gettinggaymarried-blog
I'm getting gay married
and i'm really bad at it
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Location, location, location
I think we're going to get married in an outdoor spot amidst a bunch of chickens. Don't tell my mom.
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A Little Update
Readers, I've been keeping a secret from you. Because of my Catholic roots, I've felt really guilty about it, so I haven't been posting very much. Also, I'm really bad at keeping secrets (don't tell my friends), and I was kind of worried I'd slip and give it away.
B and I are eloping in Vermont!
At a 230-year-old farm in the country!
I didn't even know buildings in this country could be that old!
And we're eloping tomorrow!
Now, if you'll excuse me, my fresh country breakfast and marriage license is calling.
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In case you've been wondering why it's been all radio-silent over here lately, well, it's because
THIS WEDDING GAVE ME A DEBILITATING PHYSICAL INJURY.
That's is not entirely true. I'm being a little dramatic (I know, very uncharacteristic of me).
Here's the real truth. I have had a debilitating physical injury. It's called costochondritis. Costochondritis is an inflammation of the tissue that connects the ribs to the sternum. It is excruciatingly painful.
I said excruciatingly painful.
Today's the first day since last week Thursday that I've been able to sit upright and breathe without massive pain.
Here's my theory about what caused it:
After an extremely stressful, 12-hour day at the office, after several rough nights of combing the interwebs for the perfect wedding shoe and matching (but not too "matchy") accessories, I decided to take a nice, hot shower. B had just cleaned it--which is my favorite way to take a nice, hot shower. Sadly, I didn't realize there was a thin film of soap lining the tub, and I wiped out.
I, like, totally wiped out.
Feet out from under me, tailbone slamming into the fiberglass tub, arms askew, big noise that scared the cats. Wiped. Out.
While I don't remember hitting my ribs on my way down, I do remember being really, really tense before getting in. I probably didn't hit my ribs (you should have seen how I landed), but, because I was so tense, I probably did the damage on impact anyway.
Now, in my darkest days, when all I could do was lay on my right side and wonder how it was possible that Percocet couldn't even come close to making a dent in the pain, I said to myself, "Look at you, Katherine. You need to make some changes. You need to calm down. Stop obsessing about wedding shoes! Just go with it! Stop being so tense! Break the cycle!"
Now that I'm feeling better, of course I'm scouring the interwebs obsessively for perfect shoes. These will now be my third pair.
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Shoe Baggage, Continued
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find amazing shoes with a heel that's under 3"?
No, you probably don't.
Because you're probably not someone who's on the femme end of the spectrum, who's 5'11", and who's about to marry a handsome butch who barely grazes 5'5". You probably also didn't just buy a beautiful, short white wedding dress that demands amazing shoes.
These are Tall, About-to-Get-Married Lesbian Problems. Few adult humans have them.
I've spent probably close to 12 hours, if not more, combing every single shoe site out there for the perfect mid-heel sandal. I've been late to dinner parties. I've neglected the cats. My blogging has been reduced to a trickle. I'm going blind from staring at the computer and clicking yellow "Next Page >" buttons over and over. It's ugly.
Speaking of ugly, here are the types of things you get when you search for "special occasion" sandals with a "heel height" between 2 and 2 3/4":
I know I'm a lesbian, but I'm still pretty sure I filtered by "Special Occasion," Zappos.
Would you believe me if I said these shoes were named "Classy"? I barely believe myself.
Pretty sure these were worn by the grandmother-of-the-bride at a wedding I was at in the 90s.
This pair represents a genre of shoe I see a lot of under "Special Occasion," regardless of the site. They come from brands with names like "Touch Ups," "Dyeables," and "Coloriffics." Generic wedding shoes that you're meant to take a box of RIT to. Seems dangerous, looks boring.
...and then I come across shoes like these, which actually seem not so bad, except that they're designer shoes (Kate Spade, in this example) and cost $500.
Did I end up finding shoes in the end? Yes. Were they taller than 3"? Yes. Did I buy them anyway, then spend another 6 hours looking for something shorter and better, before they even arrived? Yes. Are they better? Remains to be seen.
When I'm done with this whole wedding thing, I'm thinking I might become a shoe consultant for amazons.
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The Obligatory Name Post
This wouldn't be a wedding blog without an over-thought post about marriage and last names. You know what I mean--those posts that go on forever and deconstruct all the options available (Take your spouse's last name? Keep your respective names? Hyphenate? Combine? Make one up?), with the author always going with option A in the end.
I'll spare you a discussion about patriarchal heteronormativity and the significance of changing one's name in a feminist and queer context.
We have more serious things to talk about here.
Let's say your initials were KK, and you were about to marry someone whose initials were BK.
Let's say that both of you really, really like the idea of permanently borrowing each other's last names. It doesn't make sense to swap last names, though--it would be kind of weird for me to take B's last name, and her to take mine, as though we're swapping families and not merging them.
Hyphenation seems like a great middle-of-the-road compromise, right? Except for the part where my initials end up mirroring those of a really bad far-right extremist hate group.
