Want to preserve the sanctity of marriage? Ban divorce.

sanctity |ˈsa ng (k)titē|
noun ( pl. -ties)
 

the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly : the site of the tomb was a place of sanctity for the ancient Egyptians.
• ultimate importance and inviolability : the sanctity of human life.
ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [saintliness] ): from Old French sainctite, reinforced by Latin sanctitas, from sanctus ‘holy.’

So this gay marriage debate/debacle has me thinking. Personally, I don't get marriage. I think it's one of those silly social things that people do simply because that's what people do. I'm sure we all know the history of marriage as an economic contract and have come to our own conclusions about its evolution for humans and blah blah blah...but I'm not going to sit here and talk about why I think marriage is stupid. Because even though I think it's a stupid social convention, I think it's a stupid social convention everyone should be allowed to follow if they please.

Most secular folks who are cool with gay people also seem to be cool with gay marriage. My guess is that for those of us who do not affiliate with a religion, a "civil union" and a marriage are synonymous, and if gay people can have civil unions, then why can't they have marriages? But there are many religious folks who are cool with gay people and not cool with gay marriage, because of this one little word: sanctity. There is, according to them, a special feature to marriage that can only exist if there is one man and one woman present.

It's strange that there's this idea that if gay people could get married, it would disrupt the sanctity of straight people's marriages. Now, I'm willing to accept that for some people a gay marriage will never truly be holy or official, but how does this affect others' marriages? I dunno, maybe someone can enlightenment me about this. In addition, you'd think that people who love marriage enough to donate to the preservation of its sanctity would want there to be more marriages, not less. Spread the marriage around, man.

My bigger problem with this anti-gay marriage nonsense, however, is that some people seem to think that the opposite of a holy marriage is a gay marriage. I disagree. I believe that the opposite of a holy marriage is a divorce, and I'm surprised that more religious groups don't see it this way too. I mean, the Church, that great and holy institution, was vehemently against divorce for many, many years (I believe Henry VIII had a small debate with them over this). Marriage is supposed to be "for better or for worse" right? So why do so many marriages end? It would seem to me that even the notion that a marriage could end in divorce (for example, arrangements of the pre-nuptial kind) should itself be enough to ruin the sanctity of it.

So then, where is the anti-divorce brigade? This would surely preserve the sanctity of marriage by dissuading people who rush into it without thinking seriously, or those who do it for tax or citizenship reasons, and then eventually get divorced. And, of course, it wouldn't just be straight people who would be discouraged from rushing into marriages, but a good number of gay people too would re-consider their desire for marriage if they knew that divorce was not an option. Marriage as a sacred institution, as a lifelong contract between two consenting, loving partners, would therefore be preserved.

My conclusion: I call for a Proposition 8a, a ban on divorce (and a reversal on the ban on gay marriage).

SD, AFT: part 3

On my final day in San Diego I met up with E, C and A. E drove down from Walnut and while C and A, who were driving up (west?) from El Centro, got a flat tire, E and I caught up. We commiserated about moving back home and dealing with parents on a daily basis for the first time in four years.

The four of us headed to Old Town and got lunch at this great Mexican place. I had a burrito bigger than my head, C got some green flautas, and A was chastised by the waiter for drinking too much water. Our bellies full, we went for a walk around this mission-type place to burn a few of the many thousands of calories we'd ingested. As we were looking around an old stable, we were suddenly hit with a conundrum. It was an age old question that had confounded Americans for generations. What was the capital of Kentucky? Seriously, we discussed this for a while, ignoring the lovely exhibits and wax horses and instead racking our geeky brains for the answer. After a little while we came to the consensus that the answer was Louisville. A quick iPhone check told us we were wrong.

It was a perfect day, not too hot, not too cool, and a light breeze ushered us along.

Next we headed to the beach for a stroll (in reality it wasn't so much a stroll as an epic trek that spanned hours and culminated in a much needed IHOP pit stop for various types of lemonade and more water for A). As the four of us walked along the soft sandy beach, we giggled. It was just one of those days. But before long we realized that it was getting very difficult to lift our feet in the sand. It was a workout and although the sidewalk was just feet away, we had an unspoken agreement that the four of us would make it to the other end of the beach in the sand. We did come across an astonishing sand castle, which was a nice distraction, but by the time we reached the end we were exhausted, sweaty, and in need of the aforementioned lemonades (in case you're wondering, I had a cherry lemonade, E had an Arnold Palmer, and C insisted that she have a strawberry lemonade even though IHOP doesn't technically have strawberry lemonades (apparently they put the strawberry goo from the Rooty Tooty Fresh N' Fruity in a regular lemonade which sounds questionable to me, but that's what she wanted and, frankly, what are you gonna do?)). While we sat at our table, giggling, discussing what "guay" meant in Uruguay and Paraguay, and alerting each other of our demises (E "accidentally" said I had died), we also cleaned out our shoes on the floor. And so we left a little part of ourselves as we walked out the door, four small sand mounds just under the table.

