That time I went to a wedding in CA

It's strange to have written so much about an event, a wedding, without having included anything much about other people. Believe it or not, I did not attend a wedding that only involved me. And yet, I'm reticent to write about other people for fairly simple reasons. First, I'll get them all wrong. It only takes having five or so serious conversations to figure out that we have only a fractional clue of what's going on in someone else's head. And so, I am afraid of misrepresenting them, or having them appear anything but clever and sane, on the grounds that I believe it's best to portray others in the best light.

That said, I should say that as I headed off with my makeup looking quite smashing I thought briefly on the bride: the girl who was marrying my oldest friend. And the thing that impressed me the most about her was that she was nice. I don't mean it pejoratively. The term, like love, has been worn thin by overuse. And yet, if you were to ask me what one quality would likely sustain a long marriage, I'd probably say someone who is nice. Someone who will always, or nearly always, we aren't saints every day, think of you in the best light. This is the sort of person who will largely regard others as reified human beings, ensouled creatures, or at the very lest, not assholes who are in the way.

I've long made the joke that in relationships it's important to be with someone good looking because personality always fades, you start hearing the same jokes, the same stories, the same way of checking their watch, all those habits become familiar, and, barring sainthood, not endearing. And yet, someone who is nice will always be nice. And I can't say that I've ever found being kind to be out of style.

I was also a fan of my bridesmaid, who was funny and opinionated and mildly threatening. Precisely the type of girl who I would have been scared of when I was younger, but who I find to be quite entertaining now. The groom's father wore lederhosen to the rehearsal, and I have to be honest and say that his legs looked fantastic. And we'll just leave it at that. Anyhow, this wedding was made interesting and fun by a myriad of people who are going unnamed, and I'll apologize to all of them at some point when I see them again, which may be never.

I arrived on the day of the wedding as promptly as possible. I am a person who enjoys being on time. I am, for reasons often beyond my control, often late, and I can't communicate how satisfying it was to be on time. Sure, when you're on time, it actually turns out that you're early as no one is expected to actually be on time, and you wind up inconveniencing everyone around you by being on time. People are always feeling guilty when you show up on time though they are secretly wondering why you showed up so early. In this case the groom's mother and grandmother had to shuffle off to another room, so I could walk around the room in my tux with the sweet satisfaction that being on time can only bring, which is boredom as no one is really interested in talking with the person foolish enough to have arrived on time. I looked out the window at a small creek running through tunnels of grass and boughs of trees, such a beautiful place to be early.

In reality, being early is great because it grants you these great moments of silence that are never there when you are late. When you are late, you rush around and then arrive at the event just as it begins, or more likely, just after it has begun, and everyone always thinks this an advantage, but they miss the quiet moments this way: the view out the window, a conversation with an old friend that can only happen when you are early and catching worms or streams of silver light weaving through trees.

Eventually the stragglers arrive, and we take turns drinking from a bottle of Fireball and having our ties properly fixed up by my friend, who, after seeing the shoddy job that I'd done with my tie, insisted on doing a proper double Windsor. And, as he puts the tie around my neck, checking the length, as if he is my father, I ask him if he can see that I'm wearing makeup, "only a little," he answers without judgment, which is what friends are made for.

Eventually we had corsages put on, and I am reminded of my first high school dance, what an incredibly terrifying evening it was and will always be since we cannot rewrite the past. After a moment, my friend who has tied my tie comes inside and says he can see the groom and his new bride from the balcony, having their first look at one another. I step outside with him, and we steal a few moments of watching the two of them gazing at one another on a small brick path, bathed in light. They look magnificent. My friend says that the moment is beautiful and strange in a way, to have known someone since we were children, and now to be watching him, decades later, on the day of his wedding. We reflect on this for only a short time as we conclude thereafter that is probably strange or uncultured, to stand on a balcony when a couple is supposed to be getting their first look.

After a while, when its become clear that no sandwiches have been ordered, we drive up the small street and up the steep hill to the wedding. In this case, I've had enough fireball that I hand the keys off to the bride's younger brother, and I tell him to gun it up the hill. "Changing gears is for slower cars." Inside the small tea house where we start to realize that we're not getting any lunch, we, a bunch of married guys, give advice to the bride's  younger brother, who is in college, about relationships and women, none of which I'm remembering right now, but all of which was, I'm sure, pure gold.

Outside, as we were talking about the tight knit nature of our group, and that brief period of time when we were going out in our early twenties, decrying our ability to have anything approaching a traditional good time, a friend of the groom's asked us what we did when we went out, specifically,

"What happened when one of you met a girl?"

We all looked at each other and laughed. "Girls?" my friend said. "No one ever met any girls."

H: Well then how did all of you end up married?

G: Just went with the first girl that would have us.
(This is of course a joke as we are all married to lovely, intelligent and discerning women, though the latter point may be in question).

And we passed the time in just such a way, laughing, going to the bathroom and waiting to be told to walk down the aisle.

After a bit, we stood around a small table with champagne and talked about death. It was a wedding after all. The bridesmaid I'd been paired with is a nurse in an ICU. I was telling her, as I tell everyone, how bad our nation, and I am, at thinking about death.

"I plan on living forever, or at least reaching the ripe old age of Methusalah.

The truth of the matter is that the most spiritually significant time in my life was spent in a hospital. I told her how I watched a very gentle old man go from simple rehab to death's door in the ICU. She said, with real conviction, that she loved to help people die well that the process of helping someone to end their life was fulfilling. Then she told me that they had also recently saved someone who's heart had stopped on an elevator. "We can do some amazing things," she said. And I could have talked like that for hours, about death and dying, but then I remembered that I was at a wedding, and such topics are probably better left for other days.

After more time passes, we are called to our duty: to walk down the aisle slowly while looking fantastic. I'm pretty sure I hit on one of two. In most of the pictures I look like my face is partially deformed: note, do not talk to the person you are walking with on the aisle. Smile straight ahead, nod at some people: you will look better in the pictures. At the front, seeing my oldest friend, I went up and shook his hand, a gesture I've picked up after so many weddings through the years, a gesture that never feels wrong but still appears strong and manly. I've seen people hug, which also acceptable.

