The Great Adventure. Part 1: Before Cana.

DIARY

August 1st · Monday

I was the very last person on the plane to Columbus, and as such was seated in the very front row between an overly chipper MBA from Chicago and an excessively grumpy and overweight Ohioan ("We gonna hit the mud!" he said at one point. "Oh, well maybe we can aim for the grass... or the water," reassured the flight attendant. "No. The mud.")

Jess picked me up at the airport at about three, bringing along one of our pieces of luggage that had been torn on her flight several days earlier. As I waited for my own bag to arrive, she went to customs to stake a claim. When I got the bags I exited to the Southwest claims terminal, and discovered there a very unhappy Jess. We'd have to file a grievance. Filing a grievance involved writing Southwest within twenty-one days, waiting for their response (which would take somewhere from two weeks to forever), and then sending the ripped luggage to Texas and having it replaced.

This was an omen of great significance... our travels would only unravel from here.

We drove out to Easton, a weird suburban twilight zone, where everything is separated by huge chucks of chemical grass and sprawling concrete, where even the gas stations and little apartments and trees look eerily retail.

The whole place felt like a ghost town. We stopped first at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond to pick up our comforter (which had just gone on sale), and then stopped at Trader Joe's to buy wine for the wedding.

Then, baking in the sun, we rode on down to Zanesville and sorted things out for the rest of the night. Jess and Jeff and I took Julie's dog, Brooklyn (a premonition? I'm glad the girl didn't name her dog Newark) for a walk down at the Muskingum County Fairground, one block from Jess' house. That week, I slept in Jeff Jr.'s room. Jessica slept in Jeff's room. Jeff was slept Julie's room. Julie slept on the couch.

August 2nd · Tuesday

Jess' twenty-fourth birthday. We had cake in her honor.

First, though, Jess, Julie, and I drove down to the Colonial Square Mall, to get our hair cut for the wedding. Jess skimmed through all the fashion books looking for a good haircut for me, but finally had to resort to the kids' book, from which she selected a simple, ten-year-old's pageboy cut.

Jeff and Jess and I then stopped at an industrial office supply store where we picked out the plastic cups and plates, the napkins, the forks and knives and spoons, then headed on to an outlet store for Coke products, and on down to K-Mart (South End) for Pepsi products. On our way back we stopped at TravelLodge to confirm that they had retained all of the reservations we'd reconfirmed after they'd lost them. They confirmed that they'd lost the reconfirmation. So we rereconfirmed. Great stress followed.

That evening, we drove out to Becky and Bill's outside cambridge Cambridge, ate pizza from the hamlet of New Concord (birthplace of astronaut John Glenn and one William Rainey Harper) and stayed out until one, talking about moves and religion and travel.

August 3rd · Wednesday

My birthday.

Our first excursion took us to the historic courthouse where we purchased our marriage licence and learned that Father Mike was not registered in Ohio. In Ohio, an unregistered priest cannot marry a couple. We discussed alternatives, then hurried up the road to St. Nick's where Father Leo reassured us that he would sign the certificate, and had confirmed the arrangement with Father Mike.

Relaxed, from this, we went on to Adornetto's (the Pizza people come home for) to work out the final food arrangements for the reception: how many pizzas, how much sad, how many pizza warmer's) and so on.

To celebrate my birthday, Jess proposed a picnic, so we cast about downtown looking for a spot, but it was uncomfortably hot, so we finally settled for Nichol's on Putnam. Wonderful, great, cheap Ohio food. I ordered a Slawdog, a variation on a chilidog swimming in coleslaw. It sounds weird, but was actually delicious.

Incidentally, if the whole writer thing doesn't work out (and maybe if it does), I want to open a restaurant featuring all the regional variations on the weiner from around the country. Flint coney, Detroit coney, Grand Rapids coney, and Zanesville slawdog.

After a few hours to rest up from all this, we set out to the St. Nick's fest for music, popcorn, pizza, beer, and conversation. I knocked back three Bud Lights and talked to Jess' Aunt Sally. Up in the tent, on the stage, a band of seventeen year olds played some of the most varied and verstatile covers (including Led Zappelin, natch) I think I've heard from kids that age. There was definitely an air of the elementary school craft fair, with pie givaways and gateway gambling for kids, but more rides and better energy than I remember from my own childhood. We got a mountain of decadent funnel cake, and returned home.

The days had been counting down. I could begin to feel the wedding pressing in, close.

August 4th · Thursday

Thursday is the day when everything got thrown out of order.

