And here it is. My last day in Vegas. The day that seemed lifetimes away only a few weeks ago. The day that I've been longing for since...well, since about the time I showed up last September. No, no, that's not true. When I first arrived, I was full of hope and ambition and determination to figure out where I might fit in this City o' Sin. And the first two people I met here, Jess the Chanteuse and Vina the Mail-Keeper, are two of the finest people I have had the chance to know in my life. The first band I saw here, Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns, put on one of the best live shows I've ever seen. My first dance partner at said show, Lloyd, showed me that music can keep a person young well beyond his or her years (Lloyd must be around 75 or 80, and during a 90 minute show, he is on his feet dancing for at least 60 of them minutes). My first audition was one of the nicest audition experiences I've had in the last decade or so. All in all, my first month in Vegas was pretty damn cool.
And then October rolled around.
Vegas has a way of offering the best while handing over the worst. It has a way of turning some shiny gem into some tarnished junk. Vegas offers glamour and glitz while doling out longing and loss. It shows you beauty all along the Boulevard while hiding the ugliness of the off-ramps. It promises Fun & Fantasy but leaves you with Regret and Reality, a vicious and blinding Reality, one that swallows entire homeward-bound planeloads of people who understand that What Happens in Vegas Doesn't Always Stay In Vegas. No, that debt goes home with them, along with the headaches, hangovers, and hard-to-remember bits. Not to say that there aren't oodles of humans having fun in this town. Hell, this is Fun City!! Except...it's also Foreclosure City and High School Dropout City and Casino-run Justice City.
But it is no longer My City. Not that it ever was. I never found my place here. In 10+ months, I haven't dropped a single dollar on a blackjack table nor stuffed a buck in a g-string nor tasted a drop of alcohol. And this city revolves around such activities. Really, the only thing here that made sense to me was the music scene. The music I experienced here was amazing, and I once again felt in-the-right in calling myself a Singer, a word I haven't used to describe myself in far too many years. The phrases "I sing" and "I am a Singer" are worlds apart, and I thank Vegas for helping my find my way from one to the other. I thank Jess for that, as she helped me rediscover my voice and my most basic need to use it. She introduced me to musicians who taught me about the business (which is not a great business to be in these days, not in this town) and let me get onstage with them to sing. And then I met this piano player who wanted to put together a duo with a girl singer, and it looked like maybe my lounge-singer dreams might take flight. Diva Las Vegas!!
But in true Vegas fashion, after months of rehearsal and hours of prep-work on my part, I got dumped by my piano player. Last week. Via email.
Yes, Vegas holds out the shiny goods then snatches 'em away once you've decided to GO FOR IT, once you've rearranged your life in order to accommodate it's needs. Alex worked round-the-clock, 7 days a week in this town, then had to spend 7 months and thousands of dollars defending himself against false arrest and trumped-up charges brought against him in a successful attempt at intimidation. We were set to move to Seattle on March 1 until I met this piano player 5 days before Moving Day, and months later (plus this 6-week, return-trip to Vegas for the sole purpose of finishing what we couldn't finish because the piano man had a last-minute, 2-month gig that he took in April), I get the blow-off because he doesn't like rehearsing and is really better off as a solo. That's Vegas: Land of the Duped, Home of the Dumped.
