in the mourning

One thing I think we are lacking in our culture is space for mourning. Perhaps because it is sad and not fun and quiet and lasts awhile. It is linked with discomfort.  So it is brushed under the rug. Or it comes out sideways as anger or something else. I am not saying that mourning is lovely and I enjoy doing it but I want to acknowledge that mourning comes with changes and is inescapable like change itself.

Most people will at least accept that mourning is part of a 'negative' change like death or divorce, but few seem to think of the mourning that goes along with anything ending. You buy your first house, you love it and you can't wait to live there. You are probably going to mourn something about your last home. Even if it's the color of paint on the walls.

I am so happy to be marrying my sweetie but I still mourn things. I mourn my much cleaner apartment. I mourn looking around my home and just seeing me, my stuff. I mourn the mental space that I had that is now given to compromising, connecting and communicating. I don't want things to be any different, they'll change soon enough, but still I miss stuff from my past.

These are not pleasant feelings and it would be so easy to just shove them away under planning and details and duties. But that makes me feel sadder. I loved my last apartment, I loved not seeing anyone else's mess. I notice that committing to someone full time does take time. Certainly my 'me time' has changed in quantity. I miss casualness. I appreciate that time and place in my past. and I am not going to just walk away without saying good bye and it might take me a while.

outed by e-ring

Ah blogger is now letting titles go on again.

Has anyone ever had a parent [any parent] tell you 'once you are a parent you are always out'? This meaning of course that once your offspring starts talking any ideas of keeping quiet about your gayness pretty much falls by the wayside. I had a serious gf once with a little girl and I found this to be true.

No one ever told me that an e-ring does the same thing. It won't keep quiet about anything anywhere. When I fell in love with my antique e-ring I didn't think much about what that ring was going to be saying to people right in front of me...whether I wanted it to or not. And of course it doesn't help that my e-ring, unlike my sweetie's, is to my surprise a diamond. It says a lot without speaking a word of english. I am also fairly committed to wearing it on my 'wedding' finger during my engagement as a sign of my transition, but would I have made that choice if I had known how it babbles on? and on and on...

It tells people I am 'taken', and if they are noticing types they see I am not wearing a band as well so they assume I am not married yet. [taken in? taken where? taken not stirred?] It lies and tells people that I am straight since it is so traditional in style. Thus making me run around behind it clarifying things when something gets verbalized. No, I am marrying X, here is her picture. oh I thought you knew I was gay. It makes me come out over and over again all the frickin heck over the place. It is exhausting. It sneaks up on me, it makes me panic when I feel I am in a vulnerable place. 'do they know, can I tell them now, I have to work with these people and so forth...' and 'will I have to add them to the constantly growing guest list'? And the queer people who assume I am straight won't even lightly flirt with me anymore, this ring is so misleading its silly.

I had no idea a piece of metal and rock could be so freakin chatty. I just wish I had the editorial rights. Looked at in the right light it is hilarious. I just wanted to find a not too expensive ring that I really liked and would enjoy wearing. I got that but I had no idea there was a megaphone attached to it.

some Room at some Inn?

Blogger seems to be unhappy. It's not letting me put a title line in...so strange. updated later

but I'm still going to do a post about my hotel issues. Really the problem is that there are too many choices!! Way too many. Since it is mainly, perhaps exclusively, my family and friends who will be coming in from out of town and using hotels the ball is pretty much in my court. [and I am ducking and hiding behind the goal]

My family would like to have a hotel where they can all meet up for breakfast or after hours in a bar for time spent together. I of course live here so I have never really stayed in a hotel in this area. There are advantages to staying at one of the airport hotels, it's near the Mall of America if they are inclined to shop and only about 6 miles to the house, 8 to church. But there are about 20 to choose from. Trying to look at the reviews on TripAdvisor almost made my head explode.

