#Mayoral Announcements

[feelingtheaster99]

I am so proud of lil Conrad for continuing to stick up for himself and for the Big Guy

[mayordeas-clone]

its literally just them standing next to each other with slightly updated designs in ixima's style but in my brain i am so giddy. i love them so much they look so beautiful...

[maxwell-mtv]

Being a writer of the fanfiction variety can be a chore... such as when you can't recall the exact detail of a certain cutscene that you can't find anywhere on the internet (AND BOY IS THAT ONE SMALL DETAIL IMPORTANT). With that being said... I now need to replay the entirety of Stardew Valley (Expanded) for a single late-game cut scene...

[abstractmayor]

GOOD MORNING! GOOD AFTERNOON! GOOD AFTER AFTERNOON!

Are /YOU/ ready?

Join the Boyz (@senseisodapop @rquerdo @furywithaz and I) on June 4th @ TBA time PST to see us fumble around and find out!

[gravegroves]

To anyone making a poll on this hellsite: if you don't make a "This doesn't apply to me, I just want to see the results" option, your polls are gonna be skewed as fuck, because I cannot be the only nosy bitch on here that wants to know what people vote on even when I don't have a single damn clue what it is about. I WILL choose a random option if you give me no other choice, you have been warned.

[fountainpenguin]

"The phone rings in the middle of the night... My father yells 'Whatcha gonna do with your life!?'"

---

New Dog's Life chapter today! Still a Traffic SMP fan-season, even if it doesn't look like one in the first 1,000 words, ha ha.

Chapter 4 - “Simmer (Scott)”

Read on AO3

Start from Chapter 1

---

MCC's exhausting and therapy's expensive, but having Scar and Skizz catapult you into your Hot Boy Summer arc is free. It's the Scott chapter, folks! This man has never done anything shady in his life. He's just building a sushi restaurant... and definitely doesn't have unfinished paperwork sniffing at his heels.

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

💚  💛  ❤️

Minecrafters like to move in circles. It’s the first thing they burn into your head back in City Planning 101. They like to keep you in their sights. They dance sideways. They sometimes swap into third-person view. They move like prey even on Peaceful, which is awful when you think about it - about how deeply embedded in your code that sort of thing is - but hey… It’s not wrong. They are prey. So when Scott first built New Star Station back in the day, he opted for curved walls and a fairly open floor plan. Brings the gals and pals to the yard like dust-moths to a redstone flame.

And no windows. Everyone thinks they want windows - thinks they want to see the washed-out pink of the Between Dimension’s sky and its fluffy red and white trees - but they don’t. They really don’t. In this dimension, the mobs don’t stop spawning just because you lit the ground up. There’s a reason every floor tile in this station is coated in half-slabs and carpets. They’ve built themselves a world, built themselves a home, they play their little games…

But the “no windows” policy will remain no matter how many requests pile up in his office. Windows showcasing Between’s hazel and crabapple trees, its fireflies, its mooblooms, its mice, its zombie horses, and those gemstone-flecked blocks that coat the natural ground are aesthetic in theory, but horrid in execution. Once you have windows, you start asking more questions. You start checking over your shoulder. You start asking for weapons. And that’s not the vibe. In New Star Station, they’re “safe.” They have quartz floors, mossy cobble, and dark oak wood. It’s cute. It’s home. They can pretend the outside world isn’t living in total anarchy.

No one likes the reminder that they’re prey.

“Scott,” says Scar behind him as they round the next hallway curve, because as much as Scott loves him, Scar wouldn’t get a memo if you flooded his inventory with several stacks of 64. Scar’s trying to hustle, using his cane to push himself forward a little more than he should. He might slip. Scar’s fingers graze the back of Scott’s jacket sleeve. “What’s your favorite block from the outside?”

Scott spares him half a glance. Looks right at his pine-green eyes, which is a mistake. It’s easier to stay in character when he’s actually on a server - when he’s staring down a presentation of his friends instead of this… this out of roleplay version of themselves. Scar’s not in his wooden puppet skin anymore; they’re not on the Dog’s Life server. He’s wearing his rumpled brown coat and explorer’s fedora. His spiky blue wings flutter behind him, non-functional but sentimental. And he’s got algae-coated eyes.

Scott would like to claw the algae straight off him.

