so, gaudy, but well, whatever.

The funny part of that flea market furniture is that if you want it removed, you have to pay them. Please. You people should pay us for removing the ribbon candy couches and injecting a taste level into the place.

The idea of doing a ceremony in one room and eating in the other was pretty nice. It sort of summed up what we were thinking about for the day. Then we got the dogs and hoofed it up to Central Park South for our next appointment.

4:30. Ritz-Carlton. These people were the nicest to deal with pre-visit, and they even had bones for Sammy and Thora when we got there. I thought that was pretty nice. Then Sammy wouldn’t cooperate and he was attacking me for the bone I had in the little Ritz bag. I was trying to say how well behaved my dogs were and then one turns into Jabba the Hut and practically jumped into my arms to get the bone. So, the unfortunate part about the Ritz? Space in the basement. X said, “This doesn’t really do the ‘had my wedding at the Ritz on Central Park’ statement justice because the pictures will look like we were just about anywhere.” No windows, nada. Sad.

 

There’s Thora dreaming about her wedding.

6:15. Studio 54. People please. Is this not the bestest idea ever? I’m a disco freak, love all things late 70’s and loved hearing about Studio 54 then, and now. I’ve read the books, seen the movies, I’m officially obsessed. We used this as an excuse to tour the place, but knowing that it’s been converted into a theatre, we sort of knew we wouldn’t be able to make it work. When we found out that the price of renting the cool Studio 54 runs you $10,000 just to get in the door, we were about done. Though, we continued our mission. We saw the infamous mezzanine where the sex occurred, and the scandalous basement where the drug use took place. God I would have been in heaven. No wonder people were dying to get in and never wanted to leave.

Now:

 

Then:

Sniffles. Love Halston. Wondering if I should buy this vintage Halston Wedding Dress I spied online. Bah. Dresses are another post.

After, we went to have dinner with my brother and his ex-girlfriend bff. Then back to the hotel where we all promptly crashed. Some of us crashed faster than others.

“Yum. These Ritz Carlton Bones are the best.”

In the morning we went up to Connecticut. Yeah yeah, I know. But we had to pin them down once and for all. And we looked at a hotel in my hometown that also does weddings.

Guess what happened when we arrived at my parents house?

a) No one was home.
b) They barely spoke to us.
c) They talked to me but refused to engage with X.
d) They jumped out of the house and started talking to X and I like they hadn’t ignored emails or dodged phone calls and showed an interest in our wedding.

If you picked a, b, or c, you’re wrong. Can you believe it? Neither can I.

Nobody Does It Half As Good As You, Baby You’re the Best

When I was in high school, I had an exceptionally lame midnight curfew. My parents really liked my boyfriend though, so they said he could come in and watch TV, but we had to be in by 12. Fine by me because this also meant we didn’t have to squeeze our loving into some cliche high school backseat of the GTO romp when it was 4 degrees outside. We could do it on the nice warm couch at my mom’s house.

She didn’t love that by the way. We had several near misses and several of her Catholic-like sobbing breakdowns before I finally got “the talk” and was instructed I couldn’t have sex in her house. Or something like that. I don’t know because I wasn’t really listening. I was plotting how to get craftier at actually having sex, and spent the rest of that relationship trying to avoid getting caught.

All the boyfriends who came and went after that and my mom never let any of them come into the house or, gasp, sleep over. Until X. We went up to Gloom and Doom’s house this past summer and they let us sleep – not only in my childhood room, in an upgraded (read: non-twin) bed, but together. I still wouldn’t let X touch me. At 36, those 17 year old days were still haunting me. The worst thing ever was to get caught having sex by one or both of my parents.

Friday night I went to X’s house and we went out to eat with Number 1 and Number 2. They were in their usual rare form, and camped out on the couch to play video games when we got home. So X and I, who had been having text-foreplay for most of the week, ran upstairs to do some work on my old desktop computer and fool around. We ended up ripping our clothes off and jumping into bed, but not   before Sammy wanted out and Thora wanted in and with the door opening and closing and dogs going in and out, we finally got down to business.

