I saw the announcement in the way that news travels these days, on Facebook. No longer are notices done in calligraphy but instead our thoughts, hopes, and milestones are flung in 140 letter missives into cyberspace which in 2009 seems less like a matrix as it did in 1999 and more like a great pond where these ripples collide and wash up on the shores of people who can be distant not just in terms of physical location but also in the timeline of our lives. Email has become a reality, but long attention spans or delivery times seem to be endangered.
My cousin, Lexy, was engaged.
It was a happy moment, and the further good news was that she was coming out to San Francisco for the week with her fiancé.
She had moved to San Francisco a decade ago and lived first at my parent’s place and then in one of my father’s apartments. He would drive her to work, a journey that consisted of swerving around corners and swearing at Asian drivers. When they arrived downtown he would get a latte which she felt she didn’t need after the adrenaline rush. I like to think that these drives captured my father’s duality - deep family kindness combined with a Republican sense of responsibility. I don’t think that he ever was politically correct - he still thinks it is okay to make fun of germans even though WW II is over - but he loved giving advice to the daughter he never had even if it sounded like it was from a 1955 public service film.
She moved back to New Hampshire a few years ago. It was going to be good to see her again, and I asked the family if we could do a get together for dinner. The only tricky part was that we were worried what my father might say since while his driving was still mostly in the center of the lane his politics had shifted a little more to the right where he remains the possible last supporter of Bush in his zip code. All of which would have been fine expect that instead of Lexy’s fiancé being named Victor she was called Victoria.
My cousin hadn’t left California with such an announced disposition. Her boyfriends never seemed to be great matches: their egos tended to be as large as her beauty. Her best companion was her dog.
When Lexy wrote back she mentioned that she was nervous about meeting my father for the first time since coming out, and I can only imagine the courage it must take to return to your family after doing something that you know wasn’t what they wanted.
We ordered upscale pizza from a shop on my street and brought out as many bottles of wine as we could find. My brother made it over with his wife and two daughters. My nieces played on my parents carpet while the rest of us nervously glanced around. We started with the bottle of red.
I heard a knock at the door and opened it to Lexy and Victoria. They came in and after getting a couple of slices of pizza that had broccolini (a vegetable that has migrated from garnish to ingredient) on it, we all sat down and did our best at conversation.
There were a few good rifts. Victoria is a landscape gardener (something that my mom enjoys) and the two of them want to buy real estate (something my father loves to scheme). Lexy was the one who asked Victoria out at a dance, yet Victoria was the one who proposed on a dock on a bay. They smiled and everyone drank.
Lexy said how much she missed California, and my father said how he missed the drives with her. It wasn’t a time to explore the depths of their dual nature - how they both have parts that swerve around society and parts that care deeply about love ones. But it was a time of welcoming and beginnings. My family grew not just in numbers this past week, but also at a small level of acceptance.
Showing posts with label Weddings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weddings. Show all posts
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Monday, September 25, 2006
Skipping the Light Fandango
We waited in small clusters around picnic tables underneath the large white tent for the bride to arrive. The rain hit against the roof of the tent as a Bill Holiday mix played through the band's amplifier. The groom, also late but not as much, waited at the edge of the parquet floor that would serve both as the chapel and the dance hall. The rain kept coming.
Some things take a while.
It is the second marriage for both of them, and there wasn't a reason a rush. The small group of friends and family that had gathered in their backyard weren't going anywhere. We listened to torch songs in the rain.
It was the first time I have been to the second wedding of someone whom I went to the first. I was there the night he met his first wife at a band audition, and he woke me that night to talk on the phone of how he loved her long black hair. Soon he loved the other parts of her as well, and as we drifted to other sides of the country we would see others lives in snap shots. I watched the arc of that relationship stretch first upwards and then too long.
So here we were again underneath a tent waiting for his new bride. The moment felt almost Buddhist to be reincarnated back to the beginning point of another journey but still with a little bit of karma from the first. There was no reason to hurry.
The new bride also has long black hair, but she keeps in under a hat most of the time. She has a similar mixture of energy and intelligence as her husband, and when they dance they look brilliant together. His lumbering has been roped in and her twirling gets pushed back to his chest before being launched once again out into the music. Some of their moves are choreographed from the classes they took together; some are improvised. I don't know when they officially started dating; their relationship seeped out of a friendship. Some things take a while.