Or perhaps people would enjoy being downtown more? Again about 20 hotels to choose from with review to try to sort through. The price is pretty much the same between the two locations and it's about 4 miles to our house and church.

Or there is a lovely hotel just a mile from our house next to the hospital but we went and looked at it and I thought it was really pricey for some quite small rooms. They can get a much bigger suite at the same price near the airport.

Then there is the issue of price in general, I of course cannot guess what people want to spend. After feeling overwhelmed for several hours yesterday I realize I am just going to have to pick a few options and people are going to have to figure it out for themselves. They can probably get thing cheaper by pricelining it in the first place.

But the task isn't done yet. It just seems to be an example of one of those things that takes way longer than what I had thought.

songs and websites

Well now it's 3 months and counting. There is a lot still to do. Some things seem to take a lot longer than I would have guessed, not sure if this is our fault. Could we be more efficient? The 'countdown' clock says 91 days, that isn't much.

My niece understandably wants us to decide on the ceremony music so that she can learn the vocals, so we have been spending a lot of time pondering that. I tried to get suggestions from her, I was thinking maybe something she already knew might be perfect for us but she went mum and insisted we pick out what we wanted. Sweet and stressful all at the same time. We knew we wanted something joyful, loving. We really wanted something that we were familiar with, something that would be meaningful for us.

One thing we quickly realized is that when you are listening to songs for your wedding you judge then in a whole other way. My honey adores Bob Dylan, and he has lots of love songs but after some concentrated effort we couldn't find one that 'fit'. Or something. Other favorite musicians are Ferron http://www.ferrononline.com/ and Melissa Ferrick http://melissaferrick.com/ we love them but for the most part the they do not do happy love songs. And then there was the hunt for sheet music. We adore Kristen Hall's "wish I may" but as far as I can tell there is no sheet music available for it.

So our possible list dwindles. Right now we think it's going to be Nick Drake's "Northern Sky" and Loreena McKinnett's "Never-ending Road". Thanks IB and my master bridal ninja for the suggestions. Drake's songbook is on order and I have to call Quinlan Road to get the LM one. Hopefully it's all decided now.

Another thing I went back and forth on is a wedding website. Finally faced with the idea of mailing information packets to the 40 or so out of town guests we are planning on inviting or putting up one site and sending postcards. Guess which won? Then I proceeded to let go of the idea of lovingly crafting our website from scratch and went with a template. So that is almost done. If anyone has a burning desire to view it let me know and I'll send you the password.

Shoe update: after my tell-all shocking revelation you are probably wondering about my shoes... well I shopped and shopped. I have a witness even. I managed to get one pair of clark springers at DSW, which are both sandal and shoe like. I feel that I can now put off tennis shoe shopping until autumn. I also found a pair of plum strappy sandals with a nice square heel at the consignment shop for 4.50. The price was right but they are so strappy I am not sure I can handle them for the all day at the wedding, so that hunt will continue.

Shoes, shopping and showers

Well my master bridal ninja [thanks IB] has told me the date of the shower in August. She has reserved a tea shop so that there will be no decorating, or cooking, or cleaning up at least not by us. It sounds like heaven. I am really looking forward to it. My dear one and I decided against having a couple shower, we figured it would make the guest list way too large and we both prefer smaller, more intimate showers. I think my sweetie may be miniaturing golfing at hers. It should be a blast for both of us. A completely unexpected bonus is my mom, 2 sisters and niece are invited but I wasn't really counting on any of them being able to make it. Right now it looks like 3 out of the 4 will be attending. I am so touched and so anxious to get this house cleaned up, and it's in less than 2 months. gulp. I know I speak for at least myself and my honey when I say being engaged can be a total trip. I mean it wouldn't be a real rite of passage if it was all smooth sailing. Right? It's excellent that I have vacation and party fun to look forward to because tomorrow will be grim. [see below]

Following true internet blogging tradition I am about to share a truly horrifying fact about myself. I don't like to shop much at all and I really dislike shopping for shoes. Ok, i really hate shopping for shoes. HATE it. I'd rather go to the dentist.

