One night at a Wendy's drive-through, Gretchen asked me, "how come you haven't asked me to do that interview with your person thing?"
I confirmed there was honey mustard in my bag and turned to her. "Because you explicitly said you didn't wanna do stuff like that." By "stuff like that" I meant "be vulnerable on the internet," because even though that's basically my entire career, it's not hers!
This was true, Gretchen admitted. But in that moment, she told me later, she'd wanted to be the type of significant other who was "super chill and open" as well as "a selfless human with impeccable vibes," so she said, "well, I changed my mind! Let's do the interview."
I was surprised and clearly so was Gretchen — after dropping me off she ate all of...
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Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.
Riese has written 3267 articles for us.