slowly going crazy, here

[cimorene]

For the most part, no time to update. I haven't had enough sleep in a couple of weeks, I think, but I've lost track of exactly how long: this is the last day of baby-sitting and tomorrow I'm going to sleep until I wake up, possibly at 5 pm. Meanwhile

• Carmela doesn't understand that adults don't have the magical power to control what comes on tv ("I don't want to change the channel, I just want a DIFFERENT KID MOVIE! I don't like this one!")



• My ideas for stopgap coping measures with my MIL's tendency to a) babytalk, b) boss everyone around about everything no matter how nonsensical and c) randomly hate on America all the time... are getting increasingly wild, like "Threaten to bomb Finland" and "Claim that your parents' house is the size of the entire ground floor of her building with four apartments in it and that most Finnish bedrooms strike you as small for a bathroom - oh wait! That's true!" (Her main sources of complaint are that anything large is somehow morally wrong and, most recently, that the host of Extreme Makeover Home Whateverthefuck yells instead of talking and this is due to his Americanness and the only decent home makeover hosts are Swedish)



• It's Midsummer Solstice this weekend, and I'm wearing over-the-knee socks and long sleeves under my jeans and hoodie, and a scarf around my neck.



• I got white paint spots on my Nice Jeans yesterday D:



• I spent 2 days trying to get hold of my parents before opening an email where kitten_head happened to mention they were visiting in Kansas! Uh? When I complained that nobody in my family had mentioned the trip, my Dad twitters (yes, my Dad is on Twitter!) "Anyway, I was checking my email the whole time." I didn't want email! I wanted to rant about MILs with my Mom!!!



• How To Get Married in Iowa. A conversation with Brother Windows devolved into wild speculation about whether getting married would be the key to being treated as adult by the family, since it sort of worked for W's brothers, although naturally, we could just go and CLAIM to have gotten married. Apparently it would cost $30 and a 3-day waiting period (ie 2 day-trips to IA from KS 3 days apart, not a problem since we'll be there 2 weeks). Q: But isn't it rather tacky to come from out of the country for someone else's big wedding, and vanish for a day-trip to have a spur-of-the-mo Justice of the Peace thing? IDK.

Comments

[zvi]

If you can vanish without drawing attention to yourself, and you don't blather on about getting married until after the reception for the big wedding, I don't see how it's too tacky.

OTOH, your parents may take your elopement as evidence that you are too immature to properly plan a big wedding or that you feel you are doing something illicit. Would it be more convincing to do a registered partnership in Finland with pomp and circumstance with your Finnish friends and relatives?

[waxjism]

Yeah, but then we'd have to actually have a wedding, which is the part we don't want.

[cimorene]

Yeah, and also, my parents won't care. I was planning to invite them along to be the witnesses. We don't have any problem with them - it's just Wax's mom (and crazy homophobicgranny).

[cimorene]

Unless it's a slashas-and-brothers party (no parents invited) with Bell dj-ing and for the playlist like, nothing that's not ridic depressing. I say:

• TBP


• Morrissey & The Smiths


• Joy Division


• She Wants Revenge


• Johnny Cash


• all versions of Hallelujah


• NSYNC, obviously (kidding) (or am I?)

[anatsuno]

I'm w/ Zvi on the tackiness - don't really see a problem. I say go for it! *g*

Poor you, the MIL stuff sounds really grating. Sigh.

[noracharles]

I don't think that's tacky at all. I'm assuming you're not planning to show up to their wedding wearing white dresses and veils and making it all about you.

Also for purely selfish reasons, I want you to get married. The more of us do, the more people can see that there is a demand for same-sex marriage.

I do feel sorry for you about your jeans and your m-i-l. I was born in Denmark, so the anti-Americanism doesn't grate quite as much on me as it does on my dad, but I do think it's tiresome, especially from friends and family who should know better than to a) believe in stereotypes and b) trash talk someone they care about's native land.

On the other hand, Ty Pennington is very annoying. I don't think he's a typical American, because I don't know anyone like him, but that style of yelly, peppy hosting is somewhat common in the U.S., and not common in the North. I've seen it in franchise shows based on an American show, but even then it tends to be more subdued in the Nordic version.

[msilverstar]

An elopement, how romantic! Maybe Iowa is the new Gretna Green.

[stranger]

But isn't it rather tacky to come from out of the country for someone else's big wedding, and vanish for a day-trip to have a spur-of-the-mo Justice of the Peace thing?

In a word, No. It's *not* getting married that's tacky, if you listen to the old folks. You should do it.

[cimorene]

LOL, I wasn't thinking of the POV of the old, but of the POV of my cousin, agemate and best-friend-since-age-3, kitten_head, who is getting married! I am used to old people mistakenly thinking things are tacky and have sufficient confidence to dismiss their opinions.

[cimorene]

So that's him! The name sounds familiar, but the show post-dates the last time I owned a TV. I used to watch HGTV shows (& especially Trading Spaces) when I was a kid with my mom while bonding or working on projects - now we download the specific things we follow, and watch them on the computer.

[cimorene]

I think MA, NJ, and VT have been gay GGs for a while now, if you believe slash fiction.