One of These People Puked in the Bushes Outside a Wedding Reception (Hint: It Wasn't Me)

Hey! I'm home for the next big Pink Torpedo weekend, which took place this weekend. I brought The Lady-Killer home with me for the event, and when he wasn't busy using my father's label maker to print off such gems as BUTT MUNCH and SHIT ASS and I HEART WIENER, he got to meet my friends and family. He also got to vomit up an open bar rainbow of wine, champagne, espresso vodka, Sex-on-the-Beach, and rum-and-coke. This was after I gave my brother, who was picking us up from the wedding, a no-puke guarantee.

I never thought I'd say this, but cleaning vomit out of a car in high heels and a strapless dress at 1:00 AM is a pretty interesting way to end an evening. Especially after peeling a boy who is murmuring, "Baby, I'm so sorry! I love you! You know I love you, right? I love you! I puked in my crotch!" out of his clothes and putting him in the shower, then to bed.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. Both of us--the late-night puke-cleaner and the passed-out vomitter--looked pretty good when the night started.

Which Reminds Me

Today in one of my classes, a student went off on a short tangent about how she acts when she gets drunk. She doesn't get goofy or giggly or loud or angry. Instead, she gets very formal. Instead of saying, "Hey! I'm drunk!" she will say, "Why, hello. It seems you've caught me in a moment of unexpected intoxication. My apologies!"

I like that she recognizes this. I like that she's conscious of her drunk self because not many people really are. (Generally, it seems, it's the angry ones who are the least aware. Once, in grad school, one of my best friends, who'd been drinking beer for hours, pointed his finger at me and shouted, "I AM SICK OF YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!" This wouldn't have been so bad--I was, after all, aware that he was sick of me taking up with idiots--but it's just that one of those idiots was standing next to me at that very moment.)

As for me, I'm not exactly sure how I am. I've heard conflicting stories. Katy tells me she can't ever tell when I'm drunk. "You act like your normal self when you're drunk," she says, "maybe just a little gigglier."

No one, of course, has trouble identifying when Katy's drunk. After a couple tall glasses of Michelob Light, which she gets with olives--"It's a free snack at the end!" she says--Katy gets loud. She likes to engage the boys by saying inappropriate things, by talking about poop or boobs. When Katy gets really drunk, she likes to bring boys over to me and say, "Hey! Look! Here's this boy! You should kiss him! If you don't kiss him, I'm not going to leave you alone! I'm going to stand here and watch you until you kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him! KISS HIM!"

And then she likes to puke in alleys or cars.

Of course, Katy might not be the only one who acts up. I just learned recently that I'm "the loud one" in the group--information Diana floated my way as we walked to my car in a Boston parking ramp the day after her reading in town.

I was shocked. I told her I didn't think I was the loud one in any group. In my group back home, back in New York, my best friend was the loud one, and in Minnesota I'd always figured Katy was the loud one, or maybe one of the boys, who were always mixing drinks and shouting poetry--theirs or others'--at the top of their lungs while Diana and I sat on the couch and giggled.

"No, no," Diana said. "It's definitely you. You're definitely the loud one. But that's why we love you."

Probably this shouldn't surprise me. Maybe I should've always known. And today as my student was going on about her own tipsy behavior, it made me--it couldn't be helped!--think of one of my more glorious moments: The first time I met my father's fiancee.

It was the night of my childhood friend's wedding. I was a bridesmaid who was wearing a pretty black dress and high heels, and I was flirting with one of the groomsmen--tall, slim, tan.

Maybe I was a bit bolder than I'd normally be, but there's a good reason for that. As a cost saving measure, the bride and groom bought their liquor from a local bar and then positioned a few of their relatives behind a makeshift one at the reception. What this meant was I could walk up to the bar and say, "May I please have a giant vat of vodka this very instant?" and they would say, "Why, yes, Bridesmaid Girl, you may."

Add to that the fact that the groom's father had made his own wine for the occasion, and several bottles of that wine were on the wedding party's table, and I drank an awful lot from several of those bottles, which may or may not have led to the incident on the dance floor after the cute groomsman caught the garter and I caught the bouquet, which meant we had to engage in this tradition where everyone gathered around and watched as he inched the garter up my leg--each inch another year of good luck for the newlyweds--and this spiraled into a really interesting incident in the kitchen of the reception hall, which then spiraled into a really, really interesting incident in the backyard of the reception hall--and trust me when I tell you it's best that no one but God saw that.

