I felt a rush of elation when I read this. It reminds me of my wonderful friends and the freedoms they deserve, and of how proud I felt to be living in the Bay Area on Valentine's Day 2004. Here's the article from the New York Times, and just for you some photos that always make me cry.

( California Court Affirms Right to Gay Marriage )

We are trying to get a ceremony venue and a date for our wedding, since this seems to be the part one does way in advance. Once we have that, we can probably relax more about the other details, plus now we are on vacation and have time. So we've been working on that today, and since neither of us really likes cold calling people or companies for information, we've been alternating.

There was a lady who runs a flower shop and does wedding consulting, who is a friend of Ben's family, who we had to call. It was my turn, and Ben argued I'd be better equipped to do it because she'd probably have a lot of information and I could take notes and process it more easily. So I called her, and wrote down some of her venue suggestions, notes like "cheap" or "ceremony only could be a problem" or "overused". She mentioned the lakes along the June Lake loop as being a nice location that would be very cheap or free, so we looked for information on that online. They didn't have anything very helpful, so Ben sat down with the notepad and called the chamber of commerce for June Lake. He talked to someone there for a bit, who eventually said they'd compile some information and call him back, so he gave her his name and phone number. When he got off the phone, he looked up at me and said, "I don't think my notes are very useful. I just wrote down my name."

And it was true, he did, and it was just so hilarious.

ring, originally uploaded by clevermynnie.

Ben asked me to marry him, and I said yes.

( Read more... )

On Sunday we had our anniversary observed, which I planned because it's an even year. I took as a loose theme, the theme of pirates, and chartered us a vessel. Well, a canoe. We left before dawn to drive north, to the Delaware water gap, to take an 18-mile canoe trip. The Delaware river is pretty gentle, and the trees were starting to turn gold and crimson and shed their leaves into the water. We saw a lot of geese and ducks, and fish jumping out of the water, and we talked some and listened some, because the water makes things very quiet. And we had a picnic, and a few scenic stops, and at one point I jumped out of the canoe to swim in the cold water. It was very relaxing and idyllic, though also somewhat hard work. By the end of the day my shoulders and back were sore, and my hands a little too, but it was very rewarding.

Afterwards we drove back, which was fun because we were driving past scenery at sundown we had seen at sunup the same day. We had time for a quick shower and then got changed and headed to Buddakan for dinner. The atmosphere inside is beautiful, and the centerpiece of the room is this giant golden buddha, maybe twenty feet tall. We shared everything (I love places that serve food family style), and split a wasabi tuna pizza, lobster egg rolls, crispy duck salad, grilled sea bass, and ponzu chicken. At this point we were too stuffed for dessert, and headed home, where we promptly went to bed because we had gotten up so early. We slept about ten hours last night, and then today was work as usual.

It was really fun. I have to admit that one reason we went canoeing was that I knew that convincing Ben to do it would be hard because of how early we got up, but if I decided for us, it wasn't open for discussion. Heh heh heh. The dinner was great, too, really superb; Philadelphia has this amazing upscale dining scene, but unfortunately we can't afford to go there except on the cheap and for special occasions. I would trade it for the gourmet ghetto in Berkeley, just because I could eat there more frequently, but it is really fun to go have these really inventive dishes at great restaurants. A good example is the wasabi tuna pizza, which was raw tuna, avocado, bitter sprouts, and wasabi on this crispy flatbread with sesame oil and soy dipping sauce. It was delicious, and very interesting. Eating out is a third about the taste, a third about analyzing the cooking, and a third about the experience, or so we were thinking. Though taste is the most important third.

When I see things that are beautiful, or fun, or interesting, I always want strongly to share them with Ben. So it was great to have this wonderful day with him.

ben and me, originally uploaded by clevermynnie.

Six years ago, on a Friday night, was when I met Ben for the first time. We met through chih, talked online a lot, and then he came to Berkeley to meet me. Since then we've both changed, definitely for the better, and I'm happy to say that we've both improved ourselves quite a bit for each other. We were long-distance for almost five years, with a few summers off, and now we've been living together for about a year. Ha, I mistyped that as 'loving together'. :)

I could say a lot of things, and I've said a lot of them a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago , five years ago. It is incredible to think that I've been with Ben more than a quarter of my life, and yet not, because it's hard to imagine not being with him. For a long time, we loved each other and we were so perfect together, but there was also this element of story. We were apart, it was tragic, and there was this ideal of someday, when we'd be together and live in the same place and cuddle up every night. And it seemed unachievable, and during my last year in Berkeley it started to wear on us, and yet here we are.

