Now that gay marriage is legal, mine doesn't feel real anymore.

On August 20, 2011, my partner and I were married.

It was a gorgeous event, held at the Peace Gardens in South Minneapolis. We had a group of about 50 friends and family in attendance, arranged in a circle enclosing us. We had a full ceremony, complete with readings, musical performance, handfasting, vows, and a family promise. We exchanged rings, had professional photography, and held a reception afterward where we got so drunk we missed our early honeymoon flight the next morning. We got married.

Sure, not everybody viewed it as a "real" marriage. Sometimes we told people we were married, and they would say, "Oh, where did you get married?"... the implication being that it must have been in another state where gay marriage is legal. "Right here in Minneapolis," we'd reply, and if a little more clarification was needed, we'd explain that though it wasn't "legal," it was most certainly "real." What is a marriage, if it's not about making a public declaration of our love and lifelong commitment to each other? Most of the time, people understood the logic, and that was that.

Gay marriage became legal in Minnesota last May, and the first gay marriages started to happen on August 1. It was an exciting moment in Minnesota, where we pride ourselves on being ahead of the curve on social issues. Minneapolis was recently deemed the "gayest city in America," after all. Newly legal gay marriage was made even more exciting by the Supreme Court's rulings against DOMA and Prop 8. Suddenly, shit was getting REAL in Minnesota, and the rest of the country seems to be, slowly, following in step.

Yay! Gay marriage is finally legal! Yes, there are more important issues, but as Macklemore said, "it's a damn good place to start." Suddenly, all my coupled gay friends who have been together for years were planning their long-overdue weddings, and my single gay friends were half-jokingly posting Facebook statuses about how they were looking for their future spouse. It was a part of the human narrative that was now part of our narrative too.

Except I wasn't ready to celebrate just yet. All this meant that I could be legally married now, too, but after discussing it with my husbutch, that didn't seem like the wisest choice. For one thing, when we married two years ago, we got all the legal paperwork secured that we could, to afford to us as many rights as possible that are automatically granted to straight married couples. We got living wills, health care directives, and powers of attorney. As far as the supposed tax benefit afforded to married couples, this turns out to be low or nonexistent when both parties earn roughly the same amount of money, which is the case for us.

Perhaps most impactful is the fact that if married, my husbutch would have to include my income when reporting her household income for her income-based repayment student loans. You see, her parents are highly conservative, evangelical Tea Party republichristians with lots of money, and didn't help out my husbutch with her post-secondary education at all (due to both her gayness and the fact that she refused to go to a Christian college). So, my husbutch put herself through both college and law school on loans alone, and as you can probably imagine, the total is now gargantuan. She's a solo practice attorney to nonprofits now, not a particularly lucrative area of law, and if she were to report my income as part of hers, her payments would soar to an amount that would put us in the poorhouse.

Just about the only benefits we can see to getting married now are related to the always-present possibility that one of us could die at any moment. If that happened, the other wouldn't have access to the deceased's social security, and would have to pay taxes on the value of our jointly owned house. Yes, those things would be cumbersome and unjust, but neither of us is planning to die soon.

So, it doesn't really make sense to get married, at least not yet. Some day I'm certain we will make it "official." In the meantime, I've had to struggle with suddenly feeling like my marriage isn't a "real" marriage anymore. Before gay marriage is legal, my marriage felt completely real. I wasn't expecting that to change, but our decision not to get legally married right now has made me insecure, like our relationship isn't as committed or loving or permanent as those of our married friends.

Of course I know this isn't true, and  I need only use the logic I've used in the past to "explain" my marriage to people. My husbutch and I have made public vows to each other, and more importantly, we are privately committed to keeping love present in our hearts and home. So when our (usually straight, gay-positive) friends ask us, "when are you getting married?" we can continue to respond with: "we are already married."

Commuting a Little Closer to the Earth

I've been thinking about self-experimentation lately, and trying to figure out what to give up first.  My first thought was to start with coffee, as that is one of my few self-described addictions (meaning, I drink coffee every day, and if I don't drink coffee I get decidedly grumpy).  I even started cutting down on coffee by limiting myself to drinking it black (I'm normally a cream-and-sugar kind of gal), and that brought me down to a cup or so a day on workdays.  Easy enough, but I'm not interested in moving forward on that one yet.... especially since I don't feel any less tired overall since cutting down.

