I Should Just Be in Charge of Everything.

I am a person who just paid $22.50 in late fines at the Brooklyn Public Library. What wha? Um, is that tax deductable by any chance? While I was there, I went looking for a book called Name All the Animals by Brooklyn author Alison Smith, a Memoir. This book is Smith's story about how her family coped with the death of her 18-year old brother. I took down the call number and went in search of the book. Where does one shelve a memoir, now that we're thinking about it? Not in Fiction and Literature. I went upstairs to History/Religion/Biography. Nope, not there either. Not even among the biographies. I went to the social scienes section to find the book- I looked around at the books that surrounded it on the shelf. It was in the Death and Dying/ Bereavement section. So I guess you classify a Memoir by its principal subject matter or theme. I don't know about this.

I went looking for a good handbook for a Maid of Honor. There were no books for "Maid of Honor"; in the entire Brooklyn Public Library system there were two with the subject "Bridesmaid". One of them was located only in Jamacia. I made my way to the location of the only one in the Central Branch. It was located among 100 copies of wedding guides for Brides; I picked up the slim hardcovered book called "the bridesmaid handbook". I am skeptical and will probably end up purchasing something more comprehensive online. Also, I balked at taking home anything with "Bridesmaid" in the title. I'm not just any bridesmaid, you know. I'm the goddamn Maid of Honor! Perhaps I've stumbled upon a vaccum in the publishing world.

Last night I was flipping though a copy of Modern Bride, which I actually bought for my writing class, but figured, what the hell? I'm the Maid of Honor. I'm entitled. The magazine cost $5.99 and weighs more than certain babies I have cared for. As I flipped through it (and flipped and flipped) I became pissed off by the bridal gown ads. All of the "brides" look like ambivalent supermodels- ultra thin, orangey-tanned, pouty and often sporting dark eye make-up. There is nothing romantic or engaging about the ads. When we look through fashion magazines, it doesn't really matter that the models are totally unrealistic. After all, so are the fashions. How many of us are actually scouring the magazines to scout ensembles to pick up the next time we're in Paris, or Milan or the Versace/Baglencia/ YSL boutique? Usually looking at these fashions is just mindless entertainment. But we're talking about wedding gowns here, this is something you're actually going to purchase and wear. So what's with hanging these creations on 18-year old, size-2 girls with hair teased a vertical 18 inches?

Oh yeah, here's a fun fact: Modern Bride February/March 2006 - 674 pages, 1 ad/image of a plus sized bride. Does anyone else find that just plain stupid?