Happy 15th & 34th Anniversary to Pat & Me

I still marvel that I’m qualified to write about relationship longevity.

Everyone wanted to date me because I was cute, but for most, once was enough. Apparently, I was intense—a nice way of saying sort of scary. I don’t feel like trying to explain it. You’d have to ask them. But somehow, a great miracle happened in Chicago:

 

Tomorrow is Pat’s and my 15-year wedding anniversary. Fifteen years legally, as wife and wife, and nearly 34 together. When I met Pat, I figured I wasn’t ever going to find anyone who would get me and love me for life. Including Pat.  

 

Pat looked like a British royal to me when I first saw her at Or Chadash, which was Chicago’s LGBTQ synagogue (and she still does). Shabbat services happened on Friday nights at the Unitarian church on Barry because the church wasn’t in session then.

 

We said hello, but I was afraid I wasn’t accomplished enough and Pat was scared she wasn’t young enough. Eighteen months in, a fun night disarmed our fears.

 

After Shabbat services one Friday, a small group of men and women, including Pat and me, decided to go to Big Chicks. The bar featured painted murals of Rubenesque women.

 

Pat and I were seated across from each other at a big highboy table. Pat was being her most hilarious self and for a microsecond, I scanned from her eyes and mouth to the red Polo logo on her black polo shirt. Or was I peeking at her chest? Years later, Pat told me that she was emboldened that night after she clocked me looking.

 

I’ve told this story before, but I had despaired of meeting anyone anywhere, including Shabbat services, and so I signed up for solitary entertainment—a weekend rental of a TV and VCR from the Rent-a-Center near my apartment at Argyle off of Sheridan. I had also rented several Blockbuster VHS videos.

 

At Big Chicks, I invited everyone over to watch one of the films, “Jungle Fever.” Only the three women, including Pat, said yes. I ran into the galley kitchen and washed a big cluster of green grapes and set it on the floor in a colander, turned on the movie and the four of us sat side by side on my frameless futon. To convert it into a quasi-couch for the show, I shoved it halfway up the wall.

 

The seating arrangement turned out to be Pat, then two women whose names I don’t remember because they didn’t come to Or Chadash routinely enough—and because I wasn’t focused on them at all—and then me.

 

We all hugged goodbye that night, but Pat’s hug jolted me. It’s hard to remember that electric current three and half decades later. After graduate degrees, cat parenting, promotions, moves, layoffs, mothers’ deaths, cancers and sundry illnesses, triumphs, passionate avocations, including nurturing animals, trees, and writing, there’s a lot that physical desire has to climb over to reach us anymore.

 

After last week's hospital-bout for an obstructed bowel, it's even harder to take myself seriously as an object of Pat's desire anymore, but apparently, our love can outlast the grossest of gross times.

 

I don’t have to explain our enduring success as a couple. I’m reminded of an Elvis Costello song, “Such Unlikely Lovers:”

 

There were no magic spells
You can keep the flowers and bells
They just don't seem right
Can it actually be?
Me and you and you and me
Though we're like day and night

 

We are like day and night, except with the same values, which gives us a lot in common after all. Our love is both still mysterious and prosaic “till death do us part,” which I hope is a long time from now.

 

On the Occasion of Our 10-year Legal Marriage Anniversary

Twenty-nine years together

A decade of legal marriage

Pat's tapered hands

Can't wear our wedding ring

During swims.

On our first date, Pat said,

"You'll never find anyone

Better than me."

Pat doesn't get poetry.

Maybe if she's the subject,

It will make better sense.

Paris, a Chicago dance club,

Was the site of our earliest

Classically romantic moments.

Pat would slow-dance with me,

her eyes, messaging mine.

Pat says she lured me with

Her cooking, and that's partly

True.

All these years, and four homes

Later, she encouraged me to 

Continue loading water into the

Redbud gators in the deep sun of

This Memphis July morning by

Calling to me from the front step,

"I'm making you an omelet with

Baby bella mushrooms."

In a State of Anticipation

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Anticipation and Agitation

Ever since graduating, I have been reading whatever I want, including Billy Collins' poetry, the rest of *Carry the One* by Carol Anshaw, the science fiction issue of "The New Yorker" even though I'm not historically a big sci-fi fan, and now, a few Dara Horn novels from the library at my sister Deb's recommendation. Otherwise, though, I'm agitated by the bonus time I have. Just writing about it decreases the agitation a bit, though, so I'll keep going.

