Sarah's friend, and ex-roommate, Tim, giving the second reading.

I picked the second reading. I had grown frustrated googling potential readings, and tried a new approach, thinking of any poets I've ever liked, and by liked, I mean, bothered to read more than two poems by... and looking to see if maybe they had anything that could work. This didn't take much time, since the list was not long.

I went through a Richard Brautigan phase in high school, and a couple months before the wedding rediscovered this poem, 'Rural Electrification Project,' which Tim read a slightly abridged version of:

"I was trying to describe you to someone a few days ago. You don't look like any girl I've ever seen before.

"I finally ended up describing you as a movie I saw when I was a child in Tacoma Washington. I guess I saw it in 1941 or 42, somewhere in there. I think I was seven, or eight, or six.

"It was a movie about rural electrification, a perfect 1930's New Deal morality kind of movie to show kids. The movie was about farmers living in the country without electricity. They had to use lanterns to see by at night, for sewing and reading, and they didn't have any appliances like toasters or washing machines, and they couldn't listen to the radio. They built a dam with big electric generators and they put poles across the countryside and strung wire over fields and pastures.

"There was an incredible heroic dimension that came from the simple putting up of poles for the wires to travel along. They looked ancient and modern at the same time.

"Then the movie showed electricity like a young Greek god, coming to the farmer to take away forever the dark ways of his life. Suddenly, religiously, with the throwing of a switch, the farmer had electric lights to see by when he milked his cows in the early black winter mornings. The farmer's family got to listen to the radio and have a toaster and lots of bright lights to sew dresses and read the newspaper by.

"It was really a fantastic movie and excited me like listening to the Star Spangled Banner, or seeing photographs of President Roosevelt, or hearing him on the radio '... the President of the United States... '

"I wanted electricity to go everywhere in the world. I wanted all the farmers in the world to be able to listen to President Roosevelt on the radio....

"And that's how you look to me."

The live music at the wedding was performed by my friends Jeanine and Evan. They didn't know each other, so it was very kind of them to agree to learn the songs and to learn how to play them together.

During the ceremony they sang the Magnetic Fields song, 'It's Only Time.'

Here's a taste of the lyrics:

"Why would I stop loving you/
A hundred years from now/
It's only time/
It's only time"

"What could stop this beating heart/
Once it's made a vow/
It's only time/
It's only time"

Sarah seems to think the song is about death, but I don't see it.

I've started doing a new improv show Tuesday nights at 10 at the iO theater. The Welcome to Your 30s Boys. It's me, Young, Steve and Shad (pictured).

I hadn't seen Shad in a while, and backstage before the show we talked about getting used to wearing a wedding ring.

Shad: I remember the first winter I had mine, and I guess my hands were tighter because of the cold, and, anyway, I came into the Salt and Pepper, and I took off my coat, just sort of snapping my arms down to throw the sleeves off and my ring... it shot right off my finger! And it bounced off the floor and into the air... and it hit this woman, in the face! My wedding ring hit this poor young single woman, right in the face!

There are drawbacks to having a wood wedding ring. For instance, over time, water can damage it. Not a big deal, but I take it off every time I wash my hands.

My clever system for not losing it is to simply slip it into the tiny coin pocket of my jeans.

Walking back from the bathroom, though, subtly slipping my wedding ring back on, I always feel a little creepy like a cliched cheating husband in a bad Made-For-TV movie.

Cleaning up around the apartment, trying to get it back to presentable.

Sarah put this old wooden shelf up on the wall. It's been sitting on our floor for the nearly two years we've lived in this apartment so real progress is being made.

Now, whenever we adjust the heat, we can take a moment to look at whatever knick knacks we eventually decide to display on it. One thing at a time, though.

For now we've put the sign from our wedding wishing tree there. It makes no sense to display a sign asking people to write messages to us and put them in envelopes and hang them on a tree... in our apartment where there are no envelopes and no tree, but... we'll figure something out.

Tamara giving the first reading of the ceremony. From Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Everything Is Illuminated.'

