So, Toph is now married. The trip turned out to be a little interesting, but unfortunately, not always in the right ways. I had a great time and all, but hell if it couldn't have been better if some things hadn't gone quite like they did. A quick recap:
So, Tuesday night I'm going to bed with the full intention of waking up Wednesday morning and heading into work my 12, then Thursday, hopefully being able to cop a slightly early exit to get some things done, like, get my hair cut, finish my packing, pick up Toph and Emily's wedding gift, and get some good sleep before having to catch a plane at 12:15 on Friday.
Well, about the only portion of that plan that went off correct was the waking up on Wednesday morning.
I was sick as a fucking dog, barely able to roll over and find my cell phone to call my boss. Gah! Big time cold symptoms, with a stuffy-as-hell head, aches all over, and a horrifically sore throat. Pretty bad all around. Working was just not an option. I was able to roll out of bed and throw in a DVD of The Wire, but wasn't really able to get out of bed in earnest until around 2 in the afternoon. Even then, I didn't quite trust myself even to drive to the drug store to pick up some shit to deal with it, so I just did my best to get some sleep.
That strategy worked out OK, and by the time Thursday rolled around, I felt decent enough to drag my ass into work. That was 100% necessary, as there was quite a lot that needed me to get it done. I managed to get things in order with regards to the software for our down, and left at around 3:30 feeling like that was all pretty well in order.
But, by then I was totally friggin wiped, and on the way home decided it would be prudent to nab some Nyquil and try to do something about my cold. Well, when I got home, I was so exhausted that I decided to take it right then and there. It's quite possible that that was an utterly stupid idea.
Of course, the Nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, knock-you-on-your-mo-fuckin'-ass medicine did exactly that, which resulted in my being asleep at 5:00 sharp. Yow.
I woke up at around 11, and experienced that George-Carlin-described phenomenon of "You ever fall take a nap after work in the afternoon, and wake up after dark, and you don't know what goddamn day it is?" Fuuuuuck! Of course, it was entirely bloody obvious that I was up for the rest of the night, so I did manage to get my shit packed and get all ready to go. I tried to get at least a little sleep before my drive to Dallas, but wound up finishing off Season 2 of The Wire and making a dent in Season 3 instead. Nothing to be done there, move along.
The drive and flight were uneventful, and I managed well enough to grab my rental car (a Toyota Matrix, a decent little SUV-type) and head straight to the rehearsal, to which I was invited. It was fine, in most of the normal "it was fine" sort of ways, though more than a little boring, and, as things tend to be with me and religion, a little insulting, since Emily, Chris's woman, has a family of extremely orthodox Ukranian Catholocism. I managed to avoid my usual seething and instead dealt myself more with the church itself. Here are some pictures:
Here's an overview of the interior of the Church. Everyone there was commenting on how beautiful the church itself was, which led to just a bit of the biting of the tongue thing on my part. I had a lot of fun working with the symbology of much of what was there, though, to be sure.
Here's one of what we were (sort of) affectionately calling the "Chestburster Christ", since Christ is coming out of Mary here insomuch as the chestbursters from the "Alien" movies (overheard comment: "Does this mean that the Holy Spirit is a facehugger? Oh, I'm so going to Hell for that one!") I suppose the imagery is a consistent symbol for the Immaculate Conception/Virgin Birth myth, but we just thought it was funny.
Here's a fascinating one. This one was placed prominently, just off the altar, very visible to anyone on the right-hand pews. It depicts a clergyman with a cross in his right hand, across his breast, with he left hand held out, covered in a cloth, with a miniature castle atop it.
To my admittedly untrained eye, the symbology at work here seems to be one of the relationship between the church and the state - specifically, that the church (the clergyman) holds the state (the castle) in the palm of its hand, though the hand needs the cloth to keep it clean.
Another barrel of laughs, this one a little easier to decypher: a priest with a sword, pointed lazily to the ground, almost as a walking stick.
I dunno about you, but to me, these two pictures make me wanna go get medieval on some goddamned heathens.
Some more pictures. Here's Chris.
Here's an odd one, to say the least. This muffin was carried out in front of everything at the beginning of the ceremony, by the bride's godfather, I think. Apparently it's some super-serious religious symbol that the bride's family fought hard for. I don't know what it's supposed to represent. To be more clear, I should say, I don't know what the FUCK it's supposed to represent. Something about the whole bread/flesh-of-Jesus/communion thing I suppose, but all I see is a fucking goddamned muffin.
Here's Emily. She was looking very good (for her - obviously she has a weight thing going on, but so does Chris, and it's not like anyone is unaware of it), and she definitely picked out a dress that worked for her.
If I may be permitted to be frat-boy crude, there was, shall we say, an aggressive lack of women on the fuckability scale. Here was the maid of honor, who, um, well, made Emily look very, very good, and not just because of the dress disparity. She was one of the few single women there.
