Weekend of Pure Insanity, Part 2

It sounds selfish,
But spending the entire weekend in Jersey for the wedding pretty effectively disconnected me almost completely from the drama and wholly horrible things back home (see Part 1). To the point where even now, Monday morning, I still feel a bit removed from the emotions that came on Friday.

Friday night, me and joe left around 9.45pm. Enjoyed the late-night drive on the highways - as I always do. Often the greatest feeling, in fact. I made Joe drive.

Anyway, we get to our hotel - not bad if I may say so. We get an average room, but it is very nice. The bathroom in particular is nice -- not just some white utilitarian closet. A good bathroom is often a sign of a good place, indeed.

So we hang out for the evening, watching TV (luckily Family Guy comes on), as there's really not much else to do. Eventually sleep comes.

Next morning, things get going. First, we find that the hotel has screwed up our reservation by booking us for one night instead of 2. So after talking with the man at the desk, he makes it up to us by giving us a suite. which we will return to after:
We meet up with Chris at Diana's family's house (just a minute away), and are soon joined by Brandon, to pick up our tuxedo rentals (us four were the ones that did the Howes Cave trip a month previous). all's good, and we come up with saying "I bet a sandwich 'll fix that" to Brandon anytime he has a complaint of the slightest kind (it's a running joke, because he doesn't like sandwiches. in general.). We then go get really really crappy, grade Z food from a place called the Windsor Diner. a true Jersey experience indeed.
After this, we return to the hotel, where me and joe get our bags and head up to our new suite. We look for the room number down the rather average-looking hallway, only to find that when we get to Room 237, the door is made of dark-stained wood, as opposed to the average white utility doors on the other rooms. The number sign in front also says, "Presidential Suite."
Blown away just by this, we enter to a dark red entranceway, complete with an end table, mirror, decorations. Inside, there is a living room with a fold-out couch, chairs, tv, a pewter/glass coffee table with flowers, a small kitchen (no stove) with glasses, sink, fridge, microwave, and then a bedroom with a full king-size bed, another tv, closets with bathrobes, a desk and reclining chair. The bathroom is the same as the last one.
We're rather blown away by our swanky accommodations. Especially since they're charging us the same rate as we had for the smaller room. After killing time, it was time to head out again.
The next big step of the day is the brief wedding rehearsal. no problem.
then it is followed by a backyard gathering, with food - of which i eat very little. At this, we meet the girl Brandon is dating. I am taken back quite a bit, as is Joe. For starters, Jenny is rather attractive I think (though perhaps a little crazily thin). My first thought was, "Wow, how did he get her!?"
Then me, her and Joe started talking. And she was very cool. lives in Providence. Is 32 years old (seems to be quite the trend around me that young guys dating older partners - Brandon is 23, brother Joe is 24 while his boyfriend is 37, Chris is almost 25, with his bride being 34).
After chatting about things like music, jobs, etc., they leave, as Brandon must get a haircut/do some things. Me and joe are left scratching our heads as to how a girl like that is going out with Brandon. More on that later. But since Brandon had gone almost 24 hours of no sleep, he said he had to crash at some point, so when she voiced her "Whoa" at our hook-up at the hotel, we invited her to hang later.
Following the afternoon at the party, we head back to our hotel room and hang out some more. Chris is due to show up later and spend the night, as he of course can't see the bride the day of the wedding.
I head out to a Rite Aid, as Joe wasn’t feeling too well and we needed to get some cards. When I return, Chris is there. He calls Brandon, who was just about to hit the sack, so we tell him Jenny can come up at any time.
We go downstairs to the hotel bar for a few minutes to catch up with Chris’ sister, and upon going back upstairs, right as we get to our door, Jenny does as well, finding the note we left her on the door handle. Her surprise upon entering was priceless.
We wanted to get as many people in the room to hang out to make it feel more of a party and to take advantage of the space we had. But Chris’ friend Sal and his girlfriend Crystal, were too sleepy to take advantage.
The hotel rooms each had the alarm radios by the beds, but these had CD players on them, as the Crown Plaza provides its guests with sleep aid CDs to help the guests…..sleep better. We used this low-watt “stereo” to put on some music. Excellent.
So we order room service, and spend the night talking. Chris’ 2 nephews show up. The two of them and Jenny chain smoke for the duration of the time (the 2 nephews more so, though. And she smoked cloves).
This was a rather nice evening. Me and joe mainly talked to her, while chris did with his nephews. Conversation went around life, love, music, films, books, travel, nightlife, etc. Not sure what Chris and his were talking about.
She had to leave around 1, so we bid adieu. She is an interesting person. With 8 years on us, she’s obviously experienced more. She’s very intelligent, well read, well traveled. Ok, maybe at times a bit pretentious when conversation moved to ancient religion and philosophy, but it’s hard to not sound so when talking about that.
After everyone was gone, we were even more baffled as to how in the world someone like her was with a guy like Brandon, who largely, from what I know, talks about sports and things like that – generally seems completely on another page. I don’t understand. What exactly do they talk about? How do they relate?!
None of this is to say that Brandon is a bad guy, don’t get me wrong. He’s good in my book, and I don’t look down on him or judge him or feel any way like that about him. It’s just that the two of them seem like completely different types that are somehow and for some reason dating. Of course, I don't know Brandon closely really, so it's obvious there's prolly parts of him I don't know, or those that he doesn't let on whenever he's in a group of people. To be fair, right?! But even Chris was a little baffled.
Hah, anyway, perhaps I’m just jealous!
Anyway, with everyone gone, we’re down to the three amigos. We hang out on the king bed, go outside a bit, and just talk. Chris’ last night as a “single” man, and we spend it doing a lot of reflecting over the past 14 years.
Appropriately, this is like a final sleepover – something we haven’t all done in years, but something we used to do a whole lot. How's that for closure??
Joe takes the fold out couch, and Chris and I take the king bed. Never slept in one before – it’s huge. Enough for the both of us to each take a side and never once feel too cramped. Plenty of room.
Sleep of course doesn’t come easy for either of us, both over-excited and anxious.
Onward to the day in question....