Wings

Diet? Who's on a diet? Okay, so we agreed to take the weekend off to enable ourselves to enjoy our travels to Buffalo, New York to see Don and Jen get married. We both signed up for the prime rib dinner (disregarding the vegetarian lasagna as an option), but there was also the fact of eating lunch in Buffalo, New York - what else but signature wings? Our boss went to college in Buffalo and recommended Duff's in Amherst.*Everything has gone really well for us the past couple of days, beginning with meeting Jeff and Lauren in the Park to see Patty Griffin Thursday night. Some other gentleman played for about an hour, and after he was done Craig and I wandered out to grab a glass of wine. We sat down on a bench and the bench immediately next to us was occupied by none other than the lovely and funny Megan Mullally. At first I didn't really believe Craig, who was facing me, when he said he thought Karen (her Will & Grace character) was sitting over my shoulder. But I looked, and alas, it was her! Craig took a picture of "me" with her behind me. Then our friend Shanta, who had given Jeff, Lauren, Craig and me the free tickets (Shanta works at Joe's Pub and the event was called "Pub in the Park", hence Shanta was working at the event) walked by - we saw her and whispered, "Shanta, Karen from Will & Grace is right over there!" and the gentleman with her, also with Joe's Pub, walked Shanta over to meet Megan. Ha! Funny. She was surrounded by a couple of friends but she was just casually there to see Patty Griffin - I love being star struck! Anyway, Patty Griffin was amazing. Craig was speculative going into it, not sure that he'd have a grand time at a chick folk rock concert, but I, of course, have never, ever let him down in the realm of female music performances (Kristin H., Liz Phair, Sleater-Kinney, Tegan & Sara...he's loved them all!) but he was extremely impressed with Patty. She sounded so good! So then we came home and had a Carlsberg together while I played him various songs of hers from my old college days. She almost had me in tears at the show, primarily because I was there with such a great old friend from IU (Lauren) who helped me love Patty back then, too.*Friday, then, we woke up and showered and headed to LaGuardia. Cabbed it there, easy check in, picked up an armload of magazines (I use flying anywhere to satiate my utter addiction to magazines of all shapes and sizes - People, Cooking Light, The New Yorker because Sharon [writing] 's husband has a cartoon published in it this week, and a Time Out New York for Craig...he loves it and I think we're going to subscribe to it) and boarded our on-time flight and off we headed to Buffalo. We landed on time, grabbed our rental car, cruised to Duff's and the above pictured was the result, later yielding quite the ferocious bellyaches for the two of us who are now so conditioned to healthy eating that one bad binge can make us feel like we're being stabbed repeatedly in the gut. But it passed quickly, and we headed to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. The ceremony and dinner were held in the same room - short, but sweet ceremony, and we were seated at our assigned table. Let me digress. I haven't mentioned Sharon and our first meeting last week. It went well - but of course, as in any first "class" meeting, not as much was accomplished as I would have liked. I had only submitted 4 pages to her, and it is such rough draft work that we wound up re-inventing the way in which I intend to write it altogether (tomorrow's task). But sitting there in the dim light of her small Brooklyn character-ridden kitchen, with its old appliances and open window and unique textures, poring over the differences between poetry and fiction, the qualities of writing, characters, structure and intentions, the trading of author names and ideas, I just felt right, somehow. So it went very well, in actuality. And she amazes me with her brilliance. So anyway, one of the last things we discussed was numbers. I told her my only real connection with numbers at all, considering I was a fine math student back in the day but I resisted its practicality therefore I never really practiced at it, is the number 4. She then informed me that the number 4 is unlucky in Japan because Japanese for 4 is shi, or death. In Chinese shi is poetry. She rattled off some more interesting trivia and I explained to her that the number 4 has seemed to crop up in more addresses that I've had than not, and additionally I am an April baby, hence my fascination with 4. So, that said, we arrive at the wedding and at what table are we seated? Of course it's mere coincidence. Back to the ceremony - it was brief, which, considering they've been engaged for 5 years now, was rather a pleasant surprise. Nothing against Don and Jen in saying so, but wedding ceremonies tend to really just drag on, and I know it is more about the couple and their love than about the audience, and I know someday Craig and I will be standing there looking mushy into each other's eyes and people will be restless in their seats and ready for the open bar, but hopefully we can learn from the brevity of last night and just get to the point of tying that knot like they did. Nice work to Jen's aunt that planned the wedding. There was wine, and more wine, and lots of wine and dancing (Craig and I don't typically hit the floor until we're pretty well lit because frankly, neither of us knows one bit about dancing however it did prompt him to suggest a dance class before our wedding - I declared salsa! - and we won't tell a single soul [readers, vault this] and then when we have our "first dance" we'll put on a total show and wow everyone in attendance) - but anyway, so it takes quite a bit of liquid courage before we're out there acting like we know what we're up to. But