Alien Abduction
(or: Always a Bridesmaid, Never an Alien Abductee)

This is the closest I ever got to being abducted by aliens and leaving this doomed, sin festering planet. It was M.'s wedding (so it was a wedding/ post-Iranian-revolutionary-diaspora-reunion/college reunion thing) to this South African dude who talks like Cary Grant and is just the sweetest guy, and the Best Man was this Marlon Brando clone/boxer/wounded writer dude, and Ah. (the sister of the bride) and I threw this spa/shower/party and the ceremony was one of those cool interactive Iranian types, and there was much dancing, rejoicing and celebrating of M & J.

I will spare you details of the wedding but will, however, tell you one thing about the preparations before the wedding which made me vulnerable to alien abduction:

I went to Macy's in San Francisco, Union Square, by the Cable Cars that take you to Fisherman's Wharf. They were renovating Macy's facade due to the damage it sustained after the earthquake. (I date this episode, but maybe this will be fresh again in a few years after the big one hits. Astakhforellah.). I was there to get a wedding gift, and earings and perfume to match my ensemble so that I would look fabulous and thereby attract, perhaps, the above-referenced Marlonesque best man, who was charming in his extreme masculinity, and further attractive via heresay by virtue of the fact that the groom kept assuring me he was "brilliant. His Mom just won a MacSomething fellowship (a McFellowship?)." (later I was trying to find out just how "brilliant" this fellow was, given that a mother's brilliance isn't automatically transferable, and given that this man certainly didn't wear brilliance on his sleeve, and required much excavation and probing to elicit his deep thoughts, and I still didn't get too much out of him. His brilliance was shrouded in a non-verbal, mafioso-reminiscent prophylaxis. But he did at one point express what could be taken for appreciation of my brilliance, and a recognition of my brilliance is clearly a good indication of something kindred, but how far does that go?)

ANYWAY -

I'm on the muni (Myoo-knee, handy public transportation in SF), and I have between my spread knees a giant, giftwrapped box, garnished with purple bows and a sheaf of wheat, with a big plastic bag around it, a bunch of twine and a handle attached thereto to facilitate the carrying of it. In the box is a convection oven, my gift to the wedded couple. I have on a pair of comfortable running shoes, am wearing a nice warm red plaid jacket, thermal leggings, T-shirt. I have also a little duffle bag. Inside it is some extra twine that I got from the lady wrapping my box. Also, there are a pair of dangling rhinestone earings, a bottle of perfume, my favorite long turquoise beflowered dance/wedding dress, (taken so that I could match lipstick to it). But there's more! I also have a copy of a video tape in my bag which I had picked up for my cousin's mom, which she had transfered from Pal to whatever we use in the US, and on it was amazing footage of Snow in the village of Meigun in Iran, the citizens playing with abandon, and scenes of Ashura festivities involving a bunch of Iranian men flagellating themselves with exquisite choreography as incense burns around them, and finally, clips of Iranians pouring out in the streets of Tehran upon the victory of Iran over the US in the World Cup Soccer Game. But that's not all. I also have a greeting card I got for another aunt which has a luscious photograph of multi-colored bell peppers, garlic and other things, inside of which is a recipe for home made pizza. And I have a new, practically virgin diary, (the first page has my thoughts on a poem I memorized on the statue of Robert Burns that I stood before in Golden Gate park the day previously:

"To a Mountain Flower:
Wee modest crimson tipped Flow'r,
Thou hast met me in an evil hour.
For I maun crush amang the shoure thy slender stem,
to spare thee now is past my pow'r thou bonnie gem,";

and another two pages filled with brainstorming on my "Nuclear Chicken" story). In the duffle I have also a pen, and I have a copy of "Moby Dick," (which is really cool! All this time I was turned off by the alleged premise - a buncha guys hunting down giant sperm (whale). Boring guy story. But no! It's so much more than that. And I only thought to look it up because 1) on NPR (Nat'l Public Radio) I heard someone read the first paragraph and liked the line about wanting to knock people's hats off, and 2) on TV (!) the show "Mad About You", the babysitter comes over and reads Moby Dick to the baby, and the mother (Helen Hunt) says, that's so great, it has such rhythm, and meter. Now for these two endorsements, I finally decided to take a look at the thing, and lo! got my own copy (only $4 at Borders) More on ubiquitous sea monster metaphors later, much later, as it turns out that this book is about a theme incredibly close to my heart, and it's about time I wandered through it since it is the terrain of some of my most unshakable obsessions. Did I mention the screenplay I'm working on next is "The Sign of Jonah?")

OK, why do I take this time to itemize all the things in my bag? Can you see it? The diary? Twine? Moby Dick? Sparkling Earings? Pizza Recipe? Beautiful long dress? Sneakers? Video of Iran? Convection oven? SHEAF OF WHEAT?

So it occured to me, if only I had got the lipstick - and had brought my swiss army knife - this would have been the perfect time for me to be abducted by aliens and taken away to other worlds. What a perfect cultural capsule I embodied! What mileage and comfort I could get from these objects all alone in space with aliens. What a point of departure of conversation for us. How I could, if I was only pregnant with fraternal twins from two seperate fathers, twins of both gender, or just a boy (let's keep an open mind here, we're talking mythic/abstract/hypothetical) - how I could singlehandedly colonize new planets. And if the aliens got out of hand, perhaps I could use the perfume to kill them. They would be allergic to it, of course.

But the aliens didn't come.
Which is a good thing, since the wedding was so extremely fabulously life affirming and I realized anew that I want to live to be old, and keep in touch with my constellation of friends, and I miss the ones I haven't seen in a while, and I feel really rich.

(Dude, gratuitous happy ending.)

Alien Balloon at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta