Potpourri X

That Magical Sound

I was in Boston over the weekend, and on Saturday, I was lying around Jennifer's apartment when I heard that sound, that magical sound that as a kid, made me run through brick walls (in our case, plaster walls) to satisfy my needs...

The Ice Cream Man.

That jingle was unmistakable, and when I heard it, I'm sure I looked like a dog that just heard that the food dish was full, or a frat guy that heard the satisfying sound of a large metal barrel being rolled through the kitchen, or the look of a wage worker that hears those magical words from the head of HR or the mail guy every two weeks: "Paychecks, people!"

I nearly turned an ankle running down the stairs to the front door and out to the street, where there were a number of other adults and kids panting with singles in hand looking to pepper the good-natured Ice Cream Man with words of affection. In return, they got exactly what they needed to suffer through a 65° afternoon--Nestle Crunch bars, ice cream sandwiches, Nutty Buddies or my fave, the Bomb Pop, that all-American bag of funk, a multicolored popsicle deluxe that is more artificial than Britney's chest but just as satisfying to the eye. I slapped down three singles--two for delights, and one for a tip, which made the Ice Cream Man look at me like he hadn't seen someone deliberately put down a tip since the Dawn of Man--and walked away with the other children, hand-in-hand and chirping along like Homer did in that famous "Simpsons" episode where he was lost in the world of chocolate.

Call me old school, but why don't we as Americans celebrate such joys as the Ice Cream Man every time he rolls down the street? Have we lost all touch with humanity when we don't run outside and pay tribute to something so sacred, so beautiful, so untarnished by the test of time? Dammit people, get out there and buy yourself a Klondike!

International Weddings

My mom and I were talking tonight about my cousin Ron, who is getting married in Mexico this fall, much like my friends John and Tiffany Ayers did back in April. Mom summed it up fairly well. We're just regular people, people that don't have much in the way of frivolous money to spend on wedding trips to Charlottesville, let alone ones in Mexico, the Bahamas, or abroad. Worse, we are concerned about how many family members will have to bail out on the fall wedding because they can't afford the plane ticket to head down there. (Admittedly, I probably would have gone to the Ayers' wedding had I a job when the time came to buy tickets. But it would have been tough on the pocketbook nevertheless.)

I have heard all of the reasons over the last four years why people like to have their weddings in exotic places.

"There's this setting that we can't find anywhere else."
"Think of it like a week-long vacation!"
"That's where we got engaged!"
"If everyone does make it out, we'll have more time to spend with all of our friends and family, since it's in a place where it'll only be us."
"Hey, if you can get a cheap ticket, and don't mind bunking up with a few other folks, it really does turn out to be pretty cheap. Oh, and don't forget that you have to rent a car, and eat for four days. And, don't forget about our gift."

For me, though, there's only two reasons for having the international wedding:

One, or both, of the folks getting married has to be from the site of the ceremony.
The twosome met at the wedding site.

Even with these two reasons, I still think that for my own wedding, I'm 99% against the foreign ceremony. I want everyone in my family and my close friends to be able to come, and if I have the wedding in Rio de Janeiro, there's a good chance that my grandparents won't come, a good chance that my entry-level advertising friends in New York City, teacher friends in DC, and bike messenger friends in San Francisco are going to have to bail, and a good chance that my bro--a high school basketball coach--might really have to struggle to get the cash together to attend my own wedding.

Hey, I'll grant you that if you are set on having your wedding at a castle, or on an island, or featuring the Great Wall of China as your reception area, you are going to have a tough time having your wedding anywhere stateside. Maybe I'm single, but why not just have your wedding in a place like West Destin Beach, Florida, where my friends Claudia and Ant got married, and then go somewhere exotic for the honeymoon? Destin was a perfectly beautiful place to have a wedding, and it wasn't crazy expensive to fly there or stay there, and we were still able to hang out with the wedding party for three days in a relatively isolated locale.

