016: What you thought you heard.

Hot on the heels of one of the most busy weekends of my life, I'm diving headlong into another.

Thursday, we visited with Ron & Mary, visiting form England for Laura's wedding. I barely remember the last time we say them; Mary surprised me by reminding me it was in fact right before I started at either Sheridan or U of T, at the airport. (The meeting I remember, the time I do not.) It was awkward then, only slightly moreso now. Ron poked fun at the fact that I was the only one at the dinner not drinking. It got to be one of those lengthy gatherings that you just don't know how to kill until it's 10:00 and you have to make a stand.

The wedding. Holy hell. It was half an ordeal, particularly getting ready. We don't do "getting ready" very well and have only gotten worse since the bygone days of twice-annual North Bay trips. All we had to do was get ready for noon, but Eric specifically requested a half hour head's up, and dad specifically forgot.

In the meantime, I went out for coffee and found that it was, meteorologically, "hot as balls." I got home and started dressing. Eric hesitated until I got a text asking "Is Eric ready yet?" Naturally no. So I usher him off the couch.

Sometime later, after much ironing and redetermining of ties, we're on the road. The trip up was long and uneventful, just sitting in the back of a rented van (since we'd be shuttling Ron & Mary around) listening and humming along to hits of the 60's.

We had a quick lunch -- really beverages for the three of us -- and went to the wedding. Hot. As. Balls. It was in the sweltering heat of a vineyard. Gavin and the groomsmen were all sweating. Everyone was sweating. I was thankful I'm a pretty light sweater, but I felt a trickle of perspiration roll down my chest.

The ceremony was nice. Didn't drag too long, although everyone was antsy from the heat.

Afterward, before the reception, was a wine tasting. It was nice to get into the ultra-cooled wine cellar, have a couple of sips, and make our ways up to the reception. Let's see. We left the house at noon, got to Wine Country (Jordan to be specific) by 2, the ceremony was supposed to start at 3, and after a delay finally concluded at 5. The tasting took us past 6. Then I lost all track of time.

The first part of the reception was hors d'oeuvres and an open bar. At large events, especially when there's alcohol, I always manage to find myself in the company fo a willing female. After making as much small talk as I could handle with my brothers and dad, I turned around and there was this girl. This woman. This human female standing by the veggie platter. I introduced myself as the bride's cousin. She was her college roommate. Apparently Laura had been obsessed with her perfect wedding since she was a teenager.

We talked about how nice the ceremony was, about the food and how far she had come to be here (Vancouver.) I pledged to catch up with her after dinner. Dinner, incidentally, was an excellent beef tenderloin. I mentioned how little of my fifth grade presentation on Napoleon I'd retained, and Mary told me stories about the Duke of Wellington, and of Wellington boots in general.

It was weird. We needed to drink more.

Things got rater murky after dinner and the first round of speeches. There were a lot of really nice speeches. We were getting drunk and rowdy. Hours passed. The sun slipped under the hills.

I began to think about weddings and marriage in general. It's my second wedding but the first, with all love and respect to Amanda, was a passive affair. This was so involved. Laura planned a dream wedding and she got it, but there's so many intangibles that occurred to draw my attention to the specialness of the occasion. So many speeches about how long Laura and Gavin had been together. About what they meant to each other. About how to safeguard their love.

It hit me hard: does every marriage begin this way? With such an intense celebration of love? Nobody gets married thinking "We'll put a little effort into the wedding and break up in a few years anyway." Right? Everyone wants their version of a dream wedding, don't they? And doesn't every dream wedding, necessarily, take the form of a celebration of love, of a reminder of how great the love is between the two newlyweds? All those shitty marriages that end in divorce, do they begin with beautiful speeches about the sacredness of love, about how they knew they had the one during that one cute anecdote, that prolonged courtship and inevitable proposal? About how they were destined for each other?

I thought I was numb before, but that hit me hard. I wish Laura and Gavin the best. I do. I want what they have someday but I'm afraid for anyone who uses such heavy, important words, and then goes back on them years later. Was my parents' wedding like this one?

I was talking about it with Matt last night, how people who come from divorced parents have such a different view of marriage, a skeptical one, how people like me aren't as predisposed to be desperate to find love and settle down, but I would, I would settle if I ever felt I had found the right girl. But it's things like that that keep me guarded, that keep me from pursuing. I haven't been able to -- or really ever tried to -- explain that this is my biggest fault in dating (aside from generally not being desirable to most girls, let's face it I'm nobody's ideal) That I'm so skeptical, not judgmental, but definitely guarded and reluctant to pursue even what could be good.

I'll never be able to convince my parents they had anything to do with this affliction. They wouldn't see the connection even though Eric and I have both agreed it's at least part of the case.

So that was a thought that cropped up that I washed away in complimentary wine and not-so-complimentary Gin & Tonic. I found the ex-roomie again and hovered near her for the rest of the night, very transparently. Unfortunately, drunk Eric was on my case and I couldn't shake him. It got to the point where I couldn't stand standing next to him in a conversation and had to walk away, even when the roomie was around.

You'd think I'm somebody who needs, or could use, a wingman, but I've always done better solo. It just happens to be the case that anytime someone tries to help me out it just fucks me up. Eric probably wasn't even trying to be a wingman. So he was pretty much just blowing up my spot. Of course, he was pretty schmattered, so if I pointed this out he would have taken it badly. Best to just let it be and live to fight another day.

I distracted myself with others on the dancefloor. I look foolish when I try to move but nobody cares, I've learned, at least not unless there's video footage later. Mary was particularly popular, and that lady could shake a leg.

