As you read this installment of Interview With My Significant Other, Kristen and I are away on our annual anniversary trip, which doubles as a joint writing retreat, in the woods. In fact, today is our anniversary, or the day we chose to celebrate as our anniversary. It was the day that Kristen first DM’d me on Twitter. Yes, it is Valentine’s Day. Her choice remains chaotic in my mind to this day. But oh how happy I am that this stranger many states away decided to get wine drunk after work and then fire off a message to the girl whose thirst traps she’d been hearting on Instagram for many weeks. This is a particularly fun anniversary year, because four is Kristen’s lucky number, and because it’s our first one as an engaged couple. We’re getting married!!!!!

In this very long interview, we talk about everything from the financial realities of being in a writer4writer relationship, laundry for a weirdly long time, the fact that I’d never used sex toys (none! ever!) before we started dating, top/bottom dynamics and our sexual compatibility, staying up to watch Yellowjackets until four in the morning, our 12-year age gap, having kids together, Bravo, the time Kristen made the worst rules ever for a Twilight drinking game, and making space for art.

Could I have cut down the part where we talk about laundry extensively? Probably. And yet, I did not. Enjoy!

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How do you identify?

Kayla: I identify as a lesbian.

Kristen: I would say that I identify as a lesbian and queer.

Kayla: Yes. And you use all pronouns.

Kristen: I do.

Kayla: And I use she/her. And I’m a bottom, and you’re a top, which we talk about a lot in this.

How did we meet and get together?

Kayla: So how do we meet? How long did we know each other before becoming romantically involved.

Kristen: We did not know each other at all before becoming romantically involved.

Kayla: No.

Kristen: You were a stranger.

Kayla: Yes. And this is a story that we’ve told on Autostraddle before. You tell the shortish version.

Kristen: I came home from work at my full-time library job on Valentine’s Day. And this is when I was just indiscriminately fucking around and seeing randos locally. And I had been looking at your thirst traps; you had been posting a lot at the time. And I had a bottle of wine, basically, and decided to slide into your DMs to tell you I thought you were good looking. Because that seemed like an appropriate time.

I remember I was in a recliner in my house with the wine next to me in a plastic cup. And the plastic cup, I vividly remember, was an old plastic Slurpee cup from the movie The X-Men. So it had Halle Berry on the side of it. And it was in my cup holder of my recliner. And I decided to send you a message and I was like, “This is a real move.”

Kayla: I remember receiving the message. I was in bed, but that was just because I lived in New York in a really small apartment with roommates, and so I was, most of the time, in my bed. I believe I was drinking orange wine.

Kristen: That sounds a little classier.

Kayla: Yeah, orange wine in bed, compared to whatever shitty 7-Eleven wine.

Kristen: Oh, it was 7-Eleven wine out of a very old plastic Slurpee cup of one of the X-Men movies. I think it was X-Men II.

Kayla: I do remember that you did not say I was “good looking.” You said I was cute. Because I remember being a little bit in my head at the time of, “Is this kind of friendly? Is it hitting on me?” Which obviously, yes, a random stranger isn’t going to call you cute and not be hitting on you.

Kristen: Oh, that is very funny.

Kayla: But yeah, you said cute, which to me was such a safe word, in a way.

Kristen: I truly think it’s because… I wasn’t going to say, “I like your titties, girl.”

Kayla: But then fast forward, how did we meet in person?

Kristen: I was not on book tour yet, but my publisher at the time asked if I would fly to Scranton, Pennsylvania to go to the distributor of my first novel, my debut novel, to sign 2000 copies of the book, because it got picked as a book pick for the Powell’s book club.

And they were going to fly me out there and I was like, “Could you…” I had this aha moment, galaxy brain, where I was like, “Well, instead of flying me home, could you get me to New York?” Because you and I had been-

Kayla: Sexting.

Kristen: Sexting.

Kayla: You were going to say talking.

Kristen: I was deciding what I want to say.

Kayla: Sexting, yeah.

Kristen: We had been sexting a lot, and we had not fucked. So I was like, “I can get a hotel room.” I didn’t say this to my publisher. I said like, “Hey, could you just get me there and I’ll get myself home?” And so Tony, who was my editor at the time, who is cool, said, “Yes.”