The ceremony was one of the best I've been to, despite the service exceeding the usual 15 minute cap that I enjoy. The vows were written by the groom and bride, and were wonderful. And the sermon was about how important friends had been to the character formation and lives of the two individuals being bound together. In fact, I still remember spending the night for the very first time at the groom's house, a very scared six year old. "Don't worry," he told me, "we have an alarm." Moments later, when that alarm went off, I was pretty sure that my life was over. It wasn't the end that night. I know because I ended up at his wedding.

Back in the tea house we cracked open a bottle of champagne while we waited for the crowd to clear. A receiving line at a wedding is an interesting thing. I remember being shocked at my own wedding by the number of people that I barely knew. "Who was that?" I found myself asking S as each person left us to smile at the next.

At the reception, we all got wine and waited for the dinner to start. At some point, I knew that my wife would ask me about the food, but I was already forgetting what I was eating. I'm just not cut out for remembering food. We ate beans, maybe? Most weddings, when you're not part of the bridal party are pretty much about the reception. You want to know if there will be an open bar, who you are sitting with, and when the music will be queued up, so you can show off the latest dub step moves that you learned from watching Youtube.

That time I went to CA for a wedding and bought makeup for the first time

I don’t know how I’ve spent all this time in CA without talking about death. Weddings always remind me of death. Perhaps that’s because everything reminds me of death. I read somewhere recently that the most commonplace thing that a writer can muse on is death. I have a horrendously short memory, which means I tend to take the latest thing I’ve read as Gospel, largely because I’ve forgotten everything else that has come before. As such, I’m trying not to write about death as much. I think the quote may have been from Borges, but I also know that he’s written multiple times about infinity and at least once, and amazingly, about immortality, so maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was written by someone who was dying.

                I sleep about 4.5 hours before my body wakes me up because it’s seven AM on the east coast and it’s time to eat and go to the bathroom. It’s these small, insistent reminders, hunger, toilets that belie that feeling or dream that we are all spirit imbued by soul. If we are, then we are still trapped in these very hungry, very tired bodies. I get up and eat breakfast in the dark at my dad’s old wooden table, where I’ve memories of eating my first bowl of Lucky Charms in the company of siblings who live thousands of miles away but who were once only a chair away. You see, everything is always about loss. Perhaps when I think of weddings, I think too of partings, how they say, till death do you part.

                For some reason, it takes me hours to get back to sleep. I roll around in the double bed, making a mess of my sheets and periodically checking my phone to see how much time has passed. When I finally sleep, it is short and hard. I wake up to a pool of drool large enough for a goldfish to swim in.

I take a warm shower and start to shave. I’m clean-shaven about twice a year, and I’ve decided that my friend’s wedding, a man I’ve known since he was five, will be one of those occasions. I’m using a disposable razor for the occasion, and though I think I remember all the nuances of shaving, it becomes clear about halfway through that my face has quite forgotten. In the mirror, I notice some unsightly razor burn coming up, and I also notice that underneath the overgrowth of beard that I’ve been letting go, an area on my chin and some on my upper lip have formed rashes shaped like Missouri and West Virginia respectively.

I am not, I think, a vane person. Though, in fact, I am a vane person. I just mean in the context of knowing other American 21^st century human beings I’m not a particularly vane person. which means, of course, that I am in fact, rather vane, but I attribute this vanity to the culture rather than to any personal failing, or at least the proliferation of reflective surfaces and venues to post pictures. I suspect that it was much easier to go around with a rash on one’s face when there was no mirror to confirm one’s shortcomings. I point the rash out to my dad, though he says he can’t see it. I suspect that he’s going blind.

“Look,” I say, “my friend is paying a large sum of money for me to appear as a bit actor in these pictures, and I’m not going to mess it up by having large splotches of red on my face.”

It turns out that all of the pictures are taken from far away, and that my face needed no touching up, but I appreciated the fiction I spun for myself to justify the vanity.

My dad concurs, though I know that underneath his concurrence is the thought that I’ve probably spent too much time taking selfies in the bathroom mirror.

When I get downstairs, I tell my dad that I’m going to the coffee shop. He says he’s sorry that he doesn’t have coffee that I have to wander the streets in search of it. The thing is, I don’t drink coffee every day, but I do love to drink it on vacations. I want to wander the streets in the warmth or the chill, perhaps I’ll stumble across someone playing a violin in front of a church, or find a small shop where they sell Parisian style baked goods, though I’m in America for this trip, on the outskirts of a city, so instead I’ll hop over a plastic bag or two of fast food and ignore the mouth-watering pictures of hamburgers painted on the windows. Except, none of that really happened that day, that morning, I drove away in the car without saying a word and called him from the store.

                At the shop, I get a small coffee and a ham and cheese croissant. The croissant tastes exactly as it should, rich, soft and warm. I do not know if I should pass the homeless man on the street on the way to get a second breakfast without thinking much of it. I think that we all should be sitting on verandas overlooking the sea while eating pastries. It seems my wishing that the world was so does precious little good.

                The truth of the matter is that I’m eating the croissant in the car and am in a hurry. I call my dad from Albertson’s to let him know that I’ve gone.

“Where are you?” he asks,

“I’m at Albertson’s. Do you need anything?”

“Why?”

Pause. “I’m looking for makeup.”

I go the idea from my brother. I kid you not. The thought would never have occurred to me, but he was out last spring to give a talk to 200 or so people and had some sort of blemish on his face that he decided he needed cover up for. Up until then, it hadn’t really occurred to me that this was an option for men, but as I stared in the mirror at the splotches on my face, I knew what I had to do. I’m no fool, and I quickly discerned that all they had at Albertsons’ was makeup removal stuff.

