on weddings

Ahh. Fall weddings in the Catskills, with leaves aglow in burnt orange and red, and small dirt paths giving way to small stone churches that seat only 100 people. Yes, yours truly attended one of these such weddings in the former home of the fictional Rip Van Winkle. It was a glorious event, although missing some of the familiar highlights that make Indian weddings so special: numerous children under the age of 3 clambering onto the wedding dais during the ceremony, taking all the cheese cubes from the mattar paneer (See my favorite article on "Stuff Indians Like" that references this phenomenon here.), and of course, the dee-jay dancing to classics from "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" and Punjabi MC. Instead, we had four types of classic cuisines, a 15-member band playing everything from swing to Rihanna (at which point, anyone over the age of 30 quickly removed themselves from the dance floor), and a largely older crowd, capped off by the bride's amazingly energetic grandmother who was getting jiggy with it with the rest of them.

I wasn't expecting to know anyone at the wedding except for M. (my friend) and M. (the bride), and so was surprised when I saw a familiar face on the dance floor, his blond hair bobbing above the crowd. As a careful observer of people (and member of Facebook), there are more than a handful of random people who I know an unfortunately large number of personal details about. This specific character, C., was a musician on campus that graduated in '04 and went on to pursue his music career in New York City. Yes, I do know his sister's name and the titles of all the songs on his first CD. Yes, I also have all these songs on my ipod. And, yes, I am listening to them...now.

Later, because I saw him alone, I introduced myself and was surprised to find that our ensuing conversation was actually substantive. This was partially because he was tipsy (and therefore was willing to talk about somewhat serious topics) and for nearly forty-five minutes, two complete strangers chatted eagerly about music, idealism, grandmothers, parenthood and marriage. I was just beginning to regain my faith in the BB (or rather, NYB), when a huffy blonde (HB) staggered her way over into our conversation. The 'Huffy Blonde' wears short tight-fitting dresses, uncomfortably tall stilettos, has straight chemically treated blonde hair, and tends to use her drunkenness as an excuse for falling all over men, vapid conversation and the like.

Actual Conversation:
HB (physically falling on C.): Oh my god, I have been looking for you everywhere!
C: HB, this is P. We went to school together.
HB: Ohhhh. But where have you been?
C: I've been standing here for the last half-hour.
HB: Oh my god, no you haven't!

When this reasonable answer to her question was ignored, I knew it was time to extricate myself. With a short laugh, I muttered "I'll leave you two alone," and slid out of the reach of HB's huffiness. C. responded with a "No, no, you don't have to leave" (looking a little desperate, but it may have just been my imagination), but HB took her cue from my side-shuffle, and clung to him tighter, her whiny babble increasing in volume and annoyance. Our conversation had clearly ended.

The HB is an appeal factor that I simply cannot wrap my head around. Who wants fake, drunk, whiny and sub-par when you can have the real thing? Let me know. Let me know.