Is this a terrible idea?
Am I better off going with option A?
Please discuss.
Postscript: For the record, I'd, obviously, be avoiding monogrammed bathtowels, golf shirts, totebags, and anything else L. L. Bean has to offer. (Trust me, it won't be hard.)
Post-postscript: Before posting this, I reviewed the issue with my close friend and fellow queer bride-to-be. Her recommendation was to, yes, hyphenate the names, but start inserting my middle initial in all major print correspondence and such. That would make me KLKK, and my name would look something like this: Kxxxxxxxe L. Kxxxxxs-Kxxxxs. She's so smart!
Post-post-postscript: The cats have already taken our hyphenated last names, of course.
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Shoe Baggage
I found the perfect shoes for my dress!! The only problem is that they share the same name as one of my ex-girlfriends. Is this a bad way to start a marriage? Please discuss.
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It's true, our reception will be "a burlesque imitation of a musical composition." And I'm not ashamed.
B
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Muff Torture
Wow. Thank god for episodes of Say Yes to the Dress, like the one where the bride is forcing her trillions of horrified bridesmaids to wear fur muffs ("the theme is 'Winter Wonderland,' and I, uh, wanted my dress to look like snow! Like, all the different textures and layers..."). I suddenly feel about a billion times better (and more intelligent). More like a lazy Midwest summer breeze than an F4 bride-nado.
And, everyone keeps saying "white muff" over and over.
It's amazing.
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Guys, this is how the wedding is starting to make me feel. See that nice woman in the foreground, wearing white Keds with her red sweatshirt tucked into her shorts, who somehow has no idea that there's a massive F4 tornado with my face on it about a half mile behind her? That's you. Or my mom. Or B. Or the cats.
Hi wedding, can I have my life back? I think about you all the time and it's making me do things like snap at my mom for innocently confessing that she doesn't really like the idea of wearing cowboy boots with a wedding dress. It's also seriously cutting into my quality kitty time because I'm constantly researching things on the Interwebs--venues, dresses, birdcage veils, cakes that looks like honest-to-god, real-live tree stumps--instead of rubbing soft cat-bellies.
I mean, seriously.
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Engaged & Limbless
B has officially forbade me from speaking to her about wedding plans until further notice.
That's because I pretty much only talk to her about wedding plans (and whether she's cleaned the cat litter) these days.
I feel like my left arm has been cut off.
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Maybe you should've brought a flask with you.
My brother, when I mentioned that I had stocked up on Advil for my wedding dress shopping excursion on Saturday. I'm not going to lie, the thought crossed my mind.
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I'M NOT LETTING THIS GO.
THIS WILL HAPPEN AT MY WEDDING.
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Are you looking for something that's more traditional? Or are you going for something that's more "loosey-goosey"?
My mom, struggling to understand where we fit on the wedding reception spectrum
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Why Bother?
When I've talked to my mom about the rigamar--er, the joy--of executing a gay wedding, I break it down like this:
B and I can't get legally married in California.
B and I would like to get legally married.
B and I would like to celebrate our commitment to each other with close family and friends.
B and I think that surrounding each other with folks who support marriage equality is the best way to kick-start a union that's legal only 11.7%* of the time (13.7%* beginning July 25, 2011--yay New York!!).
Her response has been, "Why bother?"
I know that I usually talk about funny things in this blog, or serious things in a funny way, but I want to take a moment to be mostly serious about something serious: Why we're bothering to get married.
Let me back up a minute and talk about the question, and say that my mother is not an unsupportive person. My mother is a curious person. She might actually be the most curious person I know--more curious than our friends' three-year-old daughter, who, as a side note, has started calling me a little girl and B a woman (we do have an eight-year age difference, but is it THAT obvious?!).
When my mom asks "why bother?", what she's really saying is, "I don't understand why you'd go all the way out to the East Coast, to an unfamiliar place, for a piece of paper that means nothing to your home state that's more than 3,000 miles away."
My mom and dad have been married 34 years. While I don't know for sure, I'd like to think that she's been married long enough to realize that a piece of paper doesn't make a marriage. Maybe she's suggesting that we focus more on our union, instead of on what's legal and not legal about it. Maybe I should ask her after she reads this post.
Her question is a little ironic, too. She and my dad are my number-one married people role models. I look at them and say, "Yeah, I believe that marriage is a beautiful, wonderful thing for two people to share. Yeah, I'd like that in my life, too." Maybe I should tell her that after she reads this post.
But, back to the original question. After all, it's true. B and I could just register as domestic partners here in California, get our somewhat-arbitrarily defined registered domestic partner benefits, and ride gayly into the Sunset District in our 1986 pale yellow Toyota pickup truck.
And we'll do that. Of course we'll do that. We'll do as much as we can to be recognized as two consenting adults who are deeply and beautifully committed to each other.
And that's the essence of the answer to the "why bother?" question.
Why bother going 3,000 miles for a piece of paper that means nothing to our home state? Because we believe in the sanctity of marriage. Yup, we do. We believe that marriage is a sacred, special, amazing thing that only people who truly understand its significance and its symbolism, and who truly love and care for each other, should experience.
