Am I Bridezilla?

The Urban Dictionary defines "Bridezilla" as:

1. One ridiculous spoiled bitch that thinks she is the center of the universe, just because her "show" (the wedding) is 18 months from now. Everyone else in the world has to drop everything and come running in this prime-donna's mind. The marriage will not last more than a couple of years,if the groom to be is lucky.

 2.noun. Formed from blending of the words bride and Godzilla (Japanese movie monster). Used to describe a woman whose behavior becomes outrageously bad in the course of planning for her wedding.

 3. Bridezillas are a new breed of soon-to-wed women who abuse the idea that weddings are their "day." They terrorize their bridal party and family members, make greedy demands and break all rules of etiquette, to insure that they are the single most important person on the planet from the time they are engaged to the time they are married.

Before all of these happened I am just one of those single people who just find it funny and ridiculous, the idea of a once- rationale, self-composed female of reproductive age suddenly transforming into a conceited monster who could literally crush everything and everyone crossing her path to perfectly wedded bliss. 

Then I chanced upon this movie, Bride Wars, on cable TV (blurb:  Two best friends become rivals when they schedule their respective weddings on the same day). More than an hour of seeing how these supposedly educated, lovely girls scheme to sabotage each other`s weddings is not cute, but screams of misogyny. Sorry. 


Two months into my own wedding, I could now relate to the jitters that brides feel, especially those who are hands on with the preparations and on tight budgets and schedules. I have gone from  "Oh it`s just for an hour, what`s all the hoopla about...I want a simple, no-frills wedding" to "There is no such thing as a simple wedding, that is an oxymoron."  


As much as I would like to have a good control of things, I now somewhere along the way some form of kapalpakan will ensue, and there will be nothing I can do about it...


I am not Bridezilla, I know I will do have moments when I`ll lose it, and I will also be this beast...but a beast more scared than scary, insecure and clumsy...

"I just don't think I could take that kind of rejection!"

Friendship Divorcee

What happens when you feel left out by people you once considered as good friends?
Gwyneth Paltrow leads us to some helpful insights into this all- too familiar territory.. 

Letting Go (author unknown)

To let go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off,
it's the realization I can't control another.
To let go is not to enable,
but allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means
the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it's to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.
To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective,
it's to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny,
but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more
and
To let go and to let God, is to find peace !

The Snooze-Timer

It's usual for me to doze off while watching a movie in bed. Actually...I doze off even in the middle of a screening inside the cinema. No matter what's on. It's craaazzy.

I guess it started sometime in 2009, when watching a movie from my laptop became a bed time habit to let me relax while trying to catch much-needed sleep, to somehow keep my brain cells alive after all that writing and deep thinking. It didn't help that after a year or so, I now have somebody to watch with. Kudos to the SO for having the patience to get all those movies on disk, setting up the screen, speakers and the comfy pillows for a (supposedly) night-long viewing in the room, then gently putting everything away once I no longer talk back and bury my head in the sheets. And this happens ALL the time.

It's good if I stay awake way past half the entire movie, which I can do when I'm not too tired, it's not too late, or the movie is really good. When all three conditions are met, you got me wide awake, baby.

What I realized after spending some time reading the reviews of the movies I saw (or slept through, hehe) is that critical acclaim is somehow proportional to how long I'd stay awake watching them?! Case in point, saw every second of "RPG Metanoia" which I enjoyed immensely in the theater . But then...spent about five minutes in deep slumber during the first halves of "Iron Man 2" and "Clash of the Titans", and was awake only for a total of 10 minutes of "The Tourist". Mind you, I watched those movies around the same time,in the middle of the afternoon, a few months ago. At home, I liked "Inglorious Basterds" enough not to sleep in the comfort of my plush pillows. I also almost finished "Inception", "Toy Story 3" and "Love and Other Drugs" in one viewing (and of course, separate occasions), except that I started really late in the night, and couldn't lift my eyelids with any mighty strength that I may still have.

And so to test if this holds, I am putting up the "Snooze-Timer", which tells how long I stayed alert and awake through a movie's entirety.Ooh, my...I'd be one, mean, mean critico if I were actually in the movie business...

Love and Other Drugs (Dir. Edward Zwick/2010; running time:112mins)

Snooze-Timer: About 1 hour of mild amusement before getting lost in dreamland

I woke up the following morning and here's how the conversation with the SO went(Spoiler Alert):

Me: (just woken up)Didn't we almost finish the movie?
SO: No, maybe 20 minutes more left...
Me: Ohh...
SO: Naaah...you would already know how it would end.
Me: The last thing I remembered is that they split up,didn't they?
SO: Yeah, they split up. and then he sees that video they made...
with the close-up of her saying something, you know..?(eyes rolling)..and
then he suddenly feels sorry (again, making a face)...and they'd
get back together again, it's all the same...(with such nonchalance)
Me:(Speechless)...

You Turn Me into Somebody Loved

This one`s for you, honey....

All of three months, and still very happy to be with you.

To FB or not to FB....

I was one of the first people within my circle of friends/fellow students to have a Facebook account...that was in 2008, if I`m not mistaken. I made an account out of pure curiosity, having read about it in the news. Back then there were about 20 people in my network. I went to FB whenever I felt bored with the technical stuff I was writing while trying to earn my Ph.D.

FB had a different layout and lots of apps. I did silly stuff such as exchanging egg gifts (the ones that "hatch" after a number days to show your secret gift from your friend), taking care of a virtual pet (I had a little yellow chick, forgot it`s name) and my favorite, playing Panty Raid with a bunch of girls in the network.

It was all harmless fun for me.

Fast-forward to 2011. I have about 300 people in my network, of varying degrees of closeness/separation from me. I open my account, and I also feel varying degrees of elation, excitement, annoyance, disgust upon reading their feeds...I honestly feel happy when I read about somebody fulfilling a life-long dream like getting a dream job, having a baby, finishing a degree, getting a much-deserved vacation, etc. But more of the latter reactions, actually. ("ok, so you`re on a luxury trip abroad again, enjoying blah-blah-blah, with your blah-blah-blah." "yeah, you have the cutest kid/husband/wife/pet in the world, you`ve posted it a million times...shut up already!" "my goodness i can`t believe she`s posting about her bowel movement"). And when I`m on bitch mode, I have to remind myself that: 1. it`s my fault, I kept on adding people I care little about...2. I`m a sour-graping, envious hag with no life, who should just be doing something else worthwhile and 3. I`m just as guilty of "flaunting" whatever good/great is happening to me, to make my life less ordinary...

And so, unlike before, FB has bugged me.

FB has increased my connection with friends/past associates/neighbors/family...but it did not really make me closer to anyone of them. It`s just like having a virtual rolodex where your contacts can show you (what they want to show) about their lives, but it will always be you who has the option to pick on these little snippets that they show, or let them roll by. The open nature of all the information coming in from people I guess is too stressful for a sensitive, closeted anti-social like me. There are just some stuff there that I wish I didn`t see.

I fear a world where friendships will be designed and destroyed by the way people interact (and choose not to react) to FB posts. These days, I open my FB account, have a quick glance of the wall posts, make a comment or two on interesting posts, and sometimes post something that really caught my eye for the day. I try to contact friends not only through FB but also email and IM, SMS, and plain old yummy conversations.

I`d like to believe that with a little more self-control I`ll get over my own failings as a sucker for FB, and remind myself that, maybe the stuff I read there is real...but is nonetheless, all for show.