I'm a smart guy. I'm good at memorizing lots of little things. But then sometimes I forget big ones.
Like, sometimes I'll be rattling off a movie quote, and then turn to one of my friends and go, "Did you see that one?" And they give me a look like I'm remedial and they go, "I saw that WITH YOU."
Oh. Right. Sorry.
So I got this email that I was invited to this wedding. On the other side of the country. Well, that's the sort of thing I tend to dig, socially. I've been known to sip wine on the beach in California, to swallow bourbon on a rooftop in Chicago, to dance at a castle deep in the woods of North Carolina. I enjoy meeting people. They seem, afterward, to enjoy having met me. So why not?
Then the next day I reread the ewedding.com post a little more thoroughly, while I was sober. And I realized no one was getting married at all. It was, rather, a fake symbolic wedding. So, sort of a stunt pulled by faux-rebellious types who think they're above the concept of marriage. Which I found a little creepy. But I had already bought the plane tickets.
Upon arriving in Portlandia, I was somewhat put off by its bizarre failure to be a real place. I live in New York City, which means that buildings go up, and people who have real jobs wear suits. A bunch of hoodied slackers shouldn't be able to label themselves a cultural hub just because their suburb has some nearby bridges they can bike over. But whatever, dude! Take another hit off your bong smoke! You'll be important someday!
However, when I got to the house where I'd be crashing, for some reason, I got a warm welcome. The inhabitants were pretty strange - I couldn't even be sure they were friends, because they seemed to be from four different social circles with divergent dress codes. One was an anarchist hippie who kept stuffing food down my throat and then making me wash her dishes, because my presumptions were too gendered. One was a fedora-and-slacks-clad hipster who kept wanting me to sing along with him, like this was Snazzy Camp or something. One was a stylish, clean-cut guy who kept relentlessly "inventing" new cocktails because he was bored with his own homebrew, and the last was a skinny teenage girl in a frilly dress, like a wannabe librarian, who kept contradicting every statement I made during the few occasions she was capable of standing.
But deep down, they were good kids. And all their friends, who were also, each and every one, distinctively outlandish in that passive-aggressive attention-seeking way, seemed like somewhat decent folks too. And they made a lot of jokes and references which I didn't get, but I would just, you know, smile and nod, and have a good time anyway, even when a mountain man began telling a tale of an immortal lightbulb who was hidden in a German's colon. Even when a bunch of Canadians started playing this weird accordion-washtub roots music in the basement. (They seem like a very polite, hirsute people, and I hope they can one day afford electricity.) Even when everybody took their goddamn pants off.
Many hours and many, many drinks later, as I pivoted on the porch, waving goodbye, a hand-lettered sign in the window caught my eye. It said simply, "HEAD WEST!"
And I thought, Oh wow. Deja vu.
And then I realized, I had been to this exact same party, in the exact same city, with these exact same people, five fucking years before.
You'd think I would have remembered their names. You'd think I would have known all the in-jokes. You'd think I would have been back there before now.
So, yeah. Sorry about that.