Another was the one on Fitz's arm here. Another in the "thanks but no thanks" category.
Toph's sister and Emily's brother as bridesmaid and groomsman, in a new tradition that I've decided I don't like, with people from the groom's side making up the court on the bride's side, and vice versa. There was a very big discrepancy as far as the number of guests, with the bride's side outnumbering the groom's side at least 4 to 1 (though we asserted that if it came to a rumble, we could have probably taken them), and that was reflected in the wedding court as well, with a full half of the groomsmen being relations to Emily. That was just fucked up to me - to have Fitz and Schoop standing but not myself or Josh, with Emily's brother and her fucking cousin instead, just felt wrong. I think more than a few of us were a little raw about it.
In any case, the ceremony itself was long and boring, as Catholic ceremonies are wont to be, the standing and sitting and kneeling and crossing and "Lord, bless us all", acting as a constant reminder of just how willing they are to fuck with any aspect of your existence. But I digress into bitterness.
I bought Toph and Emily season one of Rome and season one of The Wire, since I knew most of the gifts would be for Emily in truth, because I know that Emily will watch and enjoy the shows with Toph, and because an appreciation of all things in relation to pop culture has essentially defined the decade-long friendship that Toph and I have shared. I'm sure I blew more money than anyone else on my gift, but don't really think that's the point.
The reception itself was amusing in a few ways, but not as amusing as I might have been able to make it. My table was all Toph's - his friend Jacqui, her husband, Ian, John, and Marsha. Here's John and Marsha:
Incidentally, as might be obvious, Marsha was looking fucking HOT, easily the most fuckable woman in attendance. Unfortunately for my chances there, she and John are in an on-again phase, so it looked like it was John that was gonna be getting all of that. They - Marsha in particular - had a bit of a consciously-anti-social thing going on that I actually kind of dug. Marsha's playing on her Nintendo DS in that shot :)
The meal was fine, and the bar was open, though the drinks were so badly watered down that I consumed maybe 12 rum and cokes and didn't even begin to feel anything.
A majority of the music being played was of some sort of Ukranian background, which had many of us on Toph's side in a minor rebellion, boycotting the dance floor, and instead getting into heated and intricate dorm-worthy conversations with Jacqui (who teaches High School Economics) regarding macroeconomical theory and the degree to which Economics counts as a science.
Finally, we were able to get the DJ to play a little Dropkick Murphy's, and for one brief shining moment stormed the dance floor to sway and mosh like retards to "Kiss me, I'm shitfaced". That was kind of the high point. Is that sad?
One more point. I warn in advance as this is going to sound, I am sure, just tragically homophobic. Anyone that's read this blog in full knows that I am not prejudiced. I emphatically, damn near violently, support gay rights and have nothing against gay people at all. Chris' sister Meghan is in fact a lesbian (her current girlfriend was in attendance).
But there was this guy in attendance, on the bride's side, who was putting on the most aggressive display of flaming faggotry that I've ever seen.
Just typing that I feel a little guilty, but that's literally the only way I can think of to put it. How else can I describe it? It was just this one guy, who was making it extremely clear that he was aggressively, flamboyantly gay.
Now, as I have hopefully made clear, that, I have no problem with. What people do with their weiners has no actual effect on my life, and honestly doesn't gross me out or bother me in the least, as it seems to with too many. But there's something about the
flamboyance that does bother me. I'm not the sort that's a big fan of public sexuality in any display, but this was even moreso.
This dude's gayness amounted to him macking on every female in sight on the dance floor, hands everywhere, overt sexuality being put on full display.
It's not a contradiction that I still describe his behavior to be that of a flaming homosexual. Most people that have had any real dealing with gays know that it's not uncommon for that to happen. I don't pretend to understand it in full, or even, really, in part, and I don't fully understand why I found it so aggressively annoying, but there was something about the guy that just made me want to punch him. It wasn't jealousy - the girls he was macking on, so to speak, were not that much to be jealous of, although a couple did have at least some semi-legitimate claim to hotness (none seemed all too bright), but the way that they just ate it up was kind of horrifying.
I suppose I do have some understanding of the fag-hag phenomenon - women like to have guys around that are one of the girls, and few other than gays ever really fit that bill - and on the physical side, it's not hard to see why a woman might see a man that treats them with physical sensuality but makes no demands insofar as sexuality is concerned, might be seen as appealing.
But what does the gay guy get out of it?
What occurred to me at the reception was, that that was probably a manifestation of what I frankly know is an all-too-common reverse-bigotry that some gays have against straights. Contempt for "breeders". It pains me to put it like that, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em. And I don't see how some of that couldn't be at work there. The equivalent of the millionare who flaunts his wealth by spending insane sums of money on shit he doesn't begin to need. So does the gay guy sometimes flaunt his hold over some women, despite holding no actual interest in them?
