I took a programming class in college and have had this inside joke url ever since
First, I needed to ask a question, before I could get any answers. I thought about that for a moment. “. . . Where should I live?” I asked her.
She placed her pajamaed arms on the coffee table and examined the cards.
“This one says you should never live in a palace, or a castle,” she said. “And this card says . . . don’t trust anyone. And this one says you should remember to take a bath and use shampoo. And this one says, just go someplace, and when you get there, tell someone.”
From my first gig after graduating from Salt, Brian and Wilson’s wedding in Cambridge: perhaps this asks the question, “do you really want a documentary-style photographer shooting your wedding?” This is still one of my favorite images from that day.
But lest you get the wrong idea of how the day generally went — that’s not good documentary! — here is this picture, also.
Did I cry at this wedding? Of course, always.
What a strange, lovely thing we do, promising something as elusive as feelings, guaranteeing something as uncertain as the future. The potential for my own marriage has always alarmed the hell out of me, but weddings make it look so . . . natural. If you can love and give yourself to someone, you should. Just be there, take his hand. We create rituals for this kind of thing, so that you know what to do. We grant symbolism to the shape and materials of jewelry (forever, forever), to the weather that day (good luck, bad luck), to the color of your outfit (purity, beginnings). Everything means something today, if you want it to; everything can predict something else.
And everyone else you love is here too — like the circles we would form backstage in high school before opening night, chanting I will hold you up.
How strange it is, the first time you put your mother’s sock on for her, tie her shoe. You came here to do these things, knew they were coming — had envisioned this very act, even — but still it surprises you. The world shifts. You roll up the cotton sock and within it is her vulnerability, which you don’t like to think of as her (oh god) mortality, which you don’t like to associate with your own (oh god) mortality. You’re tiny at her feet like a child, tightening the laces, bunny ears through bunny ears. A little looser, she says. There we go. Perfect. How quickly it becomes ordinary, just another thing to do before you leave the house together.
Sarah had acquired a new pair of sparkly gold shoes, so she invited us all to join her at Mancini’s, an old steak restaurant in St. Paul dripping with heavy red curtains and watered down cocktails. Suits were involved, and a big band tapping their feet on a stage glittering with christmas lights and bows, trumpeting out “Little Sister.” I’d busted out some faux furs and a silk dress I’d found at a thrift store for ten bucks. I’ve only recently decided that I’m old enough to wear lipstick, so whenever the opportunity presents itself I get really excited.
“Can you taste any vodka in my vodka cranberry?” Joanna asked. “I’m pretty sure this is just Juicy Juice.”
“You should . . . send that back,” someone confirmed.
While we waited at the bar, an older man tapped me on the shoulder. “I’d really love it if you danced with me, just one dance,” he said.
“I dance with anyone!” I said, taking his hand.
He swirled me around, told me I’d put a spell on him. He said I had those angel devil eyes. At the end of the night, he patted my back. “I know you have a boyfriend, but I just put my business card in your dress,” he said. “And if that ever changes, call me.”
My spindly arms twisted and grasped my halterline in alarm. “That is a smooth move!” I cried.
There was a moment, when I was standing in the flickering green light in front of one of the coffins (someone trapped inside), that I turned my head a certain way, and peered out from the eyeslits in my giant pig mask, and I was overcome with not so much déjà vu as pure memory: I had dreamt this, I thought, just maybe six months before.
I had woken up from the dream thinking “where could that have taken place? What was I doing, standing in front of that coffin, why couldn’t I see quite right?” but what had really stuck with me was how the dream had ended. Something was happening outside of the basement, something awful that I had no power to stop while I stood in front of that coffin, and I would not find out what that was until all of this was over.
Slideshow of full album: here.