This Just In...

So my friend Lisa is getting married to my friend Andrew in February, and for Christmas A gave L the "reluctant bride" cake topper. In light of the horrifying cake toppers I have come across in my wedding research, I get a real kick out this. I won't be using it on my cake. But still. Awesome.

Dress to kill

True or false? I have purchased two wedding dresses.
True or false? Combined they cost under $1,000.
True or false? I have been feeling self-righteous and satisfied about that.
True or false? When I found out someone I knew bought a Claire Pettibone dress for her wedding, I went positively GREEN with jealousy.

TRUE.

I have been struggling over the whole wedding dress thing in one way or another since I decided to get married. Granted, I am a shopper, so the obsession over the dress was a predictable turn of events, but it goes beyond wanting to look nice at this point. I can't help but feel like I have succumbed to that ridiculous concept of what I will be wearing on the "most important day of my life."

Bullshit, the most important day of my life. An important day, and one when everyone will be looking at me sure, but I have never bought into the concept of the $5,000 wedding dress because somehow it's MY special day and I need to mark it by going into debt. I was determined to keep it to a decent price, and while I can't seem to pick one of the two I have (the loser will be on ebay, by the way) I think I have narrowed it down to two very lovely, sensibly priced, simple, white (a whole other story) dress.

So how come my eyes well up when I look at the Pettibone coutures?

Is it my socialization that forces me to dream of dressing myself like a fairy princess? Is it the romanticism of the designs that draw me in? They have the vintage appeal I have always wanted and was never able to really find. I am not sure what it is. But when I look at these dresses, and then think of the simple one I went with, I sometimes worry about how I will look wearing my principles, literally.

Not that my dress(es) is not lovely, and I am very lucky to have it (them). I know that.

Just having a realistic bridezilla moment. I am sure it will pass. Also, help me decide on shoes people. Heels or flats. (Keep in mind, the finace is 6'3").

BTW...Wedding plans have been majorly stalled as of late...due to an increasingly taxing schedule of work and rehearsal...I am currently directing feminist icon Carly Churchill's The Skriker. If you are in Winnipeg, come check it out.

The Invention of Lying...(and my Convention of Geschrei-ing)

For those of you who don't know, in Yiddish, a geschrei is a bellow or scream.

So here I am, complaining in a loud voice. As per use...

I am not intending to turn this blog into purely pop-culture commentary, but allow me to view a few things through the feminist wedding goggles. The fiance and I went to see The Invention of Lying, and interesting conversations ensued. Both of us are huge Ricky Gervais fans, and I truly believe that he is one of the great undiscovered acting talents of our time...everybody loves his comedy, but my man can actually act. Most great comedians can, but again, not widely recognized.

We really liked the movie, and it totally spoke to the moral atheist in both of us, as in "while I might not believe in god, I believe in the potential of people to be good and connected to something larger than themselves." So hooray.

BUT,

(as always I have a big but)

It must be at least noted that even in this world where short, pug-nosed, fatties manage to get the girl despite a scathing honesty that would have most of us curled in the fetal position for the duration of our lives, the fact remains that short, fat, pug-nosed ladies not only DON'T get to win, but they in fact DON'T EVEN EXIST.

Ricky Gervais and Louis C.K. and (for god's sake, really?) Jonah Freakin' Hill manage to find meaning in life, despite their slovenly appearances and dimwitted natures. And by the way, shame on you for your unwarranted sighs and dirty looks aimed at the chubby guys on the elevator (The whole movie reeked of "Well, you are thinking it, even if you're saying it. And really, isn't that just as bad?"). But look around this alternate truth telling Hollywood world; fat ugly chicks are nowhere to be found.

Imagine this movie with Rosie O'Donnel as the lead? Never happen. Even our funny ladies are the Cameron Diaz's and Jennifer Aniston's of the world. Its seems that unless you win the DNA lottery, YOU CAN'T TELL YOUR STORY. Not even as the funny girl. With the exception of Hairspray (1988), you never see the fat girl get the guy in a movie. And the only movie since Hairspray that went out on such a limb? The remake of Hairspray (2007). Think about it. Can you name another one? ONE MORE?! (OK, I can name one more: Babycakes, 1989, but I don't really count it because it was hardly a huge hit, and it was Ricki Lake again, and she is not the only fat girl in the world!)

