Live from Austin!

It had been some four years since I had last visited England. Given how little time off Americans get, visiting my family means not actually having a proper vacation that year, so I don’t get to go back as often as everyone would like. This time the visit was for a particular event: my brother Edward was getting married.

I know I have some friends who don’t really understand the whole “marriage” thing. As the saying goes, “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” Here’s an analogy that might help:

Consider sports. It’s possible to watch a random sports game and get something out of it. However, most fans choose to support a specific team. They make a long term commitment to that team. They go to its matches even when the weather’s bad. They buy logo shirts and hats and scarves and memorabilia. They support the same team for years, even if it loses, even if they move to a different part of the country or a different part of the world.

Why do they do this? Clearly, committing to supporting one team in some way makes watching the games better. It enhances the experience. The committed supporter gets something out of the game that an uncommitted spectator simply doesn’t get, even if the actual game is the same.

So anyway, my brother was getting married, and we were to attend. And since it’s a long way to travel just for a couple of days, we planned to go a week early and spend some time with the family.

Shortly before booking the plane tickets, I learned that British Airways and Virgin Atlantic each have a “deluxe economy” class. BA call theirs World Traveler Plus, Virgin’s is Premium Economy. In either case, it costs about 15% more than the regular cattle class ticket. For that you get a wider seat that reclines further and has proper lumbar support and headrest, there’s more legroom, and you get proper food and free drinks, priority baggage handling, and so on. We decided to give it a shot; anything to make the 6-8 hour transatlantic hop more bearable.

Unfortunately, no US airline offers anything like it. They have cattle class, and they have the outrageously expensive first class, and that’s it. So we were stuck on an American Airlines flight to Chicago, where we had to change to British Airways for the rest of the journey. It was a bit like taking a Greyhound bus to your limo; I don’t know why BA picked American as their “OneWorld Alliance” partner airline.

In Chicago, we had to change terminals. Which meant leaving the secured area, walking across to the trains, getting the train to Terminal 4, and then going back into the airport and clearing security again.

Unfortunately, Chicago O’Hare’s Terminal 4 doesn’t have proper security facilities yet, as it seems to be last on their list for upgrades. (It seems they want to build a new Terminal 4 that works, then demolish the current one.) It’s also the terminal every single international flight leaves from, which means lots of people who look suspicious (i.e. not white and midwestern), which in turn means security is slower than normal.

At the far end of the shopping concourse, they had set up 5 makeshift security gates. Three lines of frustrated would-be travelers stretched the entire length of the concourse, past all the shops and restaurants, all the way to the building’s entrance doors.

After spending around 40 minutes in line, we reached the TSA person whose job it is to look at your boarding pass and passport. She said something unclear about needing a boarding pass. I looked at the boarding pass I had obtained from the online check-in. It said “Boarding pass” in large letters, and “You are now ready to fly”, and had a bar code. I explained that we had checked in for the flight online.

No, explained the TSA person, you have to get your boarding pass stamped. By the ticket desk. Hence defeating the entire purpose of online checkin. I looked at my watch nervously, and explained that we would never be able to make it through the queues again in time for our flight. The TSA staffer said we could jump the queue when we came back.

So, we left the queue and found the BA ticket desk. The woman there sighed and explained that it was a new rule the TSA had imposed, and nothing to do with BA. She stamped our boarding passes with a generic rubber stamp, and wrote something illegible over it with a ball point pen. We walked all the way back up to the front of the security line, and this time made it through. Good job, TSA; security theater at its finest.

Beyond the security barriers there was a small stand selling snacks at an outrageous markup. By this time we were tired and angry and hungry, so I gave in and got some Chex Trail Mix.

Once we were on the BA plane, things looked up. The seats were comfortable, with good back support, and headrests at head level. (I don’t know where US airlines get the midgets they use to design their seating.) Before long there was food and drink, and they remembered my vegetarian meal preference. I took a melatonin tablet, reclined the seat, and tried to nap.

In answer to a question from Dan

What does marriage mean to you? What baggage do you carry about the concept?

I think that there are at least three different things people refer to using the word “marriage”.

The first, obviously, is the process of civil union as described in law. This gives the married individuals certain rights and obligations to each other—and to the tax man, unfortunately.

The second is the religious ceremony of marriage. I don’t have much to say on this subject; I gather it’s quite different depending on the religion. Even Christian sects seem to have some major differences.

