Official piece of paper July 8, 2008

Today, our official piece of paper arrived.

Our marriage certificate, on official paper, signatures and everything, with seal.

We sent the $13 to get the official copy. You know, for just in case the fundie nutjobs get their way in November.

So even if our right to the same marriage as everyone else is taken away, we still have our piece of paper.

You can’t take away our happiness, either. And should you actually manage to win, know that we’ll keep trying. We’ll keep getting married. We’ll keep in your faces until you can treat us like the human beings we are.

Suck that, bitches.

Want a laugh? June 20, 2008

Jade went to the county clerk’s web site to see if our names had made it into their public records yet.

Yes.

Not only are we fully searchable for anyone who wishes to see that we are married, but get this:

I am listed as the groom.

Jade says she’s going to use that against me the next time she needs me to do something. Like open pickle jars, I suppose.

I am NOT the man.

I guess they haven’t fixed that part of the process; maybe never will. When we filled out the marriage license application on computer, I went first, so I guess I was Party A.

I just can’t wait until we start getting junk mail addressed to Mrs. Lizzie.

Beware of tiger June 20, 2008

Lizzie teases me about my need for privacy. Which probably sounds pretty funny coming from someone writing here on the Interwebs. But anyhow, says I only share things if asked for. In writing. Filled out in triplicate. And only then, when served with a FOIA form. And a subpoena.

I never thought I was quite *that* bad.

Until my business went out in an email — complete with a pic — Tuesday. To the 100 or so people we work with. And to their spouses. And to friends in other states.

Yeow! I’m supposed to be the one asking questions. This is freaking. Me. Out.

I hadn’t realized all the different layers of veils I wear around everyone. I know I try to control the flow of information. I’ll show an ankle to one person, an elbow to another. But until Tuesday, I’d never realized the extent of the secrecy. I mean, I can’t even break down who knows what. There are almost as many variables as people. And that doesn’t even count the further information that we’ll soon be leaving as I start law school.

We’ve got friends who know about the ceremony but not the official knot-tying, and vice-versa.

I’ve got one friend I’m pretty sure has stopped talking to me because she probably suspects I’m gay, but I don’t know for sure. Try piercing through all *those* layers of secrecy and mind-reading.

There’s my mother, who I’ve recently decided to start talking to again. Sort of. She doesn’t know. She barely knows I’m going back to school. In fact, she hasn’t even called me to confirm whether I still have a job, as some very bad news about my company made news this week. News I think she’s likely aware of. But I’m not sure. Because, well, we’re barely talking.

And then there’s my sister, whom I’m not speaking to at all. And haven’t in more than a year.

But on Tuesday, everything was blasted open, at least at work and all those places adjacent, where our outness was spotty at best. Whereas I usually slowly unpeel like an onion, my outer wrapping was blasted away. And thankfully, blessedly, if I can believe in blessings anymore, it was completely worth it.

People keep asking me, why didn’t you say anything? Most of them don’t realize this is the third time we’ve been married in a year. Some of them perhaps are making a political statement. Others perhaps are so used to those who are very public about their gayness, especially this week, that they don’t understand that, even if there is a good chance the reaction is good, not everyone is out there like that. And still others, I think, honestly don’t understand how second-nature a life of secrecy is — many times, has to be — for someone who isn’t straight.

I have said before, even on this blog, that I would like to live a more open life. That was, in fact, the purpose of coming out to my friends and family about two years ago. Perhaps that was a lie to myself, and what I really sought was just the opportunity to have more options about which parts of me I’ll show to which people.

Out, out, out June 18, 2008

OMG. We are SO out.

Out at work.

It’s a relief, in a way, but yesterday, we felt like bugs under a magnifying glass.

It started when one of our coworkers saw us on the way to the courthouse. And then two more. It was that first one who said something to his supervisor, and then to one of our supervisors.

We got a couple of furtive congratulations when we went to work and then our supervisor asked if it was OK if she shared the news.