And so I messaged you and said, “Hey, I’m going to be in New York. I got a hotel room at the Ace. I’ll be here for this many nights. I’d love for you to come stay with me. If you want to come stay, you are more than welcome.”

Kayla: And prior to that, you had invited me out to Portland to go to AWP with you, which I had very seriously considered. But a couple different friends had talked me down. My straight best friend, her husband was like, “Don’t go meet a stranger across the country. Just because you’re queer doesn’t mean you can’t get murdered.”

Kristen: And you know what, he is right, and we are good friends now. I love him. And I would give the same advice.

Kayla: Yeah, he’s a big reason why I did not go to Portland.

Kristen: The Pacific Northwest is where a lot of murders happen.

Kayla: It’s true. You watch a lot of Criminal Minds, so you would know.

Kristen: I watch a lot of murder shows.

Kayla: But yeah. So I had had my chance to meet you. I’d passed on it.

Kristen: This I thought was a safer bet, because it’s where you live.

Kayla: Well, in my mind, too, it was the same, because part of why I didn’t want to go to Portland was not even necessarily the murder thing, but more so I was like, “I don’t really-

Kristen: Not even necessarily the murder thing.

Kayla: Not necessarily the murderer thing, but I was like, “I don’t know that many people here. What if I get there and we don’t have chemistry, or you’re boring?” And then I have nowhere to go. Whereas, in New York, it was my turf.

Kristen: Well, and for me, I was like, “I know people that live in New York.”

Kayla: Right. Same for you.

Kristen: And I was like, “If you don’t show up or if it’s not a good time, I’ll just spend the weekend hanging out with buddies, and it’ll be fun.”

Kayla: Yeah. So you invited me to a hotel. I had never met a stranger at a hotel before. That was a first for me.

Kristen: That was not a first for me.

Kayla: No, I know. And also, arguably, we weren’t even that much of strangers to each other. We had been sexting. We’d been talking.

Kristen: We had never met in person. We’d also never FaceTimed or anything like that.

Kayla: No. I think you had suggested it, actually, before we met in person, and I got nervous about it. I thought I was going to be too nervous to do it. Which is interesting because I’d always had internet friends and people that I had FaceTimed with. You did try to say, “Let’s do a FaceTime happy hour,” before we’d ever met in person. And I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I was too nervous, too shy almost. Which now in retrospect, I’m like, “Oh, you’re actually so extroverted that it just would’ve been fine.”

Kristen: But you didn’t know me.

Kayla: I didn’t know you. Just because you’re a certain way on Twitter or whatever, I was like, “That doesn’t mean that she’s necessarily extroverted FaceTiming.”

Kristen: I would’ve never offered FaceTime before to somebody. And I think I wasn’t thinking about stuff like that.

The week before I was going to New York and that I would see you, I had brunch with my best friend, Maria, and her brother, and our good friend Kristopher. And I was making a lot of jokes, which I do, just in any situation. But especially if I’m uncomfortable, because it’s easier for me to make a joke about something. And I was joking about our age difference. And I went to go to the bathroom, and Maria told me this later, but James, her brother, was like, “Why is Kristen joking around about this so much?” And Maria was like, “Oh, because she actually likes this person,” which is not something I had done or felt like in a while.

Kayla: And then, yeah, we met. One night turned into a whole weekend. And then we kind of right away made plans to see each other again. Which I think surprised us both, because I think we both went into that weekend being like, “We are going to have a fun weekend. Or even just a fun night.”

Kristen: Sure. I was like, “Okay, we’ve had a lot of fun talking, sexting. Let’s see how this goes in person.” I mean, also too, sometimes… I mean, we both know this. You can’t tell how sexual chemistry is going to be like until you actually are with another person.

