Check your baggage?

"I've got baggage."
Not nearly as cute or corny a statement as "I've got mail" or "I got rhythm" or "I got music" or "I got the whole world in my hands" or anything like that. And while it’s neither a cute nor a corny statement it is true. Baggage. Never really thought I had baggage. Other people had baggage - women I dated, women I wanted to date, women who blew me off .. "she's got baggage man." Friends' girlfriends, ex girlfriends, friends' ex-boyfriends, parents, teachers, criminals. OTHER people. They all have baggage. I thought I didn't.

Mind you, I never denied the fact that I have "issues." We all have "issues." Some of us have "MAJOR ISSUES" some of us "minor issues" and some enlightened folks have only minor issues that are so benign they don't require being contained within quotation marks. But we all have issues and I am no different.

But when you realize you have a lot of issues, issues that have accumulated over the years, issues that you carry on from year to year, from relationship to relationship, issues that you can't deal with, won't deal with or just choose to ignore ... well, you need something to carry those issues around. That, my friends, is your baggage. And I just realized, I have baggage.

I'm not just talking one carry on either. I have a whole set - though it is not a matching set. A couple pieces are new, couple old. A few are hand me downs from my parents, some of which are likely hand me downs from their parents, etc. There's at least one great piece that I got with my former fiancé, she let me keep it thankfully. A couple I thought I'd stop using after college and, I fear, a couple I've forgotten about but are still lying around here somewhere. Baggage.

Something you may not realize about baggage, sure makes it a bitch to move around and do shit. For example, just started dating a couple months ago. Met a fantastic woman. Fantastic, no lie. Smart, beautiful, funny, sexy all that stuff. On top of it, she liked me (evidence, perhaps, of her own baggage? or is this self-deprecating jibe just further evidence of mine own baggage .. yes, looks like a nice garment bag to add to my collection). We started dating, all was well, and all was great. But the more and more we went out, the more difficult it was for me to go out, my baggage was weighing me down. Was I reliving past relationships, making the same mistakes, making new mistakes, was I ready to make new mistakes, was I moving to fast, was I in the right "space" for this, could I give her what the relationship "required"???? Had to stop seeing her. Guess I needed to deal with my baggage.

And I have been, I live in LA and as a condition of residency you must be in some kind of therapy or counseling or whatever, and I do that dance, been doing it ever since the big break up. It’s been good, real good. But I realized something --- you might think, "go to therapy, learn how to deal with your baggage, deal with your issues, lighten your load,” and you might be right. You also might be full of shit. Cause what I'm realizing is, therapy is not quite yet helping me get rid of my baggage, as much as showing me that I have a whole lot more baggage than I ever thought I did: I got a bag full of confidence issues; Couple pieces for relationship issues - got the commitment issue satchel, the trying to hard to please duffle bag, the boundary issues garment bag, a little toiletry kit full of jealousy issues; there's a nice Italian leather body issues carry on; the backpack full of parent issues; and random other pieces packed to the hilt with success/failure issues, youngest child syndrome issues, living in LA issues, being a whiny bastard issues and writing a blog about your issues issues.

But maybe that's all right. If we all have baggage, maybe it’s not that big of a deal. Course some people need a whole hell of a lot of help dealing with their luggage. But maybe that's what we're all looking for, someone to help carry that load. That's bullshit, what I'd like is someone to say, "That bag, that one right there you don't need that one anymore, never really did, but get rid of it." And maybe, with some of those pieces that you just fear you can't live without, maybe that person can just accept it, you know, check it at the door, say "hey leave it here, its not going anywhere, when you need it its cool. I'm cool with it, cool with you, you crazy needy bastard."

So maybe that's what will happen. Would be a whole lot easier though if I could just check it on an outbound international flight and let those airline pricks lose it like they've lost my real baggage before. Of course, even when you loose baggage, you just have to go out and buy replacements. At least with my baggage, I know what I get when I open it up.

Whatever Happened to the Avian Flu?????

Not that I'm particularly proud to be a part of public pandemonium about potential pandemics (yeah, I'm pretty proud of that phrase myself), but weren't we all worked up a couple months ago about the dreaded AVIAN FLU? Weren't news reports on our television airwaves, our am/fm and cable radio waves, our pod casts and internet blogspots flooding us with warnings of the upcoming epidemic? How it may happen - what could result - how many of us will die? Everyone was a little nervous about it. People were changing their behavior … “maybe I should get the beef, NOT the chicken.” My roommate reevaluated his desire to purchase a chicken, a live chicken, "what do you want, I'm Mexican" (no, really, that's what he said). In lieu of the inevitable outbreak he decided poultry would not make the best pet. I, for one, am grateful.

