Forgot to mention... All this actual legal marriage stuff is only possible because we got Trevor's birth certificate! See photo evidence below.

embarrassing photo courtesy of Alex Currie.

okayokayokay.

More delays, all the time. I'm working on how to put this stuff into a gallery show, and it's been boggling my mind for a longish time now. Firstly, because I don't know how I feel about it in general. There's this nice openness right now because it's not all isolated and sterile against a white wall. Then there's also the side where, because it's just the beginning of a fairly long term project, I don't want to just whip something together if it's going to end up being a standard format for something that I don't want to compromise. THEN there's also the problem where I am literally flat broke, and can't even afford to actually process the photos from the wedding.

Which leads into my second monumental problem. A major oversight on my part - I did the initial research for pricing and the Ontario website gave an estimated figure of $50 for a marriage license (or I got that from some source...), but it is actually $125 at the City of Guelph. Toronto, Kitchener and Cambridge are all $130. Worse, there's the part where I have to actually get a legal official to sign the form, which realistically should not be too expensive, since it's just a signature at the bottom of the goddamn page. Every so often I underestimate how stupid bureaucratic systems are though, and this is one of those times. It costs $200 for someone to sign my certificate. $200! For a signature!

I emailed my friend Jared Both of Barn Owl fame, who's getting his masters in theology. He's an amazing guy - I once read an essay he wrote on Christianity and dumpster diving and it was so inspiring and really challenged all my flippant opinions of what it means to be Christian. Anyway, he has offered to email around and see if any of his seminary friends are licensed under the Marriage Act and are willing to sign my certificate at a discount. I am so immensely relieved to hear that.

I still have to get a job probably, haha. I should probably have a job anyway. Or, no, that's not true, I work constantly. But I should have a more realistic way of feeding myself in an immediate sense. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. This will happen sooner or later, even if it ends up having to wait until January when I get my fresh batch of OSAP funds. I will take it all out of my bank account at once in $5 bills, and roll in them and sleep in them and bury myself in them, then take them to City Hall and get myself a husband.

In conclusion,
gweroidhfjndmsdgggggggghhhh,
Laura

http://theontarion.ca/viewarticle.php?id_pag=2821

Urgh, I've been neglecting you! I've been in a really strange head space ever since the wedding, which is honestly a pretty unexpected outcome. It's not as a consequence of getting married either, to be clear, it's just a strange overlapping of different changes. Haha. I'm going through some 'Changes.' Anyway.

I've been thinking and talking with people a lot lately about how we communicate with each other. Especially how our attempts at communicating are really distorted by the way we've been brought up. It seems tangental I guess, but it isn't really, because agreeing to put effort into understanding each other and honestly trying to be fair and good to each other is what commitment is. It seems as though marriage is supposedly the expression of this commitment - of agreeing to be together and work together at having a good and mutually-beneficial relationship. But marriage isn't what does that - it's honest effort.

To reiterate - I'm not talking about my marriage here, haha. Trevor's a great guy, we're not having relationship problems. It's actually in the context of my other friendships that I'm thinking about this communication stuff. Which is interesting in itself because there's also this expectation sometimes that the romantic relationships require all this work, as though your other human relationships don't.

I'm not really proposing anything here, just trying to put together some of the thoughts that have been pinballing around my skull for a while. I guess the way that I'm thinking of the importance of clear and caring communication (haha, inspirational alliteration) in reference to the marriage stuff is less about how the two individuals who are married communicate and more about how we as a culture treat each other generally, and talk about things generally and more importantly, how we don't talk about things.

What I'm most excited about coming out of Wedding #1 is that I've been having so many good conversations with people about it, and not often in the context of 'what makes this art?' Which is amazing and so much more than I could ever have hoped for. I'm aware that there are a variety of opinions about the project, and that's great, because ultimately the point for me is that it's a conversation worth having. Anyway. I would really honestly like to thank everyone who has been talking to me lately, and I'm blown away by how affected I am by it. See ya at the divorce party.

The above portrait, seen at the wedding on the piano, was done by the marvelously talented and generous Stefan Herda. He makes his own inks - so this was painted in buckberry. It started in a pinky blue, then turned more of a green, and is transitioning into brown right now. Crazy stuff. Thanks Stefan.

The wedding was amazing, thank you to everyone who came. I'll do a more thorough response to it sometime soon, but today is hectic and I have a ton of thank you emails to send out right now.

But! I would like to put out a call to anyone who had their camera there last night! I'd love to see whatever photos you took, and I'd like to put together a spiffy book of everything. Lemme know! I suppose you can find me on facebook to message me. Or, just email me at lsimon02@uoguelph.ca

Thanks amigos,
love love,
Laura (still Simon)

Okay. okay. okkay.

It's the night before my wedding. I will be married in 26.5 hours. Interesting feeling. I'm not really that stressed about the fact that I'll be a wife, or any of that. It's all the practical elements that are freaking me out. Youtube karaoke, renting projectors, the altar, white gloves, flowers, balloons, timing, door people... I have a feeling it'll be about five minutes until it's all about to happen, then I'll have a heart attack.

