More fun with wildlife.

So, about those occasional problems with undomesticated animals indoors? It's actually a family trait. Consider this: in the weeks leading up to the wedding, the entire household was plagued by a series of voodoo-esque incidents in which the following items were discovered in my parents' house: 3 flying squirrels, one enormous centipede, one pool of cat vomit on the rug, one dead snake, and one live snake.

I was wondering whether God might, in fact, be trying to tell us something about the upcoming wedding, but then I received the following email from my mother -- which reminded me that, in all likelihood, this is just another one of Those Things About My Family.

hi honey,
Have you ever noticed that there are people to whom things-which-make-good-comedy-routines happen and people to whom such things never happen, and do you realize that for whatever reason our family seems to be in the former category (see: snakes in house, etc.)?
love, mom

Of course, the animals which accidentally wind up in one's house can be counted on to have one excellent attribute in common: if they see you, they run away. (Notable exception here for animals which are only partially alive, in which case they will stick around long enough to fall on your neighbor's head.) So in spite of the family history at work, here, I haven't exactly been on high alert for anything with more than 2 legs -- not counting the dog -- to be in intimate proximity to my person.

I really, really wish that I hadn't been naked when I found out that this was a bad idea.

Without completely horrifying you, dear readers, I ask you to picture the following: I am lying in bed, totally unclothed, having just.... er, done that thing that ladies do with their husbands, when I notice that there is something sticking to my ass. At first glance, it appears to be a hematite bead -- hard, shiny, metallic gray, and about the size of a pea.

Upon closer examination, however, it turns out that the bead is not a bead at all, but rather an enormous tick.

A huge motherfucking tick.

A huge motherfucking tick which has sucked so much blood out of my buttocks that it is now lolling around awkwardly on its distended abdomen like one of those unfortunate people in Wall-E.

Let me just say, to those of you who have never pulled a tick off your ass immediately after sex: It is one of the most horrible post-coital incidents in the realm of human experience. And I say this as someone who once menstruated on an architect.

All family history with insects, rodents and snakes aside, I can only assume that this latest incident is karmic payback for last week's mouse incident. So thank you, karma, for teaching me a lesson I'll never forget. I'd like to finish by saying that I will never again drop a mouse on my neighbor's head in error again... but, uh, I can't make any promises.

in print: an afternoon with Ron Galella

Though many more important people than I have spent time in Ron Galella's living room for journalistic purposes (yeah, hi, Emily Nussbaum), meeting him was still unbelievably exciting. I visited Galella last spring on assignment for Interiors, where we sat in his Warhol-themed dining room and he talked for three hours about the golden age of paparazzi photography, the sad state of celebrity in the modern age, and Andy Warhol's sexual proclivities.

RG: A lot of people said Andy Warhol was asexual, but he wasn't. He was a voyeur. He would film people, you know, in sexual situations, and he would... er, get aroused. And then, he would jerk off.

Me: I hesitate to ask, but were you, uh, witness to any of this?

RG: (horrified stare) No, of course not! People just told me about it!


(Needless to say, that part did not make it into print. Just consider it bonus material.)

Above: the founding father of pap photography (helmeted) and Marlon Brando (blinged.)

I'm embarrassed to admit that, despite all the incredible stories I heard that afternoon, what I remember best is saying goodbye -- because Ron Galella kissed me on the cheek and said, "You're a very pretty girl!" And I nearly died.

The article is in Interiors' October/November issue, which is both on newsstands now and available in digital form here. Enjoy.

It's a jungle in here.

Earlier this week -- it might have been Thursday -- I was making lunch in the kitchen when I noticed the dog getting agitated. He was pawing and sniffing at something on the floor, which, upon closer examination, turned out to be a not-quite-dead mouse who was flopping awkwardly around the way not-quite-dead things do.

Generally, I've dealt with apartment mice in one of two ways: If they're alive, I scream and pee on myself until they run away. If they're dead, I throw them out. But faced with a not-quite-dead mouse -- and a dog who looked like he might eat it at any second -- I panicked. Unwilling to touch it, I scooped up the mouse with a piece of sandpaper and, after a moment of indecision, ran to the window and opened it.

"Sorry, guy," I said, as I hurriedly dropped the mouse onto the fire escape. I watched as he tottered around for less than a second, then slipped between the slats and fell-- first to the second-story fire escape, and then to the ground floor patio, where he landed directly on the head of our new downstairs neighbor.