In need of caffeine and something chocolatey we decided we'd head to a patisserie or chocolaterie. Indeed. I remembered that N had mentioned a fantastic dessert place called Extraordinary Desserts so a quick Yelp check later and we had an address. We got there and couldn't believe our eyes. I decided right there on the spot that "extraordinary" was apt for once. First of all, the front door was huge and it was a little spectacle watching C march right up and open it by herself. Inside, the most wonderful array of sugary, chocolatey, fruity delights awaited us. It was a sit-down dessert restaurant, I'll have you know, complete with a waitress and beverages. I had the cafe viennese while I marveled at their sugar (crystalline, rather than granular). The four of us shared two pricey slices of cake. They were both chocolate but that didn't bother any of us. We dug in and had no mercy; two empty plates, four empty mugs, and the show was done.

Goodbyes are weird so I'll just say that it was nice to see E, C, and A again, and even nicer to finally visit N in her San Diego. One citrus mint hookah and a Japanese beer later, and I was back in San Jose, where the past three days felt like nothing more than a passing dream.

MIAAF IX

Chapter 9: The Main Event

It was a three day weekend and beginning at 8 AM sharp on Saturday morning, about five hundred people gathered in San Francisco (and thousands more around the world online) to participate in the one and only NovNov Write-a-thon. Staff had been there the night before to set up tables, extension cords, snackies, and energy drinks for the writers. There was a wrist masseuse to evade carpal tunnel, caffeine to stave off exhaustion, and inspirational cards (not, like, cards with affirmations or biblical passages, but little slips of paper with random ideas such as, “Suddenly one of your characters loses a limb, write the next scene” or “Incorporate a British alligator into your story” which the interns came up with before the event) to repel even the most dire cases of writer’s block.  Tickets cost $200 and included meals for all three days.   

The stage was set, Jack and Alycia had written short speeches to inspire the writers, and then they were off.  Before long the quiet din of writers conjuring characters from the clack of their keyboards filled the air. Interns were allowed to bring laptops to participate while they weren’t needed keeping a watchful eye on the writers.  Most of these generous and creative individuals were not exactly the type that got out much.  In fact, for some of them, this was the party of the year; they greeted one another by their screen names, often citing their word counts as part of their opening lines.  And occasionally, the NovNov Write-a-thon became a matchmaking event, with likeminded couples meeting and falling for each other over their shared passion of writing, caffeine, and alien werewolves.   

All-in-all it was a quiet and orderly 16 hours. Hushed conversations at the snack table were the only times writers left the bubbles of their own worlds, and made for a fascinating character study. Usually I enjoy people-watching, but with writers it’s more like people-listening. A few overheard conversations at the write-a-thon:

-So what’s your genre?

-Historical erotica.

-So you write erotic stories…that happened in the past?

-No, of course not, It’s a subset of historical fiction. I write erotica that’s set during the American Revolution.

-Oh cool, I’m writing historical fiction too.

-Yeah? What about?

-It’s kind of like my family history. Like a Joy Luck Club but with my mom and grandmother.

-Nice, how’s it going?

-Pretty well, I just wrote a rape scene.

And the two of them went on happily discussing their stories and offering up writerly advice.

-I need a name for my antagonist’s cat.

-How about Fluffy?

-Hmm. No, something less catty.

-Mellifluous?

-No, I already have a character with that name.

-Victor?

-Perfect!

He quickly added his new character name to his “Dramatis Personae” and carried on writing.

-When fighting zombies, do you think it’s better to use a gun or a sword?

-Sword, easy.

-No way, are you kidding? A shotgun would take care of those zombies in an instant, and from a distance.

-Yeah but you’d need a lot of ammo, and ammo is heavy.

-Well, you could flee to a roof and snipe.

-But still, what are the odds that you have enough ammo on you?

-I mean, sure, I’d keep a sword on hand for backup, but the shotgun would be my first grab.

While I kept an ear out for the writers, I wrote my own novel. It was a noir told from the perspective of the femme fatale. Intriguing, I know. Actually, it turned out to be an awful idea. Turns out, when your protagonist is someone you don’t like, you’re not very motivated to keep the story going. Or keep them alive. (On the other hand, the great thing about fiction is that you can just kill off people you don’t like).

It was getting later and as the grey sky turned orange, a chill made its way through the ballroom. The coffee was almost out and the writers were getting ornery.  It was only six o’clock so Alycia sent me out to pick up another urn from a local coffee shop. While I was out, I realized that when you’ve spent ten hours in a room with people doing nothing but writing, you forget that out in the real world people have other things to do. I had an odd conversation with a barista who was convinced I was hosting an art show and wanted to be invited. When I attempted to explain the noveling event, he assumed I meant some sort of publishing house was releasing a book and tried to get invited to that. The perils of living in a literati city, I suppose.

