By the power invested in me

We had a lot of choices with our wedding ceremony.  Dac and I chose everything from the color of the chair covers to the words of our minister.  As a mentioned in a previous post, we were married by Dac’s sister-in-law’s father who is a (now retired) minister in the Unitarian Universalist Chruch.  He also married Dac’s brother and sister-in-law.  How many families can claim that the same minister married two of the siblings in one family, let alone one of the siblings having a gay wedding?

Prior to the ceremony, Rev. F sent us several versions of same-sex and heterosexual wedding ceremonies.  We looked through all of them and pieced together the best parts of all of them into our ideal ceremony.  The ceremony began with Pachelbel’s Canon (played on piano and cello by friends of Dac’s from high school) as Dac and I came down the isle on the arms of our mothers.  Dac went first, he’s younger.  Then Dac’s mom’s best friend, CC, and another friend of ours sang Ubi Caritas to set the mood for the ceremony.

One important part of the ceremony was the very end, when the minister pronounced us married.  It was so great to actually hear him say:  “By the power invested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you married.”  This was a very traditional ending to a not-so-traditional ceremony, but it was very powerful to be able to make this claim in front of our family and friends.

What is this all about.com?

ABOUT.COM

One way of getting the word out about a blog is to post messages and comments on forums and message-boards.  I have been doing this for several weeks.  Maybe you are here because you clicked on the link in one of my posts on a forum or message-board.  If that is the case, thanks for stopping by.

One of the places were I posted a comment was on about.com.  This is a gerat site with lots of information and expertise on specific topics.  Each topic is managed by an “expert” in the field (I think about.com calls them “guides”).  After posting a few times, I got an email from the Gay Life Guide, Ramone, asking me if he could write an article about me and Dac and promote the blog on the site.  He said that there are many readers who would be interested in reading about a real gay marriage in Massachusetts.

Ramone sent me some questions and asked for a picture.  A few days later we were on the welcome page of the site.  You can see it HERE.  I’m the one on the left.

Thank you for the over 2,000 visits to my blog in the past two months.  It inspires me to keep posting.

Jos76

There are Liberals in Texas

One of the reasons that I wanted to start this blog was to show people in other states (and perhaps even other countries around the world) that life in a legal gay marriage is nothing out of the ordinary. Sure we have to deal with politicians dismissing our relationship and contributions to our community and economy, but for the most part we lead lives that are not very different from our straight friends and family. It has been several years since gay couples were granted the right to legally marry in Massachusetts and you can ask anyone in this state..nothing has changed.

The great thing about the Internet is that you can easily reach people far away and close to home. If you read through some of the comments, you will see comments from a man in Saskatchewan, Canada (on the About page) and from a guy who lives in the same county where I live (Bandittalks). There are also comments from both my mom and Dac’s mom.

One of the best and most surprising outcomes of these posts has been recognition from a blog in Texas called Texas Liberal. This blogger wrote about my blog so that other Liberals (and non-Liberals) in Texas could see how normal and respectful gay marriage can actually be. You can see his post HERE.

It’s great to connect with the world.

Jos76

If you really want to know..

I stopped at Dac’s parent’s house last night on my way home from work.  Rock (Dac’s dad) has taken to calling me “blog guy” and always comments on my posts.  He had this to say about my previous post, Blue and Red Make Green:

“If you really want to know how your Republican friends feel about hot political topics, try this.  Get in a car with him/her and drive down the highway at 55 mph. ” 

(There is some planning involved and it requires the willing participation of a fox and at least 2 people-one Republican and one homosexual.  They can’t be the same person, so don’t try to save time and money by using a gay Republican, if you could even find one.  Stay with me..it will make sense.)

“Once on a three-lane highway, drive down the middle.  Place the standing Republican in the right lane and the gay person in the left lane.  Just as the car approaches them, release a fox into the middle lane and see which way the Republican-friend-driver turns to avoid hitting the fox.”

“Then, once and for all, you will know if your friend is an animal-rights-activist.” (And find out where his/her loyalty stands.)

I don’t actually recommend doing this unless you really need to know if your friend is an animal-rights activist.  You gotta love Rock!

Jos76

In one ear…

Are there any new people living in your building?

ARE THERE ANY NEW PEOPLE LIVING IN YOUR BUILDING?

A-R-E T-H-E-R-E A-N-Y N-E-W P-E-O-P-L-E L-I-V-I-N-G I-N Y-O-U-R B-U-I-L-D-I-N-G ?

Welcome to an evening out with my grandmother. For years she has been saying that she doesn’t need a hearing aid. No matter how many times we tell her that she can’t hear anything that we are saying and she needs to get a hearing aid, she tells us something along the lines of, “I don’t need eyeglasses!”

I love Alice, crazy as she is, but Dac and I began to dread taking her out for lunch or dinner because the entire restaurant would have to be in on our conversations.