Well, it didn't take long before the choice of what to give up next became a little bit easier.

That's my car.  I've had it for about four years, which is pretty good as far as my car-owning history is concerned.  It was a good car, needing only occasional maintenance and the regular repairs to be expected from a used car. Until two months ago, when it suddenly became dysfunctional.  The diagnosis: it needed a new engine (I'm no mechanic, but I'm pretty sure that's the part that makes the car GO). We're talking a couple thousand dollars in repairs.

So, I decided to ditch the car.  It helped that I don't have a couple thousand dollars lying around, and that I don't want to use my credit card for purchases anymore.  It also helped that I'd been thinking about giving up my car anyway, and that it is currently Summer in Minnesota (the one time of year when people from other states are actually jealous of our weather).  I also own a bike, and my daughter is finally too old to be pulled in a bike trailer (my hamstrings still remember those days), and old enough to actually be able to bike longish distances with me (at a pace faster than I can walk).  It was time to become a bike commuter!

My commute from home to work is about 4.2 miles.  I've tried a couple of routes, and have found one that is relatively flat.  It takes me about 20 to 23 minutes to get to and from work, which, gratifyingly, is about how long it takes via car during rush hour.  Yes, I arrive to work pretty sweaty, but I work in a small office, and once I cool off I'm not any worse for the wear (plus, if I really felt I needed it, there is a shower at work I can use).  

The first couple of weeks, while fun for the novelty of it, were physically hard.  I was just exhausted by the time I arrived to work or home.  My legs felt like steel, and never seemed to relax.  They were just sore, all the time.  I wondered if it was ever going to get easier, and I wondered if it was really worth the tiredness and the soreness. 

I also wondered if my bike was part of the problem.  It's a hybrid (a cross between a road and mountain bike), and I got it almost a decade ago for free.  I took it into my local bike shop, and got some new tires (mine were very worn, and had more tread than I needed).  I also got it lubed up and inspected (this I have NEVER done).  It did indeed seem to ride a little more smoothly afterward.

Now I'm two months into my bike commuting life, and I have to admit it is getting easier.  I've shaved a couple minutes off my transit time, and I'm actually finding myself enjoying the ride most of the time.  Instead of feeling hard and laborious, it mostly feels energizing and strengthening. Mostly. Sometimes, when I'm riding up a hill against the wind with a full backpack, I'm really wishing I had a car. As the wind turns colder, I can smell winter coming. My plan is to keep biking through the winter, but we'll see. I'm up to the challenge!

The Audacity to Improve

I'm a pretty self-centered person.

No, really.  I don't mean that in a self-effacing, I-wish-it-weren't-so kind of way.  I have come to realize that this is just a core part of my being.  I am an introvert, meaning I recharge by being alone.  I spend much of my time just thinking about my life, evaluating the way I do things and wondering about what would happen if I lived my life differently in some way.

I'm a happy person, but there are things I'd like to work toward.  I want to be stronger, and healthier, and have more energy.  I want to be more present, more connected, and more peaceful.  I want to be more organized, and learn more things.  I want to be more content (this might seem ironic, given my penchant for self-improvement missions, but I'm confident I could work out the reasoning).

Sometime during my no soap experiment, I was chatting with my husbutch about this idea of doing personal "experiments."  I had been inspired by Leo Baubata's Year of Living Without, where he outlines 12 things he plans to give up, one per month, for the next year.  It includes things like coffee, sugar, and technology.  I was intrigued, and I started thinking about what I could give up... or, more pointedly, what I think I could never give up (because, perhaps, those are exactly the things I should be giving up).  So, I made my own list, and I shared some of these things with my husbutch.

HB's response kind of startled me.  Why, what's the point? she wanted to know.  I explained that I want to experiment with giving up certain things, just to see what will happen.  In a way, it's an act of "finding out what I'm made of."  HB was not impressed.  She asserted that some things I would not be able to give up, like coffee.  "You're miserable without coffee," she told me, as though this were an immutable fact.  She went on to say that she found the whole endeavor to be "a little self-righteous." When asked for explanation, she said that she just feels like some people are constantly "improving themselves," and in the process feel like they're better than other people, and that makes them arrogant and preachy.

