Tying The Knot, Part 8: The Big Day & The Day After

No matter how long I took to make this post, the details of The Big Day will always be with me. It was such a special day, and I will never forget it.

Sat. Oct. 15

The day started early, as I knew it would. My fiancee had already informed me that she had to be up early, about 5:30A or 6, in order to start working on her hair and get ready to go out to her friend's house to get the full makeup treatment. I had already made arrangements with "Drew" to pick up my uncle at his hotel and then come to get me at about 9:30. I was a little groggy at this early stage of the morning watching my fiancee run around, but I wasn't as wiped out as I feared I might be getting back from the casino as late as I did. I spoke to my dad at about 7A. He called from the airport to let me know that he was on his way to Memphis. Oh, not one of the airports in Chicago. No, he was calling from Atlanta! I didn't even ask. My guess, though, is that he wasn't able to find a decent airfare from Chicago to Memphis non-stop, so he jumped on one of the flights that go from Chicago to Atlanta and lay over before going to Memphis. He once again asked if someone would be available to pick him up from the airport and take him to his hotel to drop off his belongings before taking him to the church. I once again told him that we had no one ready to do that and that he'd have to rely on a taxi. He expressed concern about making it to the church on time, but resolved himself to taking a taxi when he got here. Truth be told, Drew was such a good guy this whole weekend, he probably would have dropped my uncle and me at the church and ran to the airport to get my dad, but I refused to put that burden on him or anyone else. After all, I didn't actually invite my dad. He was going to tag along with my aunt, who has a soft spot for him unlike my uncle and me, but there wasn't enough space in my aunt's truck after loading up her husband, their oldest son, and my playcousin and her mother. At that point, I just took the position that he was going to have to find his way here himself, and if he made it, fine, and if not, great.

There was another mystery hanging out there on the morning of the wedding. As I mentioned in the last post, my friend Cassandra was already listed on the program as one of our speakers during the ceremony. But I had not heard a word from her since I was in Chicago a couple of weeks before the wedding, when she expressed to me on the phone that she was going to do everything it took to make it to the wedding even though she didn't have travel or hotel arranged yet. I had called and texted and e-mailed, but heard nothing. I was already resigned to having to ask someone in my family to make the reading once I got to the church, but I was also kinda hoping that Cassandra would swoop in and show up in Memphis as a bit of a surprise. So I was cool and calm that morning, but still a bit anxious as to how this issue was going to work itself out.

My fiancee left the house at a little before 9A. That gave me the bathroom for a half-hour before Drew was scheduled to come get me. I decided to go for a full bath because I felt it was symbolic of washing all of the other grime and crap that I picked up in my past relationships off of me. Why shouldn't I be fully bathed before I get married? I may not have attained virgin status, as my fiancee had by never dating casually or otherwise before meeting me, but I could at least soak some of the whore impurities from lying down with pigs such as "Karen" and "Sarah" and "Torrie." I said a prayer out loud to my mother and grandmother, who I knew were going to be with me on my big day, then I scraped as much dirt off of my body as I had time to. Getting dressed in sweats and my "I'm Rick James Bitch" t-shirt wouldn't take any time after I got out of the tub; I was worried about gathering all of the last-minute items that I needed without forgetting something. I had to remember my aunt's husband's present, which I re-wrapped that morning; I had to remember toiletries, because I wasn't going to lotion up and cologne myself before getting to the church and putting on the suit; I had to remember my keys and my phone and my wallet and...

Speaking of the phone, Drew and my uncle were already sitting in the house waiting for me to run around gathering my shit, and it was past 9:30, when my phone rang. It was Cassandra. My uncle had already started to talk about how rude it was for her to not even let me know she wouldn't be there for me, and perhaps because her ears were burning, she called at that moment. The news wasn't good. She claimed to be ready to catch the nighttime Megabus Friday and make the 10-hour bus ride here, but she missed the bus. She offered lots of apologies and well wishes and promised to get down to Memphis sometime in the future and treat my wife and me to dinner. I was a little patient with her long explanation of why she didn't return my calls, but once she started in on all the things she would do to make it up to us, I had to gently tell her that I was actually on my way to the church right this moment, so I gotta go. My uncle wouldn't have been so gentle. He had some choice words for her once I hung up. I don't blame him at all, but I wasn't all that upset because Cassandra had displayed a penchant for getting wrapped up in all of the things in her life and being unavailable at times. She's not a bad person at all, just the opposite, but her big heart leads her to being occupied with her mother or her sister or her sister's kids or her boyfriend or a friend who needs her help, and she's very good at letting herself get stretched too thin. I totally believe that she intended to be here for me. I hold no grudge against her. I did feel disappointed, but moreso, I felt a little scared because I now had two and a half hours to find a new speaker, and I was going to have to do it by cold-calling the people in town for my wedding and hoping that they wouldn't say no.

After I slapped some baby oil on my head, Drew, my uncle and I finally stepped out of the house about 9:45 and loaded up in Drew's rented pickup. Drew and my uncle really like each other, having met at a sickle cell charity bowling event and then again for my bachelor party weekend, and they had some fun when they called me before coming to pick me up. My uncle joked that he and Drew had decided to drive down to Tunica and play some more blackjack, and they would have to miss the wedding. In no way did I believe him, but my incredulous "What?" provided a big laugh. Then, when they got to the door, I pranked them back by opening it, seeing that it was them, then shrieking "I can't do this!" and locking the door.

So we were definitely a loose bunch heading out on the road. It was the most perfect fucking day ever. Bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky, and it was probably about 65 or 70° that morning. I was trying to enjoy the whole atmosphere, but I was still worried about finding someone to speak at the ceremony. My uncle then let me know that he actually rode down with a couple of older cousins, Charlene and Claude, and maybe Charlene would like to speak. This was actually the first time I had known that Charlene and Claude were here. They're important in my past as well. After my mom died when I was ten, I was sulking around the house very inactive, and my fam decided that maybe if I joined a bowling league on the weekends, that would be good for me. It was Charlene who made the drive from her North Side home all the way to my West Side house to pick me up every Saturday morning for a 10A youth bowling league back out near her house at the old Marigold Bowl, which no longer exists. I became friends with her daughter Chonda, who was my age. (I sent an invite to Chonda as well, but she couldn't make it.) And I socialized with the other kids in the bowling league, and it was a big part of my life. Not only that, but one Saturday in mid-December, Charlene kept me at her house for like four or five hours after bowling just hanging out with her and her daughter, and I didn't quite know why, but then they drove me home and let me go upstairs to my house first as they followed behind, and when I opened the door...SURPRISE! My family was there with gifts and food and a cake and candles, and that little get-together when I was eleven years old remains the last time someone threw me a surprise birthday party.

My uncle got Charlene on the phone and then handed it to me, and I explained to her the situation and asked would she like to perform this speech, and she said absolutely. Whew! Problem solved. From there, Drew drove to a gas station, not for gas but because my throat was dry and I needed something to drink, and that was where I grabbed the vitamin water that I mentioned in the previous post. The cashier, a cute black girl, chuckled as I paid for the water, and I wondered what the joke was, and she said, "I'm just laughing at your shirt." I had totally forgotten that I was rocking the "I'm Rick James Bitch" shirt. Guess it's a good thing that I didn't go with the "I Have The Dick So I Make The Rules" shirt. But I decided that I couldn't really wear that to a church. The Rick James shirt was bad enough. I threw out a Chappelle-like "I'm rich, beeyotch!" as I left and cracked up the cashier some more.

From there, it was on to the church, and a bit of drama that had nothing to do with the wedding. A large white guy was standing in the basement stairwell as we entered the church, and he asked if we knew who had keys to the meeting room down there. We did not. But this wasn't good enough for our pal, and he explained that usually, the basement meeting room is open on Saturdays for the weekly Overeaters Anonymous meeting, but the door was locked, and he couldn't find anyone with a key. He wasn't exactly searching hard because this would require him to, you know, walk. He actually asked us if we could go look around for someone with a key. Stunned at this request, I believe that I told him sure, and then headed to my dressing room with no intention of looking for someone with a key. I mean, even if it wasn't my wedding day, that's not my responsibility. You wanna find someone that bad, go look for someone, bubba. Drew and my uncle and I burst out in laughter once we were safely inside the locked dressing room.

(Bubba wound up representing one more woman whom I dated in the past. I've never told this story on the blog before. But before Karen and after the one-nighter with my high school girlfriend, there was a year and a half drought where I had lots of internet prospects and no success at all. During this drought, in the summer of 2002, I started going to Overeaters Anonymous meetings. This was suggested to me by a therapist I had when I was 19 as a way to be around others like me so that I wouldn't feel like I was on my own planet. And finally, at age 26, I saw that there were meetings at a hospital a block and a half from my house on Saturday mornings and decided to check it out. It was an interesting mix of old and young, black and white, thin, medium, and obese, quiet and verbose, almost all women but a couple of guys every now and then. I never felt like I quite fit in there either, but I kept going because at least it was one hour out of my week where I was surrounded by people who I felt understood me a little. I even spoke up a few times to talk about my week of coping with food and people.

