honeymooning

What? Four blog posts in one day? Yes, get over it. This one is particularly important, considering Nik and Thea have just returned from their honeymoon and have posted some tasteful pictures here and Nik's commentary has left me gasping for breath. It's not fair that one family was given so much more wit and timing than all the others.

My favourite quote for the day is: "It was lovely to finally live with Althea, not have to say goodnight and part ways, and to wake up together in the morning. I highly recommend it."

Nik's recommendations have never been disappointing.

They leave for South Korea in less than a week.
*choke*

proud personal assistant

My boss and psuedo-uncle, Ron Baxter Smith, was just informed that the prestigious "international journal of visual communication", Graphis, wants to publish not one, not two, but three of Ron's photos in the upcoming Graphis Photography Annual 2007.

The shots were taken on a dull afternoon spent in Italy. Ron was bored, so he took his camera out to shoot some roots. Click, click, click: award-winning. The man's a genius. Also a little crazy.

Just one more to add alongside the 400+ other awards he's won over the years. Pardon my gushing. I'm quite pleased.

I'm also almost positive that it's some sort of copywrite infringement to post the pictures here, on my blog, so do be kind and look only. I'd rather not get sued.

c'est quoi?

Anyone been invited to this yet? I just changed my blog over last night. Seems to update faster, and provide more options. Plus, the font is prettier. And we all know I'm a sucker for pretty things. And it includes quirky instructions like, "What's cooler than a box of crayons? Customizing your blog with Layouts."

Anyone understand what's up? Google taking over the world? Should I be concerned? Because unless someone can provide me with concrete evidence that this is the Mark Of The Beast, I kind of like it...

little miss sunshine

I just watched the most fabulous movie, "Little Miss Sunshine". I can't remember a time I laughed so hard since Jordan Delic at Nik and Thea's wedding.

I'm sure it's bumped a movie off to make into my Top Five List. That list is as follows (but is generally in flux):

• Braveheart
• The Royal Tanenbaums
• Amelie
• LOTR (it is widely held that all three movies count as one Top Five List entry)
  
• Little Miss Sunshine

Post your Top Fives, people. Inquiring minds want to know...

monday monday, so good to me

Since I rescheduled my life - including a fixed date night with Gargamel/Galileo/Il Pastore once a week - I have been feeling so much more relaxed. I have discovered a previously untapped adoration for Mondays since scheduling them as "stay in" night. Who knew that returning emails, tidying, making mix CDs, reading, praying and journaling could be so rewarding?

Not that any of you should take this as an open invitation to call me on Monday nights because you know I'm home.

sex and the city

So, I've been thinking about sex. That's right. I said it. And it's not only because Angela keeps mentioning the joys of married life, or that my best friends are either enjoying or planning to enjoy said rights, or that I've seen far too much lingerie in the past month, or that I have an incredible (and hot) boyfriend, or that I'm currently listening to Barry White sing "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby", but ALSO because I'm halfway through reading a book entitled "Real Sex" by Lauren F. Winner. It's a book on chastity.

I found it uncomfortable to read on public transit as the original cover jacket has a huge picture of a blossoming magnolia on it and REAL SEX printed in red hot lettering, so I took the cover off. Still, I had a guy chatting me up the other day, asking me what I was reading.

Me: "A book called 'Real Sex'."
Him: [eyes widen]
Me: "It's a book on chastity."
Him: "What?"
Me: "Chastity."
Him: "What's that?"
Me: "Not having sex."
Him: [eyes narrow]

In the book, Winner addresses sex and how far culture has come in providing a healthy, balanced view of sex. She starts by outlining sex in its rightful, spiritual, Biblical and marital context:

It is a law that invites into the created order of marital sex; a law that rightly orders our created desires for sexual pleasure and sexual connectedness; a law, in short, that cares for us and protects us, written by a Lawgiver who understands that life outside of God's created intent destroys us. By contrast, life lived inside the contours of God's law humanizes us and makes us beautiful. It makes us creatures living well in the created order. It gives us the opportunity to become who we are meant to be. (p. 42)

And talks about the social responsibilities that married couples have to their community, and their community to them:

...When we realize that sexual love is a primary force in constructing a household, and that households are primary components of constructing community, it begins to appear, indeed, that sexuality is something that should have a public, communal face...Sexuality is an integral part of human mutual dependence. Sex, then, is a communal topic. We Christians - whose primary idioms are not individualistic, but communal, the Body of God and the church - are to see in sexuality the bonds of community. (p. 58)
In thomas Cranmer's sixteenth-century language, brides and grooms vow that "with my body, I thee worship." Not a private affair between to atomized adults who contract to live together, Christian weddings are essentially communal. The bride and groom are surrounded by their community, and one of the most important moments of the ceremony is when the minister asks the congregation whether it will do all in its power to uphold the bride and groom intheir covenant of marriage. The congregation answers, "We will." (p.58-59)

I always liked that part of a wedding. I liked the feeling of hearing my own voice chorus with everyone else's, pledging to support the marriage, and have always looked forward to the day when I will hear a chours of voices pledging to support my own.

It's made me think of how open our culture is to discuss, analyse, dissect, scrutinize, detail, categorize, exaggerate, rate, and portray sex but how far from the marriage bed the subject has wandered. How every nuance and variety of sex is open for discussion except for married sex. It's like the only taboo sex these days is sex after marriage.

There was a commercial I remember seeing a few years ago that showed a couple furiously making out while crashing through the door of a hotel and falling on to a bed. The tag line was, "The best sex I ever had was with my wife."

If anyone can remember the advertising campaign, client, or product, let me know. I'd like to express my gratitude.

a moment in time

I love this quote, by Ranier Maria Rilke, and how it applies to so many of life's episodes:

Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered.

My dear friend, Nikolas Delic, married the gorgeous Althea Pacis on August 5th and the experience was amazing. We realized that never again would all six of us from Erindale Christian Fellowship (Lina, Thea, Nik, Dan, Joey and myself) be in the same bridal party, so the event had a bittersweet tone to it. Still, I don't know if I've laughed so hard or for so long or in the company of people I love more.

Kate wrote a great post, with lots of linking hilarity, and more pictures that I didn't upload here.

Here are a few pictures, yoinked from Paul's gallery, for you, the viewers, to check out. They happen to be my favourite (after having sifted through all 319 shots...Paul's a photographic MANIAC) because they tell a story. Enjoy.

Knox College, where the ceremony took place. Very LOTR.
Thea, calm, cool and collected about an hour before the ceremony.
Jordan (left) and Nik (right) Delic before the ceremony - donning the kilts that were a surprise for their Scottish grandmother, and which made her cry when she saw them.
Kate and me before the ceremony. Big smiles. And, in my case, big hair to match.
Kate, as the florist, pinning a boutonniere on her brother, Joey.
Nik's face as Thea came down the aisle. Priceless. Someone once told me that, although everyone stands to watch the bride enter the room, the real drama can be seen on the groom's face as he watches her.
Thea as she is brought down the aisle by her father.
The kiss. Paul pointed out that Thea is leaning back...slightly.
Jordan had just muttered to me that he was "sweating like a fat, Mexican pig".
My lovely Gaz and me. We're probably laughing here after having commented that this looks like a prom shot.
Kate and me, doing a typical Kate and me pose.
Now who's leaning back, Paul?
The boys in their kilts.
Nik pulling an impromptu tango move during Thea and his first dance as a wedded couple.
Nik and me, doing a typical Nik and me pose.
I laughed pretty much all day, really, which was only unfortunate due to the fact that my dress was altered to fit EXTRA snuggly and was giving me mild ribcage pains...