Amanda has always been obsessed with spotting coincidences in her daily life. Just recently, her co-worker mentioned the name of a fictitious scientist just after Amanda learned of his “existence” from a novel she had just finished reading.
Since Ezra has been enjoying the oeuvre of They Might Be Giants, one of our favorite albums from our college years has been on heavy rotation. “It’s a brand new record for 1990; They Might be Giants' brand new album: Flood,” the CD begins. Really, 1990?! We have been relearning the lyrics to the first song on the album, “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” and singing it to Ezra in the car. We were surprised and excited when this twenty-year old song made an unexpected appearance on our new favorite show, Pushing Daisies. Our current favorite song and current favorite television show together. Coincidence?
Friday, August 27, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Celebrating Love and Home
There isn’t a calendar date associated with the start of our romantic relationship. No marking of a first date or wedding to define this month as the start of our relationship together. This month is more an upper boundary on a period of transition from good friends to realizing we were more than “just friends” and a shared recognition of our desire.
Our friendship started during college, our romance burgeoned on a study abroad program in Italy and our relationship has lasted through periods of levity and turmoil.
During the course of our 15-year relationship, we have moved a lot. During our first year together, we had four housemates. Our shortest stay was 9 months in a too-small apartment overlooking a construction area. The rental house we feel most fondly of, while not legally condemned, has been personally condemned by our families. Given all our moving, we haven’t lived in any one place for too long.
So it’s notable that this month we’ve also now lived in our home four years – our wonderful, one-room, converted church.
It’s the longest we’ve lived anywhere together. Add a couple more years and this will be the longest I’ve ever lived under one roof. I’m honored to share my life, my home, my body and love with my spouse, lover and friend.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
What is a Postilius?
Like so many couples, when Amanda became pregnant we decided to start a blog. It is now expected of the expecting; I believe it’s the task on the to do list right after registering at Target. Common concerns people have about starting blogs are issues of privacy, finding time to commit to writing posts, or not knowing what to write. My only reason for dragging my feet was that I am terrible at thinking of titles, and I had no idea what to name our blog. A title is important. A good one should, in a few words, summarize what the blog is about, set a tone, and at the same time be catchy. I have a hard time being creative under pressure so we abandoned originality and published at garryandamanda.blogspot.com. We always planned to change this name, but felt more of a need to do so after the discovery of garyandamanda.blogspot.com. We thought it best to not create confusion between this nice Mormon couple and ourselves. We are sure that garyandamanda agree.
The word Postilius came from past discussions we have had with friends about how to handle surnames when a couple marries. Does one person take the other person’s last name and abandon his or her own? Do you hyphenate? Do you create a new name? Amanda and I never questioned keeping our respective last names (and gave Ezra both our names), but would joke about combining our names, Milius and Posto, into a new last name. We would laugh at how ridiculous these new names sounded. Miliosto is impossible to pronounce without using an exaggerated Italian accent and sounds like a name a faux-Italian fast food restaurant might give their new baked pasta creation. I always thought Postilius sounded like an irritating, but not lethal, medical condition, maybe the clinical term for a type of skin rash.
Postilius does not explain what our blog is about. It is difficult to spell. It is not catchy. I admit it is a terrible blog name, but we have grown attached to it. Postilius has become our family’s collective identity since we all have different last names - including the one we made up for our dog, Piper Brandon*. The once ridiculous sounding Postilius now escapes our lips effortlessly and has become our online home, persona, and brand (it is very 21st century to brand yourself!). Regardless, welcome to The Postilius “Household.”
*Our cats, Sister Stella Marie and Sister Mary [Mother of God Full of] Grace chose to relinquish their last names when they devoted their life to the convent. Nuns are married to God, and God doesn’t have a last name. He is famous, like Cher.
The word Postilius came from past discussions we have had with friends about how to handle surnames when a couple marries. Does one person take the other person’s last name and abandon his or her own? Do you hyphenate? Do you create a new name? Amanda and I never questioned keeping our respective last names (and gave Ezra both our names), but would joke about combining our names, Milius and Posto, into a new last name. We would laugh at how ridiculous these new names sounded. Miliosto is impossible to pronounce without using an exaggerated Italian accent and sounds like a name a faux-Italian fast food restaurant might give their new baked pasta creation. I always thought Postilius sounded like an irritating, but not lethal, medical condition, maybe the clinical term for a type of skin rash.
Postilius does not explain what our blog is about. It is difficult to spell. It is not catchy. I admit it is a terrible blog name, but we have grown attached to it. Postilius has become our family’s collective identity since we all have different last names - including the one we made up for our dog, Piper Brandon*. The once ridiculous sounding Postilius now escapes our lips effortlessly and has become our online home, persona, and brand (it is very 21st century to brand yourself!). Regardless, welcome to The Postilius “Household.”
*Our cats, Sister Stella Marie and Sister Mary [Mother of God Full of] Grace chose to relinquish their last names when they devoted their life to the convent. Nuns are married to God, and God doesn’t have a last name. He is famous, like Cher.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Letter to Ezra at 10 months
Dear Ezra,
When I wrote my last letter you weren’t even three months old. You have since started sitting up (4 months), you’re crawling (9 months) and just getting your first tooth. These developmental milestones are only a few of the ways in which you’ve grown and changed since December. You’ve changed in countless ways. At 10 months, you are leaving infancy behind. I feel as though I can barely recall how small you were even though as I lay breastfeeding you at 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months, I tried to memorize your imprint in my arms.
When I wrote my last letter you weren’t even three months old. You have since started sitting up (4 months), you’re crawling (9 months) and just getting your first tooth. These developmental milestones are only a few of the ways in which you’ve grown and changed since December. You’ve changed in countless ways. At 10 months, you are leaving infancy behind. I feel as though I can barely recall how small you were even though as I lay breastfeeding you at 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months, I tried to memorize your imprint in my arms.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Tales of Our Two Cities
We live in the tiny, tiny town of Stinesville (population 197, SAA-LUTE!*) which is outside of the not-quite-as-small, but small, university town of Bloomington (population 70,000, SAA-LUTE!) where we work and spend much of our non-sleeping time. Both cities have recently been featured in national publications.
On The New Yorker's blog, Blake Eskin revisits an infamous 1960 New Yorker article “The Yellow School Bus.” The original story followed 18 graduates from Stinesville's Bean Blossom Township High School on their senior trip to the big city of New York.
For the Washington Post, Robin Soslow writes about her visit to Bloomington. Describing the city as an “intellectual hamlet [where] every experience has an educational component, ” she mentions that “everyone - from chefs to landscapers [like my sister and her husband] . . . is a student by diploma or proximity.” She even visits my workplace, The Kinsey Institute.
*an obscure reference to the television show Hee Haw.
On The New Yorker's blog, Blake Eskin revisits an infamous 1960 New Yorker article “The Yellow School Bus.” The original story followed 18 graduates from Stinesville's Bean Blossom Township High School on their senior trip to the big city of New York.
For the Washington Post, Robin Soslow writes about her visit to Bloomington. Describing the city as an “intellectual hamlet [where] every experience has an educational component, ” she mentions that “everyone - from chefs to landscapers [like my sister and her husband] . . . is a student by diploma or proximity.” She even visits my workplace, The Kinsey Institute.
*an obscure reference to the television show Hee Haw.
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