I hate talking about the wedding and there is an actual reason why. Here is how the conversation usually goes.

Random Friend: Have you picked out your dress?/How is the wedding planning going?/Random wedding question?
Me: Yes.
Random Person Who Overheard: OMG When is your wedding?
Me: June
Random Person Who Overheard: OMG, I will so be there!
Me:… Um, I didn’t invite you.

The other day a person asked me if she was invited to the wedding.  What made this situation incredibly awkward is that she is the ex-girlfriend of a friend I can’t even invite to the wedding.  While I was trying to come up with a polite response she proceeded to tell me that she didn’t need to be invited to the wedding, just the “party” so she could drink and meet cute guys.  Um… what?!  I have actually had a girl I barely knew ask – in all seriousness – if she could be a bridesmaid, and when I politely turned her down, she asked if she could be the ceremony officiant. When I said no she quickly informed me that one can easily become an officiant online in case my hesitation was that she wasn’t legally able to perform ceremonies… I still said no. Um… seriously?  And could I say “um” a little more?  What is that about?

Having a Catholic Italian and Irish heritage I am related to a million people and then having two hippie uncles adds even more cousins into the mix – i’ll show you my family tree and you can try to figure it out.  My dad has 6 siblings and 6 cousins – don’t get me started on their  marriages!, I have 34 first cousins and 9 first cousins once removed.  I have second cousins that I see on a regular basis that I can’t invite to my wedding – actual people related to me that I had to create a cut-off for so that I could invite some of the people that I see on a daily basis.  And there are about 20 friends that I WISH I could invite to my wedding because I would love to have them. I can’t invite everyone I want to invite. It is impossible and I really really hate it, but that is the way it works and i’m pretty sure that life will go on.

But what makes this process so much more difficult are the people who think that they are entitled to an invite because they have met me/talked to me/heard about me/ breathed on me once. They ask, just like that, without any embarrassment or hesitation if they can come to the wedding as if it is some type of carnival.  when it comes down to it, it is a ridiculously expensive dinner and i have the unfortunate task of creating a balance between the people i want there and the people who “have” to be there.

Why are people so damn rude? If I want you to be a bridesmaid, I’ll ask. If I want you to be the officiant at my wedding, I’ll ask. If I want you to be at my wedding, you will get an invite… and unfortunately, if I want you to be at my wedding you might not get an invitation. Please don’t make it harder on me by making me explain why you aren’t invited or expecting an invitation to my “party” for you and all of your friends.

I mean, am I the only one who doesn’t ask for an invite to someone’s wedding?

2/3 cup Tequila
1/3 cup triplesec
1/4-1/3 cup frozen limeade concentrate
2/3 cup water
½ TBS Sugar 

Shake all ingredients with ice in a shaker or blend with ice in a blender, strain into glass.  You can rim the glass with salt and a wedge of lime.

i know the definition of being a good friend.  caring, loyal, stands by someone in a time of need, tells you the truth, holds your hand, answers the phone at 2 a.m., doesn’t rat you out when you silently rip ass near a group of hot guys.  i’ve had good friends – i know they’ve taught me about being a good friend and i hope i at least exhibit some of those behaviors once in awhile.

and i get the whole being there for someone.  i’ve driven friends to the hospital, fed their cats while they were out of town, lent out my car, been DD, brought lunch/dinner/soup, stayed up late to talk, helped clean up messes i didn’t make, edited papers, helped people move, and probably a million other things.  and i know a lot of other people do just the same for their friends.

but when is being there for someone  become being an enabler?  in high school my best friend was really bad at relationships.  she was always hooking up with guys who were otherwise involved and i was always covering for her.  we were friends for 6 years and when she got involved with a married man the second time i just couldn’t do it anymore.  i couldn’t hold her while she cried about how he was never going to leave her.  i couldn’t drive her past his house to see if his wife’s car was in the driveway.  i couldn’t watch her destroy her life again.  and so i had to walk away.

