Wedding Blog, Sans Wedding

Isn't it weird to have a wedding blog post wedding? Unless you're Meg of course. What am I suppose to talk about since I don't have the arm loads of tissue paper and the pouring of candles and the pinning of flowers into my hair? Does anyone want to hear about painting my bathroom (grey) or about brunch this weekend (the hollandaise was not tart enough, too thick) or about my best-friend-from-high-school possibly moving to Durham? Or my new job (handling all graphic design, marketing and publicity for Campus Recreation, Health and Wellness and Physical Education at the douchiest school in these United States)? Or about how sick I think the reveling in the streets and "foot in your ass"ing around is right now? I'm considering returning to our regularly scheduled programing over at Doux with flouncy skirts and making mobiles.

Somehow the marriagey stuff post wedding seems to personal to blog about.

Returned

I've been away because I've been sick. Really not good sick. Spending our grocery money on accupuncture sick. Pill popping sick. Hiding hiding hiding sick. Not very good at staying awake past 7:30 sick, not very good at getting up before 7:30 sick. Dear Husband, please make dinner and fend for yourself sick. Bad bad spring sick. But the weather is getting a wee bit warmer and my accupuncture seems to be working a bit and I've been home and my mother bought me sturdy, clompy clogs for clomping and walking. And I've seen a new nephew and I've snuggled with one of my sisters for one whole week. So I'm back. Slightly the worse for wear. Anyone still out there?

This tiny nephew person recently met

Home recently visited, complete with ponies munching hay and the barn of wedding fame

Valentine

Valentine

by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

We are having a small Valentines, a hiding Valentines day. I am sick and I am drinking boiled herbs and trying to stay awake. Onions seem appropriate for today.

Having a Coke with You

Frank O'Hara reading Having a Coke with You.

The Gift

Our
Union is like this:

You feel cold
So I reach for a blanket to cover
Our shivering feet.

A hunger comes into your body
So I run to my garden
And start digging potatoes.

You ask for a few words of comfort and guidance,
I quickly kneel at your side offering you
This whole book-
As a gift.

You ache with loneliness one night
So much you weep

And I say,
Here's a rope,
Tie it around me,

I will be your companion
For life.

-Hafiz

Picture of the party David and I met at, it looks so sunny compared to now

Not Changing

The Name Change issue has been all over this week, eastsidebride, Souris Marriage, A Practical Wedding. We're all thinking about it. It's one of those wedding/marriage issues that doesn't really ever seem to be resolved (some people change their name and then change it back, see APW) and until you have children there is that up in the air as well. I, as I've been kind of loud about, didn't change my name. Couldn't FATHOM changing my name. It was never on the table. I understand why people do. My Oldest and Best Friend didn't think twice about it, it's what she wanted to do. My college roommate (not Mary) changed her name because it was important for her to have a united name with her husband and mostly her daughter. For me, changing my last name seemed as alien as changing my first. Ages ago Meg said something about name changing being so emotional because it's an issue where inequality is still the norm and she's right. And that's really really wrong.

I grew up in a family with two last names, June Momslastname and Terry Dads. I was named Hannah May Momslastname Dads. I like the idea of sharing a name with my mother so I'm been Hannah Momslastname-Dads. My sisters and brother generally just go by Dads. Which is cool. I never minded the two last names. We're still a family, Christmas cards are addressed to The Momslastname-Dads Family. My mom said she never minded not having the same last name as her children. All is well.

Over and over again in the conversation women talk about the desire to have the same name as their children. I understand that desire and share it. I'm not as chill as my mom. I want my kids to have the same name as me too; I want it to be clear to all involved that they're mine and I'm theirs and we are in the same family. No one has discusses the possibility that children be given their mother's name and that their father be the odd one out. Is a man's right to have his children bear his name really that sacred? I feel like it isn't. No more so than my right to share a name with my children. Fortunately for me, David doesn't have the same intense feelings I have about names (for serious, I cried when I got that stupid Christmas card addressed to Hannah and David Davidsname from my sister in law). Dave's sisters have different last names and he feels no less related to them, feels no loss at the change of name. So our children will most likely have my name. Not both of my names, carrying on both grandparent's last name from one side seems a bit intense. But Dad's name. Because that's the one I share with my siblings.