It's like I'm uncomfortable with sitting still till I figure out how to spend the time. An IBM mentor said, "You could spend more time with Pat, you could become a volunteer...." Another friend to whom I bemoaned my less-than-routine exercise regimen over the past several months said, "Now, you'll have more time for exercise."

I have been trying to spend more time with Pat, though I'm finding that I keep feeling compelled to do more in the work realm to fill the gap, like last night: We were going to eat out and I was doing LGBT Community stuff for IBM past 6 pm on a Friday. And I didn't even realize Pat was waiting for us to head to dinner.

As far as volunteering, do I work with LGBT youth? Do I do something with animals? Do I become a docent?

Certainly, I have more time to blog now. Do I start vlogging (video-blogging)? This might be among my more tedious posts, but it's actually helping me to splay my anxieties here. If I have time back, I need to be using it well. What if I just get swept up into the mindless part of Facebook? What if I use social media as a tranquilizer, rather than as a way to feel more connected to humanity? What if I just become average again? When I was in school, I was special because I was heroic -- working full-time while studying part-time. How virtuous. Now, I'm just another person, going to and coming from work.

I want to be special always. I want not to pressure myself so much. Why can't I just relax? The classic observation that therapists and all of my close friends have made is: "You're very hard on yourself." I want to be more at peace. After all, I'm far from how I was in my early-20s: daydreaming with a spoon of ice cream in my hand, then mouth, then hand, then mouth, telling myself, Any day, I'm going to start writing. And it'll be published and loved by millions, and I'll be famous. A childhood friend remarked recently that she just assumed she'd be famous and it hasn't happened yet. Me neither. Still, since my 30s, I have written and then blogged routinely, have had a creative job, and since my mid-20s, no longer numbed myself with sugar, so that's huge. Who am I trying to convince? Myself.

More to Anticipate Anxiously

The other thing that's happening is I'm feeling agitated about Pat's and my upcoming trip to Israel, which Pat is giving me as a graduation present. I want so badly for her to love it like I do. I find Israel to be an addictive place. I need to go back there at least every decade, now that I can afford to. This is Pat's first trip and I wish I could wipe away her worries about terrorism. She's coming with me to Israel with the same attitude I had about going with her to Alaska: I knew she wanted to go, so I went. Last night, Pat said, "But you liked the glaciers and the whales." She realized that those were the high-points for me. I also liked swimming in a community pool in Juneau and reading on the ship. And the ship's naturalist, who looked and sounded vaguely like Alfred Hitchcock and who gave great lectures.

I keep saying, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, and I hope she is. In addition to wanting to control Pat's reaction to a whole country, I'm feeling anxious about seeing family while we're there. Pat & I have been together for just about 20 years and yet these relatives, other than my first cousin Maishe, who's been here for a Bar Mitzvah, have never met her.

Israel can be fraught with danger for me, too, though different from the danger that worries Pat -- the danger of flashbacks to my early, tortured romantic reaches, all of which were ultimately thwarted there: a lovely Israeli girl at 15; at 20: a Costa-Rican guy on his way to Jewish conversion; a Jewish-American guy, who also went to the University of Michigan; a Jewish-Australian guy with Israeli parents; a French woman, who was also deeply closeted then, and who was also on her way to Jewish conversion; a tall, handsome Orthodox-Jewish-American guy for whom I wore a modest skirt on our one date; two Jewish-American women I met through my program, a couple of months apart; and a wonderful Israeli childhood friend who became a gorgeous, rugged-looking, gracious-acting man -- the ultimate clue that I could not be attracted to men sufficiently to make a life with one.

If I catalog all of this Israel-based romantic fumbling, maybe I'll feel less haunted by it. Instead of feeling celebratory about this trip, I'm feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of being in Israel for the first time with someone who loves me back and with whom I've been in a healthy, 20-year relationship. In all of those cases of misbegotten cupidity, the people loved Israel, but didn't love me. Finally, I'm with someone who loves me, but who does not necessarily love Israel. It's not that she dislikes Israel, it's just that she isn't drawn to it -- kind of like how the objects of my affection in Israel ultimately felt about me. I have to go meet some friends shortly, by 9:30, so I wonder if I will want to write more later, or if I've already said more than enough....

Do You Remember Minky's Bike Shop?

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Rabbi Weiss' Mother Nods, Yes

Instantly, I'm 21 and reliving the Summer of '87. I'm in the storefront-shop, near the corner of Devon & Mozart, in the Jewish and Indian neighborhood of Chicago. Could Rabbi Weiss' mother and I be contemporaries, since her mother remembers Minky's?
Rabbi Weiss' age is a bit of a mystery, except I'm sure she's younger than I.