Well, one Saturday around November or so, this stunningly beautiful white girl with a U. of Michigan windbreaker sat in a meeting, saying nothing, and I definitely took notice, but I didn't want to approach her because this was not a singles bar and I didn't want to be the creepy guy trying to pick up chicks. But I did wonder why she was there. She wasn't fat at all, nor was she anorexic, which a couple of women were--OA wasn't just for fat people, it was for people with food issues one way or the other. She was a perfectly healthy looking woman, about 5'9", 150 lbs. Then she finally spoke at a meeting with a slight accent and explained that in her native Germany, she had two sisters who were much thinner than her, and they always called her fat, and that's why she thinks she needs to attend OA. Her problem wasn't so much food, it was her perception from back home that she was the fat one and didn't fit the mold. I guess if the sisters saw the others in the OA meeting, they'd faint at the sight of how big we were. I felt compelled to approach her after the meeting, as others did, and my words of encouragement were along the lines of, "Whatever your sisters think doesn't matter because you are very beautiful regardless." I will never, ever forget her response. She smiled brightly at me and said, "Aw! That warms my heart!" I could have melted right there in front of her. We exchanged phone numbers, and I bounded home with that same new-love feeling you get when you meet a hottie at a club.

She wasn't at the meeting the next Saturday, and I called her to see what was up, and she said something about having to wash her car and run some errands, and I asked if she was busy that night, and she said no, and I asked her out, and she said sure. I don't remember why she didn't pick me up, but she gave me the address of I think her cousin and told me to meet her there that night. I was so nervous because she was so out of my league, but she must have liked me a little just to say yes. I was on the phone with Drew and "Ronnie" for like three hours that afternoon trying to figure out what I should wear, how I should act, etc. I ventured out into the December snow and met her at the address she gave me. Four women were sitting around hanging out when I walked in with a rose that I bought her on the way there. "Aww!!" they all cooed. I took my date and headed out the door, not knowing where we were going or what we were going to do.

She wound up taking me a couple of blocks away to a laid-back jazzy club. The date went about as well as I could have hoped. We spent two hours sharing everything about ourselves. She turned out to be a Mormon who didn't drink or smoke, which only made her more angelic in my eyes, and she didn't get very deep into details, but I got the impression that she was either a virgin or had not dated very much. She was in college trying to get into theatre. We sipped on our bottled waters and talked about many things. Then I walked her back home. She wore my gloves because it was cold. It was a clear, crisp night, the stars were shining, and I took her to her doorstep wondering if I should go for a kiss because the date went so well. This is where things went south. She was going to turn and go into the house without giving me a kiss or anything else. Then I reached out for a hug and she actually said the words, "Oh, hug," like it was the most surprising development she'd ever seen. Then she gave me the quickest little hug and smiled and bounded into her apartment. And that was the last time I saw her!

She never picked up her phone when I called, she never answered any e-mails, and she never returned to another OA meeting. Trust me, I showed up for the next six weeks straight. I would have seen her. I have no idea why she dropped off the planet like that, but I really don't think it was anything I did because every interaction between us seemed perfect up until that awkward hug. But I found myself not caring about anything happening at the OA meetings, just showing up, waiting until the end, asking the regulars if they had seen her, and then leaving dejected. And once I realized that I wasn't caring at all about OA, I decided that indeed, I had turned into the creepy guy at the OA meetings trying to get laid, and I stopped going.)

Back to the wedding day. I had a vision of all the guys hanging out back in my dressing room before the wedding helping me stay loose by playing cards or just shooting the shit. Drew did stay back there with my uncle and me for the most part. He left for about twenty minutes and came back with donut holes from Dunkin Donuts. I may have been the only one to have some, but that was because I don't think I had breakfast. Drew also presented me with a congratulatory cigar while back in the dressing room, and I still have it, and I still haven't decided if I'm ever going to attempt to smoke it. It's not like I know how to enjoy it if I did decide to smoke it, and it's not like I know exactly how to take off the tip and light it up properly. But the point is, Drew was a mensch. He provided the transportation, he provided the necessary snacks before the ceremony because I may have passed out if I didn't have some food in my stomach, and he even had a cigar ready to light up, not to mention providing a ride out to the casino the night before, allowing me to make some honeymoon cash. And of course, he provided the cash for the bachelor party present featuring "Ambrosia" and Lavinia.

I'm not supposed to see my fiancee the morning of our wedding according to some folklore, but not only did I wake up next to her, but I saw her for a split second in her makeup about an hour before the ceremony. Her cousin, working as the wedding day assistant, came to our dressing room to drop off the boutonnieres for me and my uncle, as well as bring over an iron for us to touch up our dress shirts. I answered the door, not expecting my fiancee to be standing right there next to her cousin. I quickly accepted the boutonnieres and the iron and sent them on their way. In that haste, I forgot to have the assistant pin the boutonnieres onto our lapels because we're clumsy men and we were not going to be successful trying to perform that task. So my uncle got the idea to call my aunt and have her make her way back to the dressing room area to pin the flowers on us. But my fam wasn't yet at the church, so we were going to have to be patient. While we waited, unc imparted some stories about married life and words of wisdom, which I knew he would have for me before the wedding. His most important message? Don't let anyone else into your marriage, meaning whatever disagreements we may have, don't run to third or fourth parties trying to rally support behind us. This marriage is between us two people, and no one else.

We started putting on our suits just after 11A. I was trying to put it off as long as possible so that I wouldn't be sitting around uncomfortable in a suit forever and ever. My uncle chuckled as I struggled to bend in my suit to tie my shoes, then he bent over and tied them for me. He didn't have this problem he because he's worn suits every day for years, and he has learned to put the shoes on before putting the suit on. At about 11:15A, the officiant, the fabulous Sonia Walker, made her first appearance to check in on us. Drew took this as a sign that the shit was about to start getting serious, and he wished me luck and went to the sanctuary to take a seat. My playcousin's mother arrived not long after that, because my aunt had appointed her to go back and see what this boutonniere situation was all about. She was able to apply the boutonnieres after a few efforts. We didn't have safety pins to keep the sharp part covered, so I made her put the pin in several times until I was sure that the point wouldn't stick me accidentally. We could faintly hear the music that my fiancee chose for the pre-wedding seating. I knew that it was about a half-hour of music, so right at noon, we should hear the song that would be the cue for the family to be seated by the ushers. So I wasn't planning to be in the side hall waiting for that music until about 11:50 or 11:55. Sonia had a different plan. Literally seconds after my uncle suggested that we take off the sportcoats because we were starting to perspire, Sonia came back to the dressing room and said, "It's time." My uncle and I looked at each other wide-eyed, then shrugged and put our coats back on. One last check that everything fit right, and a last deep breath, and we went to stand in the side hall behind a door that led out to the sanctuary.

I did not see who was in the sanctuary, so I wasn't worried about who was there, who wasn't there, did my dad make it, etc. I had one thing worrying me over everything else as I stood in that side hall, and it wasn't pre-wedding jitters. It was the fact that I absolutely could not stop sweating. The side hall was warm, the outside weather was warm, the monkey suit was warm, and besides, I was about to get married, so all of those things explain why I was sweating. There was another factor--that baby oil that Sarah gave me that I felt the need to apply to my dome in order to avoid having a dry scalp. All of these things added together resulted in me just drowning in perspiration. Several paper towels were retrieved from the bathrooms by me and Sonia. They helped a little. I tried to stuff some dry ones in my pocket in case this issue followed me out to the ceremony. Sonia thought that standing back there waiting for our music cue wasn't helping, and besides, my uncle is limping, so she opened the door and calmly grabbed a couple of chairs from the sanctuary and set them up behind the door for my uncle and me. This was greatly appreciated. I did seem to control my sweating a little better as I sat there chuckling with my uncle. Sonia declined to take a chair for herself.

At about 11:55, we heard a voice. It was a male voice, and it was coming from around the corner where one of the building entrances was located. It was the entrance near our dressing room, so my first thought was, is this Bubba still looking for someone to open the basement meeting area? I heard the voice bellow a short, "Hello?" I know the voice. It's the voice of someone sorta close to me, if you count coming from his loins as close to me. It was the unmistakeable voice of my father. But when I told this to my uncle--who, remember, can't stand him almost as much as I can't--my uncle's response was, "No it isn't," and he just shook his head quickly and turned back to the sanctuary door, almost as if he was hoping to hear our song cue right then and there so that we'd have to hustle out there. He answered so definitively that I guess I believed him and started to ignore the situation. Sonia was on alert because whoever this was had some bad timing and was a threat to disrupt the ceremony if he kept poking around. Then he said a little louder, "Anybody back here?" Absolutely no doubt, it was my dad. I turned to my uncle and said, "I would have lost a lot of money betting that he wouldn't get here in time!" Sonia scurried around the corner to meet whomever this was and make sure that he didn't wander any further. I got up to see if this really was my dad. I had some emotion at this point. The timing was incredible, right when I was about ready to go out there and get hitched, and I was a combo of pissed at the timing, shocked at the fact that my dad made something on time, and sorta happy to see him, since he really should be here on my wedding day after all.