I am relatively sure that New Neighbor did not see me (I hurled myself back inside just as she started to look up), that she most likely thinks that a not-quite-dead mouse was walking
somewhere above and then just happened to fall, and that I am quite safe in pretending that this never happened. And even if she did see me... well, let's face it, I'm still going to deny the whole thing.

Which leaves me free to focus on the question of why this sort of thing always seems to happen to me.

The Wedding, Part III: Dancing, drinking, doing things we may later regret when we are getting married ourselves, NOAH.

Right after we got married, cocktail hour commenced. There were passed hors d'oeuvres, sangria and lovely fiddle music... and I didn't see a single frigging second of it.

After running back down the aisle, we grabbed umbrellas, bustled my dress, and made our way back to the house for some formal photos. Although the rain provided some lovely things for the wedding (romantic ambiance, moderate temperatures and a total lack of mosquitoes), it also meant that we could not, as planned, take pictures outside. The result: some extremely 1950s-esque living-room photos of the bridal party.

This is everyone.

There is an important lesson to be learned from the above picture: petite bride + big bouquet + tall friends wearing 4-inch heels = the appearance that I am some sort of pygmy. I'm really glad we had an actual child in there to provide some scale.

What. Can't you see that we are drinking.

Did I mention that our photographer was totally fabulous? Because she was.

One of my favorites: getting a hug from my father-in-law.

At this point, I need to backtrack a bit -- back to before the wedding, when the whole thing was just a bunch of abstract planning elements such as "food" and "cake" and "music" and "decor". The first three were provided, respectively, by a caterer who specialized in corporate picnics; a little old lady who makes cakes out of her basement kitchen; and a guy named Roger who is some sort of ambiguous multi-removed relation but who, more importantly, is a fabulous pianist.

With nothing left but "decor", we set off for the florist, where we had the following conversation:

Florist: So, with the bridal party flowers, the centerpieces and the buffet decorations, that'll come to about two thousand dollars.

(my mother and I exchange meaningful looks)

Me: Oh-kaaay.
Mom: Thank you. We'll be in touch.

(5 minutes later, in the car)

Mom: Fuck this, we're doing it ourselves.


It took us 3 days to put it all together, and I wouldn't complain if I never saw another paper lantern, vintage tablecloth or black-eyed susan again... but, if I do say so myself, I think it looked pretty good.

...Ok, enough bragging.

First dance to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" (a.k.a. Tomato, tomato, potato, potato.)

And then, of course, it was time for toasts. Brad's brother and my co-maids-of-honor all gave incredibly sweet, heartfelt speeches.




It is too bad that they have probably been eclipsed in everyone's minds by what happened next.

Four days before the wedding, my mother called me and said, "So, your father didn't realize until just now that he's supposed to make a toast at the reception."

"Oh?" I said.

"Yes," she continued, "And when I asked what he thought he'd like to do, he said he might recite a poem by E.E. Cummings."

"Oh, that would be nice," I said. "Which one?"

"You know, I asked him the same thing, and he said, 'I don't know'."

"Oh, so this is--"

"--Not happening. Right."

"Well, that's okay. I actually can't think of E.E. Cummings' poetry without also thinking of Michael Caine in those horrible glasses, chasing awkwardly after Barbara Hershey in Hannah and Her Sisters."

"Oh, right," said my mom. "And that movie is about an affair..."

"...Which is probably not something I want to be thinking about at my wedding."

"Right."

"Right."

And so, my father did not recite an E.E. Cummings poem. In fact, he did not recite a poem at all. Instead, he stood up and talked about:

a) sex
b) the night I was conceived
c) funerals, and, finally
d) the joys of study abroad.

Then there was a long pause.
"But I digress," said Dad, and then promptly sat down without having actually toasted anyone.

So basically, it was completely perfect.
I love my dad.

(Dancing to Gerswhin later in the evening.)

At this point, the toasting became a sort of free-for-all. My mom's best friend from college stood up. Brad's parents' neighbor stood up. Roger the pianist-who-is-somehow-related to me stood up. Our champagne glasses were nearly empty (and Brad was elbowing me, hissing, "Take the mic away! People need to eat!) when, finally, my brother Noah stood up.

This, dear readers, is the face of The Wedding Devil.

"Well," said Noah. "Thank you, everyone, for coming out and celebrating the wedding of my beautiful sister and her wonderful new husband, Brad."

"Awww," everyone said.

"And although I know some of you might be disappointed by the rainy weather we're having," he continued, "I just want to say that weddings are a lot like women...

"They're better when they're a little wet."

This is how we looked when we realized what was about to happen:


..and immediately afterward.




And this is how everybody else looked.




And this, of course, is how Noah looked.


