Sass Factory: Wedding in Vegas

You caught me. I stole the title of the not-so-well-known made-for-TV movie Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Vegas, in which Zack and Kelly finally (try to) tie the knot, and shenanigans ensue, mainly because no one really understands where this came from or how the casts of Saved by the Bell and SBTB: The College Years suddenly got smashed together into a half-assed attempt at closure after all those years. This is why Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style should have remained the only entry in the SBTB saga with a titular colon and subtitle, but the actors' fledgling careers at the time and the producers' midguided decisions are neither here nor there. I stole it because I think we all know how I feel about the way engagements have gone since they got the internet treatment, but I never really got to finish my Oh No They Didn't collection. I forgot Part II: The Wedding.

I would just like to proclaim here and now that if I ever create a website for my wedding, someone needs to take me out pasture ASAP. Seriously, I'm making my feelings known now so that come that day, at least one of you will be a good friend and remind me, with the help of a shotgun, that I wanted to never, ever be that girl.

I know what you're thinking. What if my fiance wants a wedding website? Well let's just say I'll have a major dilemma on my hands, given that I would never have knowingly become engaged to the sort of person who would support such a thing. I would also never marry someone who prefers wine to beer or wears exceedingly tight pants (save for the unlikely possibility of my marrying a professional athlete, in which case, carry on, Baby).

I don't know why these things bother me so. I suppose they're just dealbreakers because they are ultimately indicators of larger incompatibilities between us. The wine over beer, the tight pants - these things tell me who he is inside. It's much like the way a chin strap is the hallmark of a douchebag. (To be honest, I kinda appreciate guys sporting them, because at least they're giving me an early, outward sign that I should definitely not date them, let alone talk to them, and this really cuts down on the timely potential-date filtering process!) You see, the facial hair, much like the the wine-loving and the tight pants... they aren't the problems, they're the symptoms. They're pointing toward a diagnosis of you are SO not for me-itis. And also? I simply refuse to try to and spend the rest of my life with someone who I suspect would borrow my skinny jeans if he were certain he wouldn't get caught.

Disclaimer: That was probably all very offensive, but stand fast:
1. It's my blog and that's the point. I exaggerate and pull pop culture examples to make a point about issues I see as interesting, funny, or strange in some way. Remember, this is all coming from a girl who once wrote no less than three blogs about the changes to Runts candy.
2. I dislike lots of things that other people like, such as coffee and the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. So my thinking wedding websites are stupid doesn't mean you, your fiance(e), or your website are stupid - although I'm sure the correlation is not completely negligible - it just means they are not for me.
3. I'm not talking about your wedding or website in particular, I am talking about the new trend of getting married and being a rabid jerk about it a la True Life: I'm Getting Married, Whose Wedding is it Anyway, Bridezillas, Platinum Weddings, etc. Although if I know you, the chances are very good that I have absolutely visited your wedding website (and the pictures from your subsequent nuptuals) and laughed and/or gagged a little bit.

It's not that I have a problem with personal websites. After all, who writes a blog that isn't a complete narcissist? It's not the vanity I have a problem with. It's the schmaltz. There are a lot of great things about the internet, but watching brush script of your names and wedding date dance across a collage of overly-posed black and white portraits of you and your fiance in coordinating outfits gazing into each other's eyes accompanied by a Muzak version of "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong" is - get ready for it - not one of said great things.

What it comes down to is just that I'm really, completely over Wedding Fever. The amount of time, money, and effort put into weddings, wedding magazines, wedding websites, and wedding television shows these days is absolutely deplorable, and I feel ashamed every time I watch or witness any of these things. I know weddings are fun and joyful (sometimes, and only for the people in them and perhaps their immediate families) but I have a hard time digesting the whole "fairytale for a day" fantasy. I tend to think of myself as a very down-to-earth person, but I'm somewhat terrified that even I am one day going to get swept up in all this nonsense with all the help of societal and familial pressures. That being said, the average girl, being a little more Pretty, Pretty Princess than myself, is really going to have a hard time keeping her wits about her.

Therefore, I put together a little list of truths (I'm going to call them truths whether or not you agree with them) that we can all remember, myself included, should we some day get a little too wrapped up in taffeta and ego.

