Thoughts on a Wedding

After a busy week, and today's civic holiday, I finally have time to sit down, finish an opened beer leftover from, God knows, Saturday, and tell you all about my best friend's wedding. 

Spoiler: I didn't try and break it up so I could marry the best friend myself. Any similarities between me and Julia Roberts stop at the curly hair. Also, my friend Katie is a great person, and her now-husband Martin is a lovely guy, and they're so perfect together, they finally made me understand why Shakespearean comedies have to end with a wedding. 

I left Canada at 9am in the morning on a Thursday, managing to get on a plane with my bridesmaids dress even though my mother was convinced one, or all of the following things would happen: I would forget to wake up, I would forget my passport, I would forget my dress or I would pack it in my checked luggage and the airline would forget to put it on the plane. None of that happened. The flight was all of ten minutes late, and my greatest concern during the time was why Last Tango in Paris was one of the movies you could choose to watch in your seat - did international flights get the Salo: 120 Days of Sodom option? 

Katie met me at the airport, like the world's most adorable argument against the accuracy of the Bridezilla stereotype. She was excited for the ceremony, because who doesn't like cake and sparkly shit (raw vegans; the Amish.) But she also didn't approach it like we were storming the beaches of Normandy, and one flubbed toast would mean the fascists won. Though I finally appreciated the idea of a wedding rehearsal. Before, I figured they were just for people who had worked dry ice and live doves into proceedings, and you could just stumble up to the altar otherwise. No. At least not with bridesmaids, and not in a church, where hymns are going to be sung. I appreciated knowing when I was supposed to return to my pew, and when I was supposed to march up the aisle, or else there would have been a lot of awkward grinning. 

Though that did come later, at the groom's dinner. Katie and I used to be roommates in university, and our "relationship" was also the most satisfying one I had then, everything else being hilariously, cosmically stunted. Like, crushes-on-profs stunted. I would have gladly been a part of that hookup culture the media is frenzied for, but no one would drunkenly bang me, no matter how much flavoured vodka I drank. The closest I got to anything was with this boy named J, where it was 100% emotional and, now, 100% embarrassing. 

And there he was, next to me and the pasta dishes, asking if I wanted a hug. It came with a gingerly administered back pat, courtesy of yours truly. I laughed about it with Katie later, though there was a bitter taste of nostalgia in my mouth. Years years back, when I was running up my phone bill talking to this guy, I was convinced I would run into him and his girlfriend at Katie's wedding. Except at the time I thought it would be a different groom, and I would still be in love with this guy. And here we were. Some of it had come true, but not the essential parts, and we were older, wiser and so much happier. 

The next day was a blur of hairstyling and photographs, until the ceremony. Katie looked beautiful, wearing a spectacular beaded dress, a veil from her great-grandmother, and her glasses. I'm not religious, and I'm also probably not the marrying kind, but I almost cried when the priest introduced Martin and Katie as a married couple. The ceremony might not be for you, and the political and sociological freight of a wedding is imposing, but the idea of commitment and growth is still there, under everything. And so I smiled instead, and even danced with J at the reception. 

To Minnesota (For Matrimony)

I keep on trying to write a post introducing a particular fellow. But now it's almost midnight on the day before I leave to see one of my best friends get - wait for it. So adulthood is on my mind, and pride and happiness for my friend. Until Sunday!

Ring-a-ding-ding

I had originally scheduled a long, somewhat whiny post to explain a month full of weirdness on my part. But then my phone rang. 

And it was good. 

My great friend/other half of my brain is now engaged. Suddenly, things didn't seem so grim. Katie was happy. Martin was happy. And I was happy, because I like them both, and finally have an excuse to do "research" by watching Say Yes to the Dress.

More Monty Adventures

Pictured: DAMN YOU, JEFF KOONS.

Right after my stomach had recovered from the grape-cream-ham-chicken shock and awe I visited upon it last Monday, m BFF4Life Katie came up to visit. She was my roommate for 2 1/2 years, so we basically share the same likes, dislikes and sense of humour as one another. Basically, there's one shared brain between us, which is why it's so unfortunate that she's been living in the States for the past 18 or so months. Before she returned, I had been reduced to aimlessly circling my apartment and repeating the same inside jokes we shared to the cat.

