Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A Simple Wedding

After Scientist first asked me to marry him last year, I promised myself that I would not a) have a complicated wedding and b) become one of those women (or one half of one of those couples) who expects people to spend a lot of money/time/energy on my wedding. So far, I've been successful at avoiding both of the things I feared.....or so I thought.

Having a low maintenance wedding and being a low maintenance bride is extremely difficult. Scientist and I are having only one person each in our wedding parties--both of whom, incidentally, are men (my friend Brian, who put up with me throughout my rough Peace Corps service, is my 'honor attendant', and Scientist's childhood friend, Ice Cream Man, is his best man). We're getting married at noon, not in the late afternoon or evening. We're not having a band or giving our guests little mementos of our wedding which would eventually end up gathering dust in someone's cupboard for the next several decades.

And yet, I am overwhelmed with crap to do for the next 2 1/2 weeks I'm back in Iowa. I have to meet with hair stylists because my stylist backed out on me after I made an appointment right after we got engaged (very professional--she's not getting my business or my mom's business any more, no matter how long we've known her), make-up people, the florist, the caterers.....I'm astounded at how complicated my 50 person wedding has gotten. I shiver to think at what would have happened had I not bitten the bullet and hired a wedding planner to help me plan all this. Grad school, work and planning an out-of-town wedding would have driven me crazy and we would have eloped, I'm sure of it. In fact, eloping doesn't sound like to bad of an idea right now.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Reservations '08

I've been debating whether or not to write about some of my feelings regarding the campaign since my gal Hilary (as I like to call her) dropped out of the presidential race. See, I was, and still am, one of those pesky, middle class, educated white women who just isn't sure whether or not she should vote for Obama. I used to be ashamed to admit that, but after a couple of different conversations I had recently I realize I'm really not alone in my feelings, and I'm now willing to "out" myself as a fence sitter.

Had you told me back in January that I would feel torn between voting for Obama, voting for McCain, or not voting at all I would have laughed. However, after some of the things that were said in May and June regarding Hillary and her bid for the presidency by my fellow Obama supporting, Democratic comrades, I'm having a hard time throwing my support fully behind Mr. Obama. The sad thing is, only 50% of the reason why I'm not fully behind the Democratic nominee is for political reasons--the other 50% is because I strongly dislike a small but very vocal group of his supporters.

Here's a great quote from a Salon article that pretty much sums up how I feel about the campaign, and especially how I feel about the aforementioned group of Obama's supporters.

"Clinton behaved with the kind of naked drive and aggression and mercilessness we revere in, for example, football greats, wrestling stars and military heroes. Her political ambition and ruthlessness are qualities native to anyone putting themselves up for the job of running the country. That includes Barack Obama, who is an inspiring leader I fervently hope will be our next president, but who is not, despite what some of his supporters seem to believe, built entirely of altruism and hope and, I don't know, puppies. "

I know that once November comes I will, truth be told, vote for Obama. I have serious problems with the whole Obama-as-Messiah picture that the New York Times, MSNBC, and a small faction of his followers have created, but I can't not vote for him on the obnoxiousness of his media image alone. I reservations about his readiness to take on his position, as well as his evasiveness regarding a whole host of issues (health care and the war specifically), but I am too much in disagreement with McCain on issues like health care and abortion to vote for him. That and I'm still unwilling to give up on my party, no matter how much I dislike the arrogance of our canidate and his fanatical followers.