And so, we're outta here. But we go not with a whimper, oh no! Over the years, this town has provided much in the way of free food, free rooms, free everything. Once upon a time, Alex had big pull in Vegas. He could make a phone call to any number of casinos and get comped. And we took advantage of it in a big way. Then that arrest happened, and his juice pretty much dried up. No more rooms, few free meals. But being who he is, he's still got connections. So last night, as we wondered what to do with our last night in Vegas (we're leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow, so tonite doesn't count), Alex made a call and got us box seats at the Pearl (inside the Palms) to see (ohmygod it's sooooo good I can hardly believe it) DURAN DURAN!! And they were AWESOME!!! 4 of the original 5 band members were onstage (with a new guitarist, a sax player, and a super-hot lady backup singer), and they put on a helluva show. John Taylor, DD's bassist, was my second childhood crush (after Rick Springfield), and that crush lasted for years. Last night, as they were playing "Planet Earth" and John was smiling into the crowd, I realized that my schoolgirl crush lives on. Alex and I were singing along to almost all of the songs (some were new to us both), and our seats were right near the stage, allowing us to see every performance detail. The songs seamlessly flowed from one to the next, Simon Le Bon's voice was pitch-perfect and clear, Roger Taylor's drumming was pounding in my chest, and Nick Rhodes (looking just as sad and sweet as ever) produced entire orchestral movements on his keyboards. The crowd was older, certainly older than the last show we saw at the Pearl (Fall Out Boy, my brother's boy band, whose crowd was 90% teenage girls), but they were rockin' out, especially during the encore, which was a medley of some of their classic hits. It was a beautiful reminder that Life Goes On, and you never know where it might take you. I mean, these guys are what, 50 years old? And they've lived some crazy lives, I'm sure. But here they were, in 2009, playing music together and clearly thrilled to be doing so. And me and my man, we were rockin' along with them, loving every second of our last night in Vegas.
And so we leave Las Vegas, not whimpering, not a la Nic Cage, but rockin' out, looking forward to the adventures ahead. This water-baby is saying goodbye to the desert and returning to the Atlantic coast. I truly have no idea what the future may hold, but I'm excited to find out. And now that this time in Vegas is at it's end, I am thankful for it. It has taught me a lot about myself and the world I live in. It brought my long-term partnership with Alex to new levels of commitment and reward. It reminded me that I cannot live without art, without being the artist I am meant to be. It brought unimagined challenges that forced me to get tough and stay empathetic (I think empathy is a good thing, no matter what those Congressmen say). Plus, I got to be here as a red state turned blue, SWEET! I wouldn't want to repeat this year, not for a million bucks. But, I have not a single regret. So I come out a winner. Now I just have to figure out how to turn it all into a one-woman show.
It's time to finish packing and load the car and GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS GODFORSAKEN DESERT!! We're on the road at sun-up, should be reaching the east coast by Thursday. First, we've got to get through Arizona and New Mexico and Texas and Oklahoma and...
And if you're still reading this, thank you. I can't tell you how much it means to me to be able to share this with you. The writing shall continue, tho I suppose the name of the blog should change. A water-baby in Jersey City? I'll work on it.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
What is a marriage?
So, it's official: Alex is my husband. And I am his wife. It's official, according to no official capacity, other than the power vested in the 2 of us. Allow me to explain...
On July 5, 1996, Alex got down on one knee in front of the reflecting pool at Boston's Christian Science Center, and he asked me to marry him. And I said yes. Now, we were kids at the time, fully aware that a wedding was a big deal, certainly too big a deal for us back then. But we were also fully aware that we wanted to spend our lives together. So we agreed to be engaged indefinitely, until we could handle/afford a wedding, allowing our engagement to show the world how committed we were to this relationship.
Fast-forward through the years, through shifting cities and careers, through unstable personal economies (and eventually, unstable global economies to match), through ups and downs and twists and turns and highs and lows galore...and we're still here, unmarried, but even more committed to this relationship. (Perhaps we two should be committed?) We've had the marriage-talk numerous times over the years, and it went from never seeming like the right time or the right conditions, to wondering, why bother? What does a marriage offer that we don't already have?
A marriage offers one thing that we don't have: an opportunity to celebrate this relationship with the many people who have been a part of our lives since before we knew each other and in the years since. A wedding! Now, Alex and I have never agreed on the wedding aspect of our marriage. Me, I want a big party! I want to be wrapped in love and good wishes from our family and friends. I want a day that brings together the various elements of our lives for the sole purpose of celebrating what we've accomplished together over the years, along with celebrating all that lies before us. Alex just wants to get married by Elvis, not tell anyone until a few days before, figuring that hardly a sole would show up. Two entirely differing desires on the wedding-front. The one thing we both agree on: we don't feel any need to sign legal documents making our union "official". After all, what could be more official than the past 13 years of struggle and sacrifice being borne out, with no legal obligations between the two of us to make things work? Truthfully, I am afraid of the legal aspects of a marriage. I don't know why, it's simply the truth. I am afraid of messing with a good thing. And I am afraid that once we are legally bound to one another, it will diminish somehow all the struggles that we will surely survive and overcome, making me wonder if we would have stayed together if we weren't somehow contractually obligated to do so? Whatever, my fears are what they are, perhaps they are in no way reasonable, but they exist. What also exists, thanks to this lovely year in Lost Wages, is a firm distrust of our legal system. The last thing I want entering into this relationship is some notion of "law".