Finally the bride arrived and after walking past the pool she stopped at the edge of the damp lawn. Her husband rushed to her and he carried her in his arms across the lawn and place her down of a friend of theirs who serving as a Minster.
The rain didn't stop at exactly the end of the ceremony, but it did end perhaps after the cake shaped like a guitar had been cut or perhaps during the time the groom played a set with a few of his old band mate friends before the main rockabilly group went on stage.
I danced with bride mostly to avoid the mosquitoes who were as almost well fed as the guests. The crowd grew larger and soon the groom side and bride side gathered under the steady dowap beat on the parquet floor. We swirled and dipped to celebrate friends promising again love forever in life that we know will sometimes be choreographed and sometimes be improvised.
Some things take a while.
It is the second marriage for both of them, and there wasn't a reason a rush. The small group of friends and family that had gathered in their backyard weren't going anywhere. We listened to torch songs in the rain.
It was the first time I have been to the second wedding of someone whom I went to the first. I was there the night he met his first wife at a band audition, and he woke me that night to talk on the phone of how he loved her long black hair. Soon he loved the other parts of her as well, and as we drifted to other sides of the country we would see others lives in snap shots. I watched the arc of that relationship stretch first upwards and then too long.
So here we were again underneath a tent waiting for his new bride. The moment felt almost Buddhist to be reincarnated back to the beginning point of another journey but still with a little bit of karma from the first. There was no reason to hurry.
The new bride also has long black hair, but she keeps in under a hat most of the time. She has a similar mixture of energy and intelligence as her husband, and when they dance they look brilliant together. His lumbering has been roped in and her twirling gets pushed back to his chest before being launched once again out into the music. Some of their moves are choreographed from the classes they took together; some are improvised. I don't know when they officially started dating; their relationship seeped out of a friendship. Some things take a while.
Finally the bride arrived and after walking past the pool she stopped at the edge of the damp lawn. Her husband rushed to her and he carried her in his arms across the lawn and place her down of a friend of theirs who serving as a Minster.
The rain didn't stop at exactly the end of the ceremony, but it did end perhaps after the cake shaped like a guitar had been cut or perhaps during the time the groom played a set with a few of his old band mate friends before the main rockabilly group went on stage.
I danced with bride mostly to avoid the mosquitoes who were as almost well fed as the guests. The crowd grew larger and soon the groom side and bride side gathered under the steady dowap beat on the parquet floor. We swirled and dipped to celebrate friends promising again love forever in life that we know will sometimes be choreographed and sometimes be improvised.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Mile Markers
It is my birthday again, and this event has long since slipped away from childhood exuberance to a more melancholy reflection of that parallel universe where my closet has less triathlon gear. Birthdays ricochet you back into endless introspection more than anything save weddings; both are celebrations of an old set of possibilities being replaced with new hopes. To have been to both in the past week is a bit like wandering through Versailles and staring into the infinity of mirrors on opposites sides of its rooms.
It is a great week for a long run.
So consider yourself fortunate that we are going far this weekend; for some it will be the last long run before the marathon. There is a natural anxiety for the final long training run both in preparation the night before and afterwards when pondering “is this all there is?” It is easy to worry about the distance, to have the feeling that you have to do at least 20 miles, but the real truth is that the last long run is only a fraction of the total training volume during the course of the season, a part of the program but only a small one. Several books advocate your last long run should be determined by time not distance, and in Europe they tend to do 30k ~ 18.3 miles, which is also the same distance I did when I did my best.
What I am trying to say is the last long run is an important to a marathon as a wedding is to a marriage. Everyone wants a great wedding, the magic day captured by photographs and toasts, but from what I have seen as an outsider to marriages is that they aren’t defined by their celebrations, but by their ability to handle the unexpected at two o’clock in the morning or some random Tuesday. Humor, good dance moves, general agreement about money, kids, and religion, and endless patience help.
The wedding I went to was a collection of friends from my first marathon season in 1999. It is symbol of my aging (like my hair gently frosting) that my friends’ weddings have shifted from production numbers fueled by parents with baseball team number of groomsmen and bridesmaids to quieter celebrations for the participants. Many years out from school we now have other groups of friends besides our classmates, but instead of being a larger celebration it has become harder and harder to get these friends from different parts of our lives together.
