Wedding!

So, I got married a little over two weeks ago! It was super -- the wedding went just as we wanted, the weather was not rainy although all week the forecast had said it would pour, and everyone seemed to have fun. But I am so happy it is all over!

Many of our friends and fam arrived earlier in the week, so we had a full week prior of running around with them. The wedding festivities officially began on Thursday night when we all got together for a Circle Line Sunset cruise. Basically, a boat goes around lower Manhattan and back, so you can see it all in the light and then again in the sunset and the dark. It was really nice and everyone got to see the Statue of Liberty. The guide was pretty cheesy and talked ALL THE TIME but that added to the fun. :)

Friday we got legally married in City Hall, with our families around. That was a cool experience. We went early so I think we were the 2nd or 3rd of the day. we stood in various lines and then a very businesslike Justice of the Peace married us. It was short. Basically she asked if anyone knew of legal reasons we could not get married and then said, "do you? and you?" and then we were all legal. After that we looked at the courthouse from Law and Order and went to Chinatown for lunch.

In the evening on Friday we had a short rehearsal, and then hung out a bit in the park. Some of the guest went off to frolic while R and I hung with our families some more. By the end of the night we were soooo tired that we just went home.

On Saturday Matt came over to help us load up R's parents' van with our hula hoops, bottled water and water guns. We drove to the park and met my brothers who helped us carry it all to the ceremony site. My brother Keith did a great job of securing the perimeter so that some picnickers got angry at us. But I had a permit, so whatever!

People started arriving and we had the ceremony which went super well. It was officiated by the fabulous Shannon and photographed by Laura and my sister in law Sarah. Melinda said I should post the vows, so here they are:

"Shannon: Laurie, please recite your vows.

Laurie:

You have to believe we are magic
Nothin' can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don't let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive
Your destiny will arrive
I'll bring all your dreams alive
For you

Shannon: Rick, please recite your vows.

Rick:

We've got to hold on to what we've got

'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not.
We've got each other and that's a lot for love -
We'll give it a shot.
Oooooh
We're half way there –

Oooh Oohh

Livin' on a prayer
Take my hand

We'll make it I swear –

Oohhh Ohhh

Livin' on a prayer, living on a prayer.

We've got to hold on ready or not
You live for the fight when that’s all that you've got.

We're half way there - Livin' on a prayer

Shannon: Laurie, do you take Rick as forever yours faithfully?

Laurie:

I do.

Shannon:

Rick, do you take Laurie as forever yours faithfully?

Rick:

I do.

Shannon:

I now pronounce you married."

After all that we hung around the park and had a rockin' bocce ball tournament, won by my brother Michael and his wife Sarah. Although Katie and Christer did a great job and came in 2nd. :) My mom went crazy with the water guns, and people kept getting hot dogs and ice cream from vendors in the park, so it was very cool.

After all that we went to John's Pizzeria in Times Square where there was much pizza eating and people made amazing use of the one hour of open bar! I was so proud. We also had super tasty cupcakes provided by Melinda, who sadly could not be there because someone else stole my wedding date a year in advance. Seriously, those were good cupcakes though. If the store was anywhere near me I would be super fat.

I was really happy we only had about 30 guests, because I got to talk to most people and had a really good time. At 11:30 the place was going to close, so we all left. R and I splurged on a taxi and came home and fed the cats. :)

It is funny, we both keep forgetting we are married as after he wedding was not very different than before. I think I am getting more used to it now.

Some of our friends and family stayed around a few more days so we hung out with them, and on Tuesday we left for Long Island wine country for two nights, which was really fun and relaxing, but I am tired of typing so will save that for another post.

grrr

Today we got a card addressed to The Zuberbuhlers*. Argh! I hate it! Why do people assume I am changing my name? It really freaks me out. I know some people will say, "what's the big deal? Why not get over it?" But it is a big deal to me, and goes into why I did not want to get married for so long. I think marriage as an institution has some scary roots in gender inequality, not to mention that it is not available to everyone AND the fact that it involves the government in my personal relationship, which is none of their damn business. Anyway, I feel like people are trying to squash my identity by taking away my name, which I love, identify greatly with, and is very important to me. The two pieces of mail combined with my viewing of the Alix Olson dvd are radicalizing my feminism once again. What to do with all this new radical feminist energy, though?

I would love to write more but need to get back to data analysis. Just wanted to briefly vent.

*pretend R's last name is Zuberbuhler.

licenses, NYC, fireworks and hotdogs, oh my!

Hello my little blog readers!

