Saying "No" to Gnotobiotics

I have spoken on a number of occasions about my job, over the last two years, as the lab manager of a gnotobiotics lab. Gnotobiotics is the study of the microbiome. You are not an individual, but an ecology, something I find very exciting. Or rather, found exciting.

For those who are just joining us, gnotobiosis (from Greek roots gnostos "known" and bios "life") is a condition in which all the forms of life present within an organism can be accounted for. Typically gnotobiotic organisms are germ-free (axenic) or gnotophoric (having only one contaminant).

Your body's microbiome could be said to be an organ and your immune system could be said to be a regulatory system that keeps the microbiome in check.  Your microbiome is not as small as the name would imply; in terms of weight, your microbiome makes up 1-3% of you, or 2-6 pounds.  And here's another fun fact: 30% of the solid matters in every shit you take is dead bacteria from your gut.

For further reading I recommend this article or either of these books:

Also, honorable mention to "Life on Man" by Theodor Rosebury.  It was published in the 1970s

Anyway, the microbiome is awesome.  But despite the cutting-edge nature of my research, in November of last year, following my father’s death, I opted to quit my job.

The first year of my dream job was… well… a dream. I spent much of it establishing the lab: building isolators, stocking them with sterilized items, breeding mice. This was fun and it gave me a sense of accomplishment.

There was certainly a learning curve. I had not done very much benchwork prior to this and so I had to learn and tweak and perfect techniques like PCR to screen for contaminants and test for sterility. I was also woefully inadequate in my organizational skills; my style has always been one of last-minute, improvised bumbling that works out in the end. My boss engendered in me a newfound appreciation for the art of actual scheduling; she is a big fan of Google calendar and Google docs, and I got better at managing my time as well as my techniques.

My work environment was good. I liked my PI and I liked the labmates I worked beside; there was a vibe of casual camaraderie and I can honestly say anyone would be lucky to work in a lab like that.

So what happened?

The short answer is this: the techs.

You see, under federal law, lab animals need to checked on at least once every 24 hours. To meet this requirement, nearly all university labs have a separate, independent division from the research labs. At UCLA this is called DLAM (the Department of Lab Animal Medicine) and at USC it was called DAR (Department of Animal Resources). The idea is that having a third party to check on the animals at regular intervals (including weekends and holidays, when grad students may not be around) ensures the best possible care for the animals.

...boy, were they wrong.

 

See, the actual job requirements to be a lab animal technician are… not very high. You need, like, maybe a GED, probably. Since much of the job involves “unskilled” manual labor like changing cages or scooping food pellets out, the people hired for this job are paid little and valued even less. Worse, many of the employees have been around for years; with an annual raise and university benefits, the unskilled immigrant employees who were changing newspapers in cages 30 years ago are still around and couldn’t hope for a better job anywhere else, so they stay. Meanwhile, the job requirements have gotten more demanding and complex. We’re no longer keeping kittens in shoeboxes; lab animal care had gotten increasingly complex because of ever-increasing expectations to provide the animals with care that is not merely humane but exceptional. 

Here was the point of our contention.

If you're not involved in science or academia I might have lost you with all this talk of PIs and techs and such.  Please refer to this handy cheat-sheet for understanding the complex bureaucratic and political dynamics of a university research lab:

See, when I originally signed up for my job, I sort of expected to be doing half “lab manager” duties (like setting up breeding colonies or whatever) and half actual research. My title was Research Associate.

I fully expected to be spending 60% of my time defending myself from pushy vendors by my second year.

After two years I had only actually performed one major research project. I had a few ideas tucked into my pocket but I was way behind schedule on actually getting them done. I felt like I was losing steam and like my boss was getting frustrated with me. (My boss was remarkably patient in her tutelage.) But the problem was, I couldn’t just let go. In order to shift my job duties to labwork, I needed to be able to turn over the management of the vivarium to the techs. And at no point did I ever feel safe doing that.

The techs, unskilled and underpaid and overworked, did not have the energy or resources to care for my animals. And please remember, these weren’t merely regular mice. These were Boy-in-the-Bubble mice. Mice who were extremely sensitive and at constant risk of contamination. Keeping them sterile and healthy was an all-or-nothing endeavor. There was zero room for error.

It's an unforgiving business.