There are exceptions, but let's face it, for the most part, average women are relegated to the cashiers and nurses and the occasional sidekick. It's not a cake walk for average men, but its not even close to what women face.

Maybe the Invention of Lying people were making an even larger statement that the odds are so stacked against the less "attractive" females, that in a world with no pleasantries or falsities, the less appealing of the gender would have died off generations ago. Somehow, I doubt it. I am sure upon a second viewing I would find some less-than-gorgeous-by-Hollywood-standards women in the background, filling up the bit parts. But my point is the same.

And consider this: for the overweight and/or far less than perfect women of the world, (and the truth is, most of us have been one at some point in our lives) we don't have to imagine an openly hostile world where people's disgust is, if not verbally expressed, than apparent on their face; we live there.

Julie and Julia- Enraging for reasons I can't quite exlplain

I think it is safe to say that I am a pretty terrible blogger. Not that my writing is bad, but I have no staying power...I am so not used this format of writing. So bear with me anyone out there actually reading. In the meantime, may I reccomend A Mouse Bouche? Here are two ladies who are good bloggers; consistent, funny, and delish...at least what they are writing about is delish. So check them out when I am being terribly delinquent, which I promise will never happen again! (Its soooo happening again...)

Meanwhile, I have some terrible excuses for why I have been absent for so long, and I will not waste your time on them. However, I have just gone to see Julie & Julia, a movie about another terrific food blogger, and it inspired me to post again. But not for the reasons you might expect.

So if you haven't see the movie, you might want to stop reading, because I am about the divulge the only conflict there is. OK, everyone with me either already seen it, or don't care? Good.

Here's the deal; Julie Powell is like, so totally bummed about life and her career and stuff, so she takes it upon herself to start a blog and cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She has set herself up with quite the challenge, wanting to complete 524 recipes in 365 days. Its a cute concept and I am sure the blog and subsequent book were adorable, blah, blah, blah, but it is a movie and so they had to insert some conflict. Enter the somewhat schmucky husband. The movie begins with a much resisted move (on her part) to a dump in Queens, which he sort of reminds her they decided to do for the space, and she sort of reminds him in return that it was mostly so he could be closer to work. So, right off the bat, not loving him. Then, he encourages her to start this blog, and sort of rolls with the punches as she gets more and more absorbed in the task at hand. Then I guess, hubby-wubby is feeling a bit neglected and (BIG F-ING SURPISE) feels that he isn't getting laid enough (read: Hollywood short hand for neglected in his relationship.) So when Julie is finally feeling like she is accomplishing something with her life for the first time in years, I guess he just can't handle her new found self-absorption, and chooses the night of her biggest dissapointment to berate her for how she is all about herself, and only cares about her blog, and he's like really, really mad, dammit! (Did I mention he's not getting any at this point?) He storms out like a junior high cheerleader, and Julie embarks on a shame spiral of how terrible she is, and how she is so mean to her husband. There was even a scene when her and a friend discuss how she is really a bitch, that was so unfounded in anything we had previously seen, I was floored.

Anyway, he comes back and without so much as a "told you so" generously forgives her and sees her through the end of her project, although she is presumably, much easier to live with post-big fight.

Am I taking this Hollywood schlock a little too personally? Maybe. But what was interesting was the conversation I had with the man I went to see it with after it was over. (Not my fiance, by the way, but close...his brother.) The difference was, while I felt, yes her character was self-absorbed and maybe a bit of a drama queen, this was a timed project with an end in sight, and he could have sucked it up for a bit longer, or at least not chosen to dress her down on the night of her huge dissapointment. He felt that the husband had been a good sport up until that point, and that she had pushed it too far, and that this guy was a good guy and has the right to be angry because she was being so self-involved.

Which leads me to my final point, which is based on a gross generalization I am happy to make. Women get a bad rap for being self absorbed a lot of the time. Especially in the case of these characters, who I think are a good representation of many couples out there. She finally finds something she enjoys, that she might have a future in, she finally focuses on something outside of him and their relationship for for like five minutes, and he throws a hissy fit because she's being self-absorbed. Is it possible that some men don't realize that they themselves are self-absorbed, that they themselves think in terms of "I" before "we" because their mothers, and girlfriends and wives and society have made their life the priority? Because we buy lipstick and talk on the phone a lot we are self absorbed, but the entire culture is formed around football season, and they aren't? I don't know, I have just dealt with enough guys in my life who don't even realize that earning a living and taking out the garbage doesn't automatically make them a team player. Future husband not included in that group, of course.