There are always more things for us to discover together, and Ben is so knowledgeable and so fun that I really feel I have the perfect companion. I love walking to campus together, watching weird shows together, going places and singing Feeling Groovy about a cemetery or something. I love how last night, as I was reading the New Yorker in bed, he snuggled into my back and fell asleep. I love Ben so much, and I'm so happy! There aren't words, but I don't need them anyways. :)

It's been interesting, living apart from Ben after living together for nine months. ( reflections on compromise )

So as of right now, it's been five weeks since I saw Ben, and I'll be seeing him and lots of friends in Seattle this weekend. Then only four weeks until he moves back here. I'm happy and fine and enjoying myself without him, but it's so nice to talk to him on the phone or on WoW, and I'm really excited to see him. I've been going to dinner, doing laundry, running by the Schuylkill, packing, reading papers, and thinking about how wonderful it will be to hold him.

Skipping beats, flashing jeeps
I am struggling
Daydreaming, been sitting, the corner cafe
And I'm left in bits, recovered tectonic, trembling
You get me everytime

Why'd you have to be so cute
It's impossible to ignore you
Must you make me laugh so much
It's bad enough we get along so well
Say goodnight and go

I had a nice weekend. My flight out to Los Angeles was seven hours delayed, due to some clouds 50,000 feet high which we had to wait to settle down, so I got in at 3:30 AM. I was really excited as I was going to the airport, but I guess cross-country flights are less straightforward and less clear-shot than just hopping down the coast. Plus the time zone really did make a difference, since I wasn't there long enough to adjust. But we had a lot of fun: ate breakfasts at a sunny coffee shop, went to the beach with Erin and Josh and Ben's roommate John, watched Police Story, played Carcassonne, had sushi in Santa Monica, cuddled while watching The Empire Strikes Back.

( ways in which this weekend was different )

And now I'm back, and I'm making progress in my work, and trying to get caught up on my chores. My favorite pair of jeans ripped while I was in LA, so maybe I can mend those... and I want to finish Juneteenth, the other Ralph Ellison book, so that I can start rereading Harry Potter. :) I should also clean up... when I came back yesterday, I noticed that one of our mouse traps had moved onto a vent in the dining room... then noticed the tail protruding from it. A mouse got its leg caught in the trap, tried to go down the vent, and died there. I was concerned that the mouse would be stuck in the vent, and I would have to take drastic measures (or have a professional take them on my behalf) to remove it, but it slid right out. But now things feel unclean.

Our garden grows slowly, in fits and starts, not nearly as fast as our weeds. But we have pea-vines!

I am spending this weekend in LA, with Ben. I miss him, and look forward to seeing him, but one thing that's great about long distance this time is that there isn't any defeatism or worry over whether we'll eventually make it work in the same place. We're apart, but we won't be in about two months. I love Ben so very much, and feel so complete with him, and am so excited to see him for a couple of days and go to the beach together and cuddle at night.

Love Songs

I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.

But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you --
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.

--Sara Teasdale

I have a lot of stuff to do this weekend, but luckily it's mostly stuff I can do at home, so I can intersperse it with snuggling with Ben. I stopped writing so much about how fun it is to live with Ben, but that's more because it's so familiar now rather than because it's not still fun. It is. :) I am going through old livejournal entries, friends locking the really old stuff (does the internet need to know that I was a lot angstier five years ago?) and tagging things, and I came across an entry from the end of the first summer that Ben and I lived in the same place. It was wistful and hopeful and in love, and I spoke longingly of something like "that endless summer, with no looming specter of separation". I don't know why, but it comforts me now to look back on those words, or to look back at my entries from when I was constantly suffering for not getting into graduate school, and say, there, now I have it. I wouldn't say it's wallowing in old suffering, more like... acknowledging suffering to remind myself that I have worked to have joy. And while suffering doesn't seem so needless if it drove you to achieve something, it always seems like, looking back, one suffers a little more than is strictly necessary.

It's very cold here right now. This is unfortunate because our heater is broken. See, today I went down to the basement to check on some laundry and immediately smelled gas, very strongly, at the top of the steps. We called the gas company, and they came over and found that our igniter for the furnace is shot; the gas smell was from the heater turning on, the igniter not, well, you know, and gas still being emitted. Undoubtedly the rental company will replace it on Monday, because they are very prompt about such things, but they're closed weekends. Hooray for warm sweaters and cozy robes, for now. And for the rest of winter, really.

