I don’t want to get into this too much because it will just make me more enraged, but I feel compelled to share some of the answers we got to our first pre-cana lesson. Our instructors, a married couple who I’m sure have the best intentions… just not a firm grasp on reality, sent us a 16-page, single-spaced Word document filled with exclamation points and some of the most sexist statements I’ve read in awhile. It’s like reading “Men are from Mars, Women are from Whore Island.”

Sounds more fun…

I don’t quite understand. I know lots of Catholics who are open-minded and well-educated and who don’t blame women for original sin and the fall of man. I also know several Catholic couples who had perfectly lovely experiences in their pre-cana classes (though Nicole said her class was great, but the priest told them the man should make all the decisions… because that’s how God intended it). I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

I’ll just share a few excerpts:

• Usually, men are more down to earth, more grounded than women. They are active and they like to build things, they are a lot in the “doing!

• In the Jewish tradition it is the very important duty of the father to name his children and a very meaningful one: by giving the name, the father grants permission to live and gives the identity. This is the meaning of Paternity.

• The ribs protect the heart, and also the lungs… What was in Adam’s lungs? God’s breath of life, his Holy Spirit… Maybe that’s why women are more naturally religious than men?

• She is also given maternity; she’s the one who will bear life in her womb. Woman in Hebrew is nekeva which means hollow, receptacle, to create an inside space. Woman’s body is made to receive. Woman is consecrated to life. It is an incredible mission if we think about it and wonderful too!

• Woman’s ability to receive relates her naturally to the spiritual world. She is more inclined to the things of the heart, that is to love. These two characteristics make her closer to God, who is Love and giver of life.

• God entrusts man to the woman. Man is a lot into his doing and has a tendency to forget God! He thinks he can manage everything by his own strength! So God gives the woman to the man to remind him of the spiritual.

• She is to be the guardian of the spiritual. She can also be called the Guardian of Purity.

• She added that they were not even allowed to touch it [the forbidden fruit]!  God never said that! She grabbed the bait! It made God sound even more severe! She enters in the devil’s game! He insinuated doubt in her. She totally gave in, meaning that she entered into temptation! Note that the devil doesn’t talk to Adam. Adam had been entrusted with the authority.

• Let’s also look at this scenario closer! First, she finds the fruit attractive. She is seduced — the pleasure of her senses and the desire for glory and power! This means that she chooses to eat the fruit to please herself without considering the long term repercussions of her actions. She wants to decide for herself what is good and what is bad.

• This is original sin: we want everything, right away, not accepting to depend on God… We want to decide for ourselves what is good or bad without trusting that God will provide at the right time. We make ourselves our own gods.

• She was to be a suitable partner to Adam, yet she made a decision on her own, not even respecting their partnership. She didn’t consult Adam. How often do we see couples where we can say that the wife “wears the pants?” As the guardian of the spiritual, Eve was supposed to remind man of God, to lead man to God and instead she led him away from God…She was also consecrated to life and led all humanity to death.

• The devil was called Lucifer before his fall, and he was the chief of all the archangels. Lucifer means the light bearer, and he was probably an extraordinarily beautiful angel. It’s easier to imagine Eve talking to the most beautiful of angels and being seduced.

• They are not equal partners anymore… The communion man and woman experienced together before sin is broken. “Your urge shall be for your husband.”  Woman will become very possessive in her love for her husband.  He will take advantage of this urge the woman has to be loved and protected, and he shall be your master, meaning that the man will distort the authority that was given to him as a service into a power over the woman and he will lose his respect for her. He will use the woman for himself instead of loving her. He will lust instead of love. Their partnership is destroyed because of sin.

Jeez, woman! Way to screw everything up. I have a sudden fruit craving; maybe I’ll go eat an apple and destroy free will.

Brian and I finally sucked it up and did our first pre-cana lesson. We are accepting the harsh reality that we have less than six weeks until the wedding, and the Catholic Church probably doesn’t give extensions (that Pope is such a stickler for deadlines).

However, this didn’t stop me from whining like a spoiled brat 90 percent of the time. “I don’t waaaaana. This is booooring. These questions are stuuuuupid. I’m huuuungry.”

The format of the online class is pretty much your average reading comprehension test– read several Bible verses, answer some questions, read some more, answer some more (next time, we will insert the steps “drink some wine” and “watch some YouTube videos” in there somewhere). The first lesson’s goal was to  “explore the very beginnings to understand better who we are as man and woman, as a couple and what was meant by God in creating us so different.” Yes, do tell.

