Brian's Toast

Ladies and gentlemen, can I get a minute of your time? For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Ryan, Brian’s neighbor and good friend. We grew up on the same street and have known each other for our entire lives.

First of all I want to thank everyone for being able to make it here today. Some people have come from far and wide to attend today’s ceremonies. Angie made it here from North Carolina. Missy’s here from Japan. For them and for everyone else who had to travel to make it tonight, let's make some noise.

I’d also like to thank everyone who could make today possible. Breanna’s parents, Lonnie and Karen White, where are you guys at? You guys raised a tremendous woman who we’re celebrating today, so let’s make some noise for them. Brian’s parents Mr. Jones and Angie, let’s make some noise for you guys. You guys raised brian the right way and now we're here on his wedding day. Let’s also make noise for all of us here in attendance today. Make some noise for yourselves! We’re here not only to celebrate Brian and Breanna’s marriage, but to celebrate two families coming together and becoming one. We all have busy schedules and it’s not always easy to get everyone gathered together, so the fact that we can all be here to celebrate Brian and Breanna’s wedding day is nothing short of beautiful. And while we’re making noise, can we make some noise for Breanna’s dress? That dress has gotta be one of the nicest wedding dresses I’ve ever seen.

I’ve known Brian for his entire life, and our friendship is priceless to me. We’ve been there for the highs, the lows, the good times, the bad times. As kids we were always playing sports, playing video games, spending time at each other’s houses. Basketball, football, Madden, you name it, we played it. As a side note, you might not believe this but we would play these games and I would always win. He might tell you different, but that’s the truth. Needless to say, I’ve known Brian’s qualities, flaws, errors, achievements.

Anyone who’s ever known Brian knows that he’s one of the funniest guys you’ll ever meet. Once he gets comfortable with you, he’s always good for cracking jokes, talking trash, making fun of one another, making fun of the situation. He’s absolutely got one of the best senses of humor you’ll ever see.

What might not apparent to someone who just met him is how good a friend he is. He’s incredibly loyal. He’s always been there for me. My Dad passed away when I was 11. It was tough, but he was there for me. When I first started talking to girls and didn’t know what to do, he was there for me. When I broke up with my ex and was heartbroken, he was there for me.  He’s ALWAYS there for me. He may not know what to say, he may not know what to do, but he’s always there for me. And so Breanna, I’m sure you already know this, but in Brian you’ve got one of the most loyal friends in the world.

So I’ve known him all my life. I know that he’s the best friend that someone can ask for. And Breanna, although I haven’t known you as long as I would’ve liked, I can tell by the way that he looks at you and smiles at you that you’re the one for him. Anyone who knows him knows that he’s always smiling, but the way that he looks at you and smiles at you is DIFFERENT. He’s happier now. His jokes are funnier now. I can tell that you balance him out in a way that he’s never been before. And now he’s yours and you are his. You guys are bound together for the rest of your lives, through sickness and in health, til death do you part.

So I say this from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of Brian’s friends and family: Take care of him. He’s a handful, but you can do it. He likes to talk trash. God forbid you bring up the Raiders, he’ll talk your ear off. But know that you’re the right woman to keep him in check and deal with him. You're the woman to bring him back down to earth.

So please, take care of him. We know that he’ll take care of you. He’s chosen you to be the one he confides in, the one he can be vulnerable to, the one he can be his real self with. There’s value in that. He may not know the answers to everything, but he works hard and will do whatever it takes to find the answers.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like to propose a toast to Brian and Breanna. May they have years and years of health, wealth, and happiness!

The Game of Love

Mis amigos y yo fuimos a San Francisco el verano pasado. My friends told me that I snored SUPER loud(not the first time I've been told this). So my friend talked to me and told me I needed to see a doctor. I went and sure enough, he diagnosed me with sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a condition where you stop breathing while you sleep. Kaiser had me take home a CPAP machine to measure whether or not I had sleep apnea. So I took it home and tried it out. You wear this mask thing that keeps a breathing apparatus on your nose. I brought the machine back and they measured the results. They told me that the machine measures how often you stop breathing per hour, with "not breathing" being defined as an event of not breathing for 10 seconds. They said that <5 15="" 5="" 95="" about="" and="" anything="" apnea.="" apnea="" between="" br="" crazy="" doctor="" don="" events="" fine="" got="" had="" have="" having="" hour.="" hour="" how="" i="" is="" mild="" more="" my="" per="" proceed.="" results="" should="" sleep="" t="" talk="" than="" that="" they="" to="" you="" your="">
So they gave me a CPAP machine to take home and I wear it to sleep every night now. I guess while you're awake, your muscles keep your airway open. When you go to sleep, those muscles relax and no longer keep your airway open. Since my muscles weren't keeping my airway open, the CPAP machine does it for me.

What's crazy is that before having this CPAP machine, I just wouldn't have dreams. I guess I should say that I didn't remember my dreams. Apparently everyone has dreams, it's just that some people don't remember having them. So now that I have a CPAP machine, my sleep has gotten much better and I feel much more rested every day. One of the results of that is that finally start to remember my dreams now. 

Last night, I had a dream that mi familia y yo went to the Philippines for a family reunion. We actually are going this coming December, but that's neither here nor there. So we went on an airplane and it feels like we're about halfway there, when the plane starts nosediving. I've been in crazy turbulence, so I wasn't freaking out all that bad. I figured the pilot would finally get the plane under control and things would be all right. Well things didn't get better and we continued to nosedive. I started counting in eights, which is what I normally do when I'm nervous. So I start counting 8, 16, 24, 32, and on and on. The tv screens on the plane start flashing and telling us to brace for impact. EVERYONE'S screaming at this point. For whatever reason, I was just bracing and counting in eights, not interested in freaking out. My counting gets to 112 before the plane FINALLY corrects and we get back to a regular glide. As an aside, I'm curious how long a plane at normal cruising altitude could stay in a nosedive before finally crashing to earth. At any rate, I look out the window, and we're DANGEROUSLY low. We're maybe a couple hundred feet above the water and we're not getting any higher. The plane is slowly losing altitude, but gliding. Thankfully we see land and for some reason we aren't able to get the landing gear out, so we have to crash land. Thankfully the pilot gets us there safe and no one dies. We get out, thank the pilot, and go on our merry way, lol. 

We got to our little town in the Philippines and go to the market. For some reason, there's like SQUADS of police in military gear, walking around with rifles. It looks like some dystopian shit. My sister's boyfriend is Mexican and so he stands out a little bit in our Filipino town. We sat down to eat at a cheap restaurant and the police came and surrounded us. Some shit was definitely about to go down, when I woke up.

I say all that to say this: having dreams after years of not having any dreams is CRAZY. It all feels so real. I'm on the fence about whether or not dreams signify anything, but if they do, then what did this dream signify? Why was I so calm when the plane was in a nosedive? Am I just a cold-blooded motherfucker(lol)? Am I freaking suicidal?

Whatever the case, I'm so glad to have dreams again.