A dweam wiffin a WTF?
Sep. 19th, 2011 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleYesterday, Millari and I went to Grantham, NH to attend the wedding of Pope Geoffe of the Infinite Spellings. Due to some erroneous Google map directions, we missed most of the ceremony, but we arrived for big finish, and the party thereafter. We didn't know the bride at all, but she seems madly in love with Jeffe (and vice versa), and laughed at one of my witticisms, so she must be OK.
Good stuff about the day:
Got to see B&E, up from Cambridge (who brought along appropriate Otisian regalia for the happy couple to wear), and talk about bad movies, surviving cancer, cartooning, and other trivialities.
Got to see the one, the only Earthpig once again, making a special appearance from the Jagiellonian University. He used to be shaggy, unkempt (quasi-hippy), funny, profane, erudite, dionysian, and so much cooler than I ever could be. Now he's tidier, tweedier, with a greyer beard. And his accent is now flavored with Polish, which is a plus in my book. Happily, I'm a bit older and wiser, so I don't feel like an unworldly dolt in his presence. (As much. :) I wish he'd quit with the wisecracks about my pale unsexiness. I can't tell if he doth protest too much, or if he's genuinely worried I'm going to kiss him, but either way it reminds me of how much (more) I loathed myself back then.
Chatting with Jeff, making him laugh, and offering perhaps helpful support with the problems besetting him. I get the impression his wedding was better for M and being there.
Talking Queue (to use her fannish name), about everything. She was a senior my freshman year, and I remember her well, but I don't recall too many specifics now. I'm honestly surprised when people remember me fondly from those days, not because I don't feel memorable (I'm fairly charismatic, so folks tend to recall me, and I did some memorable stuff), but because I was terrible at understanding how I was coming across to others and thus could easily offend with knowing I was even doing it (much less how) AND because I was terrible at noticing others, and thus remembering them. And if I don't remember much about them, it's easy to think that they don't remember much about me. But apparently they do.
Anyway, Queue was intensely interesting to me. She was out about her life, her sexuality, and her life goals, with a lively wit and deadpan delivery that repeatedly tripped me up. She also has a fierce protective streak and tendency to call me on habits I barely notice anymore, like my self-deprecating humor. It was wonderful, but also hard to take when she would look me in the eyes and tell me to stop it. I'm not sure I have ever before had anyone speak to me so. It was enthralling and terrifying. I have a new appreciation for the ineluctable pas de deux between moths and candles.
Queue also writes fan fic, and so she and I and M had fun stuff to talk about there. I'm glad I outed M on that front.
Driving up and back (2 hours each way) with M, talking about stuff and sharing comfortable silence.
Tasty wedding feast. Fun party after that. Even the getting lost in the dark for a while had a pleasantly comic quality.
Bad Stuff:
I'm too fat to fit into my tux. :(
Jeff is a minister, part of the UCC, and his congregation apparently mostly adores him. A few families, who apparently control a lot of the important town offices, don't his disruptive outsiderness. They also don't like Nadine, because she was asking if the books had been audited within the past decade, and why wasn't the church conforming to fire codes, etc. So, when J started dating N, even though they were up front about everything and taking steps to avoid conflicts of interest, the UCC (which apparently functions like a national licensing board for that brand of Christianity) used regulations designed to deal with pedophile ministers to reprimand Jeff (for marrying a parishioner and otherwise failing to maintain professional distance from his flock).
The day before the wedding, they suspended him without pay for a year. If he preaches anywhere, they will permanently ban him. On the other hand, if he doesn't preach in his parish, he's in breach of contract there. Happily, most of the people in his church want him to stay, and are firmly on his side, but the whole situation is hateful and misguided. I am, admittedly, only hearing Nadine's telling of it (since Jeff is under a gag order), but I am enormously dubious that I could be persuaded that forming a deep, genuine bond of love with a mid-40s parishioner and choosing to marry her is in any way grounds for disciplinary action or moral censure. Telling him at a time which they know is just before his wedding seems to be all about vendetta, and not Christian fellowship.
Good stuff about the day:
Got to see B&E, up from Cambridge (who brought along appropriate Otisian regalia for the happy couple to wear), and talk about bad movies, surviving cancer, cartooning, and other trivialities.
Got to see the one, the only Earthpig once again, making a special appearance from the Jagiellonian University. He used to be shaggy, unkempt (quasi-hippy), funny, profane, erudite, dionysian, and so much cooler than I ever could be. Now he's tidier, tweedier, with a greyer beard. And his accent is now flavored with Polish, which is a plus in my book. Happily, I'm a bit older and wiser, so I don't feel like an unworldly dolt in his presence. (As much. :) I wish he'd quit with the wisecracks about my pale unsexiness. I can't tell if he doth protest too much, or if he's genuinely worried I'm going to kiss him, but either way it reminds me of how much (more) I loathed myself back then.
Chatting with Jeff, making him laugh, and offering perhaps helpful support with the problems besetting him. I get the impression his wedding was better for M and being there.
Talking Queue (to use her fannish name), about everything. She was a senior my freshman year, and I remember her well, but I don't recall too many specifics now. I'm honestly surprised when people remember me fondly from those days, not because I don't feel memorable (I'm fairly charismatic, so folks tend to recall me, and I did some memorable stuff), but because I was terrible at understanding how I was coming across to others and thus could easily offend with knowing I was even doing it (much less how) AND because I was terrible at noticing others, and thus remembering them. And if I don't remember much about them, it's easy to think that they don't remember much about me. But apparently they do.
