I wake, like most days, grateful, but uniquely from an evening of intimacy I just wasn't sure would ever find my way around my day to day these days. Her and I banter about purple doors, a ton of "early is the new on time" and a whole mess load of country renditions. It doesn't take long for effects to be gathered, puppies bellies to be rubbed, and two unlikely hero's hobble out the mouth of the west sides greater hopes. She treats me to a delicious bagel, cream cheese, and a unusual quick bout of PDA before leaving me to this mountainous day ahead.
The sun in sharp, it scolds me for the sips of whiskey from the night previous, I laugh, flip it the most accurate finger I can fathom before heading back into the train station, and all to soon I'm tucked into one of those silver people movers. I find a good seat, pull out some Hancock, absorb what I can before my body shuts down to grab what sleep it might need for the impending endeavors. I wake up next to a mess of a women with many bags and no direction sense. From what I gather, she is trying to go north south on a train line that only heads west and I can't help but giggle at the resilience of stubbornness. Just in time, I'm hopping off the train, Geneva stop, and soon enough my good buddy is picking me up in his silver ford focus.
This wily devil, cunning dish of confrontation is one of the greater influences I dare give acknowledgement to along the perplexing novel that will one day be my life but I do it in these following pages with a lightness of heart I may have never known possible.
He's getting married...
...not to say I called it but I remember telling a couple of people.
"That women is the best thing that could have ever happened to him."
This was some years ago, back when waiting tables was the top of all of our priorities...well...everyone except for hers, but we will get to that amazing women later. For now, the droogs steal the show, the misguided men, mangling mystery and mysticism make their entrance. We drink shots of wheat grass, pick juices of extremely alarming components, and one of us (the most confident of the two man pack) even get a caffeinated beverage from a neighboring caribou but all to soon we are bidding good-byes and promising to finish a list of tasks etched onto a napkin that I just am not comfortable vouching for.
Once riding around the suburbs I'm instantly reminded why I miss this creature so very much in my day to day. THE FUCKING BANTER MAN!!! It's like, cross, hook hook, jab jab, witty comment, and when you least expect it hilarity of a hay maker finds it's mark. We came, saw, conquered, men's warehouse, best buy, and an old family haunt I'd long forgotten. In between the robotic sales associates un-equipped with ibuprofen but plenty of homo erotic humor and dogs that just won't shut the fuck up we find a rhythm as friends I was so hoping still existed.
Sean and I go a ways back, like, well, baaaaacccccccck....
It was a dusty ole bowling alley, Mayor Daily had his panties in a bunch about rave children having a good time, so some thoughtful types created a nice little nook for us to get down in at the Drake. I can't remember who introduced us but it was Bro at first sight and we took to swapping Hip-Hop, philosophy and dance at an alarming rate. Over the years we had our up's, down's, deceased friends, and variety of prideful push off's. Still though, the base of what brought us together as brothers has always shined through. Humor, movement, idealism's most of you are to chicken shit to admit exist, and but of course whiskey. None of this could have been written without the loving support of that bitter sweet spirit and our tumultuous travels through wrestling it down into something understandable. From bowling alleys, to basements, and all around the west suburbs our story these past many years has grown. Still though, the day, well, the day before the day...
Marriage!
I can't say I get it at this very moment, well, unless that one...yeah The only one...wakes up, grabs my hand and realizes these stories are for us as well. Still...
I remember her coming in for her interview, short, powerful, and still to this date best calves ever, five years running straight in Dupage County and that is clearly saying something. Back then, I was more so the fool but less aware of what that really meant. So I remember teasing her before the interview and greatly remember us bonding through out the first summer she became a part of that Jimmy's crew. Phew, with all the mess I sort through on the daily, it seems like those days spent setting up the patio at Jimmy's are to far gone but I'm still smelling what use to be as I stroke these keys and smirking a bit so I'm greatly o.k. with it all. Still though, single mother, run through from the promises of a boy struggling with what it might take to become a man, and just hoping distance might provide some sort of answer. I loved her for a variety of reasons but this really isn't about any of that. As I fight off sleep, trying to click together a proper appreciation, I still find I loved her for her courage, and to think she found someone as equally courageous to share this amazing adventure with gives me an overwhelming sense of joy I'll just call "rainbow sparkle cookie, no you can't have that pink jacket back you S.O.B."