Also, we had really good sex. But it’s one of those things, too, where it’s like, “Maybe I’m more toppy and aggressive, but I’m not going to be that aggressive with somebody I’m just having sex with for the first time.” But since sex was so good and we had such a nice time with each other, I was like, “I will go ahead and plan another trip back in a couple weeks and we can see how this goes”

Kayla: After that weekend, we pretty much immediately made plans for me to come to Florida to visit you. But then, which I feel like this is our version of U-Hauling, because we didn’t actually move in together quick enough for me to really consider it U-Hauling. But something that we did was, I was going to come see you in Florida, but it was too much time to wait, so you did another New York trip.

Kristen: No, I didn’t feel like it was me trying to do a U-haul situation. I think for me personally, I was like, okay, this went well. Since it went so well, I would like to come back sooner rather than later to see you and see if it’s like… I could be more specific.

Kayla: Yes, okay, sexual U-Hauling.

Kristen: And we texted about the kind of sex that maybe we would like to have this time, and we did. And it was very good.

And then I just had fun with you. We just had a good time. But our relationship came out of just mutually wanting to fuck each other.

Kayla: Yes.

Kristen: We did not know each other. I had no idea who you were or anything about you.

Kayla: We didn’t know anything about each other’s personal lives or anything like that. All we got was what we saw on Instagram and Twitter. That was it. Oh yeah. Truly. I was like, “I know she likes 7/11. And ravioli. That’s about it.” And you were still doing the “M’lady” bits then too.

Kristen: I think it’s just funny because that’s just how I came into the situation. But very quickly after these times, you came to Florida, and then it was obviously much more intimate. It’s hard to say when stuff turned into a relationship, because it was confusing to me, and I think for yourself as well, because you came out of a very specific relationship situation where it was a bad breakup. And for me, I’d been single for a while very purposely, because I was not trying to be in a relationship. And I think both of us were hardcore not trying to be in a relationship. Then when meeting each other, it was kind of like, how do we navigate these feelings of, we’re very compatible and it seems like we want to be in a relationship if both of us have been trying not to do that? And that made it a little more difficult to navigate.

Kayla: We were very much not looking for long term, and then we ended up in a long distance situation.

How do we feel about our big three astrological signs?

Kayla: I’ll go first. I am a Gemini sun, a Taurus moon, and a Libra rising. And I like being a Gemini, and I do often identify with Gemini traits. But I feel like you think that I don’t. Every time you see a Gemini meme, you’re like, “That’s not you.”

Kristen: Well, it doesn’t sound like you. Maybe that’s something we need to unpack. I think that is a thing too, because you’re like…

Kayla: But you also get a very specific version of me, and you have seen different versions of me.

Kristen: That’s true.

Kayla: The way I talk to my mother is shocking to you. Very different than the way I talk to you. I feel like you get all the kind of sweet and fun parts of the Gemini, and you’ve witnessed secondhand the other sides, but they’re not necessarily what you experience. I think that’s the disconnect there.

Kristen: I think you’re probably right. It just never feels like when I read something about Gemini, it doesn’t feel like how it is with my interactions with you. I’ll still read them to you sometimes because I’m interested in it, but it just never feels hardcore how you are. But maybe that’s a part of it being a Gemini, right?

Kayla: Yes.

Kristen: It’s very duality of man or whatever.

Kayla: But then, so what are your big three?

Kristen: I am a Sagittarius sun and very strongly identify with that.

Kayla: Yes. I feel like we never see something about a Sagittarius that is not true for you.

Kristen: Yeah. I’m an Aries moon and I’m a Scorpio rising.

Kayla: Yes, which is a pretty intense chart. I think my friend warned me about your chart when we were first hooking up.

Kristen: I feel good about that though. Because I think that a lot of me is very intense, but in a fun way for the most part, but with a lot of intensity. I can be exhausting. Even to myself.

Kayla: I didn’t know a lot of Sagittarians before we started dating, and I always joke that you guys come in packs because now I have so many Sagittarians.

Kristen: I literally have a Sagittarius group chat where it’s just a bunch of writers, and we’re all friends and Sagittarius.

Kayla: But before meeting you, I literally wrote something that was anti-Sagittarian for Autostraddle dot com.

Kristen: And I think the most Sagittarius part of my brain is that I accept that, and I think it is funny. And also flattering.

What do you enjoy most about your relationship?