DO YOU WANT MASHED POTATOES OR FRENCH FRIES?….MASHED POTATOES OR FRENCH FRIES?…POTATOES OR FRIES?…She’ll have the mashed potatoes.

But this past weekend, during our monthly trek to grandmother’s house, we got a wonderful surprise. There was a little brown machine in her ear…just the right side…baby steps. We only had to say things twice at the most.

Soup or salad?….SOUP OR SALAD?

I won’t keep you guessing any longer. There are three new people in her building, she got the mashed potatoes, and a salad. Exciting stuff, huh?

Jos76

The Best of Intentions

We had just dropped a friend off and were heading for Dac’s parents’ house. It was the first time I was going to meet his parents. We pulled up to their driveway and before we got out, Dac said, “Don’t worry about it. It will be fine.” Though he was out to his parents, he had never introduced them to someone he was dating. I got out of the car and headed up the stairs to the front door. I don’t remember if Dac had a key or if we rang the doorbell, but somehow we ended up on the inside. I shook Dac’s father’s hand (from now on referred to as Rock, per his request). I kissed his mother on the cheek. The hard part was over, or so I thought.

Rock had not changed out of his corporate garb, so he looked rather formal sitting there in the living room. Dac’s mom was sizing me up a little bit. After all, Dac is the baby of the family and she needed to protect him. As we sat there I waited for one of them to ask, “So what are you intentions with our boy?” But, that sort of question never came. Rather there was another question asking me to join them at their house on Christmas evening, where I would have the chance to meet the rest of the family! I graciously accepted. Dac and I had only known each other for a few weeks and it was getting serious fast, but everything worked out great. 

Dac first met my mother in the parking lot of a Bed Bath and Beyond of all places, where we had happened to meet up while out shopping. He later met the rest of my family when we went out to dinner one night (I think that it was Bugaboo Creek or the Outback.) Dac later met my brother and his wife and their kids when we went to their house for dinner one night

First meetings always give opportunities for good memories. I will never forget sitting in Rock’s living-room contemplating what my intentions were with their son, just in case they asked.

Jos76

Studies have (not) shown…

I have two siblings, a younger sister in her twenties and a brother in his mid-thirties. The three of us could not be leading lives that are more different, yet somehow we grew up in the same house with the same parents. My brother is married (to a woman of all things) and has five children. My sister is still finding her way in life and is pretty adept at dating. I usually get the update from my mother as to who we should ask her about. Then there’s me, the well-adjusted middle child, no longer dating, no children

Dac, my partner, has two brothers, both older, both married, both with two children. Well, as of the writing of this post one of the wives is pregnant, so they have about 1.3 children. Then there’s Dac, the youngest child of the three brothers, married, no children.

Given that we have somewhat different sibling situations and that I was in the middle and Dac was the youngest, I can’t help but laugh at claims that relationships with parents (male or female) in any way contribute to “making” a kid gay. I grew up with a male and a female sibling who both grew up to be straight. Dac’s brothers grew up to marry women and soon became parents.

Both sets of our parents are very supportive of our marriage and no one (especially our parents themselves) think that our upbringing had anything to do with our sexual orientation. How could it have? We would have to actually accept the possibility that our parents had specifically different relationships with each of their children, so different that it influenced their sexual orientations. For anyone who understands the demands and time commitment required to parent even one child, he/she would clearly understand how ridiculous it would be to even try to do it two or three different ways. Who would have time to make sure that their kid is gay?

Jos76

It’s (broke)Back-Breaking Work (Part 2)

There are times when you just need to get away, to try something new, to experience something that is out of the ordinary.  Dac is a musician and I’m always amazed at how he can throw himself into a new musical instrument or style of playing.  For him, music is his way of getting away, trying something new, and experiencing something out of the ordinary.

Dac plays viola, cello, and violin.  He is now trying out the guitar and the ukulele (you know, for a change).  His music is what makes him happy and it gives him something to look forward to.  I know that when he is on the train coming home from work he is day-dreaming about learning a new chord.

Dac’s father and his two brothers (Dac’s, not dad’s) take their yearly trip to North Dakota as their way of getting away, trying something new, and experiencing something different.  We all joke with them about their trip and being real “cowboys” (I was scolded for referring to them as farmhands in the earlier post), but I think that having an opportunity to retreat from your everyday life once in a while is necessary and commendable. 

For some people it might be getting caught up in a good book, for others it might be a sport, and for some people it might involve the inoculation of cattle in several feet of manure ….the point is, taking a retreat from time to time gives us an opportunity to rejuvenate our mind, spirit, and body.  My retreat is writing these posts and I am lucky enough to have people in my life that are interesting and give me something to write about.

Yippie Yi Yo Kayee…or whatever it is that cowboys say these days.

Jos76