How To Register for Gifts

Admittedly, I love to shop. My FH well, doesn't. His idea of shopping includes a once per month visit to Target to buy a few things in every category so he doesn't have to go back. Granted, I know plenty of guys who quite enjoy shopping... my G2B just isn't one of them.

So when it came time to register for gifts, he got excited about it for two reasons. One, we're going through the I Do Foundation, a fantastic program. They partner with stores to give a percentage of your purchase to the charity of our choice. For example, if you buy us a $100 gift at Target, Target gives $5 to Living Waters International. They simply request that our guests go through their website so they can track purchases. The I Do Foundation also has a charity registry, so friends and family can donate directly to the charity. (Really, it's more important that kids have clean drinking water than we get that all important spoon rest.)

Second, my fiance was very excited about using the scanner gun. Of course, he had to erase things quite a bit because I often changed my mind when I saw something I liked better. It's been a little harder to be egalitarian when it comes to shopping... I think we're doing ok in considering one another's opinions and tastes, but there are some things that just matter to me more, and that's alright. We picked a blue and brown shower curtain, so he proceeded to choose a bunch of random blue and brown accents for the bathroom that didn't match at all. They were the wrong shade or texture or just didn't go. He said he's willing to admit that perhaps I have a little more expertise in this area. In no time, I'm sure he'll be a pro at the color wheel and home diy. More shopping will probably help...

How to Take Off the Sunglasses

So apparently I have been wearing blue sunglasses and a blue hearing aide my whole life. Thinking like this may seem silly, but in fact, it is often really harmful. When people start talking about the essentials of gender, they almost always start generalizing, and that means that some people are being left out, thinking, "What about me?"

I didn't grow up playing sports. I have never been hunting, and I don't like fishing. I don't objectify females. I'm not very handy and don't particularly care for yard work. I don't make much money or work in a prestigious job. All my life, these were the models of masculinity that were endorsed by our culture. While many men fit this mold, what happens to those who don't? What about women who want some of these things? They are often persuaded to get with the program or begin to believe that there is something wrong with them.

This is why my FW and I are so passionate about these gender issues. We have seen how hurtful they can be. In addition to those awful DVDs my FW mentioned, our pre-marital counselor also gave us a really interesting personality test that we found to be pretty accurate and helpful. What we found was that my personality is much more laid back and passive, but hers is much more direct and forward. In many ways, our personalities are a great complement for each other. However, according to gender stereotypes, our personalities should be reversed. According to the blue and pink sunglasses kind of thinking, I should be the typical aggressive male, and she should be the submissive female. Then instead of seeing a real strength in how we complement each other, we would both think that neither of us are fulfilling our "correct" gender roles. This is why we get so irritated by all this nonsense. This is why I want to hyphenate my name too.

I have nothing against people who fit these gender molds, or who choose more traditional marriage roles and practices. Obviously these things have been working for many people for a long time. We just know that many of them won't work for us. We know that people may take offense to some our decisions and think that we are criticizing them. That's not what it is about to us. It is about truly honoring each other for who we really are rather than demanding that each of us be someone else determined by our culture.

How to Wear Pink Sunglasses

(By the B2B)

We're all about marriage prep, so when someone suggests a book or lecture or something of that sort, we try to give it a shot. A dvd lecture series (which shall remain nameless) was recommended to us and we attempted to watch it today. We lasted almost 5 minutes. Here's why:

The speaker began with some jokes that weren't funny, and talked about women and men communicating in different ways. The part that finally killed us was when he suggested that men see the world through blue sunglasses and women see the world through pink sunglasses. He used the same logic for pink and blue hearing aids. In other words, b/c women are soooo female they can't see or hear in any other way, and the same for men. I wish I was making this up. It got worse, but I'll spare you.

Unfortunately, we've come across this line of thinking really often. Operating on really basic assumptions does two things... One, it makes you feel like there's something wrong with you if you don't fall into that stereotypical category. And two, it blocks you from engaging on any sort of deep level, b/c you're caught up in the essential notions are gender that are really just a construct any way. Of course there are differences between men and women. Some of those differences are biologically determined and some are not. But reducing gender to pink and blue is really hurtful.

In our opinion, we are all created in the image of God and we are more the same than we are different. We should appreciate one another in the fullness of our humanity and our gender, not begin with a "gender straight jacket" (as my FH would say). I give God more credit than men are from mars, women are from venus, or men are waffles and women are spaghetti, or whatever.

How to... CAKE!

So if there is one thing I have been looking forward to most in this wedding planning, it has been the cake tasting. My love for cake is hard to quantify, so I won't bother. When I first learned of cake tasting I suggested to a friend of mine that we pretend like we were planning a wedding just so we could go eat some free cake. I was only half joking. Now that my B2B and I have finally been to a tasting and chosen a cake, I can tell you that true cake love waits, but the wait is worth it.

I should start by telling you about our baker. He is awesome. I can't believe he is going to do this for us. He is from Nigeria and actually did the cake for a presidential inauguration there, and now he works for one of the nicest hotels in Houston. Despite such impressive credentials, he is genuinely one of the nicest, humblest people I have met. He told us yesterday that he was honored to do our wedding...the feeling is mutual. We have made a new friend in all this, so I couldn't be more excited about that.