But then - she arrived! She came, we saw local attractions, we conquered. Highlights of the past 10 days include:

1. Eating cupcakes at the nut-free bakery, Cho'cola, aka the one baked goods hut that won't kill her.
2. Screening Ip Man 2 at the Fantasia film festival and applauding every fight scene
3. Following that up with dumplings from Qing-Hua equally deserving of applause
4. Being so tired that watching back-to-back episodes of Can-Con-Cop drama Flashpoint ended up being AWESOME
5. Going to Ottawa
6. Getting a personalized tour of Parliament from a friend and avoiding the roving tours of eager cadets
7. Seeing the Pop Life exhibit at the National Art Gallery, then concluding that I despise Jeff Koons
8. Eating burgers at The Works
9. Going to the Dollar Cinema and sweating profusely while watching the Crazies
10. Finding a great used bookstore in NDG, Encore Books
11. Touring the low-budget museum masterpiece that is the Georges Cartier house. They ran out of money to pay real interpreters so now you get recordings. Admission is a low, low $3.00.
12. Seeing the insanely decorated interiors of the Chateau Dufresne. And getting to see it again for 3-odd bucks because half of the house is closed.
13. Discovering that, on Mondays, every store adorable and whimsical in Montreal is CLOSED.
14. Having a mimosa at night. Annoying Katie by singing "I Drink My Mimosas At Night" to the tune of the Cory Hart classic. "So I can... SO I CAN... Get drunk in a classy-like WAY!"
15. In short, spending way, way too much money and having even more fun.

Unfortunately, I did not do the following things in the past 1o days:
1. Laundry
2. Sweep floors
3. Clean living room
So maybe this return to real life is needed.

Forever 21

Oh God, it was either the mechanical bull or my friend's couch, but I feel like I've been put through a food processor. It doesn't hurt as much if I bend my arms and tilt my neck at just the right angle though.

So, things I learned last night and this morning: The bad thing about being in your early twenties is that you treat your body like shit and make silly life choices. The good thing about being in your early twenties is that you're not old enough to be ashamed about coming into work wearing the clothes you had on last night and with a freight train rumbling through your head. Woo. Ow.

I am old; I am random

The cats, caught in a rare moment of peace

So, today I finally did that 25 Things Meme that has been plaguing Facebook lately. You know, the one that's been written about in both The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal? Actually, do you know how slow on the uptake I am if the New York Times is on to something before I am? I think it was only last month that they had a columnist decrying the phenomenon of "hooking up" on campuses. Ah, that oh-so-fresh trend of people having casual sex when they're in university.

Anyway, as I was contemplating my own obsolesence, I was also having trouble coming up with twenty five random nuggets of interest. It's not that I don't have any stories, it's just that I have a limited supply of anecdotes, and since my general social strategy is to break the ice with one of them, the stable is getting a little stale. Who among my friends hasn't heard of the time I was going to applying for a job at an adult store, only to walk out with a gift certificate? I eventually came up with the required number of esoteric facts, but it was hard.

Of course, it's hard not to either try and compete with your friends for amusement, honesty, or surprise. Or come to the standard news copy conclusion that it's a little sad viral memes are required for what we used to learn slowly, through actual social interaction and discovery. But, on the other hand it's nice and efficient to be suddenly handed a Cliff's Notes version of the dreams, fears, and ice cream flavour preferences of all of your acquaintances. Now you don't have to risk crossing a border, and asking a question that's just an inch too personal. You just have to deal with the creepy guys who advertise WooMee in the sidebar.

Some More Simple Math

Being thrust out into the world without Internet showed me how scarily attached I've become to it. Life is livable without the Internet, you just watch a lot more Dr. Phil and hope the restaurant you're going to won't kill you with a food poisoning sandwich.

The last one actually led to revelation: If I don't dial back on the anxiety, I'll probably stroke out before I'm thirty. I was meeting my pal Frances for dinner at this little basement snack bar I always wanted to go to- Moe's, on Maisonneuve and Lambert-Closse- and was convinced that she would hate it, I would hate it, I would hurl on some kid trying to watch Wall-E at the theater... Then I realized that in the past twenty-four hours I had worried about losing my job, failing an exam, failing a class, having to find another job, when I was going to get to do laundry again, whether Gibby the Degu was feeling neglected, and probably a few other things I've forgotten to write down. And then I realized that was kind of sad, and pointless. I didn't lose my job, I did fine on the exam, I probably won't fail that class, I did laundry yesterday, and Gibby has the memory span of a gnat and is probably doing just fine.

I met Frances for dinner, and there was no food poisoning chez Moe's. Damn tasty grilled cheese and milkshakes, though, and they have a small, fuzzy TV on, so you know it's a Protagitron kind of place. We shared a side of fries, drenched in ketchup, and talked about whether assholery is an inherited or acquired trait. The outdated poster of Patrick Roy as a Habs goalie hanging on the wall reminded us that his family is proof of the former. Then we talked about impossibilities of Jewish families (her) and of Ukrainian ones, and of dealing with any kind of Montreal construction. I have resolved, however, to somehow skip age and religious boundaries to become an old Jewish woman kvetching at a funeral. I think it's my calling.

Be it also further resolved not to worry quite so much.