Three Husbands and Photography

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The other day Mark said, "We need to get you three husbands.  A sensible, down-to earth husband; that's me.  A husband who will take you out dancing.  And a third one for something else."

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I silently mused on what kind of third husband I would want... a writing husband?  I kind of didn't want a writing husband because I don't want a collaborator; and I've put some distance between Mark and my writing process in the aim of keeping our relationship uncomplicated.  A clothes shopping husband?  Mark hates shopping (phrases like "torture me" come up) and I love trying things on with other people.  A concubine husband?  As much fun as the theatre of having a concubine husband could be, it seems like it would detract from the primary relationship... and do I really want to be the sort of person who objectifies a trophy-spouse (Cue Patsy Stone saying, "No. You mustn't.  It is....forbidden.")?  Maybe I'd have a Rabbinical-Pagan Husband for dream analysis and ritual critique?   And I wondered how exhausting it would be to have three husbands--the polyamorous folks I know have to work really hard to make multi-spouse marriages work. 

After a moment of frantically shuffling all these thoughts, I said to Mark, "But what about you?  What kind of husbands would you want? You've already got the goofy-tech husband."

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"Oh," he said.  "I'd have two empty slots for 'Leave Me Alone' husbands."

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In other news, I fiddled with the manual settings on my camera.  I re-discovered that I had turned on the manual focus control for one of the camera's more accessible switches.  Then I played with the shutter speed and f-stop.  I also made a little picture of the relationship between f-stop, shutter speed, and depth of field.   Most of the time, my camera does a pretty good job with automatic settings, but the auto-focus does have a tendency to focus on a twig in front of a bird or the trees behind a flower instead of what I want to take a picture of. 

I would say the auto-settings choose a middle-of-the-road aperture and shutter speed, which means the contrast in the photo can come out flat and slightly washed out, and the colors not quite as saturated.  Anyway, more to learn as I try to level-up.

Went to the gym Monday night (7/8).

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.

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.