City Wendy

Costa Rica, Here I Come

Since getting engaged three weeks ago, Drew and I have seen each other a total of about 37 minutes, and 33 of those minutes were spent agonizing over where to get hitched. I'm happy to report, after much research, contemplation and okay, a few tears, we decided on -- and were confirmed for -- this spot in Central Park in late July:

There are still lots of other details to figure out, but I'm feeling much less anxious about it all now. For a while there, it seemed everything just sort of hit at once — good stress, bad stress — but now we're off to Costa Rica for some much needed R&R and a chance to reconnect after a crazy couple of weeks. Maybe we'll even have a chance to think about where we might like to honeymoon. Ideas and suggestions definitely welcome!

Unfunny, Sexist, and Lame

A couple weeks ago I posted this video clip on How To Break Up With Your Girlfriend in 64 Easy Steps. A few days later, I wrote up a girl-version list over at The Frisky called How To Break Up With Your Boyfriend in 44 Easy Steps (20 steps fewer, of course, because we're the more efficient gender). Jezebel called my list unfunny, sexist, and lame (not the first time they've accused me of this, by the way), which I lost a lot of sleep over. It sounded to me like maybe those 44 steps just hit a bit too close to home, hmm, Jezebel??

White Winter Hymnal

I had one of the most physically and emotionally exhausting times of my life this past weekend in Austin where my sister's been in the hospital. As complicated as things are, I keep reminding myself and my family that no one's life and no one's family is without a certain degree of hardship. People get sick, accidents happen, addictions are formed, hearts are broken, jobs are lost, savings dwindle, feelings change, words are said in anger, mistakes are made, people die. It's all just part of life and debating whether certain things are fair or not is just sort of fruitless. There's a lot of shit that isn't fair.

Anyway, I can't go into the details, but I can say that my weekend involved a few tears, a little bit of laughter, a lot of anxiety, and a ton of back-breaking hard work. Most of all, though, it involved love, and that's something I'm always happy to cultivate more of in my life. Best of all, yesterday in Austin it was super sunny and 73 degrees with a light warm breeze. It reminded me that no matter how shitty a winter is, it's always followed by spring. That, and I'm going to Costa Rica in 4 days, bitches!!! Now, if only I were bikini ready...

Wine and Socks

Last night Emily texted and asked if I wanted to share a plate of fries with her, so we made plans to meet in an hour at the Shake Shack on the Upper West Side. Being a little early, I decided to stop in at Loehmann's and check out the sundress and swimsuit collection. Also, I needed new socks. While I was there I noticed people walking around with trays of food: finger sandwiches, little tortilla things with melted cheese inside, veggies and dip, chips and salsa, and chocolate covered strawberries (I had one, it was delish). There was even someone sitting at a table pouring people glasses of wine! I have no idea what was going on — is this some sort of new strategy to keep customers happy and shopping during the recession? At any rate, I know where I'm going for lunch today.

The Blues

I'm, like, so seriously depressed today I don't even know what. Part of it is PMS, sure, but most of it is just this overwhelming feeling of utter, I don't know, chaos in my head combined with just an overall lack of motivation. I feel pulled in a million different directions and I don't have the energy or desire to move in any of them. This is supposed to be a happy time, right? Being engaged and all? But whenever I think about wedding stuff, I wanna barf. That's not how it's supposed to be, right? I keep thinking I'm supposed to be excited and maybe I will be eventually, but right now all the details are just so incredibly boring to me. Like, invitations, for example. I don't give a rat's ass about invitations!! I'd like to just call people up and invite them! Or send out some evites or something. I don't care about colored paper and fonts and calligraphy pens and wording and all that stuff. It just gives me a headache.

I had a dream last night it was the day of the wedding and I didn't have a dress to wear. I'd put it off until the morning of and then I freaked when I couldn't find anything I liked and I just started crying and crying and wondering why I couldn't just wear jeans.

I have family stress I'm dealing with and now Drew has family stress he's dealing with and we have wedding planning stress and not having enough money stress and I miss my friends stress and I'm not sure what direction my life is going stress and I am desperate for a new job but there aren't any jobs stress and I hate my hair stress and my skin has been acting wonky for two months stress and I don't know what to pack for my trip to Austin this weekend stress and I haven't even bought one new thing for my trip to Costa Rica stress and I don't want to try on swimsuits but I have to stress and I have to try on wedding dresses too stress and I haven't exercised in over a week stress and now I'll be all fat and bloaty on my vacation stress and WHY IS IT ALL SO HARD STRESS.

God, I would kill for a plate of french fries right now.

