Anniversary: June 17th

I don't know what the old most common anniversary date was, but I bet it's now June 17th, at least in California. I see at least a few weddings nearly every day at City Hall, but nothing like what I saw yesterday. The festivities Monday were nothing compared the the zoo at city hall on Tuesday. As I neared the Civic Center area yesterday morning, I could hear a choir singing. The closer I got to work, aka City Hall, the louder it got. Soon, I could see the choir standing on the front stairs of City Hall. This was not your average choir in long matching robes. No, this was an all male rainbow colored choir! I have no idea what they were singing, but the tv crews were gobbling it up.

Across the street from City Hall, a Universalist Church had set up a white party tent. "Weddings performed here: license, ceremony and picture." Nobody was getting married at the tent, but plenty of people were getting married in City Hall. I waited patiently in line for the metal detector, behind all sorts of brides and grooms in white dresses and tuxedos (not necessarily respectively) and a variety of people carrying bouquets. Once through security, I attempted to proceed to my office. But, I couldn't go up the big grand staircase. It was reserved for people getting married. I got a little lost trying to find the other staircase, but I eventually got to my desk.

Throughout the day, whenever anyone opened the doors to come in or out of our office, it sounded like a sporting event was going on. Loud cheers echoed along the marble hallways. The City had set up little areas all around the second floor balcony for weddings. Judges, couples and witnesses stood in every nook and cranny for ceremonies. After being pronounced "spouses for life," the happy couple would descend down the big grand staircase. Everyone at the bottom would start cheering and the news cameras would flash. Camera men and reporters would run up to interview the newlyweds. Since, as I mentioned, there were a lot of couples getting married, there was a lot of cheering. The orchestra played constantly all day.

At one point during the day, I took a short break to observe the happenings. Most of the couples getting married were what you'd expect, older couples who had been waiting a long time for this, androgynous in their loose clothing and short hair. But there were two couples that really caught my attention. The first was a heterosexual couple, the bride in a long white wedding dress with a red bouquet, the groom in a black tux with matching red corsage. They looked lost in all the gay pride hullabaloo.

The other couple was very different. Two girls, that looked to be about my age. My first thought was, "what on earth are they doing!?" All the couples you hear about in the news have been together for years. These two couldn't possibly have been together that long. Then I remembered I'm old, and plenty of people my age are married, with kids. Anyway, these two were not like all the other couples. These were the lesbians guys dream about. Cute, young, girly. They looked like the type my guy friends would hit on in a club (if one of them would get up the nerve to hit on a girl.) Both had on stylish, form flattering white dresses. The brunette's beautiful long hair hung down her back in soft curls. The blondes short do was styled sort of fun and funky. Every camera crew just had to interview them. They stood together, arms around each other's waists, one's hand caressing her wife's lower hip, the other's hand rubbing her wife's back. Other, more mundane couples, like the flamboyantly gay guys, were ignored as these two took everyone's attention.

The cutest weddings to see were the ones where the couples brought their children too. At the end of the ceremony, they would take a nice big happy family photo. All sorts of permutations of families, and somehow all adorable. That was really beautiful to see. One of my favorites was where one of the sons held up the wedding license for the picture.

By the time I left work at 6:30, the place was still bumping. I took the back stairs downstairs, paused to avoid walking into a family portrait being taken on the front steps, headed out the front door, and walked into the back of a dj booth! Even as I finally neared the BART station, I could still hear people cheering. It was a very exciting day for many.

(Original Post)

Bed

Exhausted

Traffic and loud roomates