Anyway, Queue was intensely interesting to me. She was out about her life, her sexuality, and her life goals, with a lively wit and deadpan delivery that repeatedly tripped me up. She also has a fierce protective streak and tendency to call me on habits I barely notice anymore, like my self-deprecating humor. It was wonderful, but also hard to take when she would look me in the eyes and tell me to stop it. I'm not sure I have ever before had anyone speak to me so. It was enthralling and terrifying. I have a new appreciation for the ineluctable pas de deux between moths and candles.
Queue also writes fan fic, and so she and I and M had fun stuff to talk about there. I'm glad I outed M on that front.
Driving up and back (2 hours each way) with M, talking about stuff and sharing comfortable silence.
Tasty wedding feast. Fun party after that. Even the getting lost in the dark for a while had a pleasantly comic quality.
Bad Stuff:
I'm too fat to fit into my tux. :(
Jeff is a minister, part of the UCC, and his congregation apparently mostly adores him. A few families, who apparently control a lot of the important town offices, don't his disruptive outsiderness. They also don't like Nadine, because she was asking if the books had been audited within the past decade, and why wasn't the church conforming to fire codes, etc. So, when J started dating N, even though they were up front about everything and taking steps to avoid conflicts of interest, the UCC (which apparently functions like a national licensing board for that brand of Christianity) used regulations designed to deal with pedophile ministers to reprimand Jeff (for marrying a parishioner and otherwise failing to maintain professional distance from his flock).
The day before the wedding, they suspended him without pay for a year. If he preaches anywhere, they will permanently ban him. On the other hand, if he doesn't preach in his parish, he's in breach of contract there. Happily, most of the people in his church want him to stay, and are firmly on his side, but the whole situation is hateful and misguided. I am, admittedly, only hearing Nadine's telling of it (since Jeff is under a gag order), but I am enormously dubious that I could be persuaded that forming a deep, genuine bond of love with a mid-40s parishioner and choosing to marry her is in any way grounds for disciplinary action or moral censure. Telling him at a time which they know is just before his wedding seems to be all about vendetta, and not Christian fellowship.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 12:18 am (UTC)You know, in the end, I feel like I got to see them very little, sadly, and strangely, since they were the people I knew the best at that wedding (including J himself). But I'm glad that they are going to do another Bad Movie Night and that we'll see them again fairly soon.
Got to see the one, the only Earthpig once agin, making a special appearance from the Jagiellonian University. He used to be shaggy, unkempt (quasi-hippy), funny, profane, erudite, dionysian, and so much cooler than I ever could be.
I don't know. Frankly, that guy gives me the creeps a little, and not in a way that I think is genuinely creepy, but in a way that makes me feel nervous around him nonetheless. I think it's a combination of his reserve and what compensating mechanisms he has managed to develop for dealing with said reserve. He has a way of making one feel like he thinks he's better than you, but something about it makes me think that he'd actually be surprised to find out that he comes across that way. I'm actually reminded of stories I heard from my junior high school best friend years later telling me that people thought I was stuck up, when actually, I was pretty much terrified of them all.
I wouldn't say he's cooler than you. He's just managed to get a middling job teaching, that happens to look way cooler because it's in Poland. Seriously, if he was at Random University, USA he'd be just another non-tenure track professor, which is nice and all, but not infinitely cooler than you or anything.
I don't know what's up with his obsession about mocking your body. I frankly found it discomfiting and weird. I suspect it's a bit of the doth protest too much, because seriously, why bother otherwise?
Chatting with Jeff, making him laugh, and offering perhaps helpful support with the problems besetting him. I get the impression his wedding was better for M and being there.
You know, I went to that wedding feeling like it was going to be the kiss-off to a relationship with Jeff that had totally declined in the last year, and I was quite surprised at how more connected I felt to him and his wife afterwards. I think Jeff is perhaps going to be one of those friendships that isn't super active, but when you do see him, you pick up right where you left off last time. Also, I was quite shocked when his mom made a point of telling us that he talks about you all the time. It may have been a bit of a mom exaggeration, granted. But I don't think she would have even mentioned it if it hadn't been somewhat true.
On to Part 2!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-20 12:19 am (UTC)I have, a long time ago. I just never have done it quite so forcefully as I saw her doing it. It made me a little sad to notice her doing it, actually. Because I think somewhere along the way, I stopped noticing how you do that, and I stopped calling you on it. It *isn't* the greatest habit, and you should stop it, because you're great, and you don't need to defeat the naysayers anymore by being the first one to beat yourself up. You don't believe in yourself much, and you don't give yourself enough credit, and I think if you did, you'd be surprised how much credit you'd see reflected in others' eyes.
Queue also writes fan fic, and so she and I and M had fun stuff to talk about there. I'm glad I outed M on that front.
You know, I told her later that I was glad you did too, because while your habit of doing such things occasionally makes me cringe, almost always, cool moments come out of it. I just never learn to not cringe at first. ;)
Driving up and back (2 hours each way) with M, talking about stuff and sharing comfortable silence.
Yeah, I felt like we had real conversations, which we haven't got to have as many of lately. I feel like you have been working more nights lately, when I thought the whole schedule change was supposed to have you working *fewer* nights!
I am enormously dubious that I could be persuaded that forming a deep, genuine bond of love with a mid-40s parishioner and choosing to marry her is in any way grounds for disciplinary action or moral censure. Telling him at a time which they know is just before his wedding seems to be all about vendetta, and not Christian fellowship.
Those people sound truly hateful. Btw, this didn't seem locked, and given that J. is under a gag order, you might want to flock this, so it can't possibly have any chance of getting picked up by mistake on the web and biting J. in the ass with unfair accusations of violating his gag order. Finding out this weekend that your sort of friend from 20 years ago at college knows