it is hard choosing not to be friends with someone.  i would read about our favorite actress and want to call her, or see a Carl’s Jr and want to eat there with her, or want to buy jeans but didn’t have her to help me decide which ones made my butt look the best, or have a fight with my mom and need to vent.  but for all the reasons she was a good friend there were a million reasons why my relationship with her made her think that it was OK to continue doing what she was doing and never learn a damn thing.  without her co-pilot maybe she would finally find the right path, maybe not.  but the one thing that was for sure was that i couldn’t watch the same episode every single day for the rest of my life.

the hardest part about the decision not to be party to a destructive person’s mess is that you end up as the bad guy.  you left your friend in their time of need – looking over the fact that they continuously are in a time of need.  these type of people create their own drama and if you can’t play the part of the supportive friend then you must be a bad person.  and that right there is the bullshit, you have added one more woe to their long list of horrible things that have happened in their life always caused by someone or something outside of their control.  you bastard.

but for me, each friendship, no matter how it ended, has had some part in who i am today.  and i can’t say that i haven’t thought about my friend from high school several times over the past few months while planning my wedding because it reminds me of her constant chatter about her imaginary future wedding.  and now that i’m getting married i can’t help but wonder whatever happened to her, where she is now, and if her boyfriend did ever leave his wife for her… or if she finally found herself a man who wasn’t taken.

i hope things worked out for her.  i really do.

i am an eater.  i LOVE food.  i could eat whatever i want, whenever i want, and be very happy since my metabolism likes to keep me overweight but not obese (not yet anyway).  and it didn’t bother me until several years ago, probably to do with wanting to impress an ex-boyfriend, that i decided i needed to lose weight.  i tried some diets – weight watchers, slim fast, Special-K, all with similar results: i’d lose 5-8 pounds and then fall off the wagon and be unable to get back on.

two years ago i started using sparkpeople.com and although i wasn’t able to lose all the weight i wanted right away i realized about a year afterwards that something else had happened: i was healthier.  since i joined i go to the gym 3-4 times a week, i know about calories and how many and what kind i should be eating, i take a multivitamin, i sleep 7 hours or more a night, and i reward myself with non-food items.

and then they send you these inspirational emails written by sparkpeople who are on their own weight loss journey – people midway through losing enough weight to make another ME.  there was one the other day from a lady who was a big fan of this weight loss author and she was at a book signing and going on and on with excuses about how she just couldn’t lose weight and the author stopped her and said, “I can’t help you, you aren’t ready to lose weight.”  and it hit me that it doesn’t matter what life throws your way, there are people with small children who lose tons of weight and i’m whining about a few pounds and all i do is work full time?  it is time to stop making excuses and start working.

and so two weeks ago my workplace posted a sign about doing a Biggest Loser Competition.  i signed up even though i usually shy away from group efforts to lose weight and the obligatory standing around telling each other that we don’t really need to lose weight anyway.  this time i figured that since i wanted to lose a little weight before the wedding it might be just what i needed to jumpstart me into it.

last week after the weigh in i cut my calories into the recommended weight loss range, planned all of my meals, brought lunch every day and only ate out on Saturday night.  i stuck to the rest of my lifestyle – gym, weights, sleep.  it wasn’t easy.  i had to get up early to make lunch every morning because i could never remember to do it the night before.  i had to plan my meals ahead and make sure i never ran out of groceries so i didn’t have an excuse to get fast food.  and because i was getting up earlier and eating less calories than usual i was tired more often than i thought i would be – and more irritable – but i still dragged myself to the gym and through my usual routine.

and i lost weight.  i lost enough to win last week’s challenge.

i don’t have any more excuses because i know that this time i am ready.  i have prepared for this, i know what i need to do and i know how to do it.  so bring it on next week’s challenge, Hawaii, and all the bathing suits i want to wear… i’m ready

I was six years old and it was Christmas.  There wasn’t any snow on the ground which was stark contrast to the ground the day we had moved into the house.  I remember it being pleasantly warm but seeing as how this was winter in utah this could in fact, be a misplaced memory, or the absolute truth.