There are no pictures in the Creative Commons “Adam and Eve” search that are not creepy

Here’s what I learned:

• God created man, but he was ronery
• God created woman out of man’s rib to keep him company
• God tells man and woman not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
• Serpent convinces woman it’s cool to eat from the tree, God is just being stingy (man is there, too, but he’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time)
• God is not a happy camper
• God boots man and woman out of the Garden of Eden but gives them fashionable leather garments to wear
• God punishes woman by cursing her with painful childbirth and man as her “master”
• God punishes man (“because you listened to your wife”) by cursing him to toil the earth the rest of his days

Trixy woman! Always leading man astray. That’s why man should be the master.

Brian and I decided this class would be much better if it were taught by Dr. Gnuse, our “Old Testament as Biblical Lit” professor at Loyola. I think he’d put these readings into context better than the good people of Catholic Marriage Prep, Inc. I remember Gnuse discussing how woman gets too much of the blame in this story– some people like to forget her husband was there, and at the time the story was written, women rarely made decisions without the consent of their husbands. Even when faced with clever talking serpents.

I did enjoy some of the reading comprehension questions, though. Feel free to learn along and answer any of them in the comments section:

• What does this reveal about her personality? Would you say that it makes woman:
  • Hyperactive and rational
  • Spiritual and sensitive
• Why can we say that woman sinned in the very missions God gave her? Why can we say that man sinned in the very missions God entrusted him?
• So the first consequence of sin is…
• How will sin distort the relationship of man and woman?

I look forward to reading your answers and comparing them to the answer key we just received. I have a feeling some of you will not be getting a gold star.

A few months back, I wrote about wanting to go to this great wedding ring workshop, where couples can actually design and make their own rings. I signed us up for the one in San Diego last weekend, and it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Seriously. All of you engaged people (y’all are dropping like flies… you know who you are), I highly, highly recommend doing this! Give up a day, be prepared to be patient (yeah, I am telling you to be patient; the irony is not lost on me) and go for it. As Bri said, “I really can’t imagine buying our rings any other way.”

All told, making our rings took 10 hours, start to finish (apparently, we picked the most difficult metal to work with), but it was super relaxed and fun. Jay Whaley is the jeweler who runs the workshop here in San Diego, and he’s just the nicest, most patient man ever. He teaches at UCSD, so he must be used to squirrely students using power tools for the first time (he didn’t look terrified when I picked up the blow torch). He was great about showing us what to do, stepping back to let us do it ourselves, then lending a hand when we got stuck.

OK, I’m going to drop a bunch of pictures on you right now because they tell the story better than I can. Ready… GO!

This is what we started with… just some lumps of metal

Fire, fire! Melting the metal into one piece

My little special ball

Brian’s perfectly formed ingot

Lots and lots of annealing– making the metal soft enough to shape

Flattening the metal in this fun press thing

Lookin’ good

Taking out our aggression and shaping the metal into ring form

Getting closer

Soldering time!

“Lord of the Rings” geeks? Kaila? Hermes? Anyone?

The neverending polishing process

Hey, everybody! Come and see how good I look!

Toasting our success with delicious almond champagne

Tee hee. So demure

Still in disbelief

Oooh, shiny

The final product, engraved and all!

Opa! Victory is ours!

There’s a lot of goodness and happiness going on right now in my world. Brian and I are in the same place! And not just via Skype! He is officially back from his tour in Iraq, we are both in San Diego and life is glorious. We are that obnoxious couple kissing and holding hands and playing footsie in public, and I don’t even care. I’m gonna wade around in that lovey dovey schmoopiness as much as I want. We earned it!

Look! He’s real!

We’re madly trying to get wedding stuff done in the next few weeks, but for some reason, I’m feeling much more calm now. So we still need to finalize our contract with the DJ? We need to send out invitations next week and we’re still going back and forth with the printer? Meh. So what? Have another glass of wine. I have plenty to write about right now, but it’s going to have to wait.

In the meantime, this is a conversation I had with Kathleen last night. I was trying to figure out how to word the invitation card for the rehearsal dinner, and this is the crap Google came up with:

Tyler popped the question
and April said “Yes”
All the planning is over
from the hall to the dress.
Only one thing remains
for this day to be great
“Practice makes Perfect”
September 25th is the date.
We’ll practice the ceremony,
and iron out the kinks
Then it’s off to the Peachtree Cafe
for some dinner and drinks!