Maybe you're wondering... what did we do? ( Read more... )

Did you know that today is the fifth anniversary of the day that I met Ben in person? We had chatted online before, but five years ago today is when we met and first started dating. It's also the anniversary of our first kiss.

We're celebrating it tomorrow, but since it's an odd year I have no idea what we'll be doing. Maybe you remember that last year I planned a weekend for us in Monterey, which was a really great time. I spent a lot of time on it, finding the cheapest nice hotel there, picking a fancy restaurant (which ended up being great), and finding lots of stuff to do, much more than we ended up doing. It's a beautiful area and we had fun. But there was also something kind of strange about that weekend... keep in mind that at the time, I was retaking quantum, less than a month from retaking the physics GRE, and worrying about reapplying to graduate school after getting rejected everywhere. And on top of that, it was looking nigh on impossible for Ben and I to attend the same school for our Ph.D.'s, and we knew it. We talked about it a lot, tearfully and reasonably, and each felt we had done the most we could, but for our relationship to progress, we needed to be actually together. And neither of us wanted to stay apart any longer, though we couldn't bear the idea of breaking up. Things felt desperate, and I was really afraid that I had found the love of my life and I was going to lose him to circumstance.

I felt that whole weekend like I was trying to win Ben over from something, even though he was in the same boat that I was. I wanted everything to go so amazingly well, to prove to the universe that I deserved Ben and could I please finally have him now? Even though everything went off without a hitch, at the end of the weekend I felt desolate, because we had to leave now and did one fantastic weekend bring us any closer to being together? A lot of the weekends we spent together, when the end came and one of us had to leave, I would cry. I loved being with Ben and I never wanted it to stop. And that happened on our anniversary weekend, but it was terrible, it was so much worse. I couldn't stop crying, and it felt like there was a huge hole being ripped inside me, because everything was great, but how was this going to work? We couldn't keep on being apart, but I felt like there was no chance of us ever being together. We got in our separate cars and I sobbed and sobbed, and made Ben drive back up the freeway and hold me again, and he left and I cried more... I knew I had to drive back to Berkeley, but it felt so hopeless. I did it eventually, playing happy music to try to keep myself from crying in the car.

Here we are, a year later. It's our anniversary today, though we're celebrating it tomorrow. I had a lot of class and teaching today, and I was sort of worn out and walking home to have dinner with Ben. And it's so amazing to think, isn't it, that this is the sort of thing I was fighting for, the chance to come home to Ben cooking, to meet him for lunch outside my building, to go grocery shopping together and do chores together and sleep exhausted but together. This is the only anniversary present I want! I daydreamed about it so much, and probably idealized it quite a lot, but you know, it's better than I imagined! It's so wonderful and we're so happy, and I want to scream out that sometimes the world is nothing but joy, and sometimes there are happy endings, and sometimes everything is beautiful and nothing hurts! Sometimes things click and they happen and it all falls into place! Sometimes there is meaning! Sometimes romance persists! Sometimes love comes and fills you and you overflow, forever and ever! Sometimes dreams do come true!

We've been short-distance before, but always for a limited period of time. I always knew in the back of my mind that after some date, we'd become long-distance again and the long-distance was the indefinite part. So it's very... strange to suddenly have none of that. Realize, I've been in a long-distance relationship for four and a half years. And there was an end! The distance ended and the relationship lasted! We did it!

It's like a second honeymoon, or something of that nature, to finally be free of something that's been holding us back for so long. It's the end of an era, the end of so many things, and the beginning of something totally new. I have to admit that I'm a little scared... long distance isn't good, but it's something we're very good at dealing with. We're going into new water here. But it feels so good to be together, finally, permanently. It's hard not to feel so happy that I just keep smiling, and it makes it so much better to see how happy Ben is too. We're silly and cute and mushy and it's great, it feels so simple and carefree. I feel so carefree.

This is a happy ending and a beautiful beginning and the best of all possible outcomes. Thank you world, friends, Ben, self. It finally worked.

His unaffected love of cooking.

on Penn's on-campus graduate housing
"The rooms have 'kitchenettes'. It tears at a man's soul."

Ben sent me this photo of where we would be working if we go to Penn, that is, where the CIS and physics buildings are. :)

The graduate chair actually called me and told me how enthusiastic they are about me, and a lot about their program, which seems research-centric and condensed-matter-centric. They just got a huge grant for materials science, 80% of which is earmarked for soft condensed matter. I'm really excited about visiting and seeing everything for myself.

"The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves." -William Penn

( a lengthy explanation of my thoughts on jealousy )

I drove down to LA to see Ben this weekend.

