I feel like I'm missing my brother's wedding by being there - because, in a way, I am.
Josh Lacy, friend and former roommate, was my first "bro."
I have not always had the easiest time getting along with normal dudes. My friends in high school trended nerdy intellectual and oddly effeminate, the downside to being a Scholar's Bowler and a musical theatre fan.
Truth be told, nerdy intellectual and oddly effeminate are also used to describe me.
I moved into Teague Hall my freshman year, and that night received a knock on the door and was greeted by a tall fellow with a shaved head (the man I now know to be the esteemable Palmer). He invited my roommate and I to come and play poker out in the lobby with the "Teague Hall Poker Group." He spoke with a degree of implied authority and I was bored, so I grabbed some cash and went along.
Attending that poker game ranks among the best decisions of my life.
Apart from meeting Palmer, I met my future roommates, Steven Ford (the slightly diabolical brains of the operation) and Taylor Wingo (the mop-topped young lad and heart of the group), and found them instantly hilarious and cool.
I met a young man by the name of Marlin Pugh - "Fish," he said. "Fish" it was and always will be. Fish is a legend.
There was, however, one member of that poker game who was an obnoxious jerk. Clad in a shirt from a movie I now know to be Dodgeball, he made rude, sarcastic comments, snarled, growled and said generally contentious things. Who was this foul-mouthed little troll?
Joshua Lacy.
Over the next few days, however, as I got to know the other guys, I realized Josh Lacy was actually hilarious. Through some strange twist of fate,I discovered that the more he makes fun you or derides you or pranks you or prances around in front of you nude, the more he likes you.
He's the strange bastard child of John Belushi and Chris Farley, with dashes of Jack Black thrown in, and I love him for it.
When we lived in the apartment, he'd burst in my room constantly, usually singing Tenacious D or Marvin Gaye. He always took requests whilst singing in the shower. Even "Freebird."
Within the group, Josh called the shots. He was Sinatra; we were the rest of the Rat Pack (I think I may have been Jerry Lewis ... sad, I know). Whenever I was them, I was with the In Crowd. I still feel that way.
Living in the apartment with me had to have been no easy task. I assure you all I'm terrible to live with.
Considering how many people in that group of friends count the first time they met me as me yelling at them collectively to stop playing Halo before I "break an umbrella over all of your heads/stab you repeatedly in the kidneys with an ice pick/insert Medieval torture device reference of choice." First impressions really do matter.
The two years I spent living with Josh taught me what normal guys do. We watched ESPN. I watched them play HALO. We had a projector beamed against the wall. We lived as college students do, kings among men.
He taught me I get along with normal guys. He taught me I was actually kind of normal, too.
I don't think I've ever properly thanked him for that.
Ah, but wait ... I'm forgetting someone, an ever-constant feature in our day-to-day lives: the bride, Virginia Dawson.
I met her long before Josh did, a week earlier in fact. She was the suitemate to long-term McCollum friends Jennifer Shepherd and Meg Gafford, the one who wasn't the inexplicable Sara Darby.
She had opinions. She liked to debate. She was ... gasp ... a Libertarian.
A fast friendship was quickly born.
Virginia soon joined the poker group, and, as a dedicated people watcher, I couldn't help but notice she kept her focus largely and squarely upon Josh.
It doesn't take Chuck Woolery to know that a love connection would soon be made.
They became "The Couple," "Beauty and the Beast," "Tarzan and Jane" ... There were dozens more but time has faded my memory a bit.
He enlivened her. She civilized him. And we were all better for it.
She was always over at the apartment, game to sit and watch a classic flick with me or let me indulge in watching HBO series that shall remain nameless with her, Mags and some of her girls.
She has an inner light that brings joy to the people around her.
Josh, Virginia, know how much that it kills me I can't be there for the day you two become one.
I love you both dearly, and you better believe that
A) A nice present from Uncle Cliff will be waiting when you back from the honeymoon
B) I demand to see you the next time you're in Auburn so I can properly celebrate your wedding
L'chaim, kids. God bless.
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