To another Council of Equals

Last weekend our dear friends LG and B were married at the DC War Memorial. It was a perfect ceremony - laughter, tears, full hearts, and so much love. We were so happy to be part of their day and to support a wedding of two individuals who quite simply belong together. That the District (and increasingly, the entire country) allows them to marry legally is an important reason why we love living here. Get a load of this gorgeousness:

As their wedding date got closer, T and I spent a lot of time reminiscing about our own wedding, five and a half years ago now. In lieu of favors we donated to Freedom to Marry, which felt like a big deal in 2009. In 2014, it'd be almost passe, which is pretty awesome. Thinking about how much ground has been covered in the simple effort to make love legal makes me all kinds of happy. (I mean seriously - check out this chart!)

At the LG&B reception - tipsy on champagne and oysters, per the me+B tradition - I read a poem for them that was part of our ceremony, too. This is my ode (well okay, Alice Walker's) to two complete individuals joining forces and, rather than meshing into the ubiquitous and boring "one" that so many folks seem to romanticize, each becoming doubly awesome in turn. The world needs more awesome, more LG+B, and more councils of equals. That's a world where I want to be.

Beyond What

Alice Walker

We reach for destinies beyond 
what we have come to know
and in the romantic hush
of promises
perceive each
the other's life
as known mystery.
Shared. But inviolate.
No melting. No squeezing
into One.
We swing our eyes around
as well as side to side
to see the world.
To choose, renounce,
this, or that -
call it a council between equals
call it love. 

Friday I'm in Love

Hello Friday! I'm looking forward to a weekend of neighborhood relaxation, catching up with friends, and pumping like a madwoman. First, though, a day full of meetings... and some fun links! Stuff I'm loving this Friday includes:

Beyoncé Voters

What can I say, I love a trendy political tumblr. I think it was Texts with Hillary that set the bar for the genre so high (for me, anyway). And now Beyoncé Voters is on the scene, gallantly serving that important life role of "procrastination rabbit hole." Nicely done, Beyoncé Voters, nicely done. (Side note: can anyone explain why "Beyoncé" has an accent on the last 'e'? No really, this bugs the crap out of me.)

Vigilante Cold Brew

 This summer I've become completely obsessed with Vigilante Coffee's cold brew. I love the Red Stripe-meets-JFK bottles. I love the ease of refills, every weekend at Eastern market. But mostly, I love how smooth and strong this stuff is. Locals, go get some - seriously.

Fantasy Hideaway Wallpaper

This wallpaper is so dreamy to me. I picture a renovated attic study, totally girly, books everywhere, a great desk, and a comfy broken-in velvet sofa. My kind of room.

My girl, and "our" girls

Last night I put one of Hazel's swimsuits on her for the first time, squeezing her broad thighs and roly poly almost-six-month body into the stretchy fabric. We're ten days away from vacation - time to make sure her suits are good to go. They are.

I get these moments now and then of being utterly overwhelmed with happiness that I have a little girl. Seeing her in her very first swimsuit last night very nearly broke me. There she was smiling at me in an old-fashioned print with a sweet little skirt and a high neck and all that skin. It was too much. She has an entire life ahead of her to explore her relationship with swimwear (and if I have any power at all, I hope that relationship will be happier than many girls'), but this first chapter is ours together.

I feel that way about so many firsts she's having these days. I rub her feet - perfectly smooth and un-calloused, since she's never actually walked on them, and I wonder where they'll take her. I see her light up with a grin at someone and think about all the people who'll inspire that smile in her lifetime, and all the smiles she'll inspire in turn. I see her brain whirling and hear her sounds coming, and wonder how many grand ideas will come out of that mouth, how many people will turn to listen to what she has to say.

Because she's my girl, I predict she'll have lots of opinions and quite a lot to say. I want her to be whatever she wants to be, but to be it proudly, and I know she'll have every opportunity in the world to live out that motto. Other girls aren't so lucky. And maybe because just the sight of my little one in a swimsuit makes me teary, maybe because I'm filled with every bit of hope in the world for my little girl right now, the horror of 300 kidnapped girls in Nigeria is especially appalling.

There must have been so much hope in their eyes, sitting in their classrooms and learning about the world. Their families knew that going to school was the best way to channel their hopes into a better life, the best way to rise to the challenge presented by their dreams. If you believe, like I do, that making the women of this world happy is the key to achieving peace anywhere and everywhere, then you know it all begins in a classroom. Of course the classroom is the battleground.

