Our Best Friend's Wedding

Saturday 6th November 2010 was the wedding of our dearest friends in London: Julie & Anthony. An adventure 'up North' to see a Lancaster man marry a Yorkshire woman was just the beginning of the joy--steak & ale pie with chips, French Fancies (just look 'em up, they're like Hostess), and 5 hours of dancing made for an incredible evening.

For my daily poem, we wrote in their guest book. Seeing as I wrote it in their book, and not on the Notebook app on my phone where the rest of them currently are, this is by memory (in a nod to the limerick):

On this day you are wed

and with that you have said

you will love each other forever.

Now that that's done

let's go have us some fun

and never let go of each other!

Trying to Break in My Shoes

For the last hour, I've been sitting in a bean bag. I've been reclining--and wearing my wedding shoes. I need to break them in because they've got leather bits and their stiff, and I really don't want blisters on my wedding day. Hopefully, they'll get there.

Only Once

There are some things you can only do once. Well, I guess in some ways you only do everything you do once because nothing you repeat is actually the same, it's an iteration of what came before....but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ability to rationalize calling for a Chinese banquet delivered to your house, picking coins from the sofa cushions to pay for it, because last night you had your Hen Party and tonight you're hungover and hungry. Chinese food by delivery is not something you ever do and, to be frank, you'd never eat it in bed. But tonight, tonight you are hurtin' and could possibly eat your fiancee's arm off if you don't have some white rice--not from a bag, not from home, from a Chinese restaurant, OK!--and you've already changed into your pyjamas and you have just enough coins in the jar. That's when you can only do something once. That one glorious moment of relishing in the fact that you are so in love--and last night you were totally wasted.

Wedding Blogga'

Ok, so maybe blogga' is a totally made up word, and mis-spelled at that, but seriously I have been on a roll when it comes to write about the details for my legal hitchin' ceremony. I don't know what it is, but maybe because the big day is one-month away (officially) from today that I am start to get a bit relaxed and have a bit more fun in writing about it. Plans are a bit more solid too, and it's less of a "I think this would be a good idea" and more of "This is what we've decided and doesn't it rock?" kind of thing.

I seem to be able to blog all about it, and still make my fiancee laugh (thank goodness). The writing there though, one a day, it's not coming so easily.

Although, today as I walked to work on the first spring morning I really felt I could call spring, I was thinking, under the pitter-patter of mind-chatter, I was thinking in poetry.

Writing about Accessories

For Saturday - The Post Box

For Thursday - Addressing Invites

The Slow Fix - How I Knew

'She makes me want to stand up in front of all of my friends and relatives and say, "I pick her, and she picks me. She likes fishing and Air Supply, and I love the smell of her neck. I want to buy her a house with enough closet space, and have dinner ready when she comes home from work. I want to mow the lawn and fold her socks, amen."'
- excerpt by Ivan E. Coyote, The Slow Fix
---
Round one of summer family weddings... here we go.

English Weddings

I just bought a hat for an English wedding.
Black, blue. Gorgeous.

I'm gonna look like Audrey Hepburn. Bring on July.

June Jordan & Love

Quoting a quote from an essay I just read by Zoe Ruiz, A Fantasy of Flight:

In 'Some Of Us Did Not Die,' June Jordan wrote:
'Bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love a man, and what about that? Isn’t that what freedom implies?'

Two more women echoing what more people should know. It's just that simple.

*****

Also, another great representation (albeit slightly more indignant) version of the freedom to love whomever you want:

stickerpants

On the Journey of Prop 8

Thoughts:

• The voters and the Supreme Court of California do not diminish my love for my partner.
• The law and love are unrelated.
  
• The Gay Rights Movement is not the same as the Civil Rights Movement; different principles, different histories, different battles. Comparisons of marriage rights are not a creative solution.
• I want to deeply question how and why I will get married/sign a civil partnership/have a commitment ceremony.
• I do not want to erase the parts of me that make me different. In fact, I want to express them even more.
  
• I want to be part of a movement and a campaign that unites rather than divides.
• I do not care if I am unrealistically idealistic--we do not truly know what is unrealistic.

• All of these are poems.

Wedding Dresses

There is a black and white photo of my sarogate, Bay Area grandma and grandpa, E and Papa J, that used to stand on their TV cabinet: it is of their wedding day. E is wearing a classic 1950's knee-length dress, Papa J in a tux, and they are walking down the aisle out of the church. If I am remembering correctly, E's dress has lace detail and a ribbon, underskirts fluffing it out. Since I saw this photograph for the first time, I have wanted a light, classic knee-length wedding dress to walk down the aisle in.

I have had visions of other dresses too: long, sweepy satin numbers with dipping open backs; slender sleeve-less dresses that flow from my hips, floral detail here, ribbon embellishment there; a halter top to call back to Greta Garbo and Marlena Deitrich. But still, it's the knee-length dress that comes back to me.

Classic in all forms, with little kitten heels, a smile from a black and white photograph.