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When my wife of almost 12 years moved out of our Tucson home in 2009 I was in bad shape. We had been together since high school. I was shocked when she left that she refused to take her wedding dress. After all what was I going to do with it? And for some time I did nothing with it and didn't tell anyone about it. I just left it on its perch in my closet as a reminder that my life was changing drastically.
兩年前——2009年——當我妻子搬出我們在圖森的家時，我的心情糟糕透了，要知道我們從高中就在一起，已經12年了。更要命的是，她走的時候把婚紗給留下——她不要。那么，我又能拿它干什么呢？此后有段日子我只是看著它發呆，也沒有告訴任何人婚紗的事。我把它放在衣櫥的上層，好像為了提醒自己——我的生活已徹底地改變了。
I was at my parents' house for dinner one night when I first mentioned the dress to anybody. I told my parents and my brother and sister-in-law that I had my ex-wife's wedding dress because I wanted to know what to do with it. I wanted advice. "You should wipe your @$% with it " my brother Colin chimed in immediately. I believe someone else suggested it would make a good doormat. My divorce had taken a toll on all of us; everybody was upset that my ex-wife was leaving me. "I bet you could come up with 101 things to do with it " my sister-in-law Jenny said.
某個夜晚，我在父母家里吃晚餐，哥哥科林還有他的妻子杰妮也在。我剛向他們第一次提及婚紗的事，“別再舊事重提——你該忘了她，”科林立刻打斷我。其實我不過是想聽聽他們的建議，我該怎么辦？也許會有人說不如把它放在門口做個地墊。我離婚的事給了家里人沉重的一擊，每個人為了前妻離開我而心情沮喪。“我打賭你可以找到101種方法處理它。”杰妮說。
I wasn't in a great mood that night. I was really struggling with my divorce and was extremely stressed about the future for my kids and I. But I couldn't help but smirk at the thought of my ex-wife's wedding dress sitting outside my front door -- what a fancy doormat it would make. I started to imagine other absurd uses for the dress and before I knew it someone had grabbed a pen and some paper and we were writing them down.
那晚我心情很差，離婚已經讓我筋疲力盡，對于孩子和我將來的生活憂心忡忡。但是一想到我前妻的婚紗躺在大門口——一個多么不同凡響的地墊的時候，又抑止不住地得意的大笑。我開始想象除此之外其他蹂躪這件衣服的方式，該拿只筆和紙，把它們寫下來。
For a while all of our ideas made nothing more than a list. We had no real plan to do anything with them. My brother encouraged me to take the dress on a weekend fishing trip we had planned and it was on that trip that the dress came out if its pretty preservation box for the first time. That weekend we used it as a tablecloth a sleeping bag and a doormat outside of my buddy Andy's camper. I had mixed feelings seeing the pristine dress get dirty for the first time but we laughed a lot. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs and wiped our hands on it. We stepped on it entering and exiting the camper.
開始，我只不過把想法列成了一張清單，并沒有想真的那么做。我哥哥鼓勵我不妨帶著它參加一次周末的釣魚之旅——像我們曾經在清單上寫的那樣，那是它第一次新鮮出爐。那個周末，我們拿它來當桌布、睡袋，放在我的老伙計安迪的帳篷外面當地墊。第一次看見潔白的婚紗被弄臟了的時候，我涌起某種復雜的情緒難以言表，但真的很痛快。我們坐在上面吃漢堡、熱狗、擦手；進出帳篷的時候，不忘擦擦鞋底。
Colin and I got together occasionally and photographed the dress at work in different ways. We had used the dress in around 50 different ways when I started thinking about how to go about sharing my pictures with other people. Colin and I were very entertained by the dress uses we had come up with and two of my friends were also going through divorces at the time -- in both cases the wife wanted out. I thought my pictures could be helpful to guys who found themselves in the same situation. Some friends suggested that I started a blog and with the help of another friend I did just that. In May 2010 I launched www.myexwifesweddingdress.com.
科林和我決定把“婚紗的妙用”用相機拍下來，那時候我們已經有不下50種方式，而且我也想讓更多人的看見——我們這些杰作洋洋自得。我的兩個朋友當時也正在鬧離婚——和我一樣，被前妻們拋棄。我想說不定我的照片能對和我處于同樣境況的人們有點幫助，一些朋友建議我索性開一個博客，于是在2010年5月，www.myexwifesweddingdress.com上線了。
I knew little about blogs prior to starting my own but I felt that pictures alone wouldn't be enough. I never really intended to tell my divorce story but as I made my first entry I began sharing my feelings about divorce and its challenges. It wasn't hard to type and it felt good. And that is how my website began. Every few days I would share a wedding dress application and continue the story of my divorce. I basically wrote what was on my mind and maybe a particular issue I was challenged with that day. The pictures were funny but the writing was serious.
在開始我自己的網站之前，我對博客知之甚少，但我想僅有照片是遠遠不夠的。我并不想訴說離婚的故事，但是當我第一次登陸自己的網站，我開始在上面分享離婚后的感受，以及那件時以后的種種挑戰。其實寫下來并不難，而且讓我感覺很好。我的網站就這樣開始，每隔幾天我都會更新一篇“婚紗的妙用”，然后繼續寫我離婚后的故事。而開始時最難的事，恐怕就是把我腦中的想法表達出來——圖片看上去很有趣，但是要描述它們卻很難。
My site starting gaining traffic momentum a few days after it launched and before I knew it people were interested in helping me turn my project into something more. After about a year and half and many more dress photo shoots later I completed the book 101 Uses For My Ex-Wife's Wedding Dress which is being published by NAL/Penguin and is officially available on October 25th.
網站上線沒多久就獲得一些人的關注，我沒想到，有那么多人對這個感興趣。過了一年半左右，我上傳了更多“婚紗的妙用”的圖片，并且寫了一本書——我前妻婚紗的101種用法，這本書將由NAL/Penguin于今年10月25日出版。
Between the book and my website my ex-wife's wedding dress has been used in over 120 different ways. This dress is amazing. It is very dirty at this point but it is still in mostly in one piece (the bow came off early during a jump-roping exercise). I am fond of many of the wedding dress applications but there are a few that stand out about the rest.
其實在我的書和網站上，我前妻的婚紗已經有超過120種的使用方法——很不可思議不是嗎？而且它已經變得非常臟，不是一件完整的衣服（上半身和下半身在一次跳繩中被扯成兩半）。有許多“婚紗的妙用”我都很喜歡，但其中有幾個特別脫穎而出的。
These are my favorite wedding dress applications:
以下是10種我最喜歡的：
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