self service

There's not nearly as much to say about my brother's destination wedding as I had led up to in teaser posts. Or at least, I've passed the expiration of thorough exposition. Actually I intended to write this post about an ingrown nose hair story from two winters ago, but switched tracks.

I could tell you about the 'Danger Aligators' signs around the islands, but there's not much more to say about them. The real topic of this post is girls. It may seem self-serving and boastful to describe girls liking me, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm the monarch of this blog's domain. There were a lot of them there. And the ones that weren't single were trying to hook me up with the one's that were, or would soon be. When one of the girl's impending divorce came up in conversation one of the bride's aunts whispered loudly that I should give this girl a call in a couple months.

The mother of the bride laments constantly that I didn't request the phone number of a Texas dwelling cousin who claimed I had accompanied her on the 'best dance of [her] life.' I owned that reception dance floor. I might have considered her if she were fewer than eight years my junior.

Many attempts were made to pair me with a bridesmaid who, it turns out, is the younger sister of a girl I had nearly (and should have) taken to a high school homecoming dance. I would have been more interested if she were her sister.

The only number I actually ended up taking home was given unsolicited and belonged to an aunt. On a previous telling I mistakenly assumed it was obvious that it was an aunt of the bride, and not mine, much to the horror of my roommate. I figured the number was completely platonic until she added, 'I'm usually not this forward, but it's not very often that I make a connection like this with someone.' apparently we made more of a connection than I realized.

One teenaged cousin (of the bride) tempted us to think impure thoughts as she sunbathed in a bikini near a pool (yes it was November). I averted my eyes as my brother hummed the theme to Kubrik's Lolita.

With all that said I'm still single. Whether that's a triumph or a failure, I don't know. But, I'll smile glibly knowing that the mother of the bride thinks I 'could have had any girl on that dance floor.'

weddings

It's kind of ridiculous that with everything that's been going on lately my only post in three weeks was a retrospective. But what are you (my two readers) going to do about it? That's what I thought. Nothing.

My brother, Aaron, was married two weeks ago. You'd think I'd write about that now, but I'll get to that later. And there is plenty to tell. I should have written yesterday. I was feeling much more wordy then.

Instead, for now, I'm going to write about another wedding I went to this past weekend. My brother (the married one) was a groomsman in the wedding of a good friend of his from a church my family attended while I was in high school. Throughout the night I ran into a handful of players from that act in my life. Other than the groom's family, I also ran into two of the preacher's daughters. I shook hands with their husbands. We exchanged reminicent stories about carpooling to school, and updated stories about latest job and living status.

I also saw the parents of my best friend at the time. They didn't quite recognize me at first, but after dinner, they remembered well enough to threaten to show embarassing teenage photos when my wedding comes. These seems to be the big questions on everyone's mind. When is Andy getting married? And how is it possible that a younger brother could be married before the oldest?

While I was waiting in line for cake someone grabbed me and asked me if I'd seen Tiffany. I turned to the left and saw a girl bouncing an infant boy in her arms. This was my first girlfriend. It took me a second to recognize her (Aaron pointed out on the car ride home,'she really got chubby, huh.'). We hadn't dated for about twelve years, and I hadn't seen her for at least eight, but I still felt a touch of jealousy. I met her uninterested goateed husband. She introduced me, 'This is Andy, he was...' She stuttered for a long second, and I wanted to say, 'boyfriend, I was her boyfriend.' But, another girl finished her sentence, 'in the youthgroup with us. We used to hang out all the time.' He smiled politely, nodded and went back to the conversation he was having with another husband.

As conversations resumed, I updated a few more people with my standard response. I caught back up with the cake line, and sat back down with my family.

red head

My mother has red hair. Supposedly I look very much like my father. My grandmother has always taken a lot of joy in the idea that I would grow up to repeat my dad's footsteps. My parents met in college, and my grandmother has chided, for as long as I can remember, 'Andy's going to go off to college and meet a nice red head.' I have resisted this with every fiber of my being. I'm now incapable of being attracted to a red haired girl, no matter how solidly built she might be otherwise.

For my first year of college I attended the same community college where my parents met. To compound the situation, I lived with my grandparents during that time because they lived much closer to the school. Before my first day of school, my grandmother taunted me again.

I found my seat in my first class. Shortly after I sat down a freckle-faced girl with very frizzy red hair sat in the seat right in front of me. I panicked. I imagined my grandmother standing outside the door wringing her conniving hands. I couldn't concentrate on anything the teacher told us. The only thing running through my head was, 'there is no way I'm going to marry this girl.' And I almost told her so as she turned to pass me the syllabus.

When I got home I expected my grandmother to check on my red-head-meeting status. And of course she did. I told her, no I hadn't met any.

slow updates

I actually have a large backlog of topics to write about here, but I've been out of practice for so long that I can barely muster the sarcasm it takes to type these words. I have pictures to post too.

Someday.