1. No one cares about your wedding as much as you do. This includes the website, invitations, dresses, flowers, menu selection, guest list, seating arrangements, DJ, locale, clergy, and any other mountain you choose to construct out of a mole hill. If something goes wrong, no one really cares. Most people don't like weddings that much anyway, especially if they don't know you very well. It's just sort of an annoying chore to go to the second wedding of your boss' youngest daughter, and no amount of prime rib and Kool & The Gang will ever soothe that. The guests just want to hand you the obnoxious $160 useless countertop kitchen appliances for which you registered, get a little buzzed at your open bar, and get the hell outta Dodge before they get dragged into some tired line dance.

2. Stop talking about your wedding. (See Truth #1). Oh you're getting married? You did mention that. Six times in the past four hours, actually, but yes, that is very exciting! Stop torturing your cubicle mates with the gory details about your seventeen potential photographers or the exact shades of pink you plan to have your calla lilies dyed. They are just trying to be polite or they are your enabler. Nobody wins here. This is especially true for those with long engagements. Wedding banter is barely exciting for the non-involved for eight minutes, let alone the gestational period of an elephant.

3. It will be over in one day. And then you are going to be smacked in the face with the harsh reality that you just spent years planning it and dropped what could have been a down payment on a home or a months-long vacation in the South Pacific to play princess for a day, only to wake up the next morning to realities of normal life such as your aging cat throwing up all over your new bedspread. You are just setting yourself up to be depressed afterward. Anything that goes wrong, as well as anything that goes right, won't matter tomorrow. It's the relationships and feelings and memories that remain. Remember that the next time you're trampling skyscrapers in a Japanese metropolis, or just screaming at your mother and best friend for not being sympathetic enough about the dress shop making your veil out of the wrong French lace.

4. Speaking of princess for a day, the point of a wedding is to get married. That sounds stupid and obvious but I think that people tend focus so much on staging a circus that would make Cirque du Soleil blush that they forget there is a growing relationship at the center of all this. Nearly breaking off engagements because of the stress of wedding planning is irony that I hope is not lost on our young, hopeful brides-to-be. If people spent half as much time improving their relationships, working on their marriages, and making their significant others happy as they did planning their weddings, maybe there would be fewer divorces, you know?

Here's a good marker of your priorities: would you still be just as excited to get married if you had to peel away all the fluff, and had to have my grandparents' wedding? They got married at the age of 21 in 1935 with two witnesses (their good friends) and a justice of the peace, dressed in a sensible knee length frock that wasn't even an actual wedding dress, and a gray three piece suit. The point is this: they were young, it was during the Depression, and although it would have been lovely to have a huge party, my grandparents weren't focused on a wedding, they were focused on being married. And they happily stayed that way the rest of their lives.

Yes, it's always exciting to play dress up and get attention, but what should be more exciting is knowing you have (hopefully) found someone who loves, or is at least alright with, your hair being in his sink for the rest of his life. Or that you're forever going to be with a girl who doesn't mind washing your sweaty gym clothes because she loves you. You should be excited that you're making it official, wearing a ring. Getting a new last name, a new family. That's what it's all about, people. If my own sensibilities can't keep me grounded when I start planning my own wedding someday, I know that the spirit of my grandparents will. Three hundred guests, fancy outfits, a ten-piece band, and a mountain of gifts might make you and your friends and family happy for a day, but time has shown that for about half of all couples, it didn't make them happy for a lifetime.

But you know what I am certain will last a lifetime? The emotional scars your wedding website gave me.

I'm Old and You're a Moron

I love nail polish as much as the next (girly) girl, but the fact that what is normally a $23 bottle of Chanel nail polish is currently going for over $80 on eBay simply because its color, Jade (fancy fashion talk for MINT GREEN), is tragically hip right now does not really sit well with me. I think if you're so enamored of that color, you should take your $82 (plus shipping) to the Home Depot, where you will be able to buy three gallons of mint green paint for your living room and have plenty of money leftover so that you can buy a 2 x 4 and hire someone to beat you with it for being the kind of idiot who thinks $82 nail polish the color of pigeon shit is a sound investment.

I had Manic Panic mint green nail polish circa '96 that I bought from Hot Topic because I thought (knew) I was the shit, and it certainly did not put me out eighty bucks, which I might add was approximately three years' allowance back then. I was talking about this recently with my friend of almost ten years. I really enjoy that I am getting to the age where I can:

1. say that I've been friends with people for ten years;
2. reminisce about the hilarious/idiotic/embarrassing things I did ten or more years ago;
3. adopt a "God damn kids today!" attitude and say things like "oh child, please!" , "back when I was growing up..." , and "that shit would NOT fly in the nineties!"

