#edit: apparently we've been engaged for a bit over 2 years

[lovesick-ritz]

We don't talk about platonic marriages enough

I am bisexual. My partner is aroace. We are in a queerplatonic relationship. We have been together for around 4 years and got engaged a little over 2 years ago. We don't do romantic things (we do sometimes, but not usually.) and we don't do sexual things. There's no romance, but we love each other. It is 100% platonic.

But I ALWAYS feel the need to clarify this with people we meet that, it's not "oh haha we were best friends for so long we just decided to get married teehee"

NO

It's still love. We live for each other. We would die for each other. We are attached at the hip. We are each others most important thing in the entire world. Just because we don't kiss or have sex doesn't mean it's not love.

I LOVE my fiance in ways words can't explain. And they love me just the same.

Just because it's not romantic doesn't make it any less of a relationship.

Just because it's not sexual doesn't make us any less engaged.

I am going to marry my fiance, my best friend, the love of my life, and I need people to know that it's not because we couldn't find anyone else. It's not because we said we would if we were still single at X years old. It's not a trend or a phase or anything like that.

I'm going to marry them because I LOVE them.

@novelcain <3

(update since this is gaining traction again: we're married now!! :D)

[engbergsinfinland]

(Once, again! I am days behind on posting something . . . I wrote this on Wednesday, my edits got lost on Thursday, so now I am finally posting on Friday!)

Hello, for Wednesday everyone!

This late afternoon was my unit's holiday party, or pikkujoulu ("little Christmas"; this is just what Christmas parties are called), and I made sugar cookies and a chocolate cake to take to the event. As I've done in Albuquerque for many years, once I've turned in my final grades, I made cookies. That happened today, too! I turned in my final grades this afternoon and all of my students did really well. I questioned whether such universal high quality was commonplace here, and I asked my colleagues, Niina and Maija whether they've had a situation where all students got a 5, which is an A on their scale. They said it was uncommon but that since my class was an elective and students seem to really give it high effort, if that's how the grades turned out, then that's how it is! The students really did turn in great final projects and were engaged in discussion, using both the "analog" and digital tools I used each class to foster participation, and they all attended and did all the homework at a high level of thoughtfulness and analytical acuity. Anyway, suffice to say, I was satisfied with how well they all did!

This week Rowan and Cece have had skating and Rowan has ballet tonight (so, the usual, for them), plus he had rehearsals for his performance this weekend. Now that my grades are in, I am attending to working a bit more on a presentation I'm giving to the Lawrence London Group group tomorrow night.

Friday is Eric's and my last Finnish class of this semester! I bought a flower and some chocolate for our teacher, Carita. Eric is the teacher's pet in that class and he really has developed quite a repertoire in the Finnish language. He and I aren't sure what we're going to do in January because all of the free classes through the library seem to have already filled up. We will have to look into other options for continuing to pursue our Finnish. Maybe's we'll just have Cece teach us ;)

Tomorrow morning Eric and I will go to school with the kids because we have our "learning conversation" with Cece's teacher, Tytti. It is basically a parent-teacher conference, but it also includes the student. After that I will return home to work on the presentation I am giving, which is basically ready but I need to make more progress in pushing it towards something akin to a completed scholarly article. I may also roll out some more cookie dough and bake the sugar cookies that the kids are going to use at the cookie decorating party on Saturday night that we're hosting.

Apparently, Cece and her two little friends from school, Lyra and Hertta, are going to perform a play called "Cassidy and the Christmas Gnomes." I will certainly report back on how the performance went!

Over the last two days, it has been noteworthy that there have been blue skies and sunshine between the hours of about 10:00 a.m. and 3:00, which are the daylight hours. This sunshine is worthy of note because on many days, while the sun is technically "up," we've seen nothing but a dull gray. But the last two days have been glorious for those limited hours. It is really interesting that by 4:00 p.m., it is dark. Since the evening stretches on for so long, and I don't go to bed until almost midnight (this is the case wherever I might be; I just can't stop this bad habit!), I have about 8 hours in the dark before bedtime. the days have this odd interminable quality to them.

We are heading home to the US in 2 weeks! That is so amazing. And we will come back here on January 7th. I'm really excited to see our house (but I am not excited to be boots-on-the-ground there to content with whatever mouse issue still exists) and to be reunited with my bathtub. I am also so impatient to see my parents again!

Oh, Monday was Eric's and my anniversary! He was going to give me the gift of one night at a hotel with a bathtub, which I could soak in to my heart's content, but we decided to save that for a less hectic time, since the end of the academic year and the Christmas season would make it really a bit difficult to soak in a tub and really bid goodbye to my stressors 😆 We had a nice anniversary and went to lunch together at a restaurant called Whatever, just through the train tunnel from here. I arranged quite a display of funny anniversary gifts for Eric, including blue cheese, an eggplant, dried apricots, chocolate covered banana flavored marshmallows, a heart-shaped chocolate lollipop, a bottle of glögi, and a handmade card, as I always do. Eric got me a wonderful purple roll-aboard suitcase, and the aforementioned one-night-stay at a hotel with a bathtub.

Anyway, we're supposed to get a snowstorm this weekend and could get up to 12 inches. We have a very busy weekend with Rowan's dance rehearsal Saturday, our cookie party Saturday night, and a rehearsal Sunday morning followed by two performances Sunday for Rowan! I guess we'll trudge through the snow for all of it!

I'd better go to bed now so I can be ready for Cece's "learning conversation" tomorrow.