Ramblin'

Thanks for all your questions.  I want to acknowledge that I still have a few left to answer.  You want to know:

• the story of how Marcia and I met
• more about (and a tour of) our neighborhood
• things about parenthood that have surprised us.

If I've missed your question or if you want to add one to that list, please let me know.

My thoughts are scattershot this week.  What's new, you ask? I'm not sure, I reply.

• I'm enjoying a P.D. James mystery though.  I love reading mysteries in the summer.
• I've been going to the gym at my lunch hour. This is basically a miracle, and I hardly dare mention it because it might cause the phenomenon to vanish into the thin thin air.
• Carrie couldn't fall asleep tonight so Marcia brought her downstairs to have some playtime with Baba.  We had some fun together.  I built block tower; she destroyed it [repeat times 20].  She played a maraca but cried when she bonked herself in the head [repeat times 30]. Every time Carrie spotted Moriah, I thought she was having a seizure, so in love is little she.
• The adoption date is August 4th, and we'll go to San Antonio for the court hearing.  I think we'll be ready for it.  It's amazing all the tedious little steps that are required.  By amazing I mean ridiculous.  Chalk it up to: Life as a lesbian mom in Texas.

Two of our friends are getting married this weekend.  Can you believe that this will be the first gay wedding I've ever attended?  I'm really looking forward to the celebration. Have you gotten married or considered it?  Are you anti-marriage?  One of my blog friends posted her wedding pictures last week.  To all of us, l'chaim!

Comments

[Liza]

I'm so pro marriage. Jill and I had a pretty big, mostly-traditional wedding in 2003, and it was wonderful to have the affirmation and normalcy of a "regular" wedding.

We also had a much less eventful Civil Union in VT about a year later, with no guests and a Justice of the Peace ceremony.

Good luck with the adoption! I hope everything goes smoothly.

[Jack]

I am very pro-marriage. Oh wait, it's my wedding. :) Your comment about the last lunch as a single guy yesterday boggled my mind. I've always been single (somewhere, at least, in the deep recesses), even through a 7.5 year relationship. Not to be single -- it's wild! Gave me one more thing to process.

[Spyderkl]

I'm pro-marriage. Hey, it worked for me!

Good luck with the adoption finalization! I swear, the whole adoption process is just one big obstacle course - how many hoops can you jump through and still want to go through with it? It's worth all the hassle, just the same. We'll be thinking of you on the 4th.

[LilySea]

Yes and yes. We had a wedding in 2003 and are planning a legal thing without pomp in Vancouver this fall, since we'll be there for a conference anyway.

The wedding was fun and since I had done it before (to a man, legally) I really enjoyed thinking it through in terms of what we really wanted to do and why versus what I did the first time which was partly what I wanted, and largely just what clueless straight people do when they get together without much thought.

The legal thing we are ambivalent about. We are doing it partly for kicks, partly because with kids, we feel that every scrap of paper must add up to something--even if only clear evidence of our intentions should either of our estates ever be tangled in court--and partly we figure it will have validity in many of the places (abroad) where we travel.

We wouldn't do it if our family wasn't about to be finished though, because queers never can tell how legal paper trails of their illegal relationships might affect their plans for children. (A Canadian marriage will have no effect on the adoption we're currently waiting to do.)

Good luck with your court stuff. And on that theme, here's a question: How is Pearl handling the second-parent adoption after all? You were wondering what to tell her about the home study. I'd love to hear what she thinks about all of it these days--if she is noticing it--or what she thinks about the court experience after that happens.

[Suze Oz]

We could have a civil partnership under British law but have no plans to do so. We don't envisage any legal issues should there be a death or break-up and both of us are 'anti-marriage' - anti straight and gay marriage. In me this arose from feminism and a view of marriage as based on ownership rights. It just feels pretty irrelevant - and we've been together for over 18 years, we don't need it!

[Alexandra]

What PD James book are you reading? I have read everyone and she is my favorite writer. The BBC has produced movies of The Murder Room and Death in Holy Orders. They don't do justice to the books but they are good Friday-night rentals. If you like audio books, the narration by Charles Keating is excellent. Let me know if you want to listen to one.

And marriage: I am pro-marriage all around.