Men and boys

So I went to a bachelor party this past weekend. Going to a bachelor party is rare for me, I guess because I have only a handful of friends good enough to invite me, and most of them do not seem ever inclined to get married. And even if they did, they are not the type to have a bachelor party; this is the downside to being independent minded and out of the mainstream. It's for this same reason I think I have never been to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. I guess I am not so independent-minded and out of the mainstream to think that my life might be poorer for it. One notable thing is that it was a year to the day as the last (and first) bachelor part I went to. This one was quite as much fun, more exhausting, and less scandalous. I suppose the lack of scandal is something to be regretted.

The host of people, twenty men, were all about my age, or since most knew the groom from college, perhaps one or two years older than me. But they were all very similar in some ways. Most had "real" jobs in various corporate sectors (which they didn't spend time talking about); most were married with one or two kids or one on the way; most lived in somewhat suburban settings with one or two cars; the ones who weren't complaining jovially about the knocking they had taken that mnorning while hitting the ski slopes on mountain bikes were recounting their adventures, wins and losses, at the Foxwoods gambling tables the night before. Some lived quite near each other so that their wives and kids were spending the night together, the kids in bed while the wives cut loose; their own night out while the boys played. Many of them were "big" men, "loud" men, real "guys." Although I had little in common with them, a few beers and our common friendship with the groom made such differences vanish. Still, I felt like their kid brother, somehow excluded from the real life of the grown-ups.

There were drugs floating around, some x, some blow. We discovered that at the right hour you can hail a stretch limo in Manhattan. I forget how many beers I had but the evening stretched till after the bars closed in the city, and necessarily included a strip club. I was floating and restless, as I often am while drunk, unwilling to go home to my apartment. So I wandered the village for two hours, until the sun was well up; I was home by 7am, slept until 5 in the evening, watched tv in my underwear for a few hours and got a good night's sleep. Despite that I did not feel recovered until today; not a bad thing, I suppose. But the dissipation of the activities puts me in a strange mood always.

But a good thing. I am looking forward to the wedding.