Posts tagged as:

wedding

The lure of the heteronorm

19 July, 2009

in commentatrix, in Aotearoa, the social round, we are family

With our recent news I silently vowed that these pages would not become a single-note wedding-and-baby theme, but, if I am honest, I am finding it difficult to think of much else about which I may write.  Work dominates my daily life and the dogs my leisure much as ever, but I place the same thematic restrictions on them.  Thus it is that I must admit defeat and turn my narratorial hand to the topics du jour, the author as mother-and-bride-to-be.

There is a public health system ready to induct parents-to-be and it is one of which I do not mind being a part.  It is a pleasure to interact with people who work in health when my basic condition is wellness and theirs something like professional excitement.  I note this in particular right now, when my union work brings me into contact with people for whom working life has become intolerable in some respect.  The people assigned to my pregnancy are people who demonstrably love their jobs, which is a contrasting experience for me (and one about which my unionist’s mind would like to ask some probing questions).

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A Wedding Cheese

4 June, 2009

in in Aotearoa, the social round, we are family

Originally published at The White Mist.

Whitestone Windsor BlueOne matter to which all those involved in the wedding are amenable has been the creation of a wedding cheese, in lieu of a wedding cake.  It was in pursuit of this that we travelled to Whitestone Cheeses of Oamaru earlier this week.  Bob, the managing director, brought out a variety of cheese rounds for us to play with and we tried stacking different kinds and sizes of cheese on top of each other to create our lactic vision.  This was a level of fun normally associated with childhood.  A wholesale price list meant the costing of the enterprise was reasonable too.

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Cladding the Groom

10 February, 2009

in commentatrix, in Aotearoa, we are family

Originally posted at The White Mist.

The señor was discussing appropriate wedding costume with his groomsmaid Miss Golightly when a friend of hers suggested the señor wear a kilt to the wedding.

This is not as unusual as it might initially seem in an international context.  Kilts for ceremonial occasions are close to commonplace in the South Island.  More than half of the señor’s family are of Scots descent, some only one or two generations out from the Auld Country.  And, given how so many of the “traditions” of the modern wedding date from the later nineteenth century, it seems at least synchronous to include another tradition of a similar age.

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Babble Tower

29 January, 2009

in at home, commentatrix, meta-diarist, mine host, we are family

A-TwitterThe explosion of tiny authors a-twitter is making me uneasy.  One reason for this is politeness: until now, if someone who isn’t crazy, a bot or a seller of warez wishes to follow my updates, I have reciprocated, or blocked them without mercy.  Now the pace at which curious strangers want to follow me is picking up, and the interests of these followers extending beyond my own.  A choice is coming: keep blocking those whom I don’t want to follow, or give my twitterings up to the attention of genuine strangers?   My TwitterFox extension rarely sleeps as it is; don’t make me install TweetDeck, people.

Another is rather unpleasant snobbery.  I am not an early adopter in the true sense of the word by any means, but I enjoy my internet phenomena when they are of interest to millions rather than tens of millions.  When everyone is talking about it, rather than mostly-everyone, it feels less fun.

The third reason is perhaps the inverse of the conventional complaint.  I like to read what those are follow are reading, eating, drinking and thinking.  Retweets and news tweets leave me feeling like the kid in the classroom whose classmate is smirking, “you’ll never guess what?”  As with intoxicants and various sexual practices, I suppose the lesson is to abandon what you have tried and not liked without giving up the whole game.

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The border to another country

26 August, 2008

in commentatrix, teaching & learning, the social round, we are family, writing & research

This winter I have not had ‘flu, which I attribute both to my willingness to pay for the vaccination (which takes care, I assume, of one strain) and good luck more generally. I have, however, had sinusitis, two bouts of gastro-enteritis (one at the same time as the sinusitis) and two colds, the second of which is engaging my immune system in a forceful battle right now. Indeed, I have been ill so frequently that when a new ailment strikes, the previous one is still fresh enough in memory that I can locate where I put all the over-the-counter drugs with which I treated it.

This suffering is minor enough that my chief energy is expended in complaining, rather than recovering, but I welcome nonetheless any sympathetic expense of comforting energy any fair readers might wish to give. It has the side effect, however, of focusing my mind on the congestion at hand (or, more accurately, at head) and not worrying about all those peripheral matters that usually engage my mind when I’m not in the classroom.

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