It's important to know these facts. It's important to know that both the incident in the kitchen and the incident in the backyard took a decent amount of time--mainly because they involved a whole bunch of kissing--and that they started in the approximate middle of the wedding party. By the time the incidents were done and we wandered back inside, the only people left were the bride's parents.

Talk about embarrassing.

Worse? The cute groomsman and I were both too drunk to drive, so we had to catch a ride with the bride's parents, who had their car stuffed so full of gifts and decorations that there was barely room for us, and I had to sit on the groomsman's lap the whole ride home.

Oh, but wait. It gets worse.

And then when I arrived home, I realized my father was still up and that he had a visitor--his new girlfriend, the one I had yet to meet. So as I stepped out of the car and turned to thank the bride's parents for driving me home, and to tell the groomsman it was nice meeting him, I knew I was going to have to put on a good show in approximately thirty seconds.

I walked down the driveway and up onto the front step. I took a deep breath. I tried to make my my whole body feel less like it was spinning. I tried to quiet the side of my brain that was saying, EVERYTHING YOU SAY SHOULD BE SAID IN SHOUT-VOLUME. And because I knew my father would ask how the party was, I made a quick list of things that should not be brought up: making out with a groomsman, dancing with one of my father's friends and announcing to said friend that I thought his children were ridiculously attractive, being photographed with a boy's hands--and a garter--three quarters of the way up my thigh.

I steadied myself. I steeled my insides. I took another deep breath and prepared to pull off a serious caper, to pull the wool over my father's eyes, to convince his girlfriend I was nothing but a classy and poised twenty-something.

I pushed open the door.

"Hello!" my father said.

"Hello!" I said.

"Hello!" the girlfriend said.

"This is Kathy!" my father said.

"It's really nice to meet you!" I said. "I AM REALLY DRUNK! SORRY!"

And then, because I'd already revealed too much, and because I was afraid my first revelation would be followed with something else inappropriate--for example: "I pushed a groomsman against a fridge in the reception hall kitchen and had my way with him!"--I decided to run down the hallway to my room and go to bed before I made things worse.

I am, if nothing else, extremely, extremely smooth.

Another Pink Torpedo Wedding

At the beginning of the month I flew back to Buffalo just so the very next morning I could get in a car with the Pink Torpedoes and drive down to Pennsylvania for Anne's wedding. If you're keeping score, that two's Pink Torpedoes down and one more on the way (Steph's wedding is next summer). And if you're wondering what it looks like when a Pink Torpedo gets married, this is as good of an answer as any:


Created with flickr slideshow.

The Eighth of August

It was a warm night in Minnesota. It was late. You could smell the soybeans from the processing plant across the river. Everything was as it should be.

I was on the sidewalk with the Wily Republican and his best friend and his best friend's girlfriend. We'd been bouncing between bars for the last few hours, and now we were hungry. What we wanted more than anything in the world was fried mac-n-cheese from one of the bars across the street. So we were paused at the intersection, waiting for traffic to go by so we could cross.

"I was a cheerleader, you know," the girlfriend said.

"I would've guessed that," I said. She was a peppy sort--bright, bubbly, full of spunk. She was smart and had freckles. I liked her.

"Watch this," she said, and she flipped into a string of cartwheels she unraveled down the sidewalk.

The boys whistled. I clapped.

"Very impressive," I said.

"I know," she said. She stood back up and blew her curly hair out of her eyes.

The light changed then, and we went across the street and into the bar where we could get our food. The Wily had worked there once, his first semester at school, and back then I would sit at the bar and watch as he brought cases of beer and liquor out from the back room or stood watch at the door, sending away the undergrads who were testing out a new fake ID. Those were some of the moments I remember most about my time with him, and they were moments that happened before we kissed, before we screwed everything up just by being us. Back then there was nothing better than sitting there sipping a lime vodka tonic and smiling at him when he smiled at me.

Inside, the WR and his best friend went to order our food and talk to the guys behind the counter, who they knew a little bit, and the girlfriend grabbed my arm and dragged me into the bathroom.

We stood in front of the mirrors and fixed our hair, leaned in close to consider our makeup.

"Wily loves you," she said.