It's a bit long for a reading, but Tamara did a good job with it.

"The young couple first married on August 5, 1744, when Joseph was eight and Sarah six, and first ended their marriage six days later when Joseph refused to believe, to Sarah's frustration, that the stars were silver nails in the sky, pinning up the black nightscape. They remarried four days later, when Joseph left a note under the door of Sarah's parents' house: I have considered everything you told me, and I do believe that the stars are silver nails.

"They ended their marriage again a year later, when Joseph was nine and Sarah seven, over a quarrel about the nature of the bottom of the river bed. A week later, they were remarried, including this time in their vows that they should love each other until death, regardless of the existence of the riverbed, the temperature of the riverbed's bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed.

"They ended their marriage one hundred and twenty times throughout their lives and each time remarried with a longer list of vows. They were sixty and fifty-eight at their last marriage, only three weeks before Sarah died of heart failure and Joseph drowned himself in the bath. Their marriage contract still hangs over the door of the house they on-and-off shared-nailed to the top post and brushing against the SHALOM welcome mat:

"'It is with everlasting devotion that we, Joseph and Sarah L, reunite in the indestructible union of matrimony, promising love until death, with the understanding that the stars are silver nails in the sky, regardless of the existence of the bottom of the river, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist) and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed, overlooking what may or may not have been accidental grape juice spills, agreeing to forget that Joseph played sticks and balls with his friends when he promised he would help Sarah thread the needle for the quilt she was sewing, and that Sarah was supposed to give the quilt to Joseph, not his buddy, ignoring the simple fact that Joseph snores like a pig, and that Sarah is no great treat to sleep with either, letting slide certain tendencies of both parties to look too long at members of the opposite sex, not making a fuss over why Joseph is such a slob, leaving his clothes wherever he feels like taking them off, expecting Sarah to pick them up, clean them, and put them in their proper place as he should have, or why Sarah has to be such a pain about the smallest things, such as which way the toilet paper unrolls, or when dinner is five minutes later than she was planning, because, let's face it, it's Joseph who's putting that paper on the roll and dinner on the table, disregarding whether the beet is a better vegetable that the cabbage, putting aside the problems of being fat-headed and chronically unreasonable, trying to erase the memory of a long since expired rose bush that a certain someone was supposed to remember to water when his wife was visiting family, accepting the compromise of the way we have been, the way we are, and the way we will likely be. May we live together in unwavering love and good health. Amen'"

Meador's opening words during the wedding ceremony:

"On behalf of Sarah and Arnie, I would like to welcome family, friends, and the “and guests” of family and friends who are not yet family or friend, but hopefully will be one or both of these things by the end of the evening. My name is _____ Meador, and I, along with Stacey ______, have the honor of facilitating the union of Sarah ______ and Arnie _______. In beautiful Galena, surrounded by trees and cows and corn and the closest thing Illinois has to mountains, we find ourselves ready to share in all the moments that will make today wonderful and special and great, and the topic of at least a few weeks worth of remembrances, emails, status updates, mild regrets and personal triumphs."

A conversation from the day before the wedding:

Meador: I'm thinking about adding a bit to the opening about the wedding being the "Ultimate Yes And." What do you guys thinks?
Me: Uh... no.
Sarah: No.
Me: Sorry.
Meador: No improv jokes?
Me: No improv jokes.

Trupe sent me this picture of Wells with his big sister, Viv.

My sister, Julie, wasn't the only pregnant guest at our wedding. There was also Wonak, Trupe's wife. Here's a picture Nick took of them during cocktail hour.

Over the weekend Trupe and Wonak had their second child, their first son, Wells.

And there were a couple other pregnant ladies at the wedding, ranging from very pregnant to still-too-early-to-tell-many-people-but-people-may-notice-I'm-not-drinking.

So, a wave of babies are coming. For instance, I got this text message today, from another wedding guest, "Its a boy... still not due until march. but we saw the weiner!"

And this is what I saw.

Who wouldn't be choked up?

Beautiful.