Comments for Civil Wars

Civil Wars: 08/05/06

Civil Wars covers the events that lead to the creation of civil partnerships in Vermont. The book begins with the State's supreme court sending a lawsuit to the legistlature to create a more finely tuned constitutional definition of who can marry whom. The hope of course had been for a straightforward ruling to open marriage up for same-sex couples rather than passing the job onto the legislature but it was a start.

The book provides background information on the couples who were named in the original suit and how they came to joining the suit. Later the book unfortunately becomes more of a book report on the legislative process and it's in these lengthy passages of direct quotes from the floor that the it goes from being an interesting read to a tedious one.

Here's my BookCrossing review:

The writing in Civil Wars is uneven. The first half takes a very personal look at the people who started the law suit that eventually resulted in Vermont creating civil unions. The second half looks at the process itself and reads like a book report with lengthy quotations from the actual proceedings. I ended up skimming these final chapters as they were just too dry.

Although I didn't like the last couple chapters of the book, I still recommend it to anyone interested in the subject of gay rights.

One Month Left and a Very Busy Day:

A month from today, Harriet is born via c-section. I'm still in my regular clothes, though I am using some maternity shirts left over from Sean. I am finally feeling the effects of being in my third trimester, beyond the sciatica. It feels like Harriet has dropped and is possibly engaged in my pelvis, or as I call it, "wearing my pelvis like a hat."

She dropped after we had a busy day running errands. We had started with going to breakfast (really more like lunch because Ian and Sean had let me sleep in much too late). We then tried the post office to mail some books but they were closed (contrary to what the website's posted hours). No big deal; I go on Monday like I usually do.

From the post office we drove over the grade to Pleasanton. We stopped at the mall to look for maternity pants at JCPenny and didn't find anything. Their current selection of clothing is really ugly. Then we went downstairs to Payless to get a new pair of shoes for Sean. His feet haven't actually grown but he had completely worn out his old pair. He chose a pair of blue and white Airwalk shoes with velcro straps.

While Sean was trying on his shoes the heat inside the store began to get to me. I left Ian and Sean to sit on one of the black upholstered benches outside the store. Sean and Ian bought water for all of us while I relaxed and read a chapter from Terminal Velocity. Sean and I sat next to an older gentleman who chatted with Sean about his new shoes.

Once our water was done we stopped at KBToys to get three more wind-up bath toys. They are still being sold for three for five dollars. Sean chose this time: a seal, a whale and a lobster.

Toys and shoes successfully purchased, we headed back home by way of Trader Joe's. At Trader's we got some salads for my two days of on-site work. We also got some groceries for home: milk, bread, coffee, cheese and another drink for me. I began to feel Harriet's weight of her dropping; I think she had dropped on the drive home after all that walking at the mall.

By the time we got home we were all tired and I was very sore. We had a quick cheese and cracker lunch and then took a nap. We napped well past our usual dinner time. Sean had his dinner right after nap and we got him bathed and in bed not too much later than normal.

Finally after having dinner ourselves (tuna sandwiches) I finally started to feel better after our busy day. Harriet is still dropped and a bit of a chore to drag around now but at least I don't feel ready to collapse. Although today was trying, I'm still doing better than I did with Sean. I didn't get any contractions. I was just sore and weary.

Steps: 10000