So It’s Official Now (A Wedding Recap 3 Weeks Later)

I know we said we probably weren’t going to get married until I was done with school, but about three weeks ago, practically old news at this point, Feller started asking what the heck were we waiting for?! I mean, he’s been joking for a couple of months about “when we get married next month (for tax reasons)”, but I never really super thought that we WOULD actually get married “next month”. I thought we’d have lots of time to think about it and plan it and … I don’t know.

But he was right. What WERE we waiting for? Neither one of us wanted to have any sort of major EVENT with the money and the planning and the drama and UGH. But I think, I sort of still expected that we’d have something more traditional, even though that’s NOT what I wanted, it’s the kind of thing that is so societally ingrained that the idea of ACTUALLY going off the rails and running away seemed crazy and unlikely.

But we did! We went from making the decision to married in less than 48 hours. Feller spent the day before calling around trying to find an officiant and witnesses. We ended up having the ceremony in Santa Cruz, about 45 minutes away from where we were staying Salinas because that’s where the officiant was. And it was beautiful! The weather was perfect and the beach not too crowded, and we got to just be there together and focused on each other. We didn’t have any distractions or anything.

As we stood looking at each other, holding each other’s hands, saying our vows, I couldn’t stop laughing. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK was even going on?! We were getting MARRIED. Like for reals. Really really married. It was by far the most bizarre thing I have ever done, with making the decision on our marriage license to change my name being a close second, but it was also the most glorious.

Everything around us faded away, and it didn’t matter one bit where we were or who was there to witness or that the officiant was some lady we had found on the internet. All I could see and hear was Feller.

(And to the delight of our photographer and my mother, I got married barefoot. Not because of any statement I was trying to make or any real conscious decision, but simply because I forgot how much I hated sand when I chose my footwear. I took one step off the little path down the beach, and my shoes filled with sand that was touching my feet and being all icky and sandy and UGH. SAND. So, shoes came off just so I could get away from the sand with which they were filled.)

Now, it’s been three weeks since our wedding, and it’s been wonderful. We’re happy and being all grownup and shit and planning budgets and talking about joint bank accounts and changing my name. I’ve got all new forms of identification coming to me and work has already changed my name in the system, and it’s very strange and exciting and new and wonderful to go from Amy MaidenName to Amy Feller. I am certainly looking forward to spending the rest of my life as Mrs. Feller.

Hot Town

It seems I always have a nostalgic post all geared up for when I get back from a trip to Tucson. Just being in that place with all those memories and all those people I love is such a positive experience that even some bullshit drama can’t derail the joy I have being home. And even though it was hot this weekend, so hot that a party at midnight left me with sweat dripping down my sides, I am a child of that heat, and I will never not enjoy the sun on my face and shoulders.

This weekend was all I could have hoped for, and even though it was hard to leave, as always, it didn’t break my heart to say goodbye to my bestest at the airport like it did the last time. We got some amazing quality time together, and some amazing memories were created. And while I wouldn’t trade laughing until I was crying while playing Things (I just do not understand why my friends expected me to have come up with all the dirty responses), or wondering why dudes were getting nekkid at the Meet Rack (as far as I could tell the answer was “Why not?”) or dishing about our relationships with my girlfriends, I was ready to come back to my new home and wake up next to my feller.

I think this is like growth or progress or some shit.

Linkspammy

It seems that every time I post a linkspam, I IMMEDIATELY start finding MORE COOL STUFF OMG. I love the internet sometimes.

Speaking of Christina Hendricks, here’s an oped piece about how awesome her character on Mad Men is and why I (or people in general, I suppose) want to do her. (This is totally an old post, but I only recently saw it) Sidenote: Toy With Me is a great site that has fun and interesting articles written by smart, witty women about sex.

You know, I’ve never had any great desire to live in a big city, and certainly not New York, but I suppose, if you twisted my arm enough, I could SOMEHOW find the will to live in this Townhouse in the Sky. (LOOK AT THE LIBRARY. SO MANY BOOKS.)

Dear Tim Gunn, thank you for being so awesome. Tim Gunn critiques superhero costumes.