I get to the corner and look dead into the eyes of my father. It's really him. I was astonished. When I tell you that the man has never made anything on time except to beat me when I was a child, I'm not even fucking kidding. I was told that he was late for my birth! Yet here he was. Then I noticed some fashion choices that he made for the occasion. What little hair he has was slicked back like a '50s greaser, and I have never seen him try to do that. His "suit" was okay, just a sportcoat and pants and tie, nothing outlandish. His shoes...well, they were a different story. They were some kind of light brown crocodile lace fabrication. Never seen those either. Hey, no accounting for taste. He spoke for less than a minute, explaining that he wanted to see his son before he went out to get married. He wished me luck, and I told him that I was glad he was here, and he said he'd never miss his son getting married, as if he was just a mortal lock to make it here on time even though he's never been on time and several hours ago his ass was in Atlanta, GA. I'd like to think my mom facilitated him making it, because he'd have almost no chance otherwise.

He circled back around to the normal sanctuary entrance to take his seat while I sat back down next to my uncle, who was as shocked as I was that my dad was here on time. Then Sonia heard one of the songs that we're on alert to hear as cues that it's about to start. There was a jazzy-sounding song with piano that cued the seating of the family, and that was when Sonia, my uncle and I were to walk out. But with the drama of my dad playing out, Sonia got a little flustered, and she heard another jazzy song playing, which was "In A Sentimental Mood." And she rushed my uncle and me out the door and into the sanctuary as my uncle and I looked at each other a little confused. My uncle followed behind me as I slowly walked out. I was so nervous about making this first appearance that I didn't look up at the people until I got all the way to my standing spot. I adjusted my suit all the way to my spot. Only then did I feel comfortable enough to look up at the people. My fiancee had way more people on her side of the aisle, but the wedding's in her hometown, so that's to be expected. I looked at my side and tried to make eye contact with all of my peeps one at a time. My playcousin snapped pictures. I saw Jacob and Alice and waved, and said a little inside joke to Jacob, the same one he said to me at his wedding. I saw Monica, a lovely woman I used to bowl with, and her boyfriend. Monica was witness to a lot of my craziness from seven and eight years ago. She was there the weekend that I found Karen's website and was consoled by Sarah. I brought Sarah to the bowling alley with me that Sunday to bowl my regular league games, and I did that because otherwise, I would have stayed home and skipped my league. I couldn't have done that alone. I also talked to Monica about all of my drama, so she's another one that's been supportive throughout the years. I saw my older cousin and her husband, the cousin who agreed to speak during the ceremony. I saw my playcousin's mother, who's always been a little insulated and introverted, and I was surprised that she decided to come down from Chicago. But she helped raise me, and I was very happy to see her.

The ushers (who were my aunt's husband and their oldest son) started to bring the family members down the aisle to their seats because the groom was already out there, even though this wasn't the song they were supposed to go on. I became a little worried because at rehearsal, the song that the fam and maid of honor used ran a little long, and we wound up standing there waiting for the bride's song to cue up. The guy running the computer where the music was stored was a young adult interning at the church, so I wondered if he would be able to adjust and get right to the bride's song after the maid of honor came down. I reminded myself a couple of times that this was the bride's day and that after everything else is done, I needed to take in the moment when she comes down the aisle and block out anything else. The sweat started running down my face again, and I ignored it as best as I could. The family came down and smiled at me and my uncle, including my aunt and my fiancee's mother lighting candles with an electric lighter. It took them each a while to get the thing to work, so that provided brief moments of levity. Then Judy came down with her black pantsuit, looking very...unique. Then Sonia gave a hand cue to the intern, and he got right to the bride's song, which was "Pachelbel's Canon in D Major."

She walked down the aisle calmly, and everyone rose to greet her. I knew that she was going to have a flower in her hair. I had been sitting in this computer room for weeks with the dress sitting on the bed, although she put tissue paper over the front so that I couldn't see it. I had gotten a brief glimpse of the makeup job. Mentally, I thought I was ready to see my fiancee come down the aisle.

Emotionally, I wasn't anywhere near ready.

I started choking up a little just hearing her song begin, knowing the moment was finally here. Then I actually looked at her. The dress was very slightly off white, as close as you can get without it being totally white. It was cut midway and showing the girls, but in a tasteful manner. The sleeves were all light and elegant. The white flower was the perfect size for her head, not tiny but not too big. The red bouquet was a perfect accent to her entire presentation. She was stunning. She was my blushing bride. And I was her blubbering hubby. I put my hand to my mouth and started crying almost uncontrollably. My uncle didn't help, saying in my ear, "That's your woman." That just made me cry even more. I couldn't even tell if she was crying when she made it to me because my eyes were so filled with tears that I couldn't see much of anything. So the first three minutes of the ceremony were filled with me sniffling and wiping tears and trying to be discreet and pull out some Kleenex to blow my nose during the prayer.

The ceremony rolled along, and it came time for my fiancee's friends to read their reading. It was a Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 13, but it was hard to understand. Lots of thous and forsooths and whatnot. My fiancee later told me that they chose a different version of the reading than she was intending. The version they chose was a very literal translation, so it didn't come out sounding like anything resembling today's English. Plus, the readers had soft voices. The ceremony continued, and it came time for my cousin to do the reading that Cassandra was supposed to do. And she got up there and put on her glasses and belted out "Union" by Robert Fulghum, and she killed it. Think of the black police captain on Law & Order. It sounded that good. I was very proud. No pinch-hitter in history has hit a home run that far.

Then we walked to the middle of the aisle and took the candles that our families had lit and we both lit one candle in unity as a symbol of both of our families and us committing to this marriage. I was happy to do this because it gave me a chance to walk and stretch my legs. The sweat kept pouring throughout the ceremony, but I just played through it. My uncle handled the ring exchange flawlessly. I don't know how my fiancee felt, but that was a powerful moment to be able to have that wedding band put on. Sonia presided over everything wonderfully. She wrapped things up with, "You may greet your bride," and the kiss is now my Facebook profile pic. Then Sonia announced us as Mr. and Mrs., and we took each other by the hand and strutted down the aisle as "I Can See Clearly Now" played, and everyone stood and smiled and applauded. We were finally, after five and a half years of sizing each other up and imagining a life together and wondering if we were right for each other, a legally married couple.

Looking into my wife's eyes after it was all over, I got the sense that she was feeling what I was feeling--glad that it's finally all over. There's such a build-up to that big day that no matter how much you love your spouse, there's a big sigh of relief when it's done. The work of being a married couple immediately takes precedent, and the wedding planning and worrying is now an afterthought. As we stood in the corridor in the receiving line, I didn't even pay attention to our songs playing. I just wanted to get through and take some pics and go eat with my wife. My hurting mouth wasn't even in my mind all day. It didn't matter that I had two teeth removed only three days prior. The receiving line was memorable because some of my wife's family members, specifically her uncle's daughter, decided to make it a picture-taking occasion and held up the line for quite a while. It got a little uncomfortable. But eventually that was over, and despite both me and my wife being ready to have a seat and get off our feet for a moment, it was now time to make our way back into the sanctuary for pics. The camera girl was my wife's uncle's stepson's daughter, if you can keep all that straight. She did an awesome job, but she's a college student, so she had the energy to stand up there and make us pose for several minutes at a time while she found the right angle. It was torture for us, as well as my uncle on his bad knee. It took about an hour, and it felt like a day. The most interesting part of the picture session was how many other people stood behind the camera girl taking pics with their own cameras and camera phones for their personal pleasure. I felt like Tom Cruise posing for the paparazzi. Just a sea of folks with cameras snapping away and yelling, "Hold that pose!" And the whole time, I'm dripping all over the fucking place. They couldn't provide me with enough paper towels for all the sweating I was doing. And it had nothing to do with being married! It was all the standing, the humidity of the sanctuary, and the monkey suit. But everyone had a joke for me after the ceremony--"Sweating bullets there, eh?"

My dad veered off course a little during the pictures. One pose was my wife leaning over the end of a piano while I sat at the keys and pretended to play misty for her as I looked into her eyes. It's a very sweet pic. It's also misleading because I can't play piano for shit. So my dad decided that this would be a good time to play a musical piece for us as a tribute, I guess. I wasn't in the mood for his showboating, so I told him no, and he was relentless. He must have asked me around a dozen times! And he was taking it personal, too. "You don't think I can play, is that it, son?" No, dad, that's not it, it's that it's my fucking wedding day, not your gig at Kingston Mines. By the time the pics were over, he and I were the last few stragglers out of the sanctuary, and he was still asking me. I kept saying no. However, I've since seen a pic someone took of him at the piano by himself, so he must have skipped coming straight to the reception in order to tickle the keys. Like a moth to light, my dad saw a musical instrument and couldn't resist the urge to make the day partially about him. SMH.