6:23:25 PM Kathleen: oh my goodness
6:23:40 PM Kathleen: sooo that website is amazing
6:23:49 PM Kathleen: i even found one we can use for you
6:23:50 PM Kathleen: A sprinkle of flowers and a
couple of kisses,
Soon Brian and Gillie will be
Mr. and Mrs.
But as we wait for that special hour,
Let’s honor Gillie with a surprise Bridal Shower!
on some date in January
at some really great place in New Orleans!
6:24:02 PM Kathleen: haha
6:24:16 PM Gillian: ahahahaha
6:24:21 PM Gillian: i just threw up a little in my mouth
6:24:30 PM Kathleen: as did i, i can’t believe i let myself send that
6:24:40 PM Gillian: you should be ashamed of yourself
6:24:42 PM Kathleen: hehehe
6:24:46 PM Kathleen: no regrets
6:25:03 PM Gillian: super gross, i tell you. these people are on crack
6:25:19 PM Kathleen: must be good crack if they think those invites are worth sending out
6:25:59 PM Gillian: for reals. if i ever think it’s a good idea to send out rhyming anything, please smack me
6:26:48 PM Kathleen: i think you have a several good friends who will more than happy to smack you
6:26:57 PM Kathleen: for rhyming invites or using the wrong font
6:26:59 PM Kathleen: oh dear
6:27:28 PM Gillian: i think ide and darren would fight for that honor… or both if i rhymed and used papyrus
6:27:36 PM Gillian: actually, then brian would cancel the whole thing
6:27:52 PM Kathleen: yeah, you’d be totally ditched
6:28:04 PM Kathleen: so just keep those thoughts out of your head
6:28:12 PM Gillian: conditional love. i see how it is.
6:28:16 PM Kathleen: haha
6:28:38 PM Kathleen: well, you know my love is unconditional… i’d just smack you to make sure brian stuck around

Ah, good times. We’re spending the weekend going registry shopping (translation: me hula hooping in the aisles of Target and Brian caressing a Set it and Forget it Rotisserie), doing that “make your own ring” workshop and maybe a little pre-cana partying. We might just block off a night, get take-out and a few bottles of wine and knock out all nine lessons. I think live blogging that would be awesome. Too much? Inappropriate? Or just hilarious?

For someone who grew up Catholic, I’ve been to surprisingly few Catholic weddings. And by few, I mean two. One was my uncle’s wedding when I was a senior in high school, and one was Nicole’s wedding in August. I don’t remember a ton about the first ceremony, so I was surprised this summer when I saw the order of the wedding Mass.

Apparently, this is the traditional order for a nuptial Mass:

ENTRANCE RITE

Processional
Gathering Song
Opening Prayer

LITURGY OF THE WORD

First Reading
Responsorial Psalm
Second Reading
Gospel Acclamation
Gospel Reading
Homily

RITE OF MARRIAGE

Exchange of Vows
Blessing and Exchange of Rings
Prayer of the Faithful
The Lord’s Prayer
Sign of Peace

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of Gifts
Offertory Song
Eucharistic Prayer
Nuptial Blessing and Dismissal
Closing Song/Recessional

Besides the fact that it looks really long when it’s spelled out like that, what seems odd about this arrangement? The actual marriage part, with the exchange of vows and all that good stuff, is right smack in the middle of the Mass before Communion. I’m not a fan of this plan. It seems awkward and disjointed, like we’re just randomly sticking a wedding where it doesn’t belong. I’m used to the flow of Mass, and messing with it will make me go all Rainman on you.

I also think it’s kind of anti-climactic to say “I do” and exchange rings… then have the “Our Father,” the sign of peace, the preparation of gifts, Communion… It just takes all the fun and excitement out of “I now pronounce you husband and wife”! Haven’t you seen the movies? When the priest says that, we’re supposed to kiss and process triumphantly out of the church to trumpet fanfare and swelling violins. And perhaps there would be some sort of dove release. Fireworks would work as well. I like a good plot line, and this doesn’t cut it!

Has anyone ever changed this order, or is it set in stone? And am I just being overly picky?

There are a lot of traditionally girly things I’m just not good at– doing hair and make-up, wearing heels, sewing, being seen and not heard. Luckily, I have friends who are good at these things (except for that last one), which is how I made it through Homecomings, proms, girls’ nights out and anything else that required a curling iron or a thong.

My college roommate Kaila is the ultimate champion of the girly arts. She was the one who did my eyeliner when we went dancing freshman year and the one who helped me throw together last-minute costumes for pirate parties, toga parties, jungle parties, Father’s Day parties. Kaila is very crafty, and I am happy to take advantage of her mad skills.