It's comforting to make a quick connection with the rabbi's mother, since Rabbi Weiss met mine when she officiated at our wedding, and since the Rabbi's name appears with our families' and ours in "The New York Times" announcement. The rabbi's mom and I know Minky's!

When I Was a Struggling Magazine Intern in West Rogers Park...

Minky's was tiny, and messily full of -- in my memory, anyhow -- mostly used bikes. I bought one of them for $25 from Minky himself; he was a white-haired, older guy with a sweet face and thick, bike-grease-painted hands. I'm pretty sure he, too, was Jewish, though not observant enough to wear a kippah. I bought the bike just days after moving three blocks away from the bike shop, into a tiny room on the top floor of a blond-brick three-flat, 6137 N. Mozart. I joined two female roommates, who needed a third. One had a fiancé, earning an MBA at Northwestern.

Even in 1987, $25 was cheap for a used bike; it was a cheerful blue, similar to the blue of the "Preview" button in blogger.com, where this blog is made, only a bit less powdery, and brighter. It was the color that appealed to me. I don't think it had any speeds/gears to shift. During the first couple of weekends, I rode it down to the Rocks at Belmont Ave. and the Lake, and I'd sit with it among my people, but would not speak to anyone. And there was no way I was going to go to services at Or Chadash, the gay synagogue, where I would have found more of my people -- and where, three and a half years later, I found Pat -- because I was in a Judaism-has-no-room-for-me-as-a-lesbian phase and I was intent on proving myself right.

Through reading the gay newspapers, which I picked up for free at The Closet, a lesbian-owned bar near that part of the Lakefront, I learned where the gay and lesbian people hung out on the Lake. What I wanted to know culturally, I read, rather than speaking with anyone; they were just a bunch of strangers who made me feel lonelier in their friends-clusters and boyfriends and girlfriends-pairings.

My own girlfriend at the time was finishing her English Master's that summer in Ann Arbor, which was where we met at the start of my senior year of undergrad. She visited me just once that summer prior to our moving in to an apartment together in the fall...which we should not have done, as we weren't suited to each other, but I have digressed.

What I have digressed from: naming the experience of living in a brand new city, effectively alone, at 21, and the loneliness and insecurity that it inspired.

Fewer than 10 days after the purchase, my blue bike was stolen from the the three-flat's basement. The only other luxury I bought myself that summer was a cassette-tape-playing Walkman, which I would play during the six-block walk back and forth from my summer internship at "Inside Chicago" magazine.

Amy Feldman was the journalist who supervised me directly and tried to help me learn to write for the magazine. I must contact her. Probably, she was just a year or two older than I, and kind, but I was closeted, i.e., never declared myself; probably, she knew and simply was gentle with me. Our editor was Debbie Loeser, who was fun and generous, too.

How unfortunate that I couldn't let myself be myself; if I had, they might have gotten more than my little travel-piece on Ann Arbor, including much more useful help with the Dr. Lauren Berlant interview. Oh, boy, what a great article that could have been -- a U. of Chicago English professor, who chose to meet with me at the Randolph Street McDonald's, and who spoke for much of the time on Rap music as poetry. Sadly, I was so guarded and so full of pound-bags of nearby, gas-station-convenience-store cookies and Fluky's hotdogs that whole summer -- I ate to tranquilize myself in the face of my aloneness -- that I couldn't produce any more than I did.

I've written about this Devon Avenue moment a number of times, but during that lonely summer, it seemed all too apt when I passed a doorway in the Indian part of the neighborhood that was still wet with new paint and over which the painter had hung a sign: "FRESH PAIN."

Meanwhile, a Quarter of a Century Later...

On Friday night, in New York City, during the Summer of '11, my partner of 19 years -- and wife of 15 days -- and I find our favorite spot at services, right in the middle of the second row. A minute later, Rabbi Weiss brings over an attractive woman, who is closer to my age than Pat's, to sit in front of us and then the rabbi returns to the pulpit, where she prepares to begin the service a few minutes later. I wonder if the woman is her mom and after she has settled into her chair, I say, "Shabbat shalom," and introduce myself and Pat, and she responds, "I'm Marcie, the rabbi's mother."

When we establish that we had lived just two blocks away from each other in Chicago -- even though probably during different periods -- I time-travel to the neighborhood where Rabbi Weiss' mother grew up and where I spent my first summer out of college and become that lonely, young woman again. Pat brings me back when she tells Rabbi Weiss' mother how special our mother/mother-in-law, and we, think her daughter is, and how stellar Rabbi Weiss was as our officiant.