You couldn't open a newspaper without a full color map of the United States and/or the World showing the potential pattern of the flu, the speed at which it would spread, predictions on how many would suffer, who would die. Democrats blared that the Republican government was ill prepared for such an event. Republicans claimed that the Democrats would surely fail to correct the problem, likely opting to “sit down and talk with the avian flu” as opposed to eradicating it. Democrats fired back claiming the Republicans would likely welcome the pandemic, giving them the opportunity to order martial law. The green party advocated giving chickens free health care in an effort to cure the bird flu before it mutated. (They also continued to encourage people to drive bio-fueled cars and wear hemp clothing without explaining the benefits such actions would have on the flu situation.)

Our entertainment was becoming FLUCENTRIC. Movies of the Week were hurried into production, one entitled "PANDEMIC" is just waiting to be released, to prey on our frayed nerves and supply us with 2-4 hours of riveting entertainment.

Everywhere you went people were talking about the avian flu. And then, poof, it just disappeared. One-minute water cooler conversants are hypothesizing how a human infected with a normal strain of flu could become infected with a bird flu (smart money is on poultry to person fornication) the next minute nothing. No talk of bird flu. No talk of human flu. No talk of aviary bestiality. What happened? Did we somehow manage to avert the disaster? Did the brain trust in Washington figure out a way to cure such a disease if it so happens to make an appearance on our shores? I don’t think so. I think we just decided to focus on more tangible methods of our future destruction. I mean, why concern yourself with the biological fallout from one farmer’s evening tryst with a flu-infected rooster, when the world around us is blowing the crap out of itself.

There is always Iraq. Who knows what can happen there? My guess .. more people will die. Oil will flow. Democrats will complain. Republicans will justify. Life will, or will not, go on. Then, as if the Middle East wasn’t exiting enough, there’s Israel and Lebanon “Because there’s just too much sand for only one war.”

Oh, and the dangers are not just abroad. Look at the USA, we have huge problems to deal with. Have you heard? Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite. I know, shocker. Guess what else, he has a drinking problem and gets preferential treatment from law enforcement authorities. Shocked! Shocked! And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t even seen one picture of Tom Cruise’s baby. What the hell do you think that means? The implications are frightening.

All of these topics are justifiably taking our collective attentions away from the little bird flu that could. They are enough to keep us worried. To keep us questioning. To keep us speculating. But there’s a new one, and it’s a doozy. I know you know what it is … that’s right - someone is fucking with our god damned constitutional right to bring Gatorade on an airplane. Those mother fuckers!!!

Yeah, those wacky terrorists are at it again. Planning, plotting, lining up to get killed all in the name of Allah or Mohammed or someone else I’m sure I’m not allowed to draw a cartoon of. Did we think they’d go away? Say to themselves “9/11 was good, we did good, they made a movie about it, 2 movies actually, one starring Nicholas Cage .. I think we made our point .. lets retire”? Not so much. They are back and this time they’re fucking with our right to drink bottled water on the plane that we didn’t spend $5 on in the airport convenience store.

Of course the “exploding Gatorade” plot will now require us to spend more time in airport security. Prevent us from bringing liquid or gel like products in our carry on luggage. It will cause, no doubt, further inconvenience. Can we handle it? A very helpful news report (aren’t they all) the other night, showed a brief interview with a very tired airline passenger dealing with the new security measures. What did she have to say? “I hate to say it, but it looks like the terrorists won.” Yes maam, they won. They are prohibiting you from drinking your 12 oz can of diet soda whenever you damn well feel like it and, to add insult to injury, delaying you another whole hour to make sure that your not smuggling KY JELLY laced with explosives in your purse. That is what they were fighting for. And they won. Thank you, oh representative of the American public, for putting such a fine point on how we are all feeling. Shmuck.

Where am I going with this? Not a freakin clue. I rant, that’s what I do. The fact is, we aren’t happy unless we are fretting about something. The avian flu became a topic of discussion because we had become bored with Iraq and it looked liked the terrorists had gone on sabbatical. There was nothing to make us fear the end of the world. So our media and our government gave us what we wanted - Fear and worry and we ate that shit up like a bowl of non-poison laced ice cream. So who knows what’s next? One thing that really makes me think .. if we are so convinced that the end of the world is coming, either by terrorists or flu epidemics or global warming or Tom Cruise – shouldn’t we just try and have a good time?

