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may 20, 2001.VI. I had a dream that I was living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and that I had been captured by a powerful vampire. He marked me as his own by removing the hoop I wear in my cartilage piercing. The Boy and I had visited the local mall to buy something beautiful and useless, since money didn't mean anything anymore. We settled on a large, ornamental bowl. As we walked hand-in-hand through the mall, I saw a group of men playing a strange and beautiful cacophony on instruments unknown to me. One of the instruments looked like a large maroon velvet sequinned pillow with strings across it, which was played like a lap guitar. Poet was with them. He played drums, and when I looked over, he had begun to sing in a strange language. I found the whole thing indescribably beautiful and inspiring. I thought, "I will not listen to his song, or I will fall in love with him again." Instead I caught his eye and smiled. The smile shone with love and acceptance and also wry humour. Then my husband and I walked away, into the rest of the dream. Agamemnon knocked on the door at this point, causing me to wake up against my will. As I waited for strength to return to my rubbery limbs, I yawned expansively and told the Boy all about the dream. I felt like it had been something extremely significant, but I couldn't tell why. Before I could lose it in the crush of waking, I shuffled into the living room to write it all down in my rapidly-aging road notebook. Agamemnon was hanging around looking grim. He tried to speak to me a couple of times, but I gestured for silence and he subsided. As I started writing, I felt like a woman possessed - I needed to write down every fleeting detail of this dream. My head whipped from side to side as I searched among nebulous possibilities for 'le mot juste.' Eventually, as much of it as possible had been wrung out of me and I was able to engage with the world again. Agamemnon spoke again: "Amoret, I'd just like to say that I'm sorry..." pause. I rushed to fill in the gap. "It's okay. Everything's fine. Really." "I thought that you were writing me a note." "No, I just had this amazing dream." "Oh." He sounded relieved. I hadn't even been thinking about the night before. I was so consumed by this dream and its mysterious import. I had no idea what it meant, but I was determined to hang onto as much of it as I could.
I did not want to go to church. Part of the reason I had been crying the night before was that I felt trapped in a chain of events that wouldn't let my body recover before the big party that night. But I couldn't think of a way around it - my hair appointment at West Ed was for 1 p.m. and we didn't have a car. It was either go with Preacher to church and then West Ed, or give up the hair appointment altogether. It seems affected and unnecessary with the benefit of hindsight, but at the time I was convinced that I couldn't bear to show up without professionally-arranged hair. All of which is to say that I was pretty cranky on that car-ride to church. I decided to get something at the local Tim Horton's - I figured that if I at least took the edge off of my hunger, the day would be much easier to deal with. So as Preacher and Tym:J filled their lungs with the traditional pre-church nicotine, the Boy & I went off in search of a Timmies. And sure enough, there was one 3 blocks away (we were in a Canadian city after all). The small building was absolutely full of people, making it impossible to do anything but lean against a window with a bagel plate in one hand and a sloppy mug of tea in the other hand. The Boy grew restless, grabbed a take-out cup and transferred my yet-untasted tea to the paper cup. Which began to leak. We got a second cup and carried it to the car. As I sat down, my hand spasmed and I spilled a big glut of hot tea on my lap. Big tears, as Lileks would say. At first it was the tea, then it was the massive unfairness of being in this parking lot with a burned leg when I should be sleeping (like the oblivious Palaver, who proved unwakable). As we drove to the church, I realized that the second cup leaked as well, and big drops of hot tea were still falling on my lap. I snapped and threw the entire cup of still-untasted tea out the window as we sped down the street. I've never done anything remotely like that. Felt pretty good. But not good enough. Although Preacher had given us excellent directions, we still managed to get hopelessly lost. After circling adjoining blocks for several minutes, we finally realized that the first church we saw had been the right one after all. We stumbled in to a sermon already in progress and tried to comport ourselves for worship. For me, this was a completely uphill battle - somewhere between the tea disaster and our late entrance, I became incredibly, sulphurously angry. And as I was in church, I aimed all of this rage at the service itself. It seemed logical at the time - at least more logical that being angry at, I dunno, God. I sung no hymns, I chanted no prayers, I took no communion. The only thing I took was issue at the Nicene creed - exactly who's involved in this one holy and catholic church, bub? After all of the ribbing I had taken over the years from Preacher on my own United Church faith, I was more or less sure that it wasn't me. And that morning I was just as happy to be excluded.
