know when to run

my friend patti is getting married next month, and i wanted to know if i should put together a ladies night for her. it's too soon for me to think about all of that personally, but i have three weddings in the next three months, so all things wedding are top of mind. it turns out that she doesn't want anything hen-ish. she and greg want to get everyone together, drunk, and losing money at a casino somewhere.

i love that idea. rob and i went to a casino for our 1 year dating anniversary. we had planned to follow it up with a visit to the olive garden, but were so caught up in the rod stewart impersonator, we missed last call for breadsticks. the shameless campiness of casinos makes me laugh. in the US, anyway, casinos are in the middle of nowhere you want to be, but they'll let you pretend that you just stepped into buckingham palace. they might have tarted up a concrete box with roccoco mirrors and chandeliers, but you're always going to be stuck with the carpet in blue, gold and red. it's a time-tested mask for vomit, grime and shame. they're hoping you aren't paying attention. just paying. that's fine with me. watching the shift between desperation and forgetting is entertaining enough. there's nothing like seeing a retiree in a chandal working three slots at once at 4am to remind me of what i have.

in the course of our conversation, patti wondered if a joint celebration was 'enough.' i know she didn't exactly mean enough for her, or greg or them both or her friends ... but, in a way of all of them and a little tiny bit for convention's sake. after all, she's been planning a wedding for 6 months. with so many things to get done and so many choices to make - it's easy to lose perspective when you're actually given a choice that's not turd sandwich or giant douche. (both of which, for the record, are what i consider a night with 8 drunk girls sipping champale from penises.) patti is not a conventional girl by any stretch, but she wants to make sure everyone's happy. if there's a luncheon of some sort she's expected to attend, then by gum she'll be there.

so i started thinking about other people's expectations and how sometimes they're a proxy for convention. people who claim to be above convention are total chickenshit liars, and i'm glad she's honest enough to admit that it matters to her, even a little, what other people think. of course, i'm also fervently glad she didn't want to be wrapped in toilet paper.

and then i got mad. why should patti or any of us have to fly in the face of convention when convention is moronic? who invited convention in anyway? someone should leave some sure! in it's locker, because convention smells bad.

what the hell kind of celebration dictates that men and women separate to the relative safety of their own gender camps to gird themselves for the battle of marriage? men are supposed to engage in some sort of warped sexual last rite liturgy, while women are left to play fantasy games. what is this, braveheart?

bachelor parties all seem to have one thing in common. tits. the most important thing about these parties is for the guy to get chock-full-o-tits. theoretically, these tits are better than the ones they're about to be looking at to the exclusion of all other tits forever. sounds sexy to me ... "please, put your hands together for...Candice!"

for women, it's not only pathetic but also boring. cake, cocktails, games, and gifts. bridal shower gifts always seem to involve underwear designed to make their tits as enticing as the newly forbidden tits their soon-to-be husbands are looking at right now ... it would almost be funny if it wasn't so pitiful.

it's enough to send a girl running straight to the black jack table. deal me in.