mystery solved

A buddy emailed the other day to tell me he had read the blog for the first time (!). The fact that he was best man at my wedding notwithstanding, skipping the blog is unacceptable. This is the greatest and best blog in the world . . . tribute.

I was quickly over it when he then revealed the origin of the quote that you all failed me miserably on. As it turns out, it was Lord Chesterfield (not Colderidge - but they both apparently wrote "letters to sons," which was something I vaguely recalled). I was searching for "love" instead of "matrimony," junking up my google results something fierce.

Moral of the story: What's the purpose of this blog if the "people with answers" don't read it? Just kidding. I love you.

mairwegg

The wedding is a whirlwind. It approaches quickly and goes by ridiculously fast. You get pulled in so many directions that I have a hard time remembering who showed up at the reception. I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with any alcohol I may or may not have consumed during the celebration. (If someone, unrequestedly (?) hands you a beer, you have to drink it, right? It's totally bad juju to refuse/nurse it.)

Anyway, a series of loosely related items concerning the wedding/honeymoon:

• The receiving line was pretty funny to me. Had I thought about it, I would have been on the left (1st) and put theMonica on the right (2nd). As it was, people talked to her first and then me. This is the equivalent of a reanimated Beatles opening for William Hung. I mean, how is Willy going to follow that? Generally, the receiving went something like this:
  
  To theMonica: "You are such a beautiful bride. You look so gorgeous! You are the most beautiful bride I have EVER SEEN! They should box you up and sell you at the beautiful store! Radiant! Gorgeous! Stupendous! Hooray beautiful bride!"
  move over 2 feet
  To theMe: "And Roger . . . you're . . . here."


• At the start of the day, I was saying I enjoyed all the hoopla over me getting married, even though it's only, honestly, 40% about me. Well, by the end of the day, I had self-downgraded my importance to about 2%. It's like the king/queen on a chessboard. The king is integral to the game - he has to be on the board - but otherwise he's generally useless/in the way.


• While true, for once in my life, when I said stuff, people were paying attention. They'd confirm with Monica, but still initially they heard what I had to say.


• They serve you everything first. If you're on the fence about getting married, this is a deal maker right here.


• I had a really great time dancing and talking to basically every person I know for 6 to 8 seconds a piece.


• We were struggling with doing the talking table-to-table thing. We had 38 tables or something crazy. Eventually, we decided to do it, but keep it quick. So, my opening was, "TABLE 16!! This is where we sat all the hip people!" You say "hip" when they're old. Or, "Table 12! This is where the party starts! Who are you again?" You ask about the food, kiss the babies, press some flesh - then you get out of there. The saving grace to the operation was that the table people were still eating so they didn't want to talk. Gold.


• During the wedding process, you get kind of used to the idea that you're special. You're important and gosh-darnit, people like you! Then you get on a plane and go to St. Lucia where you discover that you are one of the 800 couples on this tiny island who got married on 9/29/07. This proves a couple of things: 1. There are a crapload of people in the world and 2. As I expected, I'm not special.


• Mad props to our honeymooner friends: Jodee/Rob, Brooke/Mike, Elizabeth/Darren and Robin/Matt were great peeps. When you first get there, it's like college, you hang out with the nearest available couple because you don't want to end up friendless. Eventually, you karaoke "Build Me Up Buttercup" and find some cool people and hang out with them instead. (Sorry friends of convenience!) Unfortunately, we found our crew a bit too late, but we got some QT in.


• Speaking of karaoke, mad props to the British couple . . . uhh . . . Penny and Mark (?). Penny loved her some Black Velvet. A little too much, but ok. And Mark . . . wow. I just can't explain in words how completely terrible he was at karaoke. It was like watching a guy get hit in the crotch . . . for 4 minutes straight. The red traveling across the words means you're supposed to be singing that now.

hardee-har-har

My buddy says that I don't think anything is funny anymore. (This initially stemmed from my finding Napoleon Dynamite mediocre and his finding it to be the most hilarious movie he's ever seen and taking about it for 2 years straight). And I wonder if maybe he's right? Have I lost my comedic innonence? Hmm, I don't know. But you know what I'll always think is funny? Ridiculing my dumbass friends.

the first step is identifying your problem . . .

