Tuesday morning, we went to the church to pick ceremony music, which will not be including "Here Comes the Bride" or the typical "Wedding March." Since we're not having a full Mass, we don't really need that much - just the beginning and end, an Alleluia, and a psalm. (And we're sneaking the "Ave Maria" in as a meditation song.)
Because the church had a funeral that morning, and we had an appointment with a limo company, we kind of rushed through the whole thing: the assistant organist played us "Trumpets Volontary" and the recessional that goes with it, played a version of "Alleluia" that I know from my long tenure as a Catholic, and played a psalm that I'd also heard before. I kept asking whether he knew this or that song we'd done in choir, but he always said he didn't, and that they, as choral pieces, wouldn't sound right as marches on the organ, so I gave up. All sounded fine anyway, and we were putting our coats back on, when the principal organist came in with a copy of this other psalm they had mentioned.
She handed the sheet music to the assistant organist, and he began picking out the notes on the organ and singing the words in his awkward falsetto. As soon as he started playing, I looked up and interrupted: "I want that one." And then I began to sing along, with different lyrics, and nearly started crying. The tune was the same as "The Water is Wide," one of the songs we sang in choir circa 1994, and probably the last song we, as SDCC alumni, sang for Polly when we went caroling outside her house just weeks before she died. I still remember her watching us through her picture window, a wavering apparition, and how our voices wavered as well as we finished the song before walking around the corner and collapsing on the sidewalk to cry.
The lyrics that I know are not for weddings: they refer to a lost, or faded, love. And I still don't know what the psalm lyrics are; I took a copy with me, but have been almost afraid to look. But regardless, we're having it as our psalm - even if no one but me, my dad, and Dougan understand.
I don't doubt that there were angels - at least an angel - watching over me in the church that day.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Addendum
Apparently, W also kissed me on the mouth when I finally agreed to let him have the collectable Killer Bunnies/Battlestar Galactica card Squeak had gotten and given to me a few weeks ago. Lui swears he saw this; I have no memory of it (and judging by my reaction to the outside kiss, you would think I would remember). But somehow the multiplicity of the moment - along with the fact that I'm totally drawing a blank on half of it - along with Lui having seen it therefore making it not quite as illicit or stolen as I'd thought previously - makes it less exciting overall. So now I need a new moment to glory in.
Enter the new moment, when in the course of one evening, my dad's totally-moronic-yet-somehow-awesome kid brother told me that he's liked me much better the last few times I've been out here ("You used to be one of those Beverly Hills snobs; I'm glad you've grown up since then"), and said uncle's incredibly-attractive-for-an-older-man, retired cop friend told me, like, respectfully, how pretty I am (during a routine conversation about the nose job I want but will never dare to get).
I'll take what I can get, whenever, however, from whomever I can get it.
Oh and P.S.: During the three days I was in the city, I saw about 20 guys who were just like W - the sense of style, the attitude, the hat - they're frickin' everywhere. Thus, we can all be reminded that I don't want him per se; I just want a New Yorker. Always have, prolly always will.
Right. Now that that's all clear, back to planning a wedding with the Brit who lacks all of these qualities, but who, even when we've been arguing, still holds me every night.
Enter the new moment, when in the course of one evening, my dad's totally-moronic-yet-somehow-awesome kid brother told me that he's liked me much better the last few times I've been out here ("You used to be one of those Beverly Hills snobs; I'm glad you've grown up since then"), and said uncle's incredibly-attractive-for-an-older-man, retired cop friend told me, like, respectfully, how pretty I am (during a routine conversation about the nose job I want but will never dare to get).
I'll take what I can get, whenever, however, from whomever I can get it.
Oh and P.S.: During the three days I was in the city, I saw about 20 guys who were just like W - the sense of style, the attitude, the hat - they're frickin' everywhere. Thus, we can all be reminded that I don't want him per se; I just want a New Yorker. Always have, prolly always will.
Right. Now that that's all clear, back to planning a wedding with the Brit who lacks all of these qualities, but who, even when we've been arguing, still holds me every night.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Half a cigarette, and half a kiss.
Lui and I are in Providence, fine-tuning the wedding planning, but have just spent a whirlwind three days in New York, mostly on my friend Emi's couch playing travel Yahtzee and Scrabble with her and her boyfriend.
We did, however, go out Thursday night, with my token lesbian friend, her girlfriend, and W, who picked the setting: a dive bar in Hell's Kitchen (I think) where they serve cheap beer and free hotdogs. We got there around 9:30, and the bar was crowded, but fortunately a totally support-worthy organization was having a tent party in the back patio, and welcomed us, and gave us free buttons.
W and I went inside to buy the first two pitchers, and he started telling me about his new girlfriend (I myspace-stalked her, and am decidedly cuter), who he'd already been sort of dating before he came out to CA, and the job interview - for a second assistant's position, but in the exact field he wants to work in - he had the next day. I, on the other hand, had no news, which I feel is only good news if you're not trying to prove to an ex that your life is every bit as awesome as his is...
The five of us had fun - or should I say the four of us had fun, as Lui accidentally got into a conversation about equal rights and freedom with some big black guy at the bar, and somehow thus got suckered into taking six shots of Jack Daniels in a row - and before I knew it the beer had been drunk, the hotdogs had been eaten, and the liberals were asking everyone to move inside so they could take down the tent.