From there, it was upstairs and on to the reception. I enlisted Jacob to be our announcer and introduce the wedding party. There was a little commotion as we nervously looked around trying to find Judy, who had disappeared. But someone located her, and Jacob handled the introductions with a personal flair, saying our last names twice as if he were auditioning for the Yankees P.A. gig. "Now getting married, the shortstop, #2, Derek Jeter. Jeter. #2." I'm sure I was the only one in the room who understood the gag. The wife and I entered the room to a standing O with big smiles on our faces, and our ironic joke song cued up on the computer--"The Thrill Is Gone." As most of the room raised eyebrows in confusion, we headed straight to our tables and got ready to eat. But first, my wife's uncle was going to bless the meal. No problem, except his daughter insisted that Jacob formally announce him by name. A little unusual, but okay.

I thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful food provided by Chef Erik Waldkirch of Maximilian's Catering, even with the mouth issues. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, too. Not long after finishing, my uncle started to act weird. He said out loud as he sat next to me, "Oh, um, okay, guess it's about that time for the speech," as if he was all of a sudden very nervous about giving the best man speech. I was surprised by this because my uncle is very smooth and polished and has had a management position for many years, so giving a speech is nothing new for him. I would be informed later that this was also the doing of my wife's uncle's daughter, as well as the "wedding day organizer." They directed my uncle to get up and do the speech, as if we were on a strict time schedule. I never saw them do this. But his speech was great, very heartfelt and touching. He briefly addressed the number of frogs I had to kiss before finding my princess, and he let my wife know how proud he was to welcome such a classy woman into the family. I said, "My man!" and gave him a big hug. I knew he wouldn't let me down. Judy spoke next about the times she and my wife talked about finding that right guy, and how happy she was that it finally happened. My new mother-in-law said some very nice words, and so did my dad, though I must say that I held my breath when he stood up in anticipation of him saying something totally inappropriate.

The music didn't go exactly the way we planned. My wife had three playlists for the reception--dinner, cake-cutting, and dancing--but no one bothered to change playlists when we cut the cake, so at some point we heard "The Thrill Is Gone" playing for a second time, and my aunt asked if I could do something about the music because it seemed to be repeating, and I got up and changed the playlist to dance. I was kinda shaking my head as I did this because I had fended off the urge to say that I would handle the music at my own reception. I felt that was a little too controlling and I needed to let go and let someone else worry about it. But the intern who did the music at the wedding wasn't at the reception, so in the end, my wife and I wound up being in charge of the music. Not long after I changed the music, the "wedding day organizer" struck again and said that we needed to say a speech to our guests, and it had to be right now. Fine. I took the mic and had my wife stand next to me as I thanked everyone for coming out, especially my out-of-town people. I said that they helped make this the greatest day of our lives. I didn't know that my wife would break her shyness and say anything, but she took the mic and thanked everyone who helped set up the big day. I then turned the dance playlist back on.

I battled with my wife in the weeks leading up to the wedding about having a first dance. I was all up for it even though I can't dance, and she was totally against it because she "hates to be the center of attention." Um, it's your wedding day. We even practiced a slow dance once, but we were so clumsy and tired afterwards that we never got around to practicing again. So our one dance at the reception was the following: I spontaneously shook my tailfeather when Heatwave's "Groove Line" came on, and I raised the roof a little, and everyone laughed and hooted and hollered, and I grabbed my wife and held her hand while she did one twirl. And that was that. I was sweating too much to keep going, and she wasn't interested. Not long after that, I went to the restroom and had a couple of minutes of alone time to take in the day's activities, then I went to drop the marriage license back in the dressing room, and when I made it back to the reception, my wife was missing, tables were being cleaned off, and people were getting ready to leave. "Come Go With Me" by Teddy Pendergrass was playing when the computer was turned off, so at least my mother's favorite singer made an appearance, but most of the other songs that we fought and argued over never wound up being played. My wife returned dressed in regular clothes, so she was anxious to get out of that dress and those shoes, but not in the honeymoon suite to get busy with me. She just wanted to be comfortable. Can't blame her. I kept the suit on the whole day despite losing weight in perspiration and having to towel off before every single picture. One last bit of drama came when I went back to the dressing room and found it locked up and the lights turned off, meaning whoever shut it down was in there with my wallet and other valuable items. But nothing came up missing.

From there, it was off to our room at the Doubletree Hotel mere minutes away, where we already knew no action would be happening thanks to our weariness as well as Aunt Flo. But I still treasure those minutes lying in the king-size bed with my wife, looking into her eyes and reliving our wonderful day before nodding off for an early evening nap. Then we woke up and got some drive-thru Chick-Fil-A.

Sun. Oct. 16

I remember this day as being so perfect because our families met at my wife's uncle's house and we had a big brunch together. And it was just awesome to see my people together with her people hanging out and having a great time. My dad became our responsibility on this day. He was able to hitch a ride back to the Doubletree after the wedding with I believe my aunt and her family. But they claimed to not have the space for him to go out to the brunch, so my wife and I put him in our back seat. And afterwards, we took him downtown to the Amtrak station, where he caught a train back to Chicago instead of flying back to Atlanta or something. At the brunch, my uncle gave me another big hug and just looked at me with a huge smile on his face. I think he was seeing me through the prism of being there when I was first born and watching me through all of life's phases, and seeing how I've become the man I am today. And I made sure to tell him all weekend that he's the reason I am the man that I am. I needed a strong male figure because my mother made an unfortunate choice to father her baby, and my uncle has always stepped in to be that man and show me how things are done by real men. I didn't always apply those lessons, but eventually, I got it together. I hugged everyone in my family individually and thanked them for making the long trip, and they all hit the road directly from the brunch. My wife and I hung around until after 3P because as we were pulling out to leave at 1P, the couple who spoke at the ceremony pulled in, and the wife stopped the car to give them some conversation time. I watched football while they chatted. In the evening, we had a very nice dinner at Carrabba's and enjoyed the Bears whooping the Vikings on Sunday Night Football.

The honeymoon consisted of us visiting Graceland and getting the big bus tour of Elvis's estate; eating breakfast at Memphis's most revered breakfast restaurants, Bryant's and Brother Juniper's (both awesome!); dinner at Rendezvous and Gus's Fried Chicken (Rendezvous ribs were great to me and average to the wife, Gus's chicken was great for both of us, but be warned, it's spicy); and a night at Roadhouse Casino & Hotel back in Tunica, MS (room was tremendous, complete with in-room whirlpool, but I lost back the money I won the night before the wedding). The wife believes she got food poisoning somewhere in the middle of all this, but she wasn't vomiting or in the bathroom nonstop, so it was mild. Maybe it was just realizing that she was married to me.

And one more funny story of drama: We knew we had received many cards from our wedding guests, but when Judy and my mother-in-law took the gifts back to our house, we had a hell of a time locating the cards. And we were quite panicked about this because, of course, those cards didn't contain just cards, they contained money. I even called my aunt while they were driving back to Chicago to ask if she left a gift, as tacky as that sounded. She wasn't happy about that, and then she was almost furious when I told her that we seem to have misplaced all of the cards. She confirmed that the $250 she was going to chip in for the rehearsal dinner was inside her card, so between Sunday and Monday, it became a scramble inside our home to find these cards or else drive back to the church and hope that someone there found them. Monday morning, we were at our wit's end searching through bags and boxes two, three, four times, and my wife was submitting to the possibility of someone walking through the unsecured reception area and taking the cards, which I refused to believe. Finally, finally, we opened the guest book and found the cards shoved inside. Crisis averted, cash saved, mass murder of innocent churchgoers thwarted.

Tying The Knot, Part 7: The Day Before

I'm determined to remember the important parts of this wonderful wedding weekend even though it happened over five weeks ago. So without further adieu, let's start with the day before the wedding.

Fri. Oct. 14

On this beautiful morning, I found myself in my fiancee's car trying to find a jeweler whose coupon I have in hand. It's a coupon to take two bucks off a watch battery replacement procedure, and this was important to me because in my warped way, I felt the need to have the women that I previously dated or screwed represented as part of my wedding day, and the watch that "Shelley" bought for my 30th birthday with the money from the student loan for which I co-signed had a dead battery.

