Monday, February 28, 2011

To Be an Attention Whore, Or Not To Be an Attention Whore?

First off, I apologize for not writing in so long. Contrary to what most of you think, this lack of effort is not solely because I am a lazy bum...only partially because I am a lazy bum.  However, I mostly haven't written because I haven't done any wedding planning since last time Dave was in town.  Work has been really busy, with 10,000 meetings a week (or at least it feels that way) and a curriculum I am forever two weeks behind on.  Stress from work coupled with the fact that my motivation (you know him better as "Dave") hasn't been around to remind me I have a wedding to think about.  Besides, I've had more imminent plans to make...like a European rendezvous with Dave.

Although Dave's been in Scotland for almost three full months, I haven't been able to make it out to see him.  You see, while eveyrone in the country seems to think teachers get an inordinate amount of vacation time, the down side to this deal is we don't get to pick and choose when we take that vacation time.  I'm off when the calendar tells me I'm off; so I had to wait for "energy conservation week" to finally hop a plane, even if it meant arriving just a few days before Dave comes back home, making the need for a visit less...well, urgent. 

I wasn't alone in my travels.  His brother Chris made the trip out with me, a person with whom I realized I travel extremely well.  Mainly, this is because Chris and I discovered that we are both total attention-whore-divas.  How did we make this random realization, you ask?  Well, since Dave had to work during the week of our visit, Chris and I found ourselves on our own as tourists in Edinburgh.  Channelling our inner cheese-ball, we made our best effort to hit every tourist trap we could fit in, along with sporadic searches down sketchy alleys (known as "closes" in Edinburgh) for hidden bars.  With every tour we went on, we somehow managed to steal all of the tour guide's attention from the other tourists.  At the Museum of Scotland Chris was given a private lesson on the history of bagpipe design, while my learned instructor and I had a chuckle at the disembodied head of a Pict slave carved into a Roman gatehead.  At the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Center, we demanded to be told the history behind 60% of the nearly 4,000 bottles in the collection (NOT an exaggeration...this room might as well have been wallpapered in whiskey bottles), while our co-tourists resignedly gagged back their Scotch in the uncomfortable shadow we cast over them.  At the Edinburgh Dungeon, we giggled as the actors threatened to disembowel and devour us while still somewhat alive.  Even out on the town we demanded special treatment, refusing to settle for cocktails on the menu, opting instead to give the bartender step-by-step instructions on how to make a drink more suitable to our tastes (in our defense, neither of us thought of dirty martinis as exotic, and quite frankly it's irritating that no one, not even at the swanky restaurants, knew how to make them...I mean, COME ON! who uses black olive juice?).  The point is, we couldn't get enough attention.

At first, I attributed my newfound sense of diva-hood to my thirst for an educational experience.  With each tour I had questions that needed answering, and if no other tourists would ask these questions, then gosh darn it, I would!  However, what seemed like an insignificant event at the time would bring me face to face with my ugly, inner Joan Rivers.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I need to back track a little to tell the story properly.  I received an email from TheKnot.com, as I'm sure many, many other brides also did, asking me if I wanted to apply to be on a wedding show.  I've seen the program before, and understand the basic premise of the show is to compete with other brides for the title of "Best Wedding", and the winner gets a free honeymoon to someplace with sun and a beach.  Dave and I have been somewhat stressing over the expense of wedding planning, so I thought why the hell not?  I know a girl from high school that had appeared on the show, and if she could pull it off without looking like a total ass, then why couldn't I?  They'd probably never pick me anyway...

Wrong.  I got an email from someone from the network apologizing that they couldn't move forward with the process because my venue doesn't allow filming of their facilities.  HOWEVER, would I be interested in applying for another show where Dave and I would exchange vows in Times Square LIVE on air with two other couples?
Ummmmmmm...sure? 

The next step is for Dave and I to interview on camera at their offices in NYC, I guess to determine if we're easy enough on the eyes.  I hiccuped and giggled the details via Skype to Dave, absolutely giddy with excitement.  So excited was I, in fact, that I failed to notice the look of panic and dread in his eyes.  Apparently, a Times Square wedding broadcast live to "Keeping Up With the Kardashians"-enthusiasts isn't the small, intimate affair he'd envisioned for us.  He slowly explained that he's not comfortable being the center of attention even in small groups, but I ignored his pleas and insisted we proceed with the interview-- just in case there's "awesome free stuff" they'll give us for participating.  After all, a free honeymoon is all I'm really interested in, right? 

Right? 

I don't know anymore.

I haven't responded to the last email yet.  The woman there informed me that this weekend, the only convenient time Dave and I have to travel to NYC for the video interview, won't work for her.  She needs us to come in on a weekday, and as previously mentioned getting time off work is not an easy task for me.  Nor will it be for Dave, who's returning from a three month sojourn abroad and needs to get back into the swing of his life here.  She requested that I offer another time to come in, seeming to indicate that she genuinely is interested in having us on the show.  The question now is how do I respond to the last email?  How badly do I want this that I'm willing to disrupt my whole life (and panic my poor boyfriend) just to have my happy moment televised to the whole country?  More importantly, why do I even want this?  Am I that desperate for 15 minutes of fame?

I think I've made up my mind not to move forward with this experience, and to be content with my originally planned intimate affair.

But DAMN it would've made a GREAT story to tell the kids!