I drove down the street in a hurry and stopped at a Lucky’s and headed straight for the makeup section. Within moments, I had identified precisely the sort of thing that I needed, though I wasn’t sure if I wanted a liquid, or a solid, whether I needed heavy duty or light duty, or what the hell any of this would actually look like. My heart was beating fast as though I was trying to pick out a dirty movie or doing something illicit. I pulled two packages closer to me, trying to discern exactly what type of makeup was the best and managed to knock them on the floor. As I was bent over, trying to pick them up, a nice saleswoman dropped by and said, “Do you need some help?” I told her no, and felt indignant that she would have asked.

I eventually settled on something from Cover Girl of Maybeline and scanned the store for one of those self-check machines. Luckily, they had one, and I was able to purchase the equivalent of a Hustler and slip out the door. In the car, I peered once more at my face. I had made a good decision.

Back at my dad’s I stood facing the mirror and unscrewed the cap. How much are you supposed to apply? I settled on half a rouge stick or whatever they give you with those things, and applied it liberally. It turns out that when applied liberally makeup doesn’t actually look all that good. Sure it covers up the spots, but it does so only by replacing them with brown splotches. I let them sit for ten minutes, trying to decide if it was better to have brown or red splotches before attempting to rub it in, and I have to tell you now that makeup is magic. The redness disappeared and what was left was only a trace of extra color.

From there, it was a quick touch up in the bathroom, toss on a suit.

“We didn’t iron that,” my dad says. I’d told my wife before I left that I distinctly remembered my father ironing things while we were growing up. When I ask him, he says that he never ironed his shirts.

The suit is only slightly rumpled, which is par for the course for me. I head back down the freeway, turn on my satellite radio station and listen to the sound of Katie Perry singing “Roar,” and I picture the kids in the hospital beds, making up a dance to this song, and I think of weddings, which are really all about death and for the second time in two days I find myself looking past the freeway, to the sky beyond, strung with clouds on clotheslines, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this strange gift that is being a thinking, seeing, feeling, human being on this earth. It is strange that to have it happening again so quickly, as I am, by nature, morose, but something about the slant of light, the foothills in the distance and the wind rushing in through the partially open window remind me of the gift that though I love other people so much, I am reminded the most of when I am alone. 

That time I went to CA and did karaoke

Here's the rule about going out: you never regret just going home. It turns out that no matter how awesome of a time everyone else had the night that you stayed in : drag racing, dancing in a burlesque house and going to a speakeasy where they serve all their drinks in boots, you don't really care. Because you stayed in, and fell asleep at 1 AM yourself after eating some ice cream and watching half a season of Keeping up with the Kardashians on Netflix. You're never going to regret that night.

 As a parent of children under the age of three, I often regret being out past 6:30 PM. I start to panic: "we need to get them home. Do you know what happens if we take them home at 7:30! Do you know!" Honestly, this monologue mainly happens internally, but it is deeply frightening. For those of you who don't have children, if the children go to bed late, and then you go to bed right after them, your life can seem like a meaningless circle of feeding and crying and working and bed and then probably death. If the children go to bed early, you can spend the evening benevolently reflecting on their sweet smile and funny jokes. No child is sweeter than one who is sleeping.

 However, sans children, everyone decides to leave the rehearsal dinner to head down to a bar for karaoke.

Like most people, I believe I'm an above average to, probably should have a small record contract singer. However, over the years my wife's use of the words like "tone deaf" and "do you hear any tunes?" has lead me to believe that I might not be as talented as I once thought. This is what comes of a whole generation of children who were told that they could be anything they wanted to be. We all thought we'd be astronauts, NBA basketball players or the premier of Soviet Russia by now, and we are sad as a result. It's best to set expectations low. Jimmy, we think you might make it one day as a yard duty at an elementary school.

 It turns out you can't do everything. No matter how hard you try you will not be able to win the gold medal in the long jump. The only time I should ever be singing karaoke is with Scarlett Johannson in Tokyo in one of those private rooms during a mid-life crisis.

The first time I went to do karaoke in San Francisco, years and years ago, I thought it was going to be a fun evening of laughing and singing. Except, we were in the world's most serious karaoke bar. After the second lady did a medley of Whitney Houston hits followed by another woman belting out some Mariah Carey, it occurred to me that karaoke was a deeply scary undertaking. It was clear that these people came to the karaoke bar to be discovered. Maybe I should have posed as a really young agent. I didn't. These people were intense. After a long night of waiting out these beautiful singers, a few of us cranked out a nice rendition of the Back Street Boys "I want it that way" much to the delight of one middle aged woman who clapped and got out of her seat. Sadly, the rest of the crowd just looked on like we'd just sacrificed a goat.

The bar is described as a "dive" bar. However, I suspect that Saratoga actually only has one bar downtown, so it's also the "hipster bar," "dancing bar," "best place to eat chicken wings and do interpretative dancing with a hula hoop while you break up with your ex-girlfriend bar" in Saratoga. The bar area takes up more than half the space in the pleasantly dark room. We're seated on two low slung couches and two easy chairs, passing stories back and forth, sharing drinks and laughs while a pair of guys bang out some Temple of the Dog "Hunger Strike," and something by Nirvana. And I'd have been happy to play out the night that way, reflecting on how amazing the music was in the nineties, but it was not to be. Apparently, when you go to karaoke, someone actually karaokes.

To be honest, at first I promised to just be a back up dancer for my friend and his wife doing a lovely duet. And the next thing you know I'm getting promoted from back up dancer to lead singer "performing" (probably too nice of a word) a rousing rendition of "Party In the USA" by Miley Cyrus. Luckily, despite being on lead mic, I could not hear anything I was singing. The crowd was also deeply appreciative, despite not knowing it. In fact, I suspect that the mic they gave me was  a dud, like when I used to give unplugged video game controllers to kids I was babysitting. Eventually, I passed the mic off to the groom's sister and danced to one of the catchiest songs of the last ten years. Afterwards, at least two people came up and said how surprised they were that I was capable of having fun. I attributed it all to the cowboy hat. At the end of the day, it's one of those times when you have to ask yourself if you have any regrets, and I'd have to say that I wish I'd followed it up with "Love Story" by Taylor Swift. You live and learn.