"I should have recognized you. You two were in Facebook; I saw it!" she says, perhaps because I had tagged Rabbi Weiss when I posted the NYT announcement-link in my profile. The rabbi's mother also acknowledges our kudos, saying that it's a special pleasure to visit our synagogue, to hear all of the nice things congregants say about her daughter.

The next day, while driving from Pat's & my house in Montclair to my mother's house in Stamford -- the same house, where I grew up -- I think of Rabbi Weiss' mother's role in healing my life; she gave birth to, and helped raise, the rabbi who sanctified Pat's & my long-time relationship.

In my car-ride-length fantasy, I imagine a five- or 10-year-old version of Rabbi Weiss, running around her neighborhood at the same time that I, during my 22nd summer (I turned 22 in mid-July), am learning how to live in the world [of West Rogers Park], as a college-grad without much else to claim. During my trip back to Stamford, where Pat & I also were married two weeks prior, I enjoy thinking that the rabbi's parents start out with her in West Rogers Park and then move to Evanston later, after the Summer of 1987.

In creating this blog-entry, I check my reality by researching Rabbi Weiss a bit and see that she is 11 years younger than I and a native of Evanston. In that case, Rabbi Weiss would have been 10 during my first summer in Chicago, and instead, was playing several miles north-east of West Rogers Park at the time. That's all right. It still was real that Rabbi Weiss' mom grew up just two blocks from where I got my post-college start, and still, I could feel healed, knowing that a girl from that mostly-Orthodox Jewish (and Indian) neighborhood gave birth to Rabbi Weiss, who gave birth to Pat's & my legal marriage.

Long-time-coming Contentment

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Relief Rollercoaster

Rabbi Rachel Weiss, smiling a beautiful, broad smile, as she has done practically throughout the relatively short and very sweet ceremony: "Now, if anyone would like to say a word -- not a sentence or paragraph -- about what they're feeling right now, please go ahead."

Pat, Rabbi Weiss, and me

Oh, no, I think silently, but loudly, this is the pressure-part for everyone. What if no one says anything? An otherwise surprisingly relaxing ceremony feels suddenly tense for me.

My mother begins, "I don't want to give away either of you because you're both too precious to me."

My tension drains. How perfect. Unsolicitedly, my mom has taken up the mantle, serving as the proxy for Pat's mom, who, at 87, is too frail to travel from Green Bay for the wedding, and for both of our dead fathers (z"l). My mom is all of our parents for the day, and also, finally -- genuinely -- Pat is her daughter-in-law.

"OK, 'precious.' Who else?" asks the rabbi.

"L'chaim!" says my brother-in-law Gary, coming into view behind the rabbi.

"Mazel tov!" says our friend of 18 years, Carol Vericker, who's holding one of the chuppah poles.

"B'hatzlichah!" says David Chase, our friend of 17 years, and another chuppah-pole holder.

"To your success [or good luck]!" the rabbi translates.

I reward David with a big smile. David, who's an athiest, is the most respectful person I know when it comes to others' religious and cultural traditions. I don't recall when he found out that "B'hatzlichah!" was an appropriate phrase to use with Jewish friends, just that it was prior to our occasion, for another pair of friends.

I don't say a word then, but if I had done so, I could have chosen from, "finally [after 19 years]" or "relief" or "joy" or "buoyancy" or "phew!" These words remind me that we were invited by the nytimes.com team to create a 3-minute-or-less-in-length video of how we met and got together, and we did so. In addition, we submitted an announcement, which was published today.

Directly prior to the wedding, my words would have been, "awed," "self-conscious," "on-display" and "torn."

Our niece Zoe, her grandmother -- my mom -- Sam & Max, Zoe's brothers, at the High Line

"Awed" because I was feeling that it was practically too good to be true that my immediate family and four dear friends-as-family were gathered for an occasion that was in honor particularly of Pat & me. That feeling stayed with me all day, including at lunch afterward as I looked at everyone around the table; at the High Line prior to Shabbat services; and then again at shul, during services.

The only other time I had ever had a special moment(s) with a rabbi prior to a ceremony that involved me was for my dad's (z"l) funeral when I was a year younger than Zoe (and our other nephew Zach), at 17....I don't even recall a rabbi at my bat mitzvah, which I celebrated with my family at Camp Ramah...and that was not my finest hour, as I had been too busy, having a vivid sleep-away camp experience, rather than practicing my Torah reading, and so I was a tentative performer; I guess I'm trying not to remember that occasion.