I love nostalgia, which is why it was a really good idea for me and aforementioned friend of ten years to dress up like this for Halloween:


I'm thinking about dressing like that more often. It was fun to wear copious amounts of blue eyeshadow, leg warmers (basically giant gloves for your ankles) and other such things that make absolutely no sense. People do that now, but today's version of ridiculous and excessive involves less spandex, neon, and whimsy, and more "irony" (fucking hipsters) and $82 nail polish.

I'm getting old. And it's awesome.

Sarah Palin Envy

In case you haven't heard, Sarah Palin is coming out with a memoir. This guy, from the AOL discussion boards, evidently holding a PhD in Psychobabble Bullshit, changed my life today. My distaste for all things Sarah Palin and the fact that I identify as a feminist can only mean one thing: I want to be Sarah Palin. (As always, his crap grammar/punctuation/spelling, not mine).

PEKennedy2 11:45 PMOct 25 2009

Why are all these feminist so "afraid" of Sarah Palin? Is it because she represents everything they are not - but now wish they were?

Wow, you really whacked that nail on the head, buddy! You are exactly right. I'm a feminist and I'm therefore "jealous" of everything Sarah Palin "has".

You know, I've always wanted to be a local beauty pageant queen turned failed sportscaster with Mom hair who later becomes the mayor of a two-bit redneck town only to get haphazardly slapped onto the national stage through a series of markedly bad and desperate decisions made by a senator in the sunset of his political career. I can't wait til his people then wrap me in Prada jackets and fix my hair in that certain way that fools the world into thinking I am the Next Big Thing for all of three minutes before it comes out that my very unmarried, very teenage daughter is very pregnant, but no worries because they're "engaged" and we are good Americans with traditional family values!

And I can't tell you how badly I've longed for the day whereupon parodies of my legendary and extraordinary cluelessness become fixtures on satirical and non-satirical television programming alike, and then I'd like to top it all off by getting my folksy-accented ass handed to me on the national stage by someone who has been in politics longer than I have been alive. I think I will then say a series of things that people from everywhere on the political spectrum will agree are patently stupid, all while mispronouncing the word nuclear ad nauseum and toting around my gaggle of children and doofy husband who insists on forever being clad in a snowmobiling parka while America cringes at my weekend recreational activities including but not limited to my penchant for shooting wild animals with the help of a sniper rifle and a helicopter. Also, fuck polar bears.

Then, after my epic failure in the national limelight and helping my beloved Republican party lose a very important election, I will continue to say things that make intelligent people cringe and embark on a series of state money and power swindling scandles involving plane tickets for mother/daughter shopping trips to New York and my weird brother-in-law, but decide to act like I'm too good for all this "Washington insider" drama and peace out early on my gubernatorial duties to pursue my deluded hopes that I'll some day be president, wait no, have a talk show, wait no, be a correspondent for Fox News, and probably also design a folksy-but-fashionable low-end clothing line for the Home Shopping Network, and follow all of that up with a memoir of my oh-so-tragic fifteen minutes, which I shall entitle "Going Rogue: An American Life".

Do you know what really would have been rogue, Sarah Palin? To go back to your life with dignity. To fade into obscurity quietly and peacefully. To not write a motherfucking memoir.

(Breath.)

Now that we've taken care of you, onto the Meghan McCain McTitties scandal on Twitter. Parenthetically, I don't do that tweeting nonsense because I am far too verbose to articulate my feelings into 140 characters, so in short (ironically), eff that noise.

Apparently one night she puts up a picture of herself on one of her nights "in", then the world goes ape-shit, and she's all "Oh my goooddd why is everyone freaking out? I'm just in my pajamas." And I sympathized with her because she's young and cute and wants to be a half-public figure. I thought to myself, I too am a young woman that enjoys wearing tank tops and sweatpants about my own domicile and hey, skin happens. But then I saw the picture in question:

CHIIIIIIIIIIIILD, puh-LEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no way you could have thought that your pouty lips, just-took-a-roll-in-the-hay hair, and boobs higher than Cheech & Chong was in any way "not a big deal" and "just a tank top". An A, B, and even small C cup could have gotten through this relatively unscathed, but since you are toting around what appear to dwarf planets in your tiny shirt, you are down for the count.