I would love to have a united family name. I would love for David to take to take my name and for us to be clearly delineated as a family in that way but I can't do it at the expense of my name. It's just not on the table. David has considered changing his but decided that it would offend his family and be misconstrued by his friends. Which I understand. So I'm not pushing the issue. He's as entitled to his name as I am to mine. No more so though. And we are equally entitled to name our children after our families. So we'll see. I'll let you know how it goes.

At North Farm

Domesticity

In the May of 2009 I read Isabel Gillies Happens Every Day and was blown away by a section of At North Farm she quoted:

Somwhere someone is traveling furiously toward you.
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.
But will je know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

It made my toes tingly. I don't really know what it means but that first line, the line about someone traveling furiously toward you, that really rocked my world. I loved it. I sort of believed it. That someone was traveling furiously toward me. And then in June I met David, then he went to Europe for the summer. And in August we talked on his porch all night long and a week after that we basically new we were going to marry each other (but we didn't talk about it to each other yet) and then in December we were talking about it. And in January we were engaged already and then in July we were married. After 11 months of being together. And now, January of 2011, we live in Durham with our two dogs and a cat. Wow.

And it's working really well.

I don't normally tell people that we knew each other for 11 months before we were married and five months before we got engaged because, ya know, it's nuts. Completely nuts. But ya know.

New Photos!

Six months after our wedding, our photographer updated his website and there are some wedding photos I haven't seen. I'm esspecially digging the one of my littlest 14 year old sister drunker than drunk swaying to some awesome tunes while older and wiser adults condone her behavior. Dear Dad, At least she has a water bottle?

The "complete" wedding, to quote Shaun, is here.

Kilty Cake Topper

I made Tilly and Ben's cake topper of pegs. Very much like mine, this one in a kilt though, this one on a cake of cheese. I took pictures but they are on my sister's friend's camera so the facebook ones will suffice. Want one? I'll make you one!

Six Months

We've been married for six months. To celebrate we walked to Whole Foods to get chicken for curry and I've had three pots of tea. Lots of quiet. Looking at the photos everything just looks like sunshine. I did my own flowers, all my own stationary, set my own tables but I'm so glad we shelled out for a photographer. The photos are so evocative in a way nothing else is.

It's been a good six months.

Waltzing Matilda

Ardtornish House in the daylight

The Holospeced congregation, that blond befeathered head in the middle front is me.

So my photos of Tilly and Ben's gorgeous wedding are a bit of a blur fest (low lighting and crap camera be damned). There were holospex that made each point of light a heart and all the guests wore them and sang Love Me Tender, there was a five tier wedding cake made not of cake but of cheese with loads of oak cakes and chutney made by my aunt (okay, the mother of the bride) and the caleigh band got too drunk to come play all except the accordion who did a bang up job all on his own despite his apparent intoxication. We danced and sang and drank and drank and ate loads of cheese and chutney and when the night went on a bit long a few of the bridesmaids changed into our boots and the night ended with us sitting on the couch posing for an Italian photographer named Simone. Glams all round. Gorgeous.

Tilly let me decorate her cake which felt a big reckless, Ben and she cut the cake with a sword of her dad's

The aforementioned dad swirling our cousin's wife around

David and I pretending to be in Brideshead Revisited for the sake of an Italian photog.

I think we were on different pages as to what that means.

Resolutions

I am going to blog more. And learn the guitar. And wear slippers everyday so I don't complain about how cold my feet are. And knit. And wear moisturizer. Mostly continue to eat cake and sleep a lot. Ya know. New years.

Scottish Wedding

Things have been very quiet here while I was off on the West Coast of Scotland for Tilly's wedding. I decorated a cake, I drank to excess and wore feathers and hugged the bride and groom a lot. I listened to Waltzing Matilda about 90 times (Scottish cousin Matilda marries Australian Ben so WM seemed the thing) and spent loads of time in front of fires in layers of warmth with cousins and second cousins and first cousins once removed. It was glorious. I'm still at my parents until Friday so posting will not resume in full force until then. Photos will follow. In the mean time here are some photos of Ardtornish (taken by my gorgeous second cousin Julia). If anyone is wondering where in the frozen highlands they might like to get married in January Ardtornish is the place.