A note on driving: the driving was fine, and I had no problems. I'm really proud of this, along with being proud of driving from LA to SD to see Chih last month, because there was a time when I was really uncomfortable driving in California. The driving dynamic is so different here than it was in New Mexico, and the higher aggression, higher concentration levels, and shorter decision making times really made me get aggravated almost every time I drove. But since moving a car out here and getting more practice, both with people and by myself, I really feel comfortable with it now. And I feel much better knowing that I can do it and that I have it as an option.

We had a really relaxed and chill weekend. We went up to Ojai to visit Ben's family on Saturday, and watched Porco Rosso (one of the best Miyazaki films, IMO). On Sunday we dressed up a bit and went to the MOCA for the other half of the comic artists exhibition that we saw half of at the Hammer in December. It was really cool; they had lots of stuff from Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, R. Crumb, Gary Panter, Chris Ware, and Art Spiegelman. (The Hammer artists were Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, George Herriman, E.C. Segar, Frank King, Chester Gould, Milton Caniff, and Charles Schulz.) We also hung out at Borders and watched some episodes of Mr. Show, and then on Sunday we had a picnic on the UCLA campus with some Stilton, Morbier, wine, homemade sourdough, and dry salami. Following the recent discovery that eating cheese makes you insensitive to wine quality, we got a cheap wine with a footprint on the bottle, stored it in a plastic dog treat container with pawprints on it, and it was rather tasty.

Seeing Ben and having such a nice time with him makes me more anxious to hear from graduate schools. He's heard yes from Penn and Michigan, no from Berkeley and Stanford, and waitlist (which is probably a no) from Cornell. I've still only heard from two schools, and I go to Seattle next week. I'm feeling very ready for more certainty in my life.

I should also add that I really love the opportunity to use this icon.

There's something to be said for all those saying about how you don't feel the highs as much without the lows, how joy is twice is sweets when you've known sorrow, etc. etc.

For one thing, it really applies to the student lifestyle. There's the rush you get when you get a good grade on a test you aced or an essay you slaved over or a lab you spent days puzzling out, the feeling of accomplishment when you get through a hard semester, and the sensation I love of continual learning, putting piece after piece together and learning, more quickly than you'd think possible. And that builds on the late-night sessions, the slaving over everything, the rushing, the pressure, the lack of sleep, that horrible sinking feeling when you've had a hard time in an exam, or you're turning in a project that you know isn't your best work. It makes the feats you manage seem more real, more wrung out of your flesh and bone and abused grey matter.

The same thing is true of long-distance relationships, I think. There's a lot more hardship, a lot more loneliness, and a lot more arguments than you'd get having the same relationship the normal way. But the time together feels so sweet, and you get this sense of pride if you can keep it together, and you can get such high thrills seeing someone you care so much about when you've been missing them so deeply.

It's always like that when I fly into LAX, which will always be the most beautiful airport in the world in my eyes. When I flew down last Thursday, I hadn't been since June (because of Ben living in the Bay Area for the summer, my conference, us meeting in Mammoth for Thanksgiving), so it was a little like seeing an old friend. I usually fly in at night, and it was familiar and wonderful to see the luminous city spread out before me, so large and beautiful, lines of the sea and mountains and highways visible. My excitement always rises as we go down to land, flying next to the glittering black high-rises near the airport, setting down and thinking how Ben's feet are on the same ground less than a mile from where I am. And coming out of the terminal and seeing him... it's so intense, the joy you feel.

And then flying out, midday Tuesday, in the flat noon light with a faint haze spreading over the city, feeling the familiar loneliness come seeping back in, coalescing in my limbs and sinking to the bottom of my stomach. This is half of why my hopes are so high for graduate school.

On Friday, I left work early and drove to Monterey. I hadn't been there before, and neither had Ben. We had a great time.

We got in around 6:30 Friday night, and went out to Tabouli's for dinner, a Meditteranean place we found in town. It was pretty good, though the service was a little slow. On Saturday morning, we slept in and then went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which really is the best aquarium I've ever seen. We managed to see lots of feedings, of the sea otters and the turtles and tuna and the sharks and tiny fish in the kelp forest. The jellyfish were fascinating, and they have so many interesting exhibits there with various forms of aquatic life. It leaves you feeling that no other aquarium could possibly be that cool.