Ah, well. Maybe I'm being harsh there. Maybe the dude was actually more of a 7, not a 10, on the straight-to-gay scale, and genuinely enjoyed what he was getting out of his grinding with the chicks, but the look on his face seemed to me to suggest otherwise.
Ah well. Too sensitive a topic, probably. I'm at least willing to concede some complexity.
Sunday, my flight wasn't until 7:05 in the afternoon, so I slept in, packed, and met Fitz for lunch at Applebees, where we talked, and where Fitz reminded me that he's just really not that much of a conversationalist. And he has this habit, where he tries to finish your sentence with you, invariably screws it up, and annoys the everliving piss out of you in the process.
We saw a movie - we chose "The Departed" - which was actually very good, though I had issues with the Jack Nicholson character being a little too far over the top (as I've matured I've found I have less patience for Jack's scenery-chewing), and I found it just a little too contrived-convenient that both of the leads wound up with the same psychiatrist chick (although allow me to opine that
Vera Farmiga is going to be big), but taken as a whole, Scorcese knocked one out of the park here. I've never had much respect for Leo, although I think I managed to avoid the bile towards him that most males my age seem to have built up for him in the Titanic years (I was underwhelmed with him in Gangs of New York, and thought he did well in The Aviator, even though that movie was crap), but he impressed the everliving hell out of me here. And Damon slid right into the role of the slick-but-dirty cop. Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and Mark Wahlberg being in supporting roles only confirms Scorcese's clout. And the story itself was a complete Greek (or perhaps, I should say, Irish) tragedy, with a moment that shocked me as much as anything ever has in a movie. Very, very solid.
On a side note, I totally need to see Borat, and wouldn't mind getting a look at The Prestige, if only because up to this point, Christopher Nolan seems utterly incapable of making a bad movie (and it seems very unlikely that he could here, either, with Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, and Piper Perabo (who is, incidentally, criminally under-recognized, and who has managed to steal a great many bad movies) at his disposal).
Then, the flight back home. Yikes. Okay, so I returned the rental car by the time it was due at 5:00, then had two hours to kill in the Detroit airport, which I spent sitting around Chili's, drinking a couple of tall Sam Adams', and watching a football game.
The flight took off just a few minutes late, and with a straight shot from Detroit to Dallas, the chances of an issue are generally slim.
Unfortunately, we arrived at Dallas just a couple of minutes after a thunderstorm did, and had to circle around for, like, a couple of hours. Sigh. No big deal, though, as that's happened before, and it usually works out just fine. It does mean, though, that I'm gonna be pretty damn late, and, since I've got a two hour drive from Dallas to my house ahead of me, is gonna make Monday at work a pain in the ass - since, after all, I've got to be in at 6:30.
Then the pilot comes on. "Well, the thunderstorm is still preventing anyone from landing, and we're being redirected to Austin before we run out of fuel."
That's an annoyance, of course, but it's not as if it's the first time it's happened, and by and large I take it in stride. That pretty much kills any chances of my being able to make it to work on time, but no biggie.
We land in Austin. Incidentally, I don't ever recommend flying with stopped up sinuses. I essentially lose all hearing in my right ear, and think my head is about to explode.
We sit.
Eventually the pilot comes on. "Well, it looks like the storm is about to clear, but we have exceeded our FDA-mandated 16 hours today, as our day started early this morning in Los Angeles. We'll have to leave it to the airline to decide whether to send busses for you to take you up to Dallas, or get you hotel rooms so you can fly out tomorrow."
This was at about 1 in the morning. Eventually we get up to a gate. A Northwest agent comes on and says that since there are no Austin-to-Dallas flights that have any open seats left until Monday afternoon, they took the liberty of ordering some busses.
We de-plane, grab our luggage, and wait for the busses.
The busses arrive at about 1:45. We take off at around 2:15.
It's a fucking 4 hour drive.
The busses are uncomfortable as hell, especially if you're 6'2". There is no way I can get any sleep.
When we finally pull in at around 6:15, I get to the parking lot, get my car, then have to fight morning rush hour all the way up out of Dallas, before arriving at home at around 8:30 this morning.
I've managed to keep myself up, on caffiene and willpower (and episodes of The Wire - I made it all the way through Season 3), so that I can retain some semblance of a decent sleep schedule for tomorrow. But no way was I in any state to go to work, or, for that matter, do much of anything productive.
And so now, I'm finishing up a long-ass blog entry, and deciding that it's about time to hit the Nyquil and head off to bed.
Long weekend. Hope work isn't too bad tomorrow. With any luck we'll actually be working on making some damn product.
Labels: movies, personal, vacation