But I hate calling Alex my BOYFRIEND!! A boyfriend is transitory. A boyfriend is of-the-moment. A boyfriend is NOT a guy who stays true for 13 years and makes huge sacrifices and loves your family and always considers you to be his top priority. Alex is not my boyfriend. He is my partner-in-crime, he is my other (somewhat better) half. He is the first one I turn to, the first one I run to, the first one I think of...always. He is no boyfriend. But what's the right word for him? "Partner" doesn't feel right, "fiance" implies an impending nuptial date. I call him "my old man", which is perfect for Meg the Blues Singer, but not appropriate most days of the week. Really, the only word I know that correlates with our level of commitment is "husband". I want to call Alex my husband! But I don't want to get married! What's to be done?
Seeing how unconventional our relationship has already been, Alex and I decided to continue with the lack of convention and get married in a way that made sense to us. See, we had been planning on doing the whole Elvis thing, for real. We decided sometime in February, as our lives were imploding around us, that we wanted to celebrate the fact that we were not only staying together, but the hard times were actually bringing us closer. And, since we were in Vegas, we decided to go ahead and get married by Elvis. For real. We were going to do it on April 7, the original date of Alex's preliminary hearing, the date which our lawyer assured us would bring the end of our legal woes. What better way to celebrate the end of this horrid chapter and the beginning of the rest of our lives than at the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel? Which seemed like a good idea at the time. We even bought some mail-order wedding bands, which we figured we'd someday upgrade, but for the moment, who cares? And then, the DA asked for a two-week continuance. We certainly didn't want to get married BEFORE the end of this hell battle! 2 weeks later, another continuance. How to plan a wedding based on a justice system that expects us all to live our lives on hold until Justice is good and ready to get to work? By this time, we had already decided that we were heading to Seattle on April 28th, no matter what the judge had to say. So, the wedding got postponed. And then we went to Seattle, where the two of us were in the wedding party of our dear old pal, Zoe. And being a part of that wedding made me want it for me & Alex. Standing on the alter watching our friends exchange their vows, we had our eyes locked on each other, knowing that we were saying those vows to each other. I didn't want to get married by Elvis in Vegas, with no friends and no family to celebrate us! And when it came down to it, Alex didn't really want it either. And so, when we drove back to Vegas a month ago, we talked about what we wanted, and what it comes down to is this:
We want to call each other by the only proper terms we know: husband and wife.
We want the past 13 years to stand as proof of our love and commitment to one another.
We DON'T want to legally tie the knot to satisfy the US government in any way.
We DON'T want our marriage to be for anyone but the two of us.
So this is what we decided:
13 years after Alex asked me to marry him, 13 years to the day of my saying yes to his proposal, Alex and I exchanged rings in a private ceremony with no witnesses but the two of us, with no higher authority than our own. We both vowed to love each other NOT out of obedience or obligation but out of our inability to do otherwise. Alex read some excerpts from notes he'd saved over the years, glimpses of our past which only made more impressive the place we currently find ourselves. I said a few words and made a few promises. And then, by the power vested in us, we pronounced ourselves "Husband" and "Wife". And, since we are in Vegas, our first dance was themed accordingly: Barry Manilow's "I Can't Smile Without You" (chosen by Alex, and surprising both of us with it's length). And our second dance was a little song I had put together backing tracks for (think: karaoke) so that I could sing to him:
Time after time, I tell myself that I'm so lucky to be loving you
So lucky to be the one you run to see in the evening, when the day is through...
I only know what I know, the passing years will show
You've kept my love so young and so new
And time after time, you'll hear me say that I'm so lucky to be loving you.
