Thing to Remember: I actually don't hate weddings

It is easy to convince oneself that weddings are the worst. Even the mildest of cynics, with little effort, can roll their eyes and mutter something about social constructs or commercialism. I'm not a fan of tradition and ceremony in the first place, but when the pomp is accompanied by a nimiety of what I believe are misogynistic symbolisms, then ceremony becomes even less tolerable. Right?

Not so much, it turns out. I think it's time to realize that I actually love weddings. To hate weddings would certainly be to fall in line with a few of my other beliefs. But it's like I'm trying to generalize myself! You have to admit though, that a lot of wedding traditions are pretty non-feminist. Why do only girls mark themselves as taken with an engagement ring? Why often is it only the female that walks down the aisle, as the groom waits up front? And don't even get me started on, "Who presents this woman?"

I guess it's a choice. Do you want to view a wedding as what it historically was meant to be: the changing of hands? A bride now belongs to her husband instead of her father? OR do you want to view it as a celebration of how much two people love each other?

I was at a wedding this weekend. And it was just lovely. It's just a party! A celebratory acknowledgement of a terrific relationship! Weddings are just full of happiness and sincerity. I love them! I need to stop telling myself I don't love them, because I DO!

I know that if I ever decide to have a wedding, that I will analyze the heck out of every single tradition. And there are totally alternatives! At my sister's wedding, she and her husband were both walked down the aisle with both of their parents. A male friend of mine is engaged, and he wears an engagement ring as well. I think for myself, that I'll skip the actual ceremony and just have a super casual reception/party.

Anyway, my point is that I'm going to start making an effort to get better at giving myself permission to change my mind about stuff. Today is the official change in opinion regarding weddings: they are the best.

Bloggers IRL

Until this weekend, I had only met 2 bloggers in real life (Stephanie and Ruby). That's crazy! Only 2? I read several hundred. That's crazy, too!

This weekend I've met 7 Chicago bloggers and they are all fantastic. Some are bloggers that I have never read before, and some are bloggers who are long time favourites. We totally geek out and talk about a lot of Innernet things, and really? It's just so much fun. Talking about blogging with bloggers really adds a new dimension to the blogosphere. I feel like I understand blog world from a new perspective.

The thing about bloggers is that we are friends out of choice. I mean, you HAVE to be nice to your neighbour or co-worker or whatever, right? But bloggers are all there, hanging out, because we're legit interested in each other. I'm in email, phone, or instant messenger communication with at least 30 bloggers, and I would classify each and every one of them as Nicest Person Ever. I just love the blogosphere.

At the end of September, we're planning the first official 20SB Toronto Meetup. I'm hoping that at least 20 people will show up. Exciting! If you're from Toronto, join us!

Family Bowling

My family just likes to bowl. We have an annual bowling tournament with all my extended cousins, with a trophy and everything. When people come home for Christmas and stuff, we go bowling. Last weekend, I was home for a while between my arrival home from Kenya, and my departure off to Chicago. So we went bowling.

It was just the 6 youngest kids and my dad. We were promised donuts if the 6 of us collectively scored 700. This was 5 pin bowl, so the max score per person is 450. So it shouldn't have been so hard to each get about 117 points, right?

Each round, we had a target score. Round 1: 12 points. Round 2: you should now be up to about 24. Round 3: hit 36! If anybody was less than the target ,we called them a borrower, and if they were over target, we called them a lender. Jack and Rob, the two youngest, were the only lenders for the first half of the game. There was hardly anybody else in the alley, and we REALLY wanted donuts, so we started cheering a lot.

It was looking grim after 5 rounds, with a collective score of only 320. AND WE WERE PLAYING WITH BUMPERS. After a really bad turn, my sister yelled, "come on, Lisa, you think we're playing for FUN here?" We take our donuts seriously.

