Office Wife

You may be surprised to learn that, in addition to being a woman of color, writer, and blacktress, I am also in a committed REAL-ationship with a woman.

She is my office wife. Her name is Allison, and she’s a semi-precious stone of Caucasian beauty.

Initially, I was nervous and awkward around Allison. She wears a lot of muted tones, sensible slacks, and has well-coiffed blonde hair. I figured she was not going to be able to handle Sojourner. I was worried that she’d be like, “aah, she’s black, I don’t know how to talk to her!” and she’d mistake my sassiness for negro anger. I was warned pre-meeting not to use profanity around Allison, lest her delicate ears burn.

Then, one day, I came in to work looking all done up. It’s a rare moment, when the contact lenses and cute top appear in tandem, and Allison noticed. Not only did she feed my ego, but she also said, “Oh, you got your hair did!”

YES! I got my hair DID!!!

Where Allison learned the incorrect verbiage used for black-tresses, I will never know! What are they teaching young people in the suburbs of Hoboken?! My shock was further compounded when, a few days later, I asked Alli for some hand lotion and she said, “Why, are your elbows ashy?”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!! Kind of offensive, yet kind of hilarious and subversive!
She can handle the truth!!

The best part is that she says these things with the wide-open eagerness of a child, not a hint of irony or self-awareness in her voice. Her words are pure and her love is true.

Since those moments, I’ve let it all hang out with Allison, even letting her read my blog. And she attended my comedic performance a few weeks back, and laughed at moments when others didn’t. I think this is why I love her most. No matter what I say to her, she cracks up. She allows my randomness to flow free, and makes our cubicles/veal pens feel like wide open meadows filled with flowers and unicorns.

Do you see how poetic this love makes me?!

And when she edits my articles, wielding her red pen like a sword, I know she’s doing it out of love. She is doing it so that, one day my blogs don’t contain so many typos and improper uses of commas. She does it because she cares.

We’re getting gay married in Ontario next week. Our registry is at pottery barn and Melissa Ethridge’s garage sale.


This is me and Alli. She's standing over me copyediting an article I wrote. She's kind of like a female Abe Lincoln, in her understanding of the brown people and desire for us to be equals.