“Leaves,” he says. It’s not untrue. But Scar picks up on that instantly, because he’s Scar and can dance his tongue like a snake doing ballet. It’s almost insulting, actually, how many hours Scott put into this hallway design just for Scar to tune it all out (Most people use the bullet path; Scar can’t, Scar always walks, doesn’t compliment the block palette). Scar half-tosses his cane, catching it in his hand. He hustles after Scott without planting that thing down on the floor. Just shuffling, just playing the syrupy sweet character…

It’s all a show. The man just glitched a whole server - so much paperwork; gotta file Grian’s incident reports - and he’s still trotting about with no cares in the world and triple aces up his sleeve. Scar’s not baggy-eyed and bristle-tailed. There’s no long nights waiting for him. No people to please. It must be nice to roll around in someone else’s sandbox. See, Scott built this playground, but he can never lose himself in it. And he didn’t even build a playground. New Star’s a bunker dressed in tinsel and glitter.

“Oh really?” (About the leaves). Scar’s voice is honey and hums. He slams one arm around Scott’s shoulders, which Scott winces at because it almost flickers him out of his human persona- almost startles a side of himself he doesn’t like to show. Scar sweeps his cane around, gently tapping the top of it to the bottom of Scott’s chin. It’s spruce wood, the cane. Scott can tell from the smell of it; even the polish doesn’t hide that. Scar presses the cane’s curve innocently at his mouth. “Scott, you have just secured your place as my favorite mayor in New Star’s history.”

“I’m the only mayor in…”

“Leaves,” Scar plows on, completely ignoring him, “are one of the most beautiful blocks in the game. In fact, I’ve been thinking! I’ve been thinking for a while now. I keep meaning to ask if I can have a tree outside my portal, which I think would balance out my mailbox. Big and little! Comparison contrast. You know I hate paperwork, though… Hey, what do the leaves look like in this dimension anyway? Maybe instead of getting an import, I should go the authentic route.”

Scott’s eye twitches up. He doesn’t throw Scar’s arm away from his neck, but it takes an extra breath - which is not a good sign - to keep it together; keep the truest part of himself tucked inside his code. Scar’s easily spooked and already had a rough day. Can’t keep a secret either. Scott’s not in the mood for coming out to him. Instead he says, “Scaaar,” in a gently patient, sort of in character kind of tone. He turns his head, smiling, and gives a little tilt. Because nothing bothers him, because he’s Scott, and it’s his playground and everyone else is running around in it. “You, sir, are setting yourself up to be a bad example… Why are you asking about outside blocks?”

Nat 1 on intimidation. Scar hums like a bumblebee, pressing his cane a little tighter against the base of Scott’s neck. They haven’t stopped walking; he doesn’t take his mouth away from Scott’s pointed ear.

“Why, they sound like fun to build with, Smajor! Are you hoarding pretty blocks?” Lips so close, hitboxes shuffling, lips passing straight through skin in a way that sends goosepixels shrieking up his neck like lightning. Scar’s fingers clench in his shoulder. “Can’t a man want to play around with new ceiling tiles? Why! You’re a ragged little ferret hoarding ceiling tiles, aren’t you?” And he thunks the cane tip against Scott’s chin. Scott’s on auto-pilot; he smacks the back of his hand against Scar’s cheek, which finally gets him slinking off.

“Between’s natural blocks are ugly. You wouldn’t use them anyway.” It’s like spoonfeeding carrot mush to a baby.

[Cnt'd on AO3 - Link at top]

[snowfea]

Been working on a school project for 48 hours almost non stop, if I hear about PV panels again I'm yeeting these things into the sun

[electrosquash]

The funny thing about being fat is:

I can do whatever i want, it doesn't matter, i will be stared at. Which in conclusion means i can do whatever i want.

:)

[skipppppy]

The life of Stanford Pines must be so bizarre from the perspective of a random townsperson who doesn’t know him. Imagine you live in a sleepy lumber town, where the most interesting thing you’ve heard this week is that a plot of land on the outskirts of the woods was sold and someone has started constructing a cabin on there.

You later learn by word of mouth that he’s a phd student doing some kind of long-term research project. You don’t see his face until one night he comes blasting down the street on a trail of destruction, eyes yellow and glazed over, trashing public property, inflicting gruesome injuries on himself, and laughing like he’s on an erratic, drug-fuelled bender. He then goes home and locks himself in his cabin again. This becomes a cycle; he stays isolated for weeks, then comes out once in a blue moon to wreak havoc and be a nuisance to the authorities.

Then one day it stops. He doesn’t come back out. The next time you see him he’s at a grocery store looking completely different to how you remember; his hair is grown out, he’s put on weight, his clothes are completely different and he’s stopped wearing glasses. Some townsfolk finally work up the nerve to talk to him and you learn that he invited them to his cabin on a tour. His home is apparently FULL of dangerous research equipment and the scientist, who had allegedly been very quiet and level-headed on the days he wasn’t having his “episodes,” has had a complete personality change, he’s loud and confident and less than honest and a little sleazy but a damn good salesman and entertainer.

