I'm a Missus?

We set out to have a small party, no big deal, something nice for our close friends and immediate family only. We had a month to plan - perfect amount of time. No overplanning, no going over budget, just a simple DIY ceremony and a nice meal.

But something happens when a girl puts on a white dress and a boy dons a suit. When mothers come in and affix boutineers and trim strings from the back of jackets. When the cupcakes are lined up just so on a tier. And the water is reflecting in the harbor, the twinkle lights are on, the room is set with white tablecloths, the heat is on just right in the little boathouse, and the guests all arrive wearing their very best, beaming with excitement. We had a really good fucking wedding.

And I guess I was surprised by how much weddings can teach the actual bride. I braced for anything, having my family meet his family. It all went well. Except I can sort of see in stark contrast why I struggle so much with family, and reassurance, and identifying with them. I took quite a few opportunities to look out upon our gathering during the ceremony. My friends, his friends, all grinning ear to ear and snapping photos like crazy people. His parents also just completely on cloud nine, I could feel their excitement and positive energy right up there with me, his mom agreeing with parts of the ceremony quite out loud as if we were in a southern baptist church. I glance at my family. No expressions at all. Almost a bit of apprehension, as if our next step might be to bring out a goat and sacrifice it before them. I have a picture I took of my mom, dad and brother in a bar when I was home one time. This was a really great day we had been sharing together and with the boyfriend, we had already been to the market, to the brewery and now we were stopping for one more drink before dinner. And all of them looked, in the photo, as if I just told them the family dog had died. This is the default facial expression I guess?

Later (much later, close to 1am) that night, my best friend told me that my mom had been telling stories about what I was like when I was a little girl. That I would always come up to my parents and complain, "I'm lonely! No one will play with me!" And I actually have visions of doing this. I don't know why I was lonely because there were a ton of kids in the neighborhood, but I remember my parents reading the paper every day, this damn daily paper that they could not be torn away from (which isn't even very good), and I just wanted one of them to play with me. In those minutes between times that the neighborhood kids couldn't come out and play. "Your mom said that your brother was never like that, he just liked to play alone with his leggos," explained my friend. "Don't you see? You came along and you rocked their world. You wanted to be around people all the time and they didn't know what to do with you!"

And in a way this made me relax on so many levels. I always struggled with why we as a family had to do every holiday just the four of us. Why having people over set my dad into an epilepic fit complete with shouting, and door slamming, and hurt feelings. They are by nature more insular people, only truly relaxed when, well, alone and reading the paper. I know my mom is more social, and has lots of groups and organizations she goes to. But 40+ years of living with dad must have taken its toll. She doesn't have the type of friends that come over the house.

But now I will never be alone at the dinner table. I have my boo (my boo-sband), and the little girl kicking inside me. My constant companion right now. And I was so worried that my family disapproved of the wedding, and I was completely wrong. They thought it was just perfect, lovely, a great event. No one told me this at the time of course. Its a week later and I'm getting the good feedback now. This is how things work. But I'm just glad it went ok and everyone was happy.

Now why are these checks written out to Mr & Mrs? And how come the cable company wouldn't let me adjust his account until I conceded that I was Mrs. Him? And now I also have to battle putting my last name somewhere on the b.c. as well. We will be like the Spanish and have many last names, no?

This is all a very interesting study in societal attitudes toward women and I will have to report back with more information as I gather it.

Love,

The Mrs.

*my friends at work bought me the Jay Ryan poster above at a holiday party/bazaar this week - partly for the scooter and the bouquet - what they didn't know is the date of the show being advertised is actually my birthday. It's framed and hanging in my bedroom already.

Packing The Year In

Quite a few things are happening this year that I hadn't expected - pregnancy, working almost entirely steady since last fall, the small cat taking to pooping on the dining room rug, finding those Frye boots on sale, and also, getting married. When I ask my mom to give me a break on the wedding planning, I remind her that I hadn't planned on ANY OF THIS happening THIS YEAR. Its a lot to take in for someone who just basically likes to work and travel. Freelance and go to the Caribbean. Visit with friends, do some contract work, go away somewhere nice. That's all we really lived for. Now we have two separate registries going on and only two weeks of bachelorhood/bachelorete-ness before us.

Certainly being married won't change much around the household, as we've been living in sin for over a year already. But we will get presents! And we will call each other husband and wife. And the kid will be born into a two parent, legally authorized household. Which I could care less about but it gets the grandparents off our backs and well, its awfully romantic to plan a wedding while pregnant. All the hormones come oozing out as I look up passages to put into our wedding ceremony. I tear up at examples of other people's readings, and google their references to romantic writers and poets. Even though boyfriend and I will have none of that gooey claptrap. It's going to be good, but not retchingly sickly sweet.

