victory-ish

So I did not win either category. Neither did Josh win best-dressed man or best facial hair. And I am kind of a sore loser – I’m an only child, what do you expect? But after I got done breaking stuff, I made myself remember that least I was a finalist – at least I still got my picture on the Seven Days website and a decent amount of exposure. And the people who won in both categories are kind of legit famous. Kat Wright is basically Burlington’s next Grace Potter. So there’s a certain fan base inherent in her campaign that I can’t really touch. It’s not an insult to my fashion prowess.

And I’m really happy about the representation in “best couple”. It’s nice to see Seven Days make plain that being publicly naked or getting buttloads of tattoos doesn’t preclude your ability to commit to a healthy relationship. Even the degenerates deserve love. It’s particularly nice because Josh and I are non-monogamous. You know this if you know us/have been hit on by one of us in real life, but I realized I have a lot of readers who don’t, and I often go back and forth on whether to “come out” to them. On the one hand, it’s fundamentally none of your damn business. On the other, while it really isn’t any of your damn business, it’s also the only way to gain representation. We think of poly relationships as doomed to fail because we hear, pretty much exclusively, about the ones that do. We think of non-monogamy as something that other people do. Practitioners couldn’t possibly be our neighbors or our co-workers or our vintage fashion bloggers. A couple of generations ago, we thought the same of queer and trans people, and look how much visibility has done. Not that I think the non-monogamous are oppressed, exactly. But being perpetually misunderstood (sometimes in really cruel ways: I’ve been told I’ll “die alone because no one can satisfy” me) is still a pain.

Josh is my primary partner, my life partner, and I love him to death. That doesn’t mean we own each other. It means we trust each other. And 10,000 Vermonters decided our relationship is a paragon of the genre. That’s pretty awesome.

…that got really soapbox-y really fast. Regularly scheduled outfit posts shall resume on the morrow.