Love and Marriage

I was off on vacation recently. Decided to get away from it all here in the Middle East and just head on out to the west coast. Which shows how much this war has messed with my brain, because I’ve always stayed away from the west coast like fat people stay away from treadmills.

But I had a good reason to go to California. Sacramento in fact. (Interesting fact: The Governator once called Sacramento “Death,” which is probably why he commutes every day from LA.) Because one of my best friends was gettin’ hitched.

My boy Dan moved out to the west coast at the turn of the century to do some tree work in northern California. While out there he met the lovely LeeAnn and they fell madly and deeply in love, (as the story goes.)

One thing leads to another and in September of last year Dan called me to let me know that the nuptials were being planned for the summer of 2008 and he wanted me to be the best man, (actually he just wanted me in the wedding party, I think I volunteered to be his best man.)

Sadly, the army reared its ugly head a few months later and I had to inform Dan that I’d be unable to attend his wedding (and bang all those drunk brides’ maids) due to being somewhere in Iraq getting shot at. He was saddened, but understood how these things go. I was saddened as well because, along with all those summer movies, this was just one of several weddings I was going to miss.

Fast forward to early this summer, when I discovered that it looked as though all the planets were going to align in such a way that I would actually be able to make it out to Dan’s wedding.

So I purchased my ticket, packed my bag and after 36 hours of flying (though it was technically in a 24-hour period. I time traveled!) I arrived at the Vegas airport, sat at a bar and watched all the people losing money in the slot machines. Suddenly, my phone rang. It was one of my other best friends, Tres. Tres is a superbroke mofo, but he scrimped, saved and sold his body on the street to get enough money for the plane ticket and rental car.

He was sitting with Dan, drinking beer and enjoying the day and wanted to know where I was. I told him that I was but a scant few hours away in scenic Las Vegas, Nevada. Everybody (including myself) was overjoyed that I had traveled 11 or so time zones to make the wedding. Though I smelled pretty rank at that point.

The next day was the wedding, and what an event that was! It was up in the smoke-covered mountains of northern California. Dan and his bride-to-be had rented out a lodge in the mountains that used to be a brothel, (which you could tell because there were about 3 dozen really tiny rooms. That's cause you don’t really need that much space to make the whoopee) for the wedding.

The ceremony was slated to begin at 2:30, but people could be found around the lodge bar by noon, (a sight that brought joy to my heart.) It was an outdoor ceremony in the 5 million degree heat. I lost about ten pounds out there, but it was worth it because the ceremony was on a cliff, hundreds of feet up, with a bunch of mountains and trees and shit in the background. Very picturesque.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent at the lodge drinking, eating and singing karaoke very badly, (Mack the Knife, I can’t help myself.) We hit on the bartenders, we hit on the brides’ maids, near the end of the night we hit on the coat racks. Good times. I know I had fun because I discovered myself in my bed the next morning and I had no idea how I got there.

Dan’s wedding marks the continuation of a disturbing trend though. He’s the first of four friends getting married this summer, (though he’s the only one to send me an official invitation.) With the number of friends I have combined with the rate of marriages that are planned, I’ve figured out that by the end of 2009 me and my boy Tres will probably be the only bachelors in our circle of friends, (but we won’t be bachelors together, get that thought out of your head right now!)

It makes us wonder, are we at the age where we’re supposed to be getting married? Or is this some kind of lemming thing/domino effect where everybody is getting married because everybody else is getting married? It’s a question that keeps me up at night, cause I wonder, am I supposed to be responsible enough to get married? Is my own manly biological clock ticking?

But on the other hand, I say funk that, because I’m pretty sure that while all my friends are getting married in the next two years, that in five years from now, the majority of them will be divorced, miserable and broke. While I’ll still be single and full of all types of kick ass communicable diseases.

Are those wedding bells I hear?