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2005-08-29 || 4:27 p.m. || their first song as husband and wife was 'don't stop believin' by journey. || early saturday morning i was sleeping in the passenger seat of my tiny compact car parked in a makeshift parking lot at one end of a secluded meadow not too far from mount st. helens. my fancy dress was balled up somewhere in the backseat. i had one blanket and each time i woke up i noticed the windshield was a bit more fogged up: i am a heavy breather in sleep, i guess. it was still dark out and i kept having the very most intense dreams: living in a commune and discovering either ghosts or aliens were rearranging things just so as to have members of the collective turn on each other ("the mustard is missing!" or "my kitchen table is gone!"), and reporting my findings to captain jean-luc picard, who was so pleased with me he invited me to the upper deck for 'earl grey, hot.' after that dream i found that my entire right leg, somehow splayed out over the gear shift and steering column, was asleep and a sign that i should give up on the sleeping thing. twenty feet away was michael's pick-up truck, the camper shell open, with him tucked inside and snoring in the way only whiskey allows to be possible. i considered crawling back in for warmth and comfort, but it is a difficult thing sleeping next to a snoring person. if you can't find a rhythm you resort to prodding and punching and hissing the snorer's name in the most exasperated way and ultimately making a big show over grabbing a blanket and pillow and pulling shoes on to march to your own car to seek refuge in a reclining passenger seat, only to suffer somnolent limbs and cosmic dreams about captain picard. i decided to drive to seattle. beyond michael's truck was the patio where the reception had been held. there were still empty cups and what i imagined to be wine bottles, discarded high-heeled shoes, and the 'sound of music' record that provided my personal dance hit of the evening (grown men of the husky variety + rail-thin hipster fellows + amelia + i, weaving in and out arm-in-arm and doing whatever dance it is that you do when you try to yodel). beyond that was the large cabin that housed most of the wedding party, sleeping in curtained bunks in wrinkled bridesmaids' dresses and groomsmen's cravats or nothing at all. far on the other side of the meadow was the honeymoon cabin and the bride and groom sleeping inside. to the right of that was the tree under which their wedding took place. their ceremony was announced by a marching drum corps. you could hear it for miles i am sure, up and down the mountainside and across the lake and at the very top of the volcano, where the steam slowed down for a moment to arrange itself into the shape of a heart. there were four toasts during the ceremony, and everyone lifted ceramic cups handcrafted by the bride to yell 'here, here' (hear, hear?) and drink warm champagne. a woman behind me to my left was sobbing. i could hear her alternate between choking and laughing in an attempt to not alarm anyone (i am usually the person to assume this role in the audience. i wanted to pass my hankie to her, or wink and nod in recognition of that level of supreme blubbering). the bride and groom both wore white. i don't know them very well (they're michael's friends) but like the idea of drawing conclusions about them from their wedding: what his brother said about his jumping out of a moving jeep at age six so that he could better look at something he spied on the ground; what her crying maid of honor said about her heroics in mexico. hearing stories about them from friends and family; how their friends and family behave in the buffet line and how the vast majority of them dance well into early morning, caked dirt collecting at the bottoms of hems and bare feet, dropping where they are to pass out and sleep uncomfortably in bunks and the backs of trucks and dew-soaked nylon tents. guestbook || notes || archives || profile || photos || d-land |