Some of you may know that I got engaged a few months ago! Or you may not. You may not know that I was married for 8 years to my children's father but divorced in 2009. You may not know that I have mostly been in relationships with women or genderqueer folks since then and have lived in 60 houses in Oklahoma City which might contribute to my fear of commitment and inability to stick with things. But here I am, getting married to my beloved anyway!
Kai is a critical care/trauma nurse, a musician, lover of space and sea creatures and lemon flavored things. We met when he hired me to decorate his apartment which was a little side gig I was doing a couple of summers ago.
Funny side note, I have a poem about him that was on Upworthy called To My Girlfriend the Trauma Nurse and when I was working a temp job last year, my co-worker, who didn’t know my boyfriend was trans discovered the poem and said, “Do you just date trauma nurses?” And I was like, what? And she was like, “You had a girlfriend who was a trauma nurse and now your boyfriend is a trauma nurse? And I was like “Same person.” And then proceeded to explain to my 60 year old conservative christian coworker that my boyfriend is trans. She turned out to be my favorite Republican. I love her dearly.
So on my 35th birthday, back in February, Kai asked me to marry him.
Why yes I did make him do it again so I could take a picture.
THIS WAS MY FACEBOOK POST RIGHT AFTER IT HAPPENED.
It happened like this: We decided to take a nap in the park before my meeting. It was my birthday and we happened to have a quilt in the car. We cuddled in the shape of a windshield and Kai said "the moon is doing good things" and I said "It looks like he is trying to rest his head on a blue pillow but the world is doing too many bright things." And Kai said, "Did you know that if you could drive your car straight up, you could reach outer space in just over an hour?" And I said "I don't believe you. That is like going to Dallas" and he said, "Did you know that humans are the only animals with chins?" And I thought about crustaceans and mammals and birds and said, " That seems righter than the space thing." And we tried to take a nap but then it was time to go to my meeting so I said, "Well, babe, let's go do life," as I put one sock back on.
Then Kai said, "Yea. Let's do life," and pulled out a small wooden box. Inside was a ring shaped like an opening, shaped like a mouth, shaped like a shining promise and I said "Are You Sure Are You Sure Are You Sure?" like no one could possibly be so sure about me and I gave him the wrong hand and he said it's the one connected to your heart and I said, "Yes. Yes. Yes, of course it is." Some kids in the park yelled like they were cheering for us but they were just going down the slide. It was just us in the park. Just us among all the chinless animals and the moon, doing such good things.
After I shared that story on FB, Mary Lambert shared it and one of her friends said, "That ring looks like a vagina” to which Kai replied, “If you are going to propose to Lauren Zuniga you better have a ring that looks like a vagina” He get’s me y’all.
So here we are. We have a vagina ring and now a wedding date which I picked by doing two things: looking at the OU football schedule and the moon schedule. I now six and a half months to plan a queer feminist wedding which is harder than one might expect so I’ve decided to document the journey on here.
According to Pinterest, the first thing you need to do is decide what each of your priorities for the wedding are. So we did that:
Lauren’s Wedding Priorities
A meaningful ceremony in the company of our bestest folks, officiated by someone significant in my life.
A good sound system so everyone can hear what’s happening and a good photographer to document it all.
To commission artists to do work as decor for the wedding
Kai’s Wedding Priorities.
1. A good feeling place
2. A good tasting cake.
3. An open bar
I’ve enlisted the help of Kai’s Babe of Honor, Nicole who could be mistaken for a Disney princess so she can tell me what the traditional rules are so that we can break them.
Stay tuned as we decide how the hell we are going to afford all this.