The Lex Files

Bed, Breakfast, and a Few Assorted Paragraphs: Our First Anniversary

A thousand stories write themselves in my mind each day. Like the jokes I tell, not all of them are good. Unlike the not-so-good jokes I tell, the stories that write themselves tend to stay in my head.

I only know the middles of my stories. Not necessarily the key middles, as in everything but the beginning and the end. More often, I know bits and pieces of the middles. Segues, sometimes — but more frequently, isolated passages that some other part of my brain is supposed to tie together in perfect essay form. That part rarely happens.

So now, when stories are writing themselves in my head, there’s another nagging voice there too: “Ah, forget this story. You don’t know how to write the rest of it. Just this paragraph.”

I can’t continue to let that happen, especially when there are so many good paragraphs echoing around in my head.

Take this weekend, for example. Lauren and I were celebrating our first wedding anniversary. I’ve been told that the first year is the hardest, in which case this marriage thing is going to be a breeze, because this first year was a treat. But older married couples tend to scoff at that sentiment. “Wait till year four,” my new coworker Paul said to me. “After four years, the chemical reactions that occur in the brain when you fall in love simply stop occurring. That’s the real test. Oh, and the seven year itch – that’s real.”

Paul is an excellent programmer, but a lousy spokesperson for love and marriage. For my money, it’s an institute you can’t disparage.

But at any rate, it’s been a great year for me and Lauren. We’re almost used to referring to each other as husband and wife (“Husband, can you take out the trash please?” ”Wife, no.”). Lauren remembers to sign her name as “Friedman” every time. We have come to grips with the fact that yes, we are married. And we have loved every minute of it.

Our wedding night, August 31st, 2003, we retired to a Bed and Breakfast in Manalapan, New Jersey. We thought that a better alternative to spending the night back at Lauren’s parents’ home. We had a lovely couple of nights at the B&B. And as a wedding gift, several of Lauren’s childhood friends gave us a unique wedding gift – a certificate for two nights at the Lord Mayor’s Inn, a Bed and Breakfast in Long Beach, California.

Our time at Lord Mayor’s Inn was filled with mental writing on my part. There were so many paragraphs I scribbled away in my head, and I refuse to accept that I have no way to tie them together. Reading the new David Sedaris book helped… I want to write not like him – because I can’t – but rather, I want to write much the way that Sedaris does – which is to say, at all. So I’m writing. And hoping the segues will come.

Reuben and Laura are somewhere between 65 and 120 years old each. They’ve owned the Lord Mayor’s Inn for almost two decades, and they love it. Like every other Bed and Breakfast – or at least, like the other one Lauren and I have stayed in – it’s decorated in that style I like to call “old and uncomfortable.” But it has a charm, a real charm. As we creaked up the stairs to our room, Laura pointed out the picture of Reuben’s father on one table, and another photo, overlooking the bed, showing Reuben’s parents on their wedding day.

Nice that they’d be watching us.

Before we made it upstairs though, Reuben had to take us through check-in. Throughout it all, his hand shook uncontrollably. At one point, he acknowledged the tremor:

“I just had quadruple bypass surgery,” he said. “And I also had surgery for colon cancer. And the chemotherapy, coupled with the diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, gives me this twitch.”

I, of course, was thinking that this was an awkward topic. More honestly, I was thinking how many other diseases the Bed and Breakfast owner should have in the TV pilot I was slowly scripting in my mind for maximum comedic effect. (Answer: none.)

“Wow,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

A pause. A pause is never a good response to that question, by the way.

“I could be a wise guy and say ‘with my fingers.’ But… in truth, I feel lousy.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, mostly because I was sorry to hear that, but also because it seemed like the only thing to say.

“But they tell me I still look good,” he said with a grin.

I heartily agreed. This, I decided, was how I want to be as an old man. Minus the cancer and heart surgery and whatnot.


A few too many times, Laura referred to our need for “relaxing” this weekend. What she meant was, “sex.”

We explained our crazy, semi-packed schedule for the weekend, saying we’d be in and out of the Inn throughout the day, and that we were hoping for a late (9:30) breakfast our first morning.

“Oh, I understand. After all, you have a lot of relaxing to do up in the room, I’m sure. It is your anniversary, after all… So you’ll certainly want to relax. And the Eastlake Room is really grand for… relaxing.”

“Well Laura,” I replied mentally, “you are about 500 years too old to be having this conversation with me, and might I add, ‘bleeeeeaaaaaaargh.’” Mental vomit is quite like real vomit, but easier to clean up.

We unpacked in our room, the Eastlake Room, which faces west and has a view consisting entirely of land. I found and became immediately obsessed with The Book of Gratitude where previous guests of the Eastlake Room had written thank you notes to Reuben and Laura. Some people wrote a few lines, others a few pages. I read the notes that were hand-printed; the cursives were too ornate for my eyes. But the notes were amazing to read.

Several mentioned Laura’s amazing lemon curd breakfasts. Those were not the amazing ones.

I read one written by the male half of a happy couple. “Michele always does something special for my birthday, and she brought me here this weekend to celebrate my 28th.” That’s sweet. Based on the date of entry, he’s now 41. And likely has forgotten writing in the book. As hokey as it would sound if someone else were writing these words, that is somehow beautiful.

There’s a wall hanging in the creaky Eastlake Room. A hand-painted, hand-lettered, framed piece. The text reads:

Sleep Sweetly
In this quiet room
O though, whoever thou art
    And let
No morning or yesterday
Disturb thy peaceful heart.
Nor let tomorrow
Scare thy rest
With dreams of coming ill
Thy maker is thy Changless [sic] Friend
His love
Surrounds thee still
Forget thyself and all the world
Put out early glaring light
The stars are watching Overhead
Sleep Sweetly, then
Good night
    Good night

It’s already an excellent poem, methinks, though I usually hate simple rhyming poetry. I love the message and the language. I didn’t know if it’s original, and we left the Internet at home – it was our anniversary weekend; the Internet could wait. (Google told me later that the poem’s either by Victor Hugo, Ellen M. H. Gates, or Unknown.) But it’s beautiful. And not cornball-beautiful like the 28-year-old birthday boy who’s now 41. Or maybe the same cornball-beautiful. But that’s beautiful enough for me on this, my first wedding anniversary with the woman I love. I even love the fact that my maker is my Changless Friend. No Changs. I’ll assume that’s not a knock on any Asian families, but rather a reference to the fact that my maker is both Changless and Changeless, and ever-forgiving of “typos” that predate the PC.

Because I haven’t yet mentioned the best part of this maybe-original poem.

To Gussie Anderson
From Granma [sic] Sherman
1899

1899! Eighteen-ninety-nine! Holy Moses! That is from a long time ago. Long enough ago for a person to be named Gussie, that’s for sure.


Our first night in Long Beach, we dined at a fine restaurant but skipped dessert, because the same pier where we found the restaurant offered premise-made chocolates, a separate candy store, an ice cream shop, and a soft-pretzel place. We ate well, where “well” means “a lot.”


The next morning, we were treated to breakfast a la Laura. That’s the “breakfast” aspect of a “Bed and Breakfast,” my friends. Upon checking in, when Laura asked us about our food allergies, we stated (because of the Kosher thing) that we didn’t eat meat. Then I added that (because of the taste bud thing) I don’t eat fruits.

Laura was nonplussed, as I believe her breakfast menu had just been minused.

But she outdid herself. Breakfast consisted of French toast, eggs, and some strange fruit that Lauren ate. But two out of three ain’t bad.

We left the B&B and went to the beach. We walked along, steeped in stock romantic goofiness, until we stumbled on something really cool: The dog beach. It was section of the shorefront where pets were allowed, and boy were their owners taking advantage of it. They’d throw out tennis balls into the water, and the dogs would plunge right into the ocean, swimming when necessary, to recover them.

We watched this for more than an hour.

(I thusly believe that I can feel less ashamed when we watch shows like “Airline” or “Trading Spaces” for more than an hour. We’re not addicted to the television nearly so much as we’re addicted to staying attentive.)


We left and went to a “Main Street” type area, lunching at a sports bar and desserting at a bakery that offered “Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies” and “Heart Attack + Cholesterol With Sprinkles Du Jour.”

Later that evening, we went on a gondola ride around the island of Naples. The gondola rides are based on all the ingredients for romance: Gondolas flown in straight from Italy, gondoliers schooled in all the major Italian phrases (namely “Ciao!”), ridiculous advice like “It’s good luck to kiss underneath every bridge,” and slowly cruising past hundreds of houses you could never in a million years afford, even if you sold all four kidneys.

Dinner that night was supposed to be at the “fanciest” of restaurants we planned to visit. It was quite nice, with a most delightful waiter. But after full meals, the dinner ended up being our cheapest of the weekend, barely over $30.00.


Sunday started with a full-roster breakfast – all the guests of the Lord Mayor’s Inn sat around the table and feasted on Laura’s non-lemon-curd specialty: popovers. I never knowingly had popovers before, and neither had Lauren, who forecasted they might involve fruit. I predicted sausage.

Oops. Popovers, of course, are just dough. That’s my kind of meal. With scrambled eggs, it was a veritable feast. But as the classiest of classy people know, fine dining is about two things: Fine food is one, fine company the other.

And let’s not forget suicidal flies. But let’s first discuss the other diners.

There was the Grouchy Couple, who are named unfairly. Only Mrs. Couple was truly grouchy. She, like Reuben, was a diabetic, but – GET THIS – she was a DIFFERENT KIND of diabetic than Reuben! And Laura was SO EXCITED about this, and wanted to ask Grouchy ALL ABOUT insulin and SHOTS and SECRETIONS and WHATNOT, whereas Grouchy – of all things – wanted to EAT. Hence the grouchiness.

Also at breakfast was The Gay Couple; they were from Arizona, and Laura referred to each as the other’s “friend.” Mr. And Mr. Gay were quite nice, though if they stood side by side they might form the number 10.

Then there were The Christians. Jesus and Mary Christian were celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, which they announced to the table. We congratulated them and mentioned, not surprisingly, that is was our first. Mr. Christian then smiled and said “I should bless you now” as he made the sign of the cross to us.

You non-Jews in my reading audience have no idea how hilarious that is to nice Jewish folks like us. Or, offensively vile to other Jews, particularly Jews who are my mother. We simply laughed, because that was all we could do. After stifling laughter for a moment, I thought of the perfect response – “My rabbi will thank you” – but too much time had passed. Mr. and Mrs. Christian had already moved on, probably to devising scriptures to quote to help The Gays see the sinning error of their ways.

The Arizona Gays were in Long Beach to buy a boat. We were all surprised to learn how popular boating was in the desert. We didn’t get all the details, because the fly that flew through the candle’s flame and fell dying to the tablecloth, its wings singed and its will-to-live crushed, stole the floor at that point. Perhaps it was the fly Mr. Christian should have blessed – Lauren and I were doing just fine.

Before we left, I made sure to jot a note in the book of gratitude for the Eastlake Room, because, frankly, how could I not?


The note I wrote in the book of gratitude:

August 27-29, 2004

Dear Laura and Reuben,

Unlike many of your guests who came before us, we weren’t here for our first stay at a Bed & Breakfast, but rather, our second. A year ago, after the wedding but before the honeymoon, we spent two magically romantic nights at a New Jersey Bed and Breakfast.
We decided to try another on this, our 1st anniversary, knowing well that we could be setting ourselves up for disappointment with such high expectations. Laura and Reuben, you didn’t just meet our expectations – you re-set them even higher. Our wondrous time here has cemented a new tradition for us as a young, married couple…
Every anniversary, every year, we’ll celebrate in a B&B. The warmth and hospitality that greeted us immediately following our wedding, recalled again here just one year later, kindle romance that is too beautiful to pass up.
Thank you both for an amazing weekend, helping us set our new tradition in motion.

Most sincerely,
Lex & Lauren Friedman
Culver City, CA
us@thefriedmans.net

Yeah, so maybe it was mostly lies. But it was decently written. For being done in longhand, anyway.

Post popover, and with Jesus and Santa Clause now apparently watching over our marriage, we checked out (a term I hated to use with the pharmacy known as Reuben) and headed towards the Aquarium of the Pacific. There, we touched many sea creatures, most of which I can happily report feel like slime, or worse. Particularly the giant snail that felt like mashed potatoes. After two hours, we made the two-minute drive to the grand finale of our weekend anniversary getaway: A champagne brunch on the Queen Mary.

We ate, and ate, and ate, and ate.

The number of foods consumed by each of us at the brunch buffet was exceeded in total only by the number of times we wished each other a happy anniversary.

It’s been a heck of a year for us. Since we got married, we made a home, bought a new car, cared for a puppy, did Queer Eye, started a new job, took Groundlings classes, took Grad school classes, took long walks on the beach, took long walks with the dog, made dinners in the microwave, made dinners in the oven, made dinners on the stovetop, made dinners on the grill, and did a thousand other things together, some life-changing, some not.

And through it all, we had each other. We first started dating in November 1999, but doing things together now that we’re a genuine married couple feels somehow more special. Since August 31st, 2003, we’ve been each other’s Changless Friend.

Sometimes all I can write are the paragraphs, but the rest of the stories I can’t make sound good. At one point this weekend, I told Lauren, “It wasn’t closed when I opened it.” She didn’t blink, as this statement was undoubtedly true. The story’s not that interesting really, but I want to remember that I said it and that it made sense at the time.


Who knows how much longer the Lord Mayor’s Inn will be in service. If it lasts for years and years, long after E Bola, Lice, The Plague, and Mad Cow Disease have taken Reuben away from us, maybe someone will read my note in the little book. I made sure to stay away from cursive, so that the lazier folks like me will be able to read it before they “relax.” When I’m a 40-something dad, some other freshly married kid could read my note and decide to leave his own in the book.

More than likely, that won’t happen. The hand-written poem will be taken down when the Inn changes owners. The book with the note will be kept in a box of keepsakes and later tossed by children to whom it means nothing.


I didn’t always feel a need to write down stories. I loved writing columns for the student papers, but I hated writing them when I felt I had nothing to say. Blogging let me write when I felt like writing, but sometimes now I still write stuff when I have nothing to say. Or I start to write good entries, but all I have are the paragraphs, and the stories don’t sound right. Sometimes I post them anyway and just hate them, and post again as soon as possible to push them down the page. Other times I don’t post them at all.

Driving home from Long Beach, as I yet again made the “Ikea” joke to Lauren that wasn’t the funny the first time but somehow got funnier each time I did it, I think I discovered why it’s a little harder for me to write down the stories the right way now.

It’s harder to make them sound right because I can’t get the whole picture on the page. I know it doesn’t make much sense when I say all I have is the paragraphs, but I mean it – the storytelling piece of the puzzle has gotten considerably harder. But I realized today that it’s for a good reason.

Lauren is a part of every story I have to tell. Lauren and I share something that is so undeniably magical. I wasn’t lying when I wrote in the Book of Gratitude that the Lord Mayor’s and the other B&B we stayed in a year ago had been wondrous and beautiful and amazing and all that. But the B&Bs had nothing to do with it. The wondrous part was sharing it with Lauren.

I could just write the paragraphs of every story that enters my head, and Lauren could read them and fully appreciate the story, because she is the rest of the story. Or more accurately, we are. The part that’s hard to write – or rather, so challenging to write around, since I simply can’t get it down – is the part of the story that’s just us, that’s known only to the two of us because of that wonder and magic of us-hood.

The paragraphs are the stories. What’s harder to write isn’t segues or exposition. It’s the part that I can’t even adequately name. Not only did you have to be there… you had to be us.