As Uzodinma Iweala wrote in the Washington Post this morning: "The kidnapping of these girls is the crudest attempt to destabilize our country. It is a cowardly act by lazy minds who lack the ability or desire to address a pluralistic nation as the democratic process demands, through the spoken or written word." Kidnapping, he explains, is the worst kind of tool in a young democracy where hope is the currency: "[Kidnapping] turns this hope into a liability that can paralyze."

Paralyzing the future and extinguishing the light in the eyes of 300 girls will have a ricochet effect within Nigeria that I can't even begin to comprehend. The horror of it is both why a "hashtag movement" is so easily prompted, and also why it could never be enough. I know it's not enough, but I say #BringBackOurGirls anyway. I see Hazel's sparkling eyes and her smile and those sweet rolls exposed by her new swimsuit, and I think about little girls everywhere. I know it's not enough, but I say it again, and again, and again: #BringBackOurGirls.

Friday I'm in Love

Oh my WORD it's been ages since a Friday I'm in Love post! This Friday is especially fun, because it's my birthday! After years of weekday birthdays, I'm so happy to be celebrating on a Friday night this year. Last year I was newly pregnant and wanted nothing more than to cuddle on the couch. This year, though, there's a lot to toast with my favorite guy. (Mostly, you know, my favorite girl.) Anyway, on to my picks for the week!

Games of Thrones, in your teenage dreams
 

 

Man I love reminiscing about disaffected teen angst. Man I love Game of Thrones. This brilliantly illustrated mashup, then, is my kind of thing for days.

 

Still Hating Walmart, all these years later....

 

 

Sometimes I feel like I've spent an eternity hating Walmart. I've written more research papers, blog posts, zoning codes, and 140-character missives against the company than I can remember. So this stuff is old news. Yet conveyed simply and graphically in this video, the message has never been as strong.


Vance Joy's "Riptide"
 

This song hasn't left my head for a month.

Three things

1. Jimmy Fallon continues to dominate; The Boss continues to rock; Chris Christie continues to fail; I continue to be amused.



2. These 1920s mug shots are… hot. What's going on here? Whatever it is, I'm a buyer.

3. Babies in letter sweaters are as cute as you might have suspected. Even better, this one is 30 years old. T was a proud dad at the Yale-Harvard game at Madison Square Garden. Baby H getting in her first hockey game at eight weeks… yeah, he's a proud dad.

Labor Day lemonade

Lots of ladies in my life lately, which I adore. They're helping to take my mind off some less-than-awesome medical developments in my world. Great ladies will do that for a girl.

My pals from graduate school spent the weekend here, walking the monuments with me and remembering all about that thing we have here on the East Coast called humidity. It was a sweaty, wonderful weekend. We planned Marjorie's side business, planned Mikaela's forthcoming son's middle name, planned the trashy fictional series I will write to make my millions. We do know how to plan, the three of us. I love those two with all I have, and Albuquerque is a lucky city to have them.

The girls approved of Eleanor, of course. She continues to amuse us with her scruffy self and charming antics.

She's such a little squirt right now. I keep wondering aloud to T if she's ever actually going to grow (a weekend parasite certainly didn't help matters). She's sort of a miniature old lady right now with that beard of hers. I can't get enough of that funny face.

See that collar of hers? Girl is decked out for election season. She's feeling it, too - I'm pretty sure after Tuesday night she was angling for a name change to Michelle. I get it - my love for the First Lady knows no bounds. 

How are the cats hanging in there, you might be wondering? Differently. Switters is more eager to be pals, and Fanny is occasionally bitchy for no reason whatsoever. In other words, they're being themselves. But ten days in, we're feeling pretty good about interspecies cooperation over here.

Puppy kisses, kitten purrs, good politics on tv, good friends visiting me from too far away... this is me making the best of this month. Bring it, September.

Home, full of love.

Remember this North Carolina, my home state of kindness and acceptance and love? That's the North Carolina I visited this weekend. I love my Outer Banks family, the way we laugh and cry together, the way we join forces for celebrations and for sorrow. This weekend, we celebrated. My Aunt Penny and her partner Allison - who fell in love as teenagers and reconnected twenty years later - had a commitment ceremony in their Outer Banks church, alongside their children. I was proud to be there, and prouder yet to call this family my own. But mostly I was thrilled to see my aunt with such a big smile on her face.

Have I mentioned that my dad is quietly the best toastmaster of all time? He is. I should write about his haiku at our wedding; it's legendary. And there was his Forrest Gump toast at my sister's wedding, and his bridge metaphor at my brother's. In honor of my Aunt Penny, he began with farm tales and ended up with my late Aunt Jill, and how her life and her loss shows us how important it is to be happy while we're here. Somehow this was tied together by my Aunt Penny's childhood schemes for ice cream. My dad's toasts should not work, but they do, every time.