Yeah, you're pleased with yourself. Just wait until YOU get married, you little bastard.


The rest of the night went by in a blur. There was lobster...


cake-cutting...



cupcakes...

...and a lot of dancing, which, unfortunately there are not really any pictures of.

And finally, just after midnight, we gathered up some food and overnight things and made our getaway in this.

Scene: in the car on the way to the hotel

Brad: Alright, let's go have sex!
Me: Do not interrupt me while I'm eating this mini-hot-dog or I will kill you.


And no, I am not bringing you into the hotel room with us. You'll just have to use your imaginations. Instead, I'll finish up with this.



Oh, and there's also this:

Scene: The next morning, back at my parents' house for the post-wedding brunch.

Me: Hi, mom!

Mom: Hi, honey! How are ya, married lady?

Me: I'm great! (looks around) So, uh... where's Noah?

Mom: Oh, he's back at the Best Western.

Me: He's wha--

Mom: With your friend Zoe.

(ten-second pause in which I open and close my mouth like a goldfish while staring blankly)

Me: Oh my God. Did he... I mean, do you think they--

Mom: Yes. Try not to think about it.

Me: ...

Mom: Here, have a bagel.

The Wedding, Part II: In which we actually get married.

When we left off, it was raining, I no longer had fake tits in my dress, and -- yay! -- it was time to get married.

Me on the porch, ready to go.

The tent was at the end of the yard. As you can see, it was quite wet.

Mardie and I were making a tag-team effort to hold the skirt/train of my dress up and out of harm's way during the walk down. We were approximately halfway there when I felt a draft: in all the commotion to get my skirt off the ground, we had pulled it up so far that my ass was now hanging out the back.

There was, of course, no time for problems of such piddling insignificance as exposed buttcheeks.

Brad and his brother, waiting up front for the ceremony to start.

I was adamant that BRAD COULD NOT SEE ME until I was walking down the aisle, so we hovered outside in the rain while everyone took their turn.

Cutest. Flower girl. Ever.

Beemaids with lilies.

My turn! Me and my dad, walking down the aisle to Moon River. His pager started going off when we were about halfway there. There is nothing quite like walking arm-in-arm with a man whose jacket is vibrating.

Heeey, Brad.

Aww, my dad. I made it down the aisle without falling over, and everything was going pretty well until he stepped on my train.

Me: (shouting, decidedly un-bridelike) Yo, get off my train!
Dad: I'm sorry! It wasn't there when we rehearsed!
Me: (muttering) There had better not be a big wet footprint back there, I swear to God...

Standing at the trellis (altar? what?).

I strongly considered bribing our officiant to start off the ceremony like this:


Alas, I forgot.

We could hear the rain on the roof throughout. Very romantic.

It took forever for us to pick a reading for the wedding -- I wanted something funny but truthful, not too heavy, not too religious. This passage from Everything Is Illuminated turned out to be just right.

The young couple first married on August 5, 1744, when Joseph was eight and Sarah six, and first ended their marriage six days later when Joseph refused to believe, to Sarah's frustration, that the stars were silver nails in the sky, pinning up the black nightscape. They remarried four days later, when Joseph left a note under the door of Sarah's parents' house: I have considered everything you told me, and I do believe that the stars are silver nails.

They ended their marriage again a year later, when Joseph was nine and Sarah seven, over a quarrel about the nature of the bottom of the river bed. A week later, they were remarried, including this time in their vows that they should love each other until death, regardless of the existence of the riverbed, the temperature of the river bed's bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed.

They ended their marriage one hundred and twenty times throughout their lives and each time remarried with a longer list of vows. They were sixty and fifty-eight at their last marriage, only three weeks before Sarah died of heart failure and Joseph drowned himself in the bath. Their marriage contract still hangs over the door of the house they on-and-off shared-nailed to the top post and brushing against the welcome mat:

"It is with everlasting devotion that we, Joseph and Sarah L, reunite in the indestructible union of matrimony, promising love until death, with the understanding that the stars are silver nails in the sky, regardless of the existence of the bottom of the river, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist) and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed, overlooking what may or may not have been accidental grape juice spills, agreeing to forget that Joseph played sticks and balls with his friends when he promised he would help Sarah thread the needle for the quilt she was sewing, and that Sarah was supposed to give the quilt to Joseph, not his buddy, ignoring the simple fact that Joseph snores like a pig, and that Sarah is no great treat to sleep with either, letting slide certain tendencies of both parties to look too long at members of the opposite sex, not making a fuss over why Joseph is such a slob, leaving his clothes wherever he feels like taking them off, expecting Sarah to pick them up, clean them, and put them in their proper place as he should have, or why Sarah has to be such a pain about the smallest things, such as which way the toilet paper unrolls, or when dinner is five minutes later than she was planning, because, let's face it, it's Joseph who's putting that paper on the roll and dinner on the table, disregarding whether the beet is a better vegetable than the cabbage, putting aside the problems of being fat-headed and chronically unreasonable, trying to erase the memory of a long since expired rose bush that a certain someone was supposed to remember to water when his wife was visiting family, accepting the compromise of the way we have been, the way we are, and the way we will likely be. May we live together in unwavering love and good health. Amen."

