TOPHER PAYNE | 7.23.2008
“IT’S RIGHT HERE SOMEWHERE,” I say, slowly driving through the streets of Candler Park.
“Do we need to turn Vera on?” asks George, reaching for my GPS. “Preppy made you get her for situations just like this.”
“No, I got it. It’s just past the golf course… I think.”
“Watch it, George,” Slutty Mandy says from the back seat. “You’re ashing all over me.”
We’re taking a post-brunch field trip, so my best friends can see the most exciting thing that happened to me all week. Possibly ever.
“There! Right there!”
I slam on the brakes in front of a 1920s Baptist Church, which was repurposed in the 1970s by the First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta.
Two days ago, it became the site of my upcoming wedding to Preppy.
“That’s not a little church!” George yells. “You said little. You said you were gonna have a tiny church like the one Slash played guitar in front of in the 'November Rain' video.”
“Turns out those only exist in music videos and episodes of Little House on the Prairie," I admit. "Besides, we needed a larger space. The guest list just kept growing. We’ve got 16 attendants now.”
“Sixteen?!” shouts Mandy. “Christ, who are you, Princess Di?”
“Look, y’all. I never had a graduation ceremony, I’m not Jewish so I didn’t get a bar mitzvah... This is the one and only time I’m asking everybody to drop everything and come celebrate something, and I don’t wanna hear crap about it.”
“Down, bridzilla, down,” Mandy says. “Nobody’s going to take away your special day. I’ll put the baby’s breath in your hair myself. I’ll carry a parasol. Whatever you and Preppy want.”
“Preppy wants what he always wants. Whatever makes Topher complain the least,” says George, examining the building. “God, I’m just wondering how in frosty hell I’m supposed to do flowers for a space that size.”
“I’ll help you,” I say. “We’ll do it together. It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know,” says George. “You don’t take instruction very well. And you never have free time.”
“I will for this! My last day at the restaurant is next week.”
“What?” says Mandy. “You quit your job to plan your wedding?”
“No. That’s just a benefit. I’m gonna try to be a writer. Full-time. And if I need extra money, there’s plenty of things I can do. Odd jobs.”
I KNOW, it seems rash, but i really did think this through, in my way. I made a budget of the exact dollar amount I need to make each month, and then I just have to come up with creative ways to make that much money.
I made another list of things I might be good at that would still give me time to write. I came up with babysitting, photographing events, phone psychic, being one of those guys who gives out comment cards at movie screenings, hosting a talk show, and assembling products in my own home, among many others.
My friend Vincent in New York does pretty well cleaning houses in suggestive outfits. If I got some abs maybe I could do that.
Poor preppy. when we met, I had a nice, stable, full-time job doing very responsible, adult-type things. But once I convinced him to marry me, I up and decided I’d had enough of all that. He was a little nervous about the whole thing, but I promised him if by the end of the year I was broke, I’d go put in an application at Starbucks.
But you never get anywhere without taking risks. I could keep telling myself my day job doesn’t define me, but is that really true? Whatever you do with the majority of your day does define who you are, at least to some extent.
If you spend ten hours a day being a bartender and two hours a week being a musician, then which one of those words really describes you and your life better?
There are two things I wanna be at this point in my life: A writer, and married to Preppy. As I drive away from the church, I feel like I’m finally making both of those things happen.
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