Come in! Welcome to my booger den!

On Wednesday, Fryeolator invited people to her house for a pork roast dinner. Once I confirmed we were eating of the pig and not the cow, I bought a few eclairs and headed over. I was the only one of the ladies who knit to take advantage of this offer and I thought that was strange because Fryeolator is such a good cook; then I remembered that it was 7 degrees outside and that the Fryemama lives in Greenpoint. I love the Fryeolator's cozy apartment and I even like Greenpoint, but it's so goddamn far away from everything, and no, I don't consider Williamsburg anything to speak of.

The Archduke came over and we had a nice dinner. I politely ignored the vegetables on hand and no one made me eat anything green. We learned from Time Out New York why we're still single (i.e. we're short, fat, overweight, ugly, talk too much, afraid of commitment, etc.). Don't sugar coat it, TONY, we can take it, you big bitches. I helped teach the Archduke to knit by employing a bunch of filthy sexual innuendo as pedagogic devices. Fryeolator and I knit for a while and nattered on and on until the Archduke threw down his needles and his two rows and said, "I can't believe you can talk while you do this. I'm so stressed out. My shoulders and neck are all tight." It reminded me how difficult it was to learn how to knit and of the time before I could churn out rows of stockinette stitch like Rumpelstilskin.

Getting back home to to Prospect Heights was a frosty adventure. Sure, I'm aware that there are cities that get significantly colder than New York, like Fargo or Buffalo. But these aren't cities where you do so much walking. You just get into your car which has been plugged into some kind of generator in the garage to keep the engine from turning into a block of ice. Or something like that. I think I saw a documentary once on how they do it in Sweden. Meanwhile, back in the Big Apple I walked in single digit temperature to the G Train platform to wait for the train which took it's sweet time to arrive. It was so cold, one of the three men waiting on the platform with me would periodically kick the wall and yell, "Fuck! Where is the train! Fuck! Fuck!" I cannot imagine how much it hurt to kick a frozen boot into a frozen wall, but some things are just a man's prerogative.

I finally got off the G Train in Clinton Hill to wait for a bus. Yes, it was 11:30pm and I was waiting for a bus on a freezing cold night because there is just no good way to get home from Greenpoint. I did a lot of foot stamping to keep moving. It was a very pretty part of Brooklyn and it was very still; also it was the kind of cold that when you breathe in, it feels like your lungs are being stabbed from the inside. It was peaceful, in a way. Amazingly, I only had to wait about eight minutes from the bus and when I got on there was just one hipster who probably also had been to visit friends in North Brooklyn.

The next day, Thursday the day of dear Hooly's glorious birth and birthday party, I began to feel and sinister tickle in my throat after lunch. I went home after work, laid low, took fluids, but I couldn't cut it off at the pass. Friday morning I woke up to find that I had overslept through my alarm and that my throat was on fire. For rather complicated reasons, I knew I could not call out of work, so I took the orange pills that are the global universal sign for non-drowsy cold medicine and bundled up and headed in late to work- minus a shower but plus one funky head scarf.

I don't know why, but cold medicine has a serious effect on me. Maybe it reacts with another one of my medications in a funny was but it sends me to planet see-ya-later. Sure, it's great for the symptoms of my cold but it also turns me into a blathering idiot. I lose time, stare off into space and am basically useless. Also, I get really sleeping even when I'm taking the non-drowsy pills. When I got to work, late, I saw that Robbie the Rubberband Ball Boy had been defaced again. He had a scary face with no pupils in his eyes. Also, he had a magic wand, I think made out of some kind of Lego toy. But scariest of all, it looked like his original face had been shredded, and I was finding pieces of it in my desk.

Two colleagues came around offering food that was left over from a breakfast meeting. One of them is usually quite nice to me. "What's going on with the head scarf," he asked.

"I'm sick and I didn't have time to shower because I was late and they attacked Robbie again, look! look! They've given him a magic wand! I can't take it anymore! It's the not knowing that's the hardest part." At that point, the junior colleague, too scared to break eye contact just started backing away and the senior colleague said, "Right, then, we'll just leave you here, to, uh, get on with it, then." And I realized, every single thing I've ever done at this job is a disaster but I can't help it. It's like some kind of career suicide Tourette's syndrome. But it wasn't worth worrying about the day I was stoned out of my mind on cold medicine. I did a lot of staring at my computer monitor that day. At one point I went to the ladies' room and fell asleep on the toilet. I woke up when someone opened the door and it made a loud noise. I came to with my pants around my ankles and no idea how long I'd been out for. I realized the music I'd been hearing in my dream was the sound of a toilet flushing. I ask you, is this any way for an adult to live?

Somehow I made it to five o'clock and was the first one out the door aside from the guy who has to leave early to get home before sundown. I made it home to have a very sweet reunion with my bed and will probably spend the rest of the month picking up wadded up Kleenex off the floor. Plus, I've probably managed to infect everyone in the office with the rot in just my 8 hour germy joy ride, so I'll probably be real popular in the office tomorrow.

Whip it out ... Your Check Book, that is.