And as I told my boss, you can’t train the techs to care. If you’ve been working with lab rodents for 10 years and you can’t identify ulcerative dermatitis before the entire tail degloves, then I can’t help you. (If you didn’t understand the jargon in the last sentence, don’t worry: neither did my techs.)

In case you're wondering how bad it got, I reported 15 incidents in the facility between August and October.  Here is my favorite report of all time, though:

5 June 2017.  Issue: potential contamination vector.  Severity: 2.  Brought to DLAM's attention: 5 June 2017.  Incident report: Bottle was shattered inside of isolator. Techs informed lab that glass bottle was being used to break apart food during cage changes.  Resolution: Bottle was safely exited; no one was hurt and isolator was uncompromised. Lab ordered mallets for breaking apart food and advised techs not to use breakable glass instruments or fragile objects for concussive purposes.

That's right, ladies and gentleman.  I had to tell my techs not to use glass bottles as hammers.  That is the level of incompetence we are dealing with here.

I found myself hiding out from the techs and my boss, dreading the act of checking my e-mail and taking Ativan just to get through the day.

 

 Me, helping place orders like a pro.

I had no power to hire, fire, reprimand, or direct, beyond complaining frequently to my boss, because since DLAM is an independent department, the techs answered not to me but to their own boss. And in one month alone, at the end of my time there, we went through three department shifts and three different bosses. Telling, no?

So finally, shortly after my father’s funeral (during the time I was in Chicago there was, unsurprisingly, a contamination that brought down one of the isolators), I tendered my resignation.

My exact words were “I’m leaving this lab like a rat off of a burning ship.”

 

I’m being literal, by the way. I believe the lab in its current state is doomed.

It was a weight off of my shoulders.

I spent a tired yet frantic four weeks training my replacement, to whom I wish the best of luck.  But I can't say I envy her.  The problems the lab faced were systemic, a result of underfunded and outdated institutions.  It was hard for me to leave because I loved the research, and I couldn't have asked for a better or more supportive boss.  But the effects it was having on my mental health was not good.  And ultimately, I could not work for a place where animal neglect was a constant concern.   I stayed for as long as I did out of fear for the safety and well-being of the animals, but at the same time, I felt like I was only prolonging the inevitable.

 Artist's depiction of my time in the lab.

So now I'm out of STEM and working on, like, you know... life and stuff.

 

Specifically I'm focusing on my health and my writing.  I went for 32 days without drinking, have lost 10 pounds (so far!), am running another marathon in March, and have been able to resume many of my personal writing projects.

If you want to follow my Marvel endeavors you can visit me on Instagram.  Or you can simply check in on my blog every Tuesday, as my updates will now be more regular.

All in all, I think that leaving was the right move, even though I had nothing full-time lined up.  For now, I'm regaled to the shadows of the gig economy, the place of independent contractors and freelance writers.  And that's okay.  To quote Tony Stark in Iron Man 1 after losing 3 million dollars at craps, "Worse things have happened.  I think we're gonna be fine."

2017: In Memoriam

If you asked most Americans about 2017 they’d probably agree it was a rough year. I mean, there was the whole Trump thing and that idiotic Szechaun sauce deal and the release of Captain America: Steve Rogers #1, which was about as well received as the news that McDonald’s was out of Szechaun sauce.

It was basically sweet and sour mixed with BBQ sauce okay?

But 2017 was also a difficult year for me personally which is one of the reasons why I didn’t update this blog much (#sorrynotsorry). The next three posts are going to highlight three of my big experiences, and I’m starting with the biggest, which is actually three experiences in and of itself.

In 2017 I lost my three biggest paternal figures: one in the first week of the year, one in the middle, and one in the last week of year, in what really felt like the universe giving me a big “FUCK YOU” for no discernible reason. My father, my grandfather, and my godfather all passed in 2017 and they will be missed, and going to funeral after funeral was emotionally and financially draining, much like trying to acquire Szechaun sauce.

If you don’t like serious posts then I recommend not reading any further since I think, from here on out, it would be difficult for me to inject any tasteful humor into the subject matter.

And this blog is all about tasteful humor. Wubba lubba dub dub.

Here is my overview of three great men I lost in 2017.


