Once again I’ve been denying updates to you, my adoring public ;-) Things have been going pretty quick lately and I haven’t been in the writing mood.

First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone for your responses to my post on 2/14/05. It means so much to me what all of you said. If you haven’t heard directly from me lately, I promise to get in touch with all of you. Like I said, I haven’t been in the writing mood.

Next, I finally landed a job. It’s temp now, but the company told me that the temp period is kind of a “trial period,” before a full time hire. It’s a little bit administrative, a little bit customer service, and a little bit graphic design. So far it’s great. I’ll give you more details in the future.

Also, I attended my first wedding this weekend. It went something like this:


I don’t pay much attention to the meanings of songs. That became readily apparent to me when the song request list was passed my way at the reception. I racked my brain trying to think of appropriate music for a wedding, preferably something a person could dance to. It was then that I realized I knew about 823 songs about breaking up, loneliness, smashing your ex's car, and lewd sexual acts. I couldn’t think of a single appropriate love song.

Overall the wedding was wonderful, though it had its high points and low points for me.

The ceremony was nice. It was a definitive Catholic ceremony, held in a beautiful old church with stained glass windows and high vaulted ceilings. I, for one, have no preference for religion, so the readings about God, Jesus, and friends during the proceedings failed to inspire me with a sense of love and joy. The ten or fifteen minutes of the roughly hour long ceremony that were actually about the couple was magical though. Frankly, I just don’t care about all the, “Love is the presence of God,” stuff. I’m sorry if I offend anyone, but I’m just saying how I felt.

And the Communion. Oh lord! I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a longer Communion. It was all: “Here’s this, bless this. Here’s that, bless that. Here’s these, bless these. Light this candle for this, this candle for that and that candle for this, and that candle for that. We stand up, we sit down, we stand up, we sit down. The priest sings, the vocalist sings, the priest chants, the vocalist sings. And THEN we get in line to receive. I didn’t go. I would have, just for the sake of the ceremony, but it had come to my attention that not everyone was going up, and I was more than happy to sit this one out. If anyone asked I would probably have said I was Jewish or something.

It was brought to my attention later that receiving Communion when you're not Catholic was a serious offense. I guess I have a few funerals to answer for.

They finally got to the good stuff, you know, the “Do you’s?” and “I do’s.” And that made me happy. They made a beautiful couple. I knew the bride more than the groom. The bride was one of the sweetest people I had ever met. The groom, though I had only met him two or three times, seemed like great guy. This goes against my generalization that a lot (not all) “boyfriends,” I see in the world always make me think, “What a slob, how did he ever get a girl like that?” This guy was, in fact, a nice guy. That's something weird I noticed about the wedding, I was surrounded by nice people; even the boyfriends. I didn't expect otherwise, but there was an honest sense of love and happiness among everyone. At a wedding, go figure.

But I didn't feel that way right off the bat. The reception started out rocky. Walking into cocktail hour, I knew NO ONE. The few people I knew at the wedding were in the wedding party, and they had other matters to attend to. I walked around the room, looking lost, like I had walked into the wrong party. Everyone was talking to everyone else, I was the only one shuffling about by myself. I made the usual acquaintances; “Jon, this is the wall. Wall, this is Jon. You two should hang out together.”

I got a little depressed at that point. I was in nerd hell. At a party full of people I didn’t know. It was my own personal barriers that kept me from edging into someone else's conversation, like normal people do, I guess. I stood in a corner, looking for someone else in desperate need of someone to talk to. I found no one.

Things got better at dinner. We were assigned to specific tables, making mingling with new people mandatory. That’s when I turned up my trademark Jonathan wit and sophistication (well, it's not really trademark, more like Patent Pending). Much to my utter and total shock and awe, it worked. I was talking to new people. I made a huge leap in social standing when I offered my jacket to a beautiful young lady sitting across from me, who had mentioned how cold the room was (it was FREEZING). Again, to my shock and awe, she accepted. Girls would usually suffer the harshest environmental conditions than do something like accept my jacket as sign of gentleman-ly-ness. Seriously, there are women who would rather do a Polar Dip than talk to me.