Here is a post about a bunch of stuff I have been up to.

Let's see. Last Sunday night I got back from my month of teaching the smarty kids. It was fun, the kids were awesome, I got to hang out with a bunch of NHPs (nonhuman primates), I lived in a dorm and the food was awful. I also missed my community college students and came to feel that teaching the gifted was not where my passion lies. Hopefully I can post more on that later. However, I also got an email saying my one community college adjuncting job was taken from me due to the hiring of full time faculty. Boo! hiss! Now I have NO sure teaching for fall so I am scrambling. Anyone need a bio anthro/anthro/biology/primatology/ or anything else teacher for fall? Let me know!

R surprised me and met me at the airport which was so nice! He was almost foiled by my flight being early, but we met up and had a taxi ride home together and he was able to help me with my heavy bag. Monday I was exhausted so I lazed around the house. At night we struck out for the Bronx and Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees play the Twins. R and I cheered for the Twins, and it was very weird to be for the away team -- I have never had that experience before. Also, the Twins lost in a very embarrassing manner. Seriously, R or I could have pitched better than they were.

Tuesday we finally used the Empire State Building tickets R got me for my birthday. It was very cool! And the line was not too long. I'll have some pictures up on Flickr soon. After that we walked to Grand Central Station and R had oysters (I had a few as well) and calamari. It was R's end of first year of grad school present. After that we went to see Sicko, which was pretty good although not one of Michael Moore's best. Also, I already know the health care system in the US is screwed, so no new info there.

Wednesday was the 4th and we went to Coney Island to watch the hot dog eating contest. So fun! The MC was hilarious and the whole things was just awesome. The world record was broken twice! The winner at 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Actually, that is pretty gross, but it was fun to be there. Afterwards we met Christopher and Corbett, rode the Wonder Wheel, and then walked around Brighton Beach.

Thursday I did lots of wedding planning work like planning the ceremony and looking for readings. R had school related work, and at night we went to C&C's and watched some Battlestar Galactica.

Friday we met up with Christopher and Corbett again and headed down to City Hall for the marriage license! We stood in a wide variety of lines, reminiscent of the DMV, but emerged (we thought) triumphant. Afterwards we all headed to Chinatown for awesome tasty veggie dim sum followed by Chinese ice cream. We said bye to C&C and got on the subway to scope out Central Park for the wedding again, when we looked at the license and saw R's birthday was wrong, making him 6 years older than he actually is! Curses! There is a fee for corrections done more than 24 hours after getting the license, so we had to get off the train and head back to City Hall. Luckily the correcting went pretty smoothly and we got a correct license but by then we were too tired for the park so we came home, had leftovers and watched Mission Impossible 3 which is not a very good movie. Whew. What an exciting week!

Next week is all dissertation all the time. I keep joking that I will have it done when R comes back on the 21st -- I think ridiculous deadlines are good motivators for me.

Dress!

Did I post yet about how I want to wear a red dress to my wedding? I won an Ebay sundress, but it came today and is not going to work. Why do I keep falling into the empire waist trap? I cannot wear empire waists, or tent dresses, or anything of that ilk.

People who have seen me, how do you think I would look in this dress? I am nervous of spending so much $$ online, but I don't have a nearby Nordstrom's at which to try it on.

Maybe I just need to walk around to stores I can get to, but I do like this dress, although I am not sure it will go with the tennis shoes I was planning on wearing....

Pretty Day!

Today was a beautiful day, so R and I walked around Central Park looking for wedding spots. I think we found one we liked, but I am going to wait to talk about it until after we successfully go through the permit process. We saw three wedding picture couples as we went through the park, as well as many ducks, biker, rollerbladers, and the scary Alice in Wonderland statue. Also, we briefly thought it would be cool to get married in front of this statue.

The walk in the park was nice, and it made us super excited to get married in the park. One of the things we are most excited about is the unpredictability of having it in a public space. Who knows who will happen by!

Blog-a-rama!

I am just crazy blogger today! It is procrastination, pure and simple.

Anyway, things are good. I had my 30th birthday last week. Woo! So far I feel no different. It is weird to be hanging out with friends and look around and realize we are all 30, though. The wedding planning is moving along nicely. We now have a date and locations. Next on the list is invitations, but R is doing an awesome job making those. I'm also trying to see if I can get any hotel deals for all our out of towners, but I might just share some links and let them go it alone.

My new dissertation goal is to do just a little every day. I am in data analysis mode now, and I really can't do it for too long stretched or I start making mistakes. Tomorrow I am flying back to Florida to meet with my committee and make sure everything is hunky dory. I don't want any surprises later in the game. But if I can get a little time in on the diss each day, I feel so much better about everything.