lesson VI: sunday morning with anglicans interfaith issues
| VII. After the service we parted ways, Preacher off to the pre-wedding gathering in Sally's car and the rest of us off to my hair appointment at West Ed via the Indefatigable. Somewhere along the line, all four of us forgot Preacher's earnest injunction: "we all have to remember to transfer the wedding programs from the trunk of the Indefatigable to Sally's car." This came home to roost during my hair appointment. I was sitting in the chair, glowing from a great scalp massage and feeling more relaxed than I'd been in days, when the cashier walked up. "There's a phone call for you," she said. "He said it's an emergency." As you have no doubt guessed, the phone call was from Preacher, who was almost speechless under the strain. "You want me to bring the programs to the church," I filled in helpfully. "Yeah." he said slowly. "They absolutely have to be there by 3:30." "Okay Preacher," I said and hung up, still feeling strangely calm. I walked out of the salon in my smock, searching for Tym:J & the Boy. They were nowhere in sight. I had, after all, told them to wander around & have a good time while I was in the chair. Even this did not panic me. "Can I get someone paged?" I asked the cashier. She looked at me incredulously. "In West Ed?? Um. It's a pretty big place." "I see." At this point I returned to the chair, as I knew for certain that there was absolutely nothing I could do until the boys showed up of their own accord. So calm. So collected. So warm and happy in the certain knowledge that I was making an absolutely correct decision. I don't feel that way often; I savoured it. The Boy came in as my hair was drying. I quickly outlined the situation, and soon the two of them were on their merry way. Twenty minutes later I was out of the chair and browsing the makeup. All of sudden I could feel a faint foreshadowing of disaster, way off on the horizon. It made me feel reckless, so I bought some expensive makeup. And a couple of books from the nearby Chapters. And then a sandwich at the fast food court. This was when things started to get a little wingy for me...my boys were gone on a quest that might take them an indefinite amount of time. The wedding was in 1 ½ hours and I had yet to bathe. As serenity slipped away, nervousness bubbled up to take its place. Is it any wonder that I nearly got into a brawl at the KFC counter? Well, I didn't brawl. And I didn't cry, even though my spirits sank lower and lower and lower, to a point I haven't experienced in a very long time. It's sort of amusing that my most recent 'long dark night of the soul' took place in on a sunny afternoon. In a mall. Surrounded by tourists. At 3:15 I wandered back into the salon. It had finally hit me with all of its crushing power: I was alone in the largest mall in Canada, in a strange city, with no directions, no phone numbers, and a very important wedding to attend in one hour. I knew, I knew for certain that the Boy wouldn't leave me in the mall if time ran out for him. I knew that there wouldn't be a Home Alone-esque scene at the church when the Boy realized that he'd forgotten me at West Ed. I knew that he would come for me come hell or high water. But you just can't reason with an incipient nervous breakdown. I needed to be out of there. Lucky for me, the Boy appeared just as I was pouring my heart out to the cashier. I finished the story, thanked her for her sympathy, took the Boy's hand and started striding the hell out of that fucking mall. Seeing Tym:J by the car helped me to get a slightly better grip on myself: I can usually cope in front of other people. We raced off to Sally's apartment, trading stories. Apparently when they finally found the obscure little church, no one was there. They finally tracked the wedding party back to the hotel. Hence my two hours of hell in the mall. Typical, really. We got home to find Palaver awake, chipper and dressed for the wedding. I looked at him with something very close to dislike: how dare he be so fucking happy! How dare he get to sleep an extra 3 fucking hours instead of going to stupid fucking church! He caught some of this, and tried to calm me down. "Just relax, we're all friends here." Inside my head