Does The Bachelor Have Sex In The Fantasy Suites?

By far, the google search phrase that's bringing the me the most traffic lately is "Does the bachelor have sex in the fantasy suites?" Sometimes it's "Does the Bachelor have sex on his overnight dates?" or  just "Bachelor, Sex, Fantasy Suites," but the inquiry is always the same. So for all you pour souls out there who find yourselves on this blog in a desperate attempt to discover the answer to this very important question, I'll help you out.

Yes! Yes, the Bachelor has sex with his dates in the fantasy suite. He has sex with them in the hot tubs and the tents and maybe even on those dates in the sky, too  — the ones in the hot air balloons and helicopters and maybe even the ferris wheels, 'cause how's he gonna propose to someone he hasn't even done it with yet? Who does that? I mean, besides my boyfriend, because Mom, I assure you, I have not given it up yet.

Ladies, have you ever had sex with someone who broke up with you the very next day? Me neither! But imagine how awful it must be, how pitiful, how sad to think you love someone after maybe one single, solitary date and then do it to him and then get dumped the very next day. On national TV! In shoes that pinch your feet! No wonder they cry.

And the ones who cry the most? Well, you can just imagine what they must have done with the Bachelor.

You Take The Good, You Take The Bad

Last night Drew and I and a couple of our friends went to see the big band I've mentioned before, Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. It was the first time we brought our friends and they loved it as much as we thought they would. When we weren't looking, they even sneakily asked Vince to play us a song in honor of our engagement, and so he did. He played a Fats Waller song — Drew's a big fan — and said, "Happy engagement to Drew and Wendy. This song's for you," and the 11-piece band played and we cheered and toasted and drank our wine and life was good.

Generally, life is pretty good. I feel luckier than I even know how to express that I found someone to marry who loves me for me and loves doing the same kinds of things I love doing and believes, like I do, that the only way to make the unbearable parts of life a little less unbearable is to enjoy the hell out of the good parts. And that's what we do, and we do it as much as we possibly can.

But life is funny. And sometimes — a lot of times — it throws the bad parts right in with the good parts and it's hard to even know how to feel when that happens.

This weekend I'm going to Austin, Texas for a sort of emergency trip, not of the pleasure variety. My sister's in the hospital and will be out of commission for quite awhile. My dad will be there (for an indeterminate amount of time) — he flies in from Germany on Friday and I'll meet up with him on Saturday and I'll try to help him as much as I can for a couple days. Neither one of us has ever even been to Austin before — my sister just moved there a few months ago. I was supposed to go in late March for a visit, but all that has changed. So I'll go this weekend instead and I'll help my dad and visit my sister and try to make a bad situation maybe a little more bearable for everyone. And then when I come home, I'll turn around a few days later and fly off to Costa Rica for a week with this guy I'm going to marry (I still can't bring myself to say "fiance," it just sounds so silly).

Life is funny like that.

Hearts and Bones

I had my first wedding planning mini freak-out last night after a full day of thinking and talking about our upcoming nuptials. I guess after naively believing I could somehow get married in New York on a tight budget, relatively stress-free, I was bound to have reality crash down on me sooner or later. Luckily, that dark cloud passed pretty quickly and now I'm back on the optimism wagon, full of hope we can pull this thing off, the way we want, without breaking the bank.

What I want, what I really want is a small ceremony in Central Park (maybe with a string trio from Julliard), followed by a sit-down meal at a restaurant with lots of character and a party at our apartment later in the night with a more inclusive group of people. Not only is that within our budget, but it's us. It's intimate and laid-back and fun. But somehow, at some point yesterday, despite our best intentions to keep things simple,  Drew and I ended up contacting a bunch of wedding venues asking for quotes and trying to gauge the size of the bathrooms and whether there'd be enough room for a fucking garter toss and the dollar dance. We got one quote back right away and I almost started crying. Sure, we'd be able to invite Drew's mother's cousin's children and my mom would be happy we'd be in air conditioning for the whole thing, but we'd have to use all our savings to make it happen -- money that could help pay off some of my student loans, or fund some great vacations, or buy a lot of boots. And we'd still have to think about music and photography and flowers and cake and all this other crap that just makes my head spin.

This stuff is so not in my DNA. I've been reading these "helpful" wedding sites like Indie Bride and whatever and people are on there whining about how they have no budget, just like maybe 40 grand and how will they EVER have the wedding of their dreams with just 40 grand and I'm like, who are these people?! Are they serious? I mean, I'm not knocking them...but, wow, it's just so funny how different people's idea of "budget" can be...and how different people's idea of "dream wedding" is. If we had that kind of money to blow (or, more importantly, if we wanted to blow in on one night), we'd hire a big swing band for the night or maybe we'd rent out a piano bar and hire a husky-voiced lounge singer (like, Karen Brown, for those of you who know the Edison Hotel bar) and we'd have our favorite Cuban restaurant cater the thing.