After that, the floodgates were loosed and various members of our group did a poor job singing songs and a fantastic job of having a wonderful time. Sure a ton of rounds being bought from the bar helps, but it also helps to be in the company of such fine people, who make you laugh and smile and remind you that life can occasionally be a kind of gift.

I hear people talk disparagingly of heaven, reflecting on how boring it would be to spend an eternity strumming away on a harp and singing praises. But what if heaven wasn't quite like that. What if it was more like a small bar in the center of a sleepy CA town, where drinks were flowing, the music was bad, but it was being sung by people you love, and you were all laughing and dancing the night away. Maybe we wouldn't last an eternity, but I think I could spend a few nights there, praising in our  own strange way.

That Time I went to CA for a wedding part 3

                 

The only downside to this reunion of friends is that one of the groomsmen is missing after being in a rather horrendous scooter vs. car accident that didn’t end well for him or the scooter, though I’ve gotten no update on the scooter’s condition, which seems a bit thoughtless. Naturally, one of the first things my friends do when they arrive is show me a picture of a gaping wound in his leg, the ham string exposed completely, skin shorn away. We are but sacks of flesh.  A long time ago we took bets on which one of us would be the first to kick the bucket, because you know, given enough time to write even a group of monkeys could write Shakespeare. This particular friend was the near unanimous pick to win or lose the betting pool, depending on your belief in the afterlife. And we give him credit for at least taking an honest shot at proving us all right, though admittedly we’re all rather relieved to be wrong for the time being. Other comments include, “If he didn’t want to come to the wedding I feel like he could have just said no. Well, he’s an actor, and they have to do everything dramatically.” By this point in time, he was at least out of the ICU, so I feel like the jokes were kosher. 

                Untethered from certain afternoons, in thin strips of light, one can think that we’ll all gather again someday for a funeral. For now though, eat drink and be merry.    

        

As soon as we’re comfortably at the rehearsal, exchanging compliments about our costumes, we start drifting away from the larger group of people. We’ve been friends forever which necessarily means shutting out other groups of people to maintain your friendship. Sadly, we get drawn in to conversations by other partygoers, or I think we’d have fallen off the side of the hill in the garden in attempt to seclude ourselves. Belonging to any group entails a necessary act of seclusion or shutting off. In order to spend time with A, you are necessarily not spending time with B. Actually, math confuses me, so I’ll leave the analogy alone as I believe all I proved above was the necessity of motion as it relates to Xeno’s paradox.

                Including my own, I’ve been in twelve weddings. I’d like to think this makes me a wedding expert. However, I’ve never once been the bride, or the maid of honor, or the mother of the bride, or the wedding coordinator. At any wedding, at least one of these people is stressing out about every last detail, which makes them extremely useful and like hell to be around. As far as details go, I’ve pretty much haven’t made it beyond getting a tux and having a corsage pinned on me. I’ve learned nothing. Here’s what I do know:  at an assigned time I’ll be walking down the aisle in the company of a young woman who will be dressed in a gown that matches in one way or another other young women also walking down the aisle. I will be walking slowly. Later, at the conclusion of the ceremony, after the bride and groom have been married and run off, I’ll be walking down that same aisle, except, this time no one really cares because the bride and groom have already gone and everyone is looking for purses and hats and directions to the reception and wondering if there will be an open bar, which means that you can walk or skip, or strip down to your underwear and it’s unlikely anyone will notice. 

                I get matched up randomly by the groom and stand idly next to my bridesmaid, who says, “Who am I matched up with?” Apparently wearing a cowboy outfit makes you invisible too. I might use it to try and rob banks. At some point, we practice walking down the aisle. We walk down the aisle two or three times because that is the prescribed number of times that you walk down the aisle at a rehearsal. I have to tell you that after eleven weddings I am walking down the aisle like a champ, smiling regally and nodding to people in the crowd, even though there isn’t a crowd, and I’m smiling at no one. The key to this whole endeavor is to walk slowly. However, fast you are walking, walk slower. If you find that you’ve come to a complete stop, start walking backwards.  You’re still going too fast. Also don’t forget to smile benevolently and nod like you’ve been there before because a photographer is going to be taking pictures and you want to look like the sort of person who knows how to walk down an aisle like a pro. The only downside to this whole multiple wedding business is that I keep getting older, and I have to compensate for my declining looks by smiling even more regally and walking even more slowly. I wish everyone had gotten married when I was 22.  

                After we’re done rehearsing we stand around and give the groom a hard time about being a DO instead of an MD, crediting him as almost making it through to be a doctor. Either every one of us is good natured or secretly hates the others, but the groom takes it in stride, claiming that he can heal cancer with a properly applied neck massage. I don’t remember the exact distinction between DO and MD, but I’m pretty sure it has mostly to do with massage therapy and acupuncture  vs. you know, medicine. 

                Before we head over to the rehearsal I stop by the hotel and have a glass or two of champagne with my friend and his wife. And I have to tell you that it is good to see everyone’s wives at this wedding. We have been taking guys trips for five years now, and whatever stereotypes you have of a bunch of males hanging out over the course of a weekend in some random city actually all turn out to be true. Basically, it’s like every show on CBS, totally scripted in such a way so that you know the writers aren’t even trying, but it pleases the masses. We tend to play video games, drink beer, (though not me because I suspect beer tastes like dog piss, I haven’t had dog piss, but I have had beer) and trade off color stories from our shared pasts. And so it is good to see the wives for once, the people with whom my friends have willingly chosen to spend the rest of their lives. And, being married myself, I realize how strange it is that we see each other out of this context, out of the day to day grind that comprises every working person’s life, job, come home, watch television, eat ice cream, sleep and rewind. I feel especially benevolent towards them because I am drinking glasses of champagne, and two glasses of anything turns me into a lover of humanity. After two glasses of wine, you can probably talk me into saying that communism probably just needs to be given one more shot because it’s such a good idea that will probably turn out well one of these days. 