It had been a long time since the old marathon group was together and it was great to see everyone again. Under a lazy Los Altos sun we huddled around tables covered with jumbo shrimp, baked Brie, egg rolls and glasses of wine and talked about the time since we last met. There were children – one making his debut in a blue sailor outfit and the others now while looking more like their parents have started to develop their own personalities that will please and annoy their parents for years. We talked about new jobs and trips to Germany. We talked about half marathons, the c# programming language, and the TV show “Project Runway.” We enjoyed the wine.
The bride looked beautiful in a white dress that was convenient enough for her to float through reception and chat with everyone. MP3’s off of a laptop provided the background music, while toasts from her cousins from Bakersfield provided the laughter.
It was a great time to relax.
On our running calendars we have our athletic schedule, but in either Outlook or a daily planner, we have life’s mile markers. For most of these we experience the same emotions of last long runs – the dreaded anticipation and the wondering if that is all that there is. But on the occasional lazy summer day, all that is there winds up being just wonderful.Monday, April 12, 2004
Em's + Nathan's wedding
Perhaps all weddings should be celebrated in the fog; each has their own haze, a blurry uncertainty of both the event and the future. And yours perched on the California coastline captured nature's metaphor of being on the edge of things.
Getting married next to the ocean also felt familiar because I first met you through water. Not that the chorine swamp of the 24-fitness pool compares to the mischievous Pacific, but I will always remember first seeing you there. It was an odd match – the runner who had just tweaked his knee flapping desperately next to the natural fish with an Australian swimsuit who gracefully cruised the center lane.
The truth of life is that we don't often get to pick whom we swim next to. Sure there are classes and clubs; races and teams – but more often that not it is someone who just happens to be there. You wind up in an anonymous group paced pretty much by your same speed.
I guess what I learned is that you should from time to time say hi to the people one lane over – even if it takes three years and three completely different swim classes. That girl with the R2D2 backpack might just be nutty in a very cool way. I know that the journey afterwards has been so much more rewarding.
There is the exercise part. I have become a better swimmer having joined you for a two-mile open water swimmer over summer, and trans Tomales Bay one over winter. And you have become a better runner to the point that running 14 miles the day before your wedding made some sort of sense – if only to your new triathlon crew.
But more importantly than the miles is the friendship. Life is better when you have birthdays in Inverness, see art in the Headlands, and drink beer on houseboats. We are at our best when we celebrate by the sea.
Your wedding brought the best of that.
Life ahead will have its share of jagged rocks and powerful currents, but if there is anyone I know who can navigate that gracefully it is you. And afterwards when you come in from the daily tides, dried and perhaps still a little tired, I hope you always stand on a grassy hill and look over your shoulder at the wonderment of the horizon.
Getting married next to the ocean also felt familiar because I first met you through water. Not that the chorine swamp of the 24-fitness pool compares to the mischievous Pacific, but I will always remember first seeing you there. It was an odd match – the runner who had just tweaked his knee flapping desperately next to the natural fish with an Australian swimsuit who gracefully cruised the center lane.
The truth of life is that we don't often get to pick whom we swim next to. Sure there are classes and clubs; races and teams – but more often that not it is someone who just happens to be there. You wind up in an anonymous group paced pretty much by your same speed.
I guess what I learned is that you should from time to time say hi to the people one lane over – even if it takes three years and three completely different swim classes. That girl with the R2D2 backpack might just be nutty in a very cool way. I know that the journey afterwards has been so much more rewarding.
There is the exercise part. I have become a better swimmer having joined you for a two-mile open water swimmer over summer, and trans Tomales Bay one over winter. And you have become a better runner to the point that running 14 miles the day before your wedding made some sort of sense – if only to your new triathlon crew.
But more importantly than the miles is the friendship. Life is better when you have birthdays in Inverness, see art in the Headlands, and drink beer on houseboats. We are at our best when we celebrate by the sea.
Your wedding brought the best of that.
Life ahead will have its share of jagged rocks and powerful currents, but if there is anyone I know who can navigate that gracefully it is you. And afterwards when you come in from the daily tides, dried and perhaps still a little tired, I hope you always stand on a grassy hill and look over your shoulder at the wonderment of the horizon.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Level Eight
I think there is a certain nuttiness in all weddings. The groom might forget that his tux is at his parents; a bridesmaid might learn that tequila is never a good a thing; or it might just be in Cleveland.
In the past for the morning of a wedding I would usually have only three questions – where did I put my keys, is there a good dry cleaner nearby, and did my family find out. But times have changed and I now I get the question "do you want to do the 10 mile guy run or the 5 mile chick run?"