People keep telling us to just stick with what *we* want and not what we think will make everyone else happy. If we do that, they say, everything will turn out just fine. I'm not convinced things will go perfectly if we just plan the wedding *we* want, but I do think there's a much better chance I'll enjoy myself and my head won't explode in the months and weeks preceding the big day. I guess there's something to be said for that.

In other, completely unrelated news, Drew and I saw Paul Simon at the grand re-opening of the legendary Beacon Theatre Friday night and he was A-MAZING. Despite the totally drunk bitch sitting right next to me (who was all-too-briefly booted out during the concert) and the obnoxious douchebags behind us, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was just one of those magical nights I knew I'd always remember...and apparently, we were in good company at the show: the mayor was there, and Paul McCartney and Whoopi Goldberg and a host of other celebs. And we even had pretty good seats, too. So it was all really enjoyable and everything and just when I thought we'd get a couple more songs and then call it a night, Paul Simon brought out Art Garfunkel for surprise reunion! They played three songs, including the under-rated "Old Friends," which made me cry a little bit. Anyway, here they are on Friday night singing "The Boxer" which was one of those moments that made me feel so much like a New Yorker:

How To Break Up In 64 Easy Steps

For all you Valentine's Day/relationship/love cynics out there, here's a special gift from me to you:

You're welcome.

[via current]

Alphabet: A History (K)

Alphabet: A History (K) Kimbrough

It's 1998 and I've just graduated from college. I'm moving out of the 2-bedroom duplex I've shared with my friend Becky for the last two years and moving into a 1-bedroom apartment on the bottom floor of a big, white, dilapidated house on Kimbrough. It's the first time I've ever lived alone and I piece together a home with hand-me-down furniture and thrift store finds. I paperclip postcards to a long string and hang them across my ceiling, an idea I stole from some design magazine I saw in Borders one time. On the mantle above the faux fireplace I arrange a few candles, a couple of artsy greeting cards and a framed photo of my boyfriend and me. He has the same picture on his fridge in his apartment, just a few blocks away.

Just before I move in, he goes away for ten days, to stay in a log cabin on a mountain top in Colorado to meditate. I water his garden and watch his cat while he's gone and try to imagine the summer ahead. We've only been together for a couple of months but we're in love and he tells me he wants to marry me someday. Most of my friends have graduated and moved away and I'm looking for a job and I'm not sure I want to stay in Springfield much longer and he thinks this is where he wants to settle down and everything is just kind of up in the air and I don't really know what's going to happen exactly, but for now I just want to think about warm nights on his porch and cooking breakfast on Sunday mornings in my new kitchen.

I've never really watered a garden before and I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but the peonies have started blooming like he said they would so I don't worry too about it too much. I write a lot of letters in those ten days and that's pretty much all I do. Well that, and I go to Borders almost every day, and I read books about writing and about finding a job, and I go for a lot of walks and I call my friends who have left town and I listen to their big plans. One afternoon I even make a key lime pie.

I won't find a job this summer...or even this fall, not a real job, anyway. I'll temp, and I'll telemarket, and I'll drive to Branson 4 days a week and give away Mel Tillis tickets to anyone who will sign up for a timeshare tour. I'll stand in a darkened wax museum next to a fake Johnny Carson and Bill Cosby and listen to a loop of their interview on repeat over and over for weeks before I quit. When I finally find a job in the  Spring, one with an office and a desk and a title — if not a competitive salary — I'll be so broken I'll hardly know even know who I am anymore.

But it's still early in the summer and I've got this new apartment on Kimbrough with a faux fireplace and hanging postcards and a boyfriend who grows peonies and says he wants to marry me. He calls me from the road on his way back to town and says he driving with my picture on the dashboard and his foot heavy on the gas. I don't see it coming yet, but he'll dump me in a few months, on a cold morning in January. He'll tell me to be happy and go live my life and for a long time I won't really know how.

But it's May now and the summer lies ahead and my boyfriend's at the door and I let him in and he's wearing a goofy smile and a baseball cap I've never seen. He picks me up and twirls me around and says in a big voice: "Girl, I missed you!" and I laugh and say, "Do you like my place?" because this is the first time he's seen it. So he puts me down, takes off his hat, looks around, and says "Yeah, it works, it's really you."

I move out four months later.