"Self-conscious" and "on-display" because I was wearing the most beautiful, most classically feminine, most cadet-blue dress I had ever had on in my life, including open-toed dress-sandals with lavender-painted nails and I felt as vulnerable as I predicted I would. I was convinced to wear what I did by a heterosexual friend who had said to me some weeks ago, "Well, doesn't everyone feel vulnerable on wedding days in any case?" By "vulnerable," both of us meant, super-public, rather than private, and in various senses, almost naked, rather than armored, no matter what we're wearing.

Another two, lesbian friends were influential, too, as both of them had chosen to wear a dress for their weddings in Massachusetts because, they agreed, it was an ultra-special occasion. One of them and I also share a love of using virtual worlds for learning and I said, "And besides, you're familiar with that Stanford research that says that thin avatars influence their obese creators to lose weight? Well, as you know, my Second Life avatar is super-femme and I think she's influencing my real-life choice of outfit."

My friend understood, and I think our avatars would have been proud of me.

"Torn" because three of my relatives hit traffic and were late, and the ceremony already should have been in progress. While waiting for them, I experienced a bonus-dilemma: I ran into a friend I had met through another friend and our affiliation with a national organization that advocated against gender-stereotyping. I didn't realize that she worked in Stamford's Government Center, where we held the ceremony, outside of the cafeteria on the 4th floor, in a space that resembled a city-park.

She was with a colleague and I was happy for the coincidence, but anxious about our late-start, and our conversation was holding up the proceedings further. Pat walked over and I said, "This is Pat, my...fiancée."

"Yes, hi. I think we've met," she said -- and I recalled Pat, being with me at a benefit or two for the organization. Since my friend lived in Stamford and my mother still did, too, I had brought her to my mom's house to meet my mother some years ago. Pat's presence by my side reminded me of the occasion and snapped me back into the present.

In a split-second, I decided, no, I won't invite her to join us; this is going to go as planned, as much as possible. We are having just my immediate family -- my mom, two sisters, brothers-in-law and collectively, their four kids, plus four friends to serve as Pat's proxy-family, and who we chose because they were the first two couples to befriend us as we were moving to New Jersey from Illinois more than 15 years ago.

"I hope you'll understand, it's just a small, family wedding," I told my friend.

She nodded, of course, and I hugged her and walked back over to Pat and the rabbi. Oy! I wish I had been more flexible and just said, "Please join us."

After the ceremony, which was brief by design -- about 20 minutes in length total -- I saw that she was still at the picnic table, where she had been prior, though her colleague was gone. I approached her.

She said, "I like to work outside when the weather's nice. Guess who sends her best wishes?" She had called our mutual friend to let her know that Pat & I were marrying. I felt like a jerk for not including her, since I'm supposedly so committed to inclusion everywhere, all the time; oy! Pat came over again, which helped wash away my guilt for a moment, as I was happier than guilty in saying, "And here's my wife."

My friend smiled and Pat made a nice comment about the friend this friend had called, and then walked back to the rest of our family. My guilt returned. I looked at my friend sheepishly and she switched topics, "You know, I still have those tefillin for you," she said.

"I *know*. Every time I'm in Stamford, it seems I'm here with my mom and then gone and back to see my mom and then gone, but yes, we have to figure out a time."

This friend is a transwoman and while she recognizes that women, who are not Orthodox Jews, are welcome to wear tefillin, they remind her of the years, where she had to present herself as a boy and man, which wasn't true to herself.

I wonder what she was thinking as I walked away. I hope she forgave me.

Bonus Reflections By My Mom and Me

Two days later, as I write this, above all, I'm happy to be Pat's wife, finally, after nearly two decades. It reminds me of a shirt that our friend Gerard changed into for the evening, which featured a great photo of David and read, "Married to David in 2003" above the photo, and below it, "His fiancé for 16 years."

As I pressed, "Publish post" just now, my mom called me. "You said that Pat told you I looked contemplative during the ceremony?" my mom asked.

"Yes, 'contemplative.'"

"I was. I was thinking, Thank God I lived to see this day."

Our Wedding Day

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Feeling Like the Translation of My Name

"Sarah" is the Hebrew word for "princess." And I do feel essentially female and lovely, and even regal today. Please, God, let it last. Other than wishing I had had 90 minutes more of sleep each night for the past couple of weeks, I feel fresh and excited.

All these years, I've felt sort of in limbo societally -- more fish and fowl than human, as I had gotten to age 45 without experiencing either of two classic milestones of human adulthood: being married and having children. Today, I'm declaring my humanity ultimately through marrying Pat. The up-side of having to wait so long is that our lovely niece and nephews can participate in our wedding in more substantial ways, e.g., Zoe's gonna take candid photos.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, Pat," I asked as we woke up this morning, "How worried are you?"