                I don’t entirely remember what I had at the rehearsal dinner. Someone needs to send me with a card to write down the normal things that I do on these trips, because my wife is forever calling and asking me how the dinner was, or whether I brought more than one pair of socks, and, though I remember sometimes, it’s often a bit foggy. This is primarily because I eat like a person who’s life depends on it, with the kind of focus that you see from Olympic athletes. I don’t do a lot of things well, but I do eat quickly. If I wasn’t married, this is probably what would wind up on my online dating profile. I can tell you that the wine was good that I spoke to the groom’s mother, told her that she was my favorite teacher in first grade for installing confidence in me, which is true and good and at least part of the reason that I’m in an education program right now. Note: I had lasagna, the Caesar salad and a torte for dessert. I remember everything. 

At some point my friend and I went downstairs and had a shot of whiskey and chatted with the bar tender. After our drink, he pours us a glass of something else, pushing it towards us. We take a drink, and it tastes delicious, not alcoholic at all, with a smooth and fruity aftertaste. It’s the sort of drink that you know only a professional could mix up, managing to mask the strong flavors of alcohol with a few splashes and sprigs of roots and tubers. I’m tempted to ask if he’s a mixologist. “This is really good,” I say. My friend agrees, and I ask, “What is it?”  

“Cherry coke,” the bar tender answers, proving that old and true adage, alcohol tastes awful.

               

That time I went to a wedding in CA---Part 2

                 

Strangely, to be in a rental car, is in some way to be in a foreign place. Since I won’t be traveling to Spain anytime soon, I have to take my comfort in leather seats, in agendas that are not already set. There is a simple pleasure in not knowing what will come next, what an afternoon or an evening will bring. This sort of pleasure diminishes as we age and our experiences become more narrowed or defined. 

                Arriving back at my dad’s house it becomes clear that there will be no time for the hike or the drive or the walk that we’d planned. There is only time to put on some nice boots, a cowboy hat and head back out onto the open road. On the drive to Saratoga I hear a song by Katie Perry that may or may not be called “Roar,” that my father and I had seen on the news night before as sung by a group of children in a children’s cancer hospital. One of those small blips of life that are seemingly available everywhere if you are willing to look closely enough at the vast swaths of internet where sadness and beauty are conjoined almost effortlessly. And, like the homeless person who asks you for a dollar on the street, you can merely watch it and say, what am I to do with this? 

At this point what I’ll do is immaterial because what it turns out I’ll do when I hear this song on the radio and start thinking of the children and the dying is cry. This is because I cry frequently when I’m alone, particularly in the car. Given an open road and a decent playlist, I think I’d cry daily. After this, as the sunlight pours down into the valley, and I drive down a narrow strip of highway between the foothills I have a moment where I am deeply thankful  to be alive. I cannot explain it, surely you’d had some of those moments yourself, perhaps daily, or you’ve at least read about them in a self-help book. Anyhow, as I’m driving I am fleetingly just really happy to be living and breathing and driving down the highway in the late afternoon light with the music playing and all the threads of the evening not yet woven together. 

I’ve considered writing self-help books. The only reason that I haven’t started is that I’m a deeply ungrateful person. My life is, by most objective standards, good, and yet I am always concerned that it is not better. I suspect, in the back of my mind that just having a couple of extra million dollars, or a novel written would really round things out. I don’t know what the market is for a self-help book that is constantly reminding you that though things are good, they could always be better. 

One of the things that I am grateful for is Saratoga, which is small, and quaint and cute. And as I’m driving up to the wedding venue I am going up one of those very steep hills in CA that people have put houses on, presumably to lob insults and pitch upon the peasants, only to watch the feudal system dissolve to their dismay, leaving them with houses and gardens perched on damn near inaccessible hills, I pass a sign that says I should shift into a lower gear. However, I have been upgraded to a Chrysler GTO 300. I’m fairly certain that by jamming my foot on the gas pedal I can practically fly up the hill, which turns out to be true and also acts as a good reminder that you should never buy a used rental car on the grounds that the people driving them are idiots just like you. 

Once inside, I park, call the wife and kids to pass the time and start looking for a bathroom. The pants are so tight that I swear they are pushing on my urethra, and I wind up going to the bathroom three times inside of thirty minutes. In the interim, I make polite conversation with a man in a wonderful top hat, who turns out to be the bride’s father about his work in the Forest Service around Quincy, where we lived for a year. He says that he’s loved working there, and I reflect on how people used to think my wife said foreign service instead of forest service when she worked there and would want to know where she was stationed. Anyhow, this particular gem of a story starts rattling around inside of my head, and I keep wondering when I should insert it into the conversation until I realize that the moment has passed, and no one wants to be reminded that they are not in the Foreign Service, in which I imagine you smoke large Turkish cigarettes and pass the time complaining to local diplomats about the heat and the coffee. 

At first, I walk up a gravel path and admire the Japanese gardens, the waterfalls and immaculately groomed bushes. I admire things and walk around, trying to look like any other person at the garden that day, except that I’m dressed up like a cowboy and am almost photo bombing all the cute couples and families who came here to enjoy the quiet beauty and presumably, my tight pants. After fifteen minutes or so I run out of reserves of standing contemplatively while looking at the garden. I am a product of the twenty first century and need distractions, a book, a notebook, an iPad, something to help me pass the time. I sneak back out to the entrance for a bathroom break. 

Afterwards I stand and wait in the gravel and see my first grade teacher, the groom’s mother, and my favorite childhood teacher, drive by. And as she arrives at the gate I’m prepared to say hi to her except that she walks right past me and it is her daughter who says hello and gives me a hug, at which point my old teacher says that she thought I was some deviant part of the bride’s family and not someone dressed up in costume. The interesting thing about the groom’s sister is that she’s only a year younger than I am, and yet, growing up as good friends with her brother it was and is my perception that she was at least three to five years younger than I was. And it’s funny how when you’re young, your perception of age can be so vastly skewed. That said, I spend the  rest of the weekend asking her how she’s liking her mid-twenties, because there is no way to keep yourself from becoming old than by constantly being surprised by how young other people are. I don’t suppose the fact that I sat in a rocking chair and insisted on doing some needlework during the wedding prep helped. 