I <3 RDJ Robert Downey Jr on Leno (the Letterman clip right after RDJ is HILARIOUS too)

NO EFFING WAY. Cross Canadian Ragweed in SF August 5 with Micky & the Motorcars!! This is awesome. I get CCR twice in one year PLUS Micky and the Motorcars. Someday, I’ll tell you about the time I almost slept with the lead guitarist.

Most importantly, my bestest best friend ever got married this past weekend, and lo it was awesome. We had so much fun, and everyone liked the feller. He’s was confident and social and talked to everyone there and could not have been sexier if he tried. As one of my friends put it, he wasn’t clingy and didn’t need me to “hold his hand” and that’s hot. There were a couple of VERY minor bumps, but overall? The weekend COULD NOT have gone better.

Pittsburgh Weekend

This is where I would have a really cute picture of me and my friend Lezopez, if I hadn’t lost my camera. But I promise, it was really adorable.

This weekend was AMAZING. I had such a great time, and I’m feeling way more prepared for … everything. I still have a lot to do and not enough time to do it, but … I feel good about it. And I think part of that is that I got to spend some time talking to one of my classmates about how she’s had a really difficult time in the program as well. The worst part, for me, of not doing so well, is that I pretty much operate in a school vacuum. I have no non-school related contact with any of my classmates, so it feels like I’m the only one who ever gets discouraged or falls behind, even if I know this is not true. So it was good to hear from someone else that this program is HARD, especially when you have to juggle working full time and classes.

In my spare time, I ate AMAZING food (OMG BEER CHEESE IN MA MOUTH), drank some booze, and had a great time with AWESOME friends, some of whom I met for the first time. I saw Alice in Wonderland, and it kind of kicked ass. Or at least the parts I saw did; I MAY HAVE passed out as soon as she fell down the rabbit hole and missed all the expositiony/explanatory stuff. OOPS.

I FUCKING LOVE Pittsburgh. I’m VERY GLAD I wasn’t there when it was snowing like crazy, but the weather COULD NOT have been nicer this weekend. All the college kids were out in their tank tops and shorts sunning on the lawn. Walking around that campus surrounded by students made me miss being an undergrad like crazy. Not the classes, but the parties, the boys, the tiny tank tops and/or sweatpants to class, the fewer responsibilities, the FUN. I miss the fun. I miss the time when I could still pretend to not be a grown up, when I could go to the mall or see a movie in the middle of the day on a Wednesday. It made me wish I was an on campus student with friends and a community surrounding me. It was awesome.

And then I did a stupid thing. Naturally. Actually, I did this stupid thing months ago, and bit me in the ass this weekend. Apparently, I was planning on leaving my car at the BART station for the weekend, but I ended up parking at the Oakland airport. Only to realize when printing my return boarding pass that I was flying into San Jose. AWESOME. Getting back to my car involved an adventure in public transportation (bus, light rail, bus, BART, bus, shuttle!), during which my camera disappeared. I keep hoping to magically find it somewhere in my messy car, but I think I might just break down and buy this one as a replacement (it’s RED!). But I am SO SAD about my loss, and my camera held some REALLY CUTE pictures of me and … friends and … stuff that I hadn’t had a chance to download. (Thankfully, the nekkid pictures had been deleted.) Oh well.

A weekend out and about

The date this weekend went … quite well. He took me up Coit Tower, and I knew that the walk was going to be uphill and a little strenuous. I did not realize I was going to want to die halfway there. I also did not realize that I was going to COMPLETELY ruin the effort I had put into my hair because I was going to sweat so much. That part of the date was not so awesome. BUT THE SUN WAS OUT. AND IT WAS WARM. I totally wanted to just lay on the street sunning myself. Soaking it up.

Starting Point, originally uploaded by Being a Dilettante.

The view from the top of the tower was pretty amazing though. See that TINY little clock tower way over there in that picture? That’s about where we started walking. I kind of didn’t think we would ever make it.

We also went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which was cool, even though I TOTALLY do.not. get modern art about 99% of the time. I think my favorite piece, or at least the one I really connected to was Two Ways to Organize, which goes back to my nerdly love of tagging and Everything is Miscellaneous.

This was a good weekend, full of me getting out of the apartment and doing new things, which may (or NOT!) have included some things I’m not going to go into detail about here. Also, it’s nice to know that some things never change, like that “watching a movie” never results in watching a movie.