I like her.

She's the co-minister for the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco, and she's a well-spoken older Scottish lady who wears black tights and has a gay pride flag in her office. She refuses to sign a couple's marriage certificate in protest that she is legally prohibited from signing every couple's marriage certificate. In short, she rocks.

(Most of our friends and family are puzzled why we would be asking somebody to marry us who can't technically marry us. So read on.)

I like her because she helps us focus on the severity and the, well, enormity of what we're going to be standing there doing. I feel like we need somebody like her, with her no-nonsense demeanor, presiding over the occasion to help us focus on the ceremony solemnly rather than flightily sailing through it with heads abuzz.

Last night we spent some time talking about the stumbling blocks in our relationship, the reasons we fight and the things we don't really talk about otherwise. We discussed our typical pattern:

1. A. gets angry because [fill in the blank with some absurd thing went wrong, like a lightbulb burned out or the printer cartridge ran out of ink).

2. I get all sensitive and moody.

3. He gets all defensive and angry.

4. We both end up stressed out.

OR

1. I get tired and start playing the martyr.

2. A. gets fed up.

3. We fight all day.

We also talked about my tendency to take on too much work, and our differences when it comes to organization level.

The conclusion was that we're normal and healthy and that we do communicate well, but that we need to seek more ways to spend time apart, communicate even more, and anticipate and head off potential problems before they happen.

As Margot put it: "The problems are only going to amplify over the years. They're not going to go away."

Then we went to Le Mediterrane and had too much food, yum. But I felt good about it all. So good I actually might want to check out services at the church. Yes, me, church ... it doesn't even really feel like a church though, since they don't really believe in any one thing. It feels more accepting, unlike my experience with the Protestants way-back-when. It feels like a strong, open-minded community where I might actually learn about myself, and get the tools I need to deal with life.