Maybe not. Cause if we do, if we just stop worrying, start living life, start enjoying ourselves some drunk country boy with a bad cough and high grade fever will be getting it on in the back room with the prettiest hen at the country fair who happens to be in dire need of some Nyquil. Then we will all be sorry.

OK, you play poker, do you HAVE to be an asshole and a slob?

Before I ever stepped one foot in Las Vegas, I remember having a vision of gambling and casinos straight from the movies. I know, I know, its ridiculous, men in dinner jackets, women in gowns, smoking drinking, smiling politely as they gamble their money and cares away. This vision was quickly shattered, or more appropriately to borrow a line from TRIUMPH THE INSULT COMIC DOG "pooped on" when I first walked into Ceasar's Palace a few years back. Now, as far as casinos go, its not bad. Gaudy, loud, bright - huge statues of Roman Emperor's - the hint of Caligula esque activities brewing in the rooms above. But whatever idea(l) of vegas I had in my mind, it was washed away when I saw "toothless joe." I don't think that's really his name, his name may not even be Joe, but toothless he was. Shirtless he was. Shoeless he was (didn't feel it appropriate to name him shoeless joe, that man had enough problems). But he had a smoke in his mouth. And a big plastic cup full of quarters. And he was happy as a clam. The scary thing about Toothless Joe, the real scary thing ... noone else seemed to notice him. No one else seemed to care. As I looked around I realized that there were a lot of people dressed in the same "spirit" as toothless joe and I thought to myself, for the one millionth time, DAMN YOU HOLLYWOOD, DAMN YOU FOR YOUR LIES.

So I no longer have this idea that people in casinos should dress a certain way, or infact wear any clothes at all. But aren't we all getting a little sick of the poker players who dress like complete slobs? I went to the Commerce Casino the other night to check out some poker and I was the best dressed guy in the room. Hey that's saying something, that's completely fucking sad. Listen, if some fat bastard wants to sit around all day wearing his sweat shorts and an athletic team t-shirt (as if to say, "no I don't play on the team, but I may have eaten a couple of the players") that's fine. DO IT AT HOME. PLAY ON LINE POKER. But if your gonna go out in public have a little class please. I know, some people think its great to dress like a compete pig and make a lot of money at the poker table, its like the ultimate casual friday, every freaking day, but have a little self respect. But on some pants. For the love of GOD, PUT ON SOME FREAKIN PANTS.

The clothing is not even the worse part. Most of these bastards are rude. Not just to other players - that's fine, that could be a strategy, you could be trying to put someone on tilt, or, more likely, you could be an asshole. That's fine. But they are rude to the staff. The wait staff. The people who bring them food and drink so they can gorge themselves at the table - often without the use of rudimentary utensils, or napkins even. I watched this guy stand up and eat half a watermellon, cut up into five slices, as the seeds jumped out of his mouth, landing on his shirt, the floor, the chairs, and he didn't even care. I wanted to take that guy out back and introduce him to the business end of a louiseville slugger. It was gross. And it was the norm. In the majority of people (and many of these are professional poker players, playing big tables, every damn night) This other jack off was yelling at the waitress "bring me more nuts, hurry up, two bags, now." No "thank you." No "please." What balls on this guy. What nuts. Didn't his momma treat him right? "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!????"

I guess when you think about it, poker is a game that was played by drunk, smelly, cowboy types who often shot eachother over a bad hand. So class and manners never figured in to the equation. But does it have to be that way? Can't it be a little bit more like CASINO ROYALE? We don't have to dress up, but clothes shouldn't be optional. Sweatpants should be reserved for people who sweat, via physical activity, not simply because they are morbidly obese. OK, OK, maybe hot little tarts that have words like JUICY and DELICIOUS on their sweatpants asses may be permitted to wear them, but that should be it. And as far as manners go ... somebody should slap these bastards around. Taking my money is one thing, but being rude to people ... I think its time to bring back Miss Manners, and I think this time Miss Manners should be packin heat.