I came back from the bathroom to find W with an unlit cigarette behind his ear, and promptly stole it and hid it behind my back. Lui gave me a disapproving glance - he abhors smoking - but was too drunk to keep it up, or maybe too drunk to remember, and so when W stole my phone from my pocket and asked me to walk him out so we could trade cigarette for phone before he left, I was able to go without any commotion or awkwardness at all.
We stepped outside and W asked the bouncer for a light "for the lady," as by this point I already had the cigarette in my mouth. Mind you, with the exception of the Tom Petty concert I went to with Pigeon (the one where I made the mistake of calling Piano Man on the way to the arena, and thus reminding myself of how much I loved/hate/miss him), I haven't smoked since Lui and I have been together. So this seemingly minor infraction was kind of a big deal. I felt racy, free, exhilerated as W and I shared the cigarette on the steps of the bar, me wearing far too little clothing for the climate, having left my layers in the tent with the rest of our party, but thanks to alcohol, not really noticing the cold. And then, to add to all those wonderful, illegitimate feelings, W gave me a hug.
And a kiss.
On the lips.
It was only a peck - a half-kiss to go with my half-cigarette - and it's not like I don't have other friends who do this, and with whom it would be totally normal, but in the haziness of my altered state, and the circumstances which need not be mentioned, it was, well, abnormal: racy, liberating, exhilerating.
In the VF (here version fantasie) of this story, W turns and walks toward the subway, and I call after him. "Just one more," I say, gingerly taking the shrunken cigarette from his mouth with my first two fingers. I then somehow gracefully and simultaneously bring the cigarette to my mouth and my mouth to his, eventually discarding the cigarette and kissing him gently, still a closed-mouth kiss but slightly longer and more deliberate than the one he's just given me, before turning on my heels and going back into the bar; I don't look back, but can feel his eyes on me from where I've left him, stunned and hungry on the sidewalk.
In the VO (here version ordinaire) of this story, W turns and walks toward the subway, and I go back inside, surreptitiously pressing my lips together for the remainder of the night because I am so fucking aware of them now.
We did, however, go out Thursday night, with my token lesbian friend, her girlfriend, and W, who picked the setting: a dive bar in Hell's Kitchen (I think) where they serve cheap beer and free hotdogs. We got there around 9:30, and the bar was crowded, but fortunately a totally support-worthy organization was having a tent party in the back patio, and welcomed us, and gave us free buttons.
W and I went inside to buy the first two pitchers, and he started telling me about his new girlfriend (I myspace-stalked her, and am decidedly cuter), who he'd already been sort of dating before he came out to CA, and the job interview - for a second assistant's position, but in the exact field he wants to work in - he had the next day. I, on the other hand, had no news, which I feel is only good news if you're not trying to prove to an ex that your life is every bit as awesome as his is...
The five of us had fun - or should I say the four of us had fun, as Lui accidentally got into a conversation about equal rights and freedom with some big black guy at the bar, and somehow thus got suckered into taking six shots of Jack Daniels in a row - and before I knew it the beer had been drunk, the hotdogs had been eaten, and the liberals were asking everyone to move inside so they could take down the tent.
I came back from the bathroom to find W with an unlit cigarette behind his ear, and promptly stole it and hid it behind my back. Lui gave me a disapproving glance - he abhors smoking - but was too drunk to keep it up, or maybe too drunk to remember, and so when W stole my phone from my pocket and asked me to walk him out so we could trade cigarette for phone before he left, I was able to go without any commotion or awkwardness at all.
We stepped outside and W asked the bouncer for a light "for the lady," as by this point I already had the cigarette in my mouth. Mind you, with the exception of the Tom Petty concert I went to with Pigeon (the one where I made the mistake of calling Piano Man on the way to the arena, and thus reminding myself of how much I loved/hate/miss him), I haven't smoked since Lui and I have been together. So this seemingly minor infraction was kind of a big deal. I felt racy, free, exhilerated as W and I shared the cigarette on the steps of the bar, me wearing far too little clothing for the climate, having left my layers in the tent with the rest of our party, but thanks to alcohol, not really noticing the cold. And then, to add to all those wonderful, illegitimate feelings, W gave me a hug.
And a kiss.
On the lips.
It was only a peck - a half-kiss to go with my half-cigarette - and it's not like I don't have other friends who do this, and with whom it would be totally normal, but in the haziness of my altered state, and the circumstances which need not be mentioned, it was, well, abnormal: racy, liberating, exhilerating.
In the VF (here version fantasie) of this story, W turns and walks toward the subway, and I call after him. "Just one more," I say, gingerly taking the shrunken cigarette from his mouth with my first two fingers. I then somehow gracefully and simultaneously bring the cigarette to my mouth and my mouth to his, eventually discarding the cigarette and kissing him gently, still a closed-mouth kiss but slightly longer and more deliberate than the one he's just given me, before turning on my heels and going back into the bar; I don't look back, but can feel his eyes on me from where I've left him, stunned and hungry on the sidewalk.
In the VO (here version ordinaire) of this story, W turns and walks toward the subway, and I go back inside, surreptitiously pressing my lips together for the remainder of the night because I am so fucking aware of them now.
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