Hey That’s A Nice Life

Since getting engaged, the question of whether or not to change my name has been in the back of my mind. I’ve gone back and forth a few times, but I keep coming back to the decision to take Don’s last name.

On one hand, taking Don’s name is patriarchal tradition that I don’t necessarily want to take part in. On the other hand, keeping my current last name - my father’s family name - is equally patriarchal; it just happens to be the name I’ve always had.

We’re forming a new family and I like the idea that our family - even if it’s just the two of us - is identified to the world as a family unit by our shared last name. I’d be just as happy if we agreed to change our name to something else, as long as we both chose it. It could be a combination of our current names (Whitesell, Fusside?), or something we just like (maybe there’s a first name in both our family histories that would make a nice last name).

Don, however, likes his name and wants to keep it. Because he wouldn’t change his name, he doesn’t see why I would want to change mine. He’s being honest and completely fair. If I want to take his name, he won’t object (and he’ll probably even be happy in the long run); he just doesn’t see why I would change the only identity I have ever known.

So, if he doesn’t care, why DO I want to change my name?

I’m in media relations and a spokesperson for my industry, so my name is highly google-able right now and I’m sure our PR firm would be happier if I kept my name. I thought about changing my name officially, but using my maiden name for work … however that seems like it could turn into a real pain.

I own the URL for my current name, but the URL for my potential new name is already taken. I sent an e-mail to the person using it right now, but have not heard back from her.

Even though my current last name is kind-of hard to pronounce and hard to spell (I don’t know why either of those things are true since no one misspells or mispronounces Russell, but for some reason the “F” changes things), I do like the way it sounds and I like my initials. My potential new name is a lot easier to pronounce and spell, but I’ll probably use my maiden name as middle name making is less attractive to the ear and giving me odd initials (try writing out SLF and SFW and see what I mean).

Add up all of those things and it seems impractical to change my name, but I’m doing it anyway - because when it comes down to it, I want to share a name with Don. I just WANT to.

So, in just over five months I will begin the process of becoming Susan Whiteside. What do you think of my new name?

Once again, I’m going to take a minute to blog about something other than my own wedding. I’m sure I’ll be back later this week with something as self-centered as usual.

Don and I headed to Capitol Hill to participate in the Prop 8 Protest March on Saturday. Equality in every aspect of life - especially love and marriage - is something I feel strongly about every day. But since I’m planning my own wedding, I feel especially passionate about the civil laws surrounding marriage right now - way more so than I ever thought I would to be honest.

I’m so happy that I’m going to have a chance to be Don’s wife … but until we became engaged I thought it was far more important for me to be Don’s partner. I feel like we’ve enjoyed that status for a long time so there was never really any pressure on us or our relationship to get married (well, except for the fact that I like diamonds a lot!). I knew I would be his wife one day, and I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about when that day would come.

Truthfully, I probably felt that way because I had the luxury of knowing that when and if we decided to change our status we could do so in just about any way we wanted - from a big black tie affair to the two of us at the Courthouse - and it would be legal in EVERY state in this country.

Since we got engaged, however, my opinion evolved. Being Don’s partner is still the most important aspect of our relationship for me, but I have a new appreciation for the act of making public the private commitment we already share, and for being his legally wedded wife - an institution that has a universal meaning and conveys a universal message of our bond (in a way that simply saying he is my partner never could). I find myself pouring word by word through countless wedding ceremonies, and considering what each and every one of those words really means.

I’m overly emotional even at the best of times, but since we got engaged it’s rare that two or three days pass that I don’t encounter some part of wedding planning that moves me to tears.

Nonetheless, I was completely unprepared for the reaction I had when we arrived at the protest. I started crying almost immediately. It is so unfair that Don and I can celebrate our love by participating in a government-sanctioned ceremony that affirms our commitment to each other for better or worse while some other people whose love is just as real and just as strong don’t have that option.

That sentimentality, of course, doesn’t even begin to address the fact that there are legal matters that are addressed by legal marriage. I’m not really planning to discuss them here because, quite honestly, when I started crying I wasn’t thinking about survivorship and wills and life insurance; I was thinking about love.

I was thinking about the man who held the sign reading, “Married August 30, 2008. Unmarried November 4, 2008″. I was thinking about the couple who lifted up the sign reading, “Our Gay Son’s Rights are Unalienable”.

And I cried. Several times.

What was strange was that I didn’t notice anyone else crying. For the most part, everyone else seemed really happy and excited. And I have to hope that it’s because the community sees the light at the end of tunnel and soon everyone in the country will have the right to be married to their partner in life.

Not long after the March started moving in the direction of the White House, the skies opened up and Don and I ducked into the metro to head home. Later, when I looked at Don’s pictures of the day, I felt some of that same hope.

This multi-city march was the largest LGBT protest ever organized in this country - and what brought it together was love. The signs below, with the Washington Monument in the background, sum it up for me.

