Went to the most beautiful wedding this weekend.
The ceremony was on the water’s edge in Montauk, Long Island, right as the sun set. The couple, both genetically blessed and stylish in their own right, knows every sexy, surfy person in the sexy-surfy-person mecca that is Montauk. And they both have good looking families. So that was the guest pool. The groom, an interior- and set designer, had put his artistic touches all over the grounds: a giant, wood x and o sculpture set, a simple, flower-bound, part-chuppa, part teepee (a chuppee?), and other details I’m sure I missed because I always miss the visuals.
Altogether, a wedding made of Instagram dreams.
And, beautiful on an emotional level, because the bride and groom are lovely people and seem so right together. That sounds trite, but it’s hard not to when describing a wedding. (And I’m getting lazy, because I’m just trying to get to the part about me.)
The most beautiful part for me? I cried!
I love it when a wedding gets me misted up, because it feels so appropriate. So human. Like I’m not a bloodless sociopath.
Normally, I don’t cry at appropriate times.
I don’t cry at funerals. I don’t cry for the pain of humanity. I don’t cry at Sally Struthers crying for starving children.
Unlike my mom and dad, who’ll blow their noses for 90 minutes over Madea Goes To Jail, I don’t cry at movies.
I never cried at camp when the half-term people left and all the other kids were wailing and ululating. Except one year, when a counselor yelled at me for taking two desserts, and I pretended I was crying because some older camper whom I barely knew was leaving. “Waaa-aaaa-aaa-aaa, [HICCUP, HICCUP] I was just getting to know Jenny!!! And now she’s leeeavvvinnnnng!”
So when do I cry?
I cry when I’m told “no” or “you’re late.”
I cry when talking to a person of authority, like a teacher or boss or crowd-control cop. “What do you mean, I can’t cross here? I LIVE ON THIS BLOCK! THE PARADE DOESN’T EVEN START TILL SIX! [SOB]”
I cry when I’m trying to take back a purchase and the person at the counter tells me it’s too late and they’ll only give me store credit.
Most of all, all my life, I’ve cried in electronic stores.
As a pavlovian response to having cried there before, I used to cry every time I walked into Golden Sound, a small, pre-Best-Buy-era shop on the Upper West Side. All my conversations with them went like this:
HIM: “I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s store policy. I have no choice.”
ME: “I’m sorry, I have trouble believing that. You’re the owner. You have NO CHOICE? Do you know how many Walkmans I’ve bought from you? All my Walkmans. And all my headphones. I got these folding ones here. I’M A [SNIFF] LIFELONG CUSTOMER! I guess [SOB] I’ll have to go somewhere else for my electronics from now on. Which is [SOB] too bad because [SOB] I spend [SOB, SOB, SOB] practically all my money on electronics!”
I don’t have that conversation any more, because what’s a Walkman, but I’ve had versions of it at the Apple Genius Bar.
ME: “Really? [SOB] You’re going to charge me to repair the circuit board when I’ve been buying Apple products since [SOB] 1981?”
HIM: “I wasn’t even born then.”
Because I feel it looks extra foolish to try and hold back the tears and pretend you’re not crying, I now announce, “I’m so upset, I’m going to cry.”
Doesn’t make me look any less ridiculous.
But I was totally normal crying at the wedding. And it was beautiful.
Now you.
When do you cry?
Do you cry at normal times? Or are you like me?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
Oh lord. *buries head in hands* I may be too old to be on this blog. So many young references… Anywhoo, I am a solitary crier. In an emergency or during the deaths of my parents, I was the cool one taking care of everything and being strong, level-headed (although I did sit with my dad the night before he died, alone, watching him breathe, knowing he was leaving this world, and I did cry. I get tears now thinking about that — but I’m alone at my computer, see?) I break down crying later, watching a movie, or seeing something touching on Facebook. I expected to cry at my sons’ weddings, and I never did. I might cry when I’m super tired and stressed and burned out. But I spend lots of times now, long periods, where I never shed a tear. Maybe it’s part of being over 50. [I won’t repeat the thought I just had about mucous membranes and ‘over 50’.]
I cry at so many things, which usually makes my friends uncomfortable. I’m usually a hardass and seeing me cry is an anomaly for me. They look at me for second with utter confusion on their faces and then say, “I didn’t know you could do that!” To which I reply, “I’m not a damn robot!” The only time I don’t cry is when I know someone is trying to get over on me. Dry as a bone. So believe me, your ass would have gotten store credit. Every. Single. Time.
I tend to cry before flo comes to town. I watch a commercial, I cry. I watch a drama movie, I cry. Troy looks at me and wonders: is it that time of the month and slowly creeps out of the room or says: “I’m going for a drive.”
I look at him from the corner of my eye. “Where are you going?” He senses that I’ll cry at the drop of a hat. Some guys are not comfortable around menstrual crampy women, especially Troy.
I get so sensitive. What follows is that I also eat like crazy. That’s another story.
