2003
Wedding Dress
My last dress-up adventure was so sucessful, I’m beginning to worry that I’ve used up my allotted amount of well-dressed-ness for the year. I have a wedding on Saturday in Salt Lake and not a clue of what to wear. I’d just don what I did for the cocktail party, but there are a few problems. First, it will be 20 degrees rather than 55 degress, which means the piece de resistance, those beloved strappy sequined shoes, are a no-go. 
Normally this wouldn’t be a problem because under normal circumstances, I’d just have to endure the walk from the car to the venue. But these are not normal circumstances. This is a Mormon wedding at the temple. What this means is that the morning will be spent tromping around ouside in a huge pack of crazy aunts, uncles, and cousins. See, we don’t actually get to see the wedding ceremony. Bummer, I know. What we get to do instead is wait outside until the newlyweds emerge all righteous and glowing with the spirit (and anxious to get in on already) and then we get to follow them around the temple grounds while they have their picture taken in all the usual places and all the usual poses so their wedding album will look exactly like everyone else’s. This is considered a good thing; it’s all about fitting in, folks. That said, you understand how the strappy sandals, while good for standing around indoors in all sorts of weather, will not do for hiking around outdoors in the dead of winter.
The second problem with the outfit that worked so well last Friday is that the dress is short, off-the-shoulder, and well, just too damn sexy. Lest you think I think I’m da bomb, let me reassure you that the sexiness of the dress has nothing to do with the person wearing it. Where I’m going, a woman is considered inappropriate and provocative if her dress doesn’t drag on the floor or cover her “unmentionables” (her shoulders), if it’s not loose enough to be worn throughout a full-term pregnancy, or if it’s not built of something sturdy like denim, which comes in handy should she need to use it in the construction of a protective bubble for her family during the apocalypse.
Thus far in my life, I have taken great joy in my many small rebellions against Mormon culture. Clearly, here is an opportunity for another quiet uprising. I could show up in red leather, fishnets, and stilettos (if I could walk in them). I could smoke in the ladies’ room at the church or show up drunk (if I could stand either vice long enough for it to be effective). But alas, something has come over me lately. As scary as it is to admit, I think I’m getting over the need to broadcast my disapproval of the religion of my ancestry and just let it be. Showing up sexy to my little cousin’s big day somehow strikes me as akin to wearing white to a normal wedding: I’ll only succeed in detracting attention from the bride, and I certainly don’t want to be that person. That person sucks.
So if you happen to be wandering the temple grounds this weekend and see a girl in puffy moon boots and a long-sleeved, high-necked, floor-length denim monstrosity, that would be me. And in case you’re not sure, stand downwind and sniff, because I’ll be positively reeking with maturity and well-wishes for someone I may not agree with, but still like a whole lot.
Oh, unless I find a dress like this that doesn’t cost $150. Then I’ll be the jezebel with the purple toes and the lightening bolt about to smite me.
2003
Let It Snow! (please?)
Some mornings the fog is so thick I can almost smell the snow in the air. I swear I can see the flakes suspended in the clouds that have tucked themselves in between buildings and cars and wrapped their soft whiteness around people walking the streets.
But then I see the palm trees like giant green flamingos, balancing one-leggedly and flapping their green fronds in the 65 degree wind, and I loosen the scarf around my neck and regret going with the wool socks this morning.
At Christmastime, we bring snow into our house in the form of snowflake window decals, snowflake ornaments, ceramic snowmen figurines, tin snowmen ornaments, plastic snowmen toys, seed-and-twig snowmen statues, and snowglobes.
I can’t wait to be in the real thing, hear it crunch under my feet, see it dust my head like pixie dust.
For those of you out there in Blogland, I hope you’re enjoying the weather you’re getting and you’re either 1) not missing snow as badly as I am or 2) not cursing it as you dig your car out of the icy cocoon the plows have formed around it.
Three days, three days, three days until we go home for Christmas!
2003
Histrionics
Tonight we’re going to the annual holiday cocktail party thrown by the couple we like to refer to as our “rich friends.” Said rich friends have a house and a pool and stocks and a condo at a world-famous resort that they rent out. Before we met these two, we had never had any rich friends. Now we know not only them but all of their rich friends, and tonight we’re driving an hour and a half in rush hour traffic through the rain to hang out with them. This group of rich friends flies to Vegas for a group date, they ski at only the most exclusive and expensive resorts, they frequent spas, they think a $300 dress is a steal and a $50 haircut an unbelievable bargain, they do not shop at Target. Don’t get me wrong–these people are absolutely lovely. They are nice, they are inclusive, they are easy to get along with, they have never been anything but friendly and hospitable. One of the guys kidnapped Ethan and took him to look for engagement rings a year ago. I even braved my first “girls night” with the ladies of the group, during which I put more money’s worth of product on my face than I’d probably spent for makeup in my entire life. But still, despite the kindness and good times, I get very nervous whenever I think of hanging out with them. I get sick to my stomach like you wouldn’t believe. I know it’s all in my head, of course, but that doesn’t make the cramping hurt less or the nausea go away. I feel silly being nervous because we’ve never had a bad time with them (as opposed to all the bad times we’ve had with people I never get nervous over). I think the problem is that I’m afraid of committing some stupid social faux pas that will unmask me as the uncouth savage I am. I don’t know what kind of a cup sherry should be sipped from. I don’t have any news about the investments I made out of my trust fund. I am even a little ashamed of my hair, which hasn’t been cut since that $5 trim I got at least six months ago. Normally none of this is a problem. I don’t think I’ve cared about being accepted by people EVER, and suddenly, for some reason, I do. A lot. Wait, I take that back. I don’t want to be accepted, I just don’t want to be made fun of after I leave. And that, I think, is definitely a reason to get a little worked up, right?
We see this group of people only once or twice a year, and it’s always been fun, even when we don’t bring an exotic gift, order something daring at the Afghani restaurant, or show up with fancy wine. Never have they turned up their noses at us, and for that I am infinitey grateful. This time, however, I have to worry about the fuss over the engagement, and worse, the fuss over the wedding and the ring. Almost everyone at this party is married, and although that’s a welcome change from the swinging singles we hang out with the rest of the time and with whom we can’t ever talk about relationship issues, there seems to be a lot of competition and comparison in the air when it comes to how we all run our couplehood. These are country club people, two-karat people, honeymoon for a month people, Vera Wang people. *swoon* We, decidedly, are not. Nor would we particularly like to be. And therein lies the problem. I love my life, love my relationship, love my ring, and love the fact that we don’t have a wedding date or a planner or a “destination.” But I’m afraid that these people, who couldn’t imagine being happy in my situation, will suspect that I couldn’t be either, that I’m miserable under my smile, that Ethan isn’t doing his duty as companion and protector. And that really irritates me. And it makes me sick.
This time last year, we drove halfway to the party and then, afer much arguing and blaming and self-deprecating, we turned around and came home. True, it was raining in sheets and I didn’t feel safe on the roads, true, we were going to be extremely late, true, we didn’t know anyone at the party except the hosts, and that made us nervous. But the kicker was that I didn’t have anything to wear. I had an ugly polyester shirt somewhat reminiscent of this over the top of a black dress that sagged and bunched in the boob area because it was, well, unfulfilled in its life’s purpose, and I was wearing three-year-old $7 sandals made of foam and faux velvet that looked like they were ten years old, $1.50, and made of garbage. That’s not how I would like to make my grand entr
