Just got word from Jake. An email was delivered at 4:10am this morning. I wonder if that’s New York time. That would be 7:10am. Not Jake’s hours, for sure, and the email detailed the fact that sleep had been impossible. News of his strange and fruiting career later today. I’m looking forward to it.

I mention Jake not only because I’ve been thinking about him on his strange adventure all weekend, but because he and Bill that are the coda to the following story.

It begins in a serene garden high above the western edge of the Sunset Strip, E and I doing our best to attain the dress code given on the invitation: sharp. It was the wedding of of a couple we’d been connected to by our old pal Busy, and being the wedding of successful creative people, it was a bon affair, stylish, detailed and wildly entertaining, especially for two people whose most recent date was crashed by a one year old boy who found complaint with the choice of restaurant, the mode of transportation, the hour, and on and on.

We’ve been friends with this couple for a year and change now, and they’ve been generous with us in every way. They have a girl who’s now two and a half, and they funneled her baby things to Otis. When I needed to borrow a Kitchen Aide mixer for a bread baking class I was teaching, theirs was the first to be offered up. (Note to self: Give that back. (As their wedding gift?) (Ha!))) But more than the things, they’ve been generous with themselves. They make time. They answer calls, they return. They’re there, and they’ve widened their circle for us. It’s an old talent, this sort of cheer and friendliness, this ability to open and extend. At best, I can force it, but for Russ and Constance, it’s as smooth and natural as Aggasi’s backhand.

So the wedding was a thrill. I sampled both of the proffered cocktails (Pims Cup and a Moscow Mule), we got silhouettes hand cut, and we were enjoying the wonderful array of people who had come to celebrate the formalization of this powerful union. We’d met a few of these folks before and were seated with the ones we knew best: Busy and her husband and a brilliant young couple who tend an almost-three daughter.

Since I met them, Gil and Eliza have fascinated and intimidated me. They’re blindingly bright, funny and quick. They’re kind. They have a love for each other that’s palpable and that stirs the love for your partner. They are creative, professionally and constantly. They are, in short, F. Scott and Zelda.

Being a man who now spends the majority of his time in service to a small, non-verbal, highly energetic human animal, I would say I have 65-70% of my social skills intact. These two couples, Busy and Marc, Gil and Eliza, positively sparkle. They are not slowed by their off-spring in any visible way. I had to really work to turn up the effervescence.

But what could I do when the talk turned to Saturday Night Live?

To my great surprise, I was not only seated between the most interesting and tactile of people, but I was seated between the most interesting and tactile of people who love Saturday Night Live. And not “loved,” either. Love, as in still watch it live. Every week. They love this show. They’ve attended. Being professionals, they’ve known cast members, guest hosts, musical guests. They are interesting and tactile people with A LOT to say about Saturday Night Live.

This wasn’t a detour in the conversation. This was a welcome destination, and we arrived there not once but twice. It was the God damndest thing.

The last time I remember considering Saturday Night Live essential viewing, I was living alone up in Wisconsin. It was a solid cast at the time, with Will Ferrell doing a lot of heavy lifting. I remember laughing and turning up the U2 guest spot really loud and dancing and imagining the parties that would take place after the show. It was my link back to New York, to the world I had left. I called Jake and Bill who were living there. “This is happening in your town! Can you believe it?!” They could. They were in those waters, around those people and that energy. I was alone and needed it. And I got it every week.

Now I was marooned in these feelings that were still alive in people I enjoy and admire, because they weren’t in me. What had happened? If anything, I need that energy more than ever. In some ways, I’m as solitary as was when I lived in the woods. I’ve lost my tether to the world of spontaneity, to the quick and light. It takes great effort to call up those skills, effort which needs to be put forward. Effort that needs all the help it can get.

When SNL: Jane Lynch appeared in my subscription list the next day, I began downloading immediately.