8:59 p.m. - 2004-08-16
17th Anniversary
Well, haven't I been the delinquent journaler? Ten days since my last entry! Maybe more!!
I'm going to make it up to you Dear Reader! Not only have you been spared the details of my boring life, but you get to see a little chronicle of Bruce and I's life together!! Seventeen years ago today, Bruce and I made it official, and almost 20 years ago, we started living together.
For the record, I told him on our first date that we would get married and be together for the rest of our lives.
His reply? 'That's what I want, too. I'm looking forward to that."
Yeah. There is such a thing as love at first sight.
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I think this is the first photo ever taken of us. It's in really bad shape:
Man, where is that chair today?! You can't tell from this photo, but it was this really ornately carved chair, with gargoyles and claw feet. It was probably a cheap knock off reproduction. What do I know?!!
This was taken at our second apartment, the one that had a poltergeist. If you blow this picture up really large, you can see the skirt had poodles and eiffel towers on it. Ooh La La!
I guess since this is our wedding anniversary, I should probably put in a wedding photo. Fortunately, livesand has spared me the pain of discussing our wedding, so I'll just tell a funny story about him.
We debated for a long time about getting married. He really wanted to, but I felt very strongly that I didn't want my love affairs to be regulated by the government. It wasn't that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with The Big Guy (I told him on the first date we'd be together always, remember?), I just didn't like the idea of the government sanctioning my personal life.
Finally, however, I gave in. We got all our papers and had the ceremony.
The Justice of the Peace who performed it was very inexperienced. Inexperienced as in - we were her first wedding. At the end of the ceremony she had us sign the papers and then handed them to us.
"I don't know what to do with these!" she chirped.
I was ecstatic!! It was exactly what I wanted! We had had a ceremony for all our friends and family and now we could throw away the papers and not involve the state!!
Bruce was not so thrilled. He really wanted to send those papers in!! We went back and forth on it for days, and finally I handed him the papers.
"Please seriously consider my feelings before you do anything." I said. "And whatever you do, just don't tell me. I don't want to know if you send them in or not!"
I stayed in ignorant bliss for about four years. Finally one day I told a friend what had happended, and she was horrified. "What if one of you dies? You won't be able to legally do the funeral or inherit anything because you won't be legally married! You HAVE to find out!!"
I realised she was right. Reluctantly, I asked Bruce what he had done with the papers.
He looked sheepish. "I sent them in. It wasn't so much I wanted to be legally married. It was...well...we spent eight dollars on those papers, and I wanted to get my money's worth!!"
Yup. I married a true cheapskate. Here we are walking up the path to our ceremony:
I'm wearing a beaded flapper dress that my mom, Bruce's mom, and Bruce's stepmom all hated, for totally different reasons. Bruce is wearing his grandfather's tuxedo. Damn. He may have been a cheapskate, but he sure looked fine.
You gotta' have a photo booth photo from your second wedding anniversary, right?
This was taken about the same time I was in art school, and Bruce was starting his master's degree:
And here we are in Amsterdam a few years later. I was very, very sick. Bruce was a trooper and got me through all the beautiful museums and flower markets:
This basically what we looked like for every single birthday of my thirties! I don't even know what year this was taken! Dig the Victorian dress - yo can wear stuff like this on your birthday if you were born on Halloween:
And this is my favorite picture of us ever. It was taken in Truro, on Cape Cod:
I don't have one of us now. We tried to get a photo yesterday, when we went out to dinner, but the waitress' hands were shaking and it didn't come out. So this is as close as I have to an anniversary picture. I took it in the car, on the way to Dauphin Island last week. I've always loved the difference in our hand sizes:
Happy Anniversary, Baby!
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