Am I crazy? Over sensitive? Not articulating this fully? Totally full of shit?

Would love to hear the thoughts of the feminists and pro-feminists among you.

(PS. I have no idea if the same conflict appeared in the blog or the book, but either way, its weak in the movie.)

Happily Ever After

Emerging from Fringe world to write this post...apologies to anyone who is looking at the blog and asking, "WTF?"

So I had this very weird experience at the gym yesterday. I was on the elliptical, listening to my iPod and watching the little TV with closed captioning (this is my way, and I am very particular about it!) Since American Justice, Fashion Files, Seinfeld or any other of my standards were not on I was flipping and came across the last ten minutes of 'Dirty Dancing'.

Did you just gasp? So did I. (If you are a woman born between 1970 and 1980, you probably did.) I haven't seen it a long time, and I was thrilled to see Johnny declare to Jerry Orbach 'Nobody puts Baby in a corner,' and sweep an adorable, pre-plastic surgery Jennifer Grey onto the dance floor. And making the lift? Forget it, I was welling up right in the middle of the downtown Y.

And here's the thing I realized, watching the end of this movie again, they sort of end up together. Like, there they are dancing, in the middle of the floor, making out a bit, gazing into each others eyes, and...credits roll. So its a happy ending...a Hollywood Happily Ever After if you will.

Did you know that was how the movie ended? Because I sure didn't. I must have seen it twenty times before the 80's were over, and yet, I always "understood" that in the end, although Johnny is absolved as not the "one who got Penny in trouble" and Baby is redeemed to her father after "looking wonderful up there", in the end they part good friends. I just knew that after the credits, Baby goes off to college, realizes all that the world really has to offer a young woman with her brains and means, and she goes on to meet someone in law school, or medical school, or some other nice Jewish profession. Johnny, with a new sense of self, goes back to school, or maybe enrolls in learning a trade, and makes a respectable living for himself. He probably met a nice lady, more in his economic class, closer to his age, but never forgot what Baby did for him.

And there I am, sweating my patootie off on the elliptical at the gym going, "Hold up, wait minute," realizing for the first time that that is not how the movie ends at all. At the end of the movie, we are led to believe they may in fact live happily ever after.

How did I get so confused? I was only 9 when the movie came out, it's unlikely I came up with the whole "Baby-goes-off-to-college" alternative ending myself. It all clicked suddenly. My mother must have put the idea in my head. There I was romanticizing the idea of Johnny in his leather jacket and dancing pants, and she stepped in and put an end to that right away. And sent Baby off to college, no less. A nice touch.

Sure. She was no fool. She didn't want me growing up and looking at the Johnnys of the world in spite of the Neils. She didn't want me to fetishize the shcutzim (non-Jewish men) and end up with some poor, artistic good looking guy just out of LOVE.

OK, so that last part may have backfired on her. And no, its not that my mom didn't want me to find love, it's just that she didn't see love and financial stability and mutually exclusive. And she wasn't wrong. In fact, she was pretty smart, because she had me fooled until this past weekend that the end of Dirty Dancing is a bitter sweet goodbye where everything works out for the best.

And her little white lie had a secondary outcome, one she could not have foreseen, but that may have been the most valuable part of all. Imagining that Baby and Johnny didn't end up together, that she went on to college and that he was just the first of a lifetime of experiences and lovers, sort of gave me the freedom to imagine that getting the guy, and ending up hitched isn't the sum of a lifetime. And that relationships are worth having even if they are not forever; there is always something to be learned, to be cherished. In the end, it was really quite a feminist ideal. Happily ever after doesn't always depend on finding the right man, it depends on you, and making you own Hollywood ending.

So thanks Mom. But I wonder what else she was lying about?

A Feminist Wedding has gone global

Check it out!

Recently I had a long chat with a Houston Chronicle reporter about feminist weddings. Lo and behold she decided to being the article with the very loaded statement:

"Alix Sobler is getting married."

No joke. That is how it begins. The very first sentence.

Holy shit!

The article goes on to talk to many interesting women, self-designated feminists, (and non) about their experience getting married and planning a feminist wedding. I thought the article was great, but because of space requirements and other interest interviews there were many points I had made to the reporter that were not included. I think I will make some of them now.