Back at the wedding top, I’m waiting with the groom’s family for everyone else to arrive. And they do, dressed up as a hot dog, the mad hatter and a gun toting NRA hunter. And really, what else could anyone want? I’ll tell you what they could want, some Fireball. I received a half-glass of the liquor Fireball, a cinnamon whiskey that tastes almost exactly like the Scope flavor, and I’m fairly certain that you can, and I have, used it as mouthwash. Fireball is something I have once a year on our guy’s trips, and it has become emblematic of these weekends and actually brings to mind the fun of Nashville, and Austin, and Portland, and Kansas City in the way that a certain perfume or scent can remind you of an old love. Being reunited with a little bit of Fireball is being reunited with the fun we’ve already had, watching people dance impromptu to a song in Austin, the late nights and amazing bands in Nashville, the pictures we all posed for in the Rose Garden in Portland.  It is less a mouthwashy flavored whiskey than a sign that the good times are about to start rolling.

That time I went to CA for a wedding part 1

                                                

                                                                                Leaving

The low point starts on the day I am to fly home. It's a feeling that I usually describe in fiction, but I suppose, like most works of fiction, the truth is grounded in reality. The ache is mostly in my stomach, though its actual placement I suppose is either in the mind or approaching soul level, depending on your belief system. It's the feeling of having lost something that you can't retrieve, like waking up from a dream of childhood in old age. It's happened before a few times in my life, a sort of awareness as something is happening that reminds you that it is good to be alive and in the company of such damn good people with the simultaneous awareness that this too shall pass. And at times, I confess, even as the event is happening, I’ve already begun to regret its passing, though I still manage to be a lot of fun at a party.

The feeling gets worse at the airport, which should be no surprise. Airports are no place, reminders of our anonymity. How is it possible that so many people could be gathered together in one place and yet not know one another? It's strange to be headed back to DC, a city I've lived in for years, in the company of so many strangers. Traveling home is like this, having left behind the expectations of the trip to come, and not yet in the company of those you love, it's wandering the skies like Odysseus on the seas.

I've read enough studies to know that what I should be feeling as I leave the weekend behind is gratitude. It's mentally healthy and a reasonable response to having spent the weekend having a great time, and I'm not sure why exactly I'm incapable of feeling that way, though I'm willing to speculate. There is a fleeting nature to these moments in time, an awareness that lies just beneath the moment that it will not last, cannot be recovered. Lord knows there are plenty of moments in life that we'd be just as happy to not recover. For instance, I have no desire to go back in time to get my finger dislocated again, or to wake up at six am after a night of throwing up to head in to work at JC Penny's. Those I could do without.

On some kind of larger scale perhaps what we’re talking about is a fear of death, though I have a tendency to take things to too large a scale, and perhaps what I was feeling was just a normal sort of letdown, or, to use a fancy word, sad. It was Wittgenstein who said, "I do not know why we are here, but I don't think it was too enjoy ourselves." I suspect now that Wittgenstein was probably wrong and definitely German. I suspect that one of the reasons we are alive is to enjoy being alive. I suspect that it’s not only good for our mental health to assume so, but probably at least one of the myriad of reasons to soldier on. I’m using solider on loosely here as I’m a middle class westerner living in Washington, DC, not exactly subsistence farming in Africa. Thank god for existential dread, otherwise, I’d have nothing complain about.

This is all at odds with the weekend that I just had, and if you'd seen me shimmying across the floor at 8 PM on Friday night to "I'm sexy and I know it" or serenading the newly married couple in a circle of friends with arms all tossed around each other in a dive bar singing "Wagon Wheel" you'd probably be a bit confused. Or maybe you wouldn't be. Maybe life is just strange and personality and circumstances contingent things. There's much more of a focus in Eastern religions on the dying of the old man that happens each evening, or each moment, in which a new person is born. The wedding was at a beautiful Japanese garden, so you'll forgive me, a westerner, for briefly considering the idea and its merits. 

I’ve waxed on long enough about what it felt like to leave. If I learned anything from reading two stories from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” it’s that the interesting part is what happens on the journey. Arriving home is nearly always a given. It’s what you experienced along the way that’s worth reporting.

                                                            The Trip

To leave, I wake up at five and have a leisurely breakfast. The best part about waking up at five AM is that it is not 4:30 AM. Beyond that, I find nothing redeeming about it. By 5:30, I’m totally packed and ready to get on a plane to CA. When the cabby calls and I walk downstairs, we do that awkward thing where I start to put my suitcase in the back and then he takes it from me like we are on our honeymoon. Figuring that everything might as well join in the fun I slide my backpack into the trunk, and he looks at me like I’m either an idiot for putting it in there, or an idiot for not letting him do it. I don’t know what to do with any type of service culture that doesn’t involve me shelling out five to seven dollars and then receiving a bag filled with burgers and French fries in return. I start sweating sometimes when the check arrives, trying to figure out how exactly to have the final tally end up at a round number, as if my credit card is incapable of making change, I’m sorry I only spend in increments of twenty, and trying to keep it close to 20 percent.

He asks me how I get to the airport, and I tell him North Capitol. He asks if I’d be okay to take the parkway instead, which roughly translates to a request to rip me off, but I say yes, because I’m paying him for a service. In the morning, the feathered moonlight on Rock Creek makes it look like cut glass. In the car, on the board where my fare is displaying a series of images is running of people being shot in movies, often violently. It is just image after image of bodies being riddled with bullets, heads blown apart and spurting blood. I watch for a minute or so, transfixed and horrified. Eventually, I look away, and back out into the night. I do not know what was being advertised, but I know I didn’t care.