December/January: Lionel “Julian Ernest” Roy

In December of 2016 I was informed that my godfather and namesake, Brother Julian, was in hospice. I always knew him as “Brother Julian” because he was a Marist Brothers monk. He was my namesake (“Julianne” ring any bells?) and my father’s best friend. He was very present in most of my childhood as a sort of uncle figure. I had been discussing a trip to Chicago to visit him; hearing he was in a care facility was a rude wake-up call that, if I wanted to visit him, I’d better be quick about it.

Sadly, I could not be quick enough. He passed away on Christmas morning. Thanks to the messiness of the holidays, his funeral was delayed until the third of January. This gave those closest to him, including my family, the opportunity to travel to New York, where he had passed.

My father had met him at Mount St. Michael’s academy in the Bronx, where Brother Julian was a teacher. Theirs was a lifelong friendship/mentorship.

Andrew and I boarded a plane on New Year’s Eve, literally during the countdown. There was no countdown. 2017 came silently and uncelebrated while we were struggling to cram our carry-ons into the overhead storage bins.

New York was bitterly cold as one would expect. We stayed in a motel in the Bronx. The funeral was a small affair held in the Chapel at the Marist Brothers’ monastery. My family is Catholic (as you might have guessed by now). My father gave the eulogy, which was titled “Saying Good-Bye to My Best Friend.”

After the ceremony, we followed the casket outside, down an ice-packed drive toward the brothers’ cemetery, where identical gravestones stood in severe, precise rows. I needed m cane as the cold stiffened my knee. We stumbled back to the luncheon, where there were hundreds of pictures of Brother Julian set out. Many of them featured him with me and my brother. It was looking through those pictures that I saw evidence of the family-bond we had, the thing Brother Julian has (supposedly) disavowed in his decision to become a monk. And there was something sad about that, to me, seeing evidence of such a rich life that had ended after eight decades with an identical, unadorned gravestone that would soon be lost to the rows of other gravestones.

As a young man.

As I knew him.

It did not capture the man he had been, the guy who climbed onto the roof to fix TV antennas after another another one of the brothers had already broken his leg doing so, the guy who one used sanctified BBQ ashes for Ash Wednesday because of a locked sacristy, the guy who has a small sign in his garden identifying it as the “Garden of Weedin’.” Brother Julian was a grounded man with a good sense of humor and a fiercely practical sense of stewardship. He spent his life teaching, mentoring, and caring for the other aging brothers. He was generous with his time and his wisdom. The Catholic church was lucky to have had him.


August: Vincent Paul McGinn

My father was both a complex and a simple man. His tastes were easily summarized but his person was not. He liked helicopters and cats. He was a devout Catholic. He sounded like Donald Trump and, according to Andrew, looked a little like Tom Clancy.

My dad was Tom Clancy's inspiration.

He worked a job he loathed to provide for me and my brother. He wore a yarmulke to my wedding. He did not understand my (gay) brother’s relationship nor my lifestyle, but our relationship with him in adulthood was good.

Circa 1986.

Complex man, simple tastes. He liked cats and engines.

In early August I got a call from my mother that Dad had had a heart attack. He was admitted to the ER in the wee hours of the morning with chest pains and was in the hospital. I was assured he was getting taken good care of and that I should not be worried about buying a plane ticket or anything like that.

The heart attack had, seemingly, come out of nowhere. My father was in his seventies, overweight, and suffered heart problems. This was his second heart attack. However, he had been cleared by a flight surgeon recently and was actually one week away from moving out to Torrance to work on his commercial pilot’s license. He also had a deal with Robinson helicopters. Having flown since the sixties, it was a dream come true for him.

My dad in the '50s. Farthest kid on the right.

My dad in the '70s.

Within a week I got another phone call. My father would need a triple bypass. The doctors had attempted to remove the blockages in his heart using a stint but were unsuccessful. He’d been airlifted to a long-term hospital to await surgery.  (Note on this: he was airlifted by helicopter.  We all joked that, come hell or high water, he'd found his way into a helicopter even after having a heart attack.)

Then another call. His kidneys, in response to the medication he was on while awaiting the bypass, were failing. He was on dialysis. My brother and I were summoned. We went.

We spent four or five days in the family room of the hospital. In the ICU, only three people were permitted at a time. My father had a slew of visitors. He seemed in good spirits. When my aunt came to see him, the first thing he declared was, “You got fat.”