You can ask Steven for confirmation, but when it comes to me the question is “When do you NOT cry?” I’ve come up with a rating system for the crying, just so I can give people a heads up.
Green Light-The tears stay mostly contained to my eyeballs, maybe 1 or 2 stream down.
Yellow Light-I’ll fully cry, but once it’s done, it’s done.
Red Light-Totally inconsolable, don’t even try just lock me in a room until I come out and I’m so puffy you won’t recognize me.
Worth noting, I once had a Red Light moment at work because someone was mean to me.” I got sent home.
I so feel for you! Yes, I do know about this, um…superpower…of yours.
And I know it’s occasions where you don’t want to cry, which makes us pretty similar. This is why I work at home.
ps – I know what you look like puffy, from that bee sting picture.
Sometimes I cry when I’m listening to NPR, and then I’m so glad that I listen to NPR in the car by myself.
I know what you’re thinking: “Oh! You ‘normal’ cry, like when they talk about horrible tragedies.”
Nope. I cry in moments of triumph or poignancy that have no relation to my actual life or interests. Like when someone on This American Life builds new legs so he can climb a mountain again, and then talks about how he is changing the way we look at technology and mechanics. But if I met the man in life, I would just blush and freak out about whether or not I should open the door for him.
But it’s not a real cry, it’s that sappy, jerky, sucking in of breath before you collapse in a sob, like Gulp! Gulp! Gulp! Hold me!
I also showcase that gulpy pre-cry at huge events. Volumes of people is all it takes. I hear people screaming all together, and I’m like “Emotions! People have them! We have them!” That’s why one time people thought I was being born again, but I wasn’t. -_-
I’m going out of order here – which I probably shouldn’t announce because it’s not like anyone would notice…but I might start food crying, because I just looked at your blog and it’s so good, I don’t know what to do with my emotions.
Oh wait, I know: I can eat them!
You have my favorite foods all over that bitch, and so beautifully photographed, and then the writing is so much better than any other food blog writing, and and and. I had a feeling it would be, since you’re so good at describing your weirdo NPR/ crowd cry.
If you do meet the man with the homemade mountain climbing legs, pick him up and carry him through the door.
I pre-cry breathed when I read your comment about looking at my blog, then I went to my blog and read the last 10 (or so) posts and imagined reading them from a copy writer’s (::cough:: your) perspective and judged them all anew. Then I realized I was definitely crazy, and decided I should just come back here and say, “Thanks for stopping at my blog!!” So thanks. 🙂
Second thing: I’m always having a crisis that my food blog doesn’t have “food blog voice,” and now I’m a little less worried about that and a little more proud of it. Eeee!
I cry over my children. Not so much because of the endearing and touching things they do. More because of the infuriating and mind boggling things they do.
My favourite kind of crying is the sort you do when laugh until you cry. That’s the best.
I think children, or lack of control over them, would make me cry on an hourly basis.
I love laugh-until-cry-and-pee-a-little. That doesn’t happen enough.
I go through phases. I either cry at everything or nothing. I was stoic at this Vietnam doc we watched the other day while people around us were straight-up sobbing, but I think I teared up watching the trailer for it a few weeks ago…
You should see me at a Holocaust museum. It’s like, “Who’s the stone-faced freak? Must be German.”
I’ve always had trouble crying alone, I’m a performance crier. Anytime I’m sad and flee to my bedroom to enjoy a good sob, it utterly dries up. So crying during arguments, when I don’t get my way, or in a group crying environment like a wedding or a theatre are wonderful opportunities for me to unleash the waterworks. I’ve actually given it a lot of thought and wondered what the heck is going on if I can’t release my emotions when I’m not in a group. I’ve purposefully taken time to squeeze out tears in private but it is much less satisfying than public emotion to me. Part of my extrovert personality, I guess, which is shifting slightly as I slide into the second half of my life(that is if I live to be 102!).
I think that’s the most amazing trick! I wish my tears dried up whenever I get by myself. If they did, I could just say, “be right back” whenever I felt the frustration tears building, and they’d stop. Instead, I’ve spent up to half an hour in office bathrooms, waiting for the sobbing to cease and my face to look normal.
I have to correct something you wrote: Dad’s a waterfall, but I’m not. It’s the only thing Dad has in common with John Boehner. There are many times I’ve wanted to cry, but it doesn’t happen. Dad will ask me, “Did you cry?,” and it makes me feel deficient, as if I’m not a sensitive, feeling, wonderfully warm person. At my mother’s funeral, I complained to a friend that I couldn’t cry. She said, “you don’t have to shed tears; your face is telling the tale.” What she said came as a big relief. The times when I do cry are — yes, sometimes at weddings — when I get all warm and gushy inside. I sometimes cry at movies or books. But other times are out of frustration, or a sense that I’ve been deceived or unjustly accused of something. I get impatient at overly sentimental, mawkish expression when people around me are weeping, but I can’t get over the feeling that I’m supposed to be crying too.
So that’s where I get it! Or don’t get it. But I did think you cried at movies. (Though I shouldn’t have grouped you with Dad, since no one cries like he does.) Are you crying now over being falsely accused of crying?
