I’m about to tell you the story of how I became Mrs. Julie Jones. I was 20 years old, it was 1997.  I was an awesome Julie Jones.  My daily activities did well with an obscure name like that.  I actually had a license plate that said JJ Rocks.  It was before I knew I was awesome.

If this story sucks it’s because I’m in Syracuse surrounded by children who refuse to sit still so I keep getting distracted.  I asked Facebook what I should write about because the noise is making my ears bleed and I’ve been so busy flipping Felber off from mom’s house to his across the street, I’m useless.  One of my Facebook friends, Julie Jones (no shit) asked that I write about my favorite Syracuse memory and I decided I’m going to dedicate this week to the things I actually remember.  This one is going to be long and I’m going to giggle.  You might, too.  To protect the identity of those involved, I’m going to use their real names.  This is dedicated to Julie Jones.

OCTOBER 1997

A long, LONG time ago me and my boyfriend Casey Jones (no shit) were in an immense amount of debt.  I was 19.  We opted to buy tons of hippie drugs  instead of paying our bills so we heated our apartment via a kerosene heater.

One day we were sitting around ripping tubes and I think I saw that our electric bill was over $500.  I was wondering how we were going to pay the pills when a tad of inspirado slapped me across the face.  It also might have been Sarah because I think I zoned for about 30 minutes.  I’d say a light bulb flashed over my head but we didn’t have power.

Let’s get married.  That would TOTALLY pay the bills.

So we did, and it did.

I announced it just short of a year ahead of time and sat back to watch how it would unfold.  I had absolutely nothing to do with the wedding.  I was a vegetarian, a hippie born a few decades late who grew up on a slaughter farm – I still don’t eat red meat. unless it’s a burger, taco or my meatloaf – and they served ham.  I only like chocolate and the cake was strawberry.  I was twenty so they wouldn’t serve me alcohol.

I was tripping my face off on mushrooms and ate saltines on my wedding day.

Basically the entire month of October was dedicated to mushrooms.  We were low on cash and didn’t have much else to eat.  My best friend took a little vacation and around the first of the month came home, popped his trunk, opened his giant speaker box and we all giggled.  I worked at the pet store at the mall (of course) and I think I lived on Auntie Anne’s pretzels and every weekend daddy took me to the movies and dinner.

Oh shit, dad.  I’m guessing you don’t know this story.  You’re cool, you won’t mind.

It wasn’t that big a deal.  We all just hung out at my place and ate shrooms and smoked a lot of super sweet kind bud.  Given that ours was the hang out place, it was common courtesy to get free shit.  Maybe.  I have NO IDEA.  I will say that in relation to my stalker van fetish I have on Facebook, I used to have to walk to work at the mall from my place (no car or insurance).  I was 19 and beautiful.  I can say that now  because I had no idea then.  I had white stalker vans ask me if I needed rides ALL THE TIME.  I always declined. None of them had a “Free Puppies” sign and besides, I worked at a pet store.

I think later this week I might touch on the party before the wedding.  I wasn’t old enough to bar so we had a combo party.  It’s an awesome story.  Maybe Thursday. This will serve as my reminder.

And so the day arrives – October 11, 1997.  Take a look at that picture above.  If you know me, you know how I smile for the camera.  I was beautiful.  Did my own hair and makeup, wore the dress that was passed on to me and I was twenty.  Flawless.

I was tripping my face off.  If you look at the picture again, you can see it as plain as day.  CJ was too, check out his eyes.

It was a traditional Polish Catholic wedding.  Fourteen people in the wedding party.  Turned out to be beautiful.  The guys all stayed at our apartment next to the church, the gals at my moms.  It was thirteen years ago so I don’t remember every detail but I remember getting all dressed up, hugging my best girls and diving into a giant baggie.

I showed up at the church, careful to not see my husband to be.  We started to giggle.  We lined up to walk down the aisle.  This is how it went -

I wanted to hear “Here Comes the Bride”.  I have NO IDEA what the atrocity of a song was playing.  It was like the organist had a stroke and landed on the board.  People covered their ears.  I had my father and my step-father walk me down the aisle.  It was about a five mile walk so I appreciated the support. I may have style but completely lack grace.