I know, I know, its freakin hot

It's hot. Hot here in LA. Hot in New York. And while many of the super liberals out her in Los Angeles seem to believe that NY and LA make up the entire USA, I understand that is not true. Despite that, however, I believe its safe to say, its pretty hot everywhere in the good ole USofA these days. Except maybe Alaska. But that's not important - not to disrespect Alaska, beautifull state, spent a good many year staring down the evil red threat, did us proud, home of polar bears and oil lines and snow and ice etc .. the fact is, I'm bitching - sorry writing about the heat here, where I live, in good old SoCal.

And by heat, I mean "welcome to hell" heat. I mean, "so this is what it must be like to live on the surface of the sun" heat. Cause that's what we got folks. And if you haven't noticed the actual change in temperature, your sure to have learned of the oppressive heat from the majority of people you may speak with on a daily basis. "Hot enough for you?" "Damn, I don't remember it being this hot last year." "Holy shit its fucking hot." Yeah, heard em all. Said a lot of em too. And its hard not to complain when your underwear is sticking to your ass for reasons that have nothing to do with sexual pleasure. I understand that. I live that. Hey, what are we if we're not complaining? It's fun, its social, its something we can all relate to.

That's exactly what I was doing last weekend at some Hollywood type party. I don't mean to say "Hollywood type party" in an effort to insult the integrity of the party or the party goers. Conversely, I don't intend to label myself as some kind of "insider" or "player" by defining the party as such. I'm just saying, it was a party, in Hollywood, in a beautifull house, with some beautifull people. And at this house, with such people, we were sitting around talking about how hot it had been the past few weeks. "It's insane," "its never been like this," "see, Al Gore was right." All that stuff. We were all enjoying our complaints of and to mother nature, the ozone, the sun and regardless of how you envision him/her, if you do at all .. God, for the hell on earth that has been created. Enjoying it, that is, until we were introduced to one of the guests - a nice quiet guy named Chris. See, Chris was in town visiting a friend because he was shipping out in two days to Iraq. For his second tour. You wanna talk about hot?

Chris is an Army Medic. He had been home for about a year and a half, spending time with his wife and new son (born while he was away on his first tour) when he was called back to duty for one year. Mind you, I may be wrong about this, but I think he had some choice in the matter - he was happy he could go and earn a decent living so he could come back and support his family. Interesting no? Going to Iraq to earn a decent LIVING (note the use of subtlety in my writing). So he was going back to a place where the temperatures ran about 110 degrees in the shade, where he had to wear his full on Army fatigues, a 10-15 pound flack jacket and a kevlar helmet. That's hot. That's real freaking hot. On top of it, he's getting shot at. Shit's exploding all around him. He's trying to save people who are getting blown to bits. And its worse than Africa hot, its "holy shit people are trying to kill me and shouldn't we all calm the f*ck down because its really f'in hot?"

I can only imagine what he was thinking, sitting there, watching us all bitch about how hot it was while sipping cocktails and talking about life "in the biz." Laughing to himself at how "difficult" our lives may be. And yet he's going. In fact, he's there now. Probably really hot. Really freaking hot. Shots being fired. Morters going off. People getting killed. Compared to that, my whole underwear sticking to my ass complaints seem trivial at best.

Oh I'll still complain. But I'll appreciate the fact that no one's shooting at me. At least not yet. And I'll appreciate the airconditioning in my car, in my room. And I'll think good thoughts for Chris and the men and women over there and hope that the heat is the only problem they face.

SPEED EATING

had a revelation the other day, at least I think it was. I eat very fast. That’s not my revelation, its a fact, most anyone who’s ever sat down with me to eat knows this, I’m fast. not gross, not piggish, actually kind of gracefull -- according to my ex girlfriend, but then again, that was when she loved me, before I cancelled the wedding, before she cursed my soul to hell - but that's another story. But the other day I was eating something ... forget what it was, and I was eating it quickly, and I realized why I ate quickly. SHAME. EMBARRASSMENT. I was a fat kid, chubby, chunky, I wore HUSKY sized jeans. HUSKY. Huskys are large, intimidating, strong animals. I was not. I was chunky, fat, pasty, but no mother is going to buy “FAT SIZED PANTS” for her kids, so I had HUSKY. Now I’m not sure if my speed eating helped cause my HUSKY ness or was a side effect - I tend to think a little of both - my revelation wasn’t all that revealing I guess.

I can remember, however, sneaking off in the kitchen to grab a couple extra spoonfulls of ice cream, when no one was looking, or scoffing down extra chicken cutlets when no one could see me, like a spy .. 00fatkid.