"10. Just kidding. I'm not worried at all," she said. Fundamentally, I believe Pat, which is another reason for marrying her.

Please, God, let today go spiritually. May we do Your will. Amen.

Note added on Saturday, post-wedding: My oldest sister Deb's toast to Pat & me included her assessment that paradoxically, I'm the most conventional of the three sisters/daughters, i.e., we were the first to buy a house, we live in a suburb...and so if the reference above to "classic milestones of adulthood" sounds ultra-conventional, I guess I gotta admit to having conventional taste in a number of areas.

Why Get Married? Why Get Married Now?

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Why Marry Pat?

Rabbi Rachel Weiss, our congregation's assistant rabbi, and the rabbi who is officiating at our wedding, asked us to meet with her today with the answers to these questions written down. We were to read them aloud to each other...which we did. Here were my responses:

• Why get married:

For a sense of security, and to solidify and legitimate and assert the value of a love-relationship. Because I grew up, expecting to marry. Because it’s societally normative and I crave feeling normative. Because lots of people can relate to my being married better than to my being in a domestic partnership. Because we’ll be able to switch our Facebook statuses to “Married.” Because I celebrated my sisters’ marriages and it’s my turn.

• Why get married now?

Because we can legally in Connecticut and it will be recognized in various places worldwide, including Canada and Israel, where we’ll be this year and next on vacation, God willing. And because our mothers are 85 and 87 and we don’t know for how much longer they’ll be with us. Because it’s time, i.e., I’ve worked on my internalized homophobia and finally feel readier than I ever have.

• Why marry Pat?

Because I love her. Why do I love her? Because Pat is kind, loyal, honest, funny, pretty and handsome, graceful, smart, dignified, silly, takes care of me and our household, loves me and is attracted to me, believes in me and is on my side. She’s a safe haven to come home to and she relaxes me – helps me feel less anxious. Because she supports me and because I enjoy no one’s company better than Pat’s. I’m never bored with Pat. She entertains me. I’m her best, of many, fans.

I also want to marry Pat per se because we share core-values, even though our taste differs in books and art. Our values include that we’re Jewish and not just culturally; we enjoy being affiliated with a congregation and with CBST specifically; we’re more gullible and innocent than cynical; humor matters and so does kindness, as well as doing service and demonstrating leadership; we’re both out and stand up to indignities publicly, even when no one else does.

One Month from Today...

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Pat & I Will Be Married

July 1st is the day. I found what I'll wear the other day online -- we'll see if it fits when it comes. Pat never reads this blog, so I'll tell you that it's a floor-length, silk-cotton dress with a cowl neck in front and back, in cadet blue. She'll see it for the first time on our wedding-day. Pat knows only that it's a dress and told me today that she's surprised that I'm choosing to wear a dress.

"Do you not want me to?"

Pat didn't answer.

"I just think it's a special day," I said, but I know what she means, since I've worn a dress just twice the whole time we've been together, to two formal gala events. Well, this is not formal, not a gala, but it is a major milestone, so I think I wanna do so. It'll depend on whether or not it fits. I'm too self-conscious to shop for it live, so if the online route fails, I might not do it. We'll see.

The nightmare I blogged about previously reflects my vulnerability around wearing something other than pants to our wedding. So it's easier to talk about what I'll wear than what it means that I'll be married 30 days from now. Today, I read a "New York Times" article on how it's easy to like technology, but how hard to love people in all the complexity that love requires.

People are complex. It will mean more when we're married than it means now, even though we've been together for nearly 19 years. It is a big deal. I'll need to blog more about it over this next month. Gonna go back to Pat's & my Florida vacation w/our friends now. More later....

Last Night I Dreamt I Wore a Mini-skirt to Work...

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

...and Stood in Front of a Breezy, Full Classroom Sans Underpants

Perhaps it will take some time to decompress from work-mode, but this blog-entry's heading and sub-heading sum up the anxiety that comes with three good problems: my being on vacation; thinking about an upcoming trip, where I need to stand in front of a classroom and be effective, so that the participants can be effective; and day-dreaming about my upcoming marriage to Pat.

I left my ThinkPad at home while we're in Florida and so cannot look at work e-mail even if I wanted to do so; was thinking that I should have brought my modules with me to practice for the trip; and am puzzling over what to wear when Pat and I get married on in July. In reaction to my clothing dilemma, a new friend said the other day, "I think that as humans, we need to be feeling some struggle at all times, and another friend said more practically, "Sometimes, it's more about the color and the fabric...."