The handiest part about this is that I never wanted a big white wedding - I think I avoided the topic completely, to my boyfriend's patient chagrin, because I never wanted to PLAN SOMETHING with my parents. I can't even plan coming home to visit them - there are so many minefields and pitfalls and ways to hurt people's feelings involved in the process somehow. But get knocked up and people just throw money at you and pray that you come up with some sort of plan - any sort of plan - and you only have a set amount of time do to it in. Which made it stressful for the few weeks it took to pull together a date and a venue. But after that you can just put the moms to work on stupid stuff you don't care about - like centerpieces and flowers -  while you get one of your friends ordained and plan the food and drink choices.

Because if it's one thing we care about - it's showing our friends and family that we still know how to throw a party. Having another party after the baby comes is a fine idea, but right now, its about me and him. So I'll take advantage of that.

E.

Secretly Pregnant

There's a show on TV right now with the title above and it makes me blush a little. Because when I found out I was pregnant, I swore the boyfriend to secrecy. The first three months are easy to get away with. Especially as I didn't have any morning sickness and I already had a wardrobe that was customized to hide a small beer belly. I would skip rounds at the bar and sneak up to the bartender to order NA beer, in a glass, the bottle quickly discarded. I would feign exhaustion at the end of the day in order to bow out of the wine bar happy hour. It was a perfect time to just WORK - because that was the only time of day that I had good energy, and when I went home it was only to eat dinner, relax and go to bed early. Hence every day I felt good. And it being a freelance job, I wasn't sure if it was worth telling my coworkers. I was only booked for 2 week chunks at a time, but as August turned to autumn, and then it looked as if I'd be booked until the end of the year...finally at 14 weeks I had to come out with it. I thought I had hid it well enough. 

Boyfriend and I were working on shotgun wedding plans so I asked him to expedite the engagement ring, so that I would feel comfortable sharing my Irish American Scandal (this is how it was going over at home, at least) with my work buddies. They've known me for so long, as I used to work there in my 20s, that I really felt it was important news to share. The ring brought in a flood of questions that had been lingering in people's minds already. My gorgeously awesome gay coworker had been asking another producer if I was pregnant at least a month prior. The husband of a friend who I pass every day was sure of it weeks prior too. My closest friend at work took one look at the ring, and said, "Is that a new ring? What is that? Are you engaged? Are you pregnant! I knew it you only had one Guinness at happy hour. That's a pregnant lady drink!" So it was all out and I was so relieved. People were so happy!? People were gentler with me. I could now wear whatever I wanted (my wish list being only leggings and dresses) and walk how I wanted and forget about squeezing into my jeans with the pregnancy band. (Baggy butt jeans tipped my boss off too - that and all the doctor's appointments.)

And when I asked a friend of mine at home if a new belt I bought for my ribcage made me look too pregnant, I was met with a sarcastic smile. "Is the game over?" "Girl, you were talking about 'hiding it at work' weeks ago and it was over then." Ooops. Oh well. There WAS one girl that assumed I had had "too many bagels." I can't believe I was going for the look where I would prefer people think I was just getting fat. Because I'm actually a really cute pregnant person, I must say.

E.

Disco Station 2.0

There are a few reasons I felt compelled to give up the typepad account where we've been blogging since 2005. One, it costs $8.95 a month. No one wants to pay for anything on the internet, its just not the way it's meant to work. Two, the space stopped being interactive. I knew a lot of people were checking in on it, but no one was leaving replies, so it felt like a one way street. And three? I've also lost track of how many people are reading it, which left me feeling a little vulnerable as to how much I'm willing to share.

What I really want to write about is this crazy thing that happened to me. I got pregnant. Somewhat unplanned, at 37. And I'm not sure a lot of people know this. The people I care about do - the people that I see and work with and are close to and those far away who are excited for me. The rest of them? If they aren't in touch with me now, I don't really need for them to know.

Ah fresh blog, with no links to posts that A. made me write so many years ago about boys we snogged! No recaps of wild weekends of debauchery, drunken postings, hangover postings, dirty stories. Not that debauchery can't and won't happen here (in time, perhaps). But I think it's a new era. I need a fresh space. I need a blank canvas. I need to write and it wasn't happening at the old place.

Here's to a fresh start!
(lifts cup of Earl Gray)
(no mimosas till April)

E