Dry skin, static cling, dead leaves...

I have pinpointed my problem: autumn. I hate this time of year! I get depressed; sink very slowly into my own cauldron of misery and stew until springtime. Because I hate winter even worse than I hate autumn. My elbows are all dry and wrinkly, every blasted thing I touch produces a spark from static electricity . Even things that aren't supposed to...like papers! In the course of a day, I build up enough electrons to battle Piccachu...and win.

It's also attributed to all the residual bullshit connected to my wedding day. There. I've said it. There were so many people that came from all over just to see us get married. Our out-of-town guests. I feel like I didn't convey my gratitude to them...like they have no idea how much it meant to us that they came. I didn't really "mingle" during the reception. Sonny and I came from out of town ourselves (the wedding was in NY) so my own friends and family were crowding me, capturing my attention. Ultimately, the night was over after a blink. And pretty much all night, I glanced over at our out-of-towners and declared to myself that I would march over in 10 minutes...just as soon as I dance with my sister, after this picture, after I come back from the bathroom, after the cake cutting... and then they were standing, pulling on their coats in the lobby. They were LEAVING! And all I did was greet them on the receiving line. There were some people that I did get to talk to. They shared their interesting stories with us, we told them about our close call. Sigh.

And then, I had an empty table at the reception. It was supposed to be occupied by my friends. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. Each person who did not show told me to include a guest on my tally. So that doubles the plates of food that nobody ate. And to make matters worse, not one of those people has bothered to contact me, 3 weeks after the wedding. At fifty bucks a plate, damn right I'm sore! I look at it as 500 bucks piled up, drenched in kerosene and ignited with a match. I'm not cheap...just poor. Every dime that went into our wedding came from Sonny and me. Our hard earned money sat at that empty table, and it truly bothers me that no one has at least called to apologize for not coming.

*climbs down from soapbox*

Ok. It's off my chest. But it's still autumn, still getting colder out here in Ohio. The reason I hate autumn soooo much...well, pitiful as it is, it stems back to childhood. School days. I'd be waking up before the sun most mornings. The whole house still sleeping. If the hot water heater was busted, I'd have to lug buckets of water between the kitchen stove and the bathroom. And then soap up, rinse down in the chilly bathroom. My elementary school had uniforms as a requirement, so that meant tights under my navy blue skirt and one of those itchy ass long-john shirts under my yellow blouse. OH! It's making me itch just to remember. The remnants of that is the way I feel about this time of year....I guess.

Is it March yet?

The show must go on!

Exhausted as hell, Sonny and I managed to get every single last minute detail taken care of that day. It was amazing. We were puttering around purely on a joyous high. The realization that we wouldn't have to fake it or scheme. Saturday would be our wedding day.

And it was. I suppose I've exhausted my own supply of enthusiasm and outrage. The day is 2 weeks behind Sonny and I. Two weeks. Looking back it feels like a dream. The pictures captured the two of us, smiling, or faces cramping with five people crouching in the lobby to get a good shot. I was too harried to feel like a celebrity or a "princess". I knew the number of the things that could go wrong, and tried to swerve to avoid them at every turn. Even now, I'm feeling the backwash of bitterness felt by certain people. I'm not myself today. Not feeling too well. Please excuse me...

Platinum lining...

"I'm going down to the lobby to check my email on the computer." Sonny dragged himself out of bed and shoved the room key into his hip pocket.

We looked at each other for a second or two, our eyes speaking for us. He was sorry, I was desperate, the two of us made quite a pair. Once his footsteps had receded down the hall, I grabbed my cell phone and thumbed through my phonebook. I found the name I was looking for immediately. I pressed the call button, my stomach aching like I'd had a bad meal. I suddenly felt too weak to sit up.

"Hullo?" a soft voice answered after the 3rd ring.

"Hi Bishop Martinez, this is M." I couldn't stop licking my lips and my hands were moving, twitching, twisting the earpiece cord. I tried to find a place to start, to describe the desperation that was rotting my belly and the anger and sadness that was weighing in my head. I finally sighed and said, my voice trembling ..close to tears, "We're in trouble."

He listened to every rushed word I said. Drank my story like a man enjoying a fine brandy. He was quiet for several seconds when I was through. Suddenly, he cleared his throat and asked a few specific questions, feeling around for his footing in the midst of all the chaos. After all he was only hired to be our officiant, not our savior. He hummed, pensively, into the mouthpiece and then told me definitively to meet him in a certain place at a certain time. I grabbed my discarded pen and scribbled faithfully onto the back of a take-out menu Sonny had been glancing through. I thanked the Bishop two times, once more before the call ended for good measure, and prayed like I hadn't prayed in years. My soul almost caved in under the weight of that prayer. God, please help us out of this one...please.

And you know what? He DID!! We met our Bishop at the building he had advised us to visit and were scalpel sharp with our punctuality. We had elbow room to compose ourselves in the lobby, we had arrived so early. Sonny looked hopeful, I prayed a little internal prayer and smiled weakly. Neither of us had slept very well: Sonny spent most of his time trudging in and out of the bathroom for glasses of water and natural releases, and I snored loud enough to rouse the entire establishment from their slumber. We both slept against the cool glass windows of our cab, simultaneously waking to glare out into the highway traffic, track our progress.

Our Bishop arrived, casual as any employee who dug out their badges and slid through the turnstyles. I shook his hand and introduced him to Sonny. They too shook hands and the Bishop urged us to follow him onto a nearby elevator. We did, and I held my breath as we climbed the floors. Sonny and I couldn't eat much that morning, we both had a cup of juice and morsel of donut. I didn't have an appetite. My stomach felt as big as a corn kernel inside me.

All I can do is marvel in wonder at all it...my heart is still ripe with such deep gratitude. It turns out Bishop Martinez knew someone in the system, who took pity on the desperate pair in his office and granted us our license. In the lobby, Sonny slipped the Manila envelope with our marriage license inside into his backpack and shook the Bishop's hand again. I smiled and shook his hand too. It had been an hour since we all arrived here and rode up together to the 6th floor. Our Bishop had performed more than just our wedding ceremony for us....he also performed a miracle.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

...and the law won

An hour later, I had called myself into a circle. I was cross-referencing and calling back and call dropping until my head throbbed. One particularly nasty bitch in Mineloa answered the phone and talked me through the familiar spiel I'd gotten from two other places.

"You have to have two pieces of ID." she ticked off the pieces and then said, "You have to be in possession of two pieces of valid ID...which you're not."

I wanted to ring her sagging old neck. I knew she was a spinster of a bitch and it satisfied me a bit to hang up in her insolent, old ear. Thoughts of riding the LIRR, hopping on a bus and paying that hag a visit did nothing to fix our current problem. Did she have to be so RUDE? I thought, and shook the venom off...kept calling.

My soup was just a puddle of yellow gravy at the bottom of a ceramic bowl pushed off to my left. I didn't remember eating it. I had picked at the squid and shrimp, slurped at the tasty soup, but I couldn't recall doing it. I was in damn autopilot again. Every few minutes I declared I'd lost my pen and Sonny would produce it from across the table. I would snatch it away from him, scowl at the small square of paper and scribble down the next number. I don't know what I thought I was doing. I guess I was doing what anyone would do in that situation: trying to find the loop hole. Looking for the merciful entrance into the garden of matrimony. Hey, if He closes a door...doesn't He open a window?

We convinced ourselves that Long Island was our only hope. But we needed two pieces of ID. Neither one of us had that. I only had my permit and he had his drivers license. From there it just got mucky. I'll spare you the tangled and very maddening details. Cut to Sonny and me in our hotel room that night, draped across our huge bed, staring with dry eyes at the ceiling.

"Alright, so tomorrow we'll ride out to Connecticut on the train and bring Rob and Lisa to be our witnesses. We'll just get a civil ceremony there. That way we'll be legally married at least. Our friends and family can't know about this."

We repeated the deceitful mantra to ourselves, the one that conditioned us to believe that this would work. By 10:30pm we had thoroughly convinced ourselves that deceit was our only hope. The State of New York had beaten us into submission. We spent an entire day chasing our collective tails and succeeded only in biting ourselves in the ass each time. So fuck em...

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

Sonny & me vs. The State of New York

I moved through the crowded room, jostling and bumping my way to the exit. People looked at me and then lowered their gaze, quickly. They could probably smell the hot-blood that boiled inside me. They could probably see the stamp of utter rejection on my forehead. I felt light-headed. I needed air. Sonny was quiet, just followed me, probably feeling as stunned as I was. We escaped out of the old maze of a building and into the brilliant sunshine. The gooesbumps on my arms refused to flatten in the heat. We walked along briskly, silent as two marble bookends. We stood at the crosswalk...waited. I opened my mouth, took a breath and squeaked out my words.

"What are we going to do? " the tears welled up behind my eyes so quickly, I had to reach out and grip Sonny's arm to keep myself from getting killed as we crossed the street.

"I don't know." was his near-whispered reply.

It was like a kick in the face and sock in the gut simultaneously, being denied that license. We reasoned that it wouldn't do any good to starve ourselves...that maybe if we regrouped over lunch, we could come up with a master plan. I nodded, dumbly, and agreed on a fancy, night-life restaurant about a block away from the bureau when Sonny spotted it. He helped me inside. Geez, I was so fragile.

It was frustrating catching the attention of the staff. It was helter-skelter during the day, I guessed and a tight, smooth running ship at night. But eventually we caught the eye of someone who pushed a reluctant waiter in our direction. We secured our seats in our favorite dining area: the front window area. We were painfully silent. I mean, I was aching to be comforted, to comfort him. But neither of us knew the right combinations of syllables to make the whole thing disappear. Instead we ordered water and gazed out the window. It didn't take long before I was sobbing into crumpled tissues and praying for a miracle. Sonny was stoic (that old English charm) and just a little pale. He waited out the worst of my tears and gently pressed his fingers into my palm. I looked up at him, his face looked different to me. He almost looked frightened.

"Listen, the guy in there told us about the license bureaus on Long Island. He said they may take your learner's permit. It's worth a shot. We just have to make some calls. We just have to get on the phone and make some calls, honey."

At this point I felt, what's the frigging use? It's NY state versus Sonny and me. Who did he suppose would win? Our flamboyant waiter returned, clasped his hands together and asked us in a Spanish accent if we would like to order. Tears spilled down my burning cheeks. I hated to cry in front of a stranger, but they wouldn't stop coming. I was a mess.

I ordered a seafood soup and Sonny asked for some baked chicken meal with a complicated name, in Spanish. Sonny watched and waited as I cycled through my moods and settled on outrage. Who did they think they were, anyway!? My ID was perfectly valid. Has my face and signature on it. Damn them. Sure...let's try some places in Long Island. I fished my cell phone out of my bag and pumped the 411 operator for information. Usually, I'm patient with them, but that day I was ill-tempered, curt and demanding. The State of New York had made it personal.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

And so tHe PaNic bEgAn...

I covered my mouth...practically all of my composure sucked off me like the candy shell of a tootsie pop. I felt naked sitting there. Naked and small. I wasn't aware of anything at that moment. Not Sonny by my side, attmepting to coax a method of rectification from the stone hearted woman; not the eyes of the people behind us, blazing hatred for the hold up. All I could see was her face, unmoved, unchanged as we pleaded with her. Finally she took our IDs again and excused herself.

"Good. She'll fix this, I'm sure." Sonny did little to convince me, or himself I bet.

The woman reappeared and called us to the other side of the crowded room. I gathered up my things: my purse, my wallet, still open from my searching for some magical ID that doesn't exist...something to make it alright. God my stomach was tight. I swallowed a lump in my throat and slid into the small corner office, Sonny at my heels.

"How is everything, today?" the guy asked.

He was a twerpy looking guy. He had a red, thin neck, horn-rimmed glasses that he slid on and off his beak-like nose to read documents that were strewn on his desk. His hair was gray. No picture frames on his desk, but I spotted the gold band on his left hand and decided he might be humane enough to listen to us.

"Not good." I managed, although I felt like vomiting...right there at his desk. "We have a huge problem here. You see, we're getting married on Saturday. All our friends are flying in from out of town tomorrow for the ceremony. Tell us what we can do."

He maintained that my ID wasn't acceptable. Babbled on about how he would take it in a heartbeat, but it wasn't up to him. Rules were rules. I dropped my head in my hands, fought the wave of nausea and tears that sprang up on me. It was so hot in there, suddenly. I knew it was out of his hands...but that didn't stop the hatred of him from pouring off of me. From infecting me like a virus. I stood up, shoved my chair away with the back of my knees and marched away from his desk. He and Sonny were having a conversation, but I just need to kick somebody's ass. I needed someone to feel the pain and injustice that was impregnating my composure...forcing me to want to strike out.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

My big, fat, West Indian Wedding

Sonny calls it that. Crazy ass. But the day has come and gone. I am a married woman now. I keep getting those lame questions..."Do ya feel married?" "Are you excited?" I smile politely and answer the way you're supposed to answer, "Not yet. LOL." "Very excited!" I laugh at the lame jokes that follow my response. It's all so timed, mechanical, conventional. I'd love to make someone's jaw drop with my response...just once.

Person: Do ya feel married yet?
Me: Are you asking if we've copulated since the wedding?
Person: wh...what?

hahahahahaha. I'm insane. Anyway, I'll spill about my 6 day wedding extravaganza. It felt good to be home. New York. So loud and dirty and indifferent. I loved it! We stayed at an out-of-the-way place in Queens. Most of the cab drivers we suckered into bringing us to our lodgings seemed surprised to see the hotel. Granted, it's spanking new. The mattresses haven't even been stained yet. The place still has that "new" smell to it, as opposed to the funk of age. There weren't any black Magic Marker proclamations that 'Dina gives good head' or 'for a good time call 867-5309' in the bathroom. That bumped the class of the place up a star, I'd say.

Our first night in town we grabbed a generously-sized, inexpensive Mexican dinner from a near by restaurant. We both figured the next day would be a breeze; took advantage of that tiny 8 x 11 sheet of paper that would proclaim our legal tendency to get married. The marriage license, we figured, was as good as ours. So we stayed up and flipped through the basic cable channels, marveled at the idiocy of some show about mothers dating a guy for their daughters; finally settled on those myth-busting, nerd cats. I liked that show, and discovered a way to cool beer in a couple minutes that involved a Styrofoam cooler and a fire extinguisher. LOL. We even did some leisurely reading. I think we doused the lights and got to sleep at midnight.

The next morning we hurried down into the lobby, as we were 30 minutes shy of missing the continental breakfast. The lobby was empty. The glass dining tables were situated like the corners of a bad maze, and I was glad I didn't have to navigate my way through with juice in one hand and a waffle in the other. My nerves weren't acting up, I wasn't nervous, per se. But it was strange to know that within 48 hours my heart would forever belong to this man, and his name would belong to me. It made goosebumps crop up on my forearms. I couldn't eat much. So we split the warm, spongy waffle and each had a mini donut. Then we wiped our mouths, got some change for the bus at the front desk and ventured out into the sweltering morning heat.

We found the marriage license bureau very easily. Too easily. At that point, I should have known that some ungodly event was about to go down. Instead, we hurried across the street from the bureau and purchased a cute little $35 money order. The guards checked us out, giving Sonny a thorough going over after he beeped through the metal detector. I don't know why he always forgets to take off his dang belt! But cleared of the suspicion of carrying concealed weapons, the stern-faced West Indian guards pointed us in the right direction. Our spirits were still high...we had no idea what waited for us at the foot of the stairs behind that heavy brown door. The little red heart-shaped sign told us when we reached the marriage license office.

They gave us a clipboard and a sheet of paper to fill out. The filling out took 5 minutes, and then we found ourselves on a line that refused to move. The service workers (the two of them) kept snagging on complicated applications: non-English speaking ('we need a translator!'), or previous marriages that hadn't been declared on the paper work ('you have to go to that office and wait!'). Finally, after 15 minutes of patient waiting, it was our turn. Our scowling service worker took the paper and commandeered our IDs. She clicked away with at the keyboard with her long red fingernails. clickity-click-click. Sonny nudged me and pointed out the funny Doonesbury cartoon taped behind the plate of bulletproof glass in front of us. I giggled, dutifully.

"What kind of ID is this?" Her scowl deepened as she held up my ID card.

"It's a learner's permit." I explained, leaning as close to the glass as possible.