We believe that those people can be male-female pairs. And, since we believe that both males and females are capable of having those feelings and sentiments, individually and as couples, it stands to reason that those people can be male-male and female-female pairs, too. As John Wayne Gacy's brain proved**, all humans are pretty much wired the same way. So, if adult male-female pairs can do it, so can adult males. And females. Right? I mean, this is simple logic here.
The reality is, not all places believe that yet, but we sure as heck want to support those that do. It's about standing up and being counted, and it's about recognition. It's saying, "Home land, you may not believe in us yet, but we sure do. And we'll prove it to you, since it appears that that's how you roll. We'll prove it to you and everyone in our lives. We'll do everything we can to be recognized as two humans who are deeply and beautifully committed to each other, because that's our reality."
For us, that means we'll be East Coast bound, then we'll be West Coast bound, and we'll have as many weddings as we need to as all this stuff becomes legal to show you that, yes, we're still serious about this, and yes, recognition is still important to us and our community.
That, my friends, my family, is why we're bothering.
*Includes Washington, D.C.--yay D.C.!!
**I can't believe I just incorporated John Wayne Gacy in an argument for marriage equality. But, for years, I've been itching to use this fun/uncomfortable fact I learned about him in some piece of writing, and now's my chance! From Wikipedia: After Gacy's death was confirmed at 12:58 a.m., his brain was removed. It is in the possession of Dr. Helen Morrison, a witness for the defense at Gacy's trial, who interviewed Gacy and other serial killers in an attempt to isolate common personality traits of violent sociopaths. An examination of Gacy's brain after his execution revealed no abnormalities.
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Last night, B was telling me about an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, and the conversation naturally turned to bridal registries. This has nothing to do (I swear!) with the fact that Anthony is at the top of our sperm donor list--but that's a topic for the forthcoming blog in this series, I'm Getting Gay Pregnant. Anyway, B apparently learned how to make awesome French fries during this particular episode, but she was pissed that it required a restaurant-grade deep fryer, which we would never buy ourselves. Which makes restaurant-grade deep fryers like this one the perfect item for a bridal registry!
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The other day, I was like, "I'm going to be someone's wife." We're going to be wives. Can we talk about that? Can we talk about how weird that is? Can you write about that in your blog??
Friend-of-a-friend and fellow bride-to-be
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Thanks a Lot, Marriage Equality.
Holy crap, guys! Since the last time I actually posted (my auto-post from yesterday doesn't count since I drafted it at the same time as my previous post--shh, don't tell anyone) a few pretty remarkable things happened:
Tegan taught my girlfriend (fiancé? Do I really have to use that word? Does it also have to have the accent on it?) how to dance while I watched and made fun of them for being old.
San Francisco Gay Pride! And a pickled liver and strange, mysterious bruises two days later!
My girlancé (is that better?) and her band played an awesome set at the Lexington Club during Dyke March. We call that Prime Time Gay 'cause it doesn't get any gayer than that, people!
Marriage equality in New York?!!
Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited that our marriage options just increased by one state. Here's the issue, though: I have a serious inability to make prompt decisions. Just ask my mom. She makes fun of me for it all the time. And now that I have SIX states and one district to choose from (SIX AND ONE!!), I'm not sure I'm going to be able to succinctly decide which one to actually marry in.
I may not end up getting gay married at all.
Before New York, I thought I had it figured out: Vermont! Because, otherwise, our options look like this:
Iowa: In theory, I should love Iowa because it's in the Midwest and it's our closest option. The last time I was in Iowa, though, I was driving across it, west-to-east, and felt like I was on a never-ending rolling sea of corn and I was starting to get seasick.
Connecticut: I heard a rumor that Connecticut is ugly.
Massachusetts: It seems like everyone gets gay married in Massachusetts. And I'm an alternative bride, okay?? That means I buck the trend. Massachusetts is therefore off the list.
New Hampshire: Okay, here's another one that I might actually like, but I was only there for about five minutes. I had just left Maine and was driving on I-95. Five minutes later I was in Massachusetts. That was New Hampshire, right?
District of Columbia: B and I spent about a week there last September and got freaked out by the preppy attire. I can't possibly get married among that many golf shirts and madras shorts; I'd rather get seasick.
Vermont: So, here it is. I can't think of one bad thing about Vermont. It's cute and it's crunchy, and they're really serious about making Lake Champlain the sixth Great Lake (which is so charming!). During the same roadtrip where I blinked and missed New Hampshire (see above), the most grotesque thing we saw in Vermont was a Snapple truck that had casually tipped over on the freeway on-ramp and was being helped back upright by someone in a white Subaru. There was Snapple all over the road.
See? Nothing else looked better than Vermont. But now we've got New York, and I can't really say anything bad about New York, either, at least not without getting punched by my close friend and fellow queer bride-to-be who I tend to misquote. So, how do I choose?
Do I have to?
Can I double-dip and do New York and Vermont, since it doesn't really matter when I get home to California anyway?
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