When it was all said and come (heh) I got up to see if Sammy was pacing outside the door waiting to be let back in. He wasn’t, so I crawled back into bed. X was like, “Did you lock the door?” I said, “No, I’m going to get up again in a second and call Sammy because I’m sure he’ll want to get back in.” The heat was roasting us like smores so we had all the covers off. Then I heard a scratch at the door and figured it was Sammy.

It wasn’t.

Number 1 busts the door open, says, “Hi. Um. Bye.” And takes off. Uh….

So, in case anyone is doing any math right now, I spent exactly 36 years and 3 months trying to avoid getting caught by my mom having sex until she finally decided to stop caring, now at 36 years and 9 months, I’m back to getting caught. By a 15 year old. Damn it. Six months is way too short a window.

The reason for Number 1 coming to the door was because Number 2, true to form, hit his head on something. X went up there to see how he was and give him some ice and he said, “Don’t touch me! Number 1 told me what you were doing! Wash your hands!”

When we were out on Saturday night, I said something to X like, “Where are we sleeping tonight?” And Number 1 made the air quotes and said, “sleeping” under his breath. Damn it to hell! Maybe he just wants to call my mom so they can listen in on my phone calls, and read my diary.

It’s Too Late To Turn Back Now

Thursday morning X and I arose with that anticipation I just can’t begin to describe. I knew he was nervous but he wouldn’t admit it. Shit, I was nervous. We pulled out the directions and began our drive west. I kept wondering what made us think this was a good idea – to go to a house with his birth mother (who we never met) and all his relatives (who we also never met) and spend Thanksgiving there, but whatever. I’d like to say here that X and I don’t really do anything half-assed, that we think everything out in full detail, but that would be a colossal lie.

(Note to X who is thinking, “What is she talking about? We don’t do anything half-assed!” Okay X. Think about all the conversations we have where you end them by saying, “Well, we’ll figure it out.” Honey. We NEVER figure it out. We just fly by the seat of our pants. Oh! Pants! Reminds me! Back to my story!)

So we’re driving out to the house and the directions just keep going. Turn on this road. Go 30 miles. Turn on this road. Go 10 miles. Turn on this road. Go north 2 miles. Turn on this. Another 35 miles. I think the piece of shit GPS is napping. It’s tired. And it likes to give very bad directions by the way. (“Turn left! Get in left lane! Oh, you’re in left lane? Kidding! Get back out there! You need to keep going straight! Fooled you! Dumbass!”)

As we get within 15 minutes of the house I had a sudden urge to chop and snort all my Klonopin. But I resisted. I did, however, desperately need a Diet Pepsi. We stopped at 7-11.

X and I went inside and I went to the bathroom. I came out, poured my soda, paid and we left. As we were putting on our seatbelts, X said, “So, what would be the worst thing to happen to me 10 minutes before pulling up to my birth mother’s house?”

“Um. I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Well, I somehow managed to get the after-pee leakage on my jeans.”

“OH MY GOD OHMYFUCKING GOD NO NO NO! ARE YOU KIDDING?”

I looked at X’s crotch.

X said, rather calmly, “Well. No. I’m not kidding. So I tried to dry them under the dryer in the bathroom but then someone came in and it just looked like I was trying to fuck the dryer hole, so I left.”

“This wouldn’t happen to you if you learned how to wear underwear! Now what? You’ve waited all these years and we have to drive in circles waiting for your jeans to dry?”

People, I wish I was kidding, but no, I’m not. This is me and the love of my life. Half assed and wet crotched until the end.

This time I took a picture…

 

In all seriousness, when we pulled up to the house, I was just so proud of X – so proud he did this. Ok, must stop gushing because he’ll be grossed out and embarrassed by my gushing.

Anyway, I don’t think that the visit could have gone any better. Without going too far into any detail – they all knew about him, and they have all been looking for him for a while. But they were missing a key piece of information that X had – the name of the agency where he was placed. For a bunch of reasons, that information was never divulged to his birth mother because she went through a third party. So she didn’t know, and no one knew, and there you have it. They searched for him on the internet and didn’t get very far. Until now.

And so X has a whole family now, the bonus of which might I add? THEY’RE NOT GREEK! Oh my god, he’s out of the cult and he left me here alone!

His pants finally dried, by the way.

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