*One of the most "feminist" things about my wedding, is that in a way, it came after my marriage. Jason and I have been together 7 (!) years. We arrived at the decision to have a wedding after we lived together, after our finances were combined, after we had all the big talks regarding family and religion, after we had shared equity, after we adopted two children of the feline persuasion...neither of us felt pressured by the other one to hurry up and commit. We truly had a marriage before a wedding, and that made the decision an easy one.

*In some ways our wedding will seem very traditional on the surface. White dress, walks down the aisle, etc. There are many hard core feminist couples who got married in hiking boots on the top of the mountain that scoff at the very notion of me calling my very Jewy, somewhat traditional wedding feminist at all. But here's the thing: In an effort NOT to make this day all about my (read: the bride's) experience, to include family and friends and relatives to whom this is an important event, (not to mention the groom,) I have had to make some concessions as well. (I was forbidden, FORBIDDEN to have an outside wedding, even with a tent by some senior members of my family. Could I have gone ahead and done it? Probably, but because this is not THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF MY LIFE as a woman, I realized that we should take other people's feelings into consideration. Within reason.)

* The bottom line in this. A lot of hard core feminists believe that marriage is an outdated, patriarchal institution that has no place for feminists. If that is true, then why not just say, "F it, I am already engaging in an anti-feminist ideal, why not go all the way with the veil and the doves and the whole shebang?" And I have struggled with this. But I think there needs to be room to reassign the meaning of marriage. In my experience my marriage has already been one of equality and mutual respect. We share everything from money and housekeeping to our frustrations and hopes. There is nothing "inherently patriarchal" about my marriage, and maybe that is a new option within in the last 100 years, but its true. So if we can reassign the meaning of marriage, maybe its not such a stretch to reassign the meaning behind weddings. And here is my first reassignment:

THE WHITE DRESS: For generations it has symbolized the virginity and therefore value of the bride. I love a white dress, but it was not enough for me to say, "Well, it makes me stand out." So here is my new meaning, at least partially. On the day of my wedding, my partner and I start a new. The white of my dress will signify a clean slate, a blank page, a new chance for us to write our story. Its not that all that has come before is forgotten, but lets say we are getting our chance for another fresh start, the next chapter, this time as an officially married couple.

Who's with me?

Check out the full article in The Houston Chronicle.

A Very Long Engagement

Its true, in some ways, Jason and I getting married is redundant. We share a home, custody of two cats, a bank account...our blood and money is mixed, so to speak, and as far as the government is concerned we've been married for ages. After seven years, and at my age (early 30's) I have to admit there is a part of me that feels ridiculous shopping around for white dresses, and posing for engagement shots. The whole thing feels a bit not me, and if me, then perhaps a decade over due.

And then there is the fact that from the time we got engaged (or more accurately, decided to just do it already,) to the time we actually have our wedding, a year and a half will have passed, adding even more time to our already established life together. I keep thinking, "Is it silly to be bothering with all of this now? Shouldn't have we done this when we were 23, and still infatuated with each other and just dying to be together every second? Isn't a wedding something that is supposed to make you count down the seconds? I see young brides who can't wait six months to get married. I was like,'If we can't get that wedding band I want, I am willing to wait another six years.'" Considering all my issues with how this whole thing reflects on me as a feminist anyway, why are we doing it at all?

Not to make it look like I am just doing things because my man tells me to, I did get some good sound reasoning from Jason as to why it makes sense for us. (He's my best friend, of course I am going to look to him for advice). The truth is, a wedding like this one, a chance to get together all of our friends and family and declare our love for each other is a nice kick in the pants after seven years. We are examining our love for each other, we are looking at our future together, and reaffirming, "yeah, this thing is forever. At least that is the plan."

Ditto on the engagement. For the next year, we have the luxury of little positive shocks to the nervous system of our relationship. We are planning this big milestone together. Whenever we find ourselves falling into the same old routine there is some decision to be made or thing to plan related to our wedding that brings us together. And instead of rushing through it, we're milking it for all its worth.

In a way we are doing it backwards. I don't think of us as 'getting married' because in my mind we are already married. We are having a wedding, and whether its to make it official to everyone else, or to celebrate that milestone to remind ourselves, I think it is only fitting to stop and question the whole thing every once in a while. Especially for a feminist.