Friend’s wedding a warning flag of oncoming adulthood
CLIFF HICKS is a senior
news-editorial and English
major.
Dear God, one of my oldest and
closest friends is getting married.
Who allowed this to happen? Why
wasn’t I informed sooner? Doesn’t
anyone consult me on these things
anymore?
Oh yeah. I keep forgetting I’m an
adult now. I don’t think I’m keen on
this whole “maturity” thing. The hell
with that.
I haven’t heard from my good
friend Tristan in a little over a year, but
we’re still fairly close. This explains
why I was abit surprised.
Still, you’d think he could call to
tell me. Instead, on Tuesday, I got an
invitation to his wedding next month.
No accompanying note. No phone
number to call. I had to call up his old
school, get his phone number from
them and call his ass at home.
Now, I don’t want anyone to mis
understand me - I’m happy for him,
ecstatic, bounding with joy. It’s this
whole wedding thing I’m edgy about,
for a lot of reasons.
It isn’t as though I haven’t been to
a wedding before. I’ve been to one. I
was invited to another last week by a
guy I grew up with but don’t really
know anymore. This is different,
though.
Hell, this is Tristan.
Tris is a guy I spent the better part
oi two years hanging out with on a
weekly basis. I still have a bunch of
photographs of him, Topher (my
roommate) and I that were taken our
freshman year in college.
This, you realize, means the end is
nigh.
I’ve long subscribed to the theory
that once one of your inner circle of
friends goes through the marriage
thing, the domino effect takes over.
Much sooner than you are com
fortable with, another friend will get
married. Then another. Then another.
Oh, sure, sure, call me irrational if
you like. It’s not a logical train of
thought by any stretch of the imagina
tion, I grant you.
But, soon, far too soon, another
will fall.
See, if I had to pick any of my
friends who I thought would be get
ting married soon, Tristan would not
have been at the top of that list.
There are six friends who I trust
completely. Out of them, Tristan
would have been third on that list, I
think. —
At the advice of my friend Nikki, I
am putting a list of names on my wall
at home - those close friends I have -
and each time one of them gets mar
ried, I’m crossing their name off the
list.
Somewhere in the background,
Queen is singing “Another One Bites
The Dust.”
My friend Tristan will soon have a
Mrs. That idea is a tough one to wrap
H
This, you realize, means the end is nigh.
I’ve long subscribed to the theory that once
one of your inner circle offriends goes
through the marriage thing, the domino
effect takes over.”
my head around, as is the possibility
that he could be a father.
He could be spawning.
When die letter arrived Tuesday, I
lost it. I flipped out. I sat down on my
couch, then stood up, made it some
where close to my bed, sat down
again, shook my head, looked at the
invite then called everyone I knew and
a few people I didn’t.
An hour later, I had tracked down
Tristan’s home phone number a few
states away, called four of the remain
ing five of my friends and 6ne of them
had come over and was malting me a
very strong drink. Which I desperately
needed.
For the next hour, I talked a lot
about Tristan, picking up and putting
down the invitation at least a hundred
times.
It means a lot of things. It means I
have to rent a tux. It means I have to
drive a few states to a wedding. It
means my friend will be up there say
ing “I do.”
It means I’m getting old.
I hadn’t really felt old up until that
invitation arrived in our mailbox.
Maybe I’d been avoiding it, maybe I
just was trying to stop myself from
thinking about it, maybe I really had
thought I could be young and flee for
ever.
It’s all a sham, I tell you, this inno
cence of youth. Sure, we’ve all
thought we felt old before. I remember
feeling old when they handed me my
high school diploma. I remember feel
ing old when I signed the contract for
my first apartment.
But this, this is harder to take than
any of those. My roommate’s right,
though. It’s not like he’s dying. I’m not
losing a friend.
Still, that idea of being one of
those people scares the living day
lights out of me. I’m at that age.
The age where: Mom always asks
when you’re going to “get married and
settle down and make grandkids;”
your friends call to tell you about the
sound their new baby made whan it
threw up for the 438th time; the ques
tion goes from “what are you going to
do with your life” to “what are you
doing with your life;” you have to
think about getting a lawyer, doctor,
insurance agent, etc. of your own.
And you have to start attending
weddings, baby showers and the like.
I didn’t attend a funeral until my
sophomore year in college. The only
wedding I’ve been to thus far wasn’t
that long ago either.
I blinked and went from youth to
adult. Somewhere along the line, I
missed the change. I just woke up one
morning and realized that I wasn’t
allowed to call my friends’ folks Mr.
and Mrs. any more - everyone’s a on
first name basis now. Younger siblings
of my friends are going to college. The
music I grew up listening to is being
played more on VH-1 than MTV
People are calling me “sir,”
dammit!