Let's be honest. You are a smart girl. Your bedroom eyes and little smirk tell us all you knew exactly what you were doing, and now you are mad because you got called out on using your McAssets to sell your McPoliticalBeliefs. You can't be a walking contradiction, what with your going on Tyra and talking about healthy body images and self-respect and then flashing your ripe melons all over your microblog for your 76,000 followers and then some to see, and then having the audacity to be surprised at what people are calling you and acting like you don't understand what the problem is.

The problem, my dear, is boobs. Boobs are fascinating and have an appeal that transcends LITERALLY all other earthly things and unfortunately no one cares what you say, think, or do when you are letting THOSE THINGS do the talking. Quite frankly you're a little old to be learning this lesson now, but here it is: every woman with a formidable rack needs to know how to deploy the troops carefully, you know what I'm sayin'? This is ONE situation where you should take a cue from Sarah Palin and go for the buttoned-up sexy librarian look. People might call you a lot of things, but tramp will not be one of them.

Video Blog: The Rainbow Connection

My first video blog ever!

You'll have to watch to see what it's about, but I'll give you a hint: I found it. The rainbow connection. There might have been lovers and dreamers involved, I can't say for sure, but it definitely involved me.



My favorite part is how it's paused on what is very well my most insanely flattering freeze frame of all time. Just hit play so it can buffer, smart ass. Enjoy!

Working Girl

Why does everyone complain about having to work? Working is not all that bad. From what I can see of the working world, there are a great deal of perks, such as making a lot of new friends and getting free coffee, all while getting paid and still having plenty of time to attend to one's Facebook. Keep in mind, this is not something everyone has the privilege of doing! A lot of people don't work because they:

A. can't.
B. lack the motivation and drive necessary to hold down a job for any reasonable amount of time.
C. have too damn many kids, to the point where it makes more fiscal sense to just be your own daycare provider.
D. are what we like to refer to as "casualties of recession".

Additionally, I would like to point out that I "work" in the sense that I drag my ass out of bed far too early in the morning for my liking and show up somewhere every day only to be underappreciated and driven crazy by those around me. The major difference of course is that I do not have, say, $38,000 + a sweet health benefits package to show for it. Anyone who complains about working needs to go back to college for the better part of a decade and relive a life that basically amounts to indentured servitude; then they might appreciate all the great perks of being employed; namely money. And no homework. And dental insurance!

I, for one, have endless assignment to-do lists and $13.06 in my checking account, so I would love to be a working girl right now, save for the whole Reeboks/skirt suit combo and with hair a little less close to God than this:


I became obsessed with that movie circa 1989. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense why a five year-old girl chose to spend her time watching the plight of a Staten Island night school graduate as she claws, schemes, and sleeps her way to the top of the late eighties Wall Street corporate ladder. But then again, by now I assume you are all well acquainted with what a strange young lady I am and it should really come as no surprise that my idiosyncrasies extend far back into my youth. This is, after all, coming from the same girl who played "lawyer" instead of "house" and forced her cousin, almost four years her senior, to be her secretary. (Thanks, Kendra. You were a great assistant.)

I have a long, torrid history of being career-oriented before I could even write in cursive. Let us not forget that I also was obsessed with the 1991 [crappy] motion picture Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, in which a young Christina Applegate, fresh from her days of skanky Married with Children stardom, is forced to accept a full time job at the age of 17 to provide for herself and her four younger siblings while her absentee mother galavants around Australia with her boyfriend for an entire summer. At the legging-clad tender age of seven, I wanted to be just like the character Suellen [aside from the dead babysitter part], what with her resume padding and haphazard landing of sweet executive jobs at fashion companies, thanks in large part to her outstanding ability to deploy the chic and timeless fashions of that era:


Moral of the story: Working isn't so bad, especially for girls these days. Considering the lack of requisite big hair and heavy eyeliner befitting Whitesnake videos, we have it pretty good now. We get to do a lot of cool things like negotiate radio mergers and save uniform companies from disbandment, and all with a lot less sexual harassment than Tess and Suellen had to put up with. If they faced the boys club that used to be corporate America head-on and in those clothes, we have it easy. So sack up, hoes.

Actual Things I've Said or Thought Today: Evidence That I'm a Crazy Person

I would rather kick puppies and infants than write three papers right now. I'd do it. Gently.

I would rather get kidnapped, beaten, and thrown in a car trunk and dropped off in a ditch somewhere than do this project. Ok, that was a little extreme.