Kristen: We genuinely have a good time together. Even though we have a lot of similarities, the parts of us that aren’t similar are still compatible.

Kayla: We’re very different people, but we hang out a lot. And in the beginning, that was out of necessity because we did move in together a month before Covid. Then it was just like, “Well, this is the only person I’m hanging out with for the foreseeable future.”

Kristen: It was kind of like, “Fingers crossed, hope it goes okay.” Which is a very Sagittarius feeling for me, Like, we’re doing it.

Kayla: But also, I don’t even really remember feeling that way at the time. It’s almost like in retrospect it became this thing of like, “Wow, yeah, we really went from this kind of long distance to lockdown life.” But yeah, we have a lot of fun.

Kristen: We still basically do that. We’re both people that work from home, and we see each other all day long, and we enjoy spending time together. I think from the moment we get up until we pretty much go to bed, we kind of riff off of each other. I like waking up and bouncing things off each other. Not everything has to be a joke, but you have such a good sense of humor. And I don’t think I could be with somebody if I didn’t feel like I could be silly and spontaneous and making jokes all the time. There’s times in which quite often I will say something, because I am a person who’s just very absurd and says a lot of things, and you’ll riff off of those things, and you’ll one up me. And I like that so much. It’s something that feels fun. It feels not competitive, but it feels like cumulative almost. It builds on each other, and it’s fun to be that way with another person who’s a creative person.

Kayla: I feel like we never really identified that or talked about it until recently when I said kind of jokingly that we should write a pilot together. And then you were like, “Yeah, actually we should.” And then we’re like, “Wait, we kind of just do weird punch up with each other all the time. This actually makes a lot of sense.”

Kristen: I think that it’s it because it becomes genuinely very playful, and it’s fun to me. It’s not boring ever. I am a person who gets very easily bored, and I hate being bored. It’s very fun. I’m always having a good time, and it feels surprising. I think another thing too for me that feels really good about our relationship is I am a person that doesn’t deal well with other people being jealous or having control issues. And you’re a person that is not like that at all from the moment we started talking with each other. It’s something where I constantly feel like I have a lot of freedom. Even though we’re with each other all the time, I never feel constricted or any kind of feeling like that.

Kayla: Both of those things you’re talking about are connected to something that I really value about our relationship, which is how aligned we are in terms of our writing and our creative passions being the number one priority for both of us and how we have so much respect for each other’s work and also each other’s process.

The jealousy stuff is connected to that too, because we don’t have professional jealousy of each other, and we never did, even in the beginning. We’ve even applied to some of the same things now. That was kind of a hurdle that we had to jump through that first time. Or maybe we didn’t actually have to jump through it because it was like…

Kristen: I kind of worried about that, too.

Kayla: Tell that story, actually.

Kristen: Because we both had applied for MacDowell, which is a fellowship, and it’s a big deal. And we both applied for it, and we both were anticipating responses for it during the same week. And I was laying in bed next to you, and I got my rejection from MacDowell, and I was like, “This is going to tell me a lot about how I feel.” And I was like, “I didn’t get in. Am I going to feel weird if Kayla gets in?” And then my feeling was, “No, I’m going to be really excited for her.” And that was such a relief, not that I thought that I would be upset, but we hadn’t gone through that before.

Kayla: No, that was the first time.

Kristen: And I was like, “I don’t know what that will look like.” And in my head, immediately being like, “Man, I hope she gets in”, was such a balm to me, because I don’t know what this would look like if I had immediately been the opposite. But instead immediately my brain was like, “Okay, great. I hope she does get it instead.”

Kayla: I didn’t though. We were rejected together.

I feel like we both celebrate each other’s wins, and I’ve never felt myself comparing myself to you. And I think both of us having never dated other writers before that, that’s not something we could have necessarily known about ourselves ahead of time, that we would deal with that well. But then just on top of that, not having the professional jealousy, it is something I never expected, to just love dating another writer, and not just another writer, but somebody whose work I really admire and whose work I engage with. It adds this level of intimacy. You don’t have that many people that you trust with your work, and you trust me. And that is so meaningful because I know that that’s hard for you to trust someone with unpublished work.

