Eleven Years.

It's my and Mark's anniversary!  Depending on how you count it, it's either our eleventh or our first.

Eleven years ago we got married in our landladies' backyard garden.  It was before same-sex marriages were legally recognized, but we wore suits, and our relatives flew or drove over, and we had a real Unitarian minister perform a ceremony.



We asked the bakery to make a chocolate cake with otters on it, but people thought they looked like stoats.

Last year, on our tenth anniversary, when it was legally recognized in Oregon, we had a civic ceremony on top of the (now demolished) Eugene City Hall.

And I've realized that I don't have any photos from last year:  they're all on Mark's camera or on Facebook.

More here at this blog post.

Decade in Review: 2004

July 2004.  Our beagle, Pickles, died of various medical complications.  Mark had found him at Greenhill after our England trip in 2001, and conditioned him from an obese, so-fat-his-back-is-flat chow-hound obsessed with food to a lean, mean eating machine obsessed with food (able to steal cookies out of children's mouths with a single bound).

Living with Pickles was sometimes a challenge, because he used all of his low animal cunning to eat things like other people's Thanksgiving stuffing, other people's children's Halloween candy stashes, and slug bait.   Sometimes I think Pickles was practice for having a child.   And we still had Muriel, the world's crankiest, old-lady cat.


August 1, 2004.  I married Mark in a garden, in a ceremony not legally recognized by city, state, or federal governments, and overseen by the Rev. Caroline Colbert (the Unitarian Universalist minister at the local UU church).  Our friend, Lime-Green Larry From New York was the best man:  he compiled and presented all the statements about marriage and love that we'd asked everyone to write.  My sister, Julie, gave a very funny toast.   My friends in a recorder ensemble played Renaissance music.

The wedding was a huge affair -- a lot of our friends and both families gathered in our landladies' garden and cried as we exchanged vows.  Mark said his.  I was a wreck when I said mine.  Afterward, we had chocolate cake in white suits.  And I led folks in a round of "The Shark Song."

But since I couldn't exactly say, "Mark is my husband," without it being a political statement, I sometimes referred to him as my "husband out-law."


December 2004.  I started this blog on Blogspot, back before it was slurped up by Google.  Before this, I would send out e-mail missives to a long list of folks.  

At the beginning of the decade, I was interested in the spiritual lives of gay male Neo-Pagans and in the expression of deity as a gay male.  I was hoping that I'd find something like a gay Cernunnos,  or a gay male Isis.  Or maybe something like a spiritual minded sacred band of Thebes.   I'd even asked Starhawk if she knew who a gay male Starhawk could be, but she didn't know.

I put together the beginning of a e-newsletter called "Lavender Leaves" hoping to attract like-minded men, but it never amounted to anything -- and the musings, book reviews, and general thoughts on queer theory and theology were channeled into this blog.


I turned 40.  For the birthday celebration, we set up a throne for me to sit on, and guests were required to bring a Wonder of Science or sing a song.  Turning 40 was a breeze, especially compared to when I turned 30.  Mark teased me that I was middle-aged, which I denied -- claiming that I planned to live to a hundred, and I wouldn't be in the middle of my life until I turned 50.

Ten Years of Marriage

Ten years ago today, Mark and I had a wedding ceremony.  We couldn't legally be married in the state of Oregon at the time.

We had a website here:  http://markandjohn.blogspot.com/

We got married in our landladies' back yard.  We had friends and family make banners a few days before; the banners showed the banner maker's relationship with one or both of us.

For our wedding, everyone lined  up on either side of the gravel alley by the house, holding their banners, and we walked with our families between the banners.  Everyone followed us through the yard gate, and hung banners everywhere.

I tried my best, and failed, not to go into a bridal daze; thankfully Mark was there to ground me. We traded vows and rings, and then had chocolate cake (they were supposed to have otters on it, but everyone thought they were weasels).  The comment at the time was "Only gay men could eat chocolate cake in white tuxedos and not get them dirty."

There's more pictures here:  Wedding Photos

I can hardly believe it's been ten years; and five years of living together before that.  Yes, there've been some bumps along the way -- but I'm still in love with Mark and I like to think that I'm as good for Mark as he is good for me.

Happy Anniversary, Honey; here's to ten more wonderful years.

Wedding Mural

My cousin Molly painted this mural for her wedding.  It's hard to see in this photo, but it was about eight feet tall.







As soon as I saw it I recognized the four elements.  I was a little surprised, because I thought I was the Neo-Pagan in the family, and weddings usually take place at St. Mark's Cathedral in Portland. 




Molly and her wife, Janet, worked a really long time to come up with words for their wedding that would be meaningful for both of them.  When I asked about the Moon and Mercury, they said that these were the ruling planets for Cancer and Gemini.



Speaking from experience, it can be difficult some times to be in a mixed-faith marriage.  In addition to the Neo-Pagan elements, my cousin Jane sang The Lord's Prayer (another family tradition).




They did a great job giving the ceremony a NeoPagan feel without being in-your-face about it.  I think all the ritual tools were there, but at no time were the non-Neo-Pagans alarmed by an unsheathed athame during an Invokation to the East.  Instead, the quarters were summoned by the ringing of a bell.


When they get back home, this mural will go up at their business.  All the guests signed the margins.





I think the favorite line from the ceremony was after they drank ritual wine together and the officient said, "May you never thirst."

Lesbian Celtic Camping Wedding

My cousin Molly is marrying her partner, Janet, in a camping wedding.  Since they live in Washington, by noon they will be wife-and-wife.  I don't know the particulars of the ceremony other than they will have a hand-fasting, and that they will jump a broom.   To the shock of the traditionalists in the family, there will be no bagpiper--unless one gets snuck in.  In a side-conversation, it turns out that there are two traditional bagpipe songs for weddings:  Mari's Wedding, and the Lewis Clan Wedding Song.  Both are the same tune.

Most of the family has gathered in a camp site for the ceremony and party.  A few are staying in the Indian Casino about twenty-five miles away. 

There's almost tame deer living in the surrounding woods.  I thought more of them would show up for the apples the kids knocked to the ground.  The deer's shift was covered by raccoons, who visited in the night and left a trail of Wheat Thins from the picnic table to the nearby bushes.  

Saturday morning the brides were up at 7 AM moving things around.  I'm not sure why Janet had a small hatchet with her, and we were awake enough for all of us to make Norman Bates jokes.