Last year we were in Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving. This year we were on Long Island. On Thanksgiving morning, we took a stroll along the Jones Beach boardwalk, one of Matthew’s favorite places. More photos at Flickr.

Since I got married I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about life and what I want to be doing whilst living it. I remember when I was in college, a friend read my palm and told me that my lifeline drew its path through many different vocations — that I’d have many different careers in my life.

That’s always stuck with me.

More and more over the summer, circumstances and events were telling me that it’s time to try something new. An opportunity came about through a good friend at a small, successful children’s book publisher. The prospect of being able to switch to a whole different environment — the company is in Amherst and I currently work in Springfield — and to be able to learn a whole new way of doing business was exciting to me. I enjoy challenges and I enjoy learning new things.

I am going to be working as an editor, keeping the production of books on the right path. I’ll also be helping the company move into doing more multimedia.  I have a lot to learn about print media. I know a lot has changed since I was in college.

It’s always difficult to leave a job, but I didn’t know how hard it would be to leave a job where I love the work and the people so much.

Of course, MassLive.com is also where I met my husband and he will still be working in this office in his position with Advance Internet after I am gone. I’ll miss our lunches and carpooling. I’ll miss running errands and going to the grocery store. These have been mid-day rendezvous not afforded to most married couples.

Matthew and I took a much-needed mini-honeymoon to Quebec City last weekend. All of my photos, which are being continuously added by a handful each day — are available at flickr. We also took a bunch of flip videos, which are currently available on facebook only, but I’m going to maybe add them to flickr at some point. I have a ton of those, but have only uploaded two so far. The sucky thing about Flip Cams is that you can only use the internal editing software on a PC. And our PC at home is pretty crappy at this point (sorry Matt). If I have more time or inclination, I’ll take to editing the raw files on the Mac. Not sure it’s worth it, but you know, we’ll see.

There were papers to sign, but there was no real need to prove that we’re worthy of a marriage license. They didn’t even ask for any identification, a fact that chilled Matt and me to the bone.

Fact: We are the 100th couple to declare our intent to marry to the city in 2008.

We were way more prepared than I thought we’d be so that may have contributed to the quickness of the experience. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts no longer requires a blood test, so that wasn’t necessary. We did have to raise our right hands and swear that what we wrote down on the application was true. I think I said yes. Matthew confirmed later that he had replied “yup.”

In sum, we signed some papers, raised our right hands, paid $25 and left.

In my hyper blogging days, I may have photographed the experience in its entirety, stopping to snap a shot of the application, but to be honest I was a bit nervous about the whole thing and didn’t want to draw too much attention. It was only after we had walked out of the City Clerk’s office that I brandished my Nikon. Matthew and I took some time to admire the building, and stopped to check out a ward map of the city posted in the hallway. I pointed out how our house offers the fantastic Three Ward View.

Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

Taken from PDF courtesy LA Times.

UPDATE: As it turns out I can “tack” the rings together afterwards. Jewelry dealers are so strange. Each one of them has a different idea of how to sell a ring.

As for Matt’s ring. He tried on a lot of them and ended up picking out one that had a matte stripe in the middle. We noticed that the non-matte part was kind of shiny in sort of an uber-flashy way, so I think we’ll revisit the ring situation when I drop off the engagement ring.

Oh yeah. They have to take my ring away so they can make me a band. So I’ll be without it for who knows how long and that will be sad. I think I have bad dreams when I’m not wearing it.

Oh the picture? That’s my dad’s trophy from winning the Oscar contest this year. Pretty snazzy, ain’t it? I came so close to winning, though, I think I at least own some of that Oscar. I’ll take the butt cheeks.

P.S. Photos are kind of a pain in Wordpress. Boo.