Say Yes To The Dress

I can not stop watching "Say Yes to the Dress" on Netflix. It's ridiculous and makes me so grateful that I never had to go through the horror of dress shopping for my own wedding. The whole thing is unreal. These woman bring an entourage to sit for hours so they can parade out in sometimes hundreds of different dresses. While I'll admit that there have been a few dresses I've liked the majority are outlandishly ridiculous. They almost always go over budget, sometimes agreeing to pay over $10,000 dollars on a dress that they originally capped at $2,500. Half of them have family members telling their skinny selves that their butt is too big for the dress that they came out crying in because they loved it so much. It's awful! Yet I can't stop watching. Seriously, I've been marathon watching it for weeks now and I am not going to stop until I've seen every episode.

I was really lucky. I found my dress on a website called e-crater. It was a perfect vintage 1960's all lace dress and I knew from the moment I saw it that it was exactly what I wanted. The dress had no size on it, it was just a picture but I didn't care something was pushing me to buy it. I consulted my sister, Lorenna, and my mom and then took the plunge and ordered it. It was $79.00 including shipping. I had it delivered to my Mom's house and it arrived on the same day I was going to Long Island to visit her. I tried it on and it was perfect. This dress that I knew no details about needed no alterations and was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.

The only time I stepped foot into a bridal store was when I went with my mom to buy my slip. We went to the ultimate of Long Island bridal shops "David's Bridal" and It was amazing. By amazing I mean absolutely absurd. Kind of like this show. My slip ended up costing more than my dress and in the parking lot on the way back to the car my mom turned to me, grabbed my arm and goes "Thank you for never putting me through that." No prob ma, I could have never gone through it myself!

Sicktown

My body has gone into hibernation mode this week. Or rather my body has begun shutting down forcing me to go into hibernation mode. I have decided to embrace it. I'm a lucky gal because I have a buddy to embrace it with me. Yay different work schedules working out for us for once! I'm going to use this time to chillax, enjoy our apartment, hang with ben and the cats, watch a bunch of awesomeness on Netflix, sleep, journal, and let my body do what it's gotta do.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to go see Bill Mahony at Abhaya. I really really hope I am up to it because I have been waiting for this moment since the last time he came and spoke. If my head allowed me to think right now I'd totally go into depth about how amazing and life changing this mans lectures are. But I totally can't. So instead I'm going to use my brain power to pick out a ridiculous movie to watch, while wishing with all of my being that they had this gem in the netflix library.

Winter Blues 2011 edition

Earlier today I wrote to a friend saying that this winter has been really rough to which she responded, "I AM SO DEPRESSED!" I'm not gonna lie, a huge part of me felt relived to hear that it wasn't just me or my household that felt this. Winter in this city is always hard but this one has been particularly cruel. The never ending barrage of snow and sleet and dirty city puddles. It's just too much.

I've made my best effort to fight off the inevitable seasonal slump. Before winter started I said to Ben that this year is going to be different. This year we are not going to allow ourselves get taken down by winter. We planned a weekend getaway upstate, and then a creative retreat with our best friend the weekend after, both in the Catskills. We fell in love with the Hudson Valley/Catskills area, and the ability to actually enjoy the season. Something I really never thought was possible. We relaxed and recharged, made goals and lists and promises for 2011 and declared that it was going to be the best year ever (which I still strongly believe). But somehow the depression creeped it's way in and has taken over much more than I'd like to admit.

There is always this weird energy shift that happens when it starts to get colder, and then of course the holidays shut down life for a minute. But usually after New Year's there is at least some sense of getting back to normalcy, but not this year. Nope, this year that weighted energy has stuck around and is filling all of the air in my life right now. It's really strange because by all accounts I am in a much stabler place than I probably have ever been, yet I can't help but feel that all too familiar feeling of my world crashing down around me. I have a really long history of depression and anxiety. It's something that I have pretty much dealt with but will always need to be aware of and will always have struggles with. Right now though I'm still standing and trudging through it. I'm not worried, and I know that it will lift soon, and I am managing to deal the best way I can. But emotionally, physically, and hormonally everything feels out of whack.

Gentleman, if you don't want to read about lady stuff you should probably stop reading. Ladies, if period talk makes you uncomfortable you should probably go into therapy. I'm eleven days late. I'm not pregnant or so the three tests I've taken (one being at the gynecologist) say. I have been PMSing (my poor Ben) more or less for the entire month of January. I'm in crazytown and the tears are flowing. I spent four hours yesterday watching "Say Yes to the dress" on Netflix and pretty much cried the entire time. I mean, really? Have you seen most of those dresses? Awful. But me I'm snotting all over the place because after trying on literally over 100 dresses this girl finally found "the one." Today I spent the entire day at work trying not to cry or pass out or both simultaneously. I've probably gained ten pounds because of all the crap I've been eating and I've only made it to Yoga 3 times a week at most. Have I said I'm a mess yet? I'm a mess. So to add to the winter blues, I'm dealing with this shit and I am exhausted.

Yesterday I called my Mom who I should mention is amongst many things a Nurse Practitioner of Gynecology (hence my blatant openness about the lady times) and she gave me advice that I already know but often forget. Yes, there isn't much I can do about the hormonal aspect of everything but as far as the rest goes if I want things to change I need to change my mindset. All of the things that are negative in my life are magnified because of the way I am viewing them. If I can just focus on the positive parts which currently are much more abundant and important than the negative will begin to dissipate. This is a really fucking hard thing to do, and I'm really trying. But I just need to try harder, force myself to journal every day, get to more yoga classes, blog more, write more, finally sit down with my book and start re-working it, and most importantly gain my control back over food.

Yes, it's winter and this weather is currently and continually going to suck. But it's just weather, life goes on, and allowing myself to get stuck because of it is no longer an option. As far as my period goes, well that just needs to fucking come like now.

NETFLIX IS THE BEST

"This American Life" is the greatest show ever! Thank god Ben just found out it's streaming on netflix. We just watched an episode about a couple in Texas who had a pet bull named Chance. When he died they skinned him and convinced scientists to CLONE him. Take a guess what they named the cloned bull....SECOND CHANCE!! AMAZING PEOPLE AMAZING!!! Unfortunately it turns out that Second Chance wasn't as good of a pet as regs Chance was because he ended up attacking the owner twice. First time putting him in a sling and second time ripping his left scrotum..Yikes. But don't you worry, not even a ripped scrotum could keep this man from loving his Second Chance, who he still believes is 95% Chance. Yup!

AWESOME!

And yes, that is an actual picture of Second Chance.

Too cool fo school

Photo by Lorenna Gomez-Sanchez taken at Mccarren Park Pool in 2007

For a really short period of time In my early twenties (now that I'm in my mid-twenties I can say that) I was cool. Kind of. I knew all the cool bands and went to all the cool shows. I partied til 4am, danced til my feet went numb, and pretended to know all the cool people. Trying to be cool got exhausting really quickly and just seemed completely out of character for me. I never liked drinking, I always hated bars, and I get really intimidated by large groups of people. There was always something uncomfortable for me about the whole scene and it was blaringly obvious that I just didn't fit in to it.

Don't get me wrong, I am a social person. I haven't lost my lust for the feeling of night life, and am always down for an adventure. But can we maybe go out to dinner and talk until the restaurant closes? Or can we chill at your place or my place, maybe get into some arts and crafts together, or have an impromptu dance party? Or how about an overnight road trip where we drink so much coffee we have to stop at 5 rest stops and buy a post card and magnet at each one? Or hey I hear there are these really awesome things called daytime activities that I could really get into if you'd like to join me? Maybe you'd like to come to a yoga class, and then after talk about how amazing we feel over a meal? 

Sometimes I miss that period of my life and the excitement that went along with it. Sometimes I envy my friends who still have that boundless energy, and wonder how I lost it so early. But mostly I am really happy that I don't have to pretend to want to be out, and drunk, and around people I can't seem to relate to. Thankfully, at the same time I started to get out of my cool phase I met my husband who was in the exact same place feeling the exact same way. We met on a party bus.

In the end I'm totally cool with being "un-cool" and if you wanna go get a cup of coffee and sit and talk about ridiculous things that hopefully end with us laughing so hard we think we may have peed ourselves, you let me know. Until then, sorry I replied attending to your party in Williamsburg and didn't show up, I really thought this time I would make it out.