I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings about marriage growing up.  At first I was all for it.  I didn’t quite have the Cinderella dream, but I wanted to get married someday and saw myself with a husband and two or three kids and dogs and cats.  Later I leaned that marriage had it’s complications. Not domestically, although of course it does, but politically, like that it may have been started so men could own women.  This soured my taste for it.  Then I came out as a lesbian and with its historical muddiness and my own personal rejection from the club, I denounced it.  I said things like, Why would gay people even want to be part of this historically burdened institution.  Why waste our time fighting for marriage.

But now I feel differently.  I was asked a few years ago to facilitate a marriage for a straight couple.  I became a minister online and read a lot of other people’s ceremonies to understand why they would want to commit themselves for life and also to come up with what to say.  What I learned in that process was that the most important reason to get married is not legal or religious, but social.

Now, I’ve learned this from experience.  I got married a few weeks ago.  I think it was mostly inspired by my little-girl self who always wanted it.  But what I experienced taught me much more than what I learned studying about it. Marriage may have had a lousy beginning, but today it is a glorified institution we all should have access to if we want it.

I was cheered like a rock-star; my whole family (like 50 people) flew in from all over the country to be there; strangers beeped their horns when they saw the toilet paper and shaving cream on our car; my flight attendant gave us complimentary champagne when I said we were on our honeymoon; the concierge at our hotel, my friends, the flight attendant, the check out lady at the grocery store, everyone said CONGRATULATIONS! like I’d done something important.

People didn’t seem to care that I married a woman.  But everyone cared that I got married.

I’ve been on a newspaper reading spree for two days now and yesterday I read in the Miami Herald that President Obama wants to come up with some compromise on the abortion ban in the healthcare bill. He said he doesn’t want funding for abortion to sneak into the bill.

Abortion is a LEGAL, MEDICAL procedure in this country.  Why is the government, including our president, trying to control through backhanded legislation, what kinds of procedures people can get?  I know the answer is political cow-towing bullshit for reelection.  But it’s wrong.

This is like saying, let’s make sure funding for kidney transplants doesn’t sneak into the bill. The government, health insurance companies, NOBODY should be allowed to deny specific medical services.

Reading the paper is a frickin drag.

My friend, Janet, called me yesterday pissed off because the Democtrats have no backbone. She’s a reporter. She deals with this stuff all the time. She was spitting mad, I could hear it in the way she said hello. For a second I thought she was mad at me.

“Did you hear what the House passed on the healthcare reform?” She knows I don’t pay enough attention to the news and this bothers her, but when I said no she continued without saying anything about my living under a rock.

“The democrats are frickin’ weak. I swear I’m starting to respect the Republicans. At least they stick to principal. Democrats are lame. They set the bar so low.

“Democrats actually voted for the bill because it excludes abortion. Government-subsidized insurance will NOT cover abortion. This is the biggest setback for women in a long, long time.
“The problem is all the hateful people who want what we don’t want are so organized. Hoards of people show up in Congress with blood and fetuses on their bodies. They lobby. They raise money. What is wrong with women’s organizations? As far as I’m concerned, they’ve lost.

“And Nancy Pellosi, the Democratic Female Speaker of the House, she needs to be voted out. What good is she? Okay she fought against banning abortion, but she failed. No one followed her. She is not a leader. She sucks!

“There were no Democrats who had the guts or the intelligence to say, you know what, imposing morality on healthcare is wrong! NO one did that effectively.”

“Oh shit,” I said.

“There’s this Democtratic Florida congresswoman, Suzanne Kosmas, who didn’t vote for the bill because she’s afraid she won’t get reelected. She’s a democrat!”

“Maybe she disagreed with the abortion ban?”

“NO, that’s not it. She’s cow-towing to her conservative constituency. I want to call her up. I want to say, what are you doing in Congress? Do you care about actually doing something or just getting reelected?”

“Call her,” I said. “Yes, ask her that.”

Janet got another call and hung up without saying goodbye.

I opened the New York Times website this morning to see that Ted Kennedy died. That’s so sad.  He was probably the most progressive legislator we’ve ever had.  And Obama called him “the greatest United States Senator of our time.” That’s huge.

In my world, Tashi started kindergarden.  All seemed smooth until going to bed last night.  She was already tucked in when I heard sobs from her bead room.  She cried hard.  She said she missed her friends from last year.  She said she’d never see them again and all I could think was, yep, she probably never will.

She illustrated my favorite grammar book, Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, and today she illustrated and wrote a Memorial Day piece called At Ease in the NY Times.  I like it.  Makes me think war is bad, always.  But she says it with respect to all sides.  Nicely done.