The driver and I exchange witticisms along the way, such as, “which airline?” followed by, “Southwest.” We have the easy camaraderie of two guys thrown together in a buddy copy comedy who never speak and then exchange money after a car ride. It is, in some ways, reminiscent of the story of Cinderella.

When I was younger, I used to try and look half decent on flights. Particularly Southwest, where people are actually choosing whether to sit next to you or not based on your appearance. In fact, for a couple of years I used to engage in polite conversation fairly often with people who sat near me. We’d talk about sports, or cities we lived in, the people we were visiting. At some point in time I realized this was stupid. Now I put on my glasses early and where a sign that says, “I am just looking for a place to drool.” I don’t remember my flight to Houston, which is just as well. Okay, I remember occasionally waking up and thinking, have I been sleeping with my mouth open for an hour, only to fall back asleep with my mouth open for another hour.

In Houston, I walk around the airport looking for a meal under ten dollars. This is always hard to find in an airport, because they have what is called a monopoly and can therefore price fix. I use the term walk around loosely, as most of being in the Houston airport, which is enormous and can be seen from space, is dodging carts, driven by people who say, “Cart! Cart!” in a way that tells you that leg severance awaits you if you don’t move out of the way of the cart. After a while, you start to realize that not everyone on the carts are old or disabled, and that rich people in the Houston airport are probably just paying extra for rides to pass the time, yelling, “Cart! Cart!” in the way that the gentry used to splash mud on the poor in the streets. Sometimes, I think about not moving, but then I think about my family, and how much they’d miss me if I went in a cart accident and I move aside, mentally castigating the rich cart folk.

I eventually settle on Subway as they are the one restaurant offering anything under ten dollars. The sandwich is actually quite good, and I follow that up by sneaking over to steal WiFi as a guest from a restaurant that I’m not frequenting, sitting suspiciously close to said restaurant, and sometimes walking by and asking the wait staff where I can pick up the best signal. The thing about the Houston Airport is that it’s fine once you learn its ways. Eat cheaply, steal WiFi and dodge rich people carts, and you’ve got it made. I might even move there. From Houston I post to Facebook saying things like, “I’m in Houston,” because I could tell people on Facebook were all wondering where I was and were relieved to know that I was in Houston and were earnestly texting friends to let them know that I was okay, everyone could calm down, I was now in Houston. I don’t understand social media even though I use it somewhat frequently. It’s the sort of thing, like hot dog meat, or why it’s so easy to pass people asking for money on the street after I’ve just eaten an expensive meal that’s best not interrogated.

Sadly, as in most great romances, I was forced to leave Houston. From there, I flew to Vegas. I’d never flown in to Vegas before, and I will tell you what I learned about people flying to Vegas: they are much older than you’d think they’d be. The median age on the flight is somewhere around sixty, and the atmosphere as everyone is waiting can only be described as jubilant. The majority of the people look tanned, retired, and happy to have the opportunity to get away for the weekend to see some shows and gamble, or, lord help me, have sex in some hotel room with their spouse, partner, or someone they met at an old folk’s home. I’d always thought that everyone in Vegas would be younger, but I’m starting to realize that all that stuff about rat races etc, turns out to be somewhat true, in that you don’t really have time to get away to Vegas when you’re younger because you’ve got only a certain number of days off and families and obligations etc. taking up your time, which just means you’re probably not getting to Vegas until you are sixty, though luckily, from what I’m seeing, by then, you will be immensely excited about it.

On the flight to Vegas, I sleep and drool against the wall quite handsomely. Sometimes I’ll wake up to make sure that I’m not leaning on the person in the middle of the seat, and to see what kind of shape the drool’s made. My partners on the plane are a couple, woman of sixty or so and her partner, who looks to be late seventies. At one point she says she has to go to the bathroom, and he says that he can’t move. She orders him a whiskey straight, and I can just tell these people are going to watch some tigers jumping through fire in Vegas. Yolo.

When the plane lands, those of us who are flying on to San Jose are vociferously told to remain seated until they can get a proper count to see who’s staying on. I remain seated, because I am afraid of authority. The rest of the passengers on the plane do not share that healthy fear and start milling around and mumbling about the Gestapo, an act that causes the steward to get back on the line and tell us all to sit down again or there will be hell to pay, which just makes the natives more restless, and they start taking down bags and changing seats anyway. I feel like pulling them back and warning about the dangers of defying stewards on a flight, but no one seems interested. I’m eventually counted and wind up with a much crappier seat than I would have if I’d just braved their disapproval of me moving around the aircraft.

The flight to San Jose is mercifully not full, and only an hour or so. Now that I don’t have middle passenger to drool and sleep on I lose all interest in sleep and wind up cranking out a few extremely short stories. When we finally arrive in San Jose and my dad drives me back towards his house I cower in fear at the large shapes in the distance. He explains to me that what I’m seeing are called foothills, or small mountain ranges, and I ask him why all the trees aren’t really dense and close to the freeway and why everything is so far apart and big, which is the overall feeling of California, it just seems like people have a lot of room there.  

I don’t know if some secret metaphor lies in the space, in the last vestiges of light turning the brown foothills a pale gold. I’ve been gone from California long enough to no longer recognize all that space as my own. Now when I look at it I know that a metaphor lies somewhere out on all that open road, those widely spread apart houses, but I don’t think I’ve been gone long enough yet to grasp it.

I was in CA for a wedding--a friend of mine who I’ve known since kindergarten, which turns out to have been a hell of a long time ago now, is getting hitched in Saratoga. A city, that every time we pass my dad asks if I’d like to stop and visit the house he grew up in, and I say no, either because I think we’ve already seen it once, or because I’m in a hurry, or because I’m a bad person, I can honestly never remember which it is.