My heart raced so fast it could win at Nascar. I licked my lips and folded my trembling hands in my lap, watched the woman behind the glass. She slipped our IDs under the glass and shook her head.

"We can't take this. We don't accept out of state learner's permits."

"Wait. What do you mean?" I laughed, in spite of bile that rose in the back of my throat. She had to be kidding...

"Just what I said. We don't take out of state learner's permits. Do you have a passport?" she looked bored, folded her hands in front of the keyboard.

"Uh..no. I don't. I'm sorry Miss, but I can't leave here without a marriage license. We're getting married SATURDAY! Today's Thursday! Is there a manager I can speak to here?"

She shook her large head again, looked painfully unimpressed, "He'll tell you the same thing. We don't take learner's permits from out of state."

TO BE CONTINUED. . . .

Omigawd...she did NOT say that!

I'm making reference to the Barbara Bush quote that I'm sure has been blogged and posted all across the net. I haven't made any comments on disgusting way New Orleans has been dealt with. I speak with my husband and my friends and family about it. But I had to flag that shit Barbara Bush said. I read it in the USA Today while on my mini-honeymoon in New York. It pissed me off so fucking bad that I wrote it down and decided to just post it here...without a comment. Just let it marinate, in case there's someone out there who hasn't read what the media men got out of her.

'Bush's mother said Monday at Houston's Astrodome that some evacuees were "underprivilaged anyway so this is working very well for them".


What the FUCK?! That's all I can say...What...The....Fuck??!!

John Singleton's Four Brothers: my review

I know. You're probably wondering how in the hell I had time to park my ass in a cool, dim movie theater and watch a movie. Well, I stole the time. I had a lightening-quick-two-day trip to New York this past weekend and found myself company-less and with money to burn on Saturday night. A friend from my old job saved my life and allowed me to crash on her futon (most comfortable futon I've ever slept on). It was nice connecting with a bit of my former life: someone who shared my plight and offered compassion and a tireless ear. Plus she was so sweet about all the crap I had to bring in to town to get colored, altered, changed, blah blah. I found myself wondering what kind of roomies we would've made. Funny to think about being roomies with someone on a trip where you're preparing for your wedding. But hey, I'm a strange cookie.

So, Saturday night I hopped on the A from Jay street rode that baby into midtown. The air was sweet out there. I could tell the Nuts-4-Nuts guys were out there raking it in. The smell hung in random doorways. The streets were packed with rushing vehicles. Everywhere you looked, there was activity. I bought my ticket to a late show and burned time talking to my father (who's a cool cat) until midnight on a bench outside a shoe store.

My personal observation was that the movie was a great "distraction flick". It's the kind of movie you wander into the theatre to see after you had a fight with your best friend or you take a date to see. It's not exactly heavy, thought-provoking stuff. Mostly it's tough guy machismo hyped to the umpteenth degree and complete with a snowy, blown-tire, skidding car chase. But I liked it.

First, the chemistry between the "brothers" was touching. Tyrese's character was distracted throughout most of the movie, but the other three were so into their roles, you wanted to believe in their plight. You wanted to see justice done for the heartless murder of their caring adopted mother. You held your breath through certain parts, fists clenched, butt numb from teetering on the edge of your SEAT!

Second, the eye-candy factor was through the roof. As a female, it didn't hurt to watch some aesthetically-pleasing boys swooping through the ghettos of Detroit with guns bigger than hell. Especially, Mr. Garrett Hedlund. Wowza, is he hot! And just like most females I am susceptible to Tyrese's rippling bounty of manhood and broad, boyish smile. Mark had me at "Good Vibrations" over 10 years ago. (Yeah, can you feel it baby? I can too.) And Andre Benjamin just has this sweet, gentle humanity about him. His personality makes him cute.

I'll admit it was mental junkfood. Nothing profound or "new" came from this movie. But for almost two hours I was caught up in this gut-wrenching, adventurous, fast-paced, suspense ride
and I didn't once try to read my watch against the glare of the big screen. That speaks volumes about my contentment to see the movie through to the end. If you've got an undesignated 10 dollar bill and aren't opposed to bringing your own snacks (the price of popcorn and a small soda made my eyes bulge), then I'd suggest checking it out.