There was dancing, though. Arms wrapped around waists. She told me her original date was a journalist who got called away. He's not her boyfriend though. She's seeing someone back in Vancouver, but there's an age difference, he's in his late 30's, has a kid, they're in different places. I took this as a green light, or at least a "go ahead, slow." She told me her family lived in Oakville, and she was getting sick of the West Coast and considering moving out here with them (she was from Windsor rather than Oakville) and that when she did, we "had to be friends." I agreed. My presence must've seemed like a sign to her.

Eventually we found our way outside. She asked where my girlfriend was. I answered nonexistent. She asked what happened. I took this as my cue to try something different, which I had been kicking around in my head for some time. Something other than the truth. I told her I'd broken up with a girl a few months back, she moved out west, we wanted different things. No further explanation was required. She was sympathetic. I think the story had the desired effect.

Yes, it was a lie. A bare-faced goddamned lie. But girls don't wanna hear "Muh, I don't date much, I have problems finding the right girl, blee bluhh." That makes you seem like a charity case and most girls aren't into that.

I'm always trying to find ways to manipulate and control the narrative about myself, which is probably why I'm so averse to having my brothers around when I'm trying to get anywhere. This is my fist real foray into straight-up deception. I didn't think it wrong, though. She's some random girl at a wedding. Anyone she'd ask wouldn't know better. Even Eric probably couldn't say with much certainty that I hadn't just gotten out of a brief relationship before he moved back. My family seems aware that I have this whole other hidden existence that I'll just never willingly share with them.

I'm a liar and a secret-keeper and I'm awful but it works.

Of course, I don't lie to cover up misdeeds. I lie to cover up boringness. I'm a storyteller, after all.

Eventually Eric lumbered back around and again I couldn't deal with his presence. In retrospect, the theme of me quietly walking away from conversations involving him probably made me come off like (read: be) a dick. I just couldn't deal with the reality, the version of reality he brought along, as I was trying to stack up these delicate Jenga blocks of identity according to my own design.

This time I wandered back upstairs and noticed a pretty bespectacled redhead tending bar. I asked for another G&T and chatted her up, commiserating about wedding duties, family and bartending. I asked if she'd ever seen the show Party Down, because it was her life. She said no, but what a shame, because she was planning to write about event service herself. Admirable. I told her if she liked Arrested Development, she'd like Party Down. And of course, she said, she liked Arrested Development.

I was beckoned away soon after that. Dad was eager to find Eric and go. I knew where he was. He was hard to pull away. He wanted to go to an after-party and I told him this was impossible. He was not happy to hear this and tried to concoct schemes in which he could stay, but I nagged. I death-glared him. I was extremely upset with his conduct, although perhaps more indignant about it than I had a right to be, the fact remained that he had over-indulged and was starting to get belligerent. I came to the point of wanting to sock him in the face. Admittedly, it's not the nicest thing to be rushed by your family when you're having a carefree drunk good time and told it's time to go. I knew because I'd just been through it, but I'm always easier about such things than Eric. Oh, I complain, but I do my duty. Frankly, this was not the time or place for that level of insane drunkenness.

We left abruptly, then. In the car, I seethed with irritation if not rage, but he was eventually apologetic. I told him we'd talk about it later, when he was sober, and when I'd had time to calm down. He said nah, we probably wouldn't, and he was right. You know you're someone's brother when you can be murderously angry at them one night and shrug it off after a night's sleep.

Truthfully, due to Eric's conduct and my own, I'd be surprised if I ever do see her again, whether she moves to Oakville or not. Not sure what I'd say if I did. The fridge horror of me constantly abandoning them with my ass-drunk brother dawns on me and makes me look nearly as bad. "Here, he's your problem." I wasn't thinking clearly.

We got back to Oakville in good time, less than an hour, about half the time it took us to get out there. Beautiful night driving conditions. I went to bed as soon as I could and got up early the next morning to go to the store and work. Bev came in briefly to do paperwork, and it was then that we learned two of the people booked were going to be out sick, and nobody to replace them.

I've had a bug up my ass about this for a while, but I still haven't expressed it to Bev: We need more people from around Oakville. No more goddamn Brampton or Brantford people. People who can come in on a moment's notice. Lord knows there are enough people nearby who want the jobs. It's not personal, I like all the co-workers wherever they come from, but when Trevor comes in a half hour late because of traffic, what can you say?

So Kyle and I agreed to do our best working Sunday on our own, which was double fun because Kyle had to arrange New Releases. So basically I was on cash all day. Upsold a ton. Monday was a nice day off, and then Tuesday the corporates sent us a shit-ass insane sales target, which through the virtue of more rampant upselling and some very fortunately-times bulk customers, we made and beat with an hour to spare. It was a personal triumph. Which is good, because things have been tense, with the RM breathing down our necks more than usual.

Of course, there's no pleasing some people, and those people have a nasty habit of getting into authority positions.

I'm still reveling in the fact that this is my first September without school. Normally fall means adjusting to a new schedule, devising routes between classes, finding where to sit in this and that lecture hall and -- more importantly, the part I'll miss most -- scoping the girl or girls I will talk to but not do anything with.

I'm not sure how I feel that that part of my life is over.

So the big news is that after a long period of contemplation, I'm headed to New York tomorrow night. I've been thinking about it since before I knew I wasn't graduating and it was just a matter of finding the right time, and now here we are at the right time. It's just a weekend, but for so long I've been craving something that is my own. A little solitude and space. And I'll have plenty of it on a ten-hour bus ride, a weekend in a foreign city.

I planned it loosely around my friend's schedule, who I'll be staying with and what we can do. I ended up getting a new phone because my old non-committal plan wouldn't handle international calling, and being able to contact people is kind of key for this type of travel. So there's another 4-year phase of my life gone. And 6 years ago, there I was writing about my New York Trip in this blog and skimming over it, at a time when I absolutely wrote about everything, just because the experience was so overwhelming.

The kid comes around.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto