Operation Wedding

So, Vern and I finally sent out the wedding invitations! We sent them on Saturday, so people should probably be receiving them in the very near future.

We also registered this weekend at Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond. That was pretty fun, although to register at Bed, Bath & Beyond you practically have to promise them your firstborn. We had to sit at a table and be pelted with questions like "how did you two meet?" To which I replied...."Um.....he was a friend of a girl in my theatre company." The lady also asked how many people we were having to the wedding, where it was going to be, and when I got my first period. Not really, but you get the idea. Now imagine this all said through the voice of a cartoon character and you can maybe imagine what Vern and I looked like: deer in the headlights. Controlled breathing. Then she proceeded to ask me what we were thinking about in regards to flatware and dishes, to which I replied "we're already set with all that." And with all the listening skills of a rock, she plopped down two enormous binders of FLATWARE AND DISHES for us to look through. Anyway, finally we got the little scanner thingie from her hot little hands and got to escape into the store.

We went to Target the next day. Vern had signed up online the night before. We walked in and the lady gave us the scanner. The end. Target is glorious.

I got my wedding shoes on Saturday, too. I had forgotten I needed them until I walked by these white flats at DSW and saw my wedding shoes--they are flat, white, with the same kind of lace that is on my dress! They're perfect.

Yesterday, Vern and I took Dana for a walk. She was in doggy heaven. Billy was jealous.

That was pretty much the weekend. They certainly don't last long enough. Especially when I have someone like Vern.

Love,
Clare

Engagement Photos

Vern and I went to Colorado this past Thursday and had our engagement portrait session. It was really fun and our photographers are amazing! You can check out their website at http://www.realphotography.com/ and if you look under "blog" you will see a sneak peek of some of our photos! They turned out really well! And they're shooting our wedding as well, so I can't wait to see those photos in the future.

We had a great time in Colorado with my family--they loved Vern. My sister, of course, knows him better than my parents (she's seen him more often), but my parents absolutely loved him! It was a really great time, and my dad, Vern and I even had time to see Garden of the Gods! When we're back in September, I'm hoping to take Vern and his sisters up to the top of Pikes Peak. Yep, 14,000 feet!

It's 48 days until our wedding, and we'll be out there the week before, so it's about 41 days till we're out in Colorado again for the big day! It's probably annoying that I keep counting, but I'm so excited I can't help it!

Love,
Clare

53 days

In 53 days, Vern and I will be married! I can't wait!

Love,

Clare

Martyr

I was thinking the other day--about a lot of things that have been happening in my life--and it got me to thinking about blame.

I remember once, in a religion class in high school, the teacher mentioned that true maturity only exists once you take the blame when you've done something wrong. When I was younger, I hardly ever accepted blame--I always thought I was right.

I have matured. I now take the blame for things that I feel are my fault. I acknowledge. I say I'm sorry now. Being right is not important. Being good is. Acting justly is.

Perhaps I am still naive, but I find it shocking when people don't own up to their mistakes now. We are in (or nearing) our thirties. We are supposed to be learning from our mistakes. How can you learn from a mistake if you never think you make one?

I am an advocate of justice. When I analyze the things that I get angry about, it almost always breaks down to being angry at injustice. I despise racism, sexism, nepotism, favoritism, misogyny, dishonesty, cruelty, passivity, judgment, scapegoating.

And these things happen all the time. Every day. The last two have happened to me recently. I'm no martyr. But I don't know any either....

Advice to the Published Poet

In reading "The Best American Poetry"
(the 2007 edition),
I am struck, in awe and envious of the poets
who show presence through omission.

Occasionally, as I peruse,
a poem hits me on a bruise!--
but then some word I don't use
makes me grab the dictionary.

That's plain scary.

Because now there's a poem
with a whole dictionary in the middle--
an 'elephant-in-the-room' riddle--
telling me, I suppose,
what I ought to know,

and maybe--if I was fifty--
what I would already know (if I was thrifty).
But I still have baby-fat
in my face, on my tummy--

I'm no dummy,
but I'm young.

All of the other baby-fat people I know,
they don't read poems at all, not one.
They don't know Donne

or Li-Young Lee;
they don't take baths with Plath
or, with Dickinson, take a tea.
They think Bishop is a church office
(while thinking me quite a novice)
and believe Whitman is a sample sweet,
so there's no use in mentioning Keats.

I once had a friend who read Sexton
and boy, did it vex him.
He said "What's all this about abortion?"
And I said "Oh, I don't know. A lesson?"

I often long for the days
when people stood on streets in queues
to get their hands on the next Millay,
instead of Grand Theft Auto II.

So listen close, all you poets
with your prizes and your Pushcarts:
I don't know the definitiion of "meretricious,"
but I'm where your poems should start.

-Clare Brewer 5/14/08

Sestina

So, this is a sestina I wrote. For more information on the rules that apply to sestinas, go to this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina

Sestina

Seven years ago, there was a marriage:
in the backyard he held her soft white hand.
They bought a house and she painted the walls
a buttery yellow. They saved their dimes
for a someday baby. She wore his ring.
She laughed often, her mouth turned toward his kiss.

Gradually, after each soft white kiss,
she began to curse her vows, her marriage.
Resentment, like a worm--ring upon ring--
grew, until it diseased her heart and hand.
He gave her dollar bills but got back dimes.
(She fooled him by painting those yellow walls.)

She deceived him outside those guilty walls,
laid with other men, took another's kiss.
Her husband, at home, still saved up his dimes,
holding sacred the vows of his marriage.
In bed, at night, he kissed her soft white hand,
not knowing that she had tarnished that ring.

Though she wore it, she did not love her ring.
She loved the house and she hated its walls.
Her ring she thought too cheap for her soft hand.
In her guilt, she shrank from her husband's kiss,
remembering the day of their marriage.
So she divorced him and claimed half his dimes.

With no baby and his diminished dimes,
with no wife and a meaningless gold ring,
with a broken heart and dissolved marriage,
he cried soft, white tears on the yellow walls.
Like Jesus, he was betrayed by a kiss
in that backyard, holding her fickle hand.

He stopped crying then, and lifting his hand,
brushed away his soft tears. They shined like dimes.
He wiped his mouth clean of that Judas' kiss,
and in his desk drawer he placed his gold ring.
Only love, he said, will live within these walls.
And that thought restored his faith in marriage.

True marriage relies on a faithful hand;
his faith grows like ivy on walls, shines like dimes,
rings true, like bells do, for an eternal kiss.

-Clare Brewer 3/26/08

Today, Vern's family came to visit the Natural History Museum, where I work. It was a lot of fun! They toured around the Mammal halls, the Gem and Mineral Hall, the Bird Hall and the Insect Zoo, and then we met up at noon for lunch. Sabrina and Joey are in town from Las Vegas, and it was nice to see them again. Their kids are adorable and entirely entertaining.

It got me thinking about family, being around such a great family. I miss my family so much. I love them so much. Now I feel as if Vern's family is becoming mine, too. They are so warm and they are obviously such great people. No wonder Vern is as amazing as he is! I have never had two families--I have only ever had the one I was born with. But things are changing. I will gain a new family, and I am so excited for that.

Every day, I am the happiest I have ever been. I have been blessed, no doubt about it.

Love,

Clare