I amended this to, "just relax, nobody's at the West Edmonton Mall." I find the latter far more soothing. I hopped in the tub and began to cry. At this point I literally could not stop myself. Everything inside me was poisonous. And like an infected wound, it needed to be drained. I cried and cried and cried, feeling the weight of the fried food, the strong emotions, the alcohol, the wakefulness. When I felt like a human being again, I stopped. I didn't start feeling like myself until I was in my dress & hat, looking pretty. I don't know why that would make me better. I suppose it was just the comfort of knowing that the day wouldn't be ruined after all. After all this sturm und drang, the wedding was surprisingly lovely. The service was the same as ours, with some small changes. I think my favourite part was during the sermon when Fr. Neil was making some point about being an officiating priest. He said, "I'm sure Preacher can back me up on this," and Preacher's response was the haughtiest eye-rolling ever. I think it's only funny if you know him. The whole service, I kept thinking "Poet is getting married" and the words didn't make sense together. I heard it again and again throughout: "Poet is getting married." After the service: "Poet just got married." In the reception, "Poet is married." I think it finally sunk in about midnight. Wow. Poet is married. It went smoothly, calmly, beautifully. Poet is married. It still doesn't make as much sense as it might. But I'm working on it.
lesson VII: before the service poet's wedding rocked
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VIII. Immediately after the wedding, we milled around in the front of the church, talking and talking pictures of one another. (We secretly wanted to take pictures of the newly married couple, but as they were off with the professional photographer [sneer] we had to make do with each other). When the novelty wore off, Tym:J, the Boy and I rushed back to Sally's apartment so that I could change out of my smart beige church dress into my more daring evening wear (green velvet gown, black opera gloves & a white feather boa). Everyone in my family wears different outfits to the ceremony and the reception; I had no idea that the rest of the world doesn't work that way. Preacher & Poet seemed quite surprised at what I was wearing: "you weren't wearing that before," they said tentatively, unsure of where this was going. I shrugged happily. "Let's put it this way: I certainly wasn't going to wear this to the church. But I was going to wear it today." (Here's an obvious statement: I like being the centre of benevolent attention.) Preacher was even more expansive; as I walked over to chat with him & Lady Preacher Lisa (his co-ordinand of not-so-long-ago), he commented, "you have a lot of courage to wear that dress." I squinted, trying to figure out what was being implied by that statement. Was I so obviously a cow that the fabulous dress couldn't compensate? Whuh? "Huh?" I responded wittily. "Let me try again," he backtracked smoothly. "What I meant to say was that it's a great dress and you look just swell in it." Lady Lisa laughed in the background. "Thank you Preacher," I responded, mollified.
I was feeling pretty secure in my looks at that point: on the way in I had finally met Palaver's parents, and his mum had gone out of her way to tell me how pretty I looked both in Palalver's pictures and the flesh. There's nothing nicer than mom compliments, because you just know that they have no ulterior motive. We mostly talked about Maritimers and how you can always find someone from back east no matter where you go in Canada. After a few minutes they had to be elsewhere and we joined the reception line. Palaver's parents are nice people, and I was particularly interested in them from an almost anthropological point of view: after so many years of stories, I wanted to match what I saw with what Palaver sees. Yes, his mom is as nice as you would expect after all the arts & crafts stories attributed to her. Yes, his dad is gruff and quick thinking and very sarcastic (although not in a hurtful way (at least to me)). I could see a whole lot of Palaver in there. Which he may or may not agree with, depending on his mood.