He laughed uproariously when Andrew said, “Dr. McGinn, I’m a Jew who works in a Beverly Hills hospital and even I’m impressed by this place!” He repeated the joke to his fellow professors and grad students who came to visit him. They brought us take-out.

After a week, seeing he was stable and cheerful, we were sent home.

My dad in 1978 at St. Brigid's chapel. The smokin' hot lady on his left is my mom.

My father spent his time learning about LVADs, which you might recall is what Dick Cheney had instead of an actual heart. There was talk of putting him on a transplant list.  My father, not Dick Cheney, although if you'd like to feel justifiably outraged right now, you should know that Dick Cheney got a heart transplant in 2012 at the age of 71 after suffering 5 heart attacks.  Also, you've been pronouncing his last name wrong all along.  It's pronounced "Chee-nee," not "Chey-nee."  Go ahead and Google it.  I'll wait.

So.  A week after we’d returned, he took a turn for the worst. Systemic organ failure. I was told, over the weekend, to plan accordingly. I went into work on Monday morning and during lab meeting explained to everyone I would be leaving to see my father again. I had a plane ticket for that afternoon.

As I was leaving that morning, I got a call. My father had passed away. I returned home to add one item to my already-packed bags: a dress for the funeral.

The next week is a bit of a blur. It was spent mostly sleeping and drinking in a motel, two rooms down from my brother. Scattered throughout the rest of the hotel were my aunts and uncles who had come to support my mom. We went out drinking together at the Texas Roadhouse across the street from the Motel 6; late at night, my brother and I watched Mystery Science Theatre and shared memories.

Circa 1998.

During the day, Nate, my brother, helped my mom with much of the planning for the funeral. A funeral is like a wedding in that, because it is very emotional, everything costs extra. Unlike a wedding, it is planned in a week; it is a rushed affair of trying to get flowers and select a coffin and speak to a priest and buy a burial plot. And, of course, to inform everyone.

My brother and I went through the house. My brother got a safe-cracker to open my father’s safe and remove the handguns from the house. There were 8, along with a bunch of Peruvian and Nicaraguan money. (?) I found his uniforms in the basement but they had molded. He would be buried in the same tuxedo he wore to my wedding, instead.

This was less than 1 year before his passing.

Thankfully I found his undisturbed officer’s hat in the room I’d had in high school, which was set up during the wake as well as at the reception afterwards, along with other personal items that represented the life he’d lived: a ham radio speaker, a bottle of Drambuie, his childhood teddy bear named Theodore, et cetera.

The funeral was traditional, and Catholic. My mother did the first reading, and I the second. The priest delivered the homily which did not quite capture my father’s relationship with God, who Dad always maintained “loves everyone but loves me a little more.”

Andrew helped serve as a pall-bearer; one of his grad students did, as well, with red, wet eyes.

The funeral was religious and the burial military. Here’s a link to the video taken by my Uncle Tony of the seven-gun salute my father received:

https://www.facebook.com/marysuemcginn/videos/10211872615948949/

Afterwards, the reception was in the town’s local Irish pub.

Left to right: Andrew, me, Aunt Theresa, Cousin Stephen, Aunt Cece, Aunt Kim, my mom (in blue), Uncle Jon (Cece's husband), Uncle Michael, my brother Nate, and Aunt Katie (Michael's wife.)

I went home with my father’s hat.

I’ll probably have more to say on this subject later, but at present, I am still digesting it. My father was a larger-than-life figure with many contradictions and his mortality seems almost offensive to me.

He was buried on August 21st, 2017, during which Andrew and I had had plans to be in Oregon to see the total solar eclipse. My father was buried under a blacked out sun, a fitting symbol and one he would have appreciated greatly.

 

End of a legacy.

December: Herman Joseph Richarmé

Herman Richarmé was known only to be as “Grandpa.” We were penpals when I was a kid. Born in Louisiana and occasionally called the Ragin’ Cajun, Grandpa was a product of the Depression through and through. He was remembered for his frugality, practicality, and innovation.

He dropped out of school in third grade to help feed his family. He worked in a bread factory, bringing home the squished loaves. When was about 15 or 16, he lied about his age and went to fight in World War II. Later, he would go on to fight in Vietnam. On this point, there is disagreement in the family about whether he won one or two Purple Hearts.

 

This is Grandpa getting one of his many military distinctions while stationed in Shu Linko, Taiwan.