it's fun, and it sobers us up substantially too. We weren't driving back to the hotel (I demanded possession of the keys immediately to ensure a strict No Driving policy) so we definitely enjoyed ourselves, I will say that. We met some nice people, too. I guess I...I'm not necessarily a people snob, but I do like to engage myself in my free time with people with which I select to spend my time. My time is so limited these days that if I'm going to go somewhere with someone (almost always also with Craig, that is, because he is the sole winner of the Person With Whom I Want To Spend Most Time Award - ha, lucky him!) I want to know in advance that our interests are similar, our conversations will be worth it, et cetera et cetera. This particular Friday evening I didn't have any say, and nothing again against Don and Jen, because they have wonderful family and friends, but Craig and I really didn't have a ton in common with many in attendance. So, there were awkward moments, I suppose, but it happens. After wine and good food and dancing, of course, everyone in the room is on the same playing field.*There was an oil painting outside of the banquet room depicting a girl in a red dress very similar to mine last night. She's leaning against a piano and looking down. I pointed it out to Craig and he took a closer look and said, "Hey! It's Kristi!" I secretly love when he calls me Kristi, too, so I glowed. (Kristi is a name I will go by only reserved for people my mom calls "in the Circle," seeing as I grew up being called that and pretty immediately, as like a 5 year old, changed it to the more "grown up" version of my name with an "n" at the end. But Craig started calling me Kristi way back and he only does it in small spurts.) (That was a lengthy and irrelevant description but I'm getting sleepy and am too lazy to really amend it.) We were driven back to the hotel, passed out pretty good, and woke this morning to shower and have free breakfast in the lobby. It was alright - I ate a spoonful of scrambled eggs, a sausage patty (not good!), a small amount of potatoes and a blueberry fat-free yogurt. Craig took a cab to the banquet hall to grab our rental car and I packed up our stuff. Then we headed to Buffalo Airport, whatever it's called. There was a large gathering of Korean children all toting instrument cases and wearing the same shirts which read "something - Orchestra" so we raced ahead of them to the security line, although that was a vain effort considering they all lined up in the same queue, for some reason. And once through security, the magazine selections were pathetic and couldn't hold a candle to the selection at LGA. So I wound up with Health and Elle. Health is good - I like it cover to cover, but Elle is chunked with so many ads and perfume samples that it's nearly impossible to read. Health dimmed my mood somewhat momentarily, considering almost every single article preaches about aging and how at 30, you may as well beg the reaper to haul you away, but then I looked at it from a "glass half FULL" perspective, that being one of "think how fun of a challenge it will be to try to stay youthful as an aging adult." My optimism only arrived with the much-awaited start of my period yesterday morning at LaGuardia, considering most months my emotions the week prior range from impatient to antsy to unpredictable to psycho, and then the thing finally shows itself and it's like the weight of the world is lifted. And as for Elle, well, I did read an okay Reese Witherspoon article (Elle interviews are so abstract and go nowhere, it would seem) and a Steve Carell one (he is going to shine in the Dan in Real Life movie, I can't wait...) but overall, I didn't walk away with much. So I hereby table my magazine addiction until the next time I fly. Oh, and notably, we did board the plane at Gate 4 in Buffalo.*I'm really enjoying my Saturday. We landed at noon today, easily grabbed a cab and were home before 1. It was raining a little but it doesn't matter because we just wanted to get to the apartment and relax. We ordered yummy burritos from newfound Sabor a Mexico on 1st Ave (we have the whole weekend off and next week it's back to the diet grind...although, I suppose I may as well refer to it more as a lifestyle now, since that's what it has become) and I've downloaded all the photos from the wedding, scrutinizing each photo of the two of us for pores and wrinkles in my face (all thanks to Health), and soon I nap. Tonight we have great seats at Pygmalion starring Claire Danes. It's her Broadway debut, and while I am so excited to go to the theater with Craig, as always, I'm ecstatic to see Claire live and in the flesh. Craig and I are really compatible when it comes to female celebrities. We share the same respect for many of the same women who are silverscreen beauties but more offbeat, such as Zooey Deschanel, Maggie G., Parker Posey (that's more me than him), and Claire falls right in step with our faves. In fact, 1994 found me curled up on the couch at my parents' cradling the phone in my ear crying with my friend Stacia over My So-Called Life more than once. So I've always loved Claire. Now she's a matured person and prettier and more interesting than ever. I'm so excited. Craig and I saw Anne Heche on Broadway years ago, and we were so in awe...star struckness...who cares. It happens to some of us. It might be a matter of respect for what they do. I just know tonight will find us gasping in the same gasps as when the curtain lifted to reveal Anne Heche lying on the stage in Proof back then.*I suppose I've said enough. I don't get to do this as often as I'd like so I guess I'm over-compensating. I love New York, I love New York. I love my endearingly terrific roommate and best friend and everything, who naps to football right now. It's fall, and I'm ready.