(Quickly, the other women represented were as follows: "Giselle," my high school sweetheart, and "Karen," as well as a co-worker I dated, had songs in our reception playlist that reminded me of them. Tammi, my 8th-grade crush, who I thought for years that I would end up marrying one day, also was repped by a song or two, although we never dated. "Sarah" gave me baby oil for my shiny bald head while we were dating, and I still have that very same bottle, and I splashed some on my head before I left the house Saturday morning. Also, I still carry in my wallet the ticket stub from the comedy improv show Sarah and I attended the day after I found Karen's swingers website and Sarah drove three hours just to console me. The stub is totally blank because the ink has rubbed off after seven years, but I carry it anyway. The Co-Worker Who Shall Not Be Named made a big deal of wanting cheap costume jewelry for her birthday, and I bought something for her thinking she would reciprocate for my birthday, and she did nothing. So the cheap wedding band I bought for myself was sort of a tribute to her. "Torrie" was represented by the fact that I wore one of the dirty T-shirts that I bought while shopping with her in Minnesota to the church the morning of the wedding, the "I'm Rick James Bitch" shirt. And it's very weak, but I tried to rep "Grace" by buying some vitamin water before the wedding that was branded XXX, which made me think of the nature of our one-night stand. No romance, no holds barred, just straight fuck. There was even a tenuous connection to "Adrienne," a woman I dated a couple of times but never got to first base. She was a smoker, and "Drew" gave me a congratulatory cigar before the wedding, although I didn't smoke it. And the most important women in my life, my late mother and grandmother, got a shout-out in the privacy of my home before the wedding, just a holler to let them know that I knew they were proud of me on such an important day.)

Anyway, my mouth was still very sore from the teeth removal, but I needed to eat. I was planning on picking up something soft while I was out after I got the watch fixed. So I'm driving towards Germantown Parkway, which is where most of the restaurants and businesses are here in the sleepy suburb where I now live. My mind is relaxed and enjoying the sunny weather and taking in all the feelings of anticipation that I'm having. I'm just feeling really good and blessed that I'm in this position at this point in my life. I go to Walgreens and grab a bottle of sparkling cider for the toast, since I'm not supposed to be boozing it so soon after the teeth surgery. Then I arrive at the jeweler, and dampening my pride at getting out and doing this early and arriving at about quarter past nine is the sign saying that the jeweler doesn't open until ten.

Not a big deal, I figure, because this gives me time to find something to eat and relax while eating, not just scarf it down. The first thought when I contemplated soft food was mashed potatoes, and that leads me to the KFC, which also is not open until ten. What the hell? Are we in Amish country and nothing gets opened before noon? I eventually settle on Sonic, and the softest thing I could find on that menu was the French toast sticks, which were delightful. I was thrilled to get a text while eating that said one of my guests from Chicago, my mom's best friend Barbara, wouldn't make it but was sending cash to my Paypal account. Sweet. But that knocked out a potential speaker at the wedding. My fiancee has two speeches for the ceremony, one read by friends of hers, and the other by someone I wanted to stand up for me. My first choice is Cassandra, who worked with me at CBOE during those Karen and Sarah years when I ran around chasing ass and wondering why the world hated me, and she was always supportive and helpful with advice while gently reminding me that I had no shot with her because I wasn't man enough. The woman trusted me enough to sleep with me when we attended the Kentucky Derby, and by sleep I do mean sleep, because we were never intimate. No first base with her, either. But she means a lot to me because she was telling me truths about myself that I didn't hear at the time but remembered and realized that she was right later in life. The problem with having her speak is, Cassandra had not been available for a couple of weeks. No matter how much I call or text, she wasn't responding, and I had no idea if she would be able to make it, and her name's already on the program, and I was starting to feel a little panicky. If Cass won't make it and Barb is already out, who the hell am I going to have speak?

I put that drama on the back burner and hoped that it would work itself out, and I made it back to the jeweler who took notice of my shirt that said something about Chicago and prompted him to ramble on about a hellacious flight to Chicago he once took, and yada yada yada, and finally the watch was fixed and I was back home. My fiancee's maid of honor, Judy, was now at home, and they took off to pick up some last-minute items, and I chilled by myself for thirty minutes or so after showering until my fiancee's mother showed up. Once my fiancee and Judy got back, it was time to load up the cars and head out to the church and get ready for the rehearsal. Everything's going smoothly thus far, but at this point a glitch would occur that we wouldn't realize until later.

My dad (he's not the glitch) called during all of this scrambling, trying to convince me to pick him up at the airport two hours before the wedding or find someone who will. No can do, I told him. No matter what, he was not going to mess up my wedding morning. I'm not trying to take time out to do that, and my fiancee certainly wasn't, and we didn't have time to call around to find someone to drive him like he's a foreign dignitary. He was going to have to cab it like a normal person, and if he didn't make the wedding before noon, too bad. I was willing to take bets that between finding his bags after the flight and his general state of mental and physical dishevelment, there wasn't a chance in hell that he would make it in time.

We arrived at the church a little after noon, giving us three hours to set tables in the reception area and get ready for my family, who were driving up from Chicago and would arrive sometime around the 4P rehearsal start time. Judy, my fiancee, and her mother worked on the tablecloth arrangement for a few of the tables just to see what worked and what didn't, and I took orders and drove out to Lenny's, a sub shop. I was so scatterbrained wondering what should I order for me and my bleeding mouth that I drove past the place, but I found it eventually and got everyone's order and a huge tuna salad for myself. After I got back with the food, "Jacob" and "Alice" started calling and letting us know that they were coming to the church, and once they showed up, we let them in. Jacob and I started moving tables around while the ladies continued setting tables. Somewhere in this hubbub, we started talking about all the things that my fiancee and I brought to the church in advance so that we wouldn't be bothered the day of the wedding. She brought her dress, and an iron, and other items she would need, and I brought my suit and hung it up in my dressing room already, along with my shoes, and I grabbed the presents that I would give to my family, and she has her gift for her mom, and of course we remembered the computer with all the songs because we're going to need that for this rehearsal...and my fiancee exclaims that in all of her haste that morning, she forgot the computer! So this is after two o'clock, and we've eaten, and I'm stuffed, and I'm hanging out with Jacob shooting the shit, and my fiancee lets me know that because she forgot the computer, I would now have to get in the car, drive back home, and grab the computer, and be back before four, which is when the rehearsal begins. Really? Me? Oh, and I'm still a relatively new driver, and I've never made this twenty-minute drive from the church to home, so she has to hastily scribble out some instructions for me to do this. I'm still not sure why she felt that I had to make this trip to cover for her mistake, but out I head, getting in much more driving experience on this day than I could have possibly anticipated.

This gave me an opportunity to pump some more bad '90s music on the cassette player because I'm toting a couple of my homemade tapes in the car, so that part was fun, but the trip back to the church once I retrieved the laptop was torture. It was about 3:15P when I left the house, so I was going to be cutting it close anyway, but I got on the expressway for about thirty seconds before traffic came to a complete stop. I mean, complete stop. No pumping brakes, no gas a little and then stop, I mean we were standing totally still. And it was for quite a while. Then we'd move like a foot and stop again for another three minutes. And it went like this for about a half-hour. Seriously, I had been on that expressway for about thirty minutes and wasn't even a half-mile away from my initial entrance ramp. I was so mad, but I was about to get madder. My aunt, who has always been my harshest critic (and if you read this blog from the beginning, you know that my criticism of myself is scathing and hurtful, and she's always been worse), called me on my cell, and she explained that they all had arrived at the church and were at a back entrance and were waiting for me to come out and let them in. I had to tell her that I wasn't at the church, that I was stuck in horrible traffic, and she should call my fiancee and have her let them in. Now, in no way is any of this my fault. I'm getting the laptop that my fiancee forgot, and I'm totally, helplessly stuck in a major traffic jam, but I was hoping that everyone would understand. Well, as my aunt hangs up the phone, I hear her say in a distant voice to someone right before the click, "The groom ain't even here!" I fumed for the next ten minutes. It just took me back mentally to every other time that I did something wrong and my aunt leveled every criticism she could conjure at me. I have never, ever been good enough in her eyes, and by extension, neither has anyone close to me. She responded to my long phone calls with Jacob when we were kids with the accusation that I must have been afraid of him and that's why I wouldn't get off the phone. Not that he would find me interesting enough to talk to, but I must have been a bully victim. What? And she rarely called my girlfriends by their names, always something derivative like "Chickie" or "Sweetie." They couldn't have her respect because they were with me, you see. My fiancee was no different; she was known as "Chickie" most of the time we dated before I moved down here to Memphis. Honestly, I was this close to ruining the weekend by the time I finally made it to the church, because I was ready to explode on my aunt for that little "Groom ain't even here!" comment. I took it so personal because I knew that she was chalking it up to me being irresponsible and not good enough before she knew any fucking details.