Back at the event, things were starting to wind down and people were getting tired. Some were heading home after the first evening was done and people were massaging their hands and necks. We cleaned up the room and got things ready for the next day. Apparently day two was always when the fun really started.

NaNoWriMo

Partly because I've got writer's block and partly because it's time to pay credit where it's due, I thought I'd explain where "NovNov" came from. It's based on a 30-day writing event called National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) where people all over the world write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. The Office of Letters and Light, the non-profit organization that puts it on, is not and has no affiliation with a publisher, so these NaNo novels are purely for the entertainment of their writers.

There are many reasons why NaNoWriMo is cool, but I think the most important is that it brings people together to do what is almost always a solitary activity. They are an extraordinarily motivated and optimistic people who spend at least 3 hours a day for 30 straight days to accomplish something that really has no prize except a feeling of accomplishment.

[In order to "win" NaNoWriMo, you must write 50,000 words of original fiction. As a 4-time participant (2-time loser, 2-time winner), I can tell you that it's a fantastic use of one's time for a month, winner or not. ]

MIAAF VIII

Chapter 8: Writing

Optimism returned to me and I realized that I essentially had steps one and two down and it was time to seriously work toward step three. One day, while at NovNov, I heard, “Ok everybody, we’ve got to write down our word count goals for this weekend.”  The big fundraising event was the upcoming weekend, something I had completely forgotten about. Per office tradition everyone had to write down how many words they were shooting for, earning one gold star for every ten percent they achieved.  Most people wrote down the average: 30,000 words in three days.  It was a brutal marathon, but once a year people all over the world banded together for a weekend of creativity….Or so said our website.  In fact, it was true that the event had become international and that it really did seem to spark creative ingenuity in people of all ages.  So I shot for the moon and wrote down 30,000.  Now this was a goal I could wrap my head around.  And if I failed, so what?  I’d be surrounded by fellow failures.

Writing, writing, writing.  It seemed to be all I had time to do lately.  Academic papers, NovNov practice sprints (writing as much as I could for three minutes, in preparation for the big weekend), creative stuff I’d do on the side that I would never show anyone ever even though I had secret dreams of mailing it off to some big publishing industry somewhere to their immediate and intense delight, and then it would be shown to the public and I would be famous.  But for now, my fiction would remain locked up and hidden even from my desktop, as if they were entries in a diary.  The funny thing about writing is that it is the thing I most want to do when I’m not doing it, and what I least want to do while I have to.  And of course, while I’m writing an English essay, I’d prefer to be doing something more creative, and while I’m writing fiction I’d prefer the structure of something analytical.  I was starting to understand why writers were so often depressed. 

Speaking of college papers, I had realized after three years that there really were no dependable guidelines with which to write them.  They tell you in high school not to use “I” in your written work, and yet when you get to college you’re told to use it to avoid sounding pretentious.  You spend countless hours learning fancy new words and their Latin roots just to hear that you should not use big words when small ones suffice.  And don’t even get me started on organization; they tell you at once to write an “organized paper with a clear introduction and concise conclusion” and then not to write a five-paragraph paper, have too short or too long of an introduction and a conclusion that neither repeats what was already said nor introduces any new material.  The grading standards are, I believe, the most complicated and random process in all of academia.  What works for some grad students and readers never works for others, and what some think is excellent work, others balk at.  Why not just ask a grad student what he or she wants, you ask?  Because they’re weird and sometimes they don’t shower. OK, I know that’s not a good enough reason, and don’t get me wrong, I have been to office hours and I’ve sat down to speak with a GSI (graduate student instructor) to try to understand what they want in a paper, but I am almost always met with vague advice to write about what I’m interested in, as long as it has never been done before and doesn’t sound cliche. But frankly, I’m not interested in exploring homosexuality in Shakespeare, GSI Matt, mainly because I don’t think it’s really there.  I think Professor Gilbert just made it up so he could get published.  Of course, I can’t say that so I just nod and say OK and go home more confused than ever.

The good news was that for one weekend all my insecurities and paranoia about my inferior writing skills would be pushed to the wayside, and quantity would be the only thing that mattered. Thirty thousand was a number, unambiguous and absolute. I finally had a simple goal.

SD, AFT: part 2

The next day we dragged ourselves out of bed by noon and headed to this lighthouse/tidepool preserve somewhere in or around San Diego (I wasn't fully awake by that point). It was another lovely clear day and the ocean was miraculously blue.

