Wedding III: The Aftermath

Now that the wedding is over and done with Richel and I are trying to get back to our 'normal' lives. Easier said than done. We still have to content with the wedding aftermath. The hotel sent us a bill, which I contested since I paid everything up front, we have thank you cards to write, and pictures to send with them, which we have recently ordered. The house is still in shambles, and we never really recovered after returning to Indy after the wedding. Prior to the event, the place was spotless, neat and pretty tidy, I'd say. Now, the study looks like someone took a stack of papers and threw them all up in the air and allowed them to settle wherever.

After getting back, Richel told me (after reading through one of her many women's magazines) that a lot of women go through a depression of sorts after having a big wedding. I think she was feeling that, too. I can understand that, however I've been there and done that so it didn't really phase me.

Not that I've participated to this degree in any previous wedding or that I was married once before. But it's the sudden change in day-to-day intensity and how you live your life. Perfect example are Step boards, or licensing boards, or specialty boards. You dedicate every waking hour (well, at least I did) to craming information in to your head for years, day after day after day. As the test date draws near, the intensity of studying increases exponentially day by day until ultimately, test day arrives. At that point there's nothing more you can do, you just have to go through with it and hope for the best. After a grueling 8-16 hours of intense concentration and brain work, you're done. You walk out of that test room and...now what? For the past year, 6 months, or whatever, everyday you've gone home to read, to pound information in to your head and now there's no need for it. It's almost like you don't know what to do with yourself.

Same thing with the wedding. Plans (and stress) start a year before the date, as the date draws nearer, preparations become more chaotic and the stress level goes up until the final day of marriage. At that point, there's nothing more you can do except just go through with it and hope for the best. And after a year of planning, stressing, and increasing intensity, it's all done. And now you're married.

So now you can go home and...now what? There's no more planning to do, no more research; there's no need. Once, again, it's like you don't know what to do with yourself.

Ring Around the Collar

Back in the 80's, laundry detergent companies like Tide or Cheer used to have these TV commercials with the classic phrase "ring around the collar". What would happen on the commercial is some guy wearing a white dress shirt would be talking when someone would stop him, look at his collar, and say,

"You have ring around the collar!" Shocked and embarassed, the man wearing the white collar shirt would look to a woman, presumably his wife and the wife would have this mortified look on her face.

The whole underlying message was very chauvenistic back then. Woman, because you're supposed to do the laundry and wash all the clothes, it's YOUR fault if your husband ends up with a "ring around the collar". I don't think this commercial would do too well in today's world, especially with all those radical femenists watch-dog committees out there. As my college professor once said,

"Why is it the woman's fault that her husband has a dirty neck? Let him do his own laundry, then." But that statement was back in the early 90's.

Today, we're in the year 2006 and equal rights between men and women are closer than they have ever been in American society than before. However, given this same commercial, the underlying message would STILL be "it's the wife's fault for her husband having ring around the collar." Ridiculous you might say? I think not, and here's why:

Young women who are of marrying age this day and age have been treated like a princess at home while growing up, never once having done the laundry. Then, after getting married, she's suddenly supposed to know how to do it, except she doesn't. So the husband does his own laundry because he doesn't want his wife to ruin his clothes in the wash, and he doesn't touch her laundry because women always wear these delicate frilly things that could possibly be ruined in the washing machine. So if it's going to be ruined, better to let the wife ruin her own clothes than for the husband to ruin it and get blamed. So he does his own, and she does her own. When the wife gets around to ironing her clothes she, once again, because she never ironed before a day in her life, ruins the iron. Unbeknownst to the husband, he starts to iron his shirt when suddenly, he's surprised to find that his shirts have this crusty burned texture to them, especially on the collars.

So, given the same commercial in today's world, everyone would still look at the wife with a mortified expression for "ring around the collar" and it wouldn't be sexist or chauvenistic in the least.

Up to His Old Tricks, Again

So now Bush wants to federalize the national guard, giving the federal government (i.e. himself) power over the national guard during times of "emergencies". I tell ya, this guy is getting scarier and scarier. First of all, the national guard needs to the approval of the governers and the federal government to mobilize and do whatever it is they need to do. Bush wants to do away with the governer's approval and just have the federal government make the decisions regarding the national guard.

Basically, this guy wants free reign of the military AND national guard? For what purpose? My God, this is just one step closer to Bush declaring a dictatorship. He's already started a war to make himself and his friends rich under the guise of freedom and liberty, which we all know is a bunch of crap (funny how he says nothing about freedom in Tibet or South Africa). He's lied to the country, he's lied to Congress (and how come there was no talk of impeachment then? But when Clinton lied about a personal issue it was a big deal?), and he's lied to the armed forces. He's started surveillance monitoring of communications of AMERICANS. Now he wants control of national and state servicemen. It's mind-boggling. What's truly frightening is that there are people out there who see Bush as a great president, that everything he's doing is right, and they support him all the way. Usually, those are the religious right freaks or members of the GOP. Either way, for anyone to think that Bush is doing the right thing or is a great and righteous president must be A, a brain injury patient, or B, uneducated and/or illiterate (my apologizies to any brain injury patients or illiterate people I may have offended).

Bush needs to go on another vacation and stay on vacation for the remainder of his term.

Hippocrisy of the NRA Mentatlity

The NRA. It's most famous and prevailing arguement for the common Joe to own firearms is, "Guns don't kill people; people with guns kill people."

Using that logic, let's expand that attitude and mentality to an international scale. And let's make the guns bigger, stronger, and more destructive. Then you can say, "Weapons of mass destruction don't kill people; people with weapons of mass destruction kill people." Or "Nuclear weapons don't kill people; people with nuclear weapons kill people." Hey, in that case, Iran and South Korea have every right to start manufacturing nuclear arms. But oh no, in the interst of national security it would be best if no other countries, especially those, didn't have weapons of mass destruction/ nuclear arms.

Isn't it ironic though that the same people who are proponents of the NRA and have firearms themselves are the same people who support Bush's Unctuous War/ War on Terror?

So it's okay to have weapons, just as long as it's me and not you.