"What I don't get is how the whole thing works."

an expletive-filled rant

would have filled this space were I to have written yesterday. You see, my beloved Cleveland Indians lost to the asshole-ish Boston Red Sox (hmm, I can't seem to find any links) in the ALCS on Sunday night.

Here at Marginally Clever, I know my audience. I know my audience is made of mostly western Canadian women. Western Canadian women who (if their blogs are any indication) don't have much appreciation for sports obsession.

theMonica, is much the same (though I am slowly warping her). I mean, logically, there is no reason for me to drop f-bombs all over - "You fakking idiot. You're so fracking stupid! AflacDucker!!" - seemingly randomly, but actually controlled by really, really stupid baseball players. Granted this is reserved almost exclusively for playoff games, but still, even for me it is a bit much. Such is the rage, but that subsides and when the losing comes, the depression begins.

In an attempt to explain, the best analogy I can think of is that a sports team is like a pet dog. Maybe you trained him to do cool shit (fetch beer) and when he fails that surely angers you. Ok, you probably wouldn't swear at it, but you do get mad when your dog does dumb things. So there's that.

Then your team loses and is done playing for the season. Basically, on Sunday, my dog died. So I'm sad. I'm always sad when my dog dies, but this dog was with me a lot longer than the past, say 10 dogs. So it hurts all the more. My sadness is mitigated somewhat by the fact that I know my dog will return next April from the Pet Sematary that is the new baseball season. Sure, maybe it'll turn out that the new incarnation of my dog isn't as good as my dog this year and maybe next year's dog will cut my achilles tendon when I'm searching for him under the bed and say ominous things like, "First I played with mommy. Now I want to play with yooouuuuuu." But by God he'll be my dog and damnit, I'll love him all the same. But I will not name my dog Gage.

one to skip

So, after being out of the country and then out of state and generally not around my blogging toolkit too much, I'm back at the office, where my magical blogging hammer resides.

Expect regular posting going forward. Also expect to be disappointed.

Thanks to all the well-wishers in the comments. I love you all.

"does this suit make me look fat?" "no. your wife does."

A long time ago, just before I was married, I was under 200 pounds. I had started to write a post about it. Let's take a look:

less than zero (+ 200) [proposed title]

[thoughts for the post]
So, for the first time since . . . I'm guessing 1999. I weigh less than 200 pounds.

I am now grossly underweight as I have a measly 80 pounds on Alan. He will be sure to exploit my new-found weakness.

Posterity - when I'm a complete slob fat ass I can look back on this post with melancholy.

Anyway, this was before my honeymmon and moving in with theMonica. What has happened since that time?

Well, I have consumed 1,053 pounds of the finest meats and cheeses in beautiful St. Lucia, all while doing ZERO physical activity and drinking 8,000 liters of booze. Ok, it was the honeymoon. Time to let go a little. And I did bust out some enthusiastic karaoke with theMonica. That had to burn a beer or half.

Fine, now I'm home. I'm home and I've eaten pizza and cookies for dinner the past two nights. Not like one cookie, but I've had like 87 cookies tonight. Plenty of pizza too, but I basically went apeshit on the cookies. I've also had some cool ranch doritos . . . you know to balance things out.

This is how theMonica can eat. She has what doctors call "metabolism." I do not. Pencil me in for full Jabba status in about 5 years. Anyone know where I can pick-up a metallic bikini?

grammar is always pertinent, right?

So, we are 24 days away from my hitchin'. That's what you call it when you're 50% hillbilly. And then you get a moonshine jug and some spoons and somebody fetches a fiddle! Yeehaw!

The invitation lady told theMonica that a response card line should read, "Number of vegetarian meal requested." I call balderdash. I think it should be "Number of vegetarian mealS requested" (except no capital "s" emphasizing the difference between meal and mealS). I am too lazy to actually look this up. And even if technically "meal" is correct I contend that it's one of those usage(s) which is so archaic so as to be rendered meaningless. The language has moved on. The correct usage is meals. As you can see, I've neatly set-up the problem so that I can not be wrong. That's how you debate!

holla!

So, I'm back. I mean, in terms of you and me and the interwebs, I guess I wasn't properly "gone," but I was getting married (she showed!) and honeymooning (I drank!).

I will have observations a-plenty coming soon (empty promises!). This is just a quick note since some of you asked in the comments (underutilized resource!) that all is well and yes, I am married (gasp!).