Family ties

My freshman year of college, I let myself into my dorm room in Mayflower Hall to find my roommate had removed all my posters of Tori Amos, Rage Against the Machine and Dykes on Bikes (hey, I was 19) and replaced them with nothing. Simply put, she was tired of my shit and my sexual escapades with girls who believed in fairies, boys who sold pot and bald-headed travelers, though I don't remember her being that concise.

An emotional eruption ensued, and soon I was having a teary-eyed conversation with my mother about my new address, my broken heart and the girl who broke it, who happened not to be my smallminded roommate, but a friend from my high school class.

My mother took the liberty of broadcasting the news to the rest of the family and gave my grandmother an ultimatum: deal with it or lose Kate. I wasn't cut out of the photo albums, and my boyfriends and girlfriends have always been welcomed with hugs and gifts at family gatherings. But my mating (and now nesting) habits are not something I bring up with the extended fam. Par example: Kelley and I vacation in Cape Cod, not Women's Week. My mother knows I danced on a box at a bra party, but the godparents just don't need those details. They have all marveled at my "engagement" ring, but it was a birthday present -- which it was, but whatever.

All of this leads to a question. Which family members do I include in our celebration? Do uber-Catholic and uber-special grandma and grandpa, married for 50+ years, get an invite? Do I wait until they are dead? Am I a total wuss? Erg.

Maybe the "kiss test" is the way to go. I will only invite people whom I feel OK about seeing me lay a sloppy one on my kq.