Boogers

What a weekend! There are few things that say: Your life in Chicago doesn’t completely blow like freezing half to death in the desolate wasteland of parking lots and onramps that is suburban Roseville Minnesota. My favorite part about the Mnpls/St. Paul area is the fact that there are two Perkins on every block and no one talks. You have to love a place where you can walk into a restaurant that has 15 tables and 45 families on the wait list and be guaranteed a booth in about 10 minutes - fastest restaurant turnover ever (When I got back to Chicago I kissed the cracked and broken glass infested sidewalks and the gangbanger who beat me up and stole my wallet.) But the trip wasn’t all sitting in Superdude apartment getting high on jammers. Oh no! There were all kinds of excitement and subterfuge to be had.

Of course, there was the typical stuff: sneaking backstage at venues, creating a false identity built around the recent publication of a debut novella that scored like 10 phone numbers at a bar in Minneapolis and drinking Tennessee whiskey in a sauna while discussing hedge funds and cheesecake recipes. Yet there was also the wholly unexpected or, to coin a phrase, I saw the face of The Other; leaving me bedazzled, brought up short, beholden and whatever other probing and innovative synonyms our great European philosopherzzz think of next.

I’m talking about meeting the Face of another recently married person at The Wife’s friend’s wedding reception in Lakevillemenhanaia Grove. There are few bedazzlements so pure and alien as the one that assumes you are a kind and caring newlywed who enjoys talking about it:

NewlyWed: Let me ask you a question. Do you want Heather to shave her legs ever day? Because my lovey-boat-of-loyalty thinks I should.
Working Boy: Do I know you?
N.W. Of course! We are a brother and sister in Christ, alumnae of Bible College America and we also have partaken of the same holy vows of holy matrimony with our one and only soulmate.
W.B.: Are you hitting on me? Because you should know I’m the author of a novella entitled, The Blackout, which just came out on Sparrowhead Press. It’s all the rage outside the no smoking bars in Minneapolis with like 10 chicks.
N.W.: Are you hitting on me?
W.B: I don’t know...Am I?
N.W.: What?
Wife: What are you talking to that newly wed about?
W.B: I can’t even begin to possibly understand how the think about answering such a question.
Wife: What?
W.B: I'm a human being I have needs.
N.W. : What?
Wife: What!
W.B: What?

This went on for quite a while. I’ll spare you the sordid details but I will say by the time it was all over I wasn’t sure who I was married to and who I hated. And no amount of sparkling apple cider could help me figure it out.