Without a formal education, Grandpa was a jack of all trades. He drove a taxi, and he kept bees. He decorated cakes and he tried his hand at plumbing (which resulted in blowing up the family’s living room). Every house he had expanded under his own patient hand. He had eight children and he kept a roof over their heads and food on their plates, even if that food came from his own garden.

Grandpa with my mom.

I had been pen-pals with Grandpa as a kid. He called me Miss Julie and sent me stories from his childhood along with tiny trinkets: bits of Spanish moss ("Just put that in water and it'll grow."), mummified frogs in tiny jars, pressed flowers, piggy banks homemade from V8 jars and filled with foreign coins. Grandpa, like Brother Julian, was someone Andrew and I had been planning to visit. We knew he had Alzheimer’s and may not recognize us, but that didn’t matter. I still wanted to see him. He passed the same way Brother Julian had: hospice and, before we could hurry down, passing.

Like my father, Grandpa was a military man and so he was entitled to a similarly decorated send-off. He was not an officer so the funeral was different but nonetheless moving. The flag was folded by two young men while a third played “Taps” on the trumpet, and presented to the eldest child, my Aunt Cece, who had been the one most present in taking care of him in his later years.

Grandpa having a chuckle, in a Penn State shirt from my Mom. 

She was was the second person in the family to get a Ph.D, if I recall correctly.

If there was any positive to this third death in an already difficult year, it was that it brought the family together. All eight of his children were together for the first time in twenty or thirty years. My brother and I got to spend Christmas with my mom; previously, the three of us were planning on spending it separately, divided by state lines. I don’t know that I believe in fate, but many of my (very religious/superstitious) family agreed that this was Grandpa’s final gift to his child: my mother’s first Christmas without her husband of thirty years was spent surrounded by family.

In conclusion, 2017 took from me three of my most influential patriarchal figures. And I wish it hadn't.

I really wish it hadn't.

Brother Julian, Dad, and Grandpa: I miss you.

STOP RIGHT THERE!

Hello, dear blog reader!

If you are reading this, then it's likely you are new here.  That's okay!  I'm glad you're going through all my old posts.

If you are a friend, I respectfully ask that you stop here.

I have gone through a lot of transitions in my life recently and the posts before this one no longer really represent who I am.  However, I've kept them up for posterity.  If you choose to read them, I won't stop you.  That being said, I would really prefer you didn't.

(...with the exception of this one about my work in a gnoto lab and this one about having my leg broken.)

I just don't think they accurately reflect who I identify as now, and I would hate if you read them and they altered your perception or opinion of me.

I put my blog on a hiatus while I was figuring some stuff out and recovering from my accident with the leg, and now that my blog is revitalized, you can expect weekly updates.

Thank you for respecting me and for your interest in my writing!

I got married!

Hey bitches, I'm back!

I know I've been on hiatus for a year (sorry) but you have to understand I've been busy learning to walk again.  WALK DOWN THE AISLE, THAT IS.

That's right, I'm married now!

Left to right: Brad, Raven, Mick, Tom, Ann, me, Andrew, Jack, Kevin, Peter, and Marge.

I figured describing my wedding would be a good Throwback Thursday post and a good way to revive this poor old blog.  From now on, I plan to generate content twice weekly, updating my fanbase (hi, Gregori!) with my day-to-day wheelings and dealings.

As you know, I was engaged a mere 11 days before my fateful bike crash on April 13th.  (Ironically, when Andrew called my father to ask for my hand, my father's immediate thought was that I had been in a motorcycle accident.  I think he might have jinxed it a little.)

Anyway, lying there in the hospital bed, with an engagement ring on my finger and the bones of my left leg in pieces, my second question for the doctor was, "Will I be able to walk down the aisle at my wedding?"

The doctor was curious about why that was my second question, my first being "Will I be able to go to the premiere of Captain America: Civil War?"

Spoiler: I went, but I was so doped up on painkillers that I missed Chadwick Boseman, the guy who plays T'Challa, when he walked into the theatre and took selfies with all my friends, because it took me like 30 minutes to buy several packages of Red Vines.  I like to believe that's what the real Tony Stark would have done, though.

