A Room of One's Own... in a House of Someone Else's

Chris and I have semi-officially decided that we will move in with his parents after we're married. He's told the p-s and they're thrilled, of course. We are warned against it on all fronts, though it really comes down to necessity in this winter economy. I want-- nay, need-- to go back to school, and the only way we'll be able to afford it is if our rent disappears. I think even if I could get a school loan-- the odds of which grow slimmer each day-- I don't know that I'd want to at this point. I still owe on loans from my first school, and will for some time. This economic crisis really has me wondering at how high-risk a school loan actually is. I understand the concept of working and going to school part-time, and have even tried it. I guess the problem there was how circumstances changed before I got the chance to finish. I need to be able to go straight through, if I'm to do it at all.

Chris' parents can manage less and less in recent years. We visit a couple times a month, and do what we can, but it would be nice to be able to help them more than we're able now. They have a good-sized house. We'd stay in the basement, which has its own kitchenette and bathroom. This could be doable, right?

Obama Fever Still Makes Some Break Out in a Rash

Yes, I am so very excited about Obama! After voting, I walked the two blocks home and passed by several people who couldn't contain the urge to beam at me-- a perfect stranger!

Someday I will probably regret not going to see Obama speak in Grant Park. Perhaps living in Chicago is something I take for granted. I did meet him once before his bid for the presidency. He's truly a magical figure whose affect on people is like something out of a fable. I was working the coat room for a fundraiser at the Field Museum. Out of all the celebrities and high rollers in attendance, he was the one person there who everyone rushed over to meet. As he shook my hand, people gushed about how much he inspired them. Looking back, it was all pretty incredible.

At the time, I lived in the same Chicago neighborhood, Hyde Park, as he did-- which is such an amazing cross-section of the whole country. It seems quite apt that Obama makes his home there. After seeing gang signs and drug deals on one street, you walk a few blocks over and find the University of Chicago, with its stately gothic architecture and respected multi-nobel prize winning faculty. Another few blocks away you'll see a paddy wagon waiting outside a high school for the inevitable lunchtime crimes stemming from the fact that it has no cafeteria. Still another few blocks and you'll find rows of historic and gated mansions. Hyde Park's discrepant population certainly makes for an interesting living environment. I can't help but wonder if Obama's experience there accounts for some of his so-called "socialist" tendencies. What is more maddening than looking out your window and seeing a Mercedes drive by one minute and a shooting the next? Like the rest of the nation, Hyde Park is such an amazing place, but so many-- mostly because of socio-economic circumstances-- live at the bottom. Greenspan himself seems less than enthusiastic about capitalism these days, at least in its present laissez-faire form. Wealth has a funny way of refusing to trickle down.

Obama has more than just these social issues to overcome. With so much optimism abounding, it's easy to forget about the nearly half of the country who didn't vote for him, electoral votes aside. My mother, included. I haven't talked to her since the election. Honestly, I don't even want to address it. She stunningly still believes in Bush's competence and ability to run this country. And she's not even an idiot! As a nation, we are able to empirically remember George Washington and Abe Lincoln as good presidents, due in part, I'm sure to nostalgia and propoganda. It seems as time passes, though, that the quality of a president becomes less and less fact and more partisan opinion. I hope for everyone's sake this ceases to be the rule and four years from now, we can all-- more or less-- have confidence and pride in the guy in charge, despite attempts to rake him through the mud.

I hear Obama's team is already planning on how to overturn many of the policies enacted by the Bush administration during his first few months in office. Like hitting the reset button on an eight-year oopsie. Let's hope it indeed happens, and it's enough to get people like my mother on board the O-Train... I've saved the seat next to me.

Wedding Updates

To bring everyone up to speed-- without boring with the painful details-- we have checked off the following:

• Venue (The Grove, Redfield Estate in Glenview Illinois)
• Caterer (Catered by Design)
• Invitations (done more or less & in theory, except for the assembly of the actual guest list and their addresses)
• Wedding party (there won't be one, which is one-- or ten-- fewer things to worry about)
• Dress
• Bridal accessories (shoes, veil, jewelry)
• Flowers (possibly done by Auntie)
• Decorations (conceptually thought out)
*• DJ (investigating the current favorite)
**• Officiant (underway)

*I found a DJ advertised on Craig's List that didn't scare me and had a website, where they give you access to their music database. I tried to stump them with some of-- what I thought-- might be the tougher songs I'd like to have. Oddly enough, they really had every song I looked for. And should they not have something, they'll get it, apparently. They seem doable in terms of the budget. I think we'll be in touch.

**Maybe a couple months ago, I appointed the task of finding the officiant to Chris. When I tried looking online for secular-types-with-the-authority-vested-in-them, the pickings were slim and mixed all in with those religious peeps who WERE WILLING to perform civil ceremonies. I'm sorry, but a statement like that just rubs me the wrong way. I'm not religious and Chris is buddhist. (Incidentally, buddhists typically don't involve their religion in their wedding ceremonies.) In this country-- where there is supposedly a separation of church and state-- why shouldn't we be able to find someone who's not a minister to marry us at the place of our choosing instead of some yucky, depressing courthouse?
After searching the web, I came up with a contact on our state's .gov site and emailed them. They weren't the right people, but they gave me a phone number-- that they said may or may not be helpful-- for marriage court.
Today Chris called this number and found out a few things:
• Illinois does not have justices of the peace. How weird, I know...
• Active judges are not allowed to marry outside the courthouse.
• There are only three retired judges in the whole state that will marry us in the place of our choosing, none of whom are women, which I thought would've been kinda cool.
The plan is to contact these judges and hopefully we feel comfortable with one of them. If we don't, we will have to find a unitarian to do the job.

We shall see...