lesbian

Iceland, Day 3

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How has it been three days?!

Today we put our rental car to the test and went from Reykjavík to Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon — a 5-hour trip one way.I hardly slept last night so, to no one’s surprise, I was a little grumpy. But Chris took the wheel after an hour, and I got a nap. And then some lunch. And then my mood improved. Oh, Monica. How does she put up with you?

Our first stop was Reynisfjara, which also happened to be the wallpaper in Chris’ computer for two years. Bucket list item for her.

Next we stopped at a crazy diner/gas station/mini mart that I dubbed Icelandic Sheetz. We had delicious lamb soup and a lamb burger.

Our last stop was Jökulsárlón, a lake that had bits of glacier bobbing in it. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

One of the best parts of the day was the scenery along the way, so here’s some of that.

Also, our first task of the day? Getting gas. It’s 6am and 3 degrees Celsius outside. I pay with my credit card, and it asks for a pin.

But…I have no pin.

It’s freezing, I’m exhausted, and we are in Iceland. I shrug and enter the pin to my debit card, thinking if I ever set one up, that was probably it.

Bingo.

Oh, and I thought I locked us in a bathroom for 20 seconds before Chris saved the day.

Tomorrow’s our last day here! So much lamb soup, so little time.

Time, Time, Time, See What’s Become of Me

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So I’ve blogged two days in a row (!) and it feels weird not to do it today. But I have to get ready for work 15 minutes ago, so nothing substantial is coming out of this brain. And I really thought I’d catch up on a lot of this while my wife was out of town, but I feel like I had even less free time than when she’s here! Hopefully in the next few weeks, here are the things you have to look forward to.

  • More in my new favorite blog installment, Monica’s Unnecessarily Long and Detailed TV Recaps (just for Wynonna Earp and not Orphan Black, evil friend who keeps telling me to write about OB)
  • More updates on the #TravelingFandras movement (and when I buy my new shirt, because that’s definitely gonna have to happen. Maybe I can crowd-fund it!)
  • My inability to choose normal blog titles (but Susanna Hoffs, am I right?)
  • Finally finishing blogging about my wedding in 2015 (sorry, honey)

  • Finally writing about ClexaCon and this amazing, epic photo op

  • Also this one

  • And this one, which is in some ways the most important one

Hope to see you soon, friends.

Buffy Turns 20

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So, I was at ClexaCon over the weekend and got back late Tuesday night. That meant that I went from working a 3-11pm ET shift to partying until 2am PT to waking up at 5:30am ET on Wednesday. I was basically a zombie and have been chasing sleep the entire week. I was too drained to write anything on the actual 20th anniversary — yesterday — but I figured, hey, I’m only a day late, right?

Sadly, my journey with Buffy did not begin 20 years ago yesterday. I was a latecomer to this show despite my brother’s attempts to get me to watch it. One night in my old apartment — which was either super cold or super hot, depending on the season — I was flipping through the channels and stumbled upon a rerun — Out of Mind, Out of Sight. Coincidentally, this was the only episode I had any interest in watching, as it starred my number-one celebrity crush at the time (and now, really), Clea Duvall. I watched it, probably huddled under a blanket 0r wearing a bikini, and thought, “Okay, that’ll do it.”

Fast-forward five years or so, and my friend M was going through a really bad breakup. Her longtime girlfriend had cheated on her with someone she met on the internet, and M had picked up and moved from their life together in less than two days. A mutual guy friend, D, suggested that we start watching Buffy together as a thing to do after work. They were both single, and I was in a long-distance relationship, so it worked for us. In the beginning, he dictated which episodes we watched and didn’t, as he was the expert and could tell us which ones to skip.

Let’s pause a moment to eye roll at the patriarchy. Fuck you, The Patriarchy!

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Paper

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Monday, Chris and I celebrate one year of marriage. The optimist in me wants to say “one year of wedded bliss,” but anyone who’s a regular human knows that that’s…a bit of a stretch. Honestly, going into this, I thought, “I’ve got this marriage thing in the bag. No problem.” We had been together for four years when we got married (and had lived together for three of those years), and I assumed that we would just continue on, business as usual.

I was wrong. Marriage is wonderful and amazing and glorious. It’s also hard, frustrating, and aggravating. I cannot imagine being married to anyone else, nor do I want to be. I have never loved anyone like I do my wife, but on the flip side of that coin, no one frustrates me anywhere near as much. (I just read her this, by the way, and she laughed — because she agrees with me, I assume.)

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Queer Fangirl AF

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Today is National Coming Out Day. I officially came out years ago, and (let’s be honest) unofficially way before that with all of that flannel I wore. Anyone who has ever read this blog knows that it was a rough process for me. Growing up, I felt alone. I thought that no one could possibly feel the way I felt, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. It led to some dark times for me, but I eventually accepted and embraced who I am. I wish I could go back in time and tell this girl that it does, in fact, get better.

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One of the roughest things was that I felt like I had no one to talk to about it. I almost kind of did once, that time my “friends” started a rumor about me that I was gay. I introduced myself to a friend of a friend with “I’m Monica, and my friends think I’m gay.” Her response? “I’m Beth, and I don’t care.” (Still friends, by the way.) But after that rumor was shut down, I shut down about it. No sense drawing attention to the thing that almost ruined (and ended) my life.

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One of the great things about the internet — and, yes, there are many awful things, but so, so many great ones — is that, no matter what community you want to be a part of, you’ll find it. And with lesbian spaces disappearing, that’s more important than ever.

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Toronto, part 3

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We left dinner with our new friends, both still alive. None of them turned out to be murderers, which was an added bonus.