I had a studio visit last week where I frantically was asking a bunch of questions about this project, in terms of the balance of humour and seriousness, and how much of this was performance. I cannot explain why, but I have this aversion to calling the project "performance art." Partially, I think it's because the term makes me think back to my grade 10 career studies class, where my bigotted teacher said "This is what left wing means..." and proceeded to dance around the classroom saying "zaaaaa zaaaaa zaaaa" and making 'artistic' gestures. It really worries me that that's how people will interpret what I do. I hate thinking that I'm going into a career that is alienating or aloof in any way. I want to be a part of the real world, too.

Also, I think "performance" sometimes infers that it's something fake, or symbolic. As much as the wedding itself will be a performative gesture, or whatever, I'm still doing this, as a person. So the project is performance as much as any wedding is performance. I guess that's okay, because there's definitely a conversation you can have about every gesture people make being a performance on some level, where they are aware of how they're being interpreted by others. But I want to be performance on the same level as that, where I'm participating in the same institutions as everyone else, making gestures that are no more profound - just reacting as a person to what's already there.

I did research for my marriage.

ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod

Most commonly received question lately: Does it have to be legal?

We're down to 152 hours left (accurate this time) and more than me having the jitters, everyone around me seems to feel it too. I say seems because there's a good chance I'm just projecting that and every time someone brings it up, I feel like they feel anxious, which is actually me feeling anxious... "Oh, you're getting married soon." "HOLY SHIT, STOP STRESSING ME OUT."

I'm working out the final details of the evening now, a la ceremony and all that. I think the party portion is taken care of. The legal side is all that's making me anxious now, really. Well, that's kind of a lie, but mostly true. We still do not have a birth certificate, and while it should be fine, I'm getting a bit worried that it might just not come. It occurred to me that maybe Mother in Law #1 is not a fan of the project, which would maybe make sense, and is withholding the birth certificate intentionally. I can't blame her, but in the off-chance she'll ever read this I'd like to emphasize that I've talked to lawyers about this and everything will be okay.

I don't think I want to get long-winded about explaining this whole thing, but I would like to say specifically that it is very important, crucial even, that this be a legal marriage. To avoid being obtuse - I don't have a problem with people who are in committed monogamous relationships, and if they choose marriage as an expression of that, then that's cool. But there's a problem with marriage being represented as a natural inclination, and a "natural institution" even. One that's supposedly an inevitable part of most people's lives, and one which cannot be challenged socially because it has an inherent character. My marriages will be marriages only because of the legal definition, and if that's still valid to most people, then clearly there's a state-constructed character here that is malleable by the individuals who participate in it.

There's probably a more coherent way of saying that. I'll work on it. In the mean time, I'm going to glare at the sewing machine a bit more. My backup plan is officially to wear my prom dress.

Lull officially over. Part of acknowledging it was finally realizing it and then, quickly, reprimanding myself harshly, and getting past it. T-minus one week, seven days, 168 hours left of the single-life. 168 hours is a bit inaccurate, but close enough to be tangible is all I'm getting at anyway. I do a course in Toronto every once in a while, and as I was leaving this week I joked that the next time I was there, I'd be married. But it's true! I will be! This is just finally starting to resonate.

That strange parallel-bride universe feeling is getting stronger. I came into the 'project' with the mentality that it was actually a project, and it had this awesome clinical distance. I'm not planning my wedding here people, I'm "working". The holes are just starting to appear to me now.

Right now I'm trying to be less stressed out. Which is difficult, because my sewing machine is a vindictive piece of shit and is getting back at me for leaving it in a closet so long by eating every attempt I make at a dress. There is no way I am hand-sewing this thing, but it keeps occurring to me that it will probably go faster than sitting here, staring at the massive ball of thread that has somehow formed within two seconds. Guh. Maybe it's just one of those birthday-suit events.

Anyway, I just got a Regular Fantasies certificate declaring me an official "Bride to Be". This shit just got real.

It's quiet... Almost too quiet...

There's been a lull in the wedding planning lately. I lost the key to my mailbox (sorry housemates) so haven't been able to get Trevor's birth certificate out of it. His mum mailed it from home. So the legal stuff is all on hold until I figure that out, which can't be much longer since it's a grand total of 9 days away (minus half of today)! Then big party stuff is frighteningly on hold because of my lack of income. Not that I really know what I'd be buying anyway...

I'm having trouble right now deciding which direction to go in. On the one hand, the big fake ceremony is kind of the highlight of the evening, so I feel like I can't not do it. The only reason I'm considering dropping it is because it's becoming a bit too jokey for my own comfort. I mean, it's all well and good that it's fun, that's half the point. But I'm a bit worried that the closer it edges toward joke-dom, the less of an impact it'll have. You know, like it just becomes this kind of inappropriate humour that people will kind of laugh at but ultimately gloss over. I'm not feeling my most eloquent today.