The second one was billed as a level-two difficulty level and level-eight view and was a short drive from Calistoga, a town designed by Mark Twain for the straight eye. There a rows of little homes that still look like Bartles and James would come off of the porch only this time they would be selling mud bathes instead of wine coolers. It is a far more of a chick's run kind of place. When staying at the roman spa I decided to do what the Romans would and went for the five miler.
The course started near a creak and made its way up a hill on a dusty trail. Supposedly there were red woods, but as the trail continued to get stepper and steeper the only thing I wondered about was how was this exactly a two? Was the next entry in the book – Everest level four? The view was gorgeous though. The trail ended at coyote peak, a small rocky out cropping where you could see down through the valley. We sweaty few paused there for a moment perhaps releasing that after so many early morning jaunts, Sonoma bike rides, and arch rock runs, that the next time we would exercise together Lisa would have a new last name.
Then we made our way back down the hill and tried to avoid the roots and rocks on the trail that felt less sturdier than we came up it. We joked about the dangers of Lisa twisting something, but I thought she would have a matching white splint stashed away because every other detail about the wedding was so well planned.
The ceremony and reception wandered through the boundary of effortless and magical. Under a scorching sun, pre wedding lemonade just seemed to appear. We had leaf shape fans for programs, wooden umbrellas to block the light, and small stones to tell us where we would sit. It seemed to be incredibly lucky, but I know somewhere there is a very large binder with all of this stored.
The band rocked. I don't know whether they grooved off the crowd or the crowd just melted over them. I believe that life is better with a great horn section. Theirs would divide up and march down the aisles for a stereo affect that would break an audio salesman heart. The evening built and built until I found myself more drenched from dancing than I did from running. And then came Cedric's love train cigar salsa line. The place shook. I think we cheered the band into an extra set, and I know we should also do the same for our hosts.
And so I want to say thanks so much for a great weekend. My wedding hope is that you continue to find music all around you. And my wedding wish is that you go through life with great friends on a trail that is level-two difficulty and a level-eight view.
In the past for the morning of a wedding I would usually have only three questions – where did I put my keys, is there a good dry cleaner nearby, and did my family find out. But times have changed and I now I get the question "do you want to do the 10 mile guy run or the 5 mile chick run?"
The second one was billed as a level-two difficulty level and level-eight view and was a short drive from Calistoga, a town designed by Mark Twain for the straight eye. There a rows of little homes that still look like Bartles and James would come off of the porch only this time they would be selling mud bathes instead of wine coolers. It is a far more of a chick's run kind of place. When staying at the roman spa I decided to do what the Romans would and went for the five miler.
The course started near a creak and made its way up a hill on a dusty trail. Supposedly there were red woods, but as the trail continued to get stepper and steeper the only thing I wondered about was how was this exactly a two? Was the next entry in the book – Everest level four? The view was gorgeous though. The trail ended at coyote peak, a small rocky out cropping where you could see down through the valley. We sweaty few paused there for a moment perhaps releasing that after so many early morning jaunts, Sonoma bike rides, and arch rock runs, that the next time we would exercise together Lisa would have a new last name.
Then we made our way back down the hill and tried to avoid the roots and rocks on the trail that felt less sturdier than we came up it. We joked about the dangers of Lisa twisting something, but I thought she would have a matching white splint stashed away because every other detail about the wedding was so well planned.
The ceremony and reception wandered through the boundary of effortless and magical. Under a scorching sun, pre wedding lemonade just seemed to appear. We had leaf shape fans for programs, wooden umbrellas to block the light, and small stones to tell us where we would sit. It seemed to be incredibly lucky, but I know somewhere there is a very large binder with all of this stored.
The band rocked. I don't know whether they grooved off the crowd or the crowd just melted over them. I believe that life is better with a great horn section. Theirs would divide up and march down the aisles for a stereo affect that would break an audio salesman heart. The evening built and built until I found myself more drenched from dancing than I did from running. And then came Cedric's love train cigar salsa line. The place shook. I think we cheered the band into an extra set, and I know we should also do the same for our hosts.
And so I want to say thanks so much for a great weekend. My wedding hope is that you continue to find music all around you. And my wedding wish is that you go through life with great friends on a trail that is level-two difficulty and a level-eight view.
