Weekend wrap-up

I'm finally back in San Francisco, after a busy and sleep-deprived weekend in L.A. Mae showed up on Friday so we went out in Hollywood to a club/bar that was desribed to us as the B- crowd: up and coming models/actors, if by up and coming, you mean "holds an Actor's Guild card but has never had a speaking role."

Saturday was more interesting...wedding dress shopping. Mae and Stella dragged me there practically kicking and screaming. I haven't pouted like that since I was seven. We went to Huge Bridal Chain (the one I promised myself I'd never go to--see? slippery slope) "just to get an idea of styles" and had to paw through tons and tons of hideous bejeweled, encrusted, embroidered tille confections before finding two I liked (and when I say "tons" I'm exaggerating only slightly...some of the dresses I tried on must've weighed about 15 pounds!). More interesting to me than the dresses were the saleswomen. The one assigned to help me get in and out of the dresses (and you really do need the assistance) was just going through the motions. Even though I said "no strapless dresses" about 15 times, she brought me one "just to see." On the other hand, a salewoman who was just drifting around helping people here and there hung out with us for a while and pretty quickly understood what I was going for. She nodded knowingly and pretty much said, "Anti-bride? Ah, yes. So let me guess: no tiara and no veil, right?" Smart lady. Not two minutes later, my assigned saleswoman sailed over and plunked a tiara on my head and stuck a veil in my hair. According to Stella, I had murder in my eyes. And Mae put it even better: "It just looked WRONG." I just liked how saleswoman #2 got it--even though she didn't necessarily agree with me, she understood that it's not about her vision of a wedding and a bride, it's about mine. And she tried to help me accomplish that. I wish more salespeople were like her.

It's all coming together. I think we may actually pull this off!