On Thursday March 4th 2010, I married Shalome Hill.

I’ll always remember this date.  After all, it was the same day that Roy Halladay made his first spring training start in a Phillies uniform, pitching two hitless innings against the hated New York Yankees.  It was an important day.

Especially for new contracts.

Shalome and I did the deed at Toronto’s City Hall.    Though I have occasionally stood outside of the building, this was my first trip inside.  City Hall was what I expected.  In the grey, dial-tone heart of Toronto, even the elevators are confusing.

Nondescript civil servants meander from their posts and through the cafeteria, bored citizens await appointments like children sent to the principal’s office and business of some sort is being done.  There is constant tapping of computers and waiting for Microsoft to load and print licences.  Forms are being filled out.

After some waiting at the information desk, Shalome evinced that special brand of American initiative by finding the licensing office without their help.  It was directly to the left of the information booth.

We organized our papers and took a seat.

Since my knowledge of marriage comes mainly from romantic comedies and television series, I expected to have cold feet.  I never felt that though.  Mainly I felt a bit tired and pale from being up so early.  Perhaps my heart socks kept my feet warm.  I recommend them to anyone getting married.

Having failed to be riddled with doubts and an attachment to my bachelor life, I waited for some comical misunderstanding to drive a wedge between Shalome and I.  After some wacky hi-jinx, it would be happily resolved at the very last minute.  Someone would cue the Phil Collins.  That also never happened.

Instead we sat in an office, goofed around and waited for our appointment.  We didn’t even have to wait very long.

We were quickly invited to a cubicle, where we handed over our papers and signed a couple of things.  We were then directed to another cubicle.  The process was about as romantic as getting a dog licence.

But I must give some credit to the civil servants.  They were pleasant and easy to deal with.  Quiet, officious and efficient, they were just about everything you want from a bureaucrat.  They examined our papers, told us where to sign and then congratulated us before sending us to our 2:30 appointment at the wedding chamber.  We still had about an hour to kill.  So we settled at the cafeteria.

Shalome enjoyed a bacon cheeseburger as is the American custom and I had a coffee as is mine.  She ate her cheeseburger before I was even halfway through my coffee, so we made jokes at each others expense and had some light conversation with our witnesses.  We all tweeted some stuff.

Those of you who followed the event on twitter might be interested to know that you were better informed about EVERYTHING than my own family.  (Today I’m going to have to compose and send a mass email called: “Sorry About the Elopement.”)  I’d decided to more or less leave them out of it.

It’s nothing against them.  Shalome and I had planned to have a small service with a few close people.  Even that started to get out of hand.  One things leads to another, what was small gets bigger and we both decided: Fuck it.

Shalome’s people are all in California and mine are spread all over.  Deciding who could come and who couldn’t was just too much work.  Besides, since when does my family care who I’m fucking or how long I’m going to fuck them for?  As Nan always said, the important thing is that I’m fucking someone.

Having finished our time in the cafeteria, we made our way to wedding chamber.  I quite enjoyed the sign on the door: “Please Leave Strollers Outside.”

The Wedding Chamber was nicer than I expected.  It had plants and bland art instead of those little toys, Dilbert comics and pictures of cats that office workers keep in their cubicles to assert their individuality.   We sat at another desk with another civil servant and we signed some more papers.

I told Daryl to take a lot of pictures because I wasn’t sure which signature did the trick.  Apparently none of them.  The civil servant told us that the official would be right with us.  I thought she was the official.

We went into the actual chamber and waited for the official.

I still had no idea what to expect.  There were some flowers (real ones too!) set up and we took some pictures with those.  I figured we could take these pics to pretend we had a ceremony.  The actual official, I thought would show up, have us sign some more papers and that would be it.  Having lived in Toronto for a while, I found it hard to imagine a bureaucrat bothering with any sort of romanticism.

But imagine my shock when a lady with long black robes and glasses showed up.  Holy shit, I thought.  It’s a city-appointed druid!

Those of you who have talked to me for more than two minutes, probably recognize the expression on the Druid’s face.  But she was quite nice.  She told us where to stand and instructed to take each other by the right hand.

This doesn’t seem legally binding, I thought.

But I did it anyway.

Shalome and I stood there while she read some stuff by some guy about some crap. Basically she explained what marriage was.  Marriage is about love and commitment and a relationship etc.  Who knew?

All that bored me.

But when I was told to face Shalome and told to repeat whatever the Druid was saying, I actually got emotional.  Shalome looked beautiful but she always does. There was a little tremble in my jaw.

I haven’t felt that way since a few weeks ago when I saw Milo and Otis for the first time.  That’s a really good movie.  I hope our marriage has less cruelty to animals than Milo and Otis but I expect it to have more.  Especially if my cats keep getting into my room.

At the city-appointed Druid’s behest, I promised something or other.  My actual vows to Shalome are a private thing but they certainly don’t involve “life.”  I have no idea what “life” means. She gets ten years of service and then I can exercise my player option.  It’s a better deal than the Vernon Wells contract and I plan to perform better than him too.  I won’t be swinging at every outside pitch I see.  And who knows how long life will be?

For God’s sake, I could be a moon robot in twenty years.  I might be dead before ten.  Open ended promises are impossible to keep.  I like keeping my promises.

Ten years?  I can do ten years.  I could that in prison.  Maybe, one day, I will.

When Shalome took her vows and said that “better or worse” thing I interrupted the proceeding to say: “Emphasis on Worse.”  When she said “richer or poorer,” we both started laughing.  That might have been inappropriate.  Who cares?

The wedding vows have always sounded like the noisy oaths of a drunken teenager.  And my wife wasn’t even wearing shoes or underwear.

We humoured the woman while she quoted some sort of Apache blessing.  I can’t remember what it was.  I assume it was the typical B-Grade material about loving each other to death.  We then sealed the deal with a kiss.

The kiss is not legally binding.  The contract we signed is.  It must be.  Witnesses were required.  And yet I feel a greater obligation to that kiss than I do to those papers. I can wipe my ass with papers.  I can’t do that with Shalome’s face.

Having completed casting her magic spell, the Druid present us with a sheet of a paper that’s apparently quite important.  I suppose it’s what our love looks like to the government.  That should tell you something about the government.

We had a short chant of “We’re Number One” and “U-S-A!-U-S-A!”  It seemed appropriate.  We also danced like hillbillies for a while.

Then, just to make sure that everything was on the up and up, I dry humped Shalome in front of a big leafy heart that the government keeps in the corner of its wedding chamber.

I’m pretty sure that we’re also required to have sex on a giant flag to make things completely official.  In front of the Queen.