Although there was nothing themish about the wedding ceremony, the reception had us all arranged in 'country' tables as a way of reflecting the cultural diversity of the guests. This provided us with almost instant comedy. After hours of Nazi high command names the night before, I need hardly tell you that our table theme was 'Germany.' The Lawyer - who is Jewish - couldn't believe his seating assignment. "There must be some mistake," he said sadly to himself. This immediately morphed into graveyard humour: when asked, he began to respond, "I was going to leave, but how could it get any worse than this?" As the only girl at the table, I was immediately assigned the code name 'Ava Braun.' Even better, the next table over was 'France'! We immediately made our invasion plans, which were carried out later to a rather lacklustre reaction. Although I took their flag, table France didn't seem to get the joke. To make up for this rampant lameness, after dinner Team Germany picked up our flag and blitzkrieged the dessert table, calling it the Night of the Long Cake Servers. Mmmm...putsches.
In between Nazi jokes, we found time to eat the wonderfully opulent wedding banquet spread before us. This weekend I learned that it is important not joke about eating a lot of beef in Alberta, because beef is not a joke. Beef is deadly - nay, deliciously - serious. Fortunately, I have experiences with big wedding meals and I was able to pace myself from the port soup onward (port! I haven't been able to drink port since that day I showed up to Poet's house to get massively hammered. You know, the day I leaned my head against the door and thought of the Cure? Loops. Returns. Retrograde motions.) As we ate, the Boy & I got involved in a tremendously interesting conversation about Christianity with the Lawyer based on his contention that according to Jewish conditions, Jesus could not possibly have been the Messiah. I had no idea how much I'd missed university life: the constant debate about politics, philosophy and religion; the most interesting ideas exchanged in the most casual of settings.
lesson VIII: the reception our theme 'germany',
| IX. After the dinner wound on to its sweet conclusion, the wedding d.j. made his first appearance. Somehow the Boy & I ended up dancing during the first family dance, but Poet had asked us, so that was okay. After that, the dance floor became a blur. I have to admit that most of the music was not to my taste, but there were several up-sides to that: 1. I did not have to resuscitated by professionals after dancing myself into collapse, 2. I got to watch the bride having a blast without the distraction of my own wildly flailing limbs, 3. I had lots of time to talk to Preacher & Palaver & the Lawyer and anyone else who crossed my path, and 4. when I liked a song, I really liked a song. For instance, they played "It's Raining Men." Normally I would've had a medium good time camping it up, but after sitting still for so long it became the best song ever. Plus, when it was done I could collapse giggling into a chair and say: "It's Raining Men? Yeah, not any more it ain't." "I'm taking your portrait down from Mount Lushmore. And I'm taking your favourite record from the jukebox."
The bouquet was thrown, of course, and I had a very bitter sweet moment when I realized that I was no longer allowed to try for the prize. "I never caught the bouquet," I said glumly to the Boy, "and now I never will." He didn't quite know what to say; of course I should be happy to have gone gained the reward of the bouquet without its capture, but there's just something about the idea that a certain common brand of magic is off-limits. Sure, I almost caught Pixie's bouquet - did, in fact, have my hand full into the blooms - but pulled back because Corinne wanted it more. I think that little bit of bouquet altruism soured my luck. To a certain extent, I mean - I am married.
At one point I spent a half-hour sitting with Wallace, Seth the Lawyer in a corner, speaking nought but quotations from the Simpsons. Honestly. That's all we did. And we thought we were hilarious. This is what happens when you reunited people who spent an hour every day watching the show together. Obsession for groups, by Matt Groening. During this period I also got the benefit of some Yiddish instruction when Wallace and the Lawyer started comparing notes on how this wedding compared with Jewish weddings. I suppose I was born 40 years after my time, because I find the odd Yiddish word absolutely hilarious. I am absolutely the target market for Borsht Belt comedy, although it no longer exists. The word of the night was fekukta. (I got the Lawyer to tutor me on pronunciation. He recommended that I save it up until I'm back in a cosmopolitan population; I reminded him that Wallace is from Yarmouth.) The reception was not just sitting, of course. All parties involve a great deal of walking to and fro - the kinetics is part of the excitement. I remember one crossing very clearly: I fluttered quickly across the ballroom in parallel to Palaver. We were laughing about something witty that I had said (what it was is lost to posterity). "Amoret, you are beautiful in a way the word cannot adequately describe," he said appreciatively. I glowed.
