i witnessed a civil war reenactment saturday. and that is fucking crazy considering i had absolutely no idea that people in the north participated in that kind of shit. i forget sometimes having grown up in this liberal evanston enclave that the minute you jump on 355 heading west illinois becomes an entirely different place. a place where mullets are still fashionable and fanny packs are considered acceptable outdoor accessories. so my homie got married saturday in NAPERVILLE because that is where he is from, and when i woke up around noon and dragged myself out of bed the first thing i thought was "omg, i totally forgot to buy nude pantyhose. i am going to look SO out of place." for those of you who are unfamiliar, naperville is a relatively wealthy and predominantly republican suburb a little over an hour outside of chicago, and i knew i was in trouble the minute i saw how many churches we were driving past as we exited the tollway. seriously, it was like church, church, burger king that whole families actually sit down and eat dinner in, church, church, wal-mart, CHURCH. we saw at least 497 churches within a two mile radius, and that was only after i’d actually started counting them.i took my gorgeous friend heather with me, and we arrived late to the ceremony. of fucking course. they were seriously already at the altar SAYING SHIT as we snuck in the back of the church; and while that sort of made me feel like a jerk, i was also kind of relieved and hoping that we’d missed some of the boring parts. seriously, though, it wasn't our fault. blame goddamned CVS for not having any good wedding cards (seriously, dudes, i had to buy a card with a goddamned unicorn on it) and for putting the generic aleve too far from the potato chips and shit we needed for the road. blame all of the big trucks that kept trapping us between them, making my life flash before my fucking eyes. they collude just to fuck with you, right? there's some sort of hand signal truckers use, the "let's make these bitches in that tiny saturn shit themselves and pray for death." blame my closet for being disorganized and not having any fancy clothes in it. fucker. anyway, i immediately glanced around to see if any black people other than myself were in attendance while trying not to make any noise, and my eyes locked instantly with this black broad a few pews over from ours. and she was giving me the gas face. i was all ready to breathe a sigh of relief and my SISTUH over here was scowling like i’d stolen the last piece of fried chicken off the buffet. can you even believe that bullshit? doesn’t she know the unspoken rule that all black people have to stick together within large caucasian gatherings?! you never know when a lynch mob might be forming next to the cupcake table.
maybe it was because i was wearing gigantic sunglasses indoors that i refused to take off, or maybe she’s a real stickler for punctuality, but rather than give her the benefit of the doubt i instead snarled and hissed and bared my fangs, which is international black code for “i would never light your path to the underground railroad, you JERK.” i let her stare holes into the side of my face while i focused my attention on the bridesmaids, who looked fucking PERFECT. that's my favorite thing on earth, when there's no random fat broad ruining the uniformity of the bridesmaid roster. man, i've been that bitch before. and it fucking sucks. can't i just sit in the last pew and eat the candy i stowed in my purse? why you gotta shove me into this tight and shiny shit? you knew i wasn't going to lose fifty pounds, you ASSHOLE, especially because your incessant calling and emailing me all hours of the day about the florist and the caterer and the dress maker has caused me to STRESS EAT LIKE YOU WOULD NOT FUCKING BELIEVE. would it have killed you to pick a nice jersey or cotton-poly blend? my eyelashes are sweating in this shit, and my boobs are exploding out of the top. AND THE SIDES. i was in a wedding once in which every other bridesmaid was 5'2" and approximately 32 lbs. i only went to the shit because the bride had a cousin i was interested in, but i looked like MOTHERFUCKING QUASIMODO, all giant and hunched over so i wouldn't look like godzilla in the pictures. it was a fail, believe me. i threw my spanx in a trash can at the hotel and put on a sweater and took my shoes off before they even served the first course. blarf.
the service was nice and brief, and the only blemish on the whole thing was that the minister FORGOT THE WORDS TO THE LORD’S PRAYER as she was reciting it. holy crap. i’m the surliest heathen this side of gomorrah, and EVEN I know all the words to the apostles’ creed, psalm 23, and the LORD’S PRAYER. don’t they teach you that on the first goddamned day of ministry 101?! lesson one: how to skim the collection plate. lesson two: our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. blah blah daily bread, blah blah trespasses, AMEN. i was saying it along in my head with her, feeling pure and clean and washed in the blood of the lamb, FOR SURE, and when she flubbed the line my first thought was, “well, it’s obvious you’re satan and that jesus somehow found out you’re agnostic. give it up, asshole.” but then i realized that SHE was the wrong one, and now i’ve found the loophole through which i’m going to slip into heaven come judgement day. if that’s a even real thing.