I've been missing my Aunt Jill so much lately. I know she's in each one of us, every single day, but some days the loss is still too tender to bear. T and I stayed at her house with my cousins over the weekend, and I found a book I loaned her when she was sick, my note to her still inside as a bookmark. We were both bookworms, both writers, both full of infertility issues, too - but that's a story for another day. She would've loved Penny's ceremony, whose "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" flash mob equaled her own church band rockin' out at her funeral in every possible way. Music unites those sisters, still. Speaking of sisters, my late aunt's daughters amaze me at every turn. (They also crack me up, as demonstrated below.)

I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking how hard family can be sometimes. It's also wonderful and worth it, but family can be tough. In those tough times, I want to do nothing more than to sit in a room with them all and just be. I think that's a good thing.

In our happy moments? I like to give hugs. Liam likes to give high fives. Take your pick.

Photos by Melissa Habit - isn't she awesome?

Tick tock, North Carolina

Before yesterday, North Carolina was the last Southern state without a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Before today, I also believed North Carolina was the last Southern state to secede from the Union. I just google-checked my memory and discovered that Tennessee actually seceded a week after my home state did. There goes a youthful assurance, a little piece of why I've always loved home. (Google: killing dreams since 1998.)

The truth of the matter, though, is that what matters more than when. North Carolina did secede from the Union. North Carolina now does have a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Last night was a deja vu moment for me. I saw myself driving my high school car (a hand-me down from my grandmother), with its "Jesse Helms Doesn't Speak For Me" bumper sticker on the back. I'd found it at a little bookstore in Chapel Hill that offered a discount if you could name a historical event that happened on the year they pulled out of a hat. Any nerd like me knows that the French Revolution began in 1789, so my bumper sticker cost me practically nothing. It wasn't the only lefty bumper sticker in my high school parking lot, either. We were in the Triangle of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill after all, a dynamic region for research, universities, and industry. (The marriage amendment lost 4-to-1 in the Triangle last night, for perspective.) But back then in the 1990s, gun racks still outnumbered peace sign decals. We liked to show our stripes.

Those stripes are everywhere, if you're looking for them. The problem with making assumptions about any "red" state is that it ignores not only the pockets of blue, but the legions of people working hard to change the tide in their surroundings. There's a particular kind of state pride among those who love their state despite their state, who have a seasoned respect that's deeper and more honest than sheer boosterism. Making blanket statements about regions does so at the expense of the folks working hard there to make a difference, and it's something I take personally. Change is slow, and it starts small. Bumper stickers matter. But more than that, so do conversations on front porches, at the neighborhood park, in churches, in the checkout line. This small, steady change is happening all over the South. It's why some of my favorite people are progressive women from Texas. It's why North Carolina voted for Obama in 2008. It's why my teenage cousin half my age just went to her junior prom in NC with her girlfriend, and no one raised an eyebrow.

That same cousin's Facebook status yesterday was "And we keep fighting... and we keep going," said with all the assurance of a seasoned community organizer. She knows that time is on her side. We all do. While headlines are made about irrational amendments being passed, my family and friends at home, some of whom are gay, are trying to go about their lives just as they did yesterday. They're talking with their neighbors, raising families, and adding value to their communities. Their hearts are hurting, but they know the clock is ticking. The bravery in their hearts is the best thing I know. The second-best is the dedication of those on the ground already trying to peel this thing back, already laying the groundwork for how progress will reassert itself.

Tick tock, North Carolina. The march of progress has never left you behind completely, and it won't now, either. You're too beautiful to be shadowed by hate, too smart to be labeled something you're not. Time will tell.

Friday I'm in Love

Yesterday I fell flat on my face while walking. I was crossing a park to meet T at our neighborhood Metro station, and a slightly uneven brick hit my foot in just the right way, and... splat. Kind thanks to the homeless men who hurriedly rushed to my assistance. Oh my. So today, my knee is the size of a softball and the opposite foot is unable to bear weight. I'm feeling pretty graceful heading into the weekend... how about you?

SIGH.

Let's hurry up and make it 5 p.m., okay? Here are three things that made me smile this week (I've missed you, Friday I'm in Love!):

The Partisans: Birth Control Hearings (Redux)

This is the best response I can possibly imagine to the brain-exploding lunacy that is a bunch of men on Capitol Hill talking about birth control. Thank you, Andy Cobb and Second City, thank you...

U.S. Interstates as a Subway Map

Subway art will always be my favorite, but I'll give a nod here to the Interstate System as well... even if its existence is responsible for the sprawling of America. (getting off my soapbox now...)

