Speech at the wedding of Neil Howard Doctorow and Tara Lee
Doctorow (nee Trimble), July 26, 2003.

Cory Doctorow

doctorow@craphound.com

--

[[In the voice of the Bishop from The Princess Bride]]

Mawwidge. Mawwidge is what bwings us togevahh today.

Mawwidge, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam.

And wuv, twuuuuue wuuuuv, wiw fowwow you, fohevah...

--

They tell you to open your speech with a joke. That one was mine,
and it's an in-joke.

Families are like in-jokes.

When I found out that Tara Lee was taking Neil's name -- *my*
name, Doctorow -- I was surprised. She says it's to get some
estrogen into the Doctorow line, and it's true that we sorely
need it.

But my mother always told me that she missed the convenience of
her old name, losing the simplicity of starr-with-two-rs for the
complexity of doctor with o-w at the end. It's astonishing how
many people can't follow those instructions, amazing how much
mail --junk mail, of course -- I get that's addressed to Dr Cory
O.

But the taking of the name is freighted with heavy symbolism, and
Tara is a heavy person. Not literally, though muscle-mass is
dense stuff. I've been living a few thousand miles away since she
and Neil took up company, but even *I've* figured out that she's
both the complement to his volatility and the thing that draws
out his own philosophical side.

They complete each other, and that's the thing that we've all
come together tonight to honor.

And Tara is joining the family, which is not the Doctorow family,
nor the Doctorow-Starr family, nor the
Doctorow-Starr-Levitt-Cloth-Ceresne-Klayman-Greenfield-Negru-
Rochman-Linsday-Goldman-Silver-Fox-West-BenDavid-Halprin family.
It's my family, and it's this variegated, global, ramified
enterprise whose edges are smeared out and indistinct, so that
it's impossiible to tell exactly where it ends.

At events like this one, where we are turned out in our thronged
hundreds, I have developed a survival strategy: I bring my dates
around and when someone comes up and heartily shakes my hand and
marvels at how long it's been, or pinches me -- we're great and
cruel pinchers in this family -- and leaves a smudge of lipstick
on my cheek, I turn and say, "This is my friend so-and-so," and
then, if luck is with me, the familiar face out of my boyhood is
joined to a name and a relationship: "Ah, so nice to meet you.
I'm Cory's great-aunt's sister-in-law on his mother's father's
side, (beat) I knew this one when he wet the bed."

(because in this family, every introduction must be accompanied
by an endearing and embarassing story; I have several about Neil,
and had I been given six minutes instead of three, you'd be
hearing them now)

This strategy sounds disingenous, but you NEED strategies to cope
with anything on this scale. I once sat on a committee for TWO
YEARS with my cousin before either of us realized that we were
related. I once overheard a businessman on a subway platform
remark to his companion that he would hate to be the father of
anyone with a mohawk like mine and turned around and gave his
companion a kiss on the cheek and he turned to the speaker and
said, "Let me introduce my nephew Cory."

So, Tara, I give this strategy to you, so that you can cope with
the trunk and branches and twigs and leaves of the family tree,
with one caveat: we're no dummies in this family, nor are we shy,
and so there's always a joker in the deck who'll say, "And aren't
you going to introduce me?" Because we're like that. We're not
only sprawling, this family, but *brawling*, argumentative,
funny, open, moody, feud-y, needy and giving.

They say that in love, there is always one who kisses and one who
offers the cheek.

That saying used to get me down, because it seemed to be true.
And if it's true, it's horrible. Must there always be a giver and
a taker in love, a top and a bottom, a strong and a weak?

Yes. And no. Because the proverb says, "In love, there is always
one who kisses and one who offers the cheek" but it does *not*
say, "and they are always the same person." Love is trusting
someone enough to be weak, and trusting someone enough to be
strong. It's nursing your lover back from a flu and catching it
yourself, and having the favor returned.

In this family, we take turns giving and taking. We are
alternately strong and weak, giving and needy. We complement each
other, as you and Neil complement each other.

Welcome to our family, Tara Lee Trimble Doctorow. It's a pain in
the ass to spell the name, but it's worth it.