I Hear Cousins

My sister Siobhan got married this past weekend. We are all very happy. We love Ben. We love his family. It was a beautiful day for a wedding in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and Siobhan and Ben were married on a beautiful little sunny hillside, and then we all strolled down the hill to the tents for dinner and dancing. It was a very emotional day. The O’Malley/Sullivan cousin contingent is a large large group and except for a couple of people, everyone was there. We missed those absent.

— Cousin Tim and I were talking. Brendan came over and interrupted us with a brief question to Tim. Tim answered and then said, “Excuse me, Brendan, I was just having a deep intellectual conversation with Sheila.” Then, to me: “Now where was I?” I said, “You left off with the words ‘jug of Jameson’s.'”

— Cousin Kerry looked gorgeous in an orange sundress and teetery creamy heels. We all struggled in our heels walking through the wet grass, heels plunging into the mud. 10 minutes after the ceremony was over, I glanced at Kerry and she had changed into her running sneakers. “This is so much better,” she breathed.

— Talking with Cousin Mike about playwriting, annoying actors, the process of play production, and also Elvis. “So talk to me about Ann-Margret and Elvis,” Mike fired at me with no preamble. Mike was asking me about biographies of the man, and I went off on many of them, saying, “Listen,” I said, “Who honestly cares that Elvis was uncircumcised ….” Mike interrupted me, fascinated, “Was he really??” Okay, then, clearly someone cares. Then we found ourselves back talking about art and playwriting and annoying actors.

— Talking about Moneyball with Cousin Ken and Suzanne.

— Cousin Emma hung the party favors over her ears like two huge cone-shaped paper earrings.

— During “She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah” our entire joined families went insane on the dance floor. At one point, I heard someone start up a syncopated clap (two quick claps, one longer one) and the entire crowd took it up. I glanced around and the clap had been started by Kerry, in her glamorous orange dress and running sneakers. Jean and I were howling, watching Kerry do her syncopated clap with utter abandon.

— Cousin Marianne (the elder) saying to me, “Who are these people who don’t know the lyrics to ‘Here Comes the Sun’?”

— Jean went so insane dancing to “Sexy Back” that a circle of howling clapping cousins formed around her. Cashel was laughing so hard he was crying. I don’t think he’d ever seen his Auntie Jean in quite that light before.

— I myself danced so hard to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” that I felt like I was 16 years old again at a high school dance.

— This is a placeholder for all hilarious yet unprintable remarks.

— Sisters Olivia and Cecily were both in shiny pink dresses and looked red-carpet ready.

— Any time Rachel and I see each other now, we say the words “Croatia” in mournful tones. We had been all ready to go in 2010 and then waited too long and our lives got busy and I got broke. Someday she and I will take Croatia by storm.

— At the end of the night, Cousin Kelly, glamorous and elegant in her white dress, seemed emotionally unready for the night to be over. The DJ was packing up his stuff, and Kelly still stood there, waiting, hoping. She called out to the DJ, “Oh, come on! I Like Big Butts, please???” Cousin Jay, his wife Erin and I were laughing so hard at the image of elegant Kelly screaming out “I Like Big Butts” to anyone who would listen. I said, “Kelly, I like broad shoulders but you don’t see me screaming out my preferences on the dance floor.”

— Cousin Kerry and I stood on the edge of the dance floor and talked about potential dates for the New York reading of my script. The wedding reception was in process and Kerry was firing off emails to the artistic director of such and such a theatre from the sidelines. Seriously: do not get Kerry involved in one of your projects if you are not ready for it to happen. Girl gets stuff done.

— As a tribute to their respective baseball teams, each table at the reception was named for a player who had played for both the Red Sox AND the White Sox. I was at the Ellis Burks table. The folks at the Carlton Fisk table really lorded it over the rest of us. Cousin Mike came by just to say to us, “Yeah, I’m at the Carlton Fisk table.”

— There is a limbo tradition at any wedding with Cousin Mike present. A strap or rope is somehow procured, and Mike takes one side and my brother Brendan takes the other. I believe this is the second wedding in a row where Jay’s wife Erin won the limbo contest. Other people would attempt to go as low as she did, and most people fell backwards into a heap on the floor. But Erin is a twisty little thing, and we all watched agog as she backbended her way under the rope to great applause. The clear winner.

— At one point, I was slow-dancing with my cousin Marianne (the elder) and we looked around the dance floor and every couple out there was made up of two women. It was like a grade school dance.

— Cousin Lisa, naturally, made me laugh with every sentence out of her mouth. Telling us the story of the hotel full of cousins after Jean and Pat’s wedding. The Sullivans were all hanging out in a room, when a knock came on the door. There stood Cousin Mike, an O’Malley, and all he said was, “I hear cousins.” And in he came. The O’Malley joining the Sullivan party. Cousins are cousins, no matter the surname. County Mayo, County Kerry, what’s the dif.

— Early in the night, the DJ played “Jailhouse Rock”. One observation: That song isn’t dated at all. People poured onto the dance floor to dance to it. But why I bring it up is that my cousins, who all read my site, acted as though it was a first single by my boyfriend that was getting some radio play, so OMG, Sheila will be so excited!! Everyone started screaming out, “Where’s Sheila??” Like: this song beloved by generations was only for me. I love my family. Totally on board with my obsession, and acting as though “Jailhouse Rock” actually had something to do with me, personally.

— Cousin Jay’s wife Erin mentioned Eminem’s duet with Rihanna, only she referred to it as, “You set me on fire but that’s only because I don’t listen.”

— There is something comforting and yet also crazed about hanging out with people who have known you always. People who are now adults but who once upon a time sat with you in the grass wearing diapers and sucking on pacifers. We are all close. These are not surface relationships. When we all get together, we go crazy. There is also always a bit of competition about who has the most numbers in attendance – O’Malleys or Sullivans. “Hmm, looks like the O’Malleys have the edge at this wedding …” “And the Sullys take the lead!”

— After the wedding, I went back to Jean and Pat’s where I was staying. I walked in the door and heard both Pat and Jean call out to me from within, “She-She!!!” (This is Lucy’s name for me. So it was the best greeting ever.) Then we sat out on the front porch drinking whiskey and talking until 3 o’clock in the morning. I am certainly paying for that now (I’ve been sick as well for the past week), but we were all just so high, so happy, and there was so much to talk about.

— Brunch at my mother’s the next day.

— Siobhan and Ben are a beautiful couple and it makes you happy to be around them. They are a unit. The wedding was so THEM, so perfectly planned, so relaxed in execution … and we are all still high from it.