Some thoughts few weeks before the wedding

Nostalgia for a past then never will come again, fear for a future?

I don't think anyone is really ready to get married. Paolo , my dear friend, will get married this Saturday, just before spending the honey moon in Africa, so he can come at my ceremony (congratulations, by the way). He seems and sounds ready, but probably after living together with Verusca and going through a pregnancy with two twins nothing really scares him anymore.

Am I ready? Again, I don't know. Pre-wedding courses, books, advices from others (married, but even unmarried or divorced friends) they just give you an idea. It's probably difficult for a selfish guy like me deciding to think as "we" instead of the usual "me, Olafmeister".

These are strange times. My mum discovered skype so she's now in touch with me more than she ever was. I phone my dad once a week as usual and I end up talking for more than 20 minutes, which is a shocker for someone like me who believes in silences and 2 minutes phone talks.

I talk a lot recently too. At football, with Lindsey's parents, with Lindsey's sisters, with Lindsey.
Verbal diarrhea, popping up usually in the evening, after a day of total focus in my lonely office.
Every time I phone the customer centre (for banking, booking, checking stuff) I end up talking with some Indian guy about the rains in London, the sun in South Africa, the curry in India.
I'm back again playing lists from itunes where the newest song is probably dated 1995.

I even cry. Watching films. I'm becoming like my father. He gets moved by WWII and western films, and generally any film where real men face big trouble in the name of a country, a flag or the family they are fighting (and dying) for.

I cried for Rocky VI. Many months ago, me and Rob shamelessly cried in the darkness of the Cineworld in Fulham, watching the film for the first time. I could hear sobbing everywhere, from guys in the 30s to old folks in the 60s. I watched the film again on DVD. Damn it's moving.

Other "sad" films, for example about genocides (Schlinder's list, Life is beautiful etc...) don't impress me so much.

But put in the story a father and son reconnecting adventure (Big Fish ), add some self sacrifice (Terminator 2 , me and Simon Pegg are still crying about the ending) or a team effort in any sport (Remember the Titans ) and you will see my eyes get a bit watery.

But no films had hit me and made me cry more than Clerks 2 recently. Yes, it's crude, gross, it has bestiality and blasphemy, but it has two great things that for some inexplicable reason get to me: the music (Talking Heads' Nothing but Flowers at the begin, Smashing Pumpkins's 1979 , even Alanais Morrisette's Everything at the end) and the story between Dante and Randal. That go-kart scene ...

Now, I'm not saying I'm regretting what I've done in the past, well, 16 years or so, but it is true that things get more and more complicated with age. Maybe at 90 things will get easier again, but what's the point?

Maybe I am just afraid of getting married. Nobody is born a husband, nobody is born a father, we are just randomly born. You just do the best with what you got.

And luckily I'm on the luckiest guys around: I got Lindsey.

(and a new car, but this is another story)