I thought about it for a minute, answered without really consulting Jade, and figured that there were two ways to do this.

Let people talk about us behind our backs or just come out to everybody.

We chose the latter.

Immediately, we had several women flock to our desk and congratulate us and say they had NO idea we were getting married; otherwise, they would’ve been there.

I showed them the pictures and then I was asked if we would mind if a message was sent out to the entire larger department, complete with a picture.

Well, news was traveling faster and faster. (It ended up as far as Seattle.) Might as well be in it the whole way.

Jade didn’t like the picture I gave. She was mortified, because we are holding hands, facing each other, looking happy as we are about to kiss.

I think I’ve been forgiven, if only because a) we are so cute, after all and b) because she got over feeling like a bug under a magnifying glass. Or at least stopped minding so much.

Sorry Jade.

Typical responses:

You didn’t tell anybody? You didn’t invite anybody? Is there going to be a party? Are you going on a honeymoon? I didn’t even know you were a couple. I’m so happy for you both. Cute picture. I liked your dress. I liked your suit. How was the crowd? Did you have to wait long?

People were really sweet. If there was anybody that didn’t approve of our situation, we didn’t hear from them.

We didn’t expect this kind of response, to be honest.

I didn’t get any work done most of the time I was at work.

People kept creeping over to congratulate us. We kept explaining that we just wanted to do it quietly, avoid the fuss. We explained we’d already bought a house together, had been domestic partners. Signing mortgage papers is honestly a lot more scary than signing your name to a marriage license, I said. We also wanted to be a part of history. And we were. About 65 couples got marriage licenses in our county yesterday. I’m not sure how many of them got married that day. I heard 30, but there might’ve been more.

No hitches in getting hitched June 17, 2008

We decided to show up to the county clerk’s office a couple hours after the office had opened, in hopes that the crowd and the media circus would have died down a bit.

We were pleasantly surprised when we just walked right in, filled out an application and sat for a handful of minutes before we were called to affirm our paperwork and pay our money. A couple minutes later and we were in the small wedding chapel with an arch of fake flowers.

Simple as that. We ran into some people we know from work. One of them didn’t know what to make of it. Another person kept asking stupid questions, like are you here to get married?

I was busy filling out our marriage license application so I was pretty flip.

“What does it look like we’re doing?”

We brought our friend Sarah as a witness. And then we ran into yet another person from work, who was very happy for us, and didn’t even know we were a couple. We told her several times, we’re not really out at work so … But she was invited to watch, since she was already there.

Overall, it was fast, painless and pleasant. Which was a happy surprise.

We probably did miss out on the best of the camraderie of a bunch of gay folk showing up in solidarity, getting married or just to support each other. But there were no anti-gay protesters, only pro-marriage people shouting on the street corner with Marriage Equality signs. Hell yeah!

There’s going to be a big group reception at a local restaurant and bar tonight, but we have to work. The party still might be going on when we get off work, but it’ll probably be dying down, just like all the wedding ceremony furor.

It was a good way to do it.

Everyone in the clerk’s office was very nice. We didn’t get too many stares. And the woman who married us smiled. Another person complimented my dress.

Oh, yeah, that’s another thing. We weren’t sure what we were going to wear. I thought about just dressing up but then I realized I had a perfectly good wedding dress, and Jade wore her suit again too. Might as well get another use out of each of our outfits. But you can absolutely bet that I didn’t wear my damned uncomfortable sparkly high-heeled shoes. Nope. Birkenstocks. Doing it Cali style, yo.

We wanted this to be taken seriously, to show that in showing up to get married today, this historic day, that we had given it a lot of thought. And we have. Some people dressed up. Some did not. But it was important to do this today.

In a few days, we can get our certified copy of the completed marriage license (instead of the pretty fake copy we got today.) We plan to do that as soon as possible, because once we have that in our hands, it can’t be taken away. Not even by some scary haters who may vote otherwise. Whether what we did today remains legal is something that will be dealt with later.

But today, we are married in every sense of the word.

Partner. Wife.

We join hands

We grin as we hold hands, about to kiss

We exchange rings

Outside, after the deed is done

Other people paid our dues June 16, 2008

In a way, I feel like we’ve cheated in this whole marriage thing.

Jade and I are about to participate in history, in getting our relationship recognized legally. Not just as domestic partners (which we did last year) but as the real thing. Party A and B. Wife and Wife.

Yet we haven’t participated in the same struggles and suffering other couples have gone through.

Recently, on Pride weekend, we sat with a group of older lesbians at a restaurant, waiting for the crowd to die down after the parade. They took a survey, going around the table, of who had been together how long. Our answer: almost four years. Everyone else had been together more than a decade, and probably had identified as lesbians for decades.

I’ve seen pictures of San Francisco’s poster same-sex couple: Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. They’re in their 80s; they’ve been together for 55 years.

Jade and I are babies.

And my identity as a lesbian has been growing process.

When Jade and I started having a physical relationship, I didn’t know what to call myself nor who to tell.

We freaked ourselves out. We had a secret from the entire world for months. And people only got let in on the secret gradually.

After it was killing us not to tell. After we thought we could handle the reaction from others.

It took a long while. A very long while.

I’m still not comfortable talking about it. We’re still not entirely out at work. Huge gobs of acquaintances and relatives don’t know, probably will never know.

I did secretly identify as a bisexual for many years, although that was something I kept even more secret. It was something I kept trying to talk myself out of. I’m not attracted to this woman. I do not have a crush on this woman. But I got no further with men than I did with women. After my only adult relationship with a man ended about 11 years ago, I never really dated. Nor seemed to attract anyone, although I had crushes on guys all the time. And tried to quell the crushes I had on women as impractical. Plus my gaydar was horrible …

More photos June 11, 2008

At last, I’m ready to post a few more pictures of our wedding. This time from our photographer friend. I also have been messing around for a least a month, making a photo slideshow with music to put on DVD. However, because of privacy concerns, Jade doesn’t want me to put the video up on YouTube. Which is the only way that I currently have the tools to put it on our blog. There are ways I can make it more private, but it boils down to never put anything up on the Internet that you don’t want somehow coming back to haunt you later.

It’s just as well. It’s 7 minutes of looking at someone else’s pictures. Right now, in the background, I’m making about 10 copies to send to our friends. Who are getting them whether they want them or not. My best friend informs me she doesn’t want a copy because she doesn’t have 7 minutes to spare because of her toddler.

So if you want to waste your time with just a handful of the pictures … (Click on them for full captions)

Peeking outside

Our feet

We walk to the gazebo along our aisle of flowers

We're getting ready to walk

Imagine

The rings

A cute moment

The wedding party, such as it is

Don't know what's so funny

Our rings

The kiss

Not proud in the Valley June 7, 2008

We live in California’s Central Valley. It’s like a little pocket of conservative wrapped in a bible. Not the most welcoming place for gays.

In just a little bit, we’re going to our city’s local Gay Pride parade and festival. It’s not very impressive if you compare it to San Francisco’s extravaganza, but it’s good to see that there is at least some gay presence in our town.

Here’s why I’m not proud in the Valley.

A county clerk in Kern County (Bakersfield) has decided to shut down all marriages performed at her office and found a way to do it legally, for now.

Another clerk in Merced County tried to pull the same thing, but reversed course.

Both offices pretended that the influx of new people would overburden their offices.

Please. You get a few gay people come in to your office on June 17, something I refer to as Wedding Day, or W-Day. Because this is the Valley, after all.

After that, the flow of people asking to get married will only slightly increase.

At least the county clerk in our county, while not very happy about the prospect, is planning to go ahead as planned. We still will be there on June 17.

Though it might be more entertaining to make the hike up to Merced County where we can scare the people there, instead of here.