Kristen: I think I’m very particular. Some of it, too, is all writers have different practices. The exciting thing and nice thing about being a writer is that everybody’s practices and the way they create anything is wildly different. And there’s plenty of people that have a million readers or people who are engaged with their works in progress that they trust. And I think that’s a valid process, but that’s not my process. It’s a thing where I let the people that I feel like would be the best reader for it, be the reader for it. And that’s usually just one person, one or two people maybe. I feel like you’re my reader. Who we are as writers is like, “Who do we feel like our readers are?” And I feel like you’re my reader. And I would’ve probably felt like you’re my reader, even if we were people who hadn’t dated.

Kayla: I think that’s true. Absolutely.

What hurdles or obstacles have you overcome together in your relationship?

Kayla: I’ll start with my hurdle. It’s moving so far away from my friends. And it wasn’t a situation where you were like, “You have to move to Florida.” But I think a big part of being in a relationship with you is having a relationship with Florida. And whether we live here or not, dating you means dating Florida. And that was so new to me.

I’d never even been here before we had dated. I definitely ascribed to a lot of the dominant discourse about Florida of “it’s this place that we should just forget about and stuff,” which is crazy because I feel so passionately otherwise now.

But something that continues to be a struggle for me though is just being very far away from my communities. I’ve moved a lot in my life, and I always adapt to a place, and I’ve adapted to here, and I love it. But this is the farthest I’ve ever lived from my best friends. And I see them, but this is different. I’m used to having somebody literally down the street, and here, I have that, but it’s your friends who I’ve gradually become closer to. And that’s been hard and kind of ongoing.

Kristen: You and I process things very differently. And I had real worries about how we would get through if we had arguments or if we had differences of opinion, how those things would pan out. Because I am a person who very much previously, and it’s something I work on, shuts down emotionally. And I deal with things in a way in which either it’s very avoidant, conflict avoidant, or I have a hard time handling people when they’re processing emotions. That was something I worried a lot about because I didn’t want to be in a relationship where I felt like we weren’t communicating effectively, because that’s how previous things have felt for me.

And so I think I had a lot of very serious concerns in my own head about what it means to be a person who really shoves down a lot of feelings in a kind of, not to use gender terms, very bro-y way, where it’s like, “I’m not going to deal with this” and I’m going to be with somebody who is processing emotions, and how does that feel? And how does that work? But in reality, it’s really made me open up a lot more. I feel like I am better at talking about and understanding why I might feel a certain way about things. And with you and I, it’s shocking to me. We really don’t argue very much. We have very few fights.

Kayla: We definitely don’t bicker. When we fight, it’s definitely, it’s a fight, but we don’t bicker.

Kristen: Some of it too is, because we don’t bicker or have arguments, when we do have one, it’s hard to navigate it. Because we don’t do it very often.

Kayla: We don’t do it as much, because I feel like some couples have that learned behavior for better or worse.

Kristen: It’s something I dealt with in my previous relationship. We fought all the time, so I had a language for it. And I don’t think that’s very healthy. And this, since we don’t argue hardly ever, when we do have these situations that pop up, because everybody does, it’s a little more difficult. It feels hard because I’m like, “We don’t do this.” And so it feels very new.

But I also feel like, even when we do that, we’re very respectful of each other. And I think that it teaches me something new every time, and it’s something I really had worried about. I was kind of worried I was going to be a bad partner because of it. I was like, “I am a person that can’t deal with conflict, and if somebody’s emotional, I shut down.” And I really worried that it would make me not be a good partner, too.

Kayla: We both bring our own baggage to the table. You had been with the same person for so long and for such defining years of your life, basically most of your twenties, a lot of your thirties. It makes sense to me that you’d be nervous because you’ve never really experienced another person outside of that. I came into our relationship out of a really bad tumultuous breakup, and it was short compared to yours, but again, it was kind of a defining period of my life, most of my twenties. We both bring that kind of baggage to the table. I think that took a while, in the beginning, to figure out where certain things were coming from. But then once we were able to identify that, it helped us a lot, to just be like, “Okay, I know where this is coming for you, where it’s coming from for me.” It wasn’t us but moreso our histories.

