A Bird’s Life

On Weddingbee, there’s this thing that a lot of the Bees write called “A Bee’s Life“, where bees talk about how they found Weddingbee, how or why they applied, what it’s like to write for the site, and tips for wanna-bees.  While I’m not really into the formulaic writing of “The Bee’s Life”, I would like to talk a little bit about this blog, and why I’m here, and why I keep doing it.

Honestly, I sort of started the blog so that I could write for Weddingbee.  And I was pretty embarrassed by that.  I had been faithfully reading Weddingbee since about May of 08 – well before I was engaged and only shortly after Turtle and I started dating.  I think I had realized that, even though it had been a really, really short amount of time, I was interested in marriage; bigger than that, or a better excuse for my new wedding-blog-reading habit, was that I worked at a rape crisis center and I just could not deal with rape all day.  I needed something happy, hopeful, crafty – enter wedding blogs.

The main issue that I had with the whole thing, though, was that there was no one like me on the site.  People were having big weddings or they were straight and had all this familial support (which, hey, it turns out I have, too, but at the time I had thought that kind of support would be a long time coming) or they were making every. single. detail. themselves.  I like crafts, but no, I am not making my dress. Or my suit.  I am happy to pay someone else to do that for me.  And did I mention there was not a single lesbian? (Since then, Ms. Awesome  started blogging for the hive.  Yay more lesbians!)

I think I started this blog the day, maybe two days, before I didn’t make a team during roller derby “recruitment.”  I was crushed and I needed somewhere to put all the energy I had been pouring into derby for the past three months.

Derby Girl: Nearly Little Miss Rough-it

Okay, back to the ‘bee.  Honestly – and I’m sorry if any bees are reading this, and it sounds hurtful – I thought most of the bees were focused way too much on just their weddings, rather than the marriage.  I thought they were shallow.  I thought, How can anyone have this much to say, this much energy to focus on just one day? And what about their marriages?!  So I wrote my blog sort of in defiance of that.  I was not going to be shallow, I would not write just about the details. (Note: Mrs. Pretzel just wrote an excellent post about that.)

I think my first wedding-related post was one where I said, “UGH, why does everyone who gets married change their name on Facebook and put their last name in quotation marks?  THAT IS NOT HOW GRAMMAR WORKS.”  And my next one was something like, “Ring shots are silly, cause DUDE – it’s not ABOUT the ring. It’s about the f-ing marriage!”

my personal ringshot...

I applied to write for So You’re EnGAYged, and got rejected. Ouch. Double ouch since I love that site.

So I started this blog in late Jan, early Feb, and applied to blog for Weddingbee in March. In early May, I started checking my spam folder, because that’s where the rejection would go, obviously.  And then in the midst of huge chaos, two days before we moved, I got an email from Pengy saying I was in.

I didn’t squeal.  My hands did not shake while I forwarded the email to important people. Um, it’s just a blog.

Hahahaha, just kidding. Just about the blog part.  It was the highlight of my month. I got picked! I spent the whole day agonizing over which little character to be (Seahorse because seahorses reject traditional gender norms, duh).

I got picked and now I got to go be a voice for all kinds of people who maybe thought that the ‘bee was shallow or that there were no lesbians! Look, here’s one!

my profile picture on the Bee

But also, on that shallow note? I have met several bees since starting.  Yes, we meet each other in real life.  And dude, they are awesome.  They are some of the smartest, most interesting people – not to mention some of the nicest people – I have ever met.  Speaking of nice: someone asked for my shipping address to send me nice things, prewedding.  SO NICE.

So, here’s why I write: to be someone like me, for someone like me to find and appreciate, because that’s all I wanted when I first started poking around.  Beyond that, it’s so good for me to get my thoughts written out – it’s good to read that I’m being a little crazy, and then say, Fine, I’m being a little crazy.  And it is so, so good to “meet” all of you people out there, or to hear that I’ve helped you solve some little relationship glitch, or that maybe I’ve helped your sanity?  Because you so, so help mine.

Why do you blog?  How did you find this blog?  If you tell me who you are and then email me your address, I really will send you an elephant or a bicycle or a tea cup.  I know I promised these things months ago, but really! I have envelopes and everything!