I went to North Carolina this weekend to attend the wedding of two of my dearest friends. So what did my weekend look like?
- Somehow I got out of the house Saturday morning at 3:30 without waking my grandmother.
- I’d forgotten just how much I liked Bryan Adams’ seminal album, Reckless. Takes me back to junior high school.
- The Washington beltway was closed to one lane at 4:30 in the morning. One lane!
- I saw the worst accident north of Fredericksburg on I-95 as I was heading south. It required seven state troopers and a massive crane.
- Aunt Sarah’s Pancake House. Broad Street. 6:15 in the morning.
- I wrote longhand in Aunt Sarah’s and drank coffee. I felt vaguely Hemingway-esque.
- I left a five dollar tip on a ten dollar check. The Apple Cinnamon Pancakes were just that good.
- I puttered around the University of Richmond for an hour.
- I skipped stones on Westhampton Lake. God, what a rancid, smelly lake that is.
- I reminisced about an autumn evening a decade ago spent on the hill in front of Boatwright Library, overlooking the lake, with S.M. and a six-pack of Sam Adams.
- At a rest area in North Carolina, I saw a redhead wearing a “Team Edward” t-shirt as I was backing out to get onto the expressway. I rolled down the window, shouted “Potato Moon!” as a lark, and sped off. She passed me twenty minutes down the road. If she paid me any notice, I don’t know.
- I drove with the window down, my left arm hanging on the door, and it became horribly sunburned in the North Carolina sun.
- Despite not having been there in three years, and despite coming at it from a completely unfamiliar direction, I found the GameStop in Smithfield on the first try.
- I saw Tina, whom I hadn’t seen in nearly three years. 🙂
- I got lost leaving Smithfield.
- I stopped in Garner and saw Jim, whom I also hadn’t seen in three years.
- I had forgotten how completely flat eastern North Carolina is.
- I had also forgotten how completely empty North Carolina is. The only state I enjoy driving through less than North Carolina? South Carolina.
- I had forgotten how blooming hot North Carolina can be in the summer.
- I had also forgotten how completely humid North Carolina can be in the summer. When I got out of the car at the Wal-Mart in New Bern (because I needed to buy film), I felt like I’d stood out in the rain for an hour while standing under a shower nozzle.
- I ironed my dress shirt, and the only injury I suffered was when I dropped the iron on my foot. The shirt turned out fine.
- I forgot how sudden thunderstorms can appear in North Carolina. I got absolutely drenched on my way to Target to buy a new battery for my camera.
- I parked in a swamp.
- I discovered how small the world is. The boyfriend of one of the bridesmaids knows Farpoint’s Renfield.
- I tied his necktie.
- I told the groom’s grandfather that the storm would break before the wedding and that the sun would come out. “It’s a damned certainty,” I said. “The wind gauge is with us.”
- The sun came out.
- The groom’s aunt looks exactly like my mother’s first cousin. This caused me massive cognitive dissonance.
- I set up chairs for the guests to sit in down on the river bank.
- Despite a dozen men setting up the chairs, after the ceremony I was only one of two men to take them down and reset them in the reception area.
- I shot three rolls of film.
- I cried buckets.
- I discovered that I really like chablis.
- I forgot that I really shouldn’t drink wine.
- The deejay had never heard of Elbow. Or Jaydiohead. And instead of playing the “Imperial March,” he played the Star Wars theme.
- “Pork Chop Sandwiches.” (Seriously. I instigated a conversation about that spoof video. And the one with the two kids on the ice.)
- I was attacked by a swarm of fireflies.
- I blew bubbles.
- North Carolina can be pitch black at night.
- I realized, with some sadness, that it’s awesome to live in a state where you can buy beer and wine in Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, Maryland is not such a state.
- By complete chance I found that the perfect chaser to a Yuengling Dark Brewed Porter is Wal-Mart’s Peanut Butter Fudge cookies.
- Alanis Morissette.
- I started to mentally assemble a “soundtrack” for writing “THOD.”
- I do not like Starbucks’ Pike blend.
- I do like Caribou Coffee’s Mint Connection.
- I gave my niece a “Care Cthulhu.”
- I bought Beamish Stout at Total Wine & More. And Highland Brewery‘s Oatmeal Porter. I can’t get either in Maryland.
- I made good time coming home. Until I reached Ashland north of Richmond, whereupon the journey took shades of The Odyssey.
- I cursed the traffic. A lot.
- I drove through downtown Fredericksburg, right past Mary Washington, because I missed the turn I was looking for.
- Pizza Hut!
- Did I mention Pizza Hut?
- No, really, that was the first real food I’d had since, umm, breakfast on Saturday.
- I hate traffic circles. Unless I’m driving around them in circles deliberately just to fuck with people. Otherwise, they’re stupid. (The intersection of US-15 and US-50, I’m talking to you.)
- The thing that kept me awake the last two hours on the road? My headache.
- I hit the bed and passed out.
And a whole lotta other things besides. 🙂