Ideally, we’d go to San Francisco, where our hero and artificial baby daddy, Super! Gavin Newsom, has declared that the clerk’s office there will have extended hours and start doing weddings on June 16 after 5:01 p.m., when the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage goes into effect.

Unfortunately, we have to work. And besides, it’ll be more fun to go somewhere we’re not really wanted and make a point.

Off to pride, to be proud of what we got!

The date is getting near May 28, 2008

California is going ahead with its plans to allow gay couples to marry, starting June 17, because technically, the state supreme court still has until the end of June 16 to decide whether to delay its previous ruling.

I still feel very apprehensive and a little unloved because I know there’s those lurkers out there, quite willing to steal our legal happiness away.

In my part of the state, only 38% of people approve of gay marriage. And most of them are probably gay themselves, I joked.

I don’t think I really thought seriously about how hatred and misunderstanding and faceless judgment of me and my love really hurt until it came down to trying to snatch it back away. It’s like handing a child a shiny toy for one minute and then snatching it away and crushing it underfoot, and watching that child cry. Cruel, unnecessary.

The conservatives just can never be content with losing. As if loving someone was losing.

We need more love and understanding in this world, not less. I don’t want to hate anyone, but I am prepared to hate a group of people willing to take away this one little thing that has come to mean so much to me: being just like everyone else, with the same rights as anyone else.

Got our pictures May 13, 2008

We got the rest of our pictures last week. Tons of them. So when I got the chance, I had a bunch of them printed from the DVD our friend sent, and started assembling the predesigned wedding scrapbook a friend had given us a few months before the wedding.

I know nothing about scrapbooking and actually have little interest in it. But I did pick up some wedding-themed scrapbook stickers.

I also don’t like defacing pictures by cutting them, so in a few places, I cheated in placing the photos. I didn’t cut them to fit in their cute little frames. I couldn’t bear to.

I also haven’t glued the pictures down, which I suppose I should do.

Really, putting the scrapbook together right away was a cheap excuse to be able to show up at our minister’s bookstore and ask for some advice. She did ask to see the pictures.

We’ll do that tomorrow. Jade is taking another big plunge; she was accepted to the law school of her choice and now we have to figure out what to do. We were going to ask our minister what the right choice was, but I think we’ve already made it by asking the advice of anybody who would listen.

Jade will go to the nicer law school, three hours away from our condo, and quit her job here. And find a job up there. And find a place up there. In about two months.

Our heads are just spinning. Just after they’d stopped spinning from wedding planning.

We don’t know what we’re going to do about me. I don’t want to stay in my job here. I don’t want to be apart from Jade. But we’re a little wary of trying to rent out our place, and I also don’t want to be running away from a good-paying job just because I don’t like it.

So I don’t know what we’re going to do.

Look at some more pictures, I suppose, and remember how happy we were, and still are. Show the pictures to the minister anyway and see if she thinks we made the right decision, or if she thinks I should try really hard to get a job in two months too.

Jade, being jaded, doesn’t think the minister really wants to hear it. But she’s a friendly breath of light in the room. Always happy, smiling, hugging. And I’m NOT a huggy person, but I don’t mind a hug from the minister. Even being an atheist, as I am.

Meanwhile, I’d like to do something with the photos. Maybe post some more up here when I feel like it. Maybe set up an online album through Flickr or something, but not linked to my main Flickr account so that the people I don’t want to know that we got married just won’t know.

Jade and I also took a multimedia class this semester, and learned how to assemble a slideshow in the process of making a professional-looking DVD.

I also have plans to have a couple of coffee-table books made of our wedding pictures through blurb.com.

I love photography, you see, and someday, I’d like to get a vanity book of my own photos made. But I think getting a book made of our wedding would be pretty cool, even if we’d be the only people to ever look at it.

Yes, I did the scrapbook, but it only hold so many pictures. And I want to have something truly special and different.

Plus, it just sounded cool to try. Along with making our own DVD. (Relax, we will never inflict the DVD or wedding book on people unless they really want to look.)