Since I feel like I need to have a ceremony it'll probably go through. Now it's just a struggle to keep it from being too over-the-top, or alternatively, so over-the-top that it lands right back in the regular world. A bit challenging on a limited budget. We'll see. I mean, I have a drawer in my studio that is currently dedicated to housing eighty confetti poppers (!), so it's not like it'll be bland either way. I'm welcoming suggestions though, if you've got any.

Also worth mentioning - other confirmed artists for the event are Dan Frawley, who's doing some liquid-projection stuffs; Saffron Hodgson, who's creating a papier-mache cake piece; a monsieur Stefan Herda, who's doing a wedding portrait in ephemeral inks; Miles Stemp, doing some photographic documentation (viewable post wedding), and Anuta Skrypnychenko who is doing photo-documentation as well! If I ever manage to find a VHS camera, there'll be that, too. But that's proven to be tricky. Lemme know if you've got one I can borrow.

Well. This is the bizarre opposite of wedding jitters. I feel nothing. Like a dead lizard. I'm going to go and work on my wedding dress to get the heat on here. Interesting side note - did you know that the hot rocks you can buy for your pet lizard can actually kill it? In the real world, they'll lay on rocks that have been heated in the sun, but eventually those rocks cool off. On a fake hot rock, they just keep on going full tilt, which eventually cooks your lizard. Poor little dudes. That tidbit care of Nathan Saliwonchyk.

Who needs a real husband when I can have videos of John Stamos?

But seriously, I'm almost 90 per cent sure that Uncle Jesse was my first celebrity crush, in the way that I liked him without realizing what that was. I want to get married in that room full of candles and have him rock out on guitar real cheesy like.

I watched the Virgin Suicides last night for the first time since high school. The only thing I really remembered about it was the looming depression that followed me around for a couple days after watching it, oh god. But I forgot the specifics of that awful and oppressive time of life where everyone is forced into the gymnasium to clumsily hit on each other while your teachers stand around and watch. Imagine having your profs leaning against the walls at the bar while you were trying to pick up.

Anyway, this prompted me to go back into my journals from when I was 16 and look for evidence of my smothered, despotized and brilliant self - the tragic youth, with so much suppressed potential. It was a pretty good mix, overall, of heavy angst and naivete. A few long and interesting rants, intermixed with me practicing my signature switching my last name for the names of boys I liked. Lux had the habit of writing her crushes names on her underwear - apparently I wrote them on my leg.

I pulled out, for your entertainment, a love poem written by 16 year old me. Hopefully she'll forgive me for violating her privacy like this. I know, at least, that she'll eventually get over it, since I'm fine now.

Yes it's true that I've put you on a pedestal, dear

But isn't that where you belong?

Out of human range

The unnamed figure that would inspire song?

We don't have a contract, you and I

But that's not how I wanted it anyway

My distance is ensured

By your low s.... [the last word is just a squiggle]

I reflect

Can you see me from behind your eyes

I'm here and you're the closest I've ever been to myself

I'm quiet and ill-communicated

So please listen now

You're a constant in my dreams

And I think you've always been there

I've been trying to tell you

What I struggle to sort into words

Even now it won't be clear

You reflect me so I can see how I want to be that is I think I am I am losing words that I've never had and my voice is hoarse because I want to say every thought I can't remember and every explanation that made sense and I've misplaced all this by losing time and time again to my own memory and doubt and everything that ultimately doesn't matter because I love you

Hot shit. I'll do more exposes whenever I don't have interesting updates.

Has anyone ever noticed that I look like a muppet? Because I didn't until I did that drawing of myself for the poster, and now it's impossible not to. Goddamnit.

In wedding news, Hallowe'en set the scene for a hilarious altercation between Husband #1 and myself. Entirely jokingly, of course, Trev decided to steal my engagement ring and throw it across the room (jealous, no doubt, since he lost his own). The cheap dollar store plastic and all its glue gun repairs could not withstand the force of impact against the concrete floor of the Goog, and promptly busted into many pieces... "My engagement ring! You broke my engagement ring!"

It's funny, but I've started to forget that these things are taken seriously. So, when I got fake upset, and started moving the furniture looking for the pieces of my cheap ring, I wasn't really aware that the people helping me were not privvy to knowing that this is not a big deal. We found the final component - the pink heart-shaped fake-diamond part.

I felt badly, but the people seemed to find it funny. It's strange though, because it probably comes off as two people with limited means getting married, but diamond or plastic, the ring is still important. Then what dawned on me is that I'm still playing the part of the bride, but in a strange, twice-removed sort of way. It's like the parallel bride universe, where I get to take it all seriously, without having to take it all seriously. I do like my engagement ring (which I'm about to once again repair with my glue gun), I like referring to Trevor as my fiance, and I'm really excited for the wedding... but in the end, it doesn't really infringe upon my future planning. Weeewerd.