My sister and her boyfriend-guy Adam came to the Bay Area a few weeks ago for my cousin Ned’s wedding. Ned is 30 years old and two weeks younger than me. He has a PhD in physics or something and is by all accounts a genius of some sort. He married a woman named Emily, who is also a scientist (I think??), and who I had met once or twice before a few years ago when I lived in Ghosttown, in West Oakland. I think she was very confused by me. At any rate she seemed nice, and Ned liked her very much, and she liked him, and so five years later that got married in a park in San Francisco. I can’t remember the name of the park. What the hell was it? I was drunk the entire day so, hell, who knows what it was called. It was near the Presidio and had a bunch of redwoods. Man it was nice.

I almost missed the ceremony though! I was running through the forest to get to the clearing where the altar and the wooden chairs were assembled, and I heard music far away. I said hello to an old man who was walking his dogs and, seeing my tie, he said: “You going to that wedding? If so, you’d better hurry the hell up, man.” So I ran faster! I got there just as Emily was walking down the aisle. I had never been to a wedding in my adult life, so it was real cool to see it all happen, even if I myself want absolutely nothing to do with that godforsaken ritual otherwise.

Afterwards we went into this yellow clubhouse about a hundred feet away from the whole thing, and I took advantage of the open bar, and all the food, and so on. I saw some of my cousin’s friends who I had not seen since Ned’s 11th birthday, a long-ass time ago now. We recognized each other and hugged and all that. Man, they’re nice guys. They remembered me and I remembered them. It was a hell of a time.

At some point, after drinking way too much, I got real sad and walked out of the forest and drove to the Pacific Ocean. I stayed there for a few hours and then went home and passed out. Ooops~

Anyway here are some pictures:

My brother Jeb saw the pictures a few days later told my sister Kendall that I look like a “criminal.” Well . . . I reckon it beats “some My Chemical Romance-ass motherfucker.”

Kendall and Adam also came to my house, which looked like this:

Next day Kendall woke up early and took a creepy picture of me and Dante sleeping:

My wall is barren there because I was waiting for my sister to bring me some paintings from my grandmother’s house, which I’m going to hang today I think. They look like this:

ONE FINAL ANECDOTE: Once again, having never been to a wedding where I wasn’t seven years old, I did not know how the whole speeches thing worked. So after Emily’s oldest sister gave her little speech, and everyone held up their champagne flutes to toast, I knocked back the whole thing in one fell swoop. Emily was sitting nearby and she snapped at me, uh, loud enough for basically everyone in the room to hear: “Ryan. There are still three more toasts.” Kendall poured some of her champagne into my glass and I took little sips for the remaining speeches. Sorry Emily. I had no idea!

Well: Congratulations, you sons of bitches. Y’all dig each other, and really what else is there to say? Good luck, and all that. Yeah!!!!