I was pushing a fake plastic shopping cart up the sidewalk and walking fast, faster than my youngest sister, Beth, who was ambling at the pace of a toddler who had been walking for a while clutching the outstretched finger of my grandmother.  I remember turning around and watching them move slowly past in front of the cute little neighbor boy’s house but it would be years before I would wonder if he was home or what he was doing.

My grandmother had the look on her face that I grew up thinking was just a look until I was older and realized that it was associated with my mother’s children, her only granddaughters.  She had no joy in her eyes one would associate with a grandmother witnessing her youngest granddaughter walking.  She had a dull look of one who had suffered some type of pain and just didn’t care anymore.

all of her visits were littered with similar memories.  she always slept in my bed because through some alignment of the stars i had been saddled with a queen sized bed in my own room.  so while she was visiting I slept with beth on the bottom bunk of her bunk beds.  She had a night light, slept with the door open and talked in her sleep.  When Grandma left my room reeked of her perfume and a scent i later learned was what it smells like to sweat gin from your pores.

usually by day two of her visits grandma was sick of us.  she complained loudly about how spoiled we all were, how we fought too much, and how the boys never acted like that.  ”the boys” were our cousins, my mother’s sister’s children.  it wasn’t until much later when i learned about sarcasm and other such things that i realized that almost everything out of her mouth was either a compliment backhanded in nature, a criticism, or condescending.

by the time we hit high school her visits became less frequent and after beth graduated they stopped altogether.  she would call us each out of the blue, never in the same month, to “remind” us that if we ever wanted to visit her – alone – that she would pick up the tab.  none of us ever allowed her to.  later she began complaining that if we were just too busy to fly out and visit her, well, she understood.  the reward for listening to her drone on in her singsong voice about my aunt, my cousins, and how i was screwing up my life was usually an expensive card filled with an empty sentiment, a signature and a check for $50.

she didn’t come to my college graduation – she sent more money.  i realized looking at that last check, that i had seen her maybe 25 times in my whole life once a year give or take, and that money was sent only to assuage her guilt.  i was supposed to love this person and she was supposed to love me but just because you are supposed to doesn’t mean you do.

i had grown up past the point of thinking it was anything i had or hadn’t done.  i had grown into an acceptance that some people have grandparents and some people’s grandparents are dead but i didn’t feel i fit into one category.  i had a grandmother who knew me just as well as the people i visited at the old folk’s home and played checkers and gin rummy with every few weeks for two years in high school for christian community service.

maybe not… after all, they could remember what parts i played in the musicals, what sports i sat on the bench during, and that i liked dark chocolate.  to my mother’s mother?  i was just one of four big disappointments.  why waste her time remembering such trivial aspects of my life?

Once upon a time I had a therapist (side note: I have no idea if this is from a movie or a TV show but EVERY TIME I see/hear/write the word therapist of think of someone saying, “The rapist…” and then someone saying, “you mean therapist.” It is driving me crazy, ha ha.) Anyway, I had a therapist who told me that it was important to do one nice thing for myself every week.

Things that were routine donn’t count. So it doesn’t count that I do my laundry with pretty scented dryer sheets so I smell like candy, or go grocery shopping so that I can eat during the week, or that I don’t leave my shoes on the floor of my room so I don’t trip over them when I wake up. What does count is something that I keep thinking I will do but never get done, like a manicure or a bubble bath.

Generally I start out trying to do that one nice thing a week and it turns into one nice thing a month. So, I amended my new year’s resolution to include: 6) Do one nice thing a week for myself.

This week I’m taking the easy cop-out and giving myself a manicure (the pedicure from after Christmas is still holding strong – yay me!) and i settled on my favorite color: Princesses Rule! by OPI – of course.