We got pretty lost but made our way down this winding road to some tidepools. The rocks had been worn down in interesting ways by the waves. It was awesome and my friend pointed out that it would have been very romantic to be there with someone other than me.

We hadn't given up on looking for the lighthouse so we drove back up that winding road and followed some other cars to a large parking lot. We still couldn't find the large white house sitting on top of a hill with a huge light on top despite the fact that there were dozens of people heading up that way so we wandered around the visitor's center a bit.

Finally, we followed the multitudes of people and found the lighthouse. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Lighthouse (err...I can't remember their names) and their three children had lived inside it. It was so narrow and tiny and the rooms so short I was feeling a bit claustrophobic just thinking about anyone actually living there.

Next we headed back to PB, the Berkeley-esque place, for some sushi. I ordered the "PB sushi" and my friend got this deep-fried spicy mess. Next headed over to Trader Joe's for some mochi and peach Lambic and then went back to N's for a nap.

Later that evening, we went over to N's friends' (J and K) apartment to play some Rockband. J and K, being the college dudes that they were, had set up a projector and the video game took up the whole living room wall. We played for a while and at some point they mentioned this Mexican place J loved called Cotixan (I believe pronounced "koh-dee-kan"). I got a huge taco and three of us split a plate of nachos. J was also kind enough to let me mess with his guitar, which he tried unsuccessfully to teach me how to play.

We got home around 0200 again and this time I fell asleep with an enormously distended tummy. Another good day.

San Diego, a foodie tour: part 1

I made a trip down to San Diego to visit my friend N who goes to UCSD, and my friends E and C who each live about an hour and a half outside the city. N was nice enough to host me at her swanky apartment in UTC (University Town Center, I think), which is where all the UCSD students who aren't in the dorms live.

N picked me up from the airport at around 1400 and we went for a drive. We crossed this enormous bridge where water surrounded us on both sides and then my friend got lost and we ended up on a naval base somewhere. I didn't mind though, it was really nice to see clear, blue water everywhere I looked.

After turning around and getting off the base, we went to UCSD for a quick campus tour. I'd been there four years ago when I was looking at colleges, but all I could remember was a UFO, talking trees, and something about a beans-for-notes exchange.

The first thing that stood out to me about the campus was how different it was from Cal. It's absolutely sprawling, with a large vet hospital on campus, numerous small dorms, and what seems like endless space between buildings. Shuttles carry the students around campus, and those who don't live in the dorms need cars to get to school. Fortunately, there was ample parking.

My friend showed me the "dungeons" which are the computer labs where she often spends entire days. It looked miserable. She also took me to the quad, which was pretty damn sweet. I often forget that other schools have chain restaurants, cafes and other cool stuff to make campus convenient and whatnot. There was a huge sushi place with a pool hall in the back, an actual movie theater, and countless lounges. We went to the top of the UFO-looking library named for Dr. Seuss (how awesome is that) and saw a view of San Diego that convinced me that no one studying up there could ever get any work done.

I was starting to get hungry and N had told me about this amazing burger place called Big Kahuna's so we headed out to PB (Pacific Beach, perhaps), which is the less trendy, more grungy part of town, or as my friend described it, the "Berkeley" of San Diego.

She was right about the burger, it was huge and delicious and we also had this appetizer called Big Kahuna's Balls that were pretty amazing.

We waddled back to the car and my friend drove to the top of some hill that reminded me a lot of Grizzly Peak and we had a lovely view of San Diego by night.

After the pleasant drive, we went back to her apartment, a huge, new, clean, two-bedroom, two-bathroom place with a balcony and an elevator in the building that she shared with one other person. College living? I don't think so. My friend and I got dressed up, I borrowed some shoes and then headed to the Gaslamp part of downtown San Diego.

I have to admit, I never knew SD was so happening. The Gaslamp was a four-block by two-block area of clubs, bars, pubs, and great restaurants. It was a Saturday night and it was packed. As N circled the area looking for parking, I people-watched in amazement. There was the 21+ crowd dressed up for a night of clubbing, but also numerous families, perhaps just leaving after dinner at one of the amazing eateries. There were rickshaws carrying high-heeled customers from wherever they parked their cars to their place of choice, and plenty of very nice-looking cars, limos included.

We finally found a parking lot and headed to a pool hall we'd found on Yelp. After playing for a couple of hours, we went to an Irish bar called Patrick's II (what happened to Patrick's I, I didn't ask) where there was a live blues band playing. It was an odd joint but we enjoyed the atmosphere. A rather large saxophone player jumped off the stage and wandered around the pub playing for tips. Later, an older German gentleman offered us some of his nuts. Peanuts are supposed to bring out the flavor of beer, he said.

We were home by 0200 and finally got to bed by 0300. I sank into N's very comfortable leather couch and fell into a deep sleep.