Here’s the link to Kate Torgovnik’s very thoughtful article about divorce parties in the New York Post’s Page Six Magazine called “Congratulations on Your Split!” I’m gulp, the closing anecdote.

Talk about timing! I love it.

(Image is from the mag)

This morning the dude and I went to City Hall to get our marriage license. Elsewhere in weddingland:

California Gays Ditch Wedding Gifts For Donations
7/14/08
Reuters: A month after California began legally marrying same-sex partners, thousands of dollars that might have been spent on toasters or dinnerware for newlyweds have been donated to the campaign against the November referendum that seeks to define marriage in the state as only between a man and a woman.

Weddings Are Big Day for Extreme Dieting
7/13/08
Women’s eNews: Questing for the perfect body has become a norm in the world of wedding preparations as a multi-billion-dollar wedding industry peddles the perfection myth more intensely than ever before.

HA! Not moi. I so pigged out this weekend (last one before the wedding) and enjoyed every minute….

A little slow to posting today…

A bit o history making over the weekend, as reported by Adele Stan over at Huffington Post: Sunday’s face-off between the McCain campaign’s Carly Fiorina and the Obama campaign’s Claire McCaskill on NBC’s Meet the Press served up an historic television moment; it was the first time in the show’s history, said moderator Tom Brokaw, that two women had appeared together on the show as the surrogates for opposing campaigns.

Nothing says “moving on” like the divorce collage.

Actually, these here doubled as housewarming projects. After having an awful experience (not a big surprise) with a Jewish divorce ceremony some years back, I decided to refill the frame that had held my marriage certificate or ketubah (left) with ad-hoc art work by my dearest friends. So I invited them over and we had a party.

That party will be part of a Page 6 story in this Sunday’s New York Post. And the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Because on Monday, Marco and I will be going down to City Hall to pick up our marriage license and officially change our names! We are becoming the Siegel-Acevedos. How’s that for a mouthful of fusion. I’m staying Siegel in print. Hey, do people still hyphenate these days, or has that already become outre? (Our thanks to the Wallace-Segalls for the inspiration…!)

And on Thursday, I will make my first ever visit to a modern Mikvah with a friend, which, from the pictures, looks more like a spa. Here’s to ritual new and old, tossed out and reclaimed and reinspired, updated and reinvented, I say.

Check out this article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, “Where Are the Queens of Nonfiction?” by Anne Trubek, an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at Oberlin College. It’s excellent. And majorly depressing. Trubek riffs on the title of Ira Glass’ new book, The New Kings of Nonfiction, an anthology intended to commemorate and canonize our current golden age of nonfiction writing. Writes Trubek,

Huh? Glass is a trailblazing icon of alternative, indie culture, a very with-it, 21st-century guy. What was he thinking? Why did he choose a gender-specific title for his book?

She goes on to do some byline counting:

A few years ago, two women — Ruth Davis Konigsberg, a writer and former editor at Glamour, and Elizabeth Merrick, director of a women’s literary reading series — tallied the ratio of male to female contributors at those four magazines on their own Web sites. The numbers called attention to a significant gender disparity. According to Konigsberg, on womentk.com, during a 12-month period (from September 2005 to September 2006), there were 1,446 men’s bylines and 447 women’s bylines. At Harper’s, the ratio was nearly seven to one, at The New Yorker four to one, and at The Atlantic 3.6 to one.

I did my own tally. From May 2007 through May 2008, Harper’s published 232 men and 51 women (a ratio of about 4.5 to one) and The Atlantic published 158 men to 49 women (a ratio of about three to one). In 2008, The New Yorker has published 185 men and 51 women (about 3.5 to one). Things are not getting much better.

Then analyzes what does make it into print:

As disheartening as those statistics are, closer inspection of what women do publish in such magazines makes the disparity even more disturbing. Many of the women’s contributions are not features. (At The New Yorker, they might be a Talk of the Town piece, a poem, a cartoon, or a dance review.) And many are about being a woman. For example, the March 2008 issue of The Atlantic contains three substantial pieces by women. One, by Eliza Griswold, is both political and reported, and it does not integrate her personal experience. But the other two use personal experiences to make claims about women’s lives. And in an almost absurd twist, both argue that women should start settling for less.

That other Atlantic piece of course is “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough,” by Lori Gottlieb.

For a great analysis of what gives, read the rest.

Taking time out from prep for next week’s bridaldom, I will be on Pacifica Radio tonight (in Houston, KPFT, 90.1 FM ) at 9pm ET tonight discussing media sexism and the election, particularly in light of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. If in Houston, tune in! If not, I’ll post the web link (which stays live for 60 days) here soon. The program is the Progressive Forum, with host Lillian Care. Joining me will be Isabelle McDonald of FAIR.

Instead of going dark while off doing wedding and honeymoon during the last two weeks of July, I’m pleased to announce some rather FABULOUS guest posting coming our way! Claire Mysko and Gloria Feldt will be among the lineup, with some live blogging from BlogHer and some posts about the election. The fearless Kristen Loveland of The Choice will be blogsitting (and crossposting!) for me while I’m away.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to open the doors wide open to the GWP community. Your comments are always so smart and insightful, your emails always teach me. I’d love to bring more GWP readers into fuller view. So here’s the chance. If you have an idea for a guest post and would like to run it by me before I take off, please email me at girlwpen@gmail.com. The last day I’ll be checking email will be July 17.

That was a line my classmates at the University of Michigan used to throw around — though I think it went “Oh How I Hate Ohio State.” Not that I ever cared much about football (sorry Wolverines). But this just in from Nancy Polikoff is making me hate Ohio this morning indeed. Writes Nancy:

Ohio will vote on a paid sick leave initiative that doesn’t recognize unmarried partners, let alone the full range of people’s relationships. Given that there is an excellent model out there in the rules for federal employees right now and the proposed federal Healthy Families Act, it is not utopian to imagine something much better than what the Ohio folks are asking for.

Read more over at Nancy’s blog, Beyond Gay and Straight Marriage. And ok, Ohioans (Sam?!): defend yourselves.

Registration is now OPEN! This course will run for 5 Tuesdays this fall: 10/7, 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/4 from 7pm-9:15pm ET. Deets below. Click that little button that looks like a flag top right to enlarge. If you’d like a copy of this flyer emailed to you, please contact Kristen (kristen.loveland@gmail.com) and she’ll send it your way.

Oh nooo – is it true? I don’t want to believe it’s true. Say it’s not. Anyone?

Obama Botches the Abortion Conversation
7/8/08 Alternet.org: One thing is certain: Obama has backhandedly given credibility to the right-wing narrative that women who have abortions — even those who go through the physically and mentally wrenching experience of a late-term abortion — are frivolous and selfish creatures who might perhaps undergo this ordeal because they are “feeling blue.”

And this next one too–Stepford v. Angry Black Woman? Oy. Make it stop!

Rocky Journey To Being First Lady
7/8/08 Baltimore Sun: In the way we have of boiling human beings down to a handful of adjectives and then forming a caricature from those adjectives, Obama has become the angry black woman and McCain, a Stepford wife.

Lastly, just in case you haven’t had enough bad news for one morning, here’s this:

Women at Work Find Reinforced Glass Ceiling
7/8/08 Women’s eNews: Promotion barriers, harassment, pregnancy and motherhood bias, unequal pay. Women in the paid work force say these are all pillars propping up a glass ceiling. Fourth in “The Memo” series on the status of U.S. women.

Kudos for the tips on all this cheeriness today go to Rebekah at the WMC.

Image cred