I spent the previous night trying to prepare a Halloween costume because we’ve been asked to wear a costume to the rehearsal by the bride. I haven’t dressed up in six years or so, and every time I think of what I should be my mind just yells out, “Ninja! Ninja!” because I was a ninja from ages 2-9 and have always wanted to learn how to throw a pair of ninja stars around a corner, because, obviously. Instead, I wind up sneaking into my daughter’s room and stealing back a cowboy hat she’s commandeered since it’s the only thing that qualifies as any sort of costume. I go through a series of shirts, insisting that I’ll look just fine in the vest only, though S tells me that I would look like a bit of a “wh—e” and I tell her that if she thinks that’s a bad thing then she’s misunderstanding the spirit of Halloween. I finally settle on something more demure, which turns out to be clothes that I wear every day with a cowboy hat attached, so, less a costume than a hat.

Luckily, when I arrive at my dad’s he’s able to outfit me in some authentic cowboy boots, a nice long brown leather jacket and a bolo tie. My father has these things, as I understand fatherhood, because he is a father. The thing about being a dad is that you need to have all sorts of strange things, particularly hats and clothes lying around. It is one of the many ways in which I feel deficient, however, it was a large reason why I held on to that cowboy hat for twelve years. I knew someday my son would need a cowboy hat for some dance, and I’d be able to provide it. My Christmas list this year is going to consist of fishing tackle, cowboy boots, a large knife, and three different colored jackets of leather, pleather, and vinyl, as well as a collection of hats ranging from Michael Jackson to Theodore Roosevelt.

Properly outfitted, I prepare for the next morning of fun by waking up at 4:30 AM, because my body, my stupid, ill-suited for this brilliant mind of a body, decided to wake me up on east coast time despite the fact that I went to bed at 11:30 west coast time. I try reasoning with my body, but it’s an unreasonable creature, and we wake up together and pee, and eventually wind up falling asleep hours later and stumbling down to breakfast around nine, though I’m ready to tear the leg off a live pig and gorge myself since it’s noon east coast time, and I haven’t had anything to eat.

After breakfast, I walk across the street to grab a cappuccino and walk down the wide avenues near my dad’s house and talk to my mother while looking up at the mountain that my dad walks nearly every morning to collect trash and occasionally fall spectacularly or wrestle a balloon from a patch of poison ivy. I talk to my mother less frequently then I used to, but, if she catches me in the right mood I’ll still tell her things like: I’m considering that the meaning of life is that there is no meaning and that we’re all just bits of cosmic dust flung together by random chance for a flicker of a moment. You know, the sort of thing any mother loves to hear. I’m funny too though, and I suspect that’s what she remembers.

After breakfast, I walk back to my dad’s house so we can go get the rental car. I’d have a conversation with S that went something like this before I left:

S: Can you borrow your dad’s car?

M: Definitely.

S: Does he drive an automatic.

M: Oh yeah. He drives an automatic.

Upon arriving in San Jose the first thing I actually noticed is that my father does not drive an automatic.

M: Did you ever drive an automatic?

D: Not for about twelve years?

M: So I only missed it by a decade or so.

S tends to be the one who organizes things, diaper bags, the house, our finances, our trips, rental cars etc. However, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m occasionally funny, so I feel like she made out like a bandit in this deal. Anyhow, as such, I took it upon myself to rent a car once I’d decided that my dad and I shouldn’t spend our precious time together grinding the gears of his Nissan in a parking lot and probably coming to blows, because I don’t take well to being corrected, particularly when I’m wrong. I’m just going to tell you that the iPad keys are smaller than you want them to be and the screen isn’t as useful as it could be on Kayak either.

I’d originally planned on renting the car closer to my dad’s home, but I couldn’t keep it for long enough. Like many people who live near cities, he fears traffic as other people fear the grim reaper. However, I’ve convinced him to drive back out to the San Jose Airport for the express purpose of renting another car. It takes about twenty minutes or so, and when he drops me off, I assure him that he can leave, and I’ll just pick up the car. He seems concerned, but I am definitely not.

I love rental cars. How are they so cheap? How can I get an entire car for the price it took me to get a cab twenty minutes to the airport? What is happening here? I don’t understand it. And the forms, the forms! Am I over twenty five? Yes I am kind form, thank you very much. It’s like the last bastion of adulthood that you get to reach, and every time I check that box I realize that I’ve done some things in my life and that I’m accomplished, and, according to this form, probably responsible.

When I finally get up to the counter and request my reservation the guy asks for my license, looks at the computer, types furiously, looks confused, types more, and then asks when I made my reservation. “I made it last night,” I told him, knowing that he’d be proud of me for planning ahead. “You made it for November 4-6.” I told him that the car would be less useful to me when I was in DC, but he wasn’t able to help me. Okay, actually he was very helpful and told me to use my smart phone, “Do you have a smart phone?” I told him no, because smart phones, like the internet are fads that will pass away soon, and I won’t be caught up in rushing into new technologies like Beta tapes. He tells me that I should book a new reservation but definitely not with his company as they won’t honor it in less it’s made at least 12 hours out. I know that somewhere a small business man is rolling over in his grave and bemoaning Obamacare’s clear socialistic tendencies, but I’m enthused that this guy is just trying to get me the best deal as opposed to trying to upsell me to an SUV.

Outside, where it’s colder than I want it to be, I report the news to S, who is taking care of our two small children. “I’ve rented a car,” I tell her, “in November.” She’s able to quickly snag me a reservation at a reduced rate from Enterprise, and I remind her at least a couple of times about how I told that one funny joke at a party, and I’m pretty sure she’s overwhelmed with gratitude to have me, sometimes she hides it well.

I do love rental cars. I love the open road. I love driving by myself with a destination in mind, but not quite getting there yet. I love fiddling with the dials on the radio until I’ve found a couple of suitable radio stations. I like the feeling of being some place new. I suppose, if I’m reflecting, this is the mythic west that I’m a fan of. In general, I love people, and yet, my God, to be truly alone, even if only for a few minutes, what a rush. In more defined terms what I mean by, rush is, driving around in a nice Chrysler GTO 300 with the windows down listening to whatever pop music is playing on the satellite radio and driving back to my dad’s house. I suppose our definition of the wild open road may differ.