nuclear anecdote

i was trying to shorten this anecdote into a manageable thread for twitter but i couldn’t, so now it’s here. YOU’RE WELCOME.

so there are missiles in north dakota – this is p common knowledge, there’s even an abandoned site called the north dakota pyramid that was literally operational for like three days that you can visit – about 150 of them, minutemen i guess, and they’re just… scattered around this big relatively empty state. fine.

well, there’s a silo p near the highway from where i live to the slightly larger city two hours away where target lives that crystal and i have passed prooooobs about 100 times in the five years we’ve lived here. we talk about it maybe 1 out of every 4/5 times we pass it, mostly bc one of our coworkers had a flat tire near there once and a military vehicle appeared out of nowhere, changed her tire, and escorted her until she was well on her way again, which is, obviously, both kind of understandable and creepy as fuck.

ANYWAY, we drove by last week on our way to get our fog light fixed from when crystal hit a raccoon the last time we drove back home on that highway and i noticed that there were a couple of military vehicles at the silo-ish area and i didn’t think anything about it because there is occasionally one or two there, doing whatever they do to ensure that a freakin’ MISSILE SILO is functioning optimally, i assume.

but then on the way home, i looked again because when i’ve seen vehicles there before, they’re usually only there on one half of the trip, but this time they were still there. like a lot of them. like a half dozen military vehicles at the underground MISSILE SILO next to the highway. and i took mental note of it, but went on with our drive because i have the memory of a goldfish and the tiny attention span of the millennial that old people write op-eds about.

it took me a couple days, but like, there were military vehicles at the side-of-the-highway underground missile silo in middle-of-nowhere bumfuck north dakota because our piece of shit president is a FUCKING WAR MONGER and if he decides to launch NUCLEAR WEAPONS there is a very good chance they’re going to be launched from a missile silo very near me.

it’s one thing to know there are 150 nuclear weapons in the ground near enough to your home. it’s another thing to suddenly realize they might actually be launched, used against other living people across the world.

i am, to say the least, unsettled.

also, just for funzies, minot air force base that is in charge of those nuclear missiles AND bombers that drop the more traditional weapons of mass destruction is one of the worst maintained with the worst morale in the country! drug abuse! domestic violence! missile scandals!

living in a country at the whim of a violent man-baby is just the best!

hell hath no fury like a lesbian under-represented or "am i an owl? or a rabbit?"

My girlfriend and I are not engaged, nor do we plan to be married anytime particularly soon. Nonetheless, I am currently infuriated/frustrated/banging-my-head-against-a-wall-repeatedly by/with/because-of the wedding industry.

I am in love with my wonderful girlfriend. I know how I want to propose and I know that, when the stars align and the wind blows right, I will do so. We have discussed marriage. It is something we want to do! And something we’re fairly enthusiastic about. When I realized this was the case, I started collecting bits and pieces of wedding inspiration, following wedding blogs, trying to find places that catered/leaned/considered-the-existence-of our unusual/unconventional/not-white-and-roses-and-parquet-dancefloor tastes.

There are some great blogs (Offbeat Bride and Halloweddings) that bend toward the non-traditional, but it’s still limited. I’m willing to go the extra mile and DIY the shit out of our future nuptial celebrations, but some more inspiration wouldn’t hurt!

But that’s not even the frustrating part, the frustrating part is how wildly hetero-normative the entire industry is! I’m a lady who loves another lady, there are a lot of us in the world, and we should be able to see some more of us out there, getting married, and doing it fabulously! (On a bright note see: So You’re Engayged)

Think of all the gendered aspects of weddings: the clothes, the cake topper, the invitations, the terminology; it’s all steeped in that “well this part is for boys and this part is for girls” attitude. Women are expected to care about the planning and the details, men are expected to shut up, roll over, and show up on time.

In thinking about some of this stuff, I actually found myself thinking, “Hmm, could my girlfriend and I be represented by animals?” so that I could build a theme on pairing two representative species or colors in a way that would suggest we were the same gender, but not identical. What kind of world is that?

All I want is representation.

Okay, that’s not true, all I want is the legal right to commit myself to my partner for the rest of my life, but representation in the industry would be a great second. There are same-sex couples getting married/committed/unioned all over the country, so why aren’t I seeing more of them?

This seems insane to me on a very base capitalist level: why isn’t someone making money off of it? I’m gay! I want to pay exorbitant prices for Jordan almonds and cake too!