When the Year of Naught rolls
around come January 1, who knows
what will happen. Another one of my
friends will probably be planning his
or her wedding.
One thing I do know, though, is
that I’ll have to be dragged kicking
and screaming into marriage, mind
you. Or talked into it by someone very
persuasive. Or drunk. Or all the above.
Watch yourself, ladies and gents.
Don’t turn your back.
EVER.
This could happen to you.
A Week in the Life
Live music, loud explosions and a full-day blackout highlight week
MARK BALDRIDGE is a
senior English major.
July 1
Craig Imig is late. He was sup
posed to be here at 6:30 to take me to
the show.
“Edible Eddie and the Cannibals:
7:00 p.m.” the newspaper had said, and.
I couldn’t be late. They literally could
n’t start without me: Edible Eddie, at
your service - though you can call me
Edible.
Craig was supposed to be one of
my cannibals.
I fidget in the hallway with my gui
tar, my cello, my amp and mic, my
bamboo sax and a terminal scowl. It’s
6:45-it’s 6:50-it’s 7:00.
I notice my neighbor is home.
“Look,” I tell him, “my ride didn’t
make it Why don’t you take me to see
me, I hear I put on quite a show.
Please, please, pleeeaase!” yV
I ride in the back of his pickup tike
a happy puppy.
At the park, Fred arrives (another
cannibal) and unpacks his zither.
“Craig didn’t show,” I say. We both
laugh.
A group of kids are sitting around
on the concrete stage, plunking away,
playing with toy instruments I brought
along.
Inspired, I break in with a half
sized cello strapped to my chest like
the big guitarron of the Mariachis and
suddenly we are playing music, my
makeshift band and I. After the first
song I introduce the group.
“Hi, I’m Edible Eddie and these
are my cannibals - those we didn’t
eat.”
I don’t think the kids had realized
they were in the band.
We do four songs together, I do a
solo on piano (belongs to the band
shell.) *
Fortunately Fred has wheels and
takes me home, show over.
July 2
Craig shows up 24 hours late.
. He knocks once at the door and
walks in.
“You said to be here at 6:30,” Craig
says.
“Yeah, Craig, wait a minute. I’m
naked, do you mind?” I struggle into
Page 4 M Daily Nebraskan Summer Edition ■ Thursday, July 8,1999
«
Ifind a pair of opera
glasses indispensable
to participating in the
life of the
neighborhood and the
4th is no exception...”
blue jeans. Then, “Uh, Craig, that was
6:30 yesterday.”
So his trip will not be a total loss I
make him take me to dinner.
“I’d like to put together a little
combo,” I tell him, daydreaming. “A
little trio even, with some clowns or
tumblers or something. A girl singer
showing a little leg. Cabaret style, you
know?”
“Is that like klezmer music?”
July 3
I rent “Cabaret.” Liza Minnelli
looks so much like her mother, at
times, it’s eerie. At other times, she
looks an awful lot like Liza Minnelli.
It is a pretty boring film, really,
though it was considered daring in its
day - themes of homosexuality,
promiscuity and (yawn) abortion.
“Life is a Cabaret, of chum!”
July 4
Out on my fire escape, I am
reminded that sound travels slower
than light: the rocket’s red glare beats
the thud of bombs bursting in air to
this X-marks-the-spot where I sit, four
out of five senses celebrating (all I
taste is beer, which could make it any
day of the year) my nation’s birth.
It’s nice to know something I
learned in 3rd grade is still true.
I fmd a pair of opera glasses indis
pensable to participating in the life of
the neighborhood and the 4* is no
exception; I can practically see the
severed fingers from here.
July 5
Nothing ever happens to me on the
5*; I can’t explain it. I probably drink.
Or something.
July 6
I stand in the bathroom, my six
inch, maroon goatee grasped hand, a
pair of scissors poised in the other.
Snip.
Instant butch. $
Later, like about 11 that night, I
will crash my bike on die sidewalk on
the east side of 13* street between G
and H heading home.
About a three-inch disparity in
sidewalk height, like the crust of the
earth rising up to form a miniature
Matterhorn, will trip me up.
I’d have been on the street but a
cop stopped me a couple weeks ago to
tell me it’s illegal to bike down 13*.
Well then why the hell aren’t the
sidewalks F’ing safe, I want to know.
July 7
I nurse my slowly congealing
scabs with alcohol wipes and limp on
down to the offices of the Daily
you: my “Week in the Life” forlutuns^
tic historians to use as a kind of coor
dinate to find me on their viewer- ’ v
scopes.
Can you see me guys? I’m waving!
