pinkhairthing

Part 1: Connie and Lance
Part II: London
Part III: Cornwall
Part IV: The Upshot

Part I: Connie and Lance
Well I haven’t been blogging in a long time because I haven’t had anything to say. That statement should send a chill through the heart of anyone who knows me even peripherally. The thing is, I have been mostly working and doing little else and I can’t really talk about my work in a public forum. Patients have their rights, and students and patients like to project onto their teachers/physicians a brilliance and sureness that I hate to tamper with too much by admissions of feelings of inadequacy, or boredom, or frustration. While those are not the prevailing feelings at all, I have just been generally clammed up. And anyway who writes about feeling fine?

But now things are interesting, and worthy of note. I went to two great and glorious weddings the last two weekends, and something is shifting in me back into the red zone. Connie and Lance got married in Gettysburg, PA on the 9-year anniversary of the first morning Matt and I woke up together, which, as fate would have it, was in Gettysburg, PA. (We were on a paratheatric getting Alice in Wonderland ready to open. He was the King of hearts, I the Duchess. A little girl friend of mine who saw it said “When Matt comes over to your house to play, he should wear his King of Hearts costume.” Matt woke me up out of a funk like I was Sleeping Beauty or some bewitched frog. Sometimes that is just what I need.) Matt and I flew into Newark and stayed with friends on the upper west side in their beautiful garden apartment. We ate steaks at midnight off a pig-shaped hibachi in a flower bed under the Manhattan sky. The next day I had a visit with my old friend Beth and her beautiful girl Audrey, who can climb a jungle gym like nobody’s business. Then Matt and I met up with Layna and Corey on 24th street, and the homobile was under way. I am not sure how it happened, but we suddenly became OK with calling everyone a homo, and did. We had a very disturbing mascot, and we made excellent time on 4 cylinders of pure power. We certainly whooped the asses of the layabout Superstars Car, although they were later to claim it “wasn’t a race.” In the end, it was we who were homo’ed, as Emily got naked out the sunroof of the Superstars car, and we just didn’t.

The first night barbecue around the campfire was fun and lots of hilarity and then some not-too-scary Gettysburg Civil War ghost stories. Saturday we got the place ready, played field games, practiced group readings of Rumi poetry, and had a meeting. Without describing too much what was a very intimate and beautiful moment, the women (including Stella and Rosemarie) had a group meditation and meeting in the yard behind the house. It was very beautiful, and an example of how a large group of friends and strangers can come together with pure love and communication. We simply celebrated Connie, a very easy thing to do. And suddenly it was a picnic, and then Cousin Hubie was playing and then we were getting dressed up pretty and sneaking around in bushes and just as suddenly we were walking down the aisle. But of course no bridesmaids of Connie’s would simply walk, so after the first few bars of decorous processional, the trumpeter busted into “There’s a place in France where the naked ladies dance” and we belly danced in the rest of the way to peals of laughter. Then Connie floated in looking just as gorgeous as is imaginable for any beautiful elated girl to look, and took her place next to delightful, delighted Lance. We shouted poetry, Lance shouted to the stars, the Moms sang a song that caused me to sob audibly and Matt had to throw me a handkerchief. A whispered message came along from the bride that the fairy lights weren’t on over our heads, and so I went over to the keyboardist and asked him to fix it. He was all ”I don’t know how to do that, I’m the keyboardist” and I was all “FIX IT. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN. DO WHATEVER IT TAKES” insane bridesmaid girl. He felt some fear, and fixed the lights. There were fireworks and kissing and then a wild strawberry barn dance. Zorick and his dominatrix sparred on the dance floor. She whooped him and straddled him and he enjoyed himself mightily. Some were aghast, some bemused. It’s Zorick. We ate cakes and bowed to our partners and swung through the night. When it was over, we were sweaty and happy and hungry and good.

The next morning we met back up at the house and had warm fresh scones and fruit salad. We smiled at old friends and watched their babies play. As always, a few of us ended up trying to figure out Gorilla Rep. Whenever a few of us Gorillas get together, it always comes back to that. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Except it was the best of times. As alienated as we are from it, I know for me it was my happiest time acting because of who I was acting with, and the material, and the locations. I was often frustrated by the process, and by some things and people not living up to their full potential, but it was nevertheless a most compelling and important part of my life.

And then it was back to the homobile and off to Newark, and London, for part II of weddingpalooza 2006. Stay tuned.