I guess I could tell you exactly what the cake will be like, but I won't. Works of art are best appreciated in person, so you will have to wait until the reception. The tasting was everything I hoped it would be. He brought us five different samples that we had selected at our first meeting with him. It was a really difficult choice because each of them were amazing. I also learned what fondant is. Apparently, it is pretty rich, and many Americans don't like it. However, he is going to use a new type that was developed more for American tastes. It was really good. I have nothing to compare it to because I haven't tasted fondant before. So not only did the tasting satisfy my cake craving, it educated me. What a beautiful cake-filled world we live in.

How to be a "Mack-ademic"

So I can't take credit for the term "mack-ademic." Our friend Carrie coined it in reference to my FW and I. I can, however, explain the term and how it applies to us.

Both my FW and I are currently engrossed in the world of academia. My FW is working on her PhD dissertation, and I am finishing up my MA. It is likely that both of us will spend most of our careers in academia, and we may end up teaching at the same university at some point. Right now, we are colleagues, and although my FW is in a different department, her work in Women's Studies often overlaps with the English department because the director of the program is part of our department as well as are many other literature professors.

All this means that we often see each other at work/school (or make a point to see each other), and since we are both employed by the university, I suppose there are certain rules of decorum we should follow. For example, making out in the quad would not be a good idea, but going to lunch together isn't going to raise any eyebrows. This is probably no different from most workplace relationships, but academia is a strange world with its own "mack-ademic" wrinkles. The last name thing is definitely a part of this. It is quite common for married female professors to simply retain their last names (at least professionally). It is also common for academics (particularly feminists) to refer to their spouses as partners. Obviously, this term has some different implications in popular culture, but in "mack-ademia" it doesn't imply anything gender-specific, which is part of the reason it is used. (For the record, I don't think I will ever refer to my FW as my partner (or FP)).

This semester, I have two professors who happen to be married to each other. They each have different last names, so this is not readily apparent. They don't try to keep it hidden, but they don't advertise it either. It was fun the day the husband guest lectured in his wife's class though. I kept looking for signs of a deeper relationship, but they were nothing but professional. My FW has come to my classes to discuss the Women's studies program. I would like to think that we too behaved professionally, but one of my students later claimed that she could see through us.

Being a "mack-ademic" is not that hard. It just requires some restraint (more restraint than the undergrad couple in the elevator the other day that were all over each other and accidentally hit every button because of it). There is one downside to this though. Some of the most attractive things about my FW are her intelligence and her compassion. When she is at work, these two qualities are really displayed, so it can be particularly hard for me to maintain some sort of professional detachment.

How to Get Free Food

So it's been a while since I posted anything. I apologize for the delay. This semester I am trying to graduate, plan a wedding, restructure the course I teach, and find a job. Let's just say that I am still trying to figure out where to find time for anything else. I do have plenty of topics saved up to blog about though.

One of the advantages to being a hands-on FH is that I get to meet with caterers. This might not sound too exciting to most men, but that is only because they don't realize that tastings often accompany these meetings. Take my word all you Gs2B, if you only want to be a minimal part of the planning, don't skip out on anything food or cake related.

On Friday, my FW and I met with the caterer that we will probably end up using. It was at a chain Italian restaurant. We walked in just after the lunch rush and were treated to more food than we could possibly eat. We got bread, salad, three appetizers, a piece of veggie lasagna, and two pasta dishes. We ended up taking three boxes home. All of this was free. They REALLY want our business.

It was also really great food. We are well aware that when it is prepared in bulk and sitting in chafing dishes that the taste may be diminished, but for one glorious hour, we were treated to some awesome free food, and I still have lunch left for tomorrow. Even though we are really busy, and we are probably going to choose this caterer in the end, I think it would be worth it to schedule these tastings every Friday afternoon. I am a grad student after all. Free food is to grad students as pantsuits are to Hillary Clinton. (Sorry, I had to make a Super Tuesday joke there.)

Now if only figuring out where to have the rehearsal dinner was this fun.

How to Pick a Florist

Because my FH was working, I visited florists with some of my friends who will be in the wedding. We met with two different people, on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

The first was the owner of a flower shop that looked more like a steel warehouse. Our meeting was in a wooden covered room with a substantial liquor collection (which, by the way he didn't offer to share with us). The best way I can describe this guy is that he was totally overcompensating for being the male owner of a flower shop. His assistant was nick-named "Cowboy," and he met his wife because he did the flower for her first wedding (um, that's romantic?). He told us how he hunts in Africa, made $90,000 in December on just two parties (one of the parties had elephants and Maroon 5), and recently did the flowers for a playboy photo shoot. To his credit, he does amazing work... But I can put up with that kind of machismo for about 2 minutes.

The second was a part-time Baptist church secretary who does flowers on the weekends. She's a grandmother who told me she treats all brides as though they were her own family. She helped us brainstorm and fully be a part of the creative process. She was emotionally supportive, she didn't just offer a service.

Any guesses who we went with?