And so, I have a husband. And I am a wife.
You can call us what you'd like. After all, no authority other than our own has blessed this union, nor even recognized it. And this is not to say that we will never go ahead with an actual marriage. Or at least a big party. But in the meantime, recognize that this union is far more grounded than many marriages, and that with nothing other than our love for each other and our commitment to each other, we have lived in un-wedded bliss for 13+ years. And we're looking forward to the next 13. And the 13 after that. Until we're finally old enough and done enough to live out our retirement dreams of a houseboat in Amsterdam....
When we spoke of marriage, and all the married (and divorced) couples we know, we recognized that one of the best and healthiest marriages we know of is that between our good friends, Mark & Steven. Mark & Steven began dating about the same time as Alex & myself, but they went ahead and got married in a big ceremony in upstate New York, way back in 2001. New York State did not then, and does not now, recognize gay marriage. But few relationships I know of are healthier or more committed than this one. I hope my husband and I can be as much of an inspiration to other non-legally marrieds as Mark & Steven have been to us.
Now, this Wifey needs to get some boxes packed, because one week from today, WE'RE OUTTA HERE! One week from today, the car will be packed and our asses will be getting out of Vegas and heading back to the east coast! Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait...
On July 5, 1996, Alex got down on one knee in front of the reflecting pool at Boston's Christian Science Center, and he asked me to marry him. And I said yes. Now, we were kids at the time, fully aware that a wedding was a big deal, certainly too big a deal for us back then. But we were also fully aware that we wanted to spend our lives together. So we agreed to be engaged indefinitely, until we could handle/afford a wedding, allowing our engagement to show the world how committed we were to this relationship.
Fast-forward through the years, through shifting cities and careers, through unstable personal economies (and eventually, unstable global economies to match), through ups and downs and twists and turns and highs and lows galore...and we're still here, unmarried, but even more committed to this relationship. (Perhaps we two should be committed?) We've had the marriage-talk numerous times over the years, and it went from never seeming like the right time or the right conditions, to wondering, why bother? What does a marriage offer that we don't already have?
A marriage offers one thing that we don't have: an opportunity to celebrate this relationship with the many people who have been a part of our lives since before we knew each other and in the years since. A wedding! Now, Alex and I have never agreed on the wedding aspect of our marriage. Me, I want a big party! I want to be wrapped in love and good wishes from our family and friends. I want a day that brings together the various elements of our lives for the sole purpose of celebrating what we've accomplished together over the years, along with celebrating all that lies before us. Alex just wants to get married by Elvis, not tell anyone until a few days before, figuring that hardly a sole would show up. Two entirely differing desires on the wedding-front. The one thing we both agree on: we don't feel any need to sign legal documents making our union "official". After all, what could be more official than the past 13 years of struggle and sacrifice being borne out, with no legal obligations between the two of us to make things work? Truthfully, I am afraid of the legal aspects of a marriage. I don't know why, it's simply the truth. I am afraid of messing with a good thing. And I am afraid that once we are legally bound to one another, it will diminish somehow all the struggles that we will surely survive and overcome, making me wonder if we would have stayed together if we weren't somehow contractually obligated to do so? Whatever, my fears are what they are, perhaps they are in no way reasonable, but they exist. What also exists, thanks to this lovely year in Lost Wages, is a firm distrust of our legal system. The last thing I want entering into this relationship is some notion of "law".
But I hate calling Alex my BOYFRIEND!! A boyfriend is transitory. A boyfriend is of-the-moment. A boyfriend is NOT a guy who stays true for 13 years and makes huge sacrifices and loves your family and always considers you to be his top priority. Alex is not my boyfriend. He is my partner-in-crime, he is my other (somewhat better) half. He is the first one I turn to, the first one I run to, the first one I think of...always. He is no boyfriend. But what's the right word for him? "Partner" doesn't feel right, "fiance" implies an impending nuptial date. I call him "my old man", which is perfect for Meg the Blues Singer, but not appropriate most days of the week. Really, the only word I know that correlates with our level of commitment is "husband". I want to call Alex my husband! But I don't want to get married! What's to be done?
