i wonder if there's something about the fact that i have nothing new to report that keeps me from bloggging. i mean, i think i'd feel a lot better about not blogging if it was symptomatic of something besides laziness.
there was some flurry of activity over the last few days that made it seem not quite so... desertlike? in the sense of vast stretches of free, unproductive time stretching out in either direction for eternity. there was this sojourn to massachussets for my mom's cousin's wedding.
i guess i need to talk about that. the wedding, as some of you may know, was in a conservative christian church. this particular cousin comes from (wait for it) my mother's mother's sister's family. they're an intersting bunch: i knew their dad as a very young boy, but remember him fondly. my grandma's sister (this is baga, for those of you who know [of] her) doris was always sickly the entire time i knew her, i don't know with what. she smoked like a chimney, though, and died not that long ago... five years, maybe? perhaps longer.
anyway, they had three kids, david john, the oldest. he's a pretty standard guy, works in computers, episcopalian perhaps? whatever it is, religion's not, like, a major factor in his life, so far as i can tell. his wife is very nice, and his two kids are cool, both anna's age range. the youngest, laura, is on the earthier end of the spectrum. she got married a few years ago; i was out of twon when it happened, but apparently it was a pagan wedding in the woods, worshipping the four cardinal directions, stuff like that.
annie is the middle child, and i'm not 100% clear on the history, but i feel like there was some concern that she might become an old maid? wow... that sounds awful to say, and i can't think of anything to support it, but it feels like that was the general sentiment. anyway, she's also, since her mother's death, i believe, become very involved in this church outside of worcester, mass. when i came back from san francisco at the end of the summer and baga told me that annie had gotten engaged, it was exciting, and i didn't even make the connection until later that she'd met this guy in church, meaning that, except for the fact that they found eachother, it was basically an arranged marriage.
it was about three or four weeks ago when i started to get wind of the fact that this was not your average engagement. i can't remember which happened first of these two episodes, but i'm pretty sure they happened in this order: i heard from my mom or dad (or possibly my aunt) that annie and bob (that's her husband's name) were waiting for marriage to... now, if you were going to fill in this blank, i'd bet you'd say "do it." but in fact, the end of that sentence is actually "they were waiting for marriage to kiss." désolé... quoi? i mean, if that's what you're in to, that's fine, but... wow. the other thing that happened which acted as a wee bit of a red flag was reported to me by aunt julie: she got a call from annie, who was just calling to... warn(?) everyone that it was going to be a conservative christian wedding. unclear as to what exactly she was warning against, julie decided to think broadly and, uh, reminded her that, you know, charlie is gay. apparently, the reaction was "oh, well, oh, uh, isn't that nice, good for him!" the conversation continued into things like "remember that half of the family is jewish," but, as julie told me, she [julie] was hoping to avoid a long sermon about the holiness of "adam and eve, not adam and steve!"
because, in the end, i found out that annie's politics have strayed from the fervent democratic roots that everyone else in the family seems to follow. not on topics like iraq, or president bush in general... in fact, i think she's probably economically very liberal, and in some instances, socially liberal as well (say, when it comes to homosexual, once-removed cousins). however, on some issues, the most impassioned being abortion, she's dived off the conservative end of the pool.
anyway, being prepared for all that, we drove up to worcester, checked into the courtyard marriott, and steeled ourselves for the ceremony. there was a tame rehearsal dinner that was nice, though my mom forced challah on everyone in the room. the next day we drove out to the church. it was almost in the middle of nowhere, and i was startled to find that there was no cell phone reception... some alien-esque slogan: " in rural, religiously conservative massachussetts, no one can hear you scream...." we walk into the sanctuary to find that it's a giant octagon, one half of which has chairs arranged for the service, and the other half was arranged for the meal afterwards. hanging above the altar was a gigantic cross, that, strangely enough, was hanging from the rafter by a caribiner... which meant that in an earthquake it would sway, which both my uncle and i noticed as bizarre.
so the service is about to start, and suddenly david john's wife diane is tapping me and bernie on the shoulders, saying that we're supposed to process with the other children. so we get up, step on some people's toes as we get out of the aisle, and get into line between two sets of what i guess are technically now cousins, who we completely fail to get to know on any level (though i really think it was their fault, not ours... bernie and i were unbelievably charming by preparing for the procession with some lunges and stretches, and they just looked at us like we were weird). anyway, we process, and then we sat, and there was a beautiful procession of the wedding party, i even got a little teary-eyed watching annie walk in on the arm of her older brother.
then, of course, the priest started. he was a total hollywood preacher; he obviously spent a lot of time working out, and whether or not he really feels the stuff or not (i hope he does) he has all the facial movements and hand gestures down for an evagelical priest, the craziest of which was the fist up in the air with the eyes closed to express real divine meaning. the message of the sermon itself wasn't that upsetting, nothing i hadn't been expecting. most explicitly political it became was when he said that "marriage is ordained by god and jesus, not by democracies and governments." really, it seems like we just need to rename marriage so that you have a different ceremony if you're getting married in a church versus just getting married. but whatevs. that's another argument.
in the end, i didn't spontaneously burst into flames, which i can only hope is a good sign. the thing was far from interminible, and i had plenty of liberal cohorts to share my frustrations with. in fact, i'd say i was even less upset than some of the other family members... my mom and her sister had a nice sisterly argument over nothing really, but it did continue into the evening. whatevs. this is the longest entry in the universe, so now, i say goodnight.