It came out of nowhere, that statement, and for a second I thought maybe I'd hallucinated the words. I stepped away from the mirror.

"What?"

"Wily," she said. "He's in love with you."

And standing right there, in the bathroom of the bar where it all really started, my heart broke open from the weight of all the blood that had flooded it, frantic and excited. I couldn't speak. I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth. I opened it again.

She was still in the mirror, looking back at me through its pane. She smiled. "It's pretty clear," she said. "I've never seen him act like this around a girl before. Never."

"Like what?" I asked. "How does he act?"

She waved her hands in the air. "Oh, you know. Like he does. The two of you are very cute together. And you should hear how he talks about you. He talks about you all the time."

"Oh my God," I said. This was better than any number of dreams I'd had about the Wily Republican--and there had been some pretty fantastic dreams along the way.

The girlfriend finally turned away from the mirror and wrapped her hand around my arm. She leaned in close and pressed her shoulder against mine. We were conspirators. We were insiders. We were drunk, and we were in love with best friends. We thought we knew things.

"Don't worry," she said, squeezing my arm. "You'll be at my wedding, and I'll be at yours. I'm sure of it."

Here's what I can tell you now: that girl did marry the Wily's best friend, but I wasn't there. And today the Wily will stand at an altar and wait for his bride to come down the aisle, and that girl won't be me. In fact, I won't even be in the audience. Instead, I'll be here, in Maine, and I'll be thinking about him.

The fact that the Wily Republican is getting married today doesn't make me sad, but it does make me reflective. It doesn't make me want to stay in bed all day with a pan of brownies on the pillow next to me, but it does make me remember things. It does make me amazed by things.

Like it or not--and I know a lot of you (and me, sometimes) won't like it at all--the Wily Republican really got inside my head and shook things up, changed me, challenged me, made me the girl I am today--the good and bad parts, both.

This summer I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and in it she wrote about her own maddening, toxic, unshakable relationship, and how she recognized her man was wrong for her, that he was making her crazy, that he was like a drug, but at the same time she was sure he was her soulmate. Of course, for Gilbert, the definition of soulmate isn't the one we throw around often--the one that's fizzing with hearts and exclamation points. Instead, this type of soulmate is a person who comes in and picks you up and challenges you and makes you crazy because they are the opposite of what you are--or close to it. That kind of soulmate is your balance. That kind of soulmate has the potential to teach you immeasurable lessons about yourself. With that person in your life, it is suddenly that much easier to define yourself, to say, Here I am. This is who I am. Love me even if you think it's a bad idea.

That can be a hard love, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth having. And I think at that point in his life the Wily Republican really needed me. When he's feeling kind and generous, he tells me I'm his voice of reason, that I'm the one he needs around to say, "Listen. You're unreasonable. You're wrong. Here's why." And I did that for him for years. I said, "Wily, you're an asshole. Do you want to know why?" And he always did. He always does.

And at that point in my life, I really needed him, too. An MFA program is fraught with all kinds of drama, and it's incestuous and intense, and there were days in Minnesota when the last thing I wanted to do was talk to another sulky writer, another frowning English major, but I was surrounded by them. That's when the WR came in handy. That's when I called him and said, "Please save me." The Wily Republican did not want to discuss what was literary and what was not. He did not want to tell me that all I write about is sex and that I should stop it, for Christ's sake. He did not want to get drunk and talk about killing himself. What he wanted to do was tell me I was fun, I was a hippie--a sweet one, but a hippie nonetheless--and I wrote things that made him want to read. What he wanted to do was get drunk and kiss.

It wasn't a bad life, but it's not mine anymore. It hasn't been mine for a long time, and it seems strange to me that today it becomes someone else's life. He's marrying the girl he wanted: a pretty little Republican doctor, someone who smiles at him and says, "Yes, Wily, yes. You're right about that. You're so right." She shares his ideals and has what he refers to as a "strong moral code. She won't be any trouble for him.

But he's always been trouble for me. He's always been the one whose memory I can't quite sweep from the darker corners of my heart. And today I won't even try.

I've Got the Fever

Wedding Fever. I've got it, and I've got it bad. At this very moment, I know four people who are on the verge of getting married. My friend Emily will go first, then the Wily Republican, then Anne, then Steph.