Conversation with everyone was light and fun, I generally enjoyed the evening.

In another move I’m generally not known for making, I also asked the girl with my jacket, we’ll call her “S,” if she would like the first dance with me. I was bringing my "A-Game" that night. She seemed TOTALLY caught off guard though. She paused thoughfully and then, again to my total shock and awe (there was a lot of that), said yes. We did a standard slow dance (the “World’s Easiest Dance,” thus no problem for me), and had a nice chat.

I was riding high for the rest of the evening. I was happy just to have overcome shyness for the night.

The food was gourmet. It was one of those dinners where they keep brining you course after course. I kind of hate those. I always get to the point, usually before the main meal even arrives, where I think, “Stop, don’t bring out any more, I’m trying to save room for dinner, damnit!”

The evening wore on. The music alternated between the slow dances (where I took the opportunity to dance with the bride and the few people I knew), faster, hip hoppy and rock dances (which I only tried at the end), and various silly wedding ceremonies.

The faster dances have always been my bane. I got up once in a while, mainly to dance with, or at least near “S,” and the other ladies I knew, but I was painfully aware that I have A) no rhythm, B) only two moves: the “Bend your knees to the beat,” and the, “Swing your arms from side to side.” It was during these dances that I was captured many times on film and video by the photographers and cameramen that seemed to be everywhere. I’m certain that there is now physical evidence of my awful dancing which will, I’m sure, come back to haunt me at a later date; probably on the internet, set to that "Mia Hoo," song.

The various wedding ceremonies went off with the usual fanfare. The throwing of the bouquet was a source of much excitement. Women scrambled and shoved to catch the bouquet which would ultimately end up being caught by an eight year old girl. I think as traditions go, this means we’re going to be waiting a loooooong time until the next wedding. The tossing of the garter was met with opposite enthusiasm. Men shied away from the garment with such determination that it actually hit a man in the chest, dropped to the ground in front of him, and he just stood there looking at it, hands in his pockets. It was a source of many laughs.

The last highlight worth mentioning was the “napkin game,” concocted by the DJ’s. It would ultimately determine who would go home with the centerpiece on each table. It was simply, pass the napkin around until the music stopped, and one holding the napkin at that point would be given a task. The first victim, the girl next to me, (let's call her "G") was told to find the person three seats to the right, and give them a hug. Pretty harmless. The second napkin holder was told to take the person two seats to the left, who happened to be "G," again, and dance around the table. The third victim was me. I was told to kiss the person directly across from me at the table. I looked across the table at “S.” Then I realized she was actually sitting more to my right. No, the person directly across from me at the table was Rob. Shit. It was the source of much laughter, which was good; I do love to make people laugh. We gave each other a dinky Parisian kiss on the cheek and sat down. The table was in stitches. Despite having to kiss a man, the laughter made it worthwhile. The final napkin victim was Rob’s date, and she was told to pick the next person to her right, of the opposite gender, and not a significant other, and have one slow dance.

Now wait one freaking minute here! She got to pick someone of the opposite gender?! Nothing against Rob, he’s a great kisser, but come on! I got screwed.

Anyway, the person she picked to dance was the one given the centerpiece at the end of the night.

Those are the highlights. Overall a pretty good time, despite some low spots. I enjoyed my interactions with "S," so I ended up giving her my e-mail address, despite the fact that I had never asked her if she was seeing anyone. I just decided to take a risk. I said, “If you ever find yourself in need of a dance partner, drop me a line. I enjoyed meeting you tonight.” In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have written my e-mail on the back of the wedding invitation. It just happened to be the only thing in my pocket I could write on. Only much later did I think it might have been a keepsake. I mean, my memories are all I need for special occasions like this, but I worried that “S” might think I’m not sentimental. Then I realized, in worrying about stupid shit like that, that I was back to my old self; the brave, charming Jon had had passed out drunk on the lawn.