I felt annoyed and defensive about this, but it also made me think.  Was I actually being self-righteous by embarking on my little self-improvement experiments?  Does the process make me more judgmental than others?  I certainly knew what she meant... I've known people who have done this before, especially when it comes to trendy diet changes like going vegan or gluten-free.  Suddenly, all they can talk about is how disgusting industrial meat production is, and all the chemicals in processed food, and how everybody should really do what they're doing if they want to be healthy and eco-conscious, and suddenly you can't eat your cheeseburger without feeling judged.  I get it.

At the same time, I know that I approach things like this a bit differently.  I like to try new ways of being because I want to be the best self I can be. I strongly believe that one of the things that can make life seem like a monotonous blur is never doing anything different or uncomfortable. I want to do things that make me uncomfortable, to test my own limits.  I want to separate my needs from my manufactured desires, and figure out whether the things I do and consume actually add value to my life.  Like everybody else, I want to be happy.  Maybe not like everybody else, I feel like I am already happy -- but that I am a work in progress.  I am always getting better, and isn't that the point of life?

I'm also kind of a scientist at heart, and I think that everything I do is ultimately a kind of experiment. I make thousands of choices every day, and each of those choices has a tangible effect on the world.  I'm a parent too, and as I frequently tell my daughter, there's no one right way to be a parent, and really I'm just making it up as I go along. Sure, I've read plenty of parenting books and digested lots of advice from others, but my role as parent boils down to a series of choices, and each choice has some effect. Who knows how it will all turn out?  It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, with an infinite number of pages.

And in the end, what makes my version of self-improvement not obnoxiously self-righteous is that I don't tell people how to live their lives (as long as they are not hurting anybody). In fact, I don't really talk to others about my experiments that much.  I haven't even told anybody that I've started a blog, including HB (and at this point, I'm not certain anybody is reading it). Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to talk about myself, but more than that, I like to think and write about myself.  This is what makes me self-centered, and it's how I center myself.

Dirty Girl: Coming Clean

All right, enough of that.

I just can't handle feeling like a total scrub (to use a term from my youth) for that long of a stretch.  Yes, I was still taking daily showers, and scrubbing under hot water, but I still felt like I had a thick film of grime covering my entire body, face and hair.  There were moments that I enjoyed the increased thickness of my hair, and the ability to sculpt it in more three-dimensional ways, but none of that mattered, as the oil weighed down my fine hair so much that I couldn't stand to do anything with it but pull it back.  It made me incredibly self-conscious. 

My face, too, was getting out of control.  Not only did I get a couple of big screaming pimples; my forehead and nose broke out in a relief map of little ones.  I know it's vain of me, but there is nothing that makes me more insecure and self-aware as pimply skin.  Especially since I don't wear makeup.

I actually ended this experiment just a couple of days after my last post, only eight days into my no-shampoo experiment.  So to be fair, I probably didn't give it enough time.  By all (or most) accounts, my skin and hair would have found their natural balance if I had given it another week or two.  I just couldn't imagine that happening... I failed to see how that thick layer of grease in my hair, unfazed by all the scrubbing and hot water, could possibly just fade away by itself.  

And in the end, I didn't care.  It wasn't worth the feeling of disgustingness that I endured.  Most people who do this, it seems, do it because they are super passionate (or super paranoid) about avoiding synthetic chemicals.  To that I say: Meh.  Sure, I don't want to ingest poisons or needlessly expose myself to carcinogens.  I'll do whatever I can to avoid that, within reason.  I just don't think that skipping the shampoo is going to make a difference.  And I am way too vain to find out for sure.  It made me realize that I mostly did this to see if I could do it.  The verdict: I can.  For eight days.

And, it's not like I didn't get anything out of this.  I realized that if I wash my hair with shampoo daily, it is much more static-y, fine, and flyaway.  So, I'm washing my hair every couple of days instead.  Or I'm just using conditioner.  There are no rules.  I'm an adult; I get to make up my own rules for myself.  (I can eat ice cream for breakfast if I want to! I just don't want to.)

I have to say, though, that I was amused (and a little disturbed) that my skeptical husbutch told me today that she hadn't realized I had started shampooing again.  She said that she had noticed my hair being a little extra oily in the beginning, but figured that it had "evened out" after a little while.  Seems logical.

