The Prodigal Procrastinator Returns!

Hello, gang!

I'm baaaaaaaack!

I realize I have been a wee bit absent over the past several months - I always procrastinate when it comes to my writing (for shame), but 8 whole months is sort of ridiculous. At least I have a good excuse.

MARRIAGE!

That's right...I got hitched - believe it or not, it happened. Last Saturday, May 8th, 2010, in front of about 110 of our friends and family, my wonderfully amazing Brad promised to walk the dog every morning for the rest of our lives (with the exception of weekends). Oh, and also, love, honor, and cherish me, all that good stuff.

It was amazing. It was spectacular. It was expensive.

It was also time-consuming. So much so that I've written next to nothing since September - and not just on this blog. No screenplays, maybe three lines of my novel, and only a handful of restaurant reviews for examiner.com (which I may kick to the curb anyway, for lack of inspiration and reward).

Today is my first official day back to reality. We mini-mooned last week away, then took the weekend to recuperate - vacationing is hard work, yo.

But here I am...and as I sat in front of my computer all day, wasting time on Facebook (damn you, Family Feud!!!) and looking at wedding pics, it started to hit me:

I am just a tiny bit lost.

Not in a literal sense - anyone who knows me knows I am a human compass and an ace navigator on road trips - but in the sense that I've sort of come to the realization that I'm a little lacking in the focus/drive/goals department.

Acting was so much of my life for so long - and I have a couple of opportunities to get back into that world. But do I want to? TBD. I love it...but it's so heartbreaking. And I've come to terms with the fact that chances are very, VERY slim that it will ever be a career that can actually support me. And if you think I'm waiting tables or folding t-shirts or answering phones for people who are way dumber than me for the rest of my life, you've got another think coming.

Writing is a passion. I love it. But it ain't all that much easier to break into than acting is...and screenwriting means staying in this cesspool called Hollywood, with its black heart and fake smiles - and the traffic. Ooooh, that traffic.

But what else is there for me? I'm reeling in my chair, just trying to figure out what sounds less painful to me - going back to school for a teaching (?) degree, or digging into a field like real estate or travel? And the worst part of it is, I'm no longer a spring chicken. I'm not that sprightly and attractive 20-something go-getter that every company wants to hire because she's smart and young. It's not easy to consider starting anew at the ripe old age of 32, in any field. Can I really go back to being someone's assistant - someone who is likely younger than I am? And have I already mentioned how utterly annoying it is to work for someone who I could outsmart on any standardized test, any day of the week, possibly blindfolded? This isn't hubris here, people, this is rock-hard reality. There are a lot of ass-dumb people out there running the world.

So I don't know. So here I sit. So my brain rots as I scream at my computer for the fast money round not including any questions about movies or tv.

But at least I got the ball rolling on writing again...even if it's just for this meager little blog o' mine that very, very few people will ever see. Sometimes you've just got to do it for yourself.

(that's what she said.)

Shock and Awe (and a Four-Tiered Cake)

Well, I did it.

No longer can you call me inexperienced or naive, for I have expanded my borders and taken the leap.  What with my impending marriage and all, I thought it was probably about time.

Time...to attend a Bridal Show.

I had found many references to these shows in my newly acquired arsenal of wedding magazines and how-to guides ("Wedding Planning for Dummies" is on my shelf, no lie).  Pictures of beaming brides-to-be tasting wedding cake, winning fabulous prizes, and ogling the latest trends in bridal fashion splayed across the glossy pages like a tantalizing morsel of forbidden fruit - dare I plunge myself into this girly frivolity, shucking away my life-long image of my self as an independent Chick who lives for science fiction and wouldn't be caught dead in Swarovski crystals???

Alas, I dared.

I arranged to meet up with a friend at the show, a fellow soon-to-be-Mrs. who is getting hitched in the fall.  Neither of us has done much planning, and it was a first-time expo experience for both of us.  We went in with high hopes and a sense of excitement - which of us would be winning a chic honeymoon to Fiji??  How many dresses would we need to snap pictures of during the runway show??  And perhaps most importantly, just how many caterers would we get to sample, and could we possibly procure a second helping if necessary??

