One of several rejected phrasings for the invitations

Angela Marie Ricci and Woody Frederick Pase, and the small fortune that they have spent over the last year making an insane, impractical dream a reality that they will no doubt look back upon with tremendous affection and declare it all to have been awesome, though at times it has carried with it a nimbus of folly, only in fiscal and logistic terms, would enjoy the pleasure of your society on June 16th, 2007, at 6pm, fifty stories above the hallowed ground of Philadelphia, and across the street from the glorious new headquarters of the generous and kindly Comcast Corporation, for the public cleaving together of inamorata and inamorato. Please, no children or heckling. Cocktails to follow immediately.

Quick, Quick...Slow

I am taking dancing lessons.

It was my idea.

In the School of Dance, I wear the Dunce Capezios. I take my own private small bus to the studio. When Karen, our personal instructor, tells me to put my left foot forward, I have to hop. I can't dance. I have never been able to, and I have always been okay with that. I have never desired to go out and dance. I believe it was Emma Goldman who said, "If I can't dance, then I want no part of your revolution." What a wonderful sentiment, however, my feeling has always been that if I can't sit on a bar stool and drink Irish whiskey for eleven hours, then I want no part of your revolution. I danced once, about ten years ago. It was at a Cibo Matto show at the Crocodile in Seattle, but as I recall, all I really did was jump up and down. I was high on ecstacy. I have always been a great admirer of Gene Kelly, and I love enormous dance numbers in movies. I weep with joy when I watch "Strictly Ballroom." And yet I have no desire to be a dancer myself.

That is until now. I am determined to not look like a total moron when I have my first dance with my wife. There is something glorious about watching two people move in synch, with focus and precision, and now, after thirty-two years of being a wallflower, I see that it is my time to shine. Our time, really, but this is going to be way less difficult for her. Over the next seventy-five days I will mold myself into something Swayzesque so that Angela and I will glide with style and grace to The Cramps cover of the Charlie Feathers classic "I Can't Hardly Stand It." Everyone in attendence will be blown away, while I silently pray that I don't hurt myself or my bride.

But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Today we spent an hour walking in a box. It was really fucking challenging. There is all this lining up we have to do, and a frame for me to maintain, and muscle memory to build. And I'm supposed to lead. I don't do those sorts of things. I'd be happy just doing the Groucho dance, but I'm told it is not very romantic, so this Foxtrotting Two-Step thing will have to do. In pursuit of this, I spent the better part of an hour staring into my beloved's eyes repeating "quick, quick... slow" in my head. It's my new mantra. It is a device dance instructors give you to time your steps. I have been saying it all day. Just walking around. I want it to sink in and become part of me. Quick. Quick...Slow.

I can see her smiling back at me as I say it: quick, quick... slow. I feel it beginning to find purchase.

"Awwwwww..."

Monday I purchased the tie that I will be married in.

Lesser men would make a noose metaphor right here, but I happen to love ties. And this is perhaps the most spectacular tie I have ever purchased. It is all silk, and it is lined with it's outer fabric, so it has some nice body to it, and it will no doubt produce a very bold Double Windsor come wedding day.

But I'm not here to talk about clothing. I'll save that for a later posting. I found this tie store after having given up for the day on finding the wedding tie. I was walking to spend my unspent tie budget on some comics, when I came upon this retail oasis. A store that sold exclusively hand made silk ties, and nothing else. I find such singularity of purpose admirable, so I went in.
Within minutes I had the tie. One of the clerks asked me if the tie was for St. Patrick's Day. As the holiday was days away, and the tie was green, that wasn't an unreasonable question, but why anyone would spend this much money on something that will have corned beef and cabbage thrown up on it is beyond me.

"No, " I replied. "It's for my wedding."

I was cascaded with "Awwwww..." and "Ohhhhh...", as though I had presented them with an infant covered in kittens. Then their heads tilted and their eyes twinkled, and they did that little frown-smile that people do when they are about to Happy Cry. I was drilled on the particulars: When is it? What are the colors? What are you wearing? Where is it? Isn't that expensive? What are the groomsmen wearing? Is it a big wedding? Flowers? Food? CAKE?!

So far, since I've been engaged I would say that this about the average feminine response. Their is something about weddings that seems to touch women in an instinctual way. I've had friends who always swore they would never be "that way", but no matter the size or scale of the affair, at some point the archetypal Ur-Bride will emerge. And this extends to weddings that are not even one's own. As demonstrated at the tie store, sometimes even brushing across a wedding is enough to manifest the Wedding Instinct.

What this adds up to for the groom, is an inordinate amount of female attention. It can be a deluge, at times. Like, to a degree I never had while not considering marriage at all. Well, once, on St. Catherine St. in Montreal, but that was something else entirely. Perhaps it sends a signal that I have the approval of someone in the sisterhood, and so I can be treated differently. I have expressed my willingness to commit, and so therefore I am a prized commodity. Getting engaged seems to be the sexiest thing I have ever done.

Just ask Angela.

Why "Panini Love Overdrive"?

Indeed, why?
It all started with an argument. My betrothed and I were perusing our wedding registry, as I'm sure most enfianceed couples do, dreaming of all the magnificent booty we would be awarded for loving each other. Out of nowhere she asks me to decide which of two panini presses I prefer. Previous to this, I had not even known that we were considering panini presses. I began to panic. I never really thought about panini presses, and it seemed to me that we were registered for so much stuff already (an immersion blender, a crock pot, kitchen knives, china, champagne flutes... You get the idea.), that maybe we should take it easy, and hold out for cash.
We both dug in our heels, and proceeded to have at it. I am stubborn and still cling to a perhaps immature sense of anti-materialism. Somehow, this kitchen gadget could only be used to press the corpse of my youthful idealsim into a hot, melty sandwich, and I wasn't having it. From her point of view, we were planning for a time in the future, when we would be settled and have children, and do things like cook for them. To her, it was a talisman, representing an anticipated familial bliss. If I didn't want that panini press, then I didn't want children, either.
It was unpleasent. The wedding was off, or at least we wouldn't be talking until some time after it.
Then I started to laugh. A little at first, then to the point of tears. I was engaged in the stupidest argument ever. Much more than not wanting to be the kind of person with a panini press, I never want to be the kind of person who would argue about one. If she wants it, then dammit, I want it to. We are a team. I'm not in it for the kitchen furnishings, I'm in it for her. I want this device in my house cranking out simple Italian sandwiches for my complex Italian bride.
It was decided that night that whenever wedding discussions get tense, our safe word would be "panini press". We have not had occasion to use it since then.