Ha. No, I’m laughing appropriately, because you’re funny. Oh – also, there’s some music that gets me misty, especially if it rekindles folk music gatherings.
PS – another thing Dad has in common with John Boehner is the last name that starts with B. Has he looked into whether Boehner is a Belgray?
Is it awful that I cry in a movie or on TV when an animal dies (yes I know they aren’t really dead), but am ok if its a human being?? Also even after many many years of watching Disney Movies I’m toast. Now its so bad I just have to see Cinderella’s castle and the fireworks and the waterworks begin…ps I never let my kids watch Old Yeller.
I get that, Barbara. Especially cartoon animals. There’s something tragic about when they croak that makes even someone like me choke up.
I can appreciate your pavlovian response to the studio insignia.
No kids should watch Old Yeller. Ever.
I cry when I talk about anything vulnerable/hard for me to talk about. Ugh, it’s annoying.
I’ve also been known to tear up at any old show or movie.
Any old show or movie! Like, say, reruns of Steven Bocho’s Cop Rock?
I wonder if you’ve had a chance to watch and cry over The Mysteries of Laura.
I have a mix of good times to cry and odd times to cry. Spock dying messed me up for weeks – thanks for reminding me of that one Sam! At least in the recent Star Trek movie Kirk dies and then they revive him with Khan’s blood two minutes later. Surely they could have figured that out for Spock. Bastards.
I notice a pattern Laura and may need to challenge your actual “crying” as more like getting your way in various stores and outlets. One might say you’re a Retail Crier – which in truth is like Scott Biao thinking of his dead kitten when he was 12 to get to that emotional place on Charles in Charge. (All of that is made up…hmmmm…..like your TEARS!!) So I am joyful that your tears this weekend broke the pattern. Now perhaps you will cry with Sally Struthers, squeezing tight your raggedy old stuffed animal Mr. Fluffers from 2nd grade as you sit on a rainy day in your apartment. Tears that break free of the Retail bonds.
I wish this for you. Mr. Fluffers wishes this. Sally wishes this.
The six pack of tissues are in the mail.
Blessings.
I am a retail cryer! Thank you for giving a name to my illness. It’s such a relief to have a true diagnosis that I just might…wait, no, lost it.
You know I save tissues in case I run out of toilet paper.
I think I cry in appropriate times and inappropriate times. I’m an equal opportunity crier. I’m not sure, but I think it may have to do with the fact that I’m also a sweater. Not as in the angora type, but the turn beet red and drip type. But only from my face, I’m not why that is…maybe my face is screaming for moisture. I do live in San Diego, a desert region, where its residents desperately try to landscape like it’s a Hawaiian Island–which may have something to do with why we’re in this drought, but I’m not sure…It’s really about water. And not about the crying.
You and I are matching sweaters! My face is what in real estate they call a “water feature.” It’s like those waterfall walls they put in business-building courtyards, with the tables where you’re supposed to sit and eat your lunch but no one really does.
I like to think it’s why we look great for our age, purging of the toxins, or some shit like that. Only you have no proof on my end, since my pic is a greyscale silhouette.
I cry at anything and everything. Movies, TV shows (especially Parenthood, which irks me because I KNOW THEY WANT ME TO CRY), curtain calls at the theater and my kids’ plays, people yelling at me – hell I recently read James’ fortune at a Chinese restaurant – “Mom, are you CRYING?!” asked Allie. I was.
They DO want you to cry! You fall right into the end-of-episode-musical-montage trap, don’t you! You’re just giving them what they want and encouraging them to make the show that little bit less good than it could be. God, that last minute could be put to so much better use! Like, more Amber. I love Amber and I’m fascinated by how she got pretty.
OK, make us cry — what was James’ fortune?
“Everything you do, you do to make your heart sing.”
Maybe you had to be there – or maybe you had to be in my house for the last 12 years ; )
Oh god. I’m a crier.
I cry at movies and silly sappy hallmark commercials. I also cry when I’m mad which is super frustrating.
There’s an Irish saying my mom used to offer when I would cry “Your bladder must be behind your eyes!” which now as I type this sounds really gross.
xoxo
That really does sound gross. So does, “your tear ducts must be in your urethra” which I think is the converse.
I hate crying when I’m mad. It’s the worst.
I’m crying laughing at your blog. Because I laugh inappropriately like when other people cry. I cry for real when animals on TV do cute things.
I laugh inappropriately at Inappropriate laughter, or even the idea of inappropriate laughter. So I’m laughing right now thinking about you laughing at funerals. And if I were at one with you, I’d make it worse.
I cried when Spock died. That sucked. See, I didn’t know he was coming back in Star Trek III. And it was really sad…I mean, he goes and does this totally noble “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one” thing…and then dies!
Oh, and when King Kong bit it, too. That was sad. Poor damned stupid ape.
That is such a legit reason to cry. You are a feeling person. You know what? I almost cried when Omar croaked on The Wire. He’s my Spock.