totally famous, part II.

The funniest part about being Totally Famous is that I'm famous for something I never thought I'd be famous for. I guess that's kind of how it goes. You try to be an actress and end up a brilliant playwright. You go into college admissions and end up in Iowa Writer's Workshop. You think you'll become a precocious novelist and publish in your twenties, and instead, one day, you get asked to write a libretto and you do and then it totally gets performed.

From time to time, everyone googlesearches his- or herself, right? For years, I've been trying to get this inane bit I wrote in to the Honolulu Advertiser pushed onto at least the second page of results. Unfortunately, it is still the number one result, but at least--finally--I also have something in the top ten results of which I can be more proud.

totally famous!

tambourine girl.

So, this friend of mine wants to start a band. The other night, a bunch of us were out drinking, and over (many, many) drinks strategizing began: which instruments do people play, who sings, and so forth. Most could play guitar, a few could play ukulele, a couple could play bass, one could do drums, at least four sang, and Dave, well, he can play anything with strings on it. I found myself uncharacteristically quiet during this discussion (except the slurping of the straw from the scorpion bowl) because ... well, what can I really do? Like, well enough? You'd think I would be able to volunteer something considering that in high school I was simultaneously in orchestra, band, and a community opera chorus. It is only because I went to a floofy private school that my ass didn't get kicked for being such an all-around musical dork. But--full disclosure--I sucked at cello, gave up on uke, never learned guitar, played the FLAG in marching band, and despite all that choral training I merely consider myself lucky when I stumble upon a working harmony. Furthermore, in music and in nowhere else, I find myself very easily led by a stronger voice, so that even if I am singing melody of a song I know backwards and forwards I will "fall off" melody and follow someone singing harmony if his or her voice is bossy enough. And I don't even have enough rhythm to play the egg shaker thing, and definitely not enough to fulfill my deep secret desire to be the Tambourine Girl.

I've daydreamed so hardcore about being Tambourine Girl that it is actually worked out in great detail in my head. This image involves the following: a burnt orange long-sleeved minidress; mod, thick, long bangs to my eyebrows (this, mind you, despite the fact that I tried this look in eleventh grade and it was a big mistake); layers of bangles at each wrist (for added percussion, naturally); liquid eyelinered cat eyes (ala Angelina Jolie); and some kind of slouchy ankly boot showing off my well-toned (hey, it's a fantasy!) calves. Oh, right, and the tambourine.

What amuses me is that the image in my head is of how cool I'd look as Tambourine Girl and not how good I'd be at the tambourine. It probably says something about me that even in my wildest daydreams I'm not the lead singer of the band, nor am I magically good at an instrument, or rhythm, or harmony, or even staying on the melody. In my daydreams it isn't even clear that I can actually play the tambourine, but damn do I look good standing there with it.

It could happen, couldn't it? Don't people change careers on average like four times in their lives nowadays? I read that somewhere, once, I think. The sky is the limit and life is long.

married may in the bay.

As far as I can tell, married life is kind of the same as pre-married life, only without the wedding planning and with more presents to open. Has anything changed in the years I've been engaged and the month I've been married? Hell yeah. I've gotten over leaving New York (quite a feat) as well as my disgust/fear of living in suburbs; I've had the uncontrollable desire to rearrange our apartment, to accumulate more permanent furniture, to plant things, and to have four-legged furry creatures about; I've become D.'s social secretary; I've learned to cook (or at least to follow recipes); and I've started to want two things I never wanted before--to buy property and to have children. (Don’t get excited, I don’t want children, like, tomorrow, but I have some interest in having them at some point.)

My life is almost unrecognizable from the one I lived in New York. I don't dress up anymore. I go to bed early unless Law & Order, Without a Trace, or some other crime-related show is on till 2am, which then keeps me up till about 4am doublechecking locks and jumping at little noises. I am not mean anymore, I lost my streetface, and I talk to and smile at complete strangers and tell my life story to clerks in check-out lines. I am perfectly content with the buzz of three glasses of wine, enough to call it a party if it involves at least one person in addition to D. and me. The last time I went out to a club was . . . ummm, October 2006. Writing this all in succession makes the former me cringe not a little. But life's okay, really.

Life goes on elsewhere. One friend has taken to going Britney-style commando in bars. Another, who always liked the ladies, has now taken to men. One is working on a Ph.D. in sociology, and another has obtained for the fall a coveted spot in the Iowa Writer's workshop. One friend has a toddler in her terrible twos, two couples bought new houses/apartments on the occasion of either being married or becoming engaged, and one couple is contemplating whether to get engaged or break up. New York is draining; friends are migrating to New Jersey or as far away as Minnesota, Hawaii, California, and, as aforementioned, Iowa.