Morale was dropping. Jenny didn't want to play anymore, so at her turn she picked up a ball and without even looking, rolled it down the alley... and got a strike. Morale soared! We were back in the game! Mostly there was a lot of hilarity and good times, so even though we ended with only 690 points, we got the donuts anyway. Everybody should have a big family.

Best/Worst Sisterly Highlights

I was baking with Jack and Rob, my two youngest brothers, the other day. No recipe! No measuring! W-w-wild, am I right? It was also like science class. At every step, I explained the science, like why we heat the water up before we mix in the Jello powder, or why we use baking powder.

Man! Best sister ever, right? What 7 and 10 year olds DON'T want science lessons all day? None. They all do. I was letting my head get a little big with all this "they must love this chemistry!" until I realized that maybe not all kids like the lecture. Maybe they just wanted to bake. Maybe I'm actually the worst sister ever?

Then, another other day, we went camping. When we were building the little teepee to start the fire, Jack asked if he could light the match. "SURE THING, SMALL CHILD," I said. I taught him how to strike the match, but as soon as it would light he would get scared and drop it. I took the matches from him, thinking I was being the best sister ever, because 7 year olds shouldn't be comfortable igniting fires anyway.

Man! Most responsible sister ever, right? When a 7 year old is match-curious but properly cautious, you should tell them to wait until they are older. Then I realized that maybe this is one of those curiosities that should be explored when the responsible older sister is around to help. So we knelt in the fire pit ashes together for a good 15 minutes, striking match after match until he was comfortable holding it in the middle so that the match stick wouldn't break. Then we practised shielding it from the wind with our hands, and eventually my favourite young lad started the fire all by himself. He was so proud of himself! And I was so proud of him, too!

Sometimes I'm not sure whats the BEST SISTER EVER thing to do, and when I'm actually just being WORST SISTER EVER. It's a tricky line, you guys! Well, they want to go ride bikes to the creek now. Here's what that involves: throwing rocks into the water to make a big splash. Again and again. I love those boys so much!

Goalies

Almost my whole family plays soccer. I do, two brothers don't, two brothers do, and all four sisters do.

Most of us play up in front, because all the glory in soccer goes to those who score goals. Let's face it! My older sister and I make a killer forward line complete with intricate trick plays. Other siblings play midfield, and some have dabbled in defence, I think. But Jack, my youngest brother, is dead set on goalie.

Goalie? Who on earth would want to play goalie? It's all stress! When you get scored on, the other team erupts in cheers. I can't imagine ever choosing to play goalie in any sport. But Jack loves it. He continually calls me over to the computer to watch youtube videos of goalie highlight reels. Sometimes I see him in his room acting out goalie moves, and diving to make saves (though nobody is in the room shooting on him.) He just loves goalie.

In hockey, they don't let people play exclusively goalie until they're about 10, so for now he has to be satisfied just in the team rotation schedule for different positions. In soccer though, he was asked to try out for the select team, and he made it as goalie. He loves the gloves. He loves wearing a special jersey. He loves running out, or making wild dives.

He's a big, aggressive, fast guy with really good footwork skills. Part of me really wants to encourage him to forget this goalie nonsense and play centre midfield or something. But another part of me is so proud of him, for making his own independent decisions about what he likes, even though he's only 7.

I went to a tournament this weekend to watch him play. OH MAN, it is tough to be cheering for the goalie. It's like, do you want people to shoot on him? Yeah, you kind of do. But only easy shots. But also you want the ball to be far away, in the other team's end, right? So then my poor goalie is bored the whole game. Then there was this other kid on his team who was clearly the best player on the field, and was also ADORABLE. And every time the crowd of parents (including me) cheered for something this kid did, I also knew that Jack was better than this guy. I want him to play out, and score all the goals, and be a hilarious ball hog.

He also gets really sad when he is scored on. He beats himself up, and turns it into his own mistake instead of realizing it was the defender who gave a break away, or etc. Jack-man! No! Don't be sad! I just want him to be happy! Man, the position of goalie just seems so lose-lose. But he loves it! I am so CONFLICTED.