My Weekend Crush

The internet is, let’s be perfectly honest, not necessarily known for its great writing. Bad spelling? Oh, yes. Atrocious grammar? To be sure. Fanatical blowhards? I think it actually spawns them. But you have to really want it to find great writing. So once you find it, it’s like the clouds open. This, this is what I’ve been searching for. Halle-fucking-llujah!

I remember searching, largely in vain, years and years ago for that ever-elusive great writing when I stumbled back upon a website I visited occasionally called AfterEllen. I had read its articles before but this was something different. This writer, this Scribegrrrl, was recapping this new show about lesbians. I was, of course, watching said show and psychoanalyzing its every twist and turn in my own head. And here was this writer who was so funny and so smart and so insightful and so very gay doing the exact same thing. It was, in short, a revelation.

As the season wore on I kept coming back, week after week. The season turned into seasons and I kept coming back, week after week. And week after week, she made me laugh like an idiot. I had to stop reading her recaps in the office because my co-workers kept looking at me funny as I chuckled and chortled myself into a stupor. Meander through her five seasons of L Word archives and practically any page you land on will give you a reason to smile if not outright snort with glee. If anyone ever dares to tell you that lesbians aren’t funny, just point them to Scribe. End of argument. My unabashed writer’s crush would sometimes lapse into full-blown writer’s envy as a particular turn of phrase or exceptionally shrewd insight would send me into fits of both awe and jealousy. Dammit, I wish I’d written that.

Little could I have ever imagined that all these years later not only would I find myself working with Scribe, but -- I’d like to think -- could count her as a friend as well. In our first email exchange, before I was blogging for AfterEllen, Scribe off-handedly said to me “your blog rocks” and I’m pretty sure I actually blushed. It’s rare and wonderful to work for someone whose work you respect so completely.

So her departure from AfterEllen this week (for a fabulous new job) makes me happy for her but terribly sad for me and, really, all of us. Not being able to read her writing day after day seems inconceivable, unbearable even. Do they make a patch for writer withdrawal? Scribe is the reason I first became addicted to AfterEllen. She was, is and will always be the originator of Snark: Lesbian Style. For that, and so much more, I will be eternally grateful. Thanks for the great writing, Scribe. Happy weekend, all.