The answer I was given was a rather ambiguous one.  It seemed, at the time I asked the question, unlikely.  When touring the wedding venue (a nice meadow), I was limping along on crutches, having difficulty navigating the terrain.  But as usual, fueled by spite, I put a fuckton of effort into physical therapy.  The result?

SUCK A DICK, JAZZ MAN!  I totally walked!

I was totally not on a Hoverboard under that dress or anything.

But before I get to that part, let's talk about the parts leading up to it.  Planning a wedding is a pain in the ass.  The first part is getting announcements and/or invitations.  This involves tracking down every person you've ever had in your life who has any passing importance.  Obviously, you don't expect everyone to come, but you have to inform family and the like, and at a certain point you begin to feel like a private eye.

We had no planner. We had a tight budget. We did everything ourselves. We did it in less than six months. We did it while I was confined to a wheelchair due to a car accident.  Things like picking out color swathes and writing vows are very, very low on the priority list when you're trying to figure out how to accommodate 100 people. The 40-minute ceremony was way less important to us than ensuring we took care of our friends and family who were traveling long distances to see us. At the end of the day, weddings are for the guests, not the grooms. People romanticize it and think it's all about lovingly, tenderly picking out a song to dance to... but in actuality, it's a logistical nightmare of trying to pick up great-aunt Sheila from the airport while arguing with the catering company on the phone because one of your guests has Celiac's and trying to explain to your sister-in-law your relationship with your ex-pro-Domme, who accidentally got seated at a table with your landlady. Weddings are like running the gauntlet. If you and your partner can get through planning a wedding without a fight, then you two have an IRON-CLAD relationship. No vows are even needed by the time you get through the nightmare of wedding planning because you two have already experienced the best, worst, richer, poorer, healthy, sickening, and above all exhausting experience of organizing an expensive, extravagant, opulent event.

I'm getting ahead of myself.  Invitations.  What a pain in the ass.

People vastly underestimate how much you will spend on not just the invitations, but the stamps as well.  Sure, you can send an e-vite... you can also chain-smoke Dorals and have an above-ground pool.  It's not in good taste, okay?  It's just not.

So once we went out the invites, it was time to wrangle the various people required to make the wedding happen.  We started with getting a venue.  Our choices were between the South Coast Botannical Garden, as suggested by my parents, and the Natural History Museum, which will let you get married in one of their exhibit halls with all the taxidermied animals but won't let them officiate the ceremony, which was a deal-breaker for us.

The South Coast Botannical Garden, like all wedding venues, had a series of hoops we had to jump through to secure the location.  First of all, if we wanted our dogs at the ceremony, they would need pet insurance.  Getting Carlisle insured is like asking someone to insure a Fabergé turd.  They also wanted a deposit, and required us to have a wedding planner.  Up to this point the closest thing I had to a wedding planner was the little Microsoft Paper clip that kept popping up whenever I opened my wedding document on my laptop.

Andrew got into a back-and-forth with the food vendor while I secured a DJ.  ("Hey, anyone know a DJ?"  "This guy!"  "Perfect!")  The issue with the food was that we wanted a plated dinner but didn't want to play $8,000 a plate, which is the average cost for a plate of food at a wedding.

Every time you say "wedding" near a food vendor, they charge you $200.

We also wanted party favors and those aren't exactly inexpensive.  I did ours myself; they were little satchels of tea and honey with such stupid phrases as "MINT to be" and "a perfect PEAR" because by that point I was suffering Wedding Insanity, which in my case, makes my usual A+ sense of humor devolve into terrible puns.

 This.  Took.  HOURS.

Without much money left, I bought my dress for $200 from Best Korea.

It arrived about 3 days before the wedding, which was fine, because I had a back-up dress, which was a $16 quinceañera dress from Goodwill.  We had members of the wedding party arrive before the dress.  Fortunately it did come (fashionably late, like me), and amazing, it fit.  Phew.

The day before the big event, everyone was there, including the dress.  With nothing left to do, we played D&D.  (Well... they played D&D while I passed out.)

Following the traditional that the married couple doesn't see each other on the day of the wedding, Andrew left early the next morning to go make sure the event was set up.  Our "wedding planner" was actually just the sketchy DJ and we were pretty much winging the whole thing.  (It still cost us $7,000 but for a SoCal wedding with a plated meal, that's actually pretty goddamn cheap.)