Fortunately, I had cooled off by the time I drove past the two accident scenes on the expressway and made it to the church at about a quarter past four. As I rushed into the sanctuary, sweating and stressed, I was greeted by my family and my future mother-in-law and Jacob and Alice sitting there together taking up three rows of seats, and my fiancee and the officiant standing in the aisle, and they all exploded in applause at the sight of me. How could I be mad after that? I smiled wide and greeted my family members with hugs and handshakes, and I remember how good it felt to see all of those familiar faces, people I grew up with and shared so many life experiences, and here they all were sitting in a church in Memphis, TN, all in support of me. The officiant, the great Sonia Walker, explained that they could have done the rehearsal without me or the music if I would have been even more delayed, so I was lucky to get there when I did. We did the walk-through, and I kept trying to crack jokes and dance and keep things light. I remembered that about Jacob and Alice's rehearsal. They were in such a great mood and laughing and having a good time, and I wanted to recreate that. Sonia showed my best man--who is my uncle--and me where we would be standing before the ceremony, and she would lead us out during a song cue right before the fam would be ushered to their seats. My uncle had me worried because he was having a hard time standing up just during the rehearsal. He recently had knee surgery, and it hasn't healed up well for him, so he's gimping around these days despite remaining on his bowling team. I was concerned about all the standing we would do the day of the wedding, because it's not just the ceremony, it's also the standing around taking pictures afterwards. But he said he'd gut it out. The gift-giving after the rehearsal was memorable because I ordered blackjack cufflinks for my uncle (he loves his gambling, and blackjack is his game) and steering wheel cufflinks for my aunt's husband, but I ordered them both gift-wrapped, so I couldn't tell which was which. (He drives a bus for a living, plus he's the one who took me out to practice driving, leading to me getting my license right before I left Chicago.) My aunt's husband wasn't even at the church, choosing to head to the hotel after the long drive to Memphis, so I figured I would open one of the cufflink sets and if it was the set for my uncle, I could give them to him right there a little beat-up on the wrapping but not destroyed, and that would keep my aunt's husband's gift pristine. But I picked the wrong one to open. So I gave my uncle his pristine gift while I took the other gift back home in an attempt to re-wrap it. He hung his suit in our dressing room and put our rings and his shoes in there as well.

This brought us to the moment I had been worrying about--the post-rehearsal. We canceled the dinner because both my uncle and my aunt, who were splitting the cost, were not totally on board at the concept. We're clearly not rich, we're doing so much of this wedding on the cheap, we're barely having a honeymoon, and they're being asked to cough up $500 between them for this rehearsal dinner. So we canceled that, hoping they would gift that cash to us for the wedding. But this now left the rest of the evening for me to either hang out with family, hang out with friends, or go home and spend the night before my wedding watching TV or surfing the net or something. And for some reason, I really didn't want to do that. I guess I would have felt like a big loser if I wound up sitting on my ass watching Friday Night Smackdown or something the night before I got married. So I was up for any suggestions from anyone. My fiancee jumped in Judy's car, and they headed to FedEx Forum to watch Memphis Madness, the name for the first official practice session for the U. of Memphis basketball team. This didn't really interest me, so I kept my fiancee's car and was ready to follow anyone who wanted to hang with me. Before I could ask my family what interested them, Jacob and Alice raved about those incredible ribs from Corky's that my fiancee gave Jacob the night he helped me move. He said he couldn't move a muscle in the hotel room because he was so sore, and the ribs were cold from being in the fridge, but he ate them anyway and loved them. So he and Alice were headed straight to Corky's, and then down to Tunica, MS, where their casino hotel was located. They asked if any of this interested me. Hmmm, ribs and gambling? Yeah. Hell yeah. I invited anyone from my family to come along for the ribs, but they were so wiped from the travel that they all headed back to the hotel. So it was me in my fiancee's Toyota following Jacob and Alice to a place in my city, but I had to follow them because I didn't know where it was. But Jacob did. He's the Human Atlas.

I called Drew while I drove because I knew he was in town and I figured a night at the casino would interest him. He got the address of the restaurant and exclaimed, "That's five minutes from my hotel!" So he eventually met us at the restaurant, although it took him a while because he needed a shower after getting to his hotel and immediately hitting the sack. I was still full from the tuna salad, plus the thought of a bone from the ribs hitting that part of my mouth where the teeth were pulled scared me, so I wound up eating a BBQ sandwich with a fork. Jacob and Alice ordered a banana pudding for dessert, and they let me have a forkful, and it was so good that I made an "O" face without intending to. I ordered a pudding to go intending to take it home to the fiancee but knowing deep down that it would never make it back to her. Jacob and Alice had to check in to the hotel, so they went ahead and made the half-hour drive to Tunica while Drew and I stayed a little longer in Memphis. He had to gas up the rental and then get me to a SunTrust ATM so I could get some cash. And oh, what a rental! The agency didn't have the economy car that Drew reserved, so they told him, either wait a half-hour for an economy to come back to the lot, or take this other ride at no extra cost to you. That replacement ride? A big-ass white pickup truck! I couldn't stop laughing when we went outside the restaurant and I saw this monstrosity. Drew needed a stepladder to get in the damn thing. And the interior was so roomy that I literally couldn't touch the seat behind me by reaching back. It was a nice bit of good fortune to make up for the horrible trip Drew had from Chicago to Memphis on Megabus. The woman he sat next to was very ill, and at one point she hurled into a paper bag. And it was a packed trip, so he couldn't switch seats. "I'm never taking Megabus again!" he said. That's a shame. My fiancee had a trip interrupted because the driver got arrested, and this happened to Drew, but I still maintain that I've had nothing but pleasant experiences with Megabus. I still couldn't recommend Megabus higher. They should pay me for the great advertisement.

Anyway, Drew got me to an ATM and then I parked the Toyota at his hotel and he made the drive to Tunica, where he got gas on the outskirts of the large casino grounds. I would describe it as like a tiny city in and of itself. Drew, having been to Vegas unlike me, said it reminded him of Vegas. Just street after street with casino names waiting for you to turn down that street and drive another couple of miles to the casino of your choice. Nothing out there but casinos once you drive past the businesses on the outskirts. Lots of free land waiting for more casinos and hotels to be built. The smell of money all around you. It was quite the scene. Drew and I stood out front of Horseshoe Casino waiting for Jacob and Alice. They told us to go to Horseshoe because the best slots were there. I just wanted to go somewhere I could play poker. I haven't played live poker at a casino in years, and I made money when I did because I wasn't the biggest fish at those tables. I was very interested in hitting the poker tables again, and Horseshoe does have poker tables. So after standing out front for a long time, Jacob called and said they were here, and sure enough, there they were inside the casino looking for us. Guess there was more than one entrance.

Alice hit the slots while the fellas wandered around. Jacob's not a poker player at all, so I don't know if he would have sat down at a table, but Drew and I headed right to the poker room, where we fully intended to play if the blinds were low enough. They weren't. There was a $1/$3 table that was no limit, and there was a $6/$12 limit table, and we weren't interested in either because one can lose his shirt easily in a $6/$12 game or in any no-limit game. I only took $60 out of the ATM, and I could play a while at a blackjack table if the minimum bet was something like $5 or $10. But not a high-limit poker game nor a no-limit poker game. We staggered out of the poker room and headed for the blackjack tables. Most of the tables had minimums of $15 or $25. One table in this very crowded place had a $10 minimum and no one playing. This was very odd. I've never seen a casino where the higher minimum blackjack tables had folks playing, but a lower minimum table had no one. The dealer, a middle-aged black woman, was standing there with a blank expression and the cards in one hand, in position to deal if someone, anyone would come sit down. And we three guys must have stood around that table waiting for one of us to make a decision for a good three or four minutes. Other people actually came up to the table and looked at it for a few seconds, wondering why no one was playing, and then they would walk away. It's probably one of those gambler superstitions--never start a blackjack table fresh, always come in when others are playing so you can make sure the table's on the up and up. Well, I'm not a smart gambler, so finally I told the guys "Let's sit down and play," and we took out our cash and got chipped up and started playing, and sure enough, someone else then decided to come sit down between Drew and Jacob and start playing with us. And he lost his money within two minutes, and cussed, and walked away. Unbelievable. I hope that old man feels better now that he lost his money at a table where others were playing and possibly taking his cards. But at least he didn't play by himself!

We played for about 45 minutes, all three of us staying above water but barely. Other players came and went, and some stayed for a long time. Jacob stopped at one point after winning a lucky hand and finding himself up about $100. Drew and I kept going. Then I won a hand where the dealer was showing 10 and I hit to get to 16 and decided that I had to hit again and got a 5. I immediately stood up and said, "I think that's a sign!" I cashed out up $85 and tipped the dealer $5. Drew was up about $20 at this point, and he joined me and Jacob in leaving the table all smiles to search for Alice. She was hammering away at the Wheel Of Fortune slots. It was a little past 11 at this point, so, not wanting to spend my wedding day droopy-eyed and yawning, I made the call for Drew and me to head back to Memphis. We left Jacob and Alice at Horseshoe and laughed our way back into Tennessee. I then jumped in my Toyota and drove home.

Tying The Knot, Part 6: Pre-Wedding Jitters

Selfishly, I have been blogging away the past three days, trying to calm the OCD in me by chronicling things that I feel must be chronicled before I say "I do," such as the debauchery that was my bachelor party weekend and the emotional roller coaster that was my first love in 8th grade. My fiancee has been cleaning house and getting ready for our big day tomorrow. And when she has some free time, she's requested that I come spend it with her in this, our wedding week. And I've said I can't, I have to finish blogging. And what happens when one keeps getting ignored? One starts wondering where she stands and why she doesn't feel excited about the big day approaching and where is our spark. So I shouldn't have been surprised when I saw her get out of bed last night and go into the living room with the lights off. I found her sitting on the couch crying. When I asked what was wrong, she said that it wasn't something she felt she could talk to me about. When I pressed, she admitted that she was worried that she wasn't getting excited about the wedding. I took the responsibility for that because I truly think that she would be more excited had I given her more time this week, not to mention the past five weeks that I've spent watching and writing about football. I've been a dick, plain and simple. I have done a horrible job of balancing my fiancee and my other interests. I don't have experience balancing these things because I've never lived with a woman before. But I've got to do a better job.