Monday, September 02, 2002
Circles in the Sky
It was a story told late night in bar. The margaritas helped the telling, and I did my best to listen over noise from the pool table to a girl at a mutual friend's goodbye to San Francisco party. A blond from the Midwest she told a small cluster of us about a wedding she went to over the weekend.
For me weddings come in waves. You can go a year with no one being hitched, and then out of nowhere you are spending your Thursday's shopping at Pottery barn for gifts, Friday's traveling to wherever a college roommate grew up, Saturday's blurring through a reception, and Sunday's trying to make it back for the dry cleaners. The conversations melt. You think you have told the first time you got really drunk with the groom or bride to everyone, but you can't really remember the last time that you did anything with them that wasn't about the wedding.
There are little things that separate the events apart. One might have a "make your own sundaes" at the reception, a barbeque on an Iowa farm, or a cute bridesmaid. This wedding was held on a Sunday. The requested attire was Renaissance.
A satellite keeps in orbit by constantly falling and missing, and some relationships follow the same circle of being too attracted to leave but too uncertain to fall completely. He might have commitment problems. She might think she can do better. Their friends spend hours listening to them in coffee shops or a bar on buffalo wing night. No one is sure.
This is when entropy enters uninvited. People complain that their relationship needs a jolt but freeze when that moment comes. Six months ago she found out she had liver cancer.
I can't quite hear about the treatment process - a couple next to me is talking about a triathlon. There is something about not getting a transplant and the medication not really working. She is going to switch to a different type of treatment, but it looks like she has about three months left.
I don't know when he proposed or how she could plan for the event. Maybe the secret is to keep it simple: gather a few friends and find a good beach on a hotter than normal Indian summer day.
The crashing waves and gawking gulls served as music. A large hat hid her baldness. They wanted each of guests to bless the wedding rings during ceremony. They gathered in a circle and passed the rings around. Somebody held the ring up to the sky. Somebody held the ring close to their heart.
One by one family and friends spoke. Nobody was thinking about Pottery Barn.
The girl telling the story wandered to get another round of margaritas and the rest of the crowd went either to the restroom or to the pack playing pool. Now alone except for a coaster I watched Newtonian physics of the balls on the pool table colliding and breaking away, and then glanced up to see mingling of old friends, the flirting of new acquaintances, and the contemplating of those also alone at different tables or next to pillars. A few hugged the one leaving San Francisco and I realized the great need to celebrate in front of partings.
For me weddings come in waves. You can go a year with no one being hitched, and then out of nowhere you are spending your Thursday's shopping at Pottery barn for gifts, Friday's traveling to wherever a college roommate grew up, Saturday's blurring through a reception, and Sunday's trying to make it back for the dry cleaners. The conversations melt. You think you have told the first time you got really drunk with the groom or bride to everyone, but you can't really remember the last time that you did anything with them that wasn't about the wedding.
There are little things that separate the events apart. One might have a "make your own sundaes" at the reception, a barbeque on an Iowa farm, or a cute bridesmaid. This wedding was held on a Sunday. The requested attire was Renaissance.
A satellite keeps in orbit by constantly falling and missing, and some relationships follow the same circle of being too attracted to leave but too uncertain to fall completely. He might have commitment problems. She might think she can do better. Their friends spend hours listening to them in coffee shops or a bar on buffalo wing night. No one is sure.
This is when entropy enters uninvited. People complain that their relationship needs a jolt but freeze when that moment comes. Six months ago she found out she had liver cancer.
I can't quite hear about the treatment process - a couple next to me is talking about a triathlon. There is something about not getting a transplant and the medication not really working. She is going to switch to a different type of treatment, but it looks like she has about three months left.
I don't know when he proposed or how she could plan for the event. Maybe the secret is to keep it simple: gather a few friends and find a good beach on a hotter than normal Indian summer day.
The crashing waves and gawking gulls served as music. A large hat hid her baldness. They wanted each of guests to bless the wedding rings during ceremony. They gathered in a circle and passed the rings around. Somebody held the ring up to the sky. Somebody held the ring close to their heart.
One by one family and friends spoke. Nobody was thinking about Pottery Barn.
The girl telling the story wandered to get another round of margaritas and the rest of the crowd went either to the restroom or to the pack playing pool. Now alone except for a coaster I watched Newtonian physics of the balls on the pool table colliding and breaking away, and then glanced up to see mingling of old friends, the flirting of new acquaintances, and the contemplating of those also alone at different tables or next to pillars. A few hugged the one leaving San Francisco and I realized the great need to celebrate in front of partings.
