This past weekend was a bit of an emotional roller coaster.
On Friday evening, I went to the memorial service for my fellow chorus member Devin, who died a few weeks ago of lymphoma at age 33.
The service was at the church where our chorus rehearses every week (although it wasn’t a religious service). There must have been at least 200 people there, and there were several terrific, heartbreaking eulogies. Our chorus sang two pieces, and let me tell you, it’s hard to keep it together when tears are pouring from your conductor’s eyes while he waves his arms. I’d never seen him cry before. It was… hard.
In a completely different vein, on Saturday night I teared up again but this was for a good occasion: I went to a same-sex wedding for the first time. This was for a friend of mine whom I met about seven years ago. He and his partner have been together since the summer of 2001 (when they were in their mid-20s), and they finally decided to tie the knot. It wasn’t a legal ceremony — they will do that later in Canada — but they wanted the big celebration to be in New York, since they live here. And they did sign some legal papers during the ceremony, in the presence of a lawyer.
The event was at the Prospect Park Picnic House in Park Slope. The program contained silhouette drawings of the two grooms. The grooms processed in to Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors.” Someone sang an operatic rendition of “Simple Little Things” from 110 in the Shade. There were delicious hors d’oeuvres, and the main meal was served buffet style – a “comfort station” containing macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, salad, and something else that I can’t remember – and all that, too, was delicious.
The event was so wonderful and tasteful and I think my friend has a second career as a wedding planner if he wants it.
On Sunday afternoon we had a respite from all the emotion. We went to see an Off-Broadway play: Things We Want, starring Peter Dinklage, Paul Dano (the depressed mute teenager from “Little Miss Sunshine”), Josh Hamilton, and Zoe Kazan. We were in the front row of this small theater, pressed right up against the front of the stage, and we were therefore THISCLOSE to Josh Hamilton in his underwear. And Peter Dinklage, not in his underwear. And Paul Dano, who had his shirt off at one point and is completely skinny with not an OUNCE of body fat on him. We were close enough to see that his belly button is an outie, which always skeeves me out a bit (as do uncircumcised dicks, but that’s beside the point).
The play was okay – it was well acted, with great dialogue, but I didn’t buy the second act at all.
So that was my weekend.
This week I’m going to make two quiches to bring to my brother and his wife’s apartment for Thanksgiving. I’ve never baked a quiche before.
If real men don’t eat quiche, what does that say about someone who bakes quiche?
Anyway… wish me luck.
Good luck on the baking! I have to think of something to bring to Thanksgiving dinner with the mayor of our sleepy little village and his boyfriend. Everything always has to be “fancy” with them: they can’t have normal turkey but rather some kind of spicy Indonesian recipe they brought back from Bali, and the pureed squash has to have duck in it.
I also share your reaction to uncircumcised dicks. My guess is that because mine is circumcised and mine is the penis I’m most familiar, an uncircumcised penis is radically different and strange. Then again, I know cut guys who can’t get enough of foreskins. For them, the alien in this regard elicits fascination rather than repulsion. To each his own, I guess.
As long as you just bake the quiche and don’t eat it, your credentials as a Real Man (whatever that means) will remain unchallenged.
Happy Thanksgiving…. a time to remember that “you are what you eat.”
It is impossible to mess up a quiche.
Is that because they are easy or because they are “messed up” by their very nature? :-)
I LOVE Josh Hamilton. I’m so jealous you got to see him in his underwear.