It doesn't take much to get me thinking about my wedding--what I want, what I can afford, what I want but will never afford--but lately I've been really caught up thinking about dresses and cakes and reception sites and photographers and what songs I'm going to force the DJ to play.

It's just that I really love weddings. I love going to weddings, love being in weddings, love watching weddings on television. I love weddings even after the Great College Friend Wedding Disaster of 2006, where the bride forbid me--her bridesmaid!--from bringing a date because I had not been dating someone longer than six months.

It's easy to get caught up in weddings and all the glitz and glamor, and I am a sucker for all of it. All of it. Which is why I've spent extra time dreaming up my own lately. Everybody else is getting to dream and plan and design, and I want to, too. And below is what I've come up with so far. Below is the answer to the question "If you were to get married today and money weren't an object, what would your wedding look like?"

I think I've got a pretty good answer to that.


First, the dress:

It's a Jim Hjelm dress, designed by Francesca Pitera.



Next, my husband's tux:


I'm sort of anti-bow tie. I want my to-be husband to wear a tie, but it doesn't have to be black.



Next, the bridesmaids can make the case for their favorite of these three dresses. Whoever makes the most compelling argument gets her dress as the chosen one (in dark purple):











And what about the ring? Well, it's big, it's bold, it's square--which is something I never thought I'd develop a thing for, but I so have:

And here's what my mother will wear so she doesn't look like a frumpy ninety year-old, which is often the temptation of some mothers-of-the-bride:




When my sweet tooth starts acting up, here's what I'll be slicing into, but picture the color scheme involving some kind of purple:



And where will this all happen? Well, considering that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, it's got to happen at the source of all that beauty:

On the ocean. (This picture was taken here, in Boothbay Harbor.)


The first song that will play as the sun sets and the guests freshen up their champagne flutes will be this one:

It's the perfect first dance song. It's just the right tempo. You could easily slow dance to it, but it's not plodding and so long that your guests will start wondering how rude it is to get up to go to the bathroom while you're being filmed dancing your first dance as man and wife.

I've got other things planned, too. I've already imagined certain people taking care of certain things--for example, I hope Diana would do a reading. She also seems to be the right girl to be in charge of my The DJ Must Play These Songs List. I mean, who better to lay it on the line for the DJ, wag a finger in his face and tell him if he doesn't get his act together and play "Love Man" and "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and "Cecilia" and "Maggie May" and "What I Like About You," there's going to be a serious problem. I hope she would do that even if deep down she thinks some of those songs are sort of weird for a wedding.

So, all in all, I think it's shaped up to be a festive event, but it'll be a long time before I get to make any of that come to life, so I guess for the next few months I'll just sit back and enjoy all the other weddings around me and gather up even more ammunition I can use in those moments when I get so frustrated by a stack of papers in front of me that I raise my head, look out the window, and think about a white dress hanging on a door, just waiting for me to put it on.

It's Times Like These When I Really Wish I Owned Photoshop

The past few weeks have been big weeks for the Pink Torpedoes. There were two big phone calls. There were two big announcements.

Anne is getting married.

Steph is getting married.

Their boys did so well. Anne's engagement happened by a giant tree--and if there's anything Anne likes more than science, it's nature. And trees. Giant trees you hike to admire. Her boy asked her under a giant tree if she'd like to be his wife, and she said she would.

Steph's boy changed into a special shirt before he came out to ask her if she'd like to marry him, and Steph couldn't stop saying, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God." And then her parents came through the door with balloons. They'd been in on the whole thing.

Those boys did well. And now two more Pink Torpedoes are on their way to getting married, which will bring us to a total of three out of five. Amy and I are bringing up the rear, but she's close, close, close. So if you want to place bets on who'll be the last to go, the safe money is on me.

But I'm okay with that. Especially if it means that I, in my official Wedding Zeal, my official I-Wish-I-Had-a-Wedding-to-Plan effervescence, get to do things like this to test some things out, to see just how beautiful these girls--these girls who've been my friends since we were in elementary school, since we knew who was kissing whom behind the cubby-holes and who was peeing their pants on the circle at snack time--are going to look when they come down whatever type of aisle they're going to set up:

Steph might need to tan her head a bit before she takes her long march, but overall things are looking very, very bright and very, very stunning.

My Love of Buttercream Knows No Bounds

Last week sometime I sent the Wily Republican a link to this cake over on Cake Wrecks. I included some snarky little message to the tune of wouldn't it be just oh-so-funny if your in-laws rolled out something like this at your wedding?