I was so freakin sensitive about being fat, still am I guess, though while I’m a little soft in the mid section I’m not fat. I remember one dinner, must have been no more than 12 years old, I was eating in side in the living room because all the adults were in the kitchen eating (the dining room was converted into a bedroom for my brother and myself - is there any wonder I had eating issues ... I was sleeping in the DINING room for pete’s sake). But after dinner I was taking my plate and my silverware and my cup back into the kitchen and was holding my napkin in my mouth. Seemed the thing to do, don’t know why I didn’t just leave it on my plate -- did I mention I was a weird child??? As I walked into the kitchen my dad cracked a joke at the expense of my napkin holding technique “didn’t you get enough to eat?” Funny. Cute. Not insulting - yet I took it that way. I took it like “Hey son, your a fat bastard, stop eating everything” And so, like the little tiny (HUSKY) baby I was, I ran into my bedroom crying. My poor dad, he must have thought “I didn’t mean anything, I was only kidding” and he must have thought “my son, the pussy” the fat pussy.

To this day I refuse to eat a napkin.

My Dad

This is a picture of me.
Kissing my dad.
Making him blush.
He is likely thinking "what the hell is wrong with this kid?"

Have Wedding Gown, Will Travel

Picked up my wedding gown today, that was an interesting experience. Now you might be saying asking "Why do YOU have a wedding gown?" Valid question. Quick answer - I was engaged to be married to a lovely woman, in reliance upon our planned nuptuals she ordered a wedding gown as brides to be tend to do, we broke up - hence no need for a dress, bridal shops, however, aren't big fans of cancelling orders for wedding gowns despite break ups, as such the dress had to be paid for, as I am the one who cancelled the wedding, I paid for the gown. I wasn't expecting to pay for the gown, in fact, in the grand scheme of cancelling the wedding, ending the relationship, moving out of the shared apartment, dividing our belongings, dealing with the expected and unexpected emotional issues, the family issues, the guilt issues, etc ... I had not even thought of the wedding gown. Until, that is, a few months after the break up. A few months after the planned nuptuals were to take place. A few months after I had last scene and spoken to her.

She called - no, that's not right, she emailed. Oh email, praise be to god for your existance, allowing someone to communicate without vocalization, allowing someone to contact an ex-fiance and ask them to pay for the rest of the wedding gown they ordered and forgot to finish paying for but would rather not pay for now since the wedding is cancelled and it hurts to much to deal with. Thank you email. Thank you for that. So she emailed her request and I, wanting to be the "good guy" despite the whole "we should'nt get married thing" agreed to pay for it.

And I did, eventually. I had every intention of taking care of it right away, even called the bridal shop to tell them, in a nice way, to stop pestering the former bride to be because the wedding was over and I was assuming any and all responsibility for the wedding gown. I had planned to stop by the shop and take care of all business, but kept putting it off. Understandable I guess, I was looking for a place to live, re-evaluating my lot in life, explaining to people over and over again why the wedding was cancelled, why we broke up, why "yes we did try, we were in counseling for over a year," explaining why we were in couples counseling for over a year BEFORE we were married, and answering lots of well meaning "are you ok"? questions. So I put it off. And, I'll admit, in the back of my mind was hoping that the lady's who run the bridal shop would forget about me. Forget about the dress. Forget about the aborted wedding. "Keep the money that's already been paid for it" I thought, in that magnanimous way I have at times like these. Let's just forget the whole thing. And for a while everyone did. Until Christmas.

Yeah. As if the Christmas holiday wasn't interesting enough - first Christmas in years that she wasn't a part of my life, first Christmas that we were supposed to be celebrating as a married couple, first Christmas I was the only single person in my family (dad recently got engaged AND married ... funny). OK, so boo freakin hoo for me, I'm just setting the scene. Setting the scene for when the bridal shop called me to inform that I had to pay the balance of the dress ... half of its value .. or the matter would be referred to a collections agency. That would be great, have a collection agency hunt me down to pay for a wedding dress. Have my credit report reflect that despite my otherwise fantastic credit history, my overall credit was fucked for life because I didn't pay for a wedding dress that I did not want for a wedding I did not have. So I paid. Over the phone. With my debit card - using my debit card, I guess, to pay off not only a debt to the shop, but maybe, just maybe a bit of debt I had to her. So that's what I gave myself for christmas boys and girls, a wedding gown. A wedding gown that I was fairly certain at the time would never fit me.

