Category: Uncategorized

In some semi-trashy (but totally awesome) sci-fi/fantasy/romance novel I read, there was a culture with two types of marriage available.  There was the traditional marriage intended to last a lifetime, and a limited term arrangement that could be dissolved with no hard feelings after a year, or reupped with new terms every twelve months.  For someone like me, who breaks out in hives at the idea of even working a contract job, the limited term arrangement wouldn’t do, but for a Fameball like [I will not type that woman’s name, you can’t make me, I don’t care what kind of SEO traffic it would drive to my site] maybe it’s the way to go?

Someone in Mexico must have read the same book, but decided that a year wasn’t long enough to really get tired of each other (or see your limited term wife murdered by a shapeshifting bear god before you had to face the question of whether or not to reup your contract, or return to your true love, the princess of S&M–I told you it was trashy!) because Mexico City is currently mulling an allowance for a 2-year, limited term marriage license.  It’s old news, yes, but new “news” made me think about it.

Apparently, about half of all marriages in Mexico City end in divorce within 2 years, so it makes sense to save time, money, and courtroom drama and just allow young lovers to pledge their troth til death of interest do them part.  Oh sure, it takes some of the romance out of a proposal, but so do prenups.

I did spend a day being very angry that a Fameball could profit financially from a wedding (not going to call that 72-day farce a marriage), and be granted legal status and rights as a spouse solely based on her having opposite genetalia from her prop’s (we can’t call him a groom, can we? he was as much set decoration as the cake topper), when I have family and friends denied even the basic benefits of partnership in the face of loving, monogamous, long-term relationships.  Very angry.  I was a little thundercloud of rage.

I want to say, and I want to say clearly because I don’t know that I have been clear enough in the past, that I believe any consenting adult should be allowed to marry any other adult who would consent to the arrangement.  Men should be allowed to marry men.  Women should be allowed to marry women.  If you want four wives, and you can find four women willing to agree to that–go for it.  If you want six husbands, and you have the stomach for that much laundry, have at it.  To paraphrase a favorite song, ain’t nobody’s business if you do.  Because if you’re the kind of scum to get four women pregnant seven times each, and expect the government to pay for your brood, you’re going to do it whether Uncle Sam smiles down upon your union, or not.  If you’re a pervert, intent upon harming children, you’re going to do that whether your gay, straight, single, married, or a shapeshifting bear god. 

And don’t throw religion at me as a reason to deny Bob and Dan their wedded bliss.  Bob and Dan might not even practice your religion, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts they pay their taxes just like you do.  What right does the government have to deny rights to tax paying citizens based on religion?  And who gets to pick which religion anyway?  Or which flavor of which religion?  Are we going to play by Catholic rules, or Southern Baptist?  Or Word of Faith, where divorce is A-Okay, so long as the Lord tells you that your spouse is hindering your ministry?  Or are we going to play by Old Testament rules?  Or are we going to be Muslim?  Or Hindu?  Who decides?  Fuh.

Well, while you’re sussing that out, Fameballs are daintily lifting the hand embroidered satin of their cathedral length trains, fluttering their spider-leg eyelashes from behind their diamond encrusted veils, and taking a dump on the sanctity of marriage right in front of the camera lens.  How’s that for an image in the wedding album of the social consciousness?  Don’t talk to me about the holiness of matrimony.  Talk to me about the holiness of two people of sound mind, looking one another in the eye after ten, twenty, thirty years and saying, “I still do.”  Or the unholiness of that same couple looking one another in the eye and saying, “I still would if it were legal.”

I’m listening to my Amy Winehouse station on Pandora, and Georgia on my Mind has come on.  The Ray Charles version, if there was any question.  Georgia was home to me for many, many years.  Now, with Grandma and Boom gone, it’s a fond memory, but it’s growing faint.  Actually, today is an anniversary of sorts.

On this day in 1981, we drove into Dallas, Texas for the first time.  I was miserable at missing getting to trick-or-treat, and sure that my life was over.  It would take me about ten years to refind some equilibrium, and another five to say I was honestly happy.  No one should have to be a teenager. 

We moved into our house on November 3 and our dog disappeared immediately.  After hours of whistling and calling, and crying on my part, we found her under the bed in the master bedroom, huddled back against the wall.  Eloquent.

Yeah.

In current news, somehow I managed to lose Thor’s Halloween costume.  No lie.  It has disappeared.  I’m sure I’ll find it around Christmas, when I go to hide gifts.  Until then, he has graciously consented to wearing last year’s Iron Man costume, which played backup to the Bumblebee costume.  It’s that or a hobo, and I’m pretty sure that’s not politically correct.

I am waiting on news and I don’t wait well.  I am impatient and antsy.  And very, very cranky that yet another famewhore is getting divorced after a five-minute-long marriage, but gay friends who have been in loving, monogamous relationships for decades still don’t have the right to walk down the aisle.

Arwen linked me to a grouping of letters written by celebrities to their younger selves.  Tell you what, Gillian Anderson shot up in my esteem, and Hugh Jackman cemented his place in my pantheon of nice guys.  Hugh also gave himself some advice I wish I’d had, and which I now plan to give to Thor as he grows.  It goes like this:

Keep writing down one list…and one list only…the 5 things you love to do, and the 5 things you are good at…they will keep changing, but one day they will match up…and there is your path…but even then keep writing your list just to make sure you are still on the right track.

What does your list look like?

Here’s mine:

5 Things I Love To Do

1. Write
2. Sing
3. Tell people what I know
4. Make people laugh
5. Be with my family

5 Things I Am Good At

1. Being part of my family
2. Writing
3. Singing
4. Teaching
5. Making people feel good about themselves

If you put those lists together, I think I’m on the right track.  Given that I don’t want to write or sing for a full-time living, but that I love to write and sing on the side, and given that my world is my family, I like to think I use my other Love To and Good At in my day job.

What do I wish I could do more of?  I miss the amount of volunteer work I have done in the past, and when Thor is at an age I have pre-determined, we’ll start volunteering together.  Well, I’ll be volunteering.  He’ll be coming along whether he likes it, or not.  Helping other people is healthy.

And because I brought it up, I’m wondering how much I did?

I started volunteering at Teen Court in 1983, and worked steadily for them until 1994.  I racked up over 1200 hours of service at DFW Medical Center, back in the day.  I volunteered as a Visitor at several nursing homes in my area, just going around and talking to the elderly for 15 minutes at a time.  And I spent 12 years putting in 10-15 hours a week volunteering at church. 

It’s been about 8 years–you know, planning  wedding, being a newlywed, getting pregnant, having a baby, having a toddler, having a…you get the idea–since I have been in a committed volunteer relationship.  I look forward to the time I can commit again.