We had lunch on the Monterey Recreation Trail, and looked around Cannery Row and took some pictures. The whole place is very picturesque. We went home for a short nap and then went to our early dinner at Fresh Cream, which is a fantastic restaurant. First there was the atmosphere, looking out over the Fisherman's Wharf as the sun set and day faded to night, in a beautiful small room, with excellent service. Then the food; I had a lobster bisque (that was fantastic and spicy and corny), a nice house salad, crispy duck in currant sauce, and a dessert plate for two that Ben and I shared, with amazing vanilla ice cream, really creamy creme brulee, lovely flourless chocolate cake, and this interesting almond wafer. We had a nice merlot that went with the duck really well, and then the meal always ends with a strawberry dipped in liquid sugar, hard and clear and crispy and sweet. It was also great how much Ben talked; he talked about the early days of the internet a lot, which is folklore you don't really hear in physics, and then about French cooking (which he knows much more about than I do), and how authentic the place we went to was, because French cooking is mainly about cooking a piece of meat whole and then garnishing it with a very nice sauce. It was great because it's so hard to get Ben to carry on at length about things, and he just did. :)

We also went to see the Wallace and Gromit movie after dinner, and it was hilarious. I loved it. Go see it.

On Sunday we drove down to Point Lobos, which is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We hiked around several of the small loop trails, through the cypress grove, down to some beaches, to Bird Island, and to the sea lion viewpoint. It was just amazing, perfect, very nice indeed. :) I really recommend it if you're in that area; we had been considering doing the 17 mile drive later in the day, but ended up staying at Point Lobos instead because it was just so cool. Want to see pictures?

outer bay, originally uploaded by clevermynnie.

The 'outer bay' exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium was SO cool. We chanced on it in time for feeding, and it was awesome to see the giant tuna get up to speed.

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Tuesday was my dad's 58th birthday.

If you know me reasonably well, you know that I love my dad. I admire him a lot; his inquiring mind, his sense of fairness, his understanding of other people, his empathy. There are a lot of lessons he taught me that I carry closely today, like the idea of always asking if it's worth it when you make decisions, and the spirit of scientific inquiry. My dad helped instill in me very deeply the processes of rationality and fairness, even as he saw me at my most mean, stupid, and blindly selfish moments. He made mistakes, sure, but he admitted them and forgave mine. He was and is my cheerleader, my helper, my guardian. He listened to my thoughts seriously, all my life, and respected me as a person before nearly anyone else did.

He also taught me things through his actions. He stayed in a town where he had no job and almost no possibility of finding one, and passed up countless career opportunities to stay with me and help me grow up. I'd say I don't know where I'd be without him, but I know exactly where I'd be without him. It would have been much harder, in every way.

Happy birthday, dad. I love you so much. :)

If any of you have stories you feel like sharing, about parents or anyone influential and important to you, it would make me really happy to hear them.

Today is my official four-year anniversary with Ben, which we'll be celebrating this weekend in Monterey. (I had to tell him at least that much so that he could get there.)

In a lot of ways our relationship hasn't changed much; we had a great time over the summer hanging out, cooking, going on hikes and picnics, watching movies, going to museums, eating well. It's great to feel that our communication and understanding of each other just keeps improving, and that makes the relationship even more satisfying to be in. I'm not a person who hides much, but I think it's especially obvious that I'm so happy with Ben, and I love and admire him so much. It's great to be a part of his life and have him in mine.

That said, I'm starting to feel like now we're getting to the tricky part... we've gotten through trials of long distance okay, ironed out a lot of things, but now our lives are getting complicated. My not getting into graduate school was really damaging to us, because I needed so much support after that and Ben felt like the person required to give most of it, and after a while there's only so much you can say. We both mismanaged things there, and the summer was a fortunate chance to talk through that and fix it. But there's the big one looming, of where we will go for graduate school. I obviously really want us to get in to the same school, one that's good for both of us, preferably a few so that we can be really happy, and preferably one where we could both get funding. I'm really worried about how things will actually turn out, though, especially since I don't think I'll have my pick of schools. And while we've done well with distance so far, neither of us really wants it while we're going for our Ph.D.s, and at this point we can only really get further apart, geographically, unless we get in somewhere together.

This is really scary. I don't mind not knowing what school I'll end up at, right now, but I would feel infinitely relieved if I knew I'd be with Ben. Time will tell (three of the most unhelpful words ever).

Sweets, we were so lucky to meet, lucky to be so compatible, lucky to avoid the big traps, lucky to find ways to be together some summers. And it wasn't just luck; we worked hard to be good to each other, to be the people we each wanted to be, and to support and enrich each other's lives. We worked hard to communicate and open up, even when it was uncomfortable, and look what the rewards have been. I'm so happy, and so proud of us.

But here's hoping we're lucky again.