weddings and death

Moved into our apartment in astoria--Tiff was there to be our first visitor, and to help us transform the dusty mess into something rather pretty and sunlit. We thread lightly, but our footsteps still keep our downstairs neighbor awake. She knocks like an undead corpse at 1 am, hard angry knocks. Startling us as we sleepwalk around getting ready for bed. "I am so sorry, I am a single mother, I look after my son, I have noise muting machines, I am very sensitive," she says, repeatedly. For someone who has lived in a family with chronic insomnia, and battled it with with foam earplugs, and doesn't understand how somehow mothering equates to yelling at 2, I don't buy her story. Then it all explodes into a screaming match and fearful hitting on our metal grilles at 2am the same night I almost got knocked over by a stupid driver. I write a frosty note, and leave my number, and the knocking stops.

Yesterday was my grandfather's death anniversary. I attended a wedding instead. It was my first wedding without my parents, I was attending as a 20-something, and a plus-one date. Being 22 and standing in a wall of girls, waiting to catch the bride's bouquet, and later slow-waltzing to an old song, waiting to be kissed. There was a lot of debauched dancing, drinking, and bawdy jokes by the boys. A bridesmaid-of-honor passed out while the vows were being exchanged. The boys in suits mourn the loss of a friend, and then marvel at how far they have come. Then jokes about in the family would marry next, and the boys telling me to join the family. The family is this Jersey community that is heavily gendered, almost an honor society they have built around themselves over the years. At 4, we get back, and I disperse rose bouquets into the beer bottles that have somehow accumulated in our apartment this week. Somehow, the wedding has been sad. Everyone senses something like irrevocable loss.