In between talking about the Simpsons, laughing and dancing to old disco, I would wander out to the long stone balcony where various people smoked and talked and mingled. The balcony was set over a magnificent view of the city but I was so distracted by everything that I think I only really looked once, said 'pretty' to myself and started talking to the Boy. A shameful waste, really. The whole reception was opulent and beautiful, set in one of the magnificent hotels the railroad built in every major Canadian city. I hate to acknowledge my almost complete blindness to this beauty, but there you are.
When the music was turned off and the reception officially over, I had become more or less sober from my earlier celebratory drinking. Not so Preacher, who was now wearing a bread basket on his head and my white feather boa. Not so the Boy, who started taking off his shirt for a reason that I never discovered. And not so Palaver, who got us in a circle, singing 'Barrett's Privateers.' Once again I stood in a circle in a nearly-empty reception hall, listening to one girl and several boys singing in chorus as family members looked askance. It was fun. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake to stomp along, though. By this time I had discarded my painful high-heeled shoes and I was trying to make noise with a nyloned foot. Not smart. And then the dj, inspired by our drunken display, turned on his equipment once more and blessed us with 2 more Celtic-y songs. We went wild, swinging around the dance floor and improvising tremendously inept displays of Highland dancing. When those songs had finished up, Marcie and a bunch of girls got into a huddle. To my immense surprise, they began chanting a sorority song(!) As they sang to a stunned audience of U of T grads (who have generally been taught to snub fraternities as the last refuge of the lout), I walked over to Poet and put my arm arm around his waist and my head on his shoulder. 'You married a sorority girl,' I said quietly and almost sorrowfully. At first he was defensive, and then he succumbed to U of T popular belief and hung his head in shame. We stood with our arms around each other and watched them until they cheered themselves out. It was an oddly beautiful moment.
lesson IX: when the music was turned off 'barrett's privateers'
| X. What followed was a long period of nothing. The wedding was over; most people gone off to rooms and other parties. I sat at our table and watched the clean up. Before the centrepiece could be taken away, I managed to grab a burgundy gerbera daisy to add to the French flag in my purse. Other than that, my activities included trying to ignore Beowulf and his girlfriend, who were inconveniently sitting at the same table; arguing with one of the particularly obnoxious members of Team Trebuchet from Sundridge; and trying to communicate with the Boy, who had drifted into the stupor one experiences immediately before passing out. Time dragged. We said goodbye to the Lawyer and Nich, who were pleasantly emotional. We waited on the curb for the cab. Immensely tired, I began to resent the Boy's obvious need for care.
We had been invited to an after party in one of the rooms occupied by members of Team Trebuchet, but that was never going to happen. I don't have any particular grudge against them; I just don't like them. Tymothi:J, on the other hand, has an enormous grudge against Beowulf. He had remained civil for the entire wedding, but there was no point in pushing matters. As for the Boy and Palaver, they were relatively indifferent. As I said before, Poet's friends are divided into these two teams: Team Trebuchet and Team Decent Human Being (you can guess which team I belong to). It's unfortunate that St. Stephen feels he must straddle this divide, but then again, he also manages to be friends with both myself and Ophelia at the same time, so obviously juggling nitro is his forte. Our options thus reduced to going home, we just went home. The Boy locked himself in the bathroom for a good long while and the rest of us looked at each other with drained after-the-event faces. I was sad that such a long anticipated night was already over, but I was also happy that I could go to bed now.
lesson X: boars and bores after the reception although invited next: the courtney love phase
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