On Marriage

Despite the red equal rights pictures flooding my Facebook feed, I was in a funk all day yesterday. Little things annoyed me. Like the woman walking too slowly in front of me on the sidewalk. And the man walking too quickly behind me, almost right up onto my heels.

When I called my mom on the way home, I asked her if she'd been following the news on the Prop. 8 case. She hadn't. She'd been so sick with the flu she thought Monday was Sunday when I'd called her the day before.

"No," she said. "What's happening?"

That annoyed me.

My mom almost never annoys me, so I knew I was in a bad mood. I told her the case had been argued that morning.

"And how do you feel about that?" she asked, going straight to the heart of what I'd been avoiding all day.

"Well," I said, steering myself around another pedestrian. "Actually... you know what, I'm kind of annoyed."

"I bet," my mom said.

It's not that I don't think yesterday's Prop. 8 case or today's Defense of Marriage Act case are important. It's that I think the questions in the cases are so important they shouldn't even have to be asked.

In the time that my partner Tiffany and I have been a couple, most of our straight friends have married. Some of them have divorced. Others have stayed together, had children, and celebrated wedding anniversaries.

I first told Tiffany I loved her eight years ago, on the way back from breakfast on the streets of Brooklyn Heights. But we couldn't get married in New York at the time. When I convinced her to spend a summer with me and my mom in Missouri, a constitutional amendment prevented us from getting married in that state. We moved to California next, but we couldn't get married there either. Then the court said we could, and everyone said we better hurry up and do it and...then voters passed Prop. 8 and we couldn't get married again.

I continued to carry my paternal grandmother's diamond ring from one apartment to the next while Tiffany and I loved each other, while we considered what it would even mean to be married in such a confused world.

Eventually, back in New York, we decided we wanted to celebrate our commitment to each other in front of the family members and friends who have been celebrating our commitment to each other from the very beginning. We hope to do so soon.

Which is why it feels so annoying that any decision is left to be made at all, let alone by voters, or legislators, or the nine members of our nation's highest court.

The way I see it, I only needed one person's permission to marry the woman I love.

And my grandmother's ring is on her finger.

The Notebook (lesbian-wedding edition)

The first time Tiffany and I had a moment to think about our wedding after we got engaged came high up in the air on a plane, somewhere between New York and Miami. Everything about the ring on her finger was still new. That day, we took pictures of her left hand holding a coffee cup at breakfast, a beer bottle at the bar, and a pencil while she studied. We tried to obscure the rubber band she had to wrap around the ring to make it fit (the ring I "borrowed" from Tiffany to use as a model was not one she wore on her ring finger. Apparently it was a thumb-ring for a giant).

Anyway, even though for years getting engaged felt like the Big Thing, now the Big Thing is the Wedding, and we have to plan one. We brought a notebook on our Christmas holiday to jot down our ideas, in case we had any.

"So should we talk about the wedding?" Tiffany asked shortly after take-off.

"Sure, I was thinking..."

"WAIT!"

I looked at her, startled.

"Maybe we should write this down in the notebook. Should we get the notebook? I think we should get the notebook. Can you get the notebook?"

I got the notebook.

Now that we're a little further down the line in our wedding planning (translation: we've planned NOTHING but have talked an awful lot about many things), I've come to appreciate the Notebook. As far as I can tell, it's mainly helpful in that it allows us to cross out what we've written down after we realize how incredibly affordable our ideas are for multimillionaires.

Three-Handed Couple

As you know, Tiffany and I were a little shorthanded these last few weeks. After I broke my right 5th metacarpal over Thanksgiving, we were down to three upper extremities between us, just as we were moving into our new apartment and assembling--my personal favorite relationship test--Ikea furniture.

We started off okay. Tiffany was willing to wash my hair and floss my teeth for me, and I accepted those kindnesses gratefully.

But pretty soon, I got grumpy. I couldn't do any of the things that would be most helpful, like carrying boxes up the stairs of our third floor walk-up. Instead of taking pride in the things I could do--like sit in the double-parked car and call all our magazines to update our address--I pouted.

Tiffany, meanwhile, was not upset that I couldn't do any of the things that would be most helpful. She was totally fine with taking on the brunt of our household chores and tasks. Until I started taking all my frustration out on her.

"How do you like the bookshelf here?" she asked one evening after I had been passive-aggressively second-guessing her decisions without offering any suggestions of my own.

"Whatever," I sighed.

"Alright, Eeyore, what is wrong with you?" she asked, throwing up her hands.

"I'm mad I can't do anything!" I screeched, throwing up my one good hand.

Tiffany darted her eyes around the room, looking for any task to appease me.

"Why don't you organize the pencil jar?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm a two-year-old!" I hissed, stomping away from her into the farthest corner of what suddenly felt like an exceptionally small apartment.

Later, I apologized.

"Maybe we're not a very good three-handed couple," I said as we walked to dinner together.

Tiffany nodded, reaching for my cast. But she was just being generous. The truth was, I wasn't being a very good one-handed person.

After I realized that, things got better. When we assembled the next piece of Ikea furniture, I organized all the screws, which is really the only part of assembly I'm good at anyway, no matter how many hands I have.

A few days later, still one-handed, I decided to go ahead and do something I'd been meaning to do for a long time.

I asked for one of Tiffany's hands.

And when she gave it to me, I put a ring on it.