He hosts tours out of his home for the next 30 years. Over time he’d changed it into a museum of sorts that sells overpriced knickknacks to unsuspecting tourists, but aside from his shady business practices he’s a well known member of his community. He changes up the exhibits every few months, brings his niece and nephew to stay one summer and they become town darlings, and even exposes a beloved public figure for running a spyware scheme.

One day you hear he got visited by the FBI. They start going round town asking about him. A week or so later he gets arrested. The town goes CRAZY theorising why but then there’s a massive earthquake and in the chaos of that you forget what happened to him. One minute you hear that the feds were surrounding his house and the next they’re all leaving like they forgot what they came for. Another week later he resurfaces and announces he’s going to run for Mayor, dominated the polls, wins the popular vote, but loses his position immediately due to an extensive criminal record.

Then there’s gossip that he completely changed his appearance again. He’s lost his fez and is walking around in a coat and cable knit turtleneck in the middle of the July heat. Then you hear from someone else that he looks the exact same and didn’t change anything. Then you see two identical men walking down the street, one matching the description you saw. People are BUZZING to know what happened and you eventually learn that the “new guy” was actually the same Scientist and the guy that had been running the museum was his twin brother who stole his identity after he went missing. Then the apocalypse happens

[shangtusianheroes]

" Mayor Zhao here! a casual reminder that sundays are the mun's table top gaming days! as the DM he'll be busy till around 4pm EST! he will get to to all posts and threads regarding Milla, ect at that time! have a wonderful day! "

[ratgingi]

hi so uhhh little update on the situations from this post (its positive ish this time i swear)

im being moved out of my house today, currently in the process of packing up my things actually

various family members/friends of mine have agreed to take different animals and foster them for me until i have a stable living situation again, for the time being im going to a youth help facility thats gonna help me get an actual job and education and all so !!! big moves im nervous but thisll be good in the long run

im only really giving this update bc as a result i will probably be pretty static for awhile on socials, im still trying to do artfight stuff so if you all see me there occasionally thats why lmao

anyway thank you for reading i hope ur doing super well rn ily/p 👍

[attystark]

They’re coming to one of the cities right by me oh my God. There’s a chance!!

[therealbeachfox]

Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.

00000

We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.

00000

So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.

00000

Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.

00000

We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.

00000

They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.

00000

There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”

00000

It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.

00000

When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

[abstractmayor]

Who tf is this guy???

[el-blog-pepe]

To Go With the Flow

Listen to the most recent episode of my podcast: #750 To Go With the Flow https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/joseph-mc42/episodes/750-To-Go-With-the-Flow-e2j90ep News Headlines: Sadiq Khan wins the London Mayoral Elections,Prince Andrew may get evicted,Joanna Lumley will announce Britain’s Eurovision Scores.Shoplifters to be banned from stores.Frankie Valli gets a place on the Hollywood…

[wilsonfisk-thekingpin]

From the Office of Mayor Fisk

Created By: Mayor Wilson Fisk

Posted On: April 11, 2024 at 8:00 am

Source: Pixabay.com

Expansion of Voting Rights

New York City - One of the ever so many issues that plague our city is crime. The Fisk Administration has been working tirelessly to address this issue and take steps to remedy it.

One of these steps is sending criminals to prison after they have committed a crime. This allows them to reflect on what they have done wrong and take the steps to make amends for their actions.

After a former criminal is released from prison, it is imperative to restore their rights as a full citizen. Included in this restoration is the right to vote. So long as the former criminals have completed all terms of their sentence, such as parole and probation they are officially eligible to register to vote. These rights will be restored automatically upon completion of the aforementioned terms.

If you would like a more personalized experience in having your rights restored, as well as resources to assist you in doing so, Mayor Fisk is willing to extend a Restoration of Clemency to all interested parties. A simple message is all that is required to initiate this.

If you do not know the status of your eligibility to vote, be sure to contact the Mayor's office. Our resources are ready to assist you. For individual help, the Clerk of Court can be reached Monday through Friday between 8 am and 5 pm here.

All eligible people must re-enroll to be able to vote, regardless of previous voting history. All voters must be registered to vote at least 30 days before the election. After enrollment, it is strongly encouraged that all eligible people keep their voting information up to date. Any out of date information, may result in a person being ineligible to vote.