the wedding was at four and the reception at six-thirty, and the minute we walked outside to stand in the sun and wave red ribbons at the happy couple (fuck pigeons) as they descended the steps of the church, i turned to heather and was like, “OMG WE HAVE TWO HOURS TO KILL IN NAPERVILLE.” now if salty ass shamika hadn’t been turning her nose up at me in the church i would’ve asked her and marquise if they wanted to team up and find someplace to day drink, but they were already getting into his grandma’s buick regal by the time i took my ass off my shoulders and thought about inviting them along on whatever adventure we could get into. so i did the next best thing, unbuttoned my pants and decided to take a driving tour of the western suburbs. and THAT, my little pumpkins, is how a lesbian in a dress and a runaway slave happened upon CIVIL WAR DAYS.
when we first drove past the field full of tents and campfires in the middle of downtown my first thought was, “goddamn, white people will go camping ANYWHERE.” then i peeped the hoop skirts and confederate flags peppering the crowd and told heather to turn the car around RIGHT NOW. as we drove past the second time, two young dudes in homemade union uniforms were walking down the sidewalk, bayonets slung across their backs. we obviously needed to park the car. i started humming “lift every voice and sing” as i got a couple bottles of water out of the trunk for our long journey back to 1862 while heather readied her camera. it was hot as BALLZ, and if any of you has a deodorant that keeps you dry in 85% humidity would you please inbox me that shit? this is going to be a helluva damp summer. good lord.
being away from the city is terrifying. i don’t like being around people who home school their children and sew their own clothing, and i am never doing that shit EVER AGAIN. i was afraid for my goddamned life! i also don’t understand this fascination white people have with going back in time. why on earth would i want to sit around in nine layers of clothing on an eighty-degree day sweating into my scraggly beard pretending to be robert e. lee at antietam when in real life there are ipods and air conditioning? well, i guess i do, because sometimes you just want to go back to the days when you could call a bitch a nigger in the middle of main street, but COME ON. you’ll never catch me spending a week in the wilderness trying to “get back to nature” or whatever, especially not when i have an apartment and a bed and a refrigerator. AND MY FREEDOM. there’s nothing glamorous to me about sleeping outside, or drinking from a different water fountain, particularly when your circumstances don’t require it. seriously, do you regular people know a single person who cures his own meats?! no, you don't. because in this day and age THAT SHIT IS NOT NECESSARY. what is this thing some people have with pretending they want to go back to when doctors did surgery with a fork and a butter knife?! i like TECHNOLOGY. and MEDICAL ADVANCEMENTS. i would rather be dead than dress up like little bo peep on a saturday afternoon to chase babies named “malachai” and cook food over a bunson burner that has been fashioned into some sort of old-timey grill.
we just walked up and down this stretch of sidewalk, peeking through the fence at your grandfather and the rest of the infantry getting the musketoons and artillery swords ready for the next fight while trying to inconspicuously take their photographs. they caught me looking every single time, and i had to pin my freedom papers to my shirt just to keep them from chasing me down and forcing me to braid their children’s hair and man the cotton gin. heather and i were making fun of a life-sized rendering of abraham lincoln when an episode of little house on the prairie appeared from out of nowhere and stood there scrutinizing us. she was wearing a long-sleeved plaid dress with a pinafore, a petticoat, a bonnet tucked under her arm, leather boots on her feet, and carrying a woven basket. i waited for her to appraise the width of my hips and ask if she could get a good look at my teeth, but she didn’t. instead she said, “your necklace is pretty INTENSE.” i was wearing this necklace that is basically a coyote jaw hanging from a chain and it's pretty much the awesomest thing in the history of ever, and while she might have had a point, this broad was dressed like fucking FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. i was like, “bitch, you are wearing a HOOP SKIRT. in TWO THOUSAND ELEVEN.” omfg.
then we drove through the rest of downtown naperville which pretty much looks like downtown everywhere else: a gap and a talbots and lots of little adorable places for your mother to shop and eat and get her hair tinted blue. from there we drove out through a bunch of subdivisions and new developments, and it was so insanely children of the corn-y that i was almost afraid to ride with the windows down. SO MANY CHURCHES. i was already exhausted by the time we got to the reception, which was at this beautiful spanish restaurant that had been dressed up like a fairy tale. and even though we'd fucked around for two hours, we were still too early and had to stand awkwardly in the parking lot waiting for them to open the doors. we didn't really have to stand next to the car, i guess, but i hate to be the first big bitch in the room. that's some fat shit. okay, so the asshole and i have this thing we call "fat shit," and one day i'll explain to you what that means, but a good example is being the first broad with a bib tucked into her shirt pulling a chair up to the hors d'oeuvres table.
