I went to a great wedding on Saturday night.

In general, I'm not a big fan of weddings. First, they're ceremonies. Oh, man, I HATE ceremonies. By definition, a ceremony is the part of an event that doesn't really count. It's all the superfluous stuff. I sit there and think to myself, "Don't they know that this is not an efficient use of our time? Couldn't they have gotten married by clicking on some web form?"

Second, they usually take place in a church. That's always alarming for me because I'm afraid of having my flesh burn off, or God smiting me, or some other heathen-appropriate result. The clock is ticking on this one.

Third, dancing. This is never pretty.

This wedding was pretty good though. The "minister" was the groom's uncle, who somehow got ordained by the State of California for just this one ceremony. I think the wedding couple chose him because he was funny. Funny may not be efficient, but it buys you a lot of good will in my book. Plus, there was an open bar before (and after) the ceremony. Nothing lubricates the ol' laughing muscles like a vodka martini.

And the ceremony took place in some cool retro Italian club here in San Francisco. My flesh totally did not burn off. That's a big plus in a wedding for me. Secularlicious!

There was dancing though. They hired a cool jazzy-swingy band to play at the reception.

My wife loves to dance. She grew up dancing in musicals, and took many years of ballet, and just kind of gets that whole move-your-body-in-time-to-the-music thing. We watched people dance for a while and both had similar thoughts: "Wow, that looks..."

Her sentence ended with "fun". Mine ended with "hard".

Hank: So? Do you want to dance?
Me: WANT? Do I WANT to dance? No.
Hank: Will you dance with me?
Me: You know I will, but I have no idea how to dance like that.
Hank: We'll figure it out.
Me: Ok, but this is going to disappoint you.

Apparently 'disappoint' was the magic word. She hmmphed, and let it drop.

It wasn't quite magic enough though. Thirty minutes later she turned to me and said. "We're dancing. I'll lead."

And so we did. And she did. Unfortunately, the problem with her leading is that I will only hear the simplest possible rhythm in the music (if any at all). She hears several levels of them. So, her hips are moving to one beat, her feet to another, and she's guiding me to a third. Meanwhile, I'm woodenly transfering my weight back and forth between my left foot and my other left foot, while making that Ow-This-Hurts smile. Every once in a while, Hank would twirl herself.

I had a lovely time though.