Tuesday, July 21, 1998
EdGinny
It was a little strange actually seeing the rock. Carefully chosen to be impressive but not too large and then shipped out of state to avoid sales tax, the diamond engagement ring clung to my youngest brother's fiancée finger and sparkled through out our family dinner like blissful punctuation marks in a cheery and slightly bewildered conversation. He was actually going to get married.
It wasn't really a surprise - they have been dating for four years and have just moved into together (probably to find out whether they were compatible in the deepest sense - hygiene). She is the metronome in my brother's crashing about world; a steady beat of reason and patience; the one who returns voicemail messages and sends thank you notes (I have long since eliminated the middle man and have phoned her directly when I want to schedule my brother's time).
And there we were the six of us in a French restaurant that was still recovering from the World Cup and Bastille Day complete with a waitress who muttered to herself about getting hazard pay for the last week "worse than New Year's. Much worse than New Year's." Six (mom, dad, George, me, and the couple) trying to get used to the concept of a family and going about it in our usual way - making fun of other family members and long monologues about one's own career.
George's video empire is doing well. I am breaking in a new boss - the getting up to speed is never easy since I think we have developed our own little language with words like GSM, ISD, ITD, Gary, and BVI which can be strung together in any arbitrary combination.
Outside of work for the most part, I keep rummaging through hobbies - piano, pottery, swing dancing, jogging, and tomato plant growing (well technically killing). I know that my random piano music (politely called experimental) and large banana slug model (complete with two smaller slugs) are not going to make it into a museum, but they bring me unconditional joy. It is the pride that I actually built something; it is the amazement that I can created something new; that I have created a new noun.
Perhaps that is what the rock is about. That Edward and Ginny will build something special together. That they have formed the new noun: EdGinny - two names never really to be separated. And as the six of us sat there eating the ahi with leeks or chicken in a mushroom sauce, and sipping Anchor Steam or Irish Whiskey, we knew that this new creation was good.
Saturday, June 21, 1997
Side Routes
There is no non stop between Hangzhou and San Francisco - you either go to Hong Kong or the Shanghai to Tokyo and then SF. Twelve hours of flying, but only two movies not including the animated fasten your seat-belt videos which I think had the same cast as Gobots (I kept waiting for Ultra Man to jump out when the overhead oxygen supply fell). I did the Shanghai route which meant I spent the night in Shanghai and then flew out the next morning. The hotel which was booked here in California was across the street from the baggage claim. I made my way there despite a Chinese roper who was determined to get me to his hotel at a much better price.
As I checked in and went to my room on the third floor, I noticed that there was a bar at the end of the hall. A little tired from my trip I went to the bar for a good night drink. The staff quickly sat me down in a booth. A waitress came into the booth lit a candle and looked up at me from waist level"
"Do you want something to drink?"
I quickly looked at the drink menu and feeling a little patriotic ( or possible to get rid of the smelly tofu, a food that violates some primal taboo) I said "I will have a Budweiser".
The waitress smiled and then asked the second question "Do you want a girl?"
Now this was a little tougher question. I know my company has a lousy 401k program, but I did not think this was part of the overall compensation plan. I was not really in a hurry to join the viral frequent flyer club. I said "no."
I did finish my beer in the place and was impressed with its mood. I could see a little into other booths where business men had two girls a piece. Cigarette smoke poured over the top of the paper walled booths and sank into the carpet. A Mandarin version of "House of the Rising Sun." played on the stereo. It was hypnotic. After settling up for my beer I went down the hall smiling, and wondering about the house in New Orleans.
When I told a few people after I got back to San Francisco, they mentioned that I should have at least gotten a price check. Asked about group rates. Dollars to RMB currency conversion. Perhaps it was a moment that I will look back to and pause. But that was the point of the following weekend.
After getting back to San Francisco and spending just enough time to mess with my body clock, I got on a plane to Philadelphia for the wedding of a girl who got away. Equal parts plump and perky, she was a fellow intern at Bellcore specializing in the psychology of user interfaces. At her heart she is a conversational babbler (a property I also hold) which follows the principle that if you say enough eventual you will stumble into the truth.
I blew it.
