The Holga goes to a party
The Holga and I recently attended a beautiful wedding. And that (see photo at left) is a very happy couple.
I even got kind of weepy during the ceremony -- I did! I cried! at a wedding! and that has certainly never happened to me before.
For a minute there I could almost understand why someone might think it was a good idea to get married.
For a minute there I was willing to consider the possibility that I'd never actually even been in love before and I should just shut up already because I clearly don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And there was even a minute or two during which I was prepared to let go forever of my politics and my cynicism and even my chronic grumpiness, at least with regard to weddings and the institution of marriage.
Almost.
I did manage to banish all that cynicism, grumpiness, and politics for the rest of the day and have a great time dancing and drinking and talking and eating fabulous food. I did not waste a second of it in pointless analysis. I love dancing!
See, I don't usually go to weddings, and I can't imagine that I'd ever participate in one; I'm not religious, I'm not especially romantic, and I'm basically kind of a scofflaw when it comes right down to it.
I guess I've been grumpy about weddings ever since I found out that my cousin's wedding dress cost more than all my college loans put together. And of course her daddy paid for it, along with her tuition. And her dress was ugly and the food was lousy, and the place was full of mean-spirited gossipy people. Just like at my other cousin's wedding, where on top of all that the groom's friends put a ball & chain around his ankle. Hahahahaha. Isn't that funny? Or my other cousin's wedding, where the bride (five months pregnant!) fainted at the feet of the Blessed Virgin Mary as she did that old-school R.C. thing of stopping to leave her flowers in front of the statue. Just before she left the church to start her happy new life with my cousin the convicted felon with anger management issues. They were both 19.
Oh, and cynical, did I mention that I'm cynical?
And then there's that whole 'forever & ever' thing. And forsaking all others? Just not my cuppa cappuccino, if you know what I mean. I could probably do it, but it's not something I long for.
Plus, marriage is a cornerstone of the patriarchy & everything. The very cornerstoniest, if dear Aunt Twisty is to be believed.
A lot of folks I know attribute my antipathy to marriage to a 'sour grapes' type attitude on my part, on account of I'm a lesbian & I can't get married, not legally or anything like that, & so I just want to rain on everyone else's happy little picnic. And maybe I do, but I'm not, strictly speaking, a lesbian any more. More of a has-bian I guess you could say. And as a bisexual I guess I could marry a man if I wanted to, but if I think about that too hard, it's more than just silly that I could marry a man but not a woman. I like men just fine, don't get me wrong about that. More than just fine, some of them. But it makes my brain hurt to think about it.
I've said a number of times before, that the only reason I'm in favor of making same-sex marriage legal is so that I can demonstrate more comprehensively my opposition to the whole thing by declining the opportunity to marry a woman either. I mean, it was one thing to live as an outlaw with my lovely ex-wife, and it's funny to call her my lovely ex-wife, but in truth we were never married, and would probably not have chosen to marry if we could have done. We talked about it. But it doesn't really mean anything to say that, because it's entirely hypothetical.
But none of that is my point. My point is that I attended the wedding of the happy couple pictured above, and it was beautiful. Yes, they spent a lot of time planning it and took great pains to ensure that everything was just the way they wanted it. Yes, it was probably expensive, and a bit of a hassle here and there. But it really seemed to me that they had a handle on what the whole event really means, and even what the whole 'marriage' thing is actually about.
Plus it seems like they are so in love. I mean that deep kind of love that is sensible and goofy and adorable and reliable and funny and sweet. And romantic and very likely pretty hot -- I don't know them well enough to ask them about it. But they are love geeks. And the day was gorgeous and the food was delicious and the wine flowed freely and the guests mingled and danced and everybody there had so much genuine affection for these two.
I personally hope they live happily ever after.
3 comments:
yeah, exactly. sure, i'm bitter about the overall sitch, and can't suppress a sneer at the bazillions of consumer items marketed toward this "sacred" institution; but, hey, happy friends/loved ones and par-tay. whaddya gonna do.
last wedding i went to was that of some recently discovered distant Russian cousins in Brooklyn. they're not wealthy; apparently the bride was given the choice of the splashy wedding or the down payment to buy an apartment. she went for the wedding. i'll say this for it: there was no question as to where the money went. Russians know how to EAT. bottles of vodka and champagne on every table; (red) caviar and salmon and lamb shashlik and a bazillion other courses, and a whole buffet table's worth of desserts. and a terrifying/hilarious MC and Vegas-inspired floor show (strange New Order-video-looking people dancing in masks! Ice Capades on rollerblades!) And of course, the bride herself: introduced in all her splendor with FIREWORKS shooting up behind her.
whatthehell; life is short; if that's what makes you happy, god bless and godspeed...
I love this post. All hail the "love geeks."
As for marriage, well, I've been married and I've been unmarried, and while there are things I preferred about being married (and yeah, it had to do with privilege conferred to married women by virtue of our society's relentless, institutionalized valuing of married women over single and especially divorced women who really are seen and treated as something somehow "less" -- and yes, I do blame the patriarchy, duh), my love and I have been perfectly happy merely cohabiting for the last eleven years and have never come up with a good enough reason to change that. As I am fond of pointing out, however, a hundred years ago this arrangement would have landed me -- me, not him -- in jail.
Sadly, because of institutionalized prejudice against homosexuality, I do not think that in our lifetimes society will confer all the social privileges of marriage upon gay people even if it does eventually manage to get it together and officially recognize their civil right to marry each other. This saddens me on many levels -- including the level that doesn't like how marriage automatically implies social privilege over and above the legal and emotional contracts between the marriage's participants.
Relationships are a fuckoad of work, and fairy tales aren't true, and being married doesn't fix this. It's not a magic spell, it's a legal contract to share property and responsibility. Therefore, I strongly feel that if people want a marriage, they should have a marriage, no matter who they are. I see it as an entirely private matter except insofar as the rest of society needs to know who owns what, who will make decisions for whom under what circumstances, and whom to ask for recompense for what behavior. That's it. It's not mystical. Love is mystical. Sex can even feel mystical, even though it's about the earthiest thing around, right down there with eating and shitting. No matter how badly some people want things not to be the way they are, and no matter how terrified some people are of the inherent unreliability of life, saying, even screaming words about god and what is right simply does not legislate nature out of existence. Sex and love will happen in spite of marriage. So will joint tenancies and shared responsibility for dogs and children.
Excluding people from assuming responsibility for each other or making public commitments they mean to try to keep for a lifetime serves neither individuals nor society, as far as I can tell. Forcing people to assume public responsibility for each other or make public commitments that society means to enforce for their entire lives did no one any favors, either, though, as we've already seen. One is just the other side of the same coin.
As much as both the fundies and the radicals may despise the idea, I really do think letting people do what feels best for them and respecting them and their choices on these matters as a default position, no matter their gender or any other superficial distraction, is the best, most humane, and most socially progressive choice.
But that's just what I see. Meanwhile, I'm very happy for your friends, to be love geeks and have such a loving community to share the geekiness with, and wish them the very best future together.
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P. S. -- Was it blog about marriage week last week or something? I also read the following posts last week besides this one:
"Happy Anniversary," by Angry Black Bitch
"Divorce, Part II: Travels in Wingnuttia," by Echidne of the Snakes
the Holga totally rules. more photos as soon as they come back from the processing place downstairs from my office.
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