bassline

River View I
A view of the Schyulkill River from behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art. That's Boathouse Row in the distance on the right.

It's been quite a week. Mainly getting used to saying that I have a 'wife' now. Both E and I have been joking about how odd it seems that we're now 'husband and wife'. It's been good, though. Our ceremony was small, short and sweet. It was so casual that I forgot to put on my suit jacket before the actual ceremony began.

We decided to get married in a hotel room we had at the Park Hyatt-Philadelphia instead of City Hall. A few weeks before the date, I found a celebrant who happened to be a former co-worker. I found out that she'd become a minister some years back. She was more than happy to marry us and was a tremendous help. It was also nice to be married by someone that at least one of us knew.

As I mentioned above, the affair was small but very meaningful. I had two of my closest friends in attendance and we had another doing video for us. That was it. Everything went off without a hitch. Our celebrant, Sheryl, arrived and led us through a little relaxing exercise of deep breathing to introduce some calm into the moment and things proceeded from there. As the ceremony began, E and I were standing face-to-face holding hands when I realized the lack of my suit jacket. I mouthed to her "I forgot my jacket". We shared a silent laugh as things continued.

Sheryl did a reading from The Bridges of Madison County, E and I exchanged our self-written vows and placed our rings. E read an Eskimo love poem to me and I recited a short passage to her. As a symbol of our merging into marriage, we lit two candles which we used to light a third. That was it. The whole thing worked out pretty much as we envisioned it. We had a toast before heading out to dinner. A little later, we returned to the hotel room and had cake for dessert-a white chocolate, raspberry mousse cake. Very good...

There are some photos and I hope to post some as soon as the main ones come in. We have the video, but haven't watched it yet. We've just been spending the week relaxing and hanging out with each other. We didn't go anywhere, but I took the week off from work just so we could spend time together before getting back to some kind of life routine. Though there's nothing even remotely routine about our lives together, lol :D

We went on a few walks, went out to dinner with co-workers of mine who showered us with well-wishes and gifts. Really very nice of them.

There's a lot going on right now and I have a ton of stuff to get out of my head, so I'll be posting more soon and more often now that the big event is past.

Blurred Horizon

It's been an interesting week, to say the least. We have our marriage license in hand, as well as an officiant to marry us. We'd started to look online for someone to marry us who was nondenominational and local. We found a couple of sources, but weren't totally taken by some of them, and in one case we were put off by how our questions via email were not answered to our satisfaction. That, and the fact that they were not upfront abour costs.

I asked a co-worker if she knew of anyone and it turns out she did-of my former co-workers had become an ordained minister a few years ago and is part of a non-denominational church in a town not far from Philly. I was thrilled and called her immediately. She returned my call a couple of hours later, we caught up and she agreed to do our ceremony. Now, E and I have to come up with our vows and whatever else we want to be done in the ceremony. Even though it's going to be really small and intimate, there's still a lot to go into things. I still have to get a suit with barely three weeks to go...sheesh...

......

Have you ever heard of a 'door fairy'? Me, neither. It seems that there might be a repair gnome inhabiting my studio building. I was at the studio on Monday morning, just about to leave when one of the doors leading to the fire-escape overlooking 3rd Street fell off it's hinges. The same thing had happened last week, but I was able to secure it with a couple of new screws. Obviously, that wasn't enough and I found myself in a quandry: attempt to fix the door and be late for work or leave it and hope it didn't rain before I returned on Wednesday. I chose to leave the door propped against it's twin, secured with rope.

I went in on Wednesday and the door was fixed! No one knows who did it, because the guy I lease from wasn't there until Thursday. I'm thinking it must have been one of the guys who work for him who repaired it, but who knows...

......

Thursday, E and I took a day-trip to New York. She wanted to get some jewelry-making supplies and we wanted to have a second look at the Richard Serra exhibition at MoMa. I have a few thoughts about it here

That, and we just needed to spend some time away from the hectic, everyday stuff we've been dealing with for a while now. I needed a break from the studio, even if I needed to be in there working. I've been feeling a little less creatively inspired because of so much happening at once with the wedding and the next exhibition this fall. I'm trying to get used to dealing with it all at once, but it's tough some days. It's all good stuff, but a lot.

We had a great time and took a ton of pics. I still have to go through mine. I'll post some of them soon, along with others I took last Saturday when we visited Eastern State Penitentiary.

So, yeah, I'm up pretty early and have been since 3:30 or so. I fell asleep watching The Work of Director Anton Corbijn. A day of eating and drinking after the wedding of friends will do that to you. I must've fallen asleep around 10:30.

The wedding was for my friends, Joni and Matt. Joni is an artist whom I've known for at least 10 years. We collaborated on a text and image project together about 6 years ago. Her and Matt have been together for five years and they both thought it was time to get the formalities out of the way. The wedding was a really nice and simple affair. It was held in one of the historic homes (now a youth hostel) that dot Fairmount Park. The ceremony itself was non-religious in tone and consisted of family members from both sides giving brief testemonials about the bride and groom. When that was done, Joni and Matt exhanged vows and rings and that was it. Short and sweet. The way I've always thought I'd like to do it, if I were to ever get married. The best part is that the bride and groom requested that no one give them gifts. Instead, they had a potluck reception which was fantastic.

I was afraid that the weather was not going to cooperate after yesterday's drenching the area took, but it was nice out. A bit cloudy and chillier than it's been in months, but it is October.

me, jackie, and tet me, jackie, and tet at matt and joni's wedding, Sunday 10.09.05

This is the first time I've worn a tie in a long while.