No more stress!

Hey! I am doing great right now! I went to a conference at the end of last week where I got to hear lots about monkeys, catch up with old friends and meet new people. It was really inspiring, and I had a good talk with my advisor about a paper I am spiffing up for submission and about my dissertation. I have hope that I will one day graduate. So that was all good.

Also, for both R and I, our wedding stress has magically disappeared. I think it was the fact that we were all of a sudden thrust into this new world of the wedding industrial complex and didn't even know how to deal. We have more concrete plans for when we need to decide things now, and both sets of parents have offered to help out some with money. Last night we had dinner at an Indian restaurant in the 'hood that would be awesome for the reception. We'll have to see, though. We'd have to rent the whole place so it might not work out. We're still hoping for a ceremony in Central Park. We might actually do the legal deed on Friday at City Hall and then have a re-enactment for guests the next day.

I also have 8 credits of teaching lined up for the fall. That's my primate class at a 4 year school and intro bio at a community college. Yay! I love the teaching. I was offered more sections at the community college and was so tempted by the money, but then I remembered I need to graduate so I only took the 5 credit section. I need to get cracking on planning the readings for my primate class, though.

So that's my life right now. At the moment it is good. Also my birthday is Friday and I am going to sushi with awesome friends.

ze stress

So the getting married is kind of exciting, even though I was somewhat opposed to it in the past. I think it is all about participating in such a huge cultural event. So many societal implications! As I surf the internet, reading things about weddings, I become more and more convinced I want to have a party with people. We are all over the picnic in a park dealie, maybe even potluck? BUT what about the rain? Indeed, the rain is a problem. We need a backup plan. There are apparently few or no parks in New York City that contain picnic shelters. I grew up across the street from a park with about a million, but that is not the way we roll here. R and I suspect it is out of meanness to the homeless people, who would probably sleep in them. We are thinking of renting a tent but it is also spendy. Alas, what to do. I am going away to conference the rest of this week and over the weekend, but I think after that we need to do some footwork and tour some parks.

The second problem is the officiant. Apparently they are often $300! WTF?? It is out of control. For us, the ceremony is not very important and we want it short and too the point, so that seems like a huge waste of money. Also, why does someone 'official' need to be involved? More and more I am for the abolition of 'marriage' as a civil institution to be replaced by civil unions between any two people and marriage as a religious ceremony. So we might go to city hall on a Friday with our fams, and then have a party the next day, if we can come up with a rain plan.

My other stress is that I feel my dissertation is going too slowly. I am just not into it lately. I have been having a hard time balancing it with my part time job. The problem is my part time job often involves me getting up at 5:30, and then when I get off work I am exhausted. I am really going to try harder, because once I graduate I won't have to pay tuition, and I can get a real job and then I can worry about money less.

So, as often happens, I was freaking out about it all yesterday and then today I was contacted by two community colleges with adjuncting positions for fall. I am going to have to scramble for money for the summer, but I think Fall with my loans and 2 classes should be ok.

Betrothed

Dear Internets,

The time has come to tell you that R and I have decided to stop our sin livin', and make it all legal and therefore apparently sin-less. Yes indeedy, we are going to get hitched!

It is very strange. We are very laid back people. I have talked a lot about why I didn't feel the need to get married in the past, so it is kind of strange to be doing it now. We finally decided it would be easier to just be married, and I think we also want the acknowledgment of our partnership that making it legal gives us. It has at times been frustrating to say I moved here with my boyfriend, and not have people realize how important that relationship was.

Anyway, getting married is crazy. We told people 3 whole days ago and those three days have been full of insanity over where and when and how much to spend and I feel sometimes like I have been possessed. We had some good talks about it last night, and I think after the first flurry of excitement we can settle down and thinking of something cheap and cool and like us. We are really into it not being a big deal. We've been together for 5 years, lived together for 3 and known each other for nearly 12. Because of this, we don't expect this to change anything, although it is weird how some seem to see this as us finally committing to each other, when in my opinion that happened years ago.

In other news, I have embarked on an exceedingly boring but important part of my dissertation which involves me listening to tapes and timing them with a stopwatch. So boring! And I have 45 of these 45 minute tapes. It is really impeding my motivation. I did get a decent amount of work done today, but I have also had a terrible terrible headache. I don't know what is wrong with me -- I have been getting these awful headaches the last few weeks.

OK, I'm off to do more work. The good news is it is beautiful here today! 65!