![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
it happens every day
10/12/15 20:10The first part of every day for me is good
I've got the bus stop in my neighborhood
And everything’s on purpose everywhere they go ...
-- Dar Williams, "It Happens Every Day"
What stories touched you this year? Which stories of your own are you glad you shared?
-- Kat McNally, Reverb15 Day 11: of atoms and stories
Every day, so many stories.
On my shelves, in a laundry basket, in my auto show tote bag, so many back issues and scraps.
Tonight, over dinner, I pulled out some sections of the November 22 New York Times. I am often the first to insist that marriage isn't the right or best arrangement for everyone -- and how I wish society in general would lay the eff OFF when it comes to pressuring people to get married -- but I do enjoy reading about weddings, and I confess I turn to the Vows section on a regular basis, just as I look up Free Will Astrology every week as soon as I remember that Thursday is when it's updated.
The November 22 NYT includes an announcement for Mark Phariss, 55 (assistant general counsel at a Texas company) and Victor Holmes, 45 (a retired Air Force major now training physician assistants). The NYT has been publishing same-sex commitment/marriage announcements since 2002, so it is not all that new to see photos of a happy MM or FF couple in its pages -- but it remains a source of wonder and joy to me. Two middle-aged men, one in a tux, one in a dress uniform -- their romance and its celebration in what is arguably an establishment vehicle would have been a fairy-tale (pun unintended) had someone tried to tell it thirty years ago. I sometimes joke -- but am not really joking -- when I say my life might have taken a significantly different turn had I known of lipstick lesbians back in grade school. Or, say, seen a writeup such as that of Laura Everett and Abbi Holt -- Rev. Everett, radiant in a traditional white dress, 36, UCC minister; Ms. Holt, in jacket and kilt, Latin teacher; a story that included Holt's mother declaring, "Abbi had nerdism down when she was little."
Also in that edition of the paper, Sheila Marikar's article about sassy greeting cards mentions Farewell Paperie. This part caught my eye: "Farewell Paperie prints its cards on presses more than 50 and 100 years old (named Helga and Bill, respectively)." I now have an urge to reread Cynthia Rylant's The Old Woman Who Named Things.
And, from a different section, Arthur C. Brooks's "Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier" begins with his Barcelonan in-laws asking him questions about Thanksgiving ("What does this beast eat to be so filled with bread?") and leads to an appreciation of Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Pied Beauty" ("Be honest: When was the last time you were grateful for the spots on a trout?") and a magnificent bringing of the two together: "I am taking my own advice and updating my gratitude list. It includes my family, faith, friends and work. But also the dappled complexion of my bread-packed bird. And it includes you, for reading this column."
And mine includes you, dear visitor, for reading this post.
I've got the bus stop in my neighborhood
And everything’s on purpose everywhere they go ...
-- Dar Williams, "It Happens Every Day"
What stories touched you this year? Which stories of your own are you glad you shared?
-- Kat McNally, Reverb15 Day 11: of atoms and stories
Every day, so many stories.
On my shelves, in a laundry basket, in my auto show tote bag, so many back issues and scraps.
Tonight, over dinner, I pulled out some sections of the November 22 New York Times. I am often the first to insist that marriage isn't the right or best arrangement for everyone -- and how I wish society in general would lay the eff OFF when it comes to pressuring people to get married -- but I do enjoy reading about weddings, and I confess I turn to the Vows section on a regular basis, just as I look up Free Will Astrology every week as soon as I remember that Thursday is when it's updated.
The November 22 NYT includes an announcement for Mark Phariss, 55 (assistant general counsel at a Texas company) and Victor Holmes, 45 (a retired Air Force major now training physician assistants). The NYT has been publishing same-sex commitment/marriage announcements since 2002, so it is not all that new to see photos of a happy MM or FF couple in its pages -- but it remains a source of wonder and joy to me. Two middle-aged men, one in a tux, one in a dress uniform -- their romance and its celebration in what is arguably an establishment vehicle would have been a fairy-tale (pun unintended) had someone tried to tell it thirty years ago. I sometimes joke -- but am not really joking -- when I say my life might have taken a significantly different turn had I known of lipstick lesbians back in grade school. Or, say, seen a writeup such as that of Laura Everett and Abbi Holt -- Rev. Everett, radiant in a traditional white dress, 36, UCC minister; Ms. Holt, in jacket and kilt, Latin teacher; a story that included Holt's mother declaring, "Abbi had nerdism down when she was little."
Also in that edition of the paper, Sheila Marikar's article about sassy greeting cards mentions Farewell Paperie. This part caught my eye: "Farewell Paperie prints its cards on presses more than 50 and 100 years old (named Helga and Bill, respectively)." I now have an urge to reread Cynthia Rylant's The Old Woman Who Named Things.
And, from a different section, Arthur C. Brooks's "Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier" begins with his Barcelonan in-laws asking him questions about Thanksgiving ("What does this beast eat to be so filled with bread?") and leads to an appreciation of Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Pied Beauty" ("Be honest: When was the last time you were grateful for the spots on a trout?") and a magnificent bringing of the two together: "I am taking my own advice and updating my gratitude list. It includes my family, faith, friends and work. But also the dappled complexion of my bread-packed bird. And it includes you, for reading this column."
And mine includes you, dear visitor, for reading this post.