My Home Is Not a Place

I’ve been meaning to post this literally for years, but I haven’t done a good job of posting anything lately. Anyway, this is yet another post related to our wedding. Really, I think it’s the last one. Probably.

As my home continues to grow larger, I find myself thinking of it again.

At our reception, we were toasted warmly, comedically, and all-round brilliantly by the Best Man and Best Woman. Despite having such a hard act to follow, I took the mic to say the following few words.

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Those toasts are certainly a hard act to follow. So I promise not to be funny or heart-warming.

They say … you know … They … Them … the ones were always quoting when trying to spout conventional wisdom. They say that “Home is where you hang your hat.” But that’s never quite rung true for me. That’s just geography. However, in the somewhat confusing nature of conventional wisdom, They also say “Home is where the heart is.” That seems closer to the truth for me.

But I really like what the Roomie Pastor said at the end of the ceremony about finding a home wherever we’re together. That seems right on, because it seems like maybe Home is about the people who are there.

I’m fortunate to be able to think about so many people as Home:

My amazing, incomparable parents.

My big brother. My grandparents, aunts and uncles.

My friends from high school. Their parents.

My college friends, and some of their parents. Hmm. That seems like a lot of parents. I’m thinking maybe I needed a lot of guidance.

My friends from FUN and the beach. People I’ve worked with. My softball friends. The Girl’s family and friends.

And, for the past few years, more than anything, the woman I’m so fortunate tonight to be able call my beautiful bride.

I look around this room and see so many of those people here, and I can’t help but raise my glass to all of you. Because I’ve never felt quite so at home as I feel right now.

Thank you all for being here to welcome us home.

Testing

Just looking to see if all this still works.

The Whimsy of Giant Chickens

I haven’t had a lot to say around here for … quite a while, anyway. Or maybe I’ve had plenty to say, but I just haven’t actually said it. Or maybe, I’ve actually said it, but I haven’t ever typed it, and you have thus been deprived of my online brilliance. Regardless, I haven’t contributed much here lately, and I variously missed doing so and been happy not to be doing so. I don’t really know what all that means, but I just had to share a link to this post that you may very well have already seen because it made me laugh in the awesome ways that these internets used to all the time. Enjoy this lesson in the possible guerilla nature of giant steel chickens.

Enjoy, and in the words of commenter edenland, “Bok BOK, motherfucker!”

Schmolite

I made my way to Subway for lunch today (which was lovely, by the way). As I was heading back to my car and back to the office so I could eat and peruse the internets at the same time, I saw a guy and a girl headed in for some 6-inchers – or possibly foot-longs if they were feeling really crazy, not that we’re going down that dirty-minded road at this point – of their own. They were youngish, probably either high school seniors or in their first couple years of college. I thought, “How nice. They’re doing a Subway lunch date.”

Since the timing was just about right, I held the door open for them as I exited. The girl said, “Thank you…” and I couldn’t help but think how nice it is when people – strangers, even – are spontaneously but simply polite to each other, and I started to smile at the the thought when those ellipses caught up with me. Those ellipses can be a total bitch when it comes to dialogue, and in this case the girl finished her sentence, “… Sir.”

At that point I rabbit-punched her in the back of her big, dumb, blonde, luxuriously hirsute head, slammed the door on her falling body, and said, seething, “Don’t. [kick] Call. [door slam] Me. [stomp] SIR!” At that point, I stormed back to my car, any pleasant thoughts about people being polite disintegrating into mutters of “Polite? I’ll show you polite. I got your polite right here, you trollop!”

As I later reflected on the scene and the carnage that resulted, some questions came to mind:

• Was that a proportional response? Does feeling old because of something a teenager said justify assault and battery?
• Does politeness often go wrong like this?
• Is there anyone who actually likes being called sir or ma’am in this type of situation, especially by nubile, young people, when he or she (anyone being called sir or ma’am, not the young people doing the calling) is repeatedly reminded of advancing age by things no less clichéd than back pain?
• Isn’t “hirsute” a great word?

 

P.S. OK, fine. It’s possible that I didn’t actually hit the girl. Or even say anything mean to her. It’s possible that I just kind of grunted something like “Welcome,” and walked (rather than stormed) back to my car bemusedly. But there was some serious, if very well-hidden, rancor in that grunt.

No Joke

For some unknown reason, I tend to think that life is very much about laughter. Sure, it’s about tons of other things, but I seem to cherish the funny moments as much as, if not more than, most others. In fact, I seem to grab hold of a very dark sense of humor when many would consider it inappropriate to make jokes. Lawton and I often trade funny and inappropriate comments in the face of sadness. Those who are know things about psychology could probably explain to me that it’s a coping mechanism of some sort, and I’m sure that it is.

Sometimes, though, life isn’t funny, even when I really want it to be. Like now, when I read this message. My friend Shawn had battled cancer for the last 2 years, and, despite being cancer-free at one point, his battle was eventually a losing one, and I just can’t find the funny handle on it. I don’t know what jokes to tell.

Even though I’m a pretty indoorsy guy, I keep thinking of camping. I’ve heard my friends who like to go out and do camping things talk about packing out what you pack in, that you should leave a campsite the way you found it. Shawn, was unwilling to do that, though. He has left this little campsite of ours, but he didn’t leave it the way he found it. He seems to have managed to make it better for all of us who knew him. And that’s no joke.

Happy trails, Shawn. Rest in peace, buddy.