I don’t usually watch Oprah.  I hardly ever watch TV, but when Victoria moved in, the TV and the TIVO came too.  I know it’s cliche’ and snobby to be one of those TV bashers, but I really don’t like it.  And it’s not so much because TV shows are really a vehicle for commercials and reveal some of the worst of America–capitalism and greed to the excess.   I don’t like that part of TV, but I mostly just don’t like the shows.  I have no patience for them.  They’re bad.  Truth is, I wish I liked TV.  I need a pop cultural education really bad and with the Animal Channel and Cable, I know there’s plenty of good stuff to watch.  Well, that’s what Victoria says.  

So last night, when Victoria started watching Oprah shows that she had recorded on TIVO, I watched too.  

It’s been weeks since the election, but we watched the day after the election Oprah show.   Oprah was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Hope Won.”  She carried an American flag.  U.S. Rep. John Lewis was on talking about his journey.  He was there in Alabama, standing next to Martin Luther King and he was beaten bloody by white cops during the freedom rides more than 45 years ago.  He said he has believed in King’s dream all these years.  

We fast forwarded and watched the next Oprah with Will Smith.  Smith said he loved America.  He talked about how much it has done for him, a black man who is now a big star and I saw it too.  America IS the place where dreams come true.  I’m white, I know.  And I was born into privilege.  I was born in America.

Before November 4 2008, I would have watched Oprah and thought of all the things I don’t like about America.  I have dreamed of a more European America, where people share, where integrity of place and quality of life are more important than buying the most expensive car.  But I watched Oprah and I felt pride and hope for the first time.  I didn’t realize before how much I didn’t like not liking my country.  I guess that’s what TV is for.  

I don’t know about the rest of America, but I’m tired.  And so happy.  Horray for Obama!

I haven’t been able to do much for days, except freak out about the election.  Two days ago I called everyone I ever knew and had a few heated convos about Obama.  

At 9:00 A.M. on election day, I took the Great Schlep seriously and showed up at my 93-year-old grandmother’s assisted living facility and corralled the old people onto a bus headed for the polls.  Before we left, I walked through the dining room to try to pick up a few voters who may have forgotten it was election day.  

I was racially profiling.  I only talked to Jews.  

Then I saw the one black couple who lived there–an old-age home called the Palace in South Florida–amongst the wealthy Jewish and Latina old ladies.  This couple had always intrigued me.  They were elegant.  They seemed with it, even in their 90’s.  

I approached them and said, “Do you want to go the polls?  The bus is leaving in a few minutes.  Obama needs you.”

The man kept eating.  The woman looked up and in a slow Southern drawl said, “Girl, I’m votin’ for McCain.  I’m a WAC.  I’m a veteran.  Do you want me to vote for a man…or the country?”

I didn’t respond.  I was scared.  There I was trying to get all the old Jewish grandmothers to turn out for Obama, which was hard enough—they forgot, they had doctor’s appointments, they could barely make it down the long walk-way to the booth—and even the black people weren’t turning out for Obama.  

I was sure we were going to lose.  

But now that I think about it, today, after Obama is the clear winner and I no longer feel like I need to personally beg for every vote, I can see that this black couple was pretty awesome.  Even if I don’t agree with their politics:  They voted for the country, not for race.  They’ve come a long way. We all have.

 

 She said yes.

 But there’s trouble.  Californians have a ballot initiative that could ruin it for me.  Go to No on 8  and make a donation, if you can.  If California loses, we all lose.

And here in Florida, Proposition 2 puts anti-gay marriage bullshit into the Florida Constitution before it’s even legal.  Florida Red & Blue’s doing a huge ad campaign to help stop the hatred from becoming law. But they need money too. 

We can win this, I think.  Mombian.com got more than 400 bloggers to blog about it.  Wednesday was Write to Marry Day.  I’m a little late, but I’m still participating.  You can too.

   

My mom’s in New Hampshire campaigning for Obama.  She and her canvassing partner are profiling.  When they see a house with an American flag, they skip it.  

Yesterday her partner asked, “Why do they get the flag?”

Why do the Republicans get the flag?  Aren’t Democrats just as American?  

I don’t know how to admit this, but I’m really gonna miss Sarah Palin.  I think we only have her for 13 more days.

Did you see her on Saturday Night Live?  She was such a good sport.  Especially when they killed that moose. 

Sure she has some annoying qualities:  That thing with the drilling, her allegiance with the religious right, her voice.  

But she’s so pretty. And she can dance. She kind of always has her dance face on, which totally gets me. Makes me want to dance with her.

But soon she’ll be back in Alaska.  So far away.  I wonder what then?