That hot New Jersey summer she was dating a cartoonist who she left behind at Carleton. I didn't feel that I should have made my "move" which usually comes across as slightly less subtle than the inflated male frigate bird. There is a point when looking back at the horizon where nobility collides with stupidity.
Halfway through that summer, she struck a conversation with some one waiting for the bus. A graduate student a Rutgers specializing in molecular biology. He was on the periphery - only occasionally joining the intern pack for important discussions on whether "Batman" was a better movie than "Dick Tracy" - nowhere to be seen into our trips to Harlem and the Jersey shore.
The summer eventually ended. She went back to the cartoonist. I went to New Hampshire. The cartoonist wanted to draw someone else. The grad student didn't like grad school and went to Minnesota (where she was) to probably get as far as away from mitochondria as he could. It was their wedding.
There were five interns in our mini group, but she was the only one with whom I have kept in touch. As a group we all tried to guess where we would be in ten years - the cotton candy dreams of youth. So many possibilities. I was going to be a work-a-holic computer programmer. She was not going to get married until she was 35.
The wedding lasted an hour. The reception had a good music battle between her mom's music (see Chill, Big) and the Greatest Hits of the Eighties. And even though I loved dancing once again to "Come on Aileen", the whole thing stung just a little.
Perhaps both things (the hotel and the wedding) feel like the missed exit signs that in the rear view mirror - slightly larger than they appear. Frost's little side routes. I too will wonder.
As I checked in and went to my room on the third floor, I noticed that there was a bar at the end of the hall. A little tired from my trip I went to the bar for a good night drink. The staff quickly sat me down in a booth. A waitress came into the booth lit a candle and looked up at me from waist level"
"Do you want something to drink?"
I quickly looked at the drink menu and feeling a little patriotic ( or possible to get rid of the smelly tofu, a food that violates some primal taboo) I said "I will have a Budweiser".
The waitress smiled and then asked the second question "Do you want a girl?"
Now this was a little tougher question. I know my company has a lousy 401k program, but I did not think this was part of the overall compensation plan. I was not really in a hurry to join the viral frequent flyer club. I said "no."
I did finish my beer in the place and was impressed with its mood. I could see a little into other booths where business men had two girls a piece. Cigarette smoke poured over the top of the paper walled booths and sank into the carpet. A Mandarin version of "House of the Rising Sun." played on the stereo. It was hypnotic. After settling up for my beer I went down the hall smiling, and wondering about the house in New Orleans.
When I told a few people after I got back to San Francisco, they mentioned that I should have at least gotten a price check. Asked about group rates. Dollars to RMB currency conversion. Perhaps it was a moment that I will look back to and pause. But that was the point of the following weekend.
After getting back to San Francisco and spending just enough time to mess with my body clock, I got on a plane to Philadelphia for the wedding of a girl who got away. Equal parts plump and perky, she was a fellow intern at Bellcore specializing in the psychology of user interfaces. At her heart she is a conversational babbler (a property I also hold) which follows the principle that if you say enough eventual you will stumble into the truth.
I blew it.
That hot New Jersey summer she was dating a cartoonist who she left behind at Carleton. I didn't feel that I should have made my "move" which usually comes across as slightly less subtle than the inflated male frigate bird. There is a point when looking back at the horizon where nobility collides with stupidity.
Halfway through that summer, she struck a conversation with some one waiting for the bus. A graduate student a Rutgers specializing in molecular biology. He was on the periphery - only occasionally joining the intern pack for important discussions on whether "Batman" was a better movie than "Dick Tracy" - nowhere to be seen into our trips to Harlem and the Jersey shore.
The summer eventually ended. She went back to the cartoonist. I went to New Hampshire. The cartoonist wanted to draw someone else. The grad student didn't like grad school and went to Minnesota (where she was) to probably get as far as away from mitochondria as he could. It was their wedding.
There were five interns in our mini group, but she was the only one with whom I have kept in touch. As a group we all tried to guess where we would be in ten years - the cotton candy dreams of youth. So many possibilities. I was going to be a work-a-holic computer programmer. She was not going to get married until she was 35.
The wedding lasted an hour. The reception had a good music battle between her mom's music (see Chill, Big) and the Greatest Hits of the Eighties. And even though I loved dancing once again to "Come on Aileen", the whole thing stung just a little.
Perhaps both things (the hotel and the wedding) feel like the missed exit signs that in the rear view mirror - slightly larger than they appear. Frost's little side routes. I too will wonder.
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