I was dismayed earlier this month when the New York State Senate voted down the gay marriage bill, and I decided to interview and paint long-standing gay couples, both men and women, and ask them about their stories and their relationships and what marriage means to them. This is the first of the series.
On a recent rainy afternoon in Brooklyn, I sat down to talk with writer and communications specialist Nancy Goldstein and syndicated cartoonist Joan Hilty, whose marriage in Provincetown in May of 2004 has been recognized in New York State since July of 2006. With their dog Juno trying to get in on the conversation, Nancy and Joan talked about love and marriage.
Joan: We met online in the early, early days of internet dating, in mid-1999. It was on a lesbian/gay dating website called Edwina.com. Its icon was a little guy dressed up as your “Aunt Edwina who only wants the best for you”. You could browse other people’s personals, and only get an idea of them through the quality of their writing because there were barely any pictures up yet or videos or songs or anything.
Nancy: The chick you chose me over did have a picture of herself up with a cowboy hat. But she overused the ellipsis.
Joan: Yeah, and no capitalizing, no nothing. But there was Nancy, who wrote beautifully and talked about all the great places she liked to eat in Prospect Heights, which was just a neighborhood away from me, and that one was interesting to me.