Experiment result: Meh.

Dirty Girl: Day 6

What the hell was I thinking??

I feel grosser than I ever recall having felt.  My hair is a stringy, greasy pile, and I'm sick of wearing it in a ponytail.  It looks constantly wet, and when I pull it back it looks slicked back with gel (there's a good reason those guys were called "greasers").  Yes, I kind of like it that right when I get out of the shower, my hair is very sculptable... I can pretty much rearrange it however I want, something I can't normally do because of how thin and fine my hair is.  But once it starts drying, and it's not supposed to look wet anymore, it still does... ugh.

And my skin?  Well, the skin on my body feels great -- way softer than usual, and it doesn't smell at all!  I wonder if it would hold up through the winter.  The first couple of days, I did notice a little increased itchiness, and some random itchy bumps (which I had before, too), but overall my skin seems to be happy.

Oh, except for my face.  I am a little extra pimply these days, on my nose and on my forehead, and of course I've developed a monster pimple on my chin.  Now, this isn't really anything new -- I do break out once in a while, usually in the form of one big screaming pimple somewhere around my chin area.  And, I am supposed to start my period any day now (side note: I'm actually three days late...a rare thing, as I am queen of the three week menstrual cycle... but one of the many great things about being gay is that I don't have to panic about being late!), so the combination of hormones and suddenly using no soap might be too much for my complexion to handle at the moment.  I'm actually pretty confident that if I started using face cleaner today, my pimples wouldn't clear up any faster.  Boo.

I was preparing for some "adjustment time," of course, during which my body and hair overcompensate and then even back out.  It's only been six days.  But I feel completely self-conscious and unattractive right now.  I feel almost depressed, and certainly more irritable and unproductive.  It's one thing to have greasy hair and clean skin, or clean hair and greasy skin, but having both is making me feel like a fucking pariah. 

So of course I must ask myself: What's the point?  What am I really trying to accomplish here?  Well, for one thing, I really dislike the idea of giving up so quickly.  I mean, if I am not going to give this the old college try, then why have I been dirty for six days?  For fun??  No, if I'm going to do this, I might as well do it.  But honestly, I don't know if I can live this way for three more weeks...

Dirty Girl

So yesterday I came across an article about one guy's experiment of not using soap or shampoo when bathing.  The original plan was to try it for a month, and he ended up being a convert to the no-soap, no-shampoo lifestyle.  According to him, he actually smells better than he did when he was using soap, and he no longer struggles with dry skin and dandruff.  Hmm.

Here's the basic premise: body and hair soaps are chemically manufactured, and interfere with the body's natural ability to clean itself and maintain homeostasis.  I read through the comments on the article, and they were overwhelmingly positive sentiments about other people's own soap-free experiences.  Reported benefits range from softer skin to no more acne to more manageable hair.

Okay, I can dig that logic.  It makes sense to me that my feeling of "needing" to use soap is at least partly caused by two things: 1) I have always used soap while bathing, and 2) Maybe soap is like a drug -- you only need it because you use it (this is also my suspicion / apprehension about chiropractors... but that's a different contentious topic, one that I don't have enough facts with which to sustain my opinion). Of course, I am also fully aware of how I feel when it's been a while since I last washed -- dirty, greasy, unattractive, smelly.  I am pretty sure that I don't want to feel that way all the time.  To be fair, advocates of abandoning soap don't advocate abandoning showering -- one should still shower or bathe every day under hot water, scrubbing one's body and hair thoroughly as though soap were still being used.  And, by all accounts, people trying out a soap-free existence will notice a period of two to four weeks where they feel much dirtier -- hair will be greasy, skin will be oily.  The theory is, however, that this will pass as the body "evens out" and recovers from its dependence on oil-stripping deodorizers, enabling your natural protective and cleansing processes to thrive. 

Of course I'm curious.  I don't have any major complaints about my hair or skin as it is right now, but there are a few quirks, and I wonder how they would be affected by quitting soap. I get pimples much more often than I'd like (Seriously?? Am I still in high school?).  My hair is pretty thin/fine, and frequently looks either greasy or dry/brittle.  Last winter I suffered through terribly itchy skin, all winter (for some reason, this had never been a problem in the past).  None of these issues are particularly debilitating or interfere with my ability to be cute, but I couldn't help thinking, why not give this experiment a try myself?