The dream, I guess, was trying to tell me to spend time, preparing for the class I'll facilitate, and that no matter what I choose to wear to get married to Pat, be sure the outfit includes underwear.

What a Difference a Week Makes!

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Allowing Contentment, and Even Excitement

"You haven't changed. You're a worrier," said a mentor emeritus; he retired in 2006. We were at a party to celebrate two other colleagues who retired this year and we were talking about my self-questioning nature -- to put it tactfully.

The declaration, "You're a worrier," was both upsetting and a relief. On the one hand, who wants to be recognized as anxious, rather than resolutely confident, and on the other hand, it was a healthy dismissal of the things I was saying as nothing more than free-floating anxiety, rather than as reality.

...which reminded me of how I had been thinking of Pat's and my upcoming marriage a week ago: tons of questions with a big helping of internalized homophobia. How different I feel just a week later. Here's why:

1. Pat & I met with our rabbi to discuss how she'll officiate and it sounded beautiful, and she acknowledged, and did not dwell on my internalized homophobia, but rather spoke in practically, purely positive terms
   
2. I told more people our news, all of whom were happy for us and encouraging
   
3. Pat & I bought rings yesterday, which are beautiful and which we'll give each other during the rabbi's service; we also liked how the seller spoke of his company's early granting of domestic partner benefits
   
4. I told another couple -- women who've been together for 23 years -- of our plan and they were persuaded to consider marrying in a country or state, where it's legal, too; like us, they did not realize how relatively simple it now was to transform themselves into a legally-married couple.
   

The rabbi wants to meet with us again and wants us to bring written answers to the following questions that we'll share with each other and her at the same time, at that meeting:

1. Why marry?
   
2. Why marry now?
   
3. Why marry each other?
   

The request is so appealing to me, but so unappealing to Pat. In her typical irreverence, she said to me as we drove home from meeting with the rabbi, "Would you do my answers, too?"

Getting Married This Summer

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Why Doesn't It Feel Paradisal?

Note: This blog-entry is being published with Pat's readily-granted approval...which is another of the many reasons I want to marry her.

I have a therapist and I have friends, and yet my blog also comforts me by being a tireless host for my reflections.

This blog has about eight followers a day, so there is only a small chance of most people I know (or don't know), seeing this news. Perhaps, I'm being weird about it and yet not as weird as some; otherwise, the term elopement wouldn't exist. I'm being weird, so far, because I've announced Pat's & my news only to my mom and siblings; Pat's mother and sibling -- both of our fathers died years ago; four friends; our rabbi; and my manager, with whom I wanted to negotiate the honeymoon-week for next year, after my Master's is done. Why haven't I told my all of my friends, or teammates at work?

Perhaps that's not the weirdest part. Perhaps it's weirder that Pat & I just want our family with us. Well, again, that's where elopement comes in, i.e., so far, we haven't done *that*, so I suppose we could be even weirder.

Questions that Prevent Me from Feeling Pure Euphoria

• Why didn't this happen for me in my twenties?
  
• Why couldn't I have been attracted to a man and marry a man?
  
• Why fix something that's not broken; after all, we've been together for nearly 19 years?
  
• What should we wear?
  
• Why are some of my family trying to make me feel guilty about who I want to include?
  
• Will we have any pictures or will we be too shy?
  
• Will I be uplifted by the experience itself [because so far, there have been some less-than-delightful administrative moments]?
  
• Will our mothers be able to be visibly happy for us? (Both were lovely in their response to our news, but what will their faces look like in the moment, or is that just my own, internalized homophobia that might wear a scowl?)
  
• How will I feel, standing there -- peaceful finally or still a range of emotions?
  
• What would it be like if we could get each other big rocks for our fingers and if money were no object?
  
• Why do I feel so vulnerable and raw, so out of control whenever I tell the few people I've told so far?
  
• Why do I care what anyone thinks of me?
  
• Will I feel less bitter about same-gender marriage still being outlawed federally if Pat & I marry legally, where it *is* possible?
  
• What's the heterosexual version of this sort of suffering around getting married?
  
• Not to flatter myself, but if anyone of my Facebook friends stumbles on this entry, is it fair to ask them not to post publicly on my wall with their reaction, but rather to send me a private message?
  
• Why, in contrast to my wish re: Facebook above, do I hope that someone/anyone adds a public comment to my blog-entry here?
  
• Why do I wish we could marry now, rather than waiting another minute?
  
• What if the blurb we submit doesn't get included in "The New York Times?"
  