We got up and hustled out to ArmCo Park where Goss Rental had arrived a day early to set up the tend. We carried the tent from the back forty up to the back twenty, and set up tables and chairs with the help of Jess' uncles. Flush from that adventure, Jess and I raced down to St. Nick's by ten to meet with the cantor, who would help us select the music and also walk us through our organ options (I'd been armed with several suggestions by our family friend, Susan Harvey). She rolled us through the ceremony and making suggestions, and from there we went out to Uncle John and Aunt Sue's, where Jess was to have her final dress fitting.

She'd forgotten the shoes. Which I had to go pick up. Which was just as well, frankly, since there wasn't anything I could do to help with the fitting.

After a long visit with John and Sue, we stopped out at Colonial and shopped (with some, limited, and frustrating success) for "thank you" gifts for our wedding party. I'd have to continue, the next day.

And finally, we went out to South Zanesville (that strange land knowns only as "Maysville" -- by Prophet's Park) to confirm our program with Robyn, the photographer.

Exahusted and exhilerated, we rolled back home through the hills, and as we parked (with Brooklyn barking manically) we saw Jess' dad through the window on the computer... except he didn't often use the computer.

"Wait a minute," I said. "That's my dad." And it was. On the way down, there had been complications involving Aunt Peg's dress for the wedding and Cody picking up Caitlin in Cleveland, and they had gotten all misplaced. It took several hours to sort my family out, and when we finally did, we had the opportunity to carry many heavy flowers down into the basement, to keep cool.

We'd been watering the flowers, all this week, and now with the new additions, and my mom and Peg setting up a subterranean headquaters, the basement was swimming in sweet and pheramones.

Finally, we went to bed. I volunteered to get up at 6:30 to let my mom in. It was after midnight.

August 5th · Friday

Now we've walked a full week towards the wedding. I'd anticipated this sprawling and expansive (and in my mind, smoothy oiled) week to relax before it all comes down since the beginning of summer, but I was more surpised by the speed of each day than I was by the business involved.

On Friday I woke up at 6:30 but dozed on until things got rolling around 7:30. We unloaded more flowers.

In the morning we set up chairs and tables at ArmCo for several hours, Caitlin and Cody and both families helping and running around for several hours, before I rushed out to Colony Square to finish getting gifts.

Jess had been frustrated about a couple things, but things seemed to smooth out as the day went by. When I got back, we wrapped presents and quickly made out cards.

At a little past six, we drove to the church with Jess and quickly met up with the Kennedys, Becky, Bill, Jeff, Chelsea (Jeff's girlfriend), suddenly joined by all those Coynes (including my Grandma Coyne and Aunt Georgia and Aunt Liz and Aunt Peg) right about Father Mike, Julie, and the Orrs.

Excitement!

Father Mike conferred with Father Leo and some problems were corrected. Someone (including us) hadn't pinned down a lot of details, so there was a fair amount of improvisation. The whole rehearsal took scarcely an hour.

We drove down to the Market House Inn, a cave of a building (A castle of a building) in downtown Zanesville. It's located across from a municipal building that so obviously used to be a school, and the Market House itself is all rafters crisscrossing the ceilings, walls, and floors. You go down a bunch of stairs that keep wending away to the left irregularly, and finally find yourself in a rich, hollow, wooden room with gorgeous ornamentation.

My parents covered dinner for all.

My father made a glowing toast to Jessica, and we all melted.

I was swept up in conversation with Father Mike for much of the night, and he talked about his home in Brooklyn: Flatbush and Fort Greene and Sheepshead Bay and my favorite; Brighton Beach where all those Odessans live. I also talked with the rest of the party at the table. Dinner was splended, but I was close enough, and nervous enough, that I couldn't make it through anything.

Understand: for someone who enjoys to eat as much as I do, it's a very particular sort of angst to have to sit and stare at something delicious that you don't feel you can eat. Which is why I'll be back at that inn someday when I'm rich and famous.

Jess and I handed out gifts and cards, and after extensive farewells, we drove back to the Jalbrzikowskis. We picked up Jeff and Caitlin and Julie and Cody and all drove out to Sunlight Bowl where we played two games, boys vs. girls. The boys won the first round. The girls won the second. I manage to do pretty badly both times.

There was a little pre-wedding drama, but none between Jessica and me, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a sort of pull, an inertia, a gravity, when I said goodbye to Jess that night. I wasn't anxiety about what had been coming. It was a wish to draw out the moments; to draw out all moments, to make them last and last and wait and wait until they were pure crystal, memories, that could be called upon at any moment and with complete ease.

But life doesn't really work that way.

Cody and I drove back to the Travel Lodge downtown. Set up things. I'd been Counting Down. Sweating now. I stopped by to thank Caitlin for everything she'd done for me in our lives. I thanked mom and dad, and we had a nice long talk. I thanked Cody and went to bed. After 2 AM. On the day on which I'd get married.

END OF POST