So, uh, yeah...I'm back at the grill. It's been a little bit, Dan has had another kid, the hostess is new, still young, but almost as hot as Melissa once was (good luck ever topping that shit). The tables are the same, the clientele is, and will forever be yuppies with a myopic conception of the global reality we are very well striving to help. Still though, as soon as I pass through the doors, I feel like it's home and this is confirmed by the large (way to fucking large) glass of Jameson Dan gives me after our brief catching up. I don't know how they've done it but the entire back room is transformed into something I never knew possible in all my years working there. I guess, possibly, it's the transformative powers of love that these soon to be newlyweds exude, or possibly the extreme dedication put forth by Brooke and all the lovely friends that wanted to make this particular moment forever memorable...maybe both...Not sure...Just astonished that it's possible and greatly happy to be a part of it.
Various delicious delights dash across my plate, I get to try the rare but tasty baby Spinch, and I must say really amazing. It reminded me a lot of spinach but for some reasons a bit crisper? The sweat potatoes were really something to talk about but nothing compared to the amazing steak I sliced up and shoved down my gullet. Travis is the FUCKING MAN!!! I think for the first time in a long time he really got to express himself in a way that truly fit his vast vocabulary as a chef and all of our taste buds were greatly appreciative of every dish that came out.
Due to the large drink Dan gave me at the start of our rehearsal dinner I was only able to have one more and that is more then o.k. I'm still able to creep out various strangers, old co-workers, and a whole slue of beautiful people that just don't know what to do with unhinged honest pointed at their whatever might be's. Not soon enough though I'm stuffed back into that silver focus and we are high tailing precious cargo back to safety. In between fruit ninja swipes and what could have been done better I soak in these two love birbs preparing to leave us all behind. What comes next, most of us may never really come to fully touch but from the website I saw, there are ziplines, sustainable eats, and a whole lot of joy.
The soon to be bride jumps out the ride, the swap sweet nothings, and the groom is quickly back in the car heading us back to the homestead. Our first convo is greatly about my in ability to keep my mouth shut and realize just what should be shared with individuals. I blab...if you couldn't tell...but in this evening I find a few lessons coming up to the cleaner parts of my door step, so I accept them, and it set's the tone for the next few hours of our friendship.
We started out as young intellectuals that loved hip hop, dance, marijuana, and the natural back n forth of our combative cadences. A decade and some change later we come to find that the same things seem to make the engine run. We swap a couple of funny youtubes, stiff drinks, and not soon enough closets are getting cleaned out. I'll be eternally grateful for this night, our friendship finds the congestion, and plows right through it with the growth you can only hope will find the tougher parts. Some years back, we crossed alice through our friendship, he already just about done and me just beginning. The flux it created couldn't be resolved until many years later, on a night like this, and I'm cackling at the stack of syncronicities I'm sifting through.
We talk about the status of this large global brain we seem to be a part of, he rants about what his hopes are for his family in the height of this vast changing eco sphere, and I do my best to not laugh in his face informing him it's going to be o.k. Just as long as they love one another, stay alert, and trust the diving driving mechanism that has lead them this far. It's amazing to hear the protective nature leak out of my friends throat pipes, astonishing really to me, because up until a few hours prior I was unaware just how much he'd embraced being a father. I'm grateful for so much, blah blah blah, you probably read it through my various social networking mediums but truly and ultimately fully. I'm extremely grateful for confessions of the soul shared with two great friends, just a bit of Jim Beam, and what will be. I'm eternally happy to call Sean one of my best friends and insanely delighted to take part in tomorrows amazing adventures.
The sun creeps through the windows, brown bear has a cocky ass grin that is vaguely upsetting in my inebriated state but I know I've signed up for this ride in the rawest of available forms. Years! Maybe it doesn't mean shit to you but with every new calender I pay attention to, I clear my throat to brag about the few who make the cut in my life...or should I say...I make the cut in theirs. Just pleased as pie to let my squirley blues eyes run about these two marvelous human beings lives. Tomorrow shall be something spectacular and hopefully...maybe...with any luck, Julie will think I'm half as entertaining as I found her handshake to be.
Greetings!!!
