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The Businesswomen's Guide to Wedding Planning, Rule #1: DELEGATE

This post will be short because I've just spent the last five hours on "wedding details." I did the same yesterday, knocking out the wedding schedule with B-friend, experiencing massive bouts of anxiety and striking out at him occasionally when he asked the same question more than once, or asked for clarification. I have no time for clarification, or personal hygeine, today. With one month left, I'm feeling the pressure.

The Wedding Chronicles: Setting Intentions

(A dispatch during one entrepreneur's voyage to the altar...)

Since the BlogHer conference my body hasn't known how to react; its worked too hard by instinct for months. My partners and I agreed to take a few days for ourselves; but instead of winding down I was shorting out.

I promised myself that I would now focus on the wedding, which is only two months away. I feel a sense of grief--not over the dying of my singlehood but of the visions of fabulousness that are no longer possible. I have friends who transformed their bodies for their weddings. I tried on a dress a few days ago, noticing a few fat pockets; unless I amputate something in the next six weeks I'm going to look not much different in October. I've resolved to not eat as much until the reception. I probably won't have much more fundage to work with either. it pretty much is what it is. 

We nailed down what we needed to in June--the venue and the caterer. I figured in August I would bother with everything else. I wasn't paying attention to the length of the list of things I jotted down in moments of project management pique: wedding cake; liquor, music. These things seemed small at the time, but now they loomed large. So many freaking details.

This process has taught me a lot about how B-friend and I work against deadlines. I suspected he didn't take well to pressure last year, when our landlord sold our house, and we had to move in five weeks. Apparently such inconveniences as finding a new place to live provided too much multi-tasking for his comfort. And since, well, I have more of a taste for shelter it seemed to make sense that I be the person to take time out of her workday to find us new places to live. When I asked B-friend for his help with planning, he seemed more confused than upset,

"Huh," he said. "I thought you liked this kind of stuff." No, not really. I'm just more prone to being victimized.

If we were officemates, and not life partners, I would be a project manager--I make schedules and think of all the details and when they need to get done to facilitate the other details. He would be the crackerjack producer--very talented, and pumped with attitude. We agreed that he would design our wedding invitations, since he's a designer and would complain about the quality of anyone else's work. He approved our caterer because she agreed to allow him creative input with our food. I'm glad he's not insisting on cooking at his own wedding.

Problem with B-friend is that he's a perfectionist with execution issues. If it can't be done perfectly, it ain't worth doing. B-friend's made it clear that he needs time to relax after work and can't work on wedding stuff; he needs his down time. I admire B-friend's ability to set boundaries. I wish I had the same ability. When I'm not admiring B-friend, however, I think of lobotomizing him.

The Relationship Chronicles: One man's schwag is one woman's treasure

The morning after BlogHerCon ...

B-friend's entirely too on-it this morning. He's stacked all of the GM bags we collected and organized the loads of schwag we accumulated at the end of BlogHer.

"I just couldn't let it all go to waste," he said.

I know, I know, if every person on the planet could pick up just one piece of trash, oh how much cleaner our planet could be; but all I could think about was the other 300 or so items we'd left at the hotel. A lifetime re-gifting supply of Crabtree & Evelyn.

B-friend laid out all of the items in degrees of desirability. He'd put the Elexa T-shirts in the "New Rag" pile.

"DOOOOoooon't!"

"You have so many of these already."

"I can't believe YOU are choosing what stays and what goes!"

"We have to be realistic, Jory. We can't keep all of this."

"Fine, but the Baby T's stay!"

"Fine."

I throw the Elexa condoms into the Keep pile.

"Why are you doing that, Jory?"

"I'm curious."

"I told you--we have too much stuff!'

"OK, I get it, we can keep the leather-bound CD cases, the corkscrews and the Yahoo! notebooks, but that's it, huh?"

"Those I can use for road trips."

"Fine. But gimme the Brandimensions highlighter."

(Exasperated sigh) "Fine ... hey, what are you doing! Why are you keeping all of that stuff over there!"

"These are gift piles. The bibs and the PBS Parents calendar go to Julie (my sister and mother of a four-month-old), I know Mom wants a tote. And they both get Crabtree & Evelyn."

"Jory! Didn't we just say we have to whittle this down?" He tossed the empty GM bags into the trash.

"DOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOooooon't!"

"No, Jory. We have to throw stuff out."

"We NEED those!

"For what?"

"Stuff ... lunches."

"I don't need them. And you work from home--you don't pack lunches. They go in recycling .... What are these, Bookmarks from Blurb? Throw these out."

"DOOOOOoooooOOOOOooooon't!"

blogher06 relationships

The Relationship Chronicles: Understanding how women shop and love

To be clear, I'm not sold on buying my wedding dress at Neiman Marcus. I told B-friend this clearly before we entered the store and that I had no idea what kind of dress I wanted to wear; I needed ideas. I wanted to see what I liked, so that I could go find cheaper knockoffs somewhere else.

Not-so-subtly, I reached for the tag in each dress that looked remotely interesting to determine its designer and how much I'd have to win at Lotto to buy it. I don't see this exercise as a waste of time; this is what I do at all stores I browse. I look at everything and hope to find an incredible deal on an imperfect, out-of-season Vera Wang.

"Forty three hundred dollars! Put it down, Jory!"

"I'm still looking at it."

"Not any longer you're not. Put it down ... In fact, let's get out of here."

"We just got here!

The Relationship Chronicles: Introducing His Side of the Story

I said it to B-friend for the umpteenth time,

"If you think I exaggerate, then YOU write a blog."