Friends with Kids

You know those movie previews you see and in the first five seconds it's completely obvious that you will watch said movie and love it, due mostly to the fact that you love everyone* on screen? This movie is that [latest] movie for me. 

Have a great (and graceful) weekend, folks!

*Megan Fox excluded (obvs)

First Lady Letterpress

I'm briefly checking in from the settling of dust around here to give a huge shout-out to this amazing letterpress poster series from Two Paper Dolls featuring America's First Ladies. How ME is this??

You can go check them out yourself in Philadelphia next month, but until then, feast your eyes upon these beauties (which are... ahem... available for sale soon):

Yes please!

Weekend this and that

Today I'm recovering from the most embarrassing injury in recent memory: a swollen and achy foot due to dropping a large box of cat litter on it. Limping and everything over here. It's a glamorous life I lead, what can I say?

We did lots of home improvement tasks over the weekend, in between checking out the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial and cheering for the Caps/enjoying delicious homemade cocktails with Nole and her husband. Here's a little taste of our weekend:


MLK, Jr.
Most art and memorial critics have less-than-friendly things to say about the new MLK memorial, but what struck me most of all during our visit was how much it matters that it exists at all. The site was packed with visitors who really weren't concerned with debates over the sculptor, the site design, how stern MLK appears, or the memorial's use of quotes. In this respect, I think, the public's opinion matters most. And while I'll play the contradiction card by continuing to express disappointment with the execution of the World War II Memorial, I'm going to call our Saturday visit to MLK among hundreds of other visibly touched citizens a success. The kids learning about MLK absolutely made my day.

(Are you on Instagram, by the way? If you are, look me up! I'm @magmaeA and while a late-comer to the app, I've been loving it. You can see some of my recent photos on the left sidebar. Other shots from our morning among the memorials include Thomas Jefferson across the basin and the Korean War memorial.)


"White" v. White Update
You guys are probably sick of hearing it by now, but I just can't get over what a difference repainting our house's "white" interiors WHITE makes. Take a look at my mid-way stopping point with the lower kitchen cabinets, where the frames are done but not the doors. I mean... wow. Mythic Bright White is my new Instant Gratification BFF.

Cats v. Chairs Update
Thanks for all your great suggestions on my original Cats v. Chairs post. We're now in the process of determining whether the cats got the message by unwrapping one chair at a time. The naked chairs will all be re-treated with the anti-cat upholstery spray. So far we've exposed one chair and the cats have ignored it. This afternoon I'll expose another. And if we fail, I'm going with your aluminum foil recommendation. (And yes, I still have a newspaper mockup representing Future Vertical Art on the wall. Sigh.)

Nail Update
I've been sporting this great Halloween-y shade on my nails lately... it's OPI's Cayenne Pepper. I think I saw it on my mom a couple of years ago and ran out to buy it the next day. It's yummy. And also... hello LONG! Seeing my nails from the back is entirely new for me. I'm sort of blowing my mind with these things. Even so, I'm far from cured... if the nails don't smell like chemicals, they're still headed straight to my mouth. Gross. But on the bright side, a foolproof way to build my polish collection...

Friday I'm in Love

This week was all about simple instincts for me. Cheer (item #1), awwww (item #2), and chuckle (item #3). We have a bunch of home improvement projects to work on this weekend, all in the name of inching toward our six-month anniversary in the house, which I promised myself would involve a photo report card of sorts here. Eek! Before I scoot off then, some items for you to cheer/awww/chuckle.

Happy weekend!

Queen Kicker

 Did you guys catch the story of Brianna Amat this week, the Michigan high school senior who's a homecoming queen and a football star? She  makes my heart burst with that "I love teen girls" pride that my cousins always give me. Our girl Brianna went onto the field during halftime to receive her homecoming crown - in her uniform - then came back out to kick the winning field goal. Is it too soon to begin writing her campaign literature?

Interspecies FTW

Much like my belief that the best way to ensure your baby will be adorable and grow into an insanely beautiful person is to create it with someone of another race, I think a little interspecies action is the quickest way to turn your cute animal photo into the sort of thing that makes grown men cry. Enter Fuck Yeah Interspecies Friendships, which is the best thing to happen to my computer in a long time.


Arrested Development, always and forever

Like many of you, I was beside myself with the news that Arrested Development would be back with another season and a follow-up movie, five years after its brilliance was shuttered. Best tv-related news of all time, methinks. This collection of Arrested Development GIFs took my excitement and put it on steroids. Time to break out our box set again!

Friday I'm in Love: LOL Letterpress Edition

Last night, while I should have been packing for the weekend (oops!), I instead got lost in the wonderful world of pretty paper on Etsy. Given my love for cheeky paper, these three pieces earned gold stars. Letterpress that makes me laugh out loud? Paper perfection in my book. 

