Nov
14

Secretary in Parchment.

That last post went over like a lead balloon filled with wet cement attached to two or three anchors. What can I say—school started a week ago and I am nearly dead with busyness. I said I would post every day in November, but I didn’t say it would be pretty. But no more memes, I promise.

So, Saturday night I almost cancelled the wedding. The Actually and I were watching Waiting for Guffman—possibly the funniest movie ever made. He had never seen it before, and I was delighted to be the one to introduce him to Corky St. Clair, to let him ponder the question “How many babies fit in a tire?” During the credits, we were making out a little, and I was thinking that the Actually might get lucky after we finished watching the deleted scenes and special features. Only after they were over, and I asked him what he thought of the movie, he said “I didn’t think it was that funny AT ALL. I kind of hated it.”
I went from mildly aroused to please do not touch me you strange, strange, stranger in record time. I stared at him for a moment, feeling the feeling I imagine one would feel upon turning on the television and seeing one’s fiancé on To Catch a Predator. It was not a good feeling.
I am used to the Actually finding my sense of humor a bit cringe-worthy. He often compares me to an 85-year-old former vaudevillian, citing the “Best of Both Whorls” incident (which I maintain was comedy GOLD). But it is one thing to find me unamusing, and quite another to remain completely unmoved by Stool Boom.
“Hawk your jewels,” I sang feebly, trying to inspire even a half-hearted smile.
Eventually I gave up, clinging to the fact that the Actually makes me laugh like no one else, and that there are many things we both find humorous: the movie Old School, Jon Stewart, the Groucho imitation I do when I am dyeing my eyebrows. So the wedding’s still on. It’s a good thing, too, because my dress is non-returnable.

I have more or less stopped talking about the wedding to people here in real life because they invariably ask me about something I HADN’T EVEN THOUGHT OF, and when I timidly admit that detail has not yet been decided, they laugh at me.
“Ha Ha Ha!” they say, “You’d better get going!”
“Suck my cock!” I mutter brightly. I mean really.

This morning a woman grilled me about my Attendants. I think having Attendants sounds lovely, if by Attendants you mean people to get you another glass of champagne and tell you how pretty you look, and in that way all of my guests will be my Attendants, unless they want to be seated at the table with the Poisonous Aunts.
But the woman this morning meant bridesmaids. I explained that I am not having bridesmaids, I am having Dessa. Dessa is my best friend, and for the wedding she will be promoted to Maid of Honor, serving as my witness and standing up front in a dress. She will also be giving some sort of toast, preferably one that refers to me as the “greatest writer—nay, woman—of the twenty-first century.” I know she will be giving a toast because almost three years ago, when the Actually and I decided that we would be together forever and ever, ’til death do us part, I excused myself from the table where we were sitting in a very dark nightclub and cornered Dessa in the bathroom where I told her the news. She got very teary and promised to go home that very evening and start work on a speech. That was thirty-odd months ago, so it had better be one hell of a toast, is all I can say.
{Hi Dessa! No Pressure!}
Anyway, this morning the woman wanted to know what color Dessa would be wearing. Dessa is much prettier than me, the kind of pretty that is really too pretty to be called pretty at all, and should properly be referred to as Beautiful. We go out together and I stand back slightly so as not to be injured by the men hurling themselves in her direction. So, obviously, I was thinking something in a nice burlap for her dress. It is my special day, after all.

But I lied to the woman this morning, and said it would be a sort of Tiffany-box blue. She parried, asking whether I had actually procured this “dress.” I said I hadn’t.

“Ha Ha Ha!” she said, “You’d better get going!”

And then I chopped her up and baked her en papillote with shallots and cream. Let that be a lesson to you.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |