Bliss

There was a knot inside my gut
Probably most of my life.
I probably came to know that knot as normal.
Well, that knot inside my gut began to unravel.
Little by little, until I awakened this morning and it was gone. Unstead, there's just contentment.

Thank you, Mr. Wilson

SHOWTIME!

This is it. I slept pretty well, I think I got six hours. My makeup and hair gals are heading over. The special effects crew show up shortly after, and all us bridesmaids are going to look fabulous. I had a waking nightmare: what if my dress got stolen? Well, I'd wear something else. Something borrowed!

That's one thing I don't have. I have something old: me. Something new: the dress. Something blue: the garter. something borrowed ... okay I may grab someone on the way into the sanctuary.

I'm not nervous. I'm excited.

I'm fine.

Except that, there's a portion of the service, "Words from the Couple," where Larry and I are going to say something special to each other, or the people there.

And I am drawing a blank. Writer's Block. Tongue Tied.
Everything seems so trite or redundant.

And I'm a writer!

It'll come to me.

How Many REAL Hours Before The Wedding?

I used to play the count back/forward game with my sister when we were waiting for our summer vacation to start. If it was three weeks away, we'd count backward three weeks and try to remember what we were doing three weeks prior. In that amount of time, we'd be leaving on our trip!

It was our way of coming to understand the time we'd have to wait. What time was, really. Slow when you're not having fun, that's for sure

Larry and I have been playing that count forward/back game. Five weeks ago, we went to a barbecue at some friends house. We counted forward to our wedding, counted back five weeks. And the day seemed still so far away.

I can remember Larry saying to me just last week: yeah it's a full ten days away, and ten days prior to that seemed a bit in the distance.

But today is Thursday. I"m getting married in two days.

Two days ago, Larry got his sister from the air port. My sister and her family arrived that night. Two days ago was only the day before yesterday.

Yesterday, yesterday is so small an amount. I"m getting married in two days.

I can't count in atomic clock times. I have to count in solitude hours. How many hours of alone time will I have between now and the wedding?

Nancy's family moves to their hotel tomorrow afternoon. But then we're going to have a bonfire at the beach. And then the next day the rehearsal isn't until 1pm. But we've got to get there by 11am to put the supplies in the kitchen. And once I do that the rest of the day is going to be ... people people people. Rehearsals, pedicures, rehearsal dinner barbecues.

And then I wake up and the hairdresser arrives. THen I have to be at the church for makeup. Then they take pictures and then .. then it happens.

But it's not just the wedding, i've got to pack for two days at our getaway, and I have to start shooting a movie. So when I leave my house as a single woman I need to pack for a romantic weekend ... AND a movie shoot. and and .. How many real hours of solitude do I have before the wedding?

it depends on how much insomnia I get.

Aaaaaah.

Good thing I'm marrying the right guy.

"Rowdy Sex Romp?"

Larry is blogging on the various myths about marriage. Myth #2 was: Marriage is a rowdy sex romp. He said it was awkward to write about sex, knowing his mom reads his blog. Try: knowing his fiancee is reading it! Like the fact he told the blogosphere that we're 'waiting' to you know, consummate the relationship. Aaaawwwkward Moment. Okay now I have to put in my two cents worth.

Larry also wrote that sex "has a way of making you stupid and ruining a perfectly good relationship." Assuming he doesn't mean married life, I have to agree with his pronouncement. I also have to admit, I learned this the hard way.

When I was in junior high, our geeky youth pastor tried to scare us into chastity by gluing two pieces of cardboard together, pulling them apart, and watching them shred to bits. "This is what happens to your heart when you have sex outside of marriage," he growled. Then smiled: "Let Us Pray." The cardboard story didn’t keep me ‘pure.’ What kept me pure was the fact I was terrified of boys and sex. But I also was pulling down a 4.0 GPA, and my parents barely noticed I had a pulse. So the first guy I really fell in love with, who loved me back … well the need to be loved was greater than the need to be safe.

Came the inevitable breakup, the cardboard analogy proved true. It's not just because the first cut is the deepest; it's because when you bond, body and soul, and then break up; it does shred you. There's way getting around it. The heart is what it is, the body is what it is.

I’ve spent many a yoga class, doing 'hip opener' exercises, allowing the somatic response to release the emotions in those muscles. Pain, anger, sorrow, loss. Stored in your body. Heck it's even in the Bible. You can’t escape it. That’s why I hated “Samantha” on Sex and the City: to think you can jump in and out of bed and not feel anything? If you don’t feel anything, you should be scared: you're numbing your heart out, one fling at a time. I had one relationship like that. I numbed myself with alcohol and cigarettes and cynicism. It wasn’t worth it.

But what was my alternative? That True Love Waits campaign worked for high schoolers. But what about after that? The guys in my church waited, all right. They waited. And waited. Forget the “40-year old Virgin." These guys were "Eunuchs for Jesus."

I finally met a decent guy and we started dating. He was not of the church variety (of course not … he DATED). He was also not of the waiting variety. And I’d waited long enough. So I took that risk. We dated three years. We loved each other, we thought we were going to get married, even though we were wrong for each other.

Why? Well, as Larry had written, sex had a way of making you stupid. You don't ahve the objectivity to determine how appropriate yo uare for each other. You're so bonded that you put up with him criticizing your weight or how you spent your alone time; you endure him throwing tantrums when you dared talk to someone else on the train instead of fawning over him. You overlook differences, the red flags, the dysfunctions. Why? Because you love each other. Because the sex, and the time and the events and the shared memories bond you, body and sou. Your'e together.

Until you're not anymore.

I’m so glad I didn’t marry that guy, he was wrong for me. I’m so glad ... Now. But at the time, I felt like my insides were being ripped out. Probably because they were.

I understood where they got the phrase, “want to crawl out of your own skin.” My skin hurt so bad I wanted to scrape it off; I wanted to cut off the layers of skin that had had contact with his, the layers whose DNA had changed to fit with his. It hurt to eat. It hurt to be awake. Often I had to just tell myself to breathe. I prayed for sleep, but I’d dream of wolves needing to cry and hearing his ten-digit phone number in my head. Everything hurt. All over.

There’s a science to this. It’s the chemical Oxytocin. (Not the drug Oxycontin). Oxytocin is a chemical that men and women release during orgasm and a woman releases when she gives birth. It bonds two people together. There's scientific proof. Not that I needed it: my heart was being evisceraqted, my psyche being disemboweled. “Oxytocin, they call it? Now nice. Now we know."

One night, I was back in LA after a trip to New York (where I attended two weddings and, while strolling Central Park happened to see my Ex making out with his new girlfriend … Yeah it was that kind of year). I was back in LA, just trying to breathe until betime. I pulled off the road, parked the car, and screamed and wept

I stopped a moment, and got this sense or presence of God with me. And he was angry. He was enraged. But not at me, nor at the Ex. It wasn't ao reprimand, "told ya so!" Just intense, vengeful anger, because his child was going through such pain. He was angry at the destruction that resulted from human bonds being ripped apart. He was angry. It was anger on my behalf.

Suddenly I got it, how much God loved me; how profound and beautiful and true his laws were. They were more like laws of physics. There was such beauty in the symmetry of them. The way things worked. The love behind that symmetry and reason for thins.

I felt awed. I felt so loved.

I vowed never ever have sex with a man until we were married. And it didn't make me feel like some prude. It made me feel like a smart, fierce woman who loved herself.

But then Larry came along. He inspired me, he made me laugh. He was cute, he ‘got me” and I got him. He fit me like no one ever had. If I were going to marry anyone ever again, it would be him. If I were to get intimate with anyone, it would be him. Yes, he fired me up. In a whole new, really profound way. But in the heat of the moment, can you really keep that vow?

It wasn’t I who decided we were going to wait. It was he. I was caroming between feeling loved or feeling safe. That’s when Larry said it. “I want to save this. I want to save you.”

I nodded my head yes. And I wept. Larry made a decision to protect my heart and protect the both of us from the confusion that occurs when the physical and emotional closeness don’t match. When you load so much spiritual freight (approval, security, expectations) onto a relationship that isn’t ready to carry it.

Well, Larry and I are ready to carry all of that now. As of Saturday, it’s legal.

I hope he can manage at least one rowdy sex romp.

Budget Weddings Are Expensive

If you really want to do an almost-free wedding, go down to the county courthouse, bring a witness and a bouquet of flowers from Vons, and get yourself married in their windowless “chapel.” The courthouse lectern and US flag on a pole are free. Then you can go home and feel really depressed about the eventlessness of your event.

Actually some friends got married at the courthouse. But they held a reception a few months later. Another couple invited friends out to a restaurant afterward. Because important events need to be experienced, given weight to, and remembered. Your wedding is probably the most important ritual life. Aside from your funeral. which you aren't alive to enjoy. So you might as well make the wedding worth celebrating . And it requires money to celebrate.

You CAN do a nice wedding on a budget. But be prepared to pay in emotional dollars. Because it takes a lot of time and energy to make your few dollars look like a lot.

Larry and I have refused to buy into the $26 billion a year wedding industry. We'll probably end up spending only about $6,000 for everything. Especially "$10 Exit Fee” goes according to plan. Ba DUMP! Hey that's a bargain. I know lots of people who've paid thousands of dollars to get out of church alive. It's called psychotherapy.

Okay, okay, I'll stop.

Larry and I found an adorable church close by. Grace Lutheran Church, with a wonderful wedding coordinator who helped talk me out of my panic when we were four weeks from a wedding and no location. Debbie Berger. I love the Lutherans.

The sanctuary is gorgeous. Red brick, stained glass, high ceilings. Just as I’d imagined on the rare occasions I imagined my own wedding. The Parish hall ... well it looks like a parish hall. Go figure. Raised stage and gray curtains. You can almost see the Sunday School doing the Christmas pageant up there.

“Amazing what a little tulle and streamers can do,” Debbie Berger said, cheerfully.
We were going to need more than streamers. Tulle? Lights? Sparklers? A fog machine? Maybe if we fogged it up, no one would notice the parish hallness of it all

So I started shopping. Trips downtown looking for decorator fabric. Mini silk flowers for wedding favors. What about wedding favors? Bags of Jordan almonds? I hate Jordan almonds. What about table centerpieces? Table cloths? I bought ten table cloths. Found out they were the wrong size. Returned them. Bought more, but they were the wrong shade of blue. Returned those. Trips to Big Lots and Smart and Final and Target and downtown. My friends Ruth and Catheryn came over and helped me assemble centerpieces and wedding favors. We watched movies and listened to music, glued, tied, cut, punched, and ate butter mints. Four days in a row I got home from errands after 9pm. My whole body hurt all over.

I thought about the people who eloped to Vegas. And I thought of the people who’d miss the event if we eloped. No, we were on the right track. It was taking effort, but a good celebration takes effort. It’s going to be a blast.

Anyone want to come hang brown lace fabric at 7 am?
Good with a heavy duty stapler?
Email me, darlin'!

Larry's Hair

It’s true, Larry's hair got mentioned at my wedding shower. It's also true, that after my first date with Larry, I told a friend that I didn’t particularly like his hair. It wasn't his hair istelf. His hair is nice and thick and curly. But it was the style in which he wore it: long, all one length, slicked all the way back against the back of his head. Maybe he was thinking “bohemian rock star.” but to me it said “Miami Vice thug.” In any event, my first impression of Larry (aside from the fact he didn't ask me a single question about myself) was: he had 'bad trucker hair.'

So, this friend repeated my first impression of Larry's hair at my wedding shower. And I was duly mortified: Larry’s two best women friends, Anna and Donna were sitting right there. But lo and behold, Anna and Donna admitted they have hated Larry's hair for years. “I told Larry he would never get a woman with a hair cut like that,” Anna said.

But Larry got me, and I came to love him, and even his hair. At least, when he left out the pomade and let the curls run loose. On a few occasions, Larry admitted his hair style wasn’t working, but he was also sensitive about the issue.

“You don’t have to go Microsoft on me,” I suggested. “Just layer it. Like Mick Jagger or Bon Jovi.”

“My sister told me to grow it really long so I can put it in a pony tail,” Larry mused. I never understood the logic of that: growing your hair long so you can pull it back tight with a rubber band, so that it looks short, but with a horse tail?

Anyway, when Larry’s hair came up at the shower, I told Anna: “Okay, say something to him. He listened to you about driving to Woodland Hills for a barbecue, maybe he’ll to you about a hair cut.”