The third is what, to me, is the important thing: the relationship and commitment between the people being “married”. This is really down to the individuals to define for themselves.

I think one reason that there are so many divorces is that people are distracted by the legal and religious aspects of marriage, and they don’t really put in enough thought about the individual, personal aspects—what they want it to mean to be married. The average American marriage, according to MSNBC, costs just over $22,000. People spend a lot of money getting married, but they don’t seem to spend much time seriously defining it first. Which brings me back to the original question.

It’s hard to say what marriage means in a few words. It’s much easier to say why I married sara: I realized that she was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I’d never met anyone like her, I’d never got on with someone as well as I had with her. I realized that she had become my closest friend ever.

So I suppose marriage is the process of living your life in association with another person. I see it as primarily about finding a life partner, and I feel your spouse should be your best friend. Of course, that’s just my definition of marriage; maybe you’d prefer a trophy wife.

As to baggage… I’ve seen marriages—and serious unmarried relationships—fail badly. I’ve seen people get divorced in less than a year. I’ve seen friends go through a string of drama-filled relationships they can’t sustain beyond a year. Then, on the other hand, I’ve seen people suffer decades-long on-again-off-again almost-marriages where they couldn’t quite commit. I don’t think it has given me any particular baggage, other than a determination to do better myself.

I woke up at 01:30 to find sara snoring like a rusty Roto-tiller. I tried the usual tricks to get her to stop—a light touch on the nose, a brush on the forehead, a gentle nudge. None of them worked, so I tried the usual last-ditch measure, and gently pushed her head until it had rolled into a new position.

After a minute or so of blissful silence, the noise began again, louder than before. I tried an elbow in the ribs. No reaction.

I was puzzled, and now fully awake. I tried speaking to her. I tried lifting her up as if to roll her over. No reaction at all. I concluded that she’d taken some kind of incredibly powerful sleeping pill… either that or she’d pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. She’d been lying awake worrying about her acute case of Alice when I’d come to bed, so I was guessing the former. She was out for the count, in fact if it hadn’t been for the noise I’d have worried that she had dropped dead.

I tried head-to-the-left. I tried head-to-the-right. I tried head-looking-straight-up. I tried with and without the pillow. Nothing helped. I considered trying to roll her over, but I was slightly worried that in her insensible state she might choke to death on a faceful of pillow or something. I couldn’t remember whether Sudden Infant Death Syndrome meant you were supposed to put them on their backs or their fronts. Moving her out of earshot was also not really an option, so finally I was forced to admit defeat.

Which is why I slept on the couch last night. Luckily it’s a futon designed to double as a bed, so I got a reasonable amount of sleep. I nearly took the duvet with me, but decided that would just be petty, so I slept under the Polarfleece throw blanket instead. Around 05:30 I woke enough to notice that the noise from the bedroom had stopped, and returned to bed.

I feel like sleeping on the couch has been a kind of marital rite-of-passage, albeit without the usual broken crockery and yelling.

A researcher alleges that “men who cohabit with the women they eventually marry are less committed to the union than men who never lived with their spouses ahead of time.”

Read on, though, and it becomes clearer: “Men who either drift into marriage “through inertia” following a cohabiting arrangement or who are “dragged down the aisle” by women who finally put their feet down are not good marriage risks, he says.”

In other words: Men who don’t really want to get married but are dragged into it by the woman tend not to be good husbands. Well, duh.

Being married is much like not being married, with a bit less insecurity. I’ve been trying it for a couple of years now, and I’d recommend it. Of course, you have to find the right person to try it with. I seem to have done exceptionally well on that score. I’m fairly sure there aren’t many couples who have lived together for over four years without having an argument. Or at least, not since Valium started getting all that bad press.

For our anniversary, Sara got me a huge bauhaus book. It’s the most comprehensive book about bauhaus I’ve ever seen. They all cover graphic design, architecture, product design and so on. It’s much rarer to find detailed information about bauhaus theater, social life, and Mazdaznan.

When my parents say that they’re disappointed that Helen and I aren’t planning to get married, I resent it.

When her parents say that they’re relieved that Helen and I aren’t planning to get married, I still resent it.

Her parents say she’s far too good to marry a miserable git like me.

My parents say exactly the same thing.