Summer Lovin'

The free hugging went well. It was steamy-hot so we didn't get many takers, but I only had one guy stare at my boobs, one guy hang around too long talking to me about his dead dog, one weirdo sit and eat a sausage sandwich behind me, and one old man come back for seconds. That's four weirdoes in two hours, or one weirdo every 15 minutes. Which, when you consider the fact that I was basically inviting every weirdo in sight to come touch me for free, is a surprisingly low number.

After the hugging I showered and changed and drove an hour and a half in my unairconditioned car to ctale's wedding. But first, a surprise! I picked up thursday, who I previously knew only through her blog, at an inn along the way. She flew in from England to surprise ctale, who we both know through time spent working with her. It was so neat to meet her! Like meeting a pen pal for the first time, I suppose. She is just as delightful and lovely and funny in person as she is in words. I'm going to try to hang out with her at the airport before she flies out tomorrow.

Anyhoo, the wedding, like ctale's story, was like a movie. (I was there when ctale and her husband met, at a diner. I was catching up with a friend I spent some serious time with when I lived in VT; her roommate at the time, D, chatted with ctale. One week later he and ctale were inseparable and now they are married and own a home and have a sweet baby girl.) The air was misty and soft and everything was just easygoing and mellow. There were sandwiches and salad to eat, whoopie pies and a candy bar, and some fantastic dancing. It felt outside of time somehow, like that French plantation scene in Apocalypse Now Redux, only without any of the horribly depressing war stuff, of course. My friend from VT was there, along with a lot of friends from the wacky publishing house I worked at in my 20's and seeing them all made me realize just how close and deep all those relationships were to me, and still are. I hold all of those people in my heart in a way I don't know that I hold a lot of the people I've met since. Maybe it's because I don't want to let people in as much anymore, a side effect of adulthood.

Or maybe it was just the mist and the moment.