I hadn't really thought about his wedding since he announced he was engaged. He and his fiancee had some seriously different ideas about when the blessed event would take place--his idea was of the extended engagement variety--but he knew his ideas were probably going to get trumped by bride fever. And it looks like that might have just happened.

The WR e-mailed me back to tell me that he was never going to get a cop-themed donut cake with buttercream frosting because, well, he doesn't like donuts, cake, or buttercream frosting. If he had his choice, his groom's cake would be made of ice cream.

I was appalled by his response. He didn't like donuts? He didn't like cake? He didn't like frosting? He recently let it slip that he's taken up chewing tobacco to keep himself awake on the overnight shifts ("WILY!" I screamed when I heard the news. "YOU ARE MARRYING A DOCTOR! ARE YOU AN IDIOT?!" "Listen," he said, "come talk to me about it again after you try to pull a couple million overnight shifts.")--and apparently the taste of chew is okay, but not donuts, not cake, not buttercream.

I wrote back to tell him I didn't think ice cream cakes went over so well at wedding receptions, and was he going to make an exception for the big day?

The entire conversation was happening in the abstract, and it occurred to me that it had been months since he had talked about specific plans for the wedding, so I figured I should ask about the progress, if they had a venue, if they had a date. And the next time I got him on the phone I did.

"Are you, like, getting married any time soon?" I asked. "I mean, do you have a date?"

"Oh," he said, "yeah. We're getting married in August."

"AUGUST?!" I said. "So much for the extended engagement."

He snorted.

And then--because I am a girl, because I am predictable, because I am a predictable girl--I rattled off about a thousand questions about the wedding, trying to construct an accurate picture in my head. I wanted to know about flowers. I wanted to know about rings. I wanted to know about the cost and who was footing the bill.

And the answers to those questions were as follows: lots, expensive, thirty grand, and him.

"What do you mean expensive?" I asked. "How much did her ring cost?"

And then he said a figure that was so obscene I almost swallowed my tongue. I quickly composed myself. He must have been kidding. He must have made a mistake in the way he phrased the cost.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked and then repeated the obscene amount. "For real?"

"Yeah," he said. He didn't seem to think it was a big deal.

"Jesus," I said. I pictured his fiancee walking around Minnesota with her left hand held straight out in front of her so that everywhere she went everyone could see the fantastic rock on her ring finger. "Oh my God," I said. "Why didn't you ever want to marry me?!"

I wasn't serious, of course; it was just interesting to think what it would be like to get a wedding that included pretty much everything I've ever wanted. And from the sounds of it, the Wily's girl is going to get just that.

"I didn't want to marry you because you're a liberal," he reminded me.

"Right," I said. "Because of that."

Later, after we'd hung up and gone on with our days, I saw that the WR had written back to the snippy comments I'd shipped his way after hearing about his hatred of cake and frosting. There's going to be a buttercream cake at the wedding, he said. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

Have you been to a cake tasting yet?! I wrote. Is it pretty much the best thing in the world? Tell me about it!

He wrote back to tell me that no, he hadn't been to a cake tasting yet, but one was scheduled for the end of the month and he would tell me all about it after it happened.

I had a better idea. Can I come? I wrote. Do you think that would be awkward? You could tell your girl I am your butch lesbian friend who just so happens to be a cake expert. I'll wear lots of plaid.

And what a scene that would be: me draped in ribbons of plaid, plaid, plaid, standing shoulder to shoulder with the dimpled girl the Wily Republican will marry, sharing forkfuls of cake and frosting with her, giggling. I can see the WR in the corner, his arms crossed, his eyes rolled to the ceiling, his brain off dreaming about all the chilly edges of some ice cream cake. "Don't worry about him," I will tell his girl. "Let's try that pear-ginger one again. Or the cherry-almond. Or the butterscotch-walnut. Let's try them all." And we will. And the WR won't be able to say one cross word to either of us. Not a one.

Strip Club Signs That Say "Money Make Me Come" and Other Great Things You Can See in Michigan

On Saturday I spent the whole night on a porch with one of my best friends from grad school's best friends. They were playing The Kinks and drinking whiskey and telling stories about Greg. We were all telling stories about Greg. We were telling the isn't it weird that Greg is married stories and the do you remember the time Greg got drunk and did that funny thing stories. I didn't go to bed until 9 AM.

