Portrait of 2008 Part 2

... continued from previous post

May also brought the first two weddings of the year. The highlight of my cousin Tom's wedding was not the symphony of semis and car horns blowing by the ceremony that took place in a roadside garden, or even the seven-months-pregnant bride stepping outside for a cigarette. (Life Lesson #5 - If you get knocked up before you're married and plan on marrying the father, either get married immediately, or wait until the baby is born. You will look happier, less swollen, and hopefully less tired with a baby in hand than when you've had a bun baking in the oven for seven months. Although, thinking about the wedding night, pregnant sex probably has the upper hand over post-birthing sex when things might be a little stretched out. Just something to consider ... though I guess if you already have a kid the wedding night isn't so special after all. But I digress ... ) For me the highlight of this wedding in particular was sitting alone at the table during the couple's dance when the DJ counted down from couples who had been married the longest (my aunt and uncle won with 44 years) to couples who were there as "just friends." As the only single person above 18 in the extended family (excluding my widowed aunt and grandmother), my darling younger brother Sean suggested I take an empty chair from the table out to the dance floor and swing it around as my partner. Naturally, I went to the bar instead. That may or may not explain why, at the end of the night, I took a bottle of Malibu from the stash of excess liquor. I knew my cousin had bought all the liquor for the reception, so it's not like I was stealing from the reception hall, it was more so stealing from my cousin ... which still doesn't sound good.

The second wedding of the month brought lots of Dirty Shirley's, quality time with old friends from Mary Washington, and a hook-up with an ex-boyfriend I hadn't seen in a year. Here comes Life Lesson #6, kiddos. Items 1 and 3 in that list there are closely related. When you cloud your judgement with alcohol, you let yourself think that certain things are a good idea even when you knew going in that they were as good an idea as that cigar from 7-11. And when an ex says he'd like to see you again, what he really means is that he will text you for about a month until ceasing communication and telling you two months later when you call him that he is seeing someone else and he's pleased it's going quite well and he didn't think he owed it to you to tell you. I guess we can count that one as Life Lesson #7.

I enjoyed the summer months binge drinking at more weddings, bachelorette parties, beach weekends, concerts at Nissan Pavilion, Nationals games, and cookouts. In September I celebrated the big 2-5 with drinks and dessert at a swanky chocolate lounge (I lasted about two hours in my swanky heels, ended up taking them off at the bar later) and by making out with an Army dude. Drunk makeout counter for 2008: three. Total makeout counter for 2008: three.

At the end of September, my older brother Michael got married in Charlottesville, VA. I had the pleasure of standing up with them in the bridal party and paying $600 to stay in the same inn where the wedding was held. Life Lesson #8 - being in a wedding is very exciting the first two or three times. Then you get over the emotional factor and realize you're shelling out a minimum of $500 between the bridal shower, bachelorette party, gifts, a dress you'll be lucky to reuse once, and uncomfortable shoes that you may pay extra to dye from white to ivory (true story) and will wear for the ceremony and maybe the first hour of the reception. Usually it ends up being closer to a grand, especially if you have to travel. The solution is to suck it up and do it (especially if you're related, there's really no way out). Then you just make sure to drink your money's worth at the open bar and invite them to your wedding, even if at that point you haven't talked in six years. Because presumably by then they will have a cushy combined income to buy you a nice, expensive juicer off your registry. Unless of course they're already divorced, in which case the best you can hope for is a vegetable peeler and few hand towels.

Watch this space for Part 3...