Starting a blog -- it's always about gender

A few days ago I told Gwen we should start a blog. Often whenever I suggest we do something Gwen interprets the "we" as "you" and makes it about gender--once again this was the case. "You mean 'I' should start a blog because 'I'm' a woman and it's the woman's job to keep family history," she responded in a ... well... feminist way. She continued to point out that out of all of our friends, only the women keep blogs going and that suggesting that we start a blog was somehow sexist. So Kate, Lisa, Elizabeth and the rest of the female bloggers, I join you! Maybe I'll even let Gwen post every so often.

I'll take this first-blog opportunity to introduce us a little bit. Gwen and I first met each other when we were toddlers in Pullman Washington where both of our parents went to graduate school at Washington State University. We really didn't know each other though, until high school where we became friends through a few common friends and we didn't start to date until our friendship was in shambles. The 2004 presidential election drove a huge rift into our friendship as I whole heatedly (at the time) supported the incumbent President Bush and Gwen supported John Kerry. It wasn't so much the debate of who should be our president for the next 4 years that caused the turbulance, but this did create the opportunity for heated debate about politics. At the time, I was a devout conservative talk show listener and Gwen was a hippie liberal college undergrad. Without getting into the juicy details, let's just say things got quite ugly. After the election, we were all but worst enemies. The only thing that could save our relationship was romance.

We dated for the next year until I went on a Mormon Mission to Bahia Brazil where I spent two years. While I was gone Gwen finished her degree in Middle Eastern Studies and developmental economics from the University of Utah, worked on a Kibbutz is Israel, and spent some time in South Africa. After the 2 years we met back up in Utah. She got accepted to Harvard Divinity School to do a Master's degree in theological studies - in particular women in religion. A year into her program we got married an I joined her in Boston where I am now finishing my Bachelors degree in Mathematical Sciences from Bentley University.

The past 4 years have really moderated us both politically. I am still a Republican and she is still a Democrat but we rarely fight about politics and find ourselves agreeing more often than not. The other day we were talking about how this was the case, when Gwen proposed that fundamentally I believe in individualism and the self made individual and she believes in community and the importance of people working together for the common good. While this fundamental difference causes me to self identify as a capitalistic free trading Republican (note: i no longer listen to conservative talk radio as I think they're a bunch of crazies) and her to self identify as a liberal Democrat we often find ourselves agreeing on contemporary issues. While I think it would be more exciting to say that I've gone so far to the right and she's gone so far to the left that we've somehow come together--perhaps at a crazed anarchist libertarian spot somewhere out in space--this isn't really the case.

We both like to watch TV. This somehow started only after we were married but we watch Bones, the Office, 30 Rock, Legend of the Seeker and Dollhouse basically every week. Gwen really likes to read, bake delicious treats, talk with her friends. I play the guitar and video games (in fact I'm trying to get a starcraft clan in place for when Starcraft 2 comes out---This is just thrilling!!!!...)

I'm really bad at wrapping things up, so I'll just end now.

-Andrew