I woke an hour before the wedding, groggily aware that I was probably supposed to be somewhere.  My Maid of Honor, Ann, as well as one of my bridesmen, Brad were at the venue with Andrew.  The remaining three bridesmen (shout-out to Tom, Mick, and Kevin) had stayed behind to make sure I didn't get cold feet, which I immediately did.  As we prepared to leave, I recall suggesting we go to Vegas instead.

The boys shooed me out the door.  Mick (a 250-300-pound stuntman of pure muscle) carried the dress.  I had neither a hanger nor a sleeve for it.  "Just put it in the trunk," I said.  Mick placed the dress into the trunk, where it billowed out prettily.  He then gently punched the dress into the trunk so it would fit.

While we were punching my wedding dress into the boot of my car, my neighbor Lenny came out.  "You gotta get your car washed!" he hollered.

"I know, I'm just kind of really busy," I said.

"A car that nice, you can't leave it that dirty!" he hollered.

"You're right," I said.  "I should get it washed."

"You promise me you gonna wash that nice car of yours, today!" he demanded.

"Okay.  I promise," I said.

We got into the car.  My car is a Mustang convertible.  Mick and Kevin, both half-giants, squished into the backseat.  To further emphasize their giantness, I asked them to hold the bonzai trees that were to serve as table decorations at the wedding.

We then went to CVS because I needed coffee.  Don't want to fall asleep at your wedding, after all.  Tom and I went in to leave the boys in the back with the bonzai trees.  The top was down; a passing stranger asked if they were hiding, because the two of them covered by the bonzai trees in the backseat of the car looked like the world's worst spies.

Once Tom and I returned with my much-needed coffee, I asked again if we could go to Vegas.  No, said Mick and Kevin, because they weren't holding the damn bonzai trees for four hours.

Defeated, I asked Tom to direct me to the nearest car wash.

"I PROMISED LENNY!" I exclaimed.

We went to the nearest automatic car wash.  There were three cars ahead of us.  We waited for a bit, then I suggested asking if we could cut the line because I was getting married.

"Excuse me," I said politely to one of the car wash attendants.  "I'm getting married."

"Congratulations," she said.

"I mean, now," I explained.

"Oh."  She paused.  "Why are you at a car wash?"

"I promised Lenny."

Clearly thinking me to be insane, she got me through quickly, presumably so my madness wouldn't spread to the others.

Andy called while we were in the car wash.

"We're on our way!" I reassured him.  The wedding was in about thirty minutes and we were about forty minutes away.

"We're in a car wash!" clarified Kevin.

"What-- why?" asked Andy.

"We promised Lenny," said Tom.

Fortunately, Andy and Ann had taken care of everything already.  So when we arrived a glorious 20 minutes late...

 

...there wasn't much to do except getting me all dolled up.

We stopped at a CVS again on the way because I realized I should wear make-up or something.  I brought Tom with me again, since Kevin and Mick were still buried in bonzais.  "Which of these do I get?" I asked, hopelessly.  Tom, a dairy farmer, looked back at me with equal hopelessness.  In the end, we picked out a crayon at random.  It might have literally been a crayon.  I do not know enough about cosmetics to know.

We also bought a small glass pig.  (Again: Wedding Insanity.)

 "I just feel, like, I really need this, y'know?"  

"Stop stalling, Julie, you were supposed to be at the alter 10 minutes ago."

We arrived to find the guests milling about, and Ann swooped me up from the very grateful bridesmen to get me into my wig and dress.  My mom showed up in the bathroom where I was getting changed to help out.

We drove back to the site, by which time the wedding had been put back by probably another twenty minutes.  We were filing in from a little copse of trees; Andy and I hold hands, Andrew looking forward, because we were trying to do that whole "don't see each other before the wedding" thing, which, as I had pointed out earlier, would have been easier if I were in Vegas and not directly behind him.

The DJ immediately fucked up by playing Pachelbell's Canon instead of my carefully selected string quartet cover of "All You Need Is Love."  The wedding party filed in; I came last, and the DJ recovered, blasting the Kimmy Schmidt theme song as I hitched up my dress and walked, with my dog, down the aisle. 

Our friend Raven was officiating and she had pretty much made the whole program herself, except for the vows, which Andrew and I had agreed we should write for each other.  Raven had given us a copy of the program but I, at least, had not read it, because I wanted to be surprised and also because I forgot.