the reception was held in the kind of beautiful room i walk into and think “i’m going to ruin this tablecloth or break this chair” before i even get a chance to set my purse down. it took us about an hour and a half to pick the little placard with my name stenciled on it out of the dozens of them on the entry table, and i said a silent prayer to horus that this dude hadn’t messed up and put me at a table with his parents’ ancient golf buddies or something. since we were among the first people in, we were the absolute first people in line at the BAR, and the sangria was flooooooowing during cocktail hour. plus everywhere we turned someone was shoving a tray loaded with crostini and olive tapenade or bacon-wrapped dates in our fucking faces. i hate olives but i love fancy wedding food, so between the two of us we probably consumed an entire pig and wiped out every olive in the mediterranean. seriously, i had toothpicks sticking out of all my pockets. i had to hide them under my chair and shit.
i had bet heather at the church, isn’t gambling a sin?, that we’d be at the same table as the other black people at the party, but they were seated at the table across from ours, just close enough that i could barely make out the bulging vein in her forehead as homegirl glared at me in the romantic candlelight. i wanted to shout, “look, harriet tubman, i just survived typhoid pneumonia and the battle of gettysburg to be here and eat these tapas,” but there’s just no reasoning with some people. we were seated at the “fun table,” the table full of hip single people who mostly WOULD NOT SPEAK TO US, save for this trio of drunk bachelors who were so hilarious and asking SO MANY QUESTIONS, all except “are you guys a couple?” which you know is the only question they really wanted to ask. this one redhead was really tickling the shit out of me, and then i felt bad thinking about how hard ginger dudes have to work to make people like them. my man was doing everything short of juggling plates while wearing a rubber nose to make us laugh, and i appreciate that. plus he said his favorite thing to do at weddings is slow dance with grandmas, and that might be the greatest thing i have ever heard in my life.
dinner was really delicious, a bunch of really good hot and cold tapas that they served family style. and it was good stuff, too, like steak and shrimp. that’s how you know your parents love you, when they spring for good food at your wedding. seriously, as we passed all of the seafood platters and steaming bowls of chicken with artichokes i couldn't help but think, "i bet this bitch got good grades in high school." and we were sitting so close to the TOP SHELF OPEN BAR i could pretty much serve myself, and nothing rules harder than that. my only teeny tiny qualm was the GODAWFUL MUSIC, which was all frank sinatra and swing bands and other things normal human beings simply CANNOT dance to. if i ever trick someone into marrying me and that joyous event takes place in someplace other than a court of law, i’m spending the whole budget on good booze and killer music. nothing brings the party down like a song that is the perfect accompaniment to a top hat and tails. womp.
at one point lawyer came over to thank us for gobbling up his free food and i was like, "way to only have three black people at the party, david duke." he laughed and said, "i almost put you guys at the same table, but i thought it would have been too obvious." it was a good thing he fucking didn't because at that exact moment i glanced over to where ol' girl and her man were standing and she rolled her eyes at me. i was like, "what the fuck is that bitch's problem?! is this about her man? because i can just go over there right now and tell her that skinny and moist is not what i find attractive AT ALL and she can keep her dirty looks to her goddamned self." can't we all just get along?! the last thing i ever want is a raggedy dude who is some other bitch's problem, especially not an AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMAN'S MAN, because 1 i'm not a hater and 2 i don't need a bitch with double consonants in her name playing on my goddamned phone all fucking night. i'm a big fan of black love, but this asshole was destroying my happiness that her man had invited her along to this wedding.
that's still a big deal, right? the whole "i'm taking you as my date to a wedding" thing? i was celebrating and all, "aww, you've passed a big milestone!" and she was busy shooting eye daggers full of hate acid at my ass. don't you see i'm here with a white woman? ain't nobody trying to holler at that scrawny dude! i can tell his suit is cheap! SO GET OFF MY FUCKING CASE. this is why i'm loathe to be happy for ANYONE, let alone strangers who haven't proven that they're worth my best intentions. i was especially disappointed because she was black, because i need to know that if a race war unexpectedly breaks out that i'll have a couple people in my corner launching bad credit score paper airplanes and slingshotting crack rocks at the enemy. gurl, why you mad?! did you think there was a special prize for being this dude's only black friends?! well there is, and I FUCKING WON IT ALREADY. bitch.