Beautiful/Easy

Seriously? This is genius. Art from Dear Colleen.

 

Maddow Love

"If elected, she WILL run" is so my kind of humor. Big props to Big Wheel Press for egging on my perennial Rachel Maddow crush.

Buffalo Pride

The thing is, I actually adore Buffalo. My pal Tracy (waaaaay overdue at bringing her little girl Brenna into the world right now, by the way!) is a Buffalo native, and I'd never been there until her wedding a few years ago. The city flat-out rocks, just the kind of place I like to nerd out to. The architecture and history alone are enough to make me swoon. Add in great bars, old industry giving way to new ideas, and a fantastic sense of realness, and well... I was hooked. At any rate... everyone gives Buffalo a hard time, which is part of why I was so happy to genuinely love the city. This piece, then, speaks perfectly to my faux Buffalo native pride. Thank you, Western New York Book Arts Collaborative!

That's it from me this Friday. I'm off to Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania for a few days, for fun with my in-laws and a little work, too. Have a fun weekend, everyone!

Plated, now and then

Our car is finally DC-legal. 14 months later. We're sort of bad about DMV regulations, as you can see. There are plenty of excuses related to the ridiculously small window of hours the DC DMV is actually open, but really... there are no excuses. We're slackers who live in a building with a parking garage and thus can get away with being slackers. I must say, though, I've been geekily looking forward to having one of the coolest "state" license plates around.

Confused? Take a gander at this explanation of "Taxation Without Representation" and what it means in DC. Most of the U.S. has no idea that DC residents don't have a vote. That's 600,000 residents, by the way... more folks than the entire state of Wyoming.

Speaking of other states, I confess to loving license plate design. Spotting different state plates makes me a kid all over again, on the long road trip down to Disney World, playing I Spy with license plates. (Just yesterday, walking home: "Ooh! Alaska!") Being an Outer Banks girl, I always liked North Carolina's license plate (which eggs on the heated Wright Brothers rivalry with Ohio... the drama!), but I don't like the switch the state made to red letters a few years ago. Give me the old school blue, please... the red is sort of glaring.

I never had a car in Boston, but I'll endorse the classicism of the Massachusetts plate anyway. Truth be told, I might have been tempted to get the Red Sox plate there, although I firmly support the sentiment of Massachusetts as the Spirit of America, Mass-holedom and all.

For my first car in New Mexico, that amazing combination of late '80s design and mid '00s politics that it was, I was thrilled to have New Mexico's funky old-school license plate on the back, blazing with color alongside all my bumper stickers. In any other context I would hate this garish yellow, but in the Land of Enchantment, it works. Please notice that you're admiring a license plate not just from New Mexico, but "New Mexico USA," by the way. This was part of the state's campaign to assure everyone else that New Mexico is in fact part of America. Sigh... Seriously though, this plate is more effective than something like the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign by a mile. One look at this plate, and you know something strange and awesome is going on in that place.

For my second car, they were out of the cool yellow plates, so I had to go for the "new school" hot air balloon version - very friendly to tourists, very "see, we're a normal state in the United States" of them. The plate might have been less funky than the crazy yellow one, but it's still really pretty. Man I love that place.

When I moved to Texas I was pretty resistant to getting Texas plates, which says as much about my attitude toward Texas at the time as anything. My expired NM plates forced my hand, though, and I truly did approve of the Texas plate design. Its tribute to various state elements is clean and graphically interesting - although it's notably lacking a Dallas Louboutin. It's a pretty Houston plate, all things considered, but nicely done all the same. Never fear: I promptly slapped a political sticker on the car to balance the Lone Starness of it all.

A couple of years later, Texas decided it was time for a new plate, so they ran an online contest where residents would choose the new design. Oh, Texas. Some of my favorite people are from your state, and I will adore Austin until the end of my days, but this sort of represents why people make fun of you:

I want to believe that the Texans who voted for this license plate were doing so with a strong sense of irony. Maybe they thought it would be hilarious to vote for a bad tribute to State Fair airbrushing, because surely the state would not actually print something that heinous. But no, Texas. Your governor is Rick Perry, and your state did in fact print the winning license plate design. And now you are paying the consequences.

Lucky for us, we fled Texas in a hurry before being confronted with that thing. And here we are, cool "Taxation Without Representation" proclaimers at long last.

Am I alone in my license plate geekiness, or do you nerd out to license plates, too? What are your favorites?

(My non-biographical faves: Colorado, Maine, Oregon, and Vermont)