Mom made the point--a valid one--that couples having the foreign ceremony are basically telling many members of the family that they will hopefully not come to the wedding; for friends, it's a different story, because I think you are really having the ceremony abroad to have a big-ass party with all of your friends. Really, when you are asked by one of your boys to be in the wedding party for a ceremony in Rome, don't you kind of have to go? Even if you don't have the $1200 for airfare, hotel and food for five days? I take shit from my friends Mandy and Wim Taylor for not going to their wedding three years ago; even to this day, I know I didn't have the money to go, but the guilt-tripping for this kind of thing (come on, everybody ELSE is going...don't you have the money?) has just gotten out of hand.

Call me old school, but don't you want to have your wedding in a place where all of the people you care about can go? I guess one day, when I am Justin Bell, Famous Writer, I will be a huge celebrity and be able, like John Travolta's recent 50th birthday, be able to fly 200 people to an isolated island and drop $100,000 on a bash. But, until that day, I'll have to play it domestic.

Two Showers a Day

We had a run in mid-May where we hit 90° or higher for like six straight days...and, it seemed like each one of those days, I had to umpire two or more games in addition to hitting the day job, and the sweat was soaking through the boxers by the time the day was done.

One of the adjustments that I wasn't looking forward to so much was the fact that DC is essentially one large swampland, and the humidity was clearly not missed while I was living in California. I have gotten back to that mode of living that I love--two showers a day when the going gets tough. The second shower of the day, especially when it comes in the afternoon, seems to almost always feature my favorite thing about the summertime shower: dripping with real beads of sweat just seconds after stepping out of the shower, making you wonder why the hell you just showered in the first place.

Most urbanites are disgusted by hearing stories of their friends that go camping, being away from taking hot showers for two or three days at a time. I'm sure there are studies out there by now that show that if you don't shower every 24 hours, you are 50% more susceptible to completely-unrelated diseases and injuries, like AIDS, lice, breast cancer or Tommy John Surgery. (I can just see it now; I walk into Kaiser and complain about migraines, and the doctor replies, "Did you shower yesterday?")

Call me old school, but what happened to the days of yesteryear when you took showers like twice a week? Sure, you may not have had that fresh, invigorating scent that made the lovers swoon, but you were happy, cause you weren't bogged down with such annoying worries as "Damn, I wonder if my swamp ass is noticeable to the guy sitting across the aisle from me?" or "Hopefully, the grocer doesn't notice that I haven't cleansed my 'pits in four days..."

Social Mortality

My friends Brandon and Anne Pugh are building a house somewhere down Route 66, very west of town, like Manassas or Ashburn or Dulles or something like that. I have told the couple--currently residents of Vienna--that once they do that, the number of times that I will even vaguely consider visiting them will go from "any time the Pughs have a party" to "housewarming and Christmas parties only."

Not because I don't like those two, but because even living off the highway in Maryland we're talking about a solid 45-minute drive, maybe an hour depending on the fickle traffic pattern of 66 during the daytime on the weekends. Getting a big house for the right price is pretty hard anywhere closer than Manassas these days, so the Pughs had to move out a ways to get the space they wanted for the right price, and the result of that?

Social mortality.

A move like this--in many ways similar to moving ANYWHERE in Maryland, which has truly become comedy to me; people continuously deflect invitations to come out to Ye Olde State of Marry-Land as if it is a three-day horse-and-buggy trip from fucking Arlington--can kill your otherwise energetic social life. Dinner parties are harder (unless all of your friends live in your preferred destination), getting up the strength to hit happies in Dupont becomes quite difficult (go home from work, then drive an hour to the city?)...hell, going to a Redskins game from Ashburn--where the 'Skins coincidentally have training camp--could take the whole day with the round-trip drive.

Call me old school, but I like being within a radius of my friends and family where I don't have to sweat through whether or not I really want to make the drive to see those people. I'll never live far enough away from people to make that decision difficult, because if it's between an hour-long drive to watch the game with friends or watching the game solo, well, Mario Van Peebles wins that bet every time. (Mario Van Peebles reference courtesy of Justin Bell, Silver Spring, Maryland.)

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

Direct deposit: Opening Weekend
Handsome South End loftspace...with no cable: $9.50 Show
Boston in the summertime...knowing that any second, it could start snowing: Matinee
Rain on Barbecue Day: Rental
The Nick and Jessica Variety Show: Hard Vice

bellview--i love to nibble

Potpourri X: Call Me Old School...