"The couple will now read vows that they wrote for each other." 

We were holding each other's hands and smiling. Quietly, under his breath, lips not moving, he said, "...you go first."

Quietly, under my breath, I said, "...no, no, after you."

"No, really, you first."

"Seriously, you go."

After hushed, amazing display of ventriloquy, he blurted, "...I forgot to write my vows."

I was so relieved because I had, too.

We both started laughing and in the end we winged it. He gave an off-the-cuff, three-sentence speech us loving each other, caring for each other, and trying to be the best person we could be for the other while always building the other up. I said, quote, "You are the Gomez to my Morticia, the Sigfried to my Roy, and the Silent Bob to my Jay."

Which isn't even really a vow now that I think about it but it's how I felt at the time.

Protip for everyone about to get married: have fun with it. Things won't go 100% as planned and that's okay. You won't even really remember anything because the day will go by so fast. It's about the marriage, not the wedding, so just remember, if someone fucks up, you'll end up with a great story to tell with your partner later on.

Finally, we stomped on a wine glass, which was actually a lightbulb in a bag.  (Actually, Andrew did this, as I had refused to wear shoes.)

And then we all filed out to "Happy Together" by The Turtles, to mingle with the family.

You do the math: if you have 100 guests and a two or three-hour reception, you're going to spend only one to two minutes with each of the guests.  That does not include the time you will spend eating cake or running from helicopters.

The helicopter story: my father is a commercial pilot and wanted to get some aerial shots of the wedding. His friend (who doesn't speak very good English) apparently misunderstood what he was supposed to be doing and after taking the shots, brought the bird really far down... I guess to join the reception? It was an outdoor venue in a protected wildlife zone and the helicopter wasn't legally allowed to land there, plus it was like blowing everything all over the place. (Table decorations, chuppah, small children, et cetera.)  Everyone at the reception was standing there flailing desperately like "NO NO NO, DON'T LAND, SHIT." He got the message and took off without touching down but not before giving everyone a heart attack and really pissing off the management staff (who had already EXPLICITLY told my father "no helicopters.")

We sent everyone on their way with party favors, including special gifts for the people who had helped us the most: the wedding party, my dear friend Brad who had done double-duty as photographer, Ann, who had transformed me from an ugly caterpillar into a beautiful caterpillar, and of course Raven.  We got Raven a pocketwatch and Raven showed me this really cool feature where you can look at the hands and tell the time.  (I might have a tiny little problem with lateness.)

 

I have always believed that weddings were for families.  My mom and dad were there, as well as my brother and his partner, also named Andrew.  We only mixed up Andrews once or twice, fortunately.

I am like, 90% sure I married the right one.

But having done my duty to put on a traditional white-dress wedding, I felt comfortable dedicating the next 3 days to a party weekend, to be spent with my friends, many of whom had traveled far to be with us.  The day after the wedding we had a private reception in my neighbor Elizabeth's back yard, during which we had a roast and grilling, drinking, and music.  

Here's the set-up.

I have woefully few pictures of the party as I was... partying.  But look.  String lights!  Also we put little floating tealights in the koi pond.  It was truly magical.

Andrew's mom showed up even though we warned her I would no longer be wearing the white dress.  When she showed up, I was back in my Black Sabbath shirt and was holding a chicken upside-down.  I don't have a picture of that so this one will have to do.

The fact that I have more than one picture of myself interacting with chickens is as confusing as it is entirely expected.

My mother-in-law managed to say something nice to me with barely a shudder and I think she was there for that cool Jewish chair dance.  (Protip: get married to a Jew so you can experience the chair dance.  It's awesome.)  Fortunately for her fragile sanity, she left before my groomsmen roasted me, explaining the entire debacle of trying to get me to go to my own wedding, and how we were late due to a car wash and purchasing a small glass pig.

 The four groomsmen of the apocalypse!  Left to right: Brad, Kevin, Tom, and Mick.

I spent the next few days entertaining my guests by taking them to Venice Beach to poke hippies, and to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.  (Actual quote from one of my groomsmen: "I regret gravy.")  

All in all, it was a 10/10 experience and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with Andy, and documenting it here.

 

Six months later...

Welcome back, blog!  :)

And for those who want EVEN MORE PICTURES, see below for the BONUS ALBUM of all the wedding photos.  Cheers!