I Was A Teenaged Peep: A Lifetime Movie Special

I didn't want to make a big deal out of this because I live in fear of being a "bride", the high maintenance, impossible-to-please beast that I blame on the wedding industry. Yes, Bridezilla. Perhaps you've heard of her? I don't know when this term took over but I wonder if it was shortly after the TLC channel aired Say Yes To The Dress and WE tv began broadcasting Bridezillas.

If you've never seen Bridezillas, don't start now. It provides a terrible ratio of amusing to depressing that I doubt your life is missing. See Monday's show description:

Karen continues her reign of terror! When Karen can’t find anyone willing to do her hair, she is forced to revisit her original stylist for round two—and it isn’t pretty! Later, Karen has a hissy fit when asked to accommodate a wheelchair bound relative in her seating chart, and has a history-making meltdown during a dress fitting. Meanwhile, Natasha insists on driving two hours into the desert to find sand for her unity candle...

Okay, maybe that part about sand for the unity candle is kind of funny.

But here's the deal: I got my wedding dress in the mail and it looked like an Easter egg.

After sending Matthew a photo, I called Jocardo and he and I decided that it also looked like:

1. A baby nursery
2. A gay dinosaur laid an egg
3. A Peep

Or more accurately, I would look like a giant Peep when I put it on. The dress was baby blue and yellow. It was very, very pastel. It was, we all agreed, a lovely dress. For another girl.

I don't know how the miscommunication happened with the dressmaker but it did and I just DON'T get along with pastels.

Before I decided what to do, I considered making art out of the situation. I would, with a photographer (Jocardo), go to as many Easter services as possible and we'd document me and my dress at all the socials, eating sweets, chit-chatting and being Eastery. I would try to get an invite or two to a garden party, if they actually exist. We would photoshop Peeps into the shots and make an album called Me and my Peeps. These all seemed like great ideas and I was howling with laughter.

Then I hung up the phone, plowed my way through an entire bag of cookies, and watched the E! True Hollywood Story on Jennifer Aniston. I was officially bummed.

One thing Jocardo said to me on the phone when I was trying to wave off my reaction was, "Darlin' you're allowed to be disappointed. You can have an emotion about this."

But won't I seem like Bridezilla?

Matthew put an end to it, right about when I told him that I was going to do a funny art project with the Peep dress and would just find something else to wear to the wedding. He said that if I didn't write the dressmaker, he would, so we sent her an email asking if she could re-dye it.

She wrote back right away. No problem, she said. She could get rid of the yellow but the rest of the dress would be a darker blue. It can be black for all I care, I told her. Just get me out of these disgusting infantilizing shades of puke and puker.

Which also makes me wonder: Why is it so hard for me to tell people when I hate what they've done to my appearance? I've been given some of the most rotten haircuts over the years and even when I've walked out of the salon looking like one of the Three Stooges, I've thanked the stylist nicely and given them a big tip because I believe in tipping.

A few weeks ago I jokingly got fake nails in New York. Because I've never done gel tips before and didn't know what I was getting into (I have since ripped them off my fingers in a semi-drunken state to reveal cracked and bleeding stubs underneath, pretty! And so worth it!) I didn't know when the nail lady glued the three inch extensions to my finger that she would cut them to a less talon-like length.

I sat there with a heavy heart while she bantered in Mandarin to her colleagues and I accepted my fate as a disabled person who could no longer use her hands. I whispered to Laura, "I didn't think they'd be so long."

She laughed at me, "They cut 'em down, goofy!"

I felt such relief followed by shock that I was going to let someone fuck up my hands. Out of what? Politeness? The feeling that I had agreed to do something and couldn't back out now even though I totally actually could?

As for the dress, the reason I chose that dressmaker was because her dresses come in all colors and aren't so wedding-like that I can't wear it again and again. But not if I look like a piece of Easter candy, something I was willing to accept for many hours. What the hell?