As I walked, veil over my face, I looked around.  Instead of smiling smiling demurely like a bride-to-be should, I joyfully pointed out everyone who was crying.  I actually said “OH!  You’re crying! Sweet!” about every ten seconds.  I felt like a rock star (JJ Rocks).  I have this thing with being the center of attention.  I know, I know.  It’s a shock to us all.

So I get to the end of the aisle and my veil is lifted off my face.  Pupils wide open and love in my heart, I kissed meh daddie and step-dad and went walking up the stairs to the alter to sit.  I saw my maid of honor keep putting her hand over the back of her hand, fingers splayed.  I thought she was doing a secret high five so I did it back.  It wasn’t until about ten minutes in she walked up behind me and fixed my veil.

That’s right.  For roughly ten minutes I sat tripping balls with my veil sticking straight up in the air.  Clueless, I looked around smiling that famous Julie smile of mine, eyes glassy and sparkling with lace shooting straight out of my skull.  The groom never noticed.  Later on in life when watching the VHS tape of the wedding, I was pretty pissed about the organ and veil but now it just makes sense.  Couldn’t have gone any other way, look at who I am. I’m awesome.

And so the seemingly three hour long Catholic wedding went on and on and on.  We eventually ended up married and stood in that line to greet all five billion people that showed up.  We went for our pictures and stood where we were told and giggled a shitload and zoned out quite a bit (again, see above).

Then comes the reception.

It is still talked about as one of the single greatest wedding receptions of all time.  I sat there overseeing the crowd as my now ex-husband (We were kids, it was a bad idea. We’re still friendly.  He might get pissed if he reads this but I doubt he will.) got plastered at the bar.  He was 23.  I think I saw him three times.  We walked in together, passed thank you cookies around wearing bride and groom baseball caps and had our first dance to that song from Top Gun because we totally dug that movie.  What was it?  “Take My Breath Away” I think.

We had a wishing well.  Knowing I needed my bills paid, I occasionally peeked in there.  Yeah.  There were cards.  YAY!  There was also a quarter ounce of mushrooms in a bag.  I moved that to the bottom.  We went to cut the cake.  About an hour later I noticed one of my fake nails was missing.  I swear this was not a hillbilly wedding.  It was beautiful, it’s just my luck.

My buddy Louie leads the chicken dance.  Louie is a darker skinned Italian man with a giant tongue ring with a foot tall curly mohawk.  The best man gave a speech so hilarious people thought we rented him and wanted to know if he had a business card.  My step-father jumped up on a stable and sang Happy Birthday to my brother in Polish.

It eventually ends. We walk next door to our place.  Sarah, Adam (?), Louie, Casey, Nik and myself. Casey spent the evening vomiting so I never saw him.  I sat in my wedding dress with a four foot bong between my legs counting the money.  Five grand baby.  We paid our bills.

That’s really it as far as that day goes (that I can remember).  Some shit went down at a giant after-party we missed and my buddy got his ass beat because another buddy caused a lot of trouble.  We went on our honeymoon the following day.  Given that this was pre-911, I had balls the size of a Clydesdale.  I took a box of giant maxi-pads, gutted them and filled them with air-tight bags of mushrooms then I put the cotton back in there and super glued the box and went through airport security without skipping a beat.  I may have been skipping though, I like to skip.  We went to Jamaica, asked our cabbie for weed and got so baked I sat outside a coffee shop watching a cat chase a leaf for what I thought was about six hours.  Casey said it was fifteen minutes.

The rest of the honeymoon was spent doing typical vacation things.  Para-sailing (tripping), jumping off a waterfall (tripping) and spending an evening watching Neil Diamond in concert on PBS (tripping).

We had a good marriage but we just grew apart.  We married young and had different goals in life.  The mushrooms stopped forever after Halloween a few weeks later (bad trip) and I quit smoking pot about three years after that.  I have an anxiety disorder and I started to feel like my mom was going to catch and ground me.  I grew up (ish).  I know I get shit for going to karaoke and taking Xanex but I take it as prescribed BECAUSE I HAVE AN ANXIETY DISORDER and I like to sing karaoke.  If I don’t have social interaction and get to dress pretty I get super lonely and cry.  I don’t get drunk (I’m bipolar, it makes for a horrible hangover) and as you can see, I’ve done quite enough in my past.  I have no need to in the present.  I’m saying this because I just got in a huge fight with someone about this.  Fuck off for being a douche.  Just sayin’.

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