Today my friend Erin and I took the afternoon off from work, had a leisurely lunch at the cafe at Nordstrom and then hit the Bobbi Brown counter where we had appointments for makeup application.

Skip this post if you don’t care a thing about makeup, because I’m going into some detail here. Do not skip this post if your name is Sofia.

I was curious about the long wearing cream eye shadows that Bobbi offers because my friend Kristen had just purchased some. The day I saw her, Kristen had taken a shower and her eye makeup still looked amazing.

Here’s the overall look the consultant put together for me. I’m not sure it’s what I expected, but it was pretty nice.

As you can see, it’s not too heavy (that’s kind of the signature of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics - natural, but taken up a notch or two).I was expecting an even more neutral eye pallet, though. The consultant instead used “sand dollar” (silver) eye shadow with “brown rock” in the crease (there’s also an all over shadow in “white” across the entire eyelid). The gel liner is called “espresso”. It does make my eyes look even bluer, I have to admit. You can see the shadow better in this picture. I didn’t buy anything because I want to see how it wears after a few hours and I want to see what Don thinks (since it would be very bad if on our wedding day Don doesn’t think I look like myself). I also think the eye liner might be a little dark ..,. her alternate suggestion was a lighter brown called chocolate shimmer.

In the event that you care about makeup stuff, I’m also wearing:

• Eye corrector and concealer (”bisque” and “sand”) to remove the darkness under my eye
• Foundation (”warm sand” in a stick tube)
• Bronzer (”light”)
• Mascara (”black” no smudge)]
• Blush (”pale pink”)
• Lipstick and liner (”pink mauve”)
• Lip Gloss (”rosy”)

Finally, here is a picture taken Saturday night where I’m looking down in a similar way to the picture above. This was not a long-wearing application, and I didn’t have any primer on so most of the shadow slipped right off my lid, but this is what I normally look like with eye makeup.

The colors here are a coppery brown, a light silvery blue near the brow, and deeper blue (denim) in the crease. Maybe it’s too muddy? Don doesn’t mind it so much when it’s freshly applied, but as the day wears on he finds it a little “raccoon-y”. So don’t suggest a smokey eye as I don’t think he’d find that nice on me at all.

Any opinions? I’m not a makeup girl … so, really, help me out here.
Oh - my dress is ivory and I will probably wear pearls if that make a difference at all (the consultant today did ask).

Thanks to TheKnot.com it’s practically unheard of to have a wedding these days WITHOUT a wedding Web site. Since we know a little something about Web sites (well, Don does at least), we thought it would be a good way to pass information to our guests.

You’d think that Don would have taken charge of this project but somehow it fell to me. This probably traces back to the days when we were starting Nice Mirror and Don was working on Web sites full time for his previous employer. Understandably, he didn’t want to come home every night or spend time on the weekend working on yet another Web project … but we needed a site, so I stepped in. It’s not very good, and you can’t actually order anything from us, but it’s there.

These days, Web projects account for just a fraction of Don’s total workload, but I already have the position of Family Web Master and that doesn’t seem likely to change. Don also spends a lot of time working on the excellent hyper local blog with which he’s involved and I think he finds that a little more stimulating than making maps of shuttle drop-off sites and inserting information about hotel blocks. On the other hand, I actually care about what people are going to wear and what the weather has been the last five years on May 2, so it makes sense that I head up the project.

The bad part is that I’m basically a one-trick pony so you’ll see a lot of similarities between Nice Mirror and our wedding Web site. That’s the bad part. The good part is that framework is there and while we’ll have to add information as we get closer, there’s a lot there now for people to discover as they get our Save the Date cards in the mail. Yay!

Here’s what the site looks like:

You can also just visit it. A little knowledge (and I mean a LITTLE knowledge) of HTML and access to Photoshop is a dangerous thing.

Let me know what you think.

I have just returned from the post office where I mailed the Save the Date post cards.

*gulp*

I guess we’re dropping some bucks on this whole wedding thing now, huh?

In other news, the fruit-themed post cards stamps feature papaya, guava, star fruit, kiwi and pomegranate. I thought that was cool and now I’m craving a fruity snack. Actually, I think I’m craving a fruity martini …

As you may remember, our Save the Date postcards arrived this week and they looked great, except for one small flaw on the informational side. I debated what to do about it on the blog. Although everyone said to let it go, I had already trimmed about 1/4 inch off the bottom of one and sent a test card to myself. Don wondered if the post office would sticker the bottom, ruining the effect … but when the card arrived it looked great - no sticker, no weird ink. Since trimming the cards takes almost no time, we decided to do it. In fact, after first being skeptical, Don ending up trimming all of them for me. It’s only about 65 cards so it only took about 10 extra minutes - maybe not even that long.

Now it’s time to address them, so I’m about to make a pot of coffee and sit down with the address book.