I have a weird take on matrimony. It is always exciting when your friends find the right person. You want to cheer them on as they embark on a new journey. But do they have to invite everyone and their 14 generation of relatives to this thing? And conjure up the fattest diet on the face of the planet?My wedding horror stories include meeting someone at a wedding and having a great time one evening, and not being able to remember her at another wedding the following noon. And then there's this grandmotherly figure from my mom's side who i've met thrice in three weddings in three years. Each time she came up to me and asked me, "do you know who I am?" and all three times, I had to feign amnesia and have her say, "I'm Rosy apa, you used to run around me when you were young". I'd go, "Oh, yeah" and then ask a follow on question to cover my embarassment. You'd think that after the second time of this conversation, she would get the hint that I'm not the best mnemonic person. But, no, the third time, the same thing happened. As I grow older, I'm becoming more and more shameless about not remembering people's name. I've resorted to calling everyone "boss", which so far works. Before going to Myanmar, someone called and invited me to his wedding reception, I didn't have the heart to tell him that I couldn't remember who he was.
And then there's this engagement ceremony where I sat next to an uncle, couldn't recall him, politely deflected that info by asking about his health, and got an hour-long explanation about how he was injected the wrong medicine, and since then started to lose his hearing. I almost wished that I lost mine, so I could just nod my head and ignore the description about all the medicines he was trying on.
This entry was brought on by Susan Meyer's wedding dress. I woke up late, and caught the end part of Desperate Housewives where Susan runs out of the house wearing her mother's wedding dress and asking Mike to forgive him (Season 2). I remember the first time I saw this episode, I started bawling. It was a friday morning at Paul's apt, and he woke up and found me crying my eyes out over his computer, where I was watching this. The same morning, I had a more intense experience with the episode "The Sun Won't Set" where Gabrielle holds a balloon in her hand and tried to let go of all the pain of having a miscarriage. I think I could relate to that more.
This morning, I thought, isn't that a nice wedding dress, it really makes her look slimmer. Now that I've become obsessed about weight and appearances, I've been trying on my shirts and trying to determine whether they make me look slimmer, whether they "hang" the right way, whether they hide my lard storage bin with those.
Most of them cover most of the flaws, except for the part around my waist. But look at Renee in her wedding picture above. If she can live with a tummy, I think I can probably live with mine. At least I'd never have to fit into those. Or would I? :-)