I ran it by my husbutch, and of course she thought it was a terrible idea.  She just doesn't even understand the logic, why I would even bother.  "I am a stickler for cleanliness," she added.  I told her I'm going to give it a try anyway, and to be patient with me for my next few weeks as a greaseball.  She ain't happy about it, but what can she do?  I am confident that she'll voice her opinion loudly if things really do get bad.  One confession: I only told her I was giving up shampoo... I didn't say anything about soap, as I am sure she would have flipped her lid (I can admit this here, of course, because I don't think anybody actually reads this... )

So, today is Day One.  I took a shower this morning, but just used hot water, and made sure to use lots of scrubbing action on my hair and body.  I gotta say, it was a really quick shower.  For the hell of it, I didn't wear deodorant either.  Now here I am, halfway through the work day.  This is how I look so far:

How do I feel? Honestly, pretty greasy.  As predicted, my hair is already feeling oily and stringy... and because it is so fine, there's no hiding that.  Shortly after I took this selfie, I put it back in a ponytail... I have a feeling I'll be rocking that style for a few weeks.  Other than that, I feel okay... my face also feels fairly greasy though, and I'm worried I'm going to acquire some new zits.  But whatevs.  I'm still curious, and eager to see how this plays out in the long run. I'll keep you posted.... hopefully you won't be able to smell me from where you're sitting!

Learning How to Breathe Again

So, I quit smoking.

I try not to say things like, "I'm trying to quit smoking," because this leaves space for retreat, room for failure.  If I'm trying to do something, there is a possibility that I'll fail, and the implication is that it wouldn't be my fault if I did. I tried, after all.  No, I quit smoking.  My last one was Sunday, May 5th, at 10:50pm.  It has been 29 days and 12 hours.  I have saved $82.58, and not smoked 235.95 cigarettes.

Not that anybody's counting.

I actually feel okay at this point.  A big part of the battle is psychological, of course.  According to my stop smoking app of choice (Cessation Nation), I am 100% of the way to the health milestones: "Your dependence on nicotine has been eliminated," and "Withdrawal symptoms have subsided."  Therefore, any continuing urges I have to smoke must be psychological. The physical part of this journey has been conquered.  The rest is in my head.

This is probably true, though I would argue that there is no separating the physical from the psychological (Is not my brain part of my body?? Aren't my thought processes at least partly a product of electrical signals and hormonal/chemical activity?  But I digress.).  Even so, this isn't necessarily a comforting thought.  Sure, I may not be physically uncomfortable from the lack of nicotine in my body, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about smoking every few moments.  Really.  Sometimes I still even "forget" that I don't smoke anymore, and I'll think, "Hmm, after this I think I'll go have a smoke real quick," and then a split second later: "Oh right... nevermind."  And that recurring mini-disappointment still gives me a twinge of anger.  It turns it into something I CAN"T do, not something I've CHOSEN to do.  It makes me feel like I am depriving myself of something.  It's an unrequited desire. And it doesn't feel fair.

I'm pretty sure it's hanging on to this mentality that makes some people feel like quitting smoking NEVER gets easier... they may abstain for years or decades or even forever, but always wish they COULD have a cigarette.  It's every smoker's worst fear that after they quit, they will be miserable indefinitely.  And some people are, so no WONDER they start up again!  What is the point of being physically healthier by quitting smoking, if you're never going to be happy again?  What kind of life is that?

So, it could never get easier, but if that's the case, it's due to my psychological addiction to cigarettes, and nothing else.  And guess what?  I have control over that.  I get to decide how I'm going to think about this. My thought process is not something that happens to me.  It comes from me, rooted in old habits and experiences, but it can be changed.

Okay, then.  I don't smoke anymore, period.  I forget sometimes, but that's okay.  Twenty years of doing something so regularly is going to take more than a month to undo.  In the meantime, I'm trying to pay attention to how it feels when I breathe fresh air.  I'm practicing sitting still, and just being, and being content with right now.  There is no future date when everything will be easier.  I've already succeeded, and the time to enjoy it is now.