I left her on the couch with her emotions because I didn't want to smother her. She obviously left the bed because she needed to be alone. She returned to bed 20 minutes later and announced that she had actually been contemplating life without me. But fear not, she decided that she couldn't stand it if I weren't around. She'd miss everything about me, the football, the wrestling, the OCD...everything but the farting. I breathed a sigh of relief that she didn't come back to the bed declaring that she didn't think we should get married. Hey, I have a fear of rejection, and combine that with the way I've been neglecting her, and you can see why I'd be afraid of her calling the whole thing off. Can't say I wouldn't deserve it, either.

How are my jitters, you ask? I'm a little numb. Of course, numb in the mouth from getting my teeth pulled yesterday, but numb emotionally as well. I just want the whole thing to go off without a hitch, and I want to do my part to not fuck up anything by forgetting to pack something for the honeymoon or splitting my pants or something like that. I'm trying to stay calm in that respect. But I don't have any fears as far as the actual marriage. She's the right woman, we're doing it for the right reasons, and I'm very happy to make our union official. I was proud to sign the big book at the city office when we picked up our marriage license. And I'm just proud of my fiancee in general. She's been under so much stress, looking for work while planning a wedding, and now working while planning a wedding, which takes more time away from her. But she's been a trooper.

And now, it's almost here. Family and friends are on their way into town, we're cleaning up the house getting ready for visitors, and I'm about to groom myself in anticipation of the big day. I'm getting very excited. I'm going to wrap up my blogging here and devote my attention to my wife-to-be and the wedding. We may not be perfect, but we're perfect for each other. And most important, we're committed to working on our imperfections and making our union better and better all the time. We're gonna make it if we try, just the two of us. You and I.

I love you, Grizzbabe.

Tying The Knot, Part 5: How To Pick A Date

MURFREESBORO, TN--"So what made you decide on October 16, 2011?" I asked.

"Well, I like the months of September and October," she replied. "They're cheaper for things like flowers and arrangements and catering. Although October is an 'on' off-month. Very popular among the off-months."

Okay...

So I excitedly headed to the computer in the guest bedroom at my future mother-in-law's house here in beautiful Murfreesboro, where my fiancee and I are spending a few days of our weeklong vacation, and posted the date on my Facebook page, double-checking what day that date will fall on. Hmm, a Sunday, I thought. Not too many weddings on a Sunday. Maybe my fiancee, being very religious, has always wanted her wedding to be on a Sunday. So I went with it, warning my Facebook pals that they should save the date in pencil, since my fiancee hasn't actually checked with her church to see if that date is open.

My uncle happily replied on Facebook that it's great that we chose October 16, since it would be my deceased mom's birthday (his sister). I knew the date sounded familiar. But my fiancee had to tell me about this and other replies because right after I posted this Sunday night, I developed the worst headache I ever had, and she was in the room keeping me company at midnight after I burst into her bedroom begging for her Motrin. While watching over me, she checked her Facebook page and saw my announcement. Then she noticed the part about Sunday.

"October 16 is a Sunday?" she asked. I moaned yes while shielding the light from my eyes. "Did you check the date?" Despite me clearly saying yes, she checked herself and discovered her error. "Oops," she said. "I meant the 15th."

Like I said, save the date in pencil.

So finally, we have a (tentative) date. We know what church we want, and we're leaning towards the ultimate cheapo honeymoon, getting a room in downtown Memphis and acting like tourists. We're still debating the other details, such as whether we should cater or go to a restaurant for the reception and what method of invites we should use. I'm just relieved to have a freakin' date to look forward to. Oh, and my best friend "Jacob" is getting married next May and asked me to be his best man! How fucking cool is that? When I leave my job and move to Memphis next year after no longer being required to pay back tuition money to my employer, it will set off the busiest, most hectic year of my life. But since it will result in me and my honey finally starting a life as husband and wife, I will enjoy every second and soak all the memories in.

Tying The Knot, Part 4: Keeping The Flame Alive

Nothing is easy about a long-distance relationship, except perhaps for the fact that my fiancee and I don't have a chance to get on each other's nerves. But one of the worst factors is that there's no physical contact. It's not just about sexual intimacy, which isn't even a component in our relationship since we are waiting to have sex until after marriage, but even the slightest bit of staying in touch is key to not feeling like you're in a loveless relationship. I was pleasantly surprised by my fiancee's attempts this past weekend to spice things up.

A week and a half ago she sent me an online article she read about how there should not be any secrets or shame in the bedroom between two married people. Anything goes when it comes to being intimate with your spouse. Many people feel that they can't or shouldn't do certain "dirty" things in bed, the article said, even when it's with their own husband or wife, when in fact the Bible says that it's part of the act of marriage and love to explore the heights of intimacy. My fiancee took this to mean that maybe we should be less inhibited about sex when it comes to talking about it or expressing desire. To that end, she sent an e-mail detailing three things she decided to do: 1, she told me that anytime I was willing to try phone sex, although she may not be any good at it initially, she was game. She had always said that she believed phone sex was something we should do only after we got married and were separated from each other for a few nights. 2, she said that she was fine with any kind of dirty talk or passionate utterances I wanted to say the next time we fooled around. Before, she has had a problem with the chance that in the heat of the moment I may say something she takes offense to, like "Suck my dick bitch!" or something to that effect. I've been very careful not to go down that road, and I won't say that it has stifled my enjoyment of our fooling around, but it would be fun to see how nasty we can get. I'm not sure if I should take her up on it, though. I have a knack of fucking things up, and it would be my luck that I find the one thing to say that makes her burst into tears or something. But it's still makes me smile to see that this article has given her the idea of having no limits to our sexual experiences. She said that her 3rd point taken away from the article would be revealed at a later date. I had no idea what that meant, and it slipped my mind after a day or two.

Then a week ago, as I'm about to play a video game, I got a text from my fiancee saying that I had something special waiting for me in my e-mail. It wasn't there yet, so I had to wait a couple of minutes, but when it arrived, I was surprised to see that it was a picture she took of herself in her bra and panties after getting out of the shower. She had scrawled "I LOVE U!" on a piece of paper and attached it to her bathroom mirror, then took a pic of herself in the mirror. This was a bit of a shock because it was out of her element to take pictures that could be construed as naughty. I was happy more for her shedding her inhibitions a little than for receiving the pic. Then I got another e-mail titled "The Girls." Sure enough, it was my God-fearing fiancee with her bra off and a devilish smirk on her face. Very arousing. A third pic came in titled "Booty," and this was her in her thong showing off her fantastic ass. (She told me later that she had originally bent over for the ass shot, but decided that it made her butt look too big. Sigh. Typical woman.) A fourth e-mail came in titled "Something To Suck," and because she was literally and metaphorically letting her hair down, I assumed this would be a spread-eagle pic of her clit, but she wasn't quite ready to go there yet. It was a close-up of one of her large nipples. I was still very impressed at her ability to let herself go free. She even promised that I could take more intimate pictures when we got a chance, especially since "it's hard taking those kind of pictures of yourself." I can only imagine.

My fiancee and I had been having some issues lately concerning how I handle my money and how I would handle it when it became "our" money. We had avoided name-calling and hurtful dialogue, but it was still stressing us out, on top of my stress from the job and her stress from job-hunting and our stress from the distance between us and the inability to plan our wedding at this time. But by this one (or four) act (or acts), she let me know that continuing to want each other emotionally and physically is still a vital part of our relationship. It worked, too. She's visiting in a week and a half, and I want her as much as I ever have.

Tying The Knot, Part 3: The Proposal

MEMPHIS--In my last installment, I talked about losing the card upon which my girlfriend wrote the serial number and description of the ring that she liked when we went window-shopping for rings in November. That was true, but I had to fudge when and where I lost it so as to keep it a secret that I was actually buying the ring much sooner than anticipated. I went back three days after we went to J.B. Robinson Jewelers to get the ring that she liked, with the intention of proposing to her when I visited on New Year's. I actually lost the card on my way to the jewelry store. But since it had been only three days, I figured that I could go on memory and get it right.

I was wrong.

