The four and half year itch

As the ex-crystal users lobby and other random Stacy Farrar haters will gleefully point out, there is an ad in this paper looking for a new editor of Sydney Star Observer.

When I came to the Star as a general news reporter and started a pithy column about my interest in girls and sport, I didn’t think very far ahead. In fact, I thought Pitch Bitch would be just a diary of one girl’s week at the Gay Games.

Turns out it’s been a bit more than that. A bit of social commentary, some good jokes, plenty of crap ones, and quite a few anyways along the way. Since I started writing it I’ve had two kids and bought a house, and my girlfriend of two years has become my girlfriend of seven years. If I didn’t think the word journey deserved a blanket ban from the English language, I’d say I’d had an interesting one.

It should be noted that I also didn’t plan to become editor of Australia’s best and longest running gay and lesbian newspaper. At my initial interview I said I’d stay a year. I certainly didn’t plan to be writing this, four and a half years later.

But before I knew it a year had turned to two and I was still here. I coined the phrase lesbian invisibility syndrome and my analysis of what metrosexuality meant to lesbians made it into The Sydney Morning Herald. Then a year turned to three and I was a mother, fighting distractions and sleeplessness as a year turned to four and I was still here. Now, I’m going.

I’ve had some good fights along the way and made more than a few lifelong friends. My skin has thickened, my interest in gay bar culture disappeared, but I still love this community and most of the people in it.

And I’ll keep writing this column for a while, if the new editor wants it. I’m sure once I get away from my 24-hour-a-day gay life I’ll have much more interesting things to say.