Early in college, I told Kaila that she would have to make my wedding dress someday… you know, when get old and crazy enough to get married. I had seen her construct a beautiful Queen Elizabeth-esque dress, corset and all, from scratch for the Renaissance Festival, so I was pretty confident she could make me an amazing wedding dress (though of course I continued to mock her for going to the Ren Fest every year– huzzah!). 

So Kai is making my wedding dress, and it’s going to be freaking beautiful. We went to a few godawful nightmare bridal boutiques in Metairie back in January to get some ideas for what I wanted, and it was a little traumatic (bossy Yat ladies telling me what I want and poking and prodding me is not my idea of fun). After seeing a lot of really ugly dresses and a few beautiful ones, I decided what I wanted: 

1. Ivory, not white, with red accents  
2. Not pouffy or anything that could be described as “princessy” (tulle is created by the devil himself)
3.  Elegant but still fun


Kai sketched out a design that I liked and then started working her magic. Check it out so far… 

 
See, the bodice is going to be ivory lace with silk chiffon straps (red satin underneath), and there will be more satin ruching under the bust…

And the red satin underskirt is going to be covered by layers of silk chiffon so it won’t show in the front. But in the back… ay ay!
 
Ooooh, it’s gonna be perty. I’ll post more progress reports as she gets closer to being finished. Yay, I’m getting excited!

Some of you might remember the last time I was in France. I lived not far from Antibes in a quaint little Provençal town, where I taught adorable French children how to say “It is Thursday” and “I like to eat pizza.” I had a few problems when I lived in France, namely that the French people like to mess with my head and deprive me of things like heat, money and contact with the outside world.

This last trip to France, however, was much more smooth… probably because I wasn’t there long enough to incite riots or train strikes. Kathleen and I both caught a vicious Gallic cold as we were leaving this fine country (totally unrelated to us staying out too late drinking wine and dancing), which is one of my excuses for not posting in so long.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few highlights from our trip, as told through ridiculous snapshots (also check out Kathleen’s hilarious and more detailed account of our voyage):

Absinthe bar, complete with funny hats and drunken Belgians

Kathleen always has a song in her heart and a dance in her step

On the Isle of Ste. Marguerite, Esther indulges in two essential French food groups: chocolate and beer

We make a very entertaining Scottish friend at a five-hour happy hour in Cannes

Kathleen and I discover a fabulous club in Antibes and find our dance cards are always full

At Le Refuge des Fondues in Montmartre, Paris (yes, that is red wine served in baby bottles– to avoid the tax on stemmed glasses, apparently)

Before… but why is the wine gone?

After… yayyyyy!

Fin

(OK, now I am back to the real world and will be posting again on the wedding planning I swear I’m doing. Two and a half months until the wedding… holy crapshit.)

Sorry I haven’t written in a couple weeks. You see, I was just so busy preparing for my trip to the French Riviera, I couldn’t be bothered to write or even do any wedding-related items. It’s very stressful traveling to the Côte d’Azur– making sure I have the right clothes for the famously temperate climate and enough memory cards to capture the Mediterranean’s beauty effectively, not to mention brushing up on essential French phrases like “Je voudrais un autre pichet de vin rouge” and “Ne me touche pas– tu me fais chier!” Life is so hard sometimes.

The obligatory Mediterranean resort photo

Fine, I’ll stop being completely obnoxious, but I seriously got a chance to go to the French Riviera. For free! I think that merits a little insufferable gloating. I’m on a two-week trip in Antibes Juan-les-Pins (between Cannes and Nice) with a program through the French Consulate optimistically called “Jeunes Talents.” There are eight of us young talents going to four different French cities– Antibes, Lyon, Montpellier and Biarritz– to take photographs for an exhibition and some brochures. For some reason, Loyola is one of the schools sending recent grads and, thank the baby Jesus, I take pictures and speak French. It’s been awhile since I’ve been shooting on a regular basis, though, so I’m hoping it’s like riding a bike…

Esther, another Loyola grad who majored in visual arts, is in Antibes as well so I have a partner in crime to help me eat and drink my way through the city. And in an awesome turn of events, my love Kathleen decided to take a spontaneous vacation to France! She found a cheap fare to Paris and is taking the train to Antibes to meet me on Wednesday. We’ll hang out here for a few days, soak up the sun and stuff ourselves with mussels and escargot, then spend our last two days in Paris. Our conversations about the trip mostly consist of us going, “Eeeeee!” over and over and sometimes jumping up and down.

I had wanted to keep up a Flickr account with all my pictures while I’m traveling, but sadly, I don’t think it’s possible this time around. The gallery in L.A. where we’re having the exhibition in March doesn’t want us to publish our images on the Web until after the opening. Understandable, but a bummer nonetheless. I think I’ll be able to send around a Picasa album or two, so let me know if you’re interested in getting in on that action. I’ll also post a few photos to the blog that I don’t plan to submit. In other words, you can see my photographic rejects here! Who’s excited? I already paid for a pro Flickr account, though, so you can be damn sure I’ll use it for something– take a gander every now and then.

I’ll write more later, but here are a few pictures from my first days here… Gros bisous!

Restaurant in Old Antibes

My neverending quest for the perfect pétanque picture (a.k.a. me stalking old men)

Street in Old Antibes

Soccer game with an unexpected player

You have no idea how hard it’s been not to make incessant save-the-date/STD references. Really. Maturity is not my strongest suit. But I think I get one freebie: Brian and I are officially free of STDs! Yay! OK, I’m done now.

It may not sound like much, but getting those darn things off in the mail was a major accomplishment. I actually sobbed like Chris Crocker over envelopes last week. Twice.

All right, it wasn’t just over envelopes (I had a generally rough week), but still. Here’s a little timeline of the crazy.

Monday: I talk to the gentleman in charge at Sir Speedy downtown and determined we were go for launch. He has the design files, the Excel doc and font files for the mail merge on the envelopes and promises me a proof by the end of the day.

Wednesday: No proof yet. I’m now working with two new sales people, and somewhere in the transition the design files are deleted from the FTP. I let them know that Brian, my fiance who is fighting terror in Iraq has the design files and won’t be able to send them until later that night. I politely express my displeasure. Brian resends the files.

Thursday: There’s a problem with the Excel doc, and I end up having to make two separate spreadsheets. I have to approve a proof in person, so I drive downtown and spend 20 minutes cursing at businessmen and parallel parking like a mofo. I get back to work and see the envelope design file open on my screen. There’s a typo in the return address and I flip out like Jessica Stein. I call the printer and have them stop printing the envelopes (luckily they had only done 20). I have a breakdown on the phone with Brian… something along the lines of “Now they’re not going to finish the project by tomorrow and they won’t be done until next week and I’m terrible at wedding planning and I’m falling behind at work and I’m being a total bitch to everyone around me and I haven’t seen you in five months and I am failing at liiiiiiife.”

Friday: The project is done on time and turns out beautifully. I realize we left off our parents and my sister from the guest list and there are no extra envelopes, but I mostly shrug it off. I stop for gas on the way home and am verbally harassed by a charming young man who tells me, “Girl, you a white girl and you look like that? You got more booty than any black girl I know! My friend here’s a rapper. Wanna be in his video?” I try to make daggers literally come out of my eyes without success. I go home and spend 10 minutes examining my ass in the mirror. Later, I go to FedEx to ship the save-the-dates to Bri in Iraq (our plan was to have him send them out because he gets free shipping). I find out that sending the box to him will cost $156, twice as much as just mailing them from here. I have another sobfest on the phone with Brian, the most patient man in the world, this time mainly about the cost of postage and my fast-developing eating disorder. Poor Chuck makes the mistake of jokingly pointing out I got our own address wrong on his envelope. I don’t laugh.

Saturday: I mail the save-the-dates, go for a swim, get a pedicure and drink some wine. Someone please save me from myself.

I have been recently inducted into the magical, addictive world of Etsy— “your place to buy and sell all things handmade.” Why, yes, it is my place, thank you! Nicole introduced me to it while she was planning her wedding, and it’s apparently the new hotspot for hip (and hipster) brides to find creative, fabulous wedding accessories, decorations, invitations and pretty much anything else that can be stitched, beaded or tie-dyed. It’s awesome! It makes me want to buy an old loft with Brian and fix it up with silkscreened prints and refurbished furniture like these people.

Nicole found this awesome guestbook from Etsy artist lmoss that would be perfect with our carnival theme (“Carnies. Circus Folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.”):

Oooh, pretty.  This one is small (5.5 x 4.25) with inner pages made of colorful index cards, but the great thing about an independent artisan is that she can make one customized to our specifications. I’m thinking an 8×10 horizontal book with ivory linen pages. I’m also thinking our guests should write all messages in the form of haikus or limericks (or perhaps caricatures for those good draw-ers). Whatchya think?