Hey cupcakes, just wanted to let you know that SuperSkater is walk, walk, walking to kick cancer where the sun don't shine. She and her mom will be participating in a half-marathon to raise money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The Skater's brother had a nasty run-in with the big C this year and we've all had people we love fall vicitm to the ravages to cancer (if you haven't, I have one word for you: wow.), so here is a chance to help raise money for one of the world's premiere treatment and research centers. To make a donation, click on this link.

Bridle Party

Another reason why my Maid of Honor experience has been a cakewalk so far is because SmartyPants is totally undemanding as far as what I have to wear and how I need to serve her. Whenever I ask her if she has any strong feelings about how I wear my hair, or what color shoes I wear, she always says, "Whatever you feel comfortable with, whatever looks good." Basically, if this wedding were the Vietnam War, I would be George Bush in the National Guard. "What about jewelry?" I asked.

"Well, I'm going to wear pearls," said the bride. "But you can wear whatever you like. Whatever looks good."

"Okay, so I was thinking some big hoochie mama hoop earrings."

"Actually, I was hoping you'd go for some hot pink feathers." She shouldn't joke; I live in Brooklyn. I can think of about three places to purchase hot pink feather earrings just off the top of my head and I wouldn't even need to take a subway.

The problem is, SmartyPants just is not cut out to be a bridezilla. Both she and the groom are very laid back about the wedding, not in the sense that they want to walk barefoot on the beach and exchange Ring Pops as wedding bands, they're not hippies for God's sake, but they not-so secretly confessed to me that the thing they are most looking forward to about their Big Day is when the whole damn thing is over and they can drive home together and stop for Boston Market on the Mass Pike. These are the kind of people we're dealing with here. The thing is, when you sign on to be a Maid of Honor, you're expecting a bit of masochism coming your way. In my case, it's like being dragged to a fetish club; perhaps you weren't looking forward to the spanking, but you can't help but feel a bit disappointed when your dominatrix has her iPod on and keeps checking her watch.

On Saturday afternoon, Smarty and I sat down at the Haymarket in Northampton, one of our old college hangouts, that everyone we know used to cleverly call the "Gaymarket."

"So, do you want to have a bachelorette party after the rehearsal dinner?" I asked my friend.

"Um, actually, I think I'd prefer to go home and go to bed."

"Okay, no problem," I said. "That saves me from having to bake a cake in the shape of a penis.
Well, what about a shower? I still want to do something for you." We had talked about doing something non-traditional with just a few of Smarty's girlfriends like a day at the beach or a tea party or a Broadway show or, um, another trip to the circus.

"I think I'd like to do something after the wedding. You know, to remind myself I still have a life and to have an excuse to get together after the wedding."

"Okay, well that's a good idea. And it certainly takes the time pressure off." Hmm, that about wraps up my wedding contributions. What do you say we go home, split a Valium and watch Mary Poppins?

I'm kidding. I know that I am very fortunate and I couldn't be happier but still I'm slightly concerned of the precedent we're setting here. I asked Smarty if she was going to carry a purse. "For what?" she asked.

"You know, stuff!" I said. I can't go anywhere without stuff.

"Well, I don't think so. I haven't really thought about it."

"I'll probably carry a small clutch," I said. "If you want, you can give me your stuff and I'll carry it around."

"I don't know," said Smarty. "That sounds kind of ... demeaning."

There was a pause as we looked at each other until I exploded, "That's the point! You are supposed to demean me! It is your day!" Because really, what does it mean to ask someone to be your Maid of Honor? You are saying, "You are a dear friend and I love you and I want you to share in this very special milestone with me but also na-na-boo-boo-in-your-face! because I have found the love of my life and you are still trolling for dudes on Friendster, even though you won't admit it. And also, this is for every time you ever upstaged me, every time the guy hit on you and not me, every award you won, joke you told at my expense, I was happy for you in those moments, but also, it hurt a little bit. So as your punishment you must stand next to me on my very special day with a smile plastered across your face. You must fluff my train and bustle me (whatever that means) and dance with my uncle and toast my eternal happiness and if you even think of getting plastered you will go down in history as the person who. ruined. my. wedding. and you will totally screw up your chances for making Godmother of my first born." Unfortunately, Smarty stopped buying those bridal magazines a long time ago and never got this memo.

Smartypants has spoiled me. No doubt the next wedding I'm in I will find myself squeezed into a strapless chartreuse number with contrast sash and matching three inch heels and the bride will have assigned me the very special task of babysitting her 103-year old great-grandmother. "Now we want Gee-Gaw to enjoy the chicken picata just like everyone else, but that will mean she'll probably need an enema around the time of the cake cutting ceremony. You don't mind, do you?" At which point my only option will be to choke down the words, "When Smarty got married..." and go to my happy place. But maybe this is all a big insurance policy on the part of Smartypants. Afterall, if I ever get married and ask Smarty to be my Maid of Honor it will make it very difficult to impose my reign of terror on her. "Would you mind bending over on all fours? We need to fit you for a saddle. We decided that in order to save money on a town car, you could give me a horsey ride to the church. What's that? Can we talk about this later? You need to open wide now for the bridle."