• Why don't Pat & I plan to do anything beyond:
  
  1. Being married by our rabbi in a Connecticut city hall
     
  2. Having lunch afterward with our family and the rabbi
     
  3. Going to synagogue that night with our mothers, siblings and their families and sponsoring the simple kiddush (reception)
     
• Do I wish I could just wake up married?
  

Still a New Jersey Outlaw

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Meditations on Marriage

The two boys/men with whom I was most intimate, but didn't marry, both have wives and children. One of the guys is a gorgeous, athletic Leukemia researcher, who went through high school and his undergraduate years at Harvard in six years, rather than eight. The other is a handsome, musical business mogul who can do innumerable push-ups on his knuckles -- or could when we were 20 -- and who sold his business for US$150M, and now, is the CEO of a global green energy company.

The person with whom I have chosen to share my life -- for nearly 18 years so far -- is beautiful, as well as the funniest person I've ever met, and is kind and graceful, with nearly a photographic memory for anything she has ever read, and she has three Masters degrees and a Doctorate.

In not being allowed to marry, Pat and I have a good problem compared to people of any sexual orientation who've not found the love of their life and who have no marriage prospects at all. Ahhh, that's the gratitude I was hunting for in the midst of the shameful news that New Jersey's Senate voted against same-sex marriage.

This morning, I heard an interview of Elizabeth Gilbert on NPR. She was discussing her "champagne problem" of trying to follow her mega-bestselling book with another. Apparently, she wrote the bestseller about getting divorced and liberated in the process, and the new book was about how she needed to marry her boyfriend in order for him not to be deported.

*That's* your champagne problem, I thought bitterly, listening to her. She has no appreciation of her freedom to marry her boyfriend in order to stay united. Bi-national, same-sex couples have not got that similar right. For that matter, neither do same-national, same-sex couples.

It is doubtful that I will read either book, but I did prize Ariel Levy's recent review of the second one, especially this paragraph:

“Committed” is an unfurling of Gilbert’s profound anxiety about reëntering a legally binding arrangement that she does not really believe in. All this ambivalence, expressed in her high-drama prose, can be a lot to handle. (One generally doesn’t indulge another person’s emotional processing at this length unless the jabbering is likely to conclude with sex.)

Why the paragraph appealed to me: It was written by an openly-lesbian journalist, who in this article wrote, referring to an old-school lesbian separatist, "If I weren’t female and gay, I doubt very much that she would have spoken to me." And I might be projecting, but I want to believe that Levy felt the same impatience as I did about Gilbert's actual champagne problem -- of having the freedom to marry the person she wanted to marry, but just being tiresomely expressive of her fear to do so.

During low points like today, as I have time to feel hurt and righteously-indignant about the New Jersey Senate's inhumane decision, I fall prey to what-if-ing.

What if I had married the doctor? What if I had married the green CEO? Well, my partner is a doctor, too (in Education), and as an active Master Gardener, she couldn't be any greener.

Adventure Off the Lobby

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Celebrating a Muslim Wedding, Rather Than Shabbat

Back in our hotel room, Pat said, "They're just starting out their life together. They looked like they were in their early-20s," Pat said, "...I wonder what they had for dinner."

The lump in my throat felt like it grew a beating heart. I became so caught up in the gorgeousness of the hennah-handed, multi-bangled, jewel-studded bride and the pumping Hindi music.

Whatever came next would have swept me up, and we inched out of the ballroom backwards, since we were shy, being the only non-Muslim women in sight, let alone the only Jewish lesbians.

Pat turned around before I did to head respectfully toward the exit. I was conscious that I was treating the bride and groom the way Jews treat the Torah ark, backing away from it after an aliyah (honor, where we're called to the Torah, to bless it or read from it), and I think it's because I felt like I was leaving a holy place.

From there, we walked down the hallway with giant smiles to the Raj Pavilion, where we opened our gift-bags and had what must have been a pedestrian dinner compared to the bride's and groom's.

"I am glad we didn't get the camera on some level," Pat said.

"The bags are hand-made."

"I know. I looked for a label that would read, 'Made in China,' but there's no label."

"Stay for the meal," they said, but we just couldn't impose....I can imagine people, thinking, you should have taken them at their word.

This was a welcome culture-clash. Whereas in the States, it's called "crashing a wedding," this family of 70+ was genuinely open and welcoming of us, no matter how we were dressed and no matter that we were pure strangers. It reminded me of the regal hospitality I felt when my friend Rebekah took me to her boyfriend's Atif's friends home in Neve Shalom 22 years ago.