The Wedding, Part 1: Go South, Young Man

Fast-forward: on March 7, 2009, on a cloudy day in Austin, TX, Pam and I got married. The hubbub surrounding the big day has been a cause of great excitement and even greater stress for us over the past several months. Combined with the pressures of law school, pet ownership, theater, and the this-that-other of life, maintaining a reasonably updated blog has been near the bottom of my to-do list.

I had a week at home with the animals after Pam left Virginia on February 25 to get pre-wedding preparation underway. It was fairly eventful; the dog had just been castrated and required constant supervision/Elizabethan collar restraint as a result of his compulsively picking his wounds open with his claws and teeth. The cats were no help. I also settled into full-on rehearsal mode for my latest (and last) show with the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society, "Ruddigore." Theater usually falls into the "What fun!" category for me, but I happened to be getting through the last blasts of a mild bout of pneumonia (yes, doctor-diagnosed) and was still operating with cough-ravaged vocal cords and at lung power levels of about 75%. It was what it was, I guess, and I could have sounded worse. That Saturday, I had some of the guys from school over to my place for an evening of man-type stuff - y'know, poker, Iron Man, video games - and before I knew it, it was March 3rd and I still hadn't packed for my two-week trip, then 24 hours away.

The next day, I left a long note and a check for the house-sitter (more on that some other time), did the dishes and about half of the household chores I should have done, skipped class, and headed via train to the Baltimore Airport. I arrived in Austin to brilliant weather, dinner at one of my favorite old places (Star Seeds, where the breakfast tacos are thiiiis biiiiig) and a nice reception from Pam and the various family members and friends who either lived in or had already descended upon Austin for The Party.

Thursday was Bachelor/ette day. From what I understand, Pam's party was fairly tame, and involved a gay bar, penis beads, that kind of thing. Of course, my understanding of what happened at Pam's bachelorette party conveniently omits the drunkenness, tearful admissions of regret, and various feats of tasseled cockery that I hear happen at those types of get-togethers. Live and let live. Mine started pretty harmlessly. I ate mediocre enchiladas and got housed on margaritas at Polvo's, a pretty happening Mexican pre-game favorite in south Austin. There was a patron at the table next to us whose not-at-all-appealing butt crack (tiny digression: is there a euphemism for this, or even a less-offensive-yet-accurate descriptive term? Slit between buttocks? Crevasse?) was at least 40% visible the entire time we were there, and unfortunately it is already what I remember most about the meal. For proof-positive that it will be what we look back on about our night at Polvo's in twenty years, my cousin Sean got a couple of decent pictures of the offender.

We moved on from there to one of "our gang's" old favorite haunts, incidentally a place I've always been fairly neutral on, the G&S Lounge. We played pool and table hockey, and laughed at the wedding-appropriate songs that kept coming up on the jukebox. "Knives Out" was my favorite. I hadn't played pool in a couple of years, and it showed. The tandem of myself and my best man lost most of the games we played, and it was pretty much my fault every time. We were joined at G&S by a friend from DC whose plane had gotten in not too long before, and not too long after the decision was made to head for darker waters.

It's like this: I have always, always disliked strip clubs. I have friends who have gone to one once a week for 10 years. I can count the number of times I've been on one hand, and one of those times was because my then-girlfriend was a waitress there (because I know you're wondering, yes, it was Pam who worked at the strip club). But anyway, here's the thing. For as long as I can remember, I have had a positively visceral negative reaction to commissioned salespeople. I'm not known for my politeness and tasteful restraint when I am annoyed by something, and commissioned salespeople are very close to the top of my "please, no" list. I'd love to say that I have nothing against them personally. I know they're just doing their jobs, that their living depends upon successfully convincing me or someone else to buy something - preferably something expensive. But when I'm there, and they're in front of me, God help me and them, but I hate them. They don't care about the product. They don't really want to give me good information. They want to tell me whatever it will take to make me buy whatever I am most likely to buy. And they want to be extremely in my face and annoying about it, to the point that I can't look around for thirty fucking seconds before one or more of them has been in my face.

Now. Imagine you're at a Best Buy, you're there to look at all the sweet TVs, and the salesmen start approaching you - one after the other. Now imagine they're coked-up, they sit in your lap, and you have to pay them money, but you don't get to take the TV home. You just get to watch it super close-up for two minutes, to the point that the picture is blurry, and for some reason, the closer you get to it, the more the TV smells like baby powder. This is similar to how I feel when I go to a strip club. It's overwhelming. I feel trapped, suffocated, defeated - and like I'm never going to really get to look at the sweet TVs, which is all I really wanted to do. And you know what? I would NEVER go to Best Buy if they charged me a $10 cover.

So wouldn't you know, gambling isn't allowed in Texas. That kind of leaves only one other option open for closing down a bachelor party. I'd known what was coming since the moment Pam said "yes" last February, and had been steeling myself. And you know what? You only live once, and I'd gone 31+ years without a lap dance.

TO BE CONTINUED...