It's fucking Yom Kippur and we don't have the day off? Oh wait, Naz doesn't have any Jews. I miss going to school with Jewish people. And people from other states. And boys, while we're on the subject.

God, Central New York weather today is more bipolar than I am.

I'm tired. Maybe I need to start drinking coffee. Holy shit, did I just think that? (If you know me, you understand how particularly blasphemous this thought is. I've never had a cup of coffee in my life.)

Mark my words, Smyth Hall will be ablaze before I fail an entire two credit course because of my lack of 1" margins.

If I eat this mint chocolate chip ice cream AND a Halloween half moon cookie, that might perk me up a bit and my homework will get done faster.

I guarantee the invention of APA rules has caused at least one untimely death.

Facebook quiz results are causing me to question my faith in humanity. Mmmm... *clicks "hide"*.

I did not think I'd live to see the day when I'd rather watch professional football than continue my current activity, and yet, here it is. Is this a sign that I need to change my life path?

Real zombie survival odds? Depends on which type of zombies. Dawn of the Dead zombies? I'd probably be alright. 28 Days Later zombies? Fuck it, I can't run that fast. It you can't beat em, join em. No more homework for me.

Fifth Graders & Other Things I Am Smarter Than

The girl currently on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? makes me want to eat shards of glass.

1. She doesn't know the capital of Kansas. (Topeka)
2. She thought the Sahara desert was in Asia despite her being from Asia and living there until she was 5. (We were looking for the Gobi Desert)
3. She just said that we are protected from cruel & unusual punishment by the second amendment. (That's 2, C & UP is 8, learn the god damn pnemonic device.)

American game shows now are deplorable and reward idiots with no apparent knowledge, skill, or value to the human race whatsoever. Ok, I'm just bitter because I applied to Wheel of Fortune when I lived in California and that jackass Pat Sajak never called me. I have been playing along to Wheel! Of!... FORTUUUNNNNE! since I was old enough to idolize Vanna White simply for the fact that she so resembled my Barbies.

I have had my Wheel of Fortune three-pronged plan of attack organized for some time now:

1. I would be the player in the red section despite the fact that I hate the color red. I'd rather be blue or yellow but yellow almost always loses and blue is reserved for the cute young guy in his military uniform or the plump congenial black man wearing a sweater vest who you are pretty sure works at your post office. Red always dominates despite the fact that everyone roots for GI Joe and Sweater Vest. (See? Admittedly this is a girl in uniform, but not bad considering I found that picture AFTER I wrote this blog.)

2. Never, never, never buy vowels. "U"s are not now, nor will they ever be, worth $250 a pop. Just keep spinning and guessing consonants but do not, I repeat DO NOT, keep guessing letters when you, Pat, the audience, and functional illiterates know the answer to the puzzle. You are just trying to rack up money and everyone, especially my Grandma (because she is still religiously watching this show in Heaven), gets pissed. Grandma and the WOF Gods look down upon gluttony and you WILL hit bankrupt or lose a turn. Sweater Vest will then solve the eight word puzzle that has one "Q" missing.

3. When I am the contestant who gets to the final round, I will choose the "L" out of the prize options (because it's my initial), and although C, D, M, and A are the standard letters chosen by said contestant, I will not choose them because A) I am a rogue like that, and B) Merv Griffin was NOT, nor will he ever be (especially because he's dead) ready. for. this. girl.

Once upon a time, I had a life dream of being on The Price is Right and being invited to "come on down" by the buttery-smooth voice of a besequined jacket-donning Rod Roddy (may he rest in peace) and leaping into the arms of Bob Barker, who would then receive a granddaughter-esque kiss on the cheek from yours truly in a homemade t-shirt that would say something along the lines of "Barker's Next Beauty". Rod died and Bob retired, and I, standing in solidarity with The Price is Right of my childhood, The Price is Right that I watched on a console television whilst splayed across my grandparent's brown living room carpet, refuse to ever attempt contestantship on that program, much less watch it.

Mark my words that I will NOT make the same mistake with Pat & Vanna. They've got a lot of solid years left for me to appear on their program but I'm not going to take my chances and end up on some bastardized version of my beloved Wheel hosted by like, Ryan Seacrest, while a Kardashian sister (whichever is currently not pregnant) flips my letters in no more than 2 yards of rump-hugging fabric, because standing on a Burbank sound stage that doesn't include Pat, Vanna, and her never-repeating parade of fabulous pageant dresses is a puzzle I never want to solve. It's all yours, Sweater Vest!