The same salesman that we saw the previous Saturday was there on this Tuesday, and when I asked him about the rings we looked at before, he went under the counter to the same section of rings we were looking at. I won't get too technical about the specifics of what goes into rating a diamond, but I definitely remember that the ring my girlfriend liked had a clarity rating of VVS, which is like one or two steps below the clearest a diamond can be graded. And when I asked the salesman if that ring was the same VVS that we looked at before, he said yes, and with that, I signed the papers and took my purchase home. Only after I got home did I decide to look over the paperwork and look at the actual ring, and I don't remember what clarity the paperwork said my new ring was, but it was far below VVS. But I already took it home, and it was expensive, and it was a solitaire diamond like she wanted, and hell, she's not gonna care if it's the exact same clarity, and how could she tell anyway? But before I could lock it up in my mind that I was keeping this ring, I showed it to two people, my aunt's husband and my play cousin, and both separately reacted very, very unimpressed, like "Oh, that's nice." I decided to return the ring. If they didn't think much of the ring that I was going to propose marriage with, then the girlfriend was liable to spit in my face.

So there I was a week later sheepishly telling the salesman, "I think you sold me the wrong ring." He reacted as if he suddenly couldn't tell the difference between the rings he enthusiastically showed us before. But after I met his confusion with a look of Don't Fuck With Me, he initiated the paperwork for me to exchange rings. After searching that section of solitaire diamonds again, he informed me that the VVS was no longer there, but he could have one ordered for me and delivered within a couple of weeks. That was fine by me because I wasn't going to need it until the end of December. Fast forward another week to Tuesday, December 9, when I rushed out of my mass media class after giving my final speech and went to the jewelers. They called me a few days before and left a message saying my special order had arrived. I get to the jewelers, and there it is: a solitaire ring with VS clarity, which is a notch below VVS. I asked what happened to my request for a VVS ring, and the woman at the counter explained that they were only obligated to provide a VS quality ring at minimum for my exchange. I didn't even want to know how they came to that conclusion. She explained that they could call other stores and continue to search for a VVS, but it would take time, like a couple of weeks or so. I said fine. I made another trip a week later without a call from J.B. Robinson to check on the status of my order. Mr. Confused Jeweler from my first couple of visits was there this time, and he explained like the lady did that they are searching stores nationwide for a VVS solitaire, and it may not come in until after Christmas. And I explained again that since I wouldn't need it until New Year's, that was fine. But something got lost in the translation, and a few days later, a different man, a "diamondologist" that tried to hard-sell my girlfriend and me into making the purchase on our first visit, left me a somewhat patronizing phone message essentially saying that he didn't know if I understood clearly, but they were not obligated to provide me with a VVS ring for exchange. I returned the call and let him know that, yeah pal, I fucking understand clearly. Well, I didn't use salty language, but he got the message.

I then waited until after Christmas to get a call letting me know one way or the other that my VVS ring was or wasn't going to be delivered. No dice. So I waited until this past Monday to go to the store myself, and only because I was flying to Memphis Tuesday morning. After a half-hour wait because the lady at the counter was cleaning all 857 pieces of jewelry that some old bat brought in to be cleaned (or at least it seemed like that many), she finally got to me and recognized me by face. She said that the diamondologist guy called and left a message saying that they weren't obligated, blahblahblah, and I said I understood that. I asked were they able to find a VVS yet. She said no. I told her to give me the VS they had at the store already, and after tacking on the extra price for that ring, she wrote up the new papers, and I was finally ready to take the rock down south.

The actual proposal went off pretty much the way I planned it. Last night after spending time at a church function playing bingo and eating dry BBQ, my girlfriend and I came home to spend a quiet New Year's Eve counting down and toasting with some Sprite Zero. My plan all along was to propose right after the ball dropped, after telling her that I could only think of one better way to "ring" in 2009. The only couple of hitches were that it was a chore keeping her awake for midnight because she was so tired, and then when I was going under her couch to retrieve the ring, I had slid the box too deep underneath while hiding it, so it took literally a minute for me to dig it out, and I almost knocked over her lamp in doing so. "What in the world are you doing?" she muttered at one point. But I finally got it, she cooed and said "Awww," and I dropped to one knee and said, "I've said this before and I meant it--every day without you is a day lost, and I don't want to lose any more days. Will you marry me?" She immediately said yes.

Tying The Knot, Part 2: Shopping For The Rock

My girlfriend was in town this past weekend, having her own experience with Megabus (she agreed with me that it wasn't half-bad). We planned to spend a day out at stores having her try on different rings so that she could get a feel for how they looked on her hand. I would then have a clue as to what she prefers when I decide to buy the engagement ring. The experience was insightful because it gave me a hint as to what I'm in store for during marriage: The more you think you know what your wife wants, the more she mixes things up.

This is to say, she looked at a ton of rings that seemed to be the exact size, design, and metal that she wanted, and over and over, she shook her head no. I could just stand by helplessly and wonder just what precisely she could be searching for. She had been saying all along that she prefers a solitaire diamond, no little diamonds on the side or anything like that, preferably white gold, princess cut, at least a half-carat, with a small band. Simple enough. But we searched at least five jewelry stores at North Riverside Park Mall, and they all had many rings fitting the above description, and my honey kept her head shaking back and forth as if a switch on her side was stuck and she couldn't stop. On one, the small band she thought she desired was too small; on the next, the design of the setting wasn't something she liked; on the next, the diamond didn't "bling" enough; on the next, the diamond was too small. She kept looking at me during the process and asking what I thought, but honestly, I didn't have much to add to the proceedings because it's not my ring. She had to be happy with her choice, not me. I was just the money man. I appreciated her trying to keep me involved, but since I was mostly ignored by the jewelers anyway, this is something she honestly could have done without me. One of the jewelers turned to me at one point and said, "You're gonna have your work cut out for you." Don't I know it. I can just see her dissecting my attempts at buying her a dress or decorating a room. The one thought I kept telling myself was, hey, she's obviously a choosy person, so I suppose that makes me special because she's choosing me to be her husband.

She finally wrote down the model number of a ring that "blinged" enough for her and gave it to me for safekeeping. I have since lost it. So when I do finally get the funds to buy the ring, I will have to go off my recollections of what she said she liked about this particular ring (that looked exactly like all the others) that made it stand out from the crowd. And so goes another valuable lesson--pay fucking attention at all times to what the lady wants, even if it seems like it makes no difference.

Tying The Knot, Part 1: Initial Reactions

A few weeks ago, my girlfriend casually informed me during a conversation that if I was waiting on her to give me the OK to propose to her, she was giving me the OK. After I got off the floor, I started to consider how big of a deal getting married would be. I actually freaked a little the first couple of weeks after this chat. Not that I'm running around trying to get laid like I used to, but I have gotten used to having no restrictions on me, going where I want when I want without answering to anybody, and maybe in the back of my mind, thinking that I would be free to get into something with a chick at the drop of a hat, like a bad Penthouse Forum story. ("So there I was standing at the bus stop when the hottest freckled redhead I've ever seen asked me for the time...") Getting married means that I would announce that I had no plans to get busy with any females in the entire free world except one, and no matter what, folks, that's a HYUUUGE statement to make. I have since sobered up, so to speak, and realized that I don't want to get busy with anyone else if it's going to possibly cost me my girlfriend. I don't want to lose her for any reason. Marriage is the next logical progression when you feel about someone like I feel about her.

The first few reactions were calm yet amusing. The first person that I told I was going to start shopping for a ring was a co-worker, and without hesitation, she asked the big question: "Are you ready to get married?" The enormity kinda caught me by surprise, and my answer was a nervous "I don't know!" And she said, "You're not ready to get a ring unless you can answer that question." That was the day after the conversation between me and my girlfriend, so I don't think I realized just how major this was. If asked that question by my co-worker today, I would nervously chuckle because I still can't believe that I'm considering doing it, but then I would answer, "Definitely." Another co-worker was thrilled for me. I can tell she's going to be one of those who wants every detail of every bit of planning, as if she's watching a reality show. My aunt reacted much calmer than I thought she would at first. I thought she would be a little crazy about it because no one I've ever dated has been good enough in her eyes, and she had a problem with my girlfriend last year over a harmless joke. But she seemed okay. I then informed her that my girlfriend would really like to get married down in her hometown of Memphis, TN, and she didn't take kindly to that. "We ain't all goin' down there! You got way more family up here than she got down there!" Never mind that my aunt has no idea how much family my girlfriend has down there. So that may become an issue, but I don't have to have my family at the wedding. Hell, with the economy and gas prices (driving or flying, you pay either way), I'd be hard-pressed to commit to a trip next year as well. We can always have a Chicago reception after the honeymoon for my friends and family. "Jacob," in typical guy fashion, responded to the news with, "Insert whip-cracking sounds here." And "Drew" was surprised, saying that he didn't think I was the "marrying type." I reminded him that the reason I went bonkers after finding the infamous "Karen" topless on a swingers website is because I planned to move to Milwaukee with her and maybe get hitched to her later. Wouldn't have been a smart move considering I had fuck buddies and wasn't exactly honest myself, but the fact is, I thought she was going to be The One. My sense of what made someone The One, of course, was incredibly warped. Now I know.

The next step is strolling around a jewelry store or two with my girlfriend when she visits next month so that I can get a grasp of what style rock she wants. After that, I gotta rob a bank or something to afford it, then figure a good time and place to pop the question, since that's the only elements of surprise that I still possess. Looks like big, big changes on Planet Dre brewing for 2009.