What else, what else . . . I got back from the wedding and learned that my boss had quit. The last few weeks have been scrambling to make sure I still have a job and that someone will pay me for the work I've been continuing to do. Stressful to say the least. I'm also need to line up my last NYU editing class (quite a challenge cross-country to attend classes), and this fall I'm supposed to be applying for MFA programs. A bit hard, considering I haven't been writing. A writer is afterall someone who writes, by definition. Not someone who sits on their ass, having written in the past and arrogantly believing themselves worthy of publication by virtue of that past.

That said, I’m *finally* going to be famous, as I determined to be a resolution on NYE 2004. Ka’ililauokekoa, the opera on which I collaborated as librettist, is finally being produced at the end of this month at Orvis Auditorium, in Honolulu. It’s no blackbox theater in SoHo, but it’ll do. Besides, as my wife, the brilliant playwright, wrote, “The people that you love are always famous.”

on surviving your own wedding.

After two years of planning and stressing, two weeks of fighting with my mom, spending more money than I will admit to, and approximately 20 hours of freaking out having finally realized 200+ people would be staring at me because I was the bride . . . the wedding is over. It was perfect--from the weather to the lighting for photography to the unforgettable toasts. Some highlights of the ceremony: getting to the beautiful Moli'i site and realizing I was no longer nervous and instead was really excited about this whole circus; watching my hot-to-trot bridesmaids descend the stairs with their parasols to "Love is all you need"; Dave's borrowed barong ripping when he hugged his mom; presenting Kahu with the wrong hand for the wedding ring and getting smacked down; trying not to eat it in 3-inch heels sinking into the dirt while standing solemnly during the ceremony; and processing out wearing an ear-to-ear grin while loved ones smiled/cried/clapped/blew bubbles. Highlights of the reception: the Filipino money dance from which we amazingly made about $500 and my new husband BIT my armpit by accident; my bridesmaids drinking over 5 bottles of wine and the hilarity ensuing from that; the spontaneous dance party started by my crazy Auntie Mila and my crazy wifey; the surprise kampai toast from my Uncle Chris and that deeply tasty sake; and the beautiful hulas performed by our friends Hina and Nolan and my wild Ya-ya Aunties. Anyone who endured my planning over the last two years might think all this spontaneity and lack of a plan might be upsetting, but it was the little imperfect moments and the laid-back feel of the whole party that made it real and ours. That's what I wanted: a comfortable, laid-back party where our hearts were on our sleeves. The wedding was perfect in that way. We made some concessions for 200 people and to make the party family-friendly. But the day was still all about us. We sat at our own little "sweetheart table," adrift from the guests. People came up to us to say hello, goodbye, or to meet one of us . . . but really we were alone in this sea of faces. We weren't worrying about who was seated (incorrectly) at which table (well, this is mostly true, anyway... though there was a couple of exceptions that irked me) and we definitely weren't worrying if people were getting along because the fact that our families were blending was obvious when Dave's Grandma and Auntie Loke started "getting down" with my Auntie Mila and my 20-something-year-old college friends. Ahhh, the dance floor. Just as in dance movies, it is the great equalizer, conquering lacunae of age, race, class, language, and religion.

But best of all, it is over. I will no longer be called "Bridezilla," or "Princess Bride," or treated condescendingly by caterers or semi-sympathetically by friends who wish I'd shut the f*ck up about wedding planning because I'm in love and I get to throw a big party. Now I'm Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady. Whee.

Now for the bright-eyed, mushy-hearted part that will sound slightly naive and definitely smug . . . I do feel like I've ended up at my happily ever after, though. I know that seems crazy. But I still feel as stupidhappy with Dave as I did at the beginning. In fact, I think the wedding reminded us of how very lucky we are. I look at him and I feel all seven of the years. I think of how, during this time, we've grown up, we've grown together, we've grown apart, we've learned to patch and stitch and puzzle things back together, and how we've become the partners in life that we are. Separate but together. Symbiotic individuals. The image that comes to mind is the 'ohia and lehua. He's my roots and my steady base. And I'm his flash of color. I think of the myth, and I really believe that is how we will be: man and woman entwined forever. This may sound corny and idealistic in the face of the rate of marriage failures in the U.S., but I will own it. I believe it and I hope for it: that I will always feel the way I did at 16 when he first caught my eye. Forever 16, forever tumbling into covers with each other, forever whispering and kissing and touching, and forever holding each other's hearts and dreams more carefully even than we might hold our own.