This cracks me up.  I think she could use a lesson in english but otherwise she pretty much hits it on the head.  I have no serious aversion to wearing animals or eating them.  Further, I have no serious aversion to anyone NOT eating or wearing animal.

the thing that makes me laugh is when certain vegan/vegetarians think that you can’t possibly care about the earth unless you stop eating meat.  and yet they still drive their cars, get their groceries in bags, and have no real idea of what the rest of their lifestyle does to the environment.  i don’t go to a vegetarians house and demand that they heat their home at 68 degrees or lower, or wash their clothes in cold water, or use re-useable grocery bags.  and i don’t put my nose in the air and proclaim that because i do these things i am the only one who truly cares about the environment.

all of my friends who are vegetarian seem to be that way because they don’t like the taste of meat and they have no problem .  it’s the ones who think that people shouldn’t eat meat, or who think that eating meat is morally wrong who seem to feel the need to force their beliefs on others.

i think it just comes down to living life the best way you know how and letting other people do the same.

last night my buddy alan came over to see Beth’s new car and witness my awesome 80s hair that happens right after I blow it dry but before i straighten it.  because of kevin the night snowballed into excessive drinking.  i didn’t partake because i had to work today but i did get to indulge in my second favorite drinking pastime which is making drinks.

i put together my delicious margarita recipe and served up three glasses.  it was at that point that alan put out his hand to accept the glass but told me he couldn’t drink it.  i looked at him unable to comprehend this situation.

Me: What do you mean you can’t drink my delicious margarita?
Alan: When I drink tequila… bad things happen.
Me: That is not an excuse, you are wasting a perfectly good and delicious drink!
Beth: Yeah!  There are sober people in Africa, Alan!

So, as usual, the Cohen sister logic won out.   And Alan promptly became addicted to my delicious margaritas. i fucking hate people who don’t have to work on Fridays.

i go to the gym quite regularly and recently beth and kevin have been joining me.  at the check-in desk beth ALWAYS gets hit on, which is to be expected.  we go our separate ways teasing kevin that he will be next, and then beth sets up shop in a largely girl area of the gym so she doesn’t really get bothered much.

i don’t usually speak to anyone unless someone i know happens to be at the gym and people generally don’t approach me unless they know me.  and i don’t usually get hit on anywhere much less the gym but the last few months have been pretty ridiculous.

the guy on the machine next to me a few weeks ago actually had a long conversation about Twilight with me while we were running.  He was getting pretty winded and kept having to roll his eyes to prove he was TRULY JOKING about the gay jokes but he wasn’t giving up.

and then there was the guy with the boise state shirt, who really wanted to drive it home how MUCH he hates BYU.  and how single he was.  and how he had a job and didn’t live with his parents.  i know they SHOULD hand out awards for all these things – but i’m not the one handing them out.

or the guy who wanted to know what kind of books i liked.  he kept talking about these great gifts he was going to be getting for his sister and he wanted to get her a nice book.  that conversation led to what my plans were for christmas.  i don’t know about you but when i go to the gym i’m not looking for a friendly chat.  i’m trying to get as close to dying without actually doing it… and then not die.

also?  i’ve seen myself in the mirrors all over that place, are these guys blind?  desperate?  both?

it’s the ring, i swear to GOD it is some kind of strange weird boy magnet.

generally my new year resolutions are vague like, get more sleep, learn to relax, lose weight, and locate Michael J Fox.  but this year i have some small and yet less vague ideas.  and i always feel that writing them down at least helps me pretend that i’m going to do something about them, so without further ado:

1. Part of my ongoing effort to waste less: Make double sided copies whenever possible.

2. Be in bed by 10 PM on work nights.

3. Spend 20 minutes a day focusing on relaxing.

4. Pack my own lunch 4 times a week.

5. Take the bus at least once a week.

Notice the trend?  I’m turning into an old woman.  All is not lost because you see I wanted to make a resolution to drink more wine and fantasize about Jacob Black more often, but well, that’s just cheating.