Chris got to pick what we did the next day because I had hijacked Saturday. As always, she chose wisely. We breakfasted at Tim Horton’s, because Canada, and headed to Toronto Island. We skipped the ferry and chose instead to take a water taxi…which meant we were jammed on a pontoon boat with 10 other people. Have I mentioned lately about my fear of drowning, water, and/or boats?

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Before…

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During…

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After.

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The Eve of the Big Day

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I know, I know. I’m moving in reverse. I know I live-blogged about the day before our wedding, but I left out a lot of stuff, like about the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.

Oh, and — as Chris just reminded me — how our sink exploded that morning.

Okay, I’m being dramatic. There was a leak and a bit of a mess, right before we were leaving to begin our prep day. We looked at each other and realized there really wasn’t much of anything we could do at that point other than clean it up, have minimal use of the sink, ask our friends who were checking on Graham to make sure nothing fell apart, and hope for the best.

(Nothing fell apart, and all is well.)

We got our nails done, did a bunch of prep with some friends and family, and then went upstairs to get ready for our rehearsal and also some cookie dropoff.

(Guys, our cookie table was epic, and that isn’t an exaggeration, but you’ll have to wait to see that for yourselves in a post or two).

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Sister-in-Law Amy demonstrating how to sit down or something, I guess.

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The Big Day, part 1

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I don’t know if I mentioned this or not, but I did get married last October.

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This is how I felt about it.

It was the best day of my life. Not an exaggeration. I wish I could have bottled up the feeling and sipped on it slowly when stress and doubt and other generic badness entered my life in the weeks and months after.

I live-blogged the day before the wedding, and it the room and person prep we did on our wedding eve. It’s fun to go back and read about the day that I didn’t know what Oxford heels were.

Like I said, our wedding was amazing. It was beautiful, touching, meaningful, amazing, and all sorts of other positive adjectives. The road leading up to it had a few bumps in it, though. I’ll mention a few of them briefly, and then I’ll get to the good stuff.

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Earper

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So, as anyone who has read my blog in the last few months knows, I recently became interested in (obsessed with) a little show called Wynonna Earp. Some of the cast and the show runner (!!!) are going to be at Fan Expo in Toronto, and I somehow managed to convince Chris that we should go to it.

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She’s beautiful and generous. I’m so lucky.

I may have led with “Gillian Anderson will be there,” but, hey, whatever it takes, right?

So, I got online and bought the tickets, and everything was great, right? Nothing to worry about. I’m going to meet this cast and show runner that I admire and care about so much and —

Oh, shit. I’m going to meet this cast and show runner that I admire and care about so much.

F.

Wait. They’re just as nervous to meet me as I am to meet them, right?

Eh, probably not.

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WayHaught Wednesday

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It’s been a long day, and yet here I am, sitting on the couch with Graham as company while Chris is asleep. The disadvantages of being on opposite shifts.


Thank God he is pretty stinking cute. 

My lunch break today consisted of taking part in a “power hour” where the Wynonna Earp fandom tried to get a hashtag to trend. The overall theme of today was WayHaught Wednesday, and I took part in that throughout the day. Towards the end of “pahr hahr” (yinz know ‘at’s hah we say shit n’at), I started tweeting gifts of characters who were victims of the Bury Your Gays trope, saying the show would never let that happen to our precious WayHaught. Simple. Easy. Difficult to choose. 

The first, my beloved Tara, the character death that made me nervous about getting invested in a gay character again. Tara, you got so much more interesting after you broke up with Willow, and then after you were both finally happy, they took it all away. Charlie from Supernatural, because Felicia Day is so amazing and so was that character. I chose Clexa from The 100, because even though I didn’t watch it, a good friend did, and she was traumatized by her death. Dana from The L Word. I quickly skimmed through a list of over 160 lesbian characters who met their untimely death and made my picks. 

My time was running short, so I switched to “we know you’ll let WayHaught end up like these couples” mode. Easy. Bo and Lauren from Lost Girl, obviously. Lesbian OTP of the century. And…um…oh, yeah. Graham and Megan from But I’m a Cheerleader. They rode off together in the back of a pickup truck, and so what it wasn’t TV? Next! 

Sigh. Damn it. So I tweeted a gif of Ellen and Portia. I realized things were desperate, so I googled. I quickly dismissed most of the ones I found. Bette and Tina? Ugh. I wouldn’t wish their relationship on my ex. Willow and Kennedy? Fuck you, list of 16. No way. Brittany and Santana? Oh, that’s a good one. Let’s quit while we are ahead, shall we?

WayHaught is so important because I had an easier time finding examples of dead lesbian characters than happy ones. 

WayHaught is so important because one — ONE — long-term lesbian pairing in recent history got their happy ending. (And I say “long-term” because I feel like I’m in the minority that really liked Callie and Penny together. Sorry, Calzona people. Please don’t wage war on me. Plus, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Callie at Seattle Grace, and we all know that her happiness is often temporary.)

The world is a confusing place for a young gay lady. I speak from experience. For every positive (legal marriage!), there’s a negative (senseless shooting in Orlando). For every build-up (I think I like a girl! I’m so happy!), there’s a tear-down (my “friends” started a rumor that I’m gay and my life is basically over). The value of a positive depiction of a queer couple (one confident, one figuring things out) can’t be overstated. 

WayHaught is important. WayHaught can make people realize they aren’t alone. WayHaught can save lives. 

We need a season 2 because we need more WayHaught in our world, for these important reasons and also because DID NICOLE HEAR WAVERLY SAY SHE LOVES HER?!

Also, WayHaught can make 39-year-old women turn into fangirls and enjoy every minute of it.