Sadly, all of my bridal show dreams were crushed, juiced, and sieved into the bottoms of my feet within seconds of leaving the registration table.  The organization behind the show didn't get as much turn-out as they'd hoped - either from attendees OR from vendors - and therefore the show had been moved from a massive ballroom to an oversized conference room, where three aisles of perhaps eight vendors each succeeded in looking rather sparse in even such a small space.

We timidly meandered from stall to stall, collecting a plethora of business cards from vendors we had no interest in and filling out countless forms for services we didn't need, mostly in hopes of winning a promising drawing later in the day.  We slugged our way through hard sell after hard sell until I felt my ears would start to bleed.

This began to feel like a fruitless venture, namely because both my friend and I are getting married out of town, and therefore we wouldn't be using any of these L.A.-based vendors.  But we plugged relentlessly on, in the hopes of maybe getting some fresh ideas for escort cards or floral centerpieces, and all of that chi-chi nonsense.

Finally, we reached the end of our trip through the mini conference hall, wearing matching glazed expressions, toting our plastic bags full of two tons of useless information, which of course was causing the bag handles to cut off the circulation to our fingertips.

And of all the things we had been promised?  There was one cake tasting (not so great), no food whatsoever outside of a single chocolate fountain placed mysteriously behind the stacks of plates and napkins, so that you were forced to drip molten chocolate all over the next person in line's place setting (messy and really not worth the trouble), and the only stall to give away prizes at the show rather than via a drawing sometime next year was a bathing suit company - my friend won a $100 gift certificate (only good on purchases of at least $200 - at a BATHING SUIT store).  And me?  Well I certainly got the big pull of the day - I won the "chance to enter" their trip giveaway.  REALLY??  I won an ENTRY FORM?!?  Unfair.

After this hour and a half of total pain, confusion, and misery, we plunked ourselves into a couple of seats to watch the bridal fashion show.  Finally, something that could live up to the hype!  We would get to see our first wedding gowns close-up in person and perhaps deduce which style would be most flattering on our very different body types!  Just before the show began, I whispered to my friend that I hoped they were using some "real" girls in addition to wafer-thin models, as it would be nice to see how these dresses would look on an actual real-live woman.

Lo and behold, my wishes were granted...and yes it's true: be careful what you wish for.  VERY careful.

These girls were most definitely NOT models.  Fine!  I wanted to see real figures!  However, they also appeared to be plucked off the street without a moment's notice, given no instruction on how to walk or even smile.  One girl was so slow, she would've been dead last in a race against a turtle riding a snail...I mean, painfully slow.  Instead of smiling, one of the girls wore a vacant stare, her mouth gaping open - she must have thought of this look as "chic" as opposed to "slow-witted."

And all of the dresses...all TEN of them (what?!?  That's IT?!?)...were hideous.  Awful.  Ugliest things I'd ever seen.  Not to mention they didn't even bother to find girls that would fit them.  Some of the poor girls were far too short, tripping their way down the runway.  Some of them were too heavy (one of whom even had her sloppily pinned together dress fall off right before exiting stage right).  And some were too thin, the dress wrapping around them nearly twice and therefore giving us approximately zero idea of what it should actually look like.

Once the fashion parade from the seventh circle of hell finally wrapped up, my friend and I looked at one another and said, "Well...I guess we should go."  The emcee was announcing that the bridesmaids' fashion show was about to begin as we swept up our belongings and made a mad dash for the exit...god forbid we have to sit through more of THAT.

We made it to the parking garage in one piece, laughed a little, hugged, and said our goodbyes.  Driving myself home, thinking over what had just happened, I was caught between uncontrollable gales of laughter and an appalled silence.  I felt I had just been through a war, lucky to come out the other side with all appendages intact (in this case, not arms and legs but rather my dignity and self-respect).

Yes, it was a nightmare, but I am proud of myself for getting in those trenches and tackling my inner "I-am-the-anti-bride" demons.  I'm glad I tried something new, something wholly different from my everyday life, way out of my comfort zone...

...but I fear the repercussions of having given out my personal information to soooo many vendors, especially seeing as how I clearly have NOT won any drawings and therefore any correspondence will be of the salesman persuasion.

Thank the gods for caller ID.  I wonder when the next wedding show is?