Seeing how unconventional our relationship has already been, Alex and I decided to continue with the lack of convention and get married in a way that made sense to us. See, we had been planning on doing the whole Elvis thing, for real. We decided sometime in February, as our lives were imploding around us, that we wanted to celebrate the fact that we were not only staying together, but the hard times were actually bringing us closer. And, since we were in Vegas, we decided to go ahead and get married by Elvis. For real. We were going to do it on April 7, the original date of Alex's preliminary hearing, the date which our lawyer assured us would bring the end of our legal woes. What better way to celebrate the end of this horrid chapter and the beginning of the rest of our lives than at the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel? Which seemed like a good idea at the time. We even bought some mail-order wedding bands, which we figured we'd someday upgrade, but for the moment, who cares? And then, the DA asked for a two-week continuance. We certainly didn't want to get married BEFORE the end of this hell battle! 2 weeks later, another continuance. How to plan a wedding based on a justice system that expects us all to live our lives on hold until Justice is good and ready to get to work? By this time, we had already decided that we were heading to Seattle on April 28th, no matter what the judge had to say. So, the wedding got postponed. And then we went to Seattle, where the two of us were in the wedding party of our dear old pal, Zoe. And being a part of that wedding made me want it for me & Alex. Standing on the alter watching our friends exchange their vows, we had our eyes locked on each other, knowing that we were saying those vows to each other. I didn't want to get married by Elvis in Vegas, with no friends and no family to celebrate us! And when it came down to it, Alex didn't really want it either. And so, when we drove back to Vegas a month ago, we talked about what we wanted, and what it comes down to is this:
We want to call each other by the only proper terms we know: husband and wife.
We want the past 13 years to stand as proof of our love and commitment to one another.
We DON'T want to legally tie the knot to satisfy the US government in any way.
We DON'T want our marriage to be for anyone but the two of us.
So this is what we decided:
13 years after Alex asked me to marry him, 13 years to the day of my saying yes to his proposal, Alex and I exchanged rings in a private ceremony with no witnesses but the two of us, with no higher authority than our own. We both vowed to love each other NOT out of obedience or obligation but out of our inability to do otherwise. Alex read some excerpts from notes he'd saved over the years, glimpses of our past which only made more impressive the place we currently find ourselves. I said a few words and made a few promises. And then, by the power vested in us, we pronounced ourselves "Husband" and "Wife". And, since we are in Vegas, our first dance was themed accordingly: Barry Manilow's "I Can't Smile Without You" (chosen by Alex, and surprising both of us with it's length). And our second dance was a little song I had put together backing tracks for (think: karaoke) so that I could sing to him:
Time after time, I tell myself that I'm so lucky to be loving you
So lucky to be the one you run to see in the evening, when the day is through...
I only know what I know, the passing years will show
You've kept my love so young and so new
And time after time, you'll hear me say that I'm so lucky to be loving you.
And so, I have a husband. And I am a wife.
You can call us what you'd like. After all, no authority other than our own has blessed this union, nor even recognized it. And this is not to say that we will never go ahead with an actual marriage. Or at least a big party. But in the meantime, recognize that this union is far more grounded than many marriages, and that with nothing other than our love for each other and our commitment to each other, we have lived in un-wedded bliss for 13+ years. And we're looking forward to the next 13. And the 13 after that. Until we're finally old enough and done enough to live out our retirement dreams of a houseboat in Amsterdam....
When we spoke of marriage, and all the married (and divorced) couples we know, we recognized that one of the best and healthiest marriages we know of is that between our good friends, Mark & Steven. Mark & Steven began dating about the same time as Alex & myself, but they went ahead and got married in a big ceremony in upstate New York, way back in 2001. New York State did not then, and does not now, recognize gay marriage. But few relationships I know of are healthier or more committed than this one. I hope my husband and I can be as much of an inspiration to other non-legally marrieds as Mark & Steven have been to us.
Now, this Wifey needs to get some boxes packed, because one week from today, WE'RE OUTTA HERE! One week from today, the car will be packed and our asses will be getting out of Vegas and heading back to the east coast! Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait...
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