MarxLennon's Gratuitous Image Page

"Please don't be sad to take up the straight life you had

We wouldn't have known you all these years."

(Dear Mr. Fantasy - Traffic)

At some point early in the quarter, I decided that it was time I tried something different. After all, I was single and a college student again. Essentially I'd been on a five year detour.

What I'd done for the last five years could be summed up as trying to be "normal". I tried being a normal guy with a normal job and a normal wife and normal kid. It didn't work. I really never stood a chance of that happening, so why was I bothering to try?

On the other hand, people who tried to be "different" annoyed me to no end. My best bet was to let things happen and follow what seemed to appeal to me as the opportunities presented themselves.

The first of these things landed me a rather odd part-time job.

I used to flash the ID around at parties.

Well, it's five years later and my friends Dave and Sherry want to get married. They don't want to get married in some church of some religion they didn't believe in. They don't want to get married at City Hall.

"Jesse, you're ordained. Find out what you need to do to make it legal."

So I did. I got all registered, vested with power of the State of Ohio. I was legal. I could perform weddings anywhere within the State.

I went out and bought a black corduroy sports jacket, a pair of black jeans, and an official "clerical collar".

The Reverend Jesse James MarxLennon was born.

Honestly, I only intended to perform Dave and Sherry's wedding. But it was a great experience. Both their families were there, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. There were maybe 75 to 100 people there.

It was a lot like the skits Satin and I had performed with the Folks. With one minor difference. This was for real. I loved it.

And, apparently, I was pretty good at it, because soon after the wedding, people started asking me to perform their weddings. I was doing about 2 to 3 weddings a month before too long.

The best wedding I did was for a girlfriend of a friend of a friend. She was marrying a biker, a member of the Pagans. She and I planned out a lovely ceremony at dawn on the banks of the Ohio River. The guests included the bride's immediate family and the groom's immediate "chapter". There were 25 choppers in the wedding procession. The ceremony made a full page in the Cincinnati Sunday supplement. And never once did they mention my name or get a decent picture of me.

Another rather strange little opportunity presented itself at about the same time. An old friend from high school, Karl Michaels, was teaching art outside of Toledo. He was part of the County's Alternative Learning Center. He worked with kids that would have otherwise been high school drop outs. Karl had devised a program that involved these kids in painting murals. He offered to paint free murals on any "public" wall. It was a weekend activity and asked if I'd like to help him out. To show we were "the guys in charge", Karl and I always wore hats and suspenders.

It was a great program. Karl and I would sketch out the basic design on the wall and supervise the kids painting. We even were commissioned to do a mural for City Hall in Bowling Green, Ohio.

There were more normal things going on as well. I was taking the normal 16 hour course load at UD and maintaining a 3.5 GPA. I was doing my 40 hour a week computer operator job at the hospital. Day-to-day was full. It kept me busy.

Chrissy was writing every week from Arizona. She seemed to be really enjoying herself out there. Doing new things, meeting new people. She felt like it was something important.

I'd write about the things I'd been doing, how school and work were going, the typical stuff. But I also made sure I always mentioned how much I missed her.

Angel had decided to move back to Memphis. She was accepted by the Law School down there. Her boyfriend Tony landed a job working for Legal Aid.

It was weird. Part of me wanted to be happy for her. Part of me wanted to blame her for breaking my heart. What won out was a sort of numbness. We were polite to each other.

Levi was getting to that age where he kept asking those questions you can't answer because he couldn't understand it anyway.

"No, Tony's not your new Daddy. I'm still your Daddy."

"No, I'm not going to get you a new Mommy. Mommy is your only Mommy."

Levi seemed to miss Chrissy too. She was one of the only of our friends in Dayton that actually played with him when she visited. Of course, it might have had to do with the pictures of her I had out. He'd almost always ask if Chrissy could come over to play with him when he spent the weekend.

Once Angel and Levi were all settled into their new home (with Tony) in Memphis, it became pretty clear the every other weekend thing wasn't going to work anymore. It was decided that Levi would spend half the summer and every other holiday with me.

The year pasted pretty quickly though.

As the months passed, Chrissy started writing about how much she wanted to come home and how much she missed having me around. So, I wrote back and said "Show me how much you miss me."

So she sent me this picture with a lipstick kiss on the back.

Hmmmm? I missed Chrissy more already.