"I think I WILL!"

"Great. I look forward to reading it."

 

The Relationship Chronicles: So Long, Lone Ranger

"I promise I'll let you know before I buy anything for my bike," B-friend says to me. This is supposed to allay any concerns I might have regarding opening joint checking and credit card accounts.

We've been wanting to do this, even before we got engaged, but now it seems imperative. It feels wrong having to pull out both our wallets to pay for dinner. But it also feels strange combining our money, like we're suddenly transfusing each other. What if we're the wrong blood types? Isn't that lethal?

The Relationship Chronicles: Learning to Say 'I Do'

"It's been a week," b-friend said. "You blog about everything else, but you won't blog about this."

"Believe, me, I plan to blog about it, Babe. I haven't blogged about anything in a week, I've been so busy."

"Spare me the violins!" B-friend said.

It's true--I've been a broken record lately about working too much. But it's rare when I can't even fit in a blog. Still, you'd think I could at least fit in a one-liner about getting engaged.

The Relationship Chronicles: My &^%*ing Office Mate (Part II)

This post is a continuation of a post about me and my beloved, and the joy of sharing an office.

While I struggle with design software, B-friend struggles with writing. He's actually a brilliant presenter and letter writer, but when he writes prose his work transforms into mucky verbosity. And yet, despite what we both know will inevitably happen from word one, he still asks me to review passages from his thesis, and I still say yes.

"'Developable?' that's not a word; put something else in here."

"It's jargon--you don't know it. Just move on."

"Bullshit--you made this word up."

"THEY know what I mean."

"Who's THEY? Other people with poor grasp of the English language?"

"Hey, all I wanted was an overview here, OK. An overall review, not a line edit."

He doesn't understand. I spent the first few years of my publishing career line editing text on weekends to make ends meet. I know the NY Times Stylebook backwards and forwards. I still hesitate before using the word "since" when I could use the word "because." And he wants to pull this jargoncrap with me?

I tell him: "But if I can't get through the first sentence, how can I give you an overview?"

"Just skip that line and move on."

"Whatever, fine (Reading the next line): 'This project envisions an urban prototype for the City, introducing a vibrant new pattern to the neighborhood...' Huh? A project can't envision anything. YOUR vision of the project can be an urban prototype for the City, but the project itself can't envision anything. Gotta fix that line. And prototype seems superfluous here..."

"It's jargon!"

"It's bullshit."

"Forget I asked." 

Another point of tension: The airport transport provision in our implied Co-habitation agreement. I would swear that it reads:

"In all events when a cohabitant requires a ride to the freakin' airport at such times when second co-habitant is not a) in class or b) in an unreasonable vicinity of cohabitants' home (i.e. "out of town," "hospitalized") or unable to perform chauffeur duties (paralysis or death), he/she is required to provide timely transportation to and from the airport, without complaint or guilt trip."

I asked b-friend for a ride to the airport today, and he said, "You're on your own, Babe."

Say wha?

The Relationship Chronicles: My &^%*ing Office Mate (Part I)

It's become a ritual of sorts: I wake up in the morning and check my email. If I don't have any meetings in the City I don't bother getting dressed. I just keep going and worry about things like brushing my teeth later in the day.

I know this is a departure from the ritual I devised when I first began soloing, but, I don't know--things happen. Now I have calls to make; people need answers for things sooner rather than later. I tried conducting a few conference calls in Starbucks, but it was distracting, and getting dressed and walking over to coffee shops has become more of a time suck than a means of sanity maintenance. Leaving my house has become, well, a luxury of late.

B-friend's in a similar boat. He's almost done with school and working on his thesis (I've been reminded countless times that it's not just "a paper," and I've reminded him countless times that I don't mean any disrespect when I refer to it that way.) He's also a finalist in a national design competition, and working double duty to finish his concept with his team this week before flying out for his final presentation.

And did I mention the size of our house--more like a standalone apartment? It affords us comfort, yes, but very CLOSE comfort. Our second bedroom subs as his office, my office, and the runover room for whatever personal effects won't fit in our other bedroom. His station snakes around the south and east walls, and my station lines the north side. On the west wall is a shelf unit where we've stacked everything that won't fit on or under our desks--old files, conference schwag, magazines we think we'll read someday; and on b-friend's exclusive shelf, greasy towels, a bike crank, a tool caddy and a head scratcher.

On the floor he has clothes strategically strewn into the following piles-

1. stuff that might need washing (he'll let it sit for a day, and if it still smells he'll wash it),
2. sweaty stuff that needs to air out, and
3. stuff that needs washing but that he won't be wearing in public and can have another go round.

I mention our shared office to illustrate the atmosphere we've been stewing in lately. It's a little, shall we say, tense.

The Relationship Chronicles: Couple's Therapy Shakes

Two weeks ago I sat in on a talk given by relationship guru John Gray. Bfriend was going to go  with me, but then he decided to visit his folks (strangely avoidant, when you consider the topic of the talk: How nutrition affects relationship dynamics), so alas I went solo.

I'd heard about Gray's latest endeavor of teaming up with a nutrition company to sell meal replacement products that balance body chemistry, and thus, enhance relationships. I admit I was dubious and wondered how powdered nutrition would power up my sex drive unless it was laced with Ecstasy. He managed to make a very interesting case, which I relayed nowhere nearly as well later, when I tried to explain it to Bfriend. He thought I'd fallen for Dr. Gray's spiel--hook, line, and sinker.

I have to admit the logic behind Gray's concept, coupled with the everyday realities of my relationship makes me believe every word.