Friday, April 13, 2007

ode to a box of dust: part 2

The box full of corsages I found in my closet is now comfortably composting to fertilize a dumpster somewhere far away, but long ago its contents made me smile.


3) Freshman year of college, nice-ex was unsure if I would accept his invitation to the Indian Students Association semiformal and got third-party confirmation like highcon had for The Prom. I don't know what that's about. Perhaps all those years of fearing my parents' disappointment cultivated some kind of hell-no-don't-even-think-about-asking vibe I must put out to anyone even the slightest bit interested. The dance was our first plausible date because a week before when we went to see The English Patient, he had just come from competing in a track meet and slept through all three hours of the movie.


I wore my Prom dress (in fact, I wore that sucker about four times that year; talk about getting your money's worth. Thanks, dad!) He wore khakis, a white buttondown shirt, a tie and thin, navy blue suspenders. I have to say, he pulled it off pretty GQ and made a good impression. The flowers were scarlet with a scarlet ribbon. And aside from the fallout created by Mr. Mickey Mouse Tie's spy, who was in attendance and later reported all kinds of ridiculous untruths that Mickey Mouse used to destroy my reputation among my parents' friends, I had a lovely time. Despite our group being unable to locate the restaurant where we had reservations and ended up at Dairy Queen, eating ice cream at a Leg0-topped kids' table before the dance.


4) By Senior year, the semiformal was old hat to nice-ex and I (no corsage sophomore year and I was in Spain Junior year). I wore a navy satin floorlength halter dress that had this monochromatic embroidery all over the bodice and was cut to make my skinny arms look more toned. (I'm holding onto that dress for when it comes back in style. I pray I'll still be able to squeeze into it and actually have somewhere to wear it to.) He wore a gray suit. We went with a huge group of friends, most of whom were honorary Indian students, and the one corner of the dancefloor seemed to be our own personal party. Very fun.



5) I'm still trying to figure out what to call the one between nice-ex and H. To make an annoyingly long story short, it'd be as if Monica and Chandler were to go through a painfully messy breakup that made Monica start a blog and the other Friends resent them for a time, after which things would be fine but never quite the same. It's sickening how many parallels there are. You know, without the engagement, wedding, twins and move to suburbia.

I caught this bouquet at my friends Jacqueline and Ramon's lovely wedding. I was reluctant and stood toward the back, but the dang thing bounced off somebody else's eager hands and came right at my head. Chandler said he somehow had a *feeling* I was going to come back to the table with it, but sometimes it's better for everyone when superstitions don't come true. I wore a little black dress and he was in purplish gray.


6) Ri and C got married last July and asked me to stand up as their maid of honor. Ale was also in the wedding party and we had tropical bouquets inspired by the colors of Hawaii, where Ri and C would go on their honeymoon. When Ale went back to New York, she left her bouquet and her pair of those wretched shoes in my car, and I dried both bouquets in case she wanted hers later. But now that she's switched continents, I'm pretty sure she's not going to fly back to Chicago just to get it.



I think a two-part post does better justice to that stuff than leaving it in a closet shoebox to rot (saves more room, too). And because it took me a while to remember where the heck #5 was from, I'm glad I took some time to write it out. I've gotta do more documenting before the old memory slips even further.

14 comments:

jiji said...

i cannot believe you saved your corsages! i wanted to write a nice comment about the chandler/monica parallel but im too hungover.

ML said...

Wow! That's cool that you kept your corsages. All the memories. Brilliant blogging about them, so you can look back at the post instead of the corsages :)

highcontrast said...

you know, in hindsight, i was fabulous a prom date, if i do say so myself. given my 3 week old knee dislocation, i cut more than a couple rugs that night and i must say i was the Heather Mills of my time.

cadiz12 said...

i wholeheartedly agree. i couldn't have asked for better-dancing, more hilarious prom accompaniment.

one day, i'll put to post the saga of that european knee debacle.

Jon said...

I hate to break this to you, but he didn't fall asleep during the English Patient because he was tired... I'm 100% positive that it was a defense mechanism his subconscious used to keep him from gouging out his own eyes and rendering himself deaf. I have yet to meet a guy that said he liked that movie and wasn't lying about it.

Beenzzz said...

That is so cool that you still have all those corsages! I tried keeping mine from all the proms I went to, but I didn't really take care of them and they crumbled to dust. I do have pictures of what they looked like before they fell apart though. :)

Librarian Girl said...

How much do I love that you remember what you were wearing to each of these events, AND what your date was wearing??? Totally. Awesome.

Alla said...

u so cute! i thought you dried the SHOES! haha, i wish i had them thou-- hey! when u come visit bring them!! :)))

Syar said...

Your memory is awesome. Now I kind of wish Malaysia has a better prom trend so I could've had corsages. But I don't want to go into the whole I-would've-never-had-a-date-anyway thing.

Oh well...I'll get my friends on to the idea of wedding bouquets now, so I can have a head start.

Lia said...

I highly applaud both your spring cleaning and your fashion sense. I like that navy satin dress, or what I can see of it, anyhow.

omar said...

The picture that shows all of the corsages/bouquets screams "crime scene."

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

And when you're old you'll have this to show your grandchildren. I keep thinking what the grands / nephews / nieces will say when we're old and they read :-D

I fell asleep watching The English Patient.

cadiz12 said...

well, it sort of was a crime scene photo, if you take into account that they all bit the dust shortly after it was taken. it was difficult for me to get rid of them, but to be honest i'm pretty sure i'll forget about it soon enough.

what i did not throw away, however, was the The English Patient movie poster nice-ex gave me gift later as part of the long-running joke. i don't fault the guy, or you g.g., for sleeping. but at the time i thought the movie was romantic.

i actually have a terrible memory. and for this reason i am a meticulous documenter, which is extremely helpful in arguments where the other party attempts to rewrite history. not on my watch. i grab my calendar/journal and set them straight nearly every time. and pictures are always a good jog.

i don't know if i'll show the grandchildren; i mean, we wouldn't want to give them ridiculous ideas about misleading their parents now, would we?

cadiz12 said...

ale, i'll bring the shoes, but you'll remember why we all hated them as soon as you've had them on for 2.5 seconds.

you sure you don't want me to turn them into a nice flower pot or something? they ARE pretty.