I'd flown into Michigan a few days earlier. I came with a suitcase full of cute dresses and shoes. I felt it was important to look good because Greg's wedding was a pretty surprising occasion, if you consider the way Greg used to badmouth marriage. He said it was stupid, he hated it, he wasn't going to get married, not ever. One night, after a few of us had spent a few hours staring up at naked Midwestern girls at the local strip joint, we sat at an all-night restaurant and drank coffee, ate plates full of bacon. Greg told us he wanted to die. He wanted to kill himself. There was nothing about life that could save him--especially not love. He said it just wasn't enough.

You can imagine my surprise when he moved back to Flint, met up with a pretty girl, started dating her, and was suddenly living with her and talking about marriage. And kids. In the conversations we had after Greg started dating Shelly, I constantly had to pinch myself to make sure I was still alive, awake, conscious, and that this wasn't just some alternate universe I'd cooked up where Greg was dreamy and happy.

But it wasn't an alternate universe. It was real. And he was engaged in a matter of months.

And so I booked a flight to Michigan, where I saw some of the best things a girl can see:

It was a great weekend, and I spent most of it having to dab at my eyes so I didn't ruin my mascara. I'd stored up a lot of tears over those few days--mainly because I'd never seen Greg like that before. I'd never seen him so content, so happy. I'd certainly heard it in his voice for the last few months--and I'd call up our other grad school friends and say things like, "You should just hear Greg. He's an entirely new man."--but it's a whole other thing to see a man in that condition. He was beautiful.

Visitors, Round Two

Today marks the arrival of my next visiting couple, Jason and Amanda. Ex-Keith and I are the entirely responsible for bringing those two together, forcing them on each other, and making them like each other. You better believe we got a special mention at the wedding.

And what a wedding it was. The night before, at the rehearsal dinner, Amanda announced that if any of us even thought about going out after rehearsal, and if any of us got so stinking drunk that we showed up to the wedding bleary-eyed and hungover, she was going to leave Jason at the altar. Just like that. See you later, Jason. She made this announcement in a stern, no-nonsense voice, a voice I imagine she uses with the high school students to whom she teaches geometry proofs. And as much as that voice might work on a bunch of sweaty, pimply high schoolers, it doesn't so much work on a wedding party that had dealt with her bride wrath for the last month. Afterward, as she was saying goodbye to her family, the wedding party scuttled outside to the parking lot and said, "So, where's the closest bar?"

Ex-Keith was the best man, so he rallied the troops and got us to a bar immediately after the crowd broke up. The last thing I remember is squealing out of the parking lot, leaving Amanda in the dust. She wagged a finger at us and screamed, "I WILL LEAVE HIM AT THE ALTAR, KEITH! I AM SERIOUS!"

The next day even the wedding photographer would make fun of the groomsmen, who'd been instructed if they brought so much as a flask of liquor to the pre-ceremony goings-ons, they would all die long, painful deaths. Instead of putting on their tuxes while having a beer--as, I guess, is customary for groomsmen--they carried giant beer steins of Pepsi.

And even if we seemed behaved that day, I can assure you we did not behave the night before. In fact, Amy drank so much she puked all night long (yet still looked refreshed and rested when she slid into her Maid of Honor gown). I drank so much I made perverse phone calls to the MFA boys all night long as I was supposed to be sleeping on Amy and Becky's living room floor. And while still at the bar, Amy and Keith had a contest to see who could blow the highest BAC on the bar's built-in tester.



Half of that video is sideways because I was so full of vodka I had no idea what was going on. It was a fabulous night. A fabulous night that led to a long wedding, a reception where no one danced (except the ring bearer and the members of the wedding party who milked the open bar), and a party that ended at ten o'clock, which left us in the parking lot, drinking three bottles of champagne Amanda wouldn't let us open when we were getting our hair done ("This," she told me, "is a solemn occasion. I don't want any liquor around."). And sometime during those hours, the wedding photographer--who really thought us bridesmaids were quite the little pips--took my favorite, favorite, favorite picture:



In that picture, it completely looks like Amanda is saying, You fuck this up, Jason, and I will tear the claws out of each of your dogs.

Here's hoping I don't see that look this week, and here's hoping the ban of liquor has been permanently lifted.