charlie.
there was some flurry of activity over the last few days that made it seem not quite so... desertlike? in the sense of vast stretches of free, unproductive time stretching out in either direction for eternity. there was this sojourn to massachussets for my mom's cousin's wedding.
i guess i need to talk about that. the wedding, as some of you may know, was in a conservative christian church. this particular cousin comes from (wait for it) my mother's mother's sister's family. they're an intersting bunch: i knew their dad as a very young boy, but remember him fondly. my grandma's sister (this is baga, for those of you who know [of] her) doris was always sickly the entire time i knew her, i don't know with what. she smoked like a chimney, though, and died not that long ago... five years, maybe? perhaps longer.
anyway, they had three kids, david john, the oldest. he's a pretty standard guy, works in computers, episcopalian perhaps? whatever it is, religion's not, like, a major factor in his life, so far as i can tell. his wife is very nice, and his two kids are cool, both anna's age range. the youngest, laura, is on the earthier end of the spectrum. she got married a few years ago; i was out of twon when it happened, but apparently it was a pagan wedding in the woods, worshipping the four cardinal directions, stuff like that.
annie is the middle child, and i'm not 100% clear on the history, but i feel like there was some concern that she might become an old maid? wow... that sounds awful to say, and i can't think of anything to support it, but it feels like that was the general sentiment. anyway, she's also, since her mother's death, i believe, become very involved in this church outside of worcester, mass. when i came back from san francisco at the end of the summer and baga told me that annie had gotten engaged, it was exciting, and i didn't even make the connection until later that she'd met this guy in church, meaning that, except for the fact that they found eachother, it was basically an arranged marriage.
it was about three or four weeks ago when i started to get wind of the fact that this was not your average engagement. i can't remember which happened first of these two episodes, but i'm pretty sure they happened in this order: i heard from my mom or dad (or possibly my aunt) that annie and bob (that's her husband's name) were waiting for marriage to... now, if you were going to fill in this blank, i'd bet you'd say "do it." but in fact, the end of that sentence is actually "they were waiting for marriage to kiss." désolé... quoi? i mean, if that's what you're in to, that's fine, but... wow. the other thing that happened which acted as a wee bit of a red flag was reported to me by aunt julie: she got a call from annie, who was just calling to... warn(?) everyone that it was going to be a conservative christian wedding. unclear as to what exactly she was warning against, julie decided to think broadly and, uh, reminded her that, you know, charlie is gay. apparently, the reaction was "oh, well, oh, uh, isn't that nice, good for him!" the conversation continued into things like "remember that half of the family is jewish," but, as julie told me, she [julie] was hoping to avoid a long sermon about the holiness of "adam and eve, not adam and steve!"
because, in the end, i found out that annie's politics have strayed from the fervent democratic roots that everyone else in the family seems to follow. not on topics like iraq, or president bush in general... in fact, i think she's probably economically very liberal, and in some instances, socially liberal as well (say, when it comes to homosexual, once-removed cousins). however, on some issues, the most impassioned being abortion, she's dived off the conservative end of the pool.
anyway, being prepared for all that, we drove up to worcester, checked into the courtyard marriott, and steeled ourselves for the ceremony. there was a tame rehearsal dinner that was nice, though my mom forced challah on everyone in the room. the next day we drove out to the church. it was almost in the middle of nowhere, and i was startled to find that there was no cell phone reception... some alien-esque slogan: " in rural, religiously conservative massachussetts, no one can hear you scream...." we walk into the sanctuary to find that it's a giant octagon, one half of which has chairs arranged for the service, and the other half was arranged for the meal afterwards. hanging above the altar was a gigantic cross, that, strangely enough, was hanging from the rafter by a caribiner... which meant that in an earthquake it would sway, which both my uncle and i noticed as bizarre.
so the service is about to start, and suddenly david john's wife diane is tapping me and bernie on the shoulders, saying that we're supposed to process with the other children. so we get up, step on some people's toes as we get out of the aisle, and get into line between two sets of what i guess are technically now cousins, who we completely fail to get to know on any level (though i really think it was their fault, not ours... bernie and i were unbelievably charming by preparing for the procession with some lunges and stretches, and they just looked at us like we were weird). anyway, we process, and then we sat, and there was a beautiful procession of the wedding party, i even got a little teary-eyed watching annie walk in on the arm of her older brother.
then, of course, the priest started. he was a total hollywood preacher; he obviously spent a lot of time working out, and whether or not he really feels the stuff or not (i hope he does) he has all the facial movements and hand gestures down for an evagelical priest, the craziest of which was the fist up in the air with the eyes closed to express real divine meaning. the message of the sermon itself wasn't that upsetting, nothing i hadn't been expecting. most explicitly political it became was when he said that "marriage is ordained by god and jesus, not by democracies and governments." really, it seems like we just need to rename marriage so that you have a different ceremony if you're getting married in a church versus just getting married. but whatevs. that's another argument.
in the end, i didn't spontaneously burst into flames, which i can only hope is a good sign. the thing was far from interminible, and i had plenty of liberal cohorts to share my frustrations with. in fact, i'd say i was even less upset than some of the other family members... my mom and her sister had a nice sisterly argument over nothing really, but it did continue into the evening. whatevs. this is the longest entry in the universe, so now, i say goodnight.
charlie.
posted by Charlie Beckerman at 21:13
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home