My mom read it. She did a really good job. My father-in-law also read a blessing he wrote himself, which was so good that I nearly cried. Then it was time to exchange rings...

...and vows. (Nothing fancy -- the officiant said, "Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?" I said, "I will!") Also, apparently I wanted to celebrate by doing the "Thriller" dance.


And then, finally, he told us to kiss...


... so we did. HUSBAND AND WIFE, MOTHERFUCKER. Whee!


I'll be back soon with Part III: Formal photos, first dances, and Reason #422 Why You Cannot Take My Little Brother Anywhere.

Better late than never. (Or: THE WEDDING.)

So, as some of you may remember, I got married last month.
And now I can prove it!

Finally having the wedding photos in hand is really exciting to me. This is partly because -- as I'm sure many of you know, and still others will one day find out -- it is very difficult to remember very much about one's own wedding after the fact.

But really, it's much more because I have been dying to put them on my blog.

Because there are so many pictures, I'm going to take a cue from the lovely Elle Michelle and do a wedding post in three parts. (Thus providing me three days' worth of material, which is always nice.) And so, today, I am very pleased to present:

Part I: In which we make flower arrangements, break champagne flutes, and discover that someone thinks our boobs are too small.

The ceremony and reception both took place in my parents' backyard, a location we settled on because a) I love the place where I grew up, and b) there was no venue fee. The fact that they have the world's most beautiful garden and spectacular view had nothing to do with it.

(It poured on our wedding day. This is the morning after. I am trying not to be bitter.)

Let me begin by saying that the ceremony was supposed to start at 6pm.
It, um, didn't.

At 5:30, with rain pouring down and my dad and brother still attempting to set up a place for the ceremony under the tent, all the girls run upstairs in a panic to do their hair and start putting on makeup.

Our photographer captured the getting-ready.




I am pretty sure that this bottle of champagne came out as soon as the last sash was tied.



Me, gettin' BRIDE-FACED.

At 5:45, my mother still has not come upstairs.

Me: (shouting from upstairs hallway) Mooooooom!
Mom: (shouting from downstairs) What?
Me: Aren't you supposed to be, like, helping me look pretty?
Mom: Just hang on!

-- 5 minutes go by. --

Me: MOOOOOOM!
Mom: Hang on, hang on!
Me: Mom, c'mon, I'm supposed to be walking down the aisle in 15 minutes! What are you doing?
Mom: Uh... I'm sewing my dress!
(entire bridal party exchanges horrified looks)
Maggie: She's sewing an entire dress now? She's never going to finish it in time!
Mom: No, you idiots, I'm just fixing a hole!

Shortly thereafter, mom arrives in her non-holey dress to fix my hair.


We are now running insanely late. While my mother frantically sticks hairpins into my 'do, Brad calls to find out what the hell is taking so long.

I tell her to say that I ran away.


A second later, I accidentally knock the champagne glass into the sink. It breaks. I try not to think of it as a bad omen.



The finished product. My mom is a fucking genius.


Back in the bedroom, I go to put my dress on and discover that the seamstress -- without my knowledge or consent -- has sewn falsies into the bodice.



I freak out declare with extreme calm and composure that I will NOT get married with fake tits in my dress.

Fortunately, my mom shows up with some sort of sewing tool and rips them out to great celebration. And then, it's time for bride portraits!


When I was three years old, I threw up on this sofa. Now I am sitting on it in my wedding dress.



The back!



Pretty bridal party. (Those would be the $40 bridesmaid dresses, btw.)



Bouquet in one hand...


...umbrella in the other.

And finally, a mere hour behind schedule, we were ready to make our way to the tent. After waiting on the porch for an interminable amount of time (Me, later: Hey Brad, what the hell were you guys doing while we were waiting up there? -- Brad: Peeing.), someone came up with word that the groomsmen had assembled. And so, giggling and trying to ignore the squelching sounds coming from our shoes, we all tottered down the lawn to get married...