So, flash forward to 6 months later. This month. June. Suffice it to say, I've gone through the "healing process." I'm "over it" so to speak. Even decided it was time to date, put myself out there, doing all right in that department. But I realized ... I own a gown, a wedding gown that I haven't picked up yet. Now I was aware this entire time that I needed to pick it up, even had a number of ideas of what to do with it ... burn it; wear it and go sky diving; frame it to display on my wall with a sign "never, never fucking again" (that was a suggestion from a friend of mine - divorced). I also thought, pick it up, sell it on ebay, use the money for something fun. I just never got around to it. But this month I thought, I'm gonna do it. Part of it was the lawyer in me .. it had been a year since the initial transaction - the ordering of the gown - and I thought that perhaps they could get rid of the dress after holding it for a certain amount of time. The other part was timing ... we were supposed to get married on June 19, 2005. So our upcoming non-anniversary was upon me and I thought ... time to close that door don't you think. Funny enough, right around the 19th she emailed me. She, the one who last spoke to me on Christmas eve and had to terminate the phone call after 5 minutes because she couldn't stop crying. She, who texted me (thank god for text messages just like emails, so easy to transmit information without actually transmitting intention or feeling no?) shortly thereafter to tell me that "its too hard" to speak with me, "it hurts to much." Despite countless offers to "talk" from my side of the vacant battlefield, she never took me up on it. Until last week. Until she emailed and asked if we could "meet for coffee," to "discuss things" to "get some closure." We didn't meet, by the way. The closure she was looking for, not yet available. My schedule didn't allow it. Could I have made my schedule bend to my will? Perhaps. But did I want to? Did I want to sit in a public coffee house with a woman who couldn't bare to speak with me on the phone for A YEAR so that we could discuss SOME THINGS and get CLOSURE? Not really. Will I? Sure, some day, not this month. I have my closure. Had my closure. Closed that shit up months ago with the help of some therapy of my own. And if she needs to meet for her closure, I'm happy to help, but when I WANT TO. The dress was the last act of reparations I was going to make. The last punishment gladly accepted for a crime of which I don't feel I was guilty of. I may have cancelled the wedding, but I had to, we had to, I was sick of being punished for it. And I get punished enough every time I go into Starbucks and pay for overpriced coffee I don't yet need to up the ante and feel awful all over again as I sip from my 5$ latte.

But the dress. It reminded me ... get the dress, get the gown, take the step. So I did. Today I drove to Tarzana - which, by the way, they should rename HELL as it was about 1 million degrees - and picked up my wedding gown. MINE. And it was a unique experience. The women at the bridal shop were very nice, but treated me as if my family just died and they didn't know how to speak with me. They were gentle, I could almost hear their forced whispers in the back room as they likely discussed "Oh, this is from that cancelled wedding .. he's here to pick up HER dress ... I wonder what happened?" When they brought the gown out, all zipped up in a lovely white garment bag bearing the former brides name and the former brides planned wedding date, they did so in a solemn like procession that reminded me a little of a funeral. It became much more funereal when they asked "would you like to see it?" Shall we open the casket and give you a glance? "No, thanks, I'm sure it looks like whatever its supposed to look like, thanks." I responded and tried to sound ok with that, and I was ok with it, wasn't I? The woman asked "should I take the name tag off of it?" Which was sweet, fairly unnecessary though, its not as if I forgot who it was for. Not like I was gonna give it to someone as a gift only to realize "shit, HER name is still on it." But the woman thought it would help, so I let her. She removed the tag from the dress. Whatever the desired effect of that gesture, however, it was muted, considerably, but the fact that the former brides name was still boldy emblazoned upon the garment bag - I removed that myself, later, for good measure. Finally, whe asked "so, is there any chance that the wedding will happen?" Which was a nice question to ask, I mean, here it was over a year from the scheduled date and I, the alleged groom, was picking up the gown ... but I answered her, honestly "Oh, no, I haven't seen her in a year." "I am so sorry" she quietly replied as she and her employee, shared a look of "poor guy" then looked to me with eyes saying "I hope your gonna be ok fella". "These things happen," I said, trying to sound sincere and "well-adjusted" at the same time. I think it worked, but who knows. Then I left. With my wedding gown, that will never fit me, that I just took an awful picture of, that I guess I'll sell. Eventually. Unless I can get myself down to a size 1. If I can, at least I know what I'm wearing for Halloween.