Next thing I know, I open Larry’s blog to find had written about his hair. Or rather, he wrote his version of our conversation about his hair. Anna had been named “The Hatchet,” like I’d handed her the hatchet to do the dirty work. Which I guess I had. But still! He also quoted Anna as saying, “all women want to change the men in their lives. There's no such thing as loving you as you are." He also used the word nag in a sentence. “Men stop listening. The (women’s )nagging just wanes in time.”

This did not work for me. I'd dispatched a Hatchet Man? I didn’t love him as he was? I was a Nag? Aand all this he writes in a blog read by millions, without telling me?

It was SO time for another conversation. Filled with "I Feel" statements, conflict resolution. All delivered in a calm and quiet Michael Corleone voice.

INT. RAVENITE SOCIAL CLUB, LITTLE ITALY – DAY

If it's sunny outside you wouldn't know, what with the venetian blinds drawn so close only fractures of light eavesdrop into through the smoky air. Which is also puzzling since no one in the room is smoking.

Larry sits in a blood-red leather chair, facing a big desk. Don Susan relaxes back behind the desk, while Anna "The Hatchet” stands guard.

SUSAN: Mister Wilson, do you know why you’re here?
LARRY: I wrote in my blog about my hair?
SUSAN: About what you think your future wife thinks about your hair.
LARRY: That too.
SUSAN: Do you not see how it would have benefited you to consult first with your future wife, before speaking to the rest of the universe via your blog?
LARRY: Uh yeah, I guess, but --
SUSAN: I was not finished speaking.
LARRY: Sorry.
SUSAN: Do not apologize until you know the full extent of your infractions

An awkward silence.

SUSAN: You may speak now.
LARRY: I was just trying to make light of the whole thing.
SUSAN: is it not true, Larry, that you have said your hair was a sensitive subject?
LARRY: Yes, but ... Yes.
SUSAN: So blogging to millions of people, and using the word "nag" in reference to female communication was not the wisest use of the English Language. Particularly in reference to a woman you hope to know biblically in the near future. If in fact you are permitted such bibical knowledge after referring to said female as a nag.
LARRY: Hoestly, I wasn't saying she was a nag. I was just trying to be funny and put the whole thing behind me.
ANNA "THE HATCHET": Just admit it, son. If you admit it, we won’t kill you.
LARRY: Okay, I admit -- what am I admiting to? Never mind: whatever it is, I admit it.
SUSAN: Tell me Larry. If a man speaks in the forest, and his wife is not there to hear him, is he still wrong?
LARRY: I'm going to go with "yes."
SUSAN: You have answered wisely.

Okay it wasn’t like that. But Larry must have felt like it when I talked to him.

Anger is a tricky issue. You gotta be able to work through it in a healthy manner. Larry said in his family they never got angry. In mine, my dad spewed anger on a daily basis. He hit every topic from the Russians and the Democrats and Medicare, with a few “You’ll never amount to anything”s throw in for destructive measure. I hated his anger. And hated my own anger for hating his.

I think about how hypocritical this all is. Women are so darned sensitive about our body image. If I’m not a Size 2 I think I’m fat. But don’t let a man question if I’ve gained weight or I’ll call him a jerk.

Larry’s never commented on my weight. Imagine if I had found out my size had been a topic of conversation between Larry and his friends. “Just get her to drop five pounds, that’s all.” What if Larry had asked his friend Doug to encourage me to go on a juice fast.

I’d have written a lot worse than a few jokes about a Hatchet Man and a nag. It cuts both ways.

Larry and I had a very good conversation about the whole thing. He was calm and patient, and so was I.
Larry admitted that when anger enters a conversation, it seems to overwhelm everything.
LARRY: But when you said you aren't going anywhere, then I can trust this.
SUSAN: And the more we are able to have these conversations, the less overwhelming they'll feel.
LARRY:It will always feel a little scary, but yeah, maybe less and less.
SUSAN: It's an AFGO: Another F'ing Growth Opportunity.

The next day I went back and read his hair blog. You know, it actually was funny.

Four days later he showed up at my doorstep.
Larry had cut his hair.

It was still longish, but he had layers in it. He looked hot. He was also working on some serious mutton chop sideburns. Some people might think those a bit Miami Vice thug.

To me, he looked like a rock star.