There now the world can despise me or at least shake it's head in wonder. I am not much of a shoe person in general, don't get me wrong I wear them but I only have 6 or so pairs...which means they do get a lot of wear and get worn out and then need to be replaced. Which means I have to go shoe shopping. And I am totally blocked. Not only do I need to look for comfortable shoes to get married in, but I need new sandals and tennies. That is at least 3 pairs I need to look for...my head might explode. Or more likely I'll come home with some sort of shoes in desperation and they'll end up not fitting right or something. le sigh. I'm off to DSW tomorrow, wish me luck.

wedding planning weariness

my tiredness with thinking about this wedding has reached new sleepy heights. To be fair, it's not so much the wedding planning but the planning along with everything else in 'life'. I realized a few weeks ago that if I just didn't have that pesky 'working for a living' thing to do I could handle the stress and lists quite well :)

our reception combo cancelled last week. 'something more important came up' and they were gone with nary an apology. this lack of apology sucked but I think we'll be able to find another jazz combo and if not that's why the goddess invented mp3 players.

it's given me a bit of paranoia though..."the caterer hasn't answered my last email in a week, oh no maybe something more important came up for her..." so not rational of me but oh so human.

I am so looking forward to our vacation later this summer. I realize how lucky I am to get a paid vacation and to be able to enjoy it with my sweetie. Even better we'll be camping far from civilization, my to do list will shrink to 'eat breakfast, attend workshop, nap, walk labyrinth, and save seat for concert. Sounds lovely.

my mother has stopped asking me when my shower will be, thank goodness, because I have no idea what date in August or July will be picked. [are they planning on surprising me?] I have a list of tasks to do and none are too overwhelming, it's more the number of them. things are just swirling around. shoes that are comfortable to wear for hours [not found yet], our private ceremony in canada, our honeymoon, unpacking stuff, trying to make deadlines at work, mulch the new flower beds, considering whether to invite born again relatives...

I am finding my engagement requires a lot of energy for processing. even if I don't share it with those around me. now that I think on it that's probably why I am so sleepy. that may also be why there is not much point to this post. my dad would probably ask me if I am getting enough iron. Here I am in my second engagement trimester, and it's like being pregnant in some ways. For sure you need extra sleep!

invitations and less than 4

Less than 4 months to go until the wedding. Why does that seem like such a short, short time? I guess it is different for everyone but apparently 4 is a cut off time thingy for me. All of a sudden it seems like an amazingly scary short amount of time. Really 'less than 4 months' seems like hardly any time at all. Especially when I think of the things that I need to do, make, decide, finalize and buy. Oh and address. The invitations and announcements are here.

After much soul searching and some looking I actually went with printed invitations in a much less formal style than I was originally thinking. I couldn't really find paper I loved [that I could afford] for 70 hand written ones and then at a friends print shop I saw these:

http://www.byrequestinvitations.com/invitations2.cfm?ItemID=1223&Category=33&SR=1&CR=6

I loved these when I saw them. These look way better in person than these pictures. I was shocked how much. I could get them in copper ink! I went home and thought deep thoughts like "how much time do you really have to hand write all those invitations no matter how much you 'want' to?" and "really what are you trying to prove and to whom?" and "it's all going to end up [hopefully] recycled anyways" and "how much is sanity worth to you". When I also remembered there are tons of hand written potential fun in my future like rehearsal dinner invites, and table cards and menus and thank you notes [more than likely] I took DF with me, she liked them so we ordered the invites from a local business. We now have invites and announcements and informal cards with our monograms for thank yous. I still love them. I don't think I'll regret it.

But wow, nothing says 'less than 4 months' than looking at those boxes of invites...with our names and the date and the time and...it's surreal. We're getting married in less than 4 months. It is going to be fun!