Kristen: And I think that at the end of the day, those things are difficult, but they are not hard. I thought they would be. And also the thing I was most afraid of, which was that we would be harmful to each other in some kind of way, is not a thing that is ever involved. And we’re always deeply kind to each other, and that’s all I care about.

Where do you locate your relationship on the monogamy / polyamory spectrum? What philosophies do you have around how you handle monogamy / polyamory? How do you feel this impacts your relationship?

Kayla: Okay, so we’re very monogamous, and we came into this knowing that about ourselves.

Kristen: I think the thing that’s interesting is when we came into just fucking…

Kayla: We weren’t looking to be exclusive.

Kristen: No. We also weren’t looking to date, but also my feeling at the time was “I don’t want to be dating anybody.” And I knew that you were feeling the same kind of way. And that’s a different situation for me when I am in a relationship with somebody, I am a deeply monogamous person. I mean, I truly am a wife guy. It is completely in my nature.

Kayla: And I am whatever the femme version of that is. Yeah. Well, wife gal.

Kristen: It’s a situation that has not been a struggle for either of us, because we both are very much on the same page.

Kayla: I always have been. That’s been the case in every relationship that I’ve ever been in. I’ve never even really thought about it. I obviously don’t have a problem with polyamory, but I feel very secure in the way that I approach relationships for myself. Even in my last bad relationship, when things got bad, and even when we weren’t sleeping together anymore and there was no sexual component to our relationship, I still wanted to make it work, just us. It didn’t even kind of occur to me.

That said, I’m also very open to the idea of changing, technically. And I think that happens for people where maybe they change over time or what they want and all this stuff. I’m not ever the kind of person who’s says never.

Kristen: I haven’t ever been in any situation in a relationship with another person where I’ve been like, “I want to be open or I feel like I would maybe want to be polyamorous.” That’s not something that I have personally felt.

Kayla: Same.

Kristen: But I would literally never be like, “I would never feel like that way in my life” because I feel like that’s just who I am as a person. I can’t be like “I would never be a kind of way.”

But I do feel like it was very easy entering into a relationship together. Neither of us had to really have a discussion about this because both of us, for the most part, feel very monogamous,

Kayla: I will say I had some baggage of, my ex had cheated on me for a long time, lied about it before I knew the truth. She tried to ask to open up our relationship, and I said no, not knowing that she had done so already without my permission.

Kristen: I don’t know if I should say this, but then she sent you an Autostraddle article on it.

Kayla: Yes. Yes she did. She said, “Here’s this article about being monogamous and then opening up your relationship.” And it was literally an Autostraddle article. And I was like, “I can’t believe you’re trying to mansplain, gay-splain polyamory to me using an article from a place that I’ve written for for so long.”

But then not only that, she was not being truthful about the situation. I even remember telling her at the time: “I have legitimately poly friends who would kick your ass right now for doing this, because this is not what it is. It’s not lying. It’s not cheating. And then being retroactively like let’s so open the relationship.”

I definitely had some baggage, but I feel like I’ve always kind of known how I am on this regard. And it’s not because I’m a jealous person or something. It’s just not what I want.

Kristen: A big part of my life and continuing big part of my life is, my career is like my other love interest. It’s a very passionate part of my life, my relationship with my career and how I feel about writing and work and art. And I respect that about you, too. That’s so much of my time, for me, and how I share that with you. There’s not space for anything else, and there’s just not room for it. I don’t know how I would have more room, and also just who I am as a person and how I am with intimacy, which is that I am a very tough nut to crack. I feel like I’m extremely extroverted and very gregarious, and I have a lot of people that I love to see, but there’s very few people that get to have the small open part of me. And I’m careful with that. I don’t think I could do that outside of you and my work, and I don’t want to.

Kayla: I do think we’re both somewhat entertained by people hitting on each other. I feel like you often clock when somebody’s hitting on me, and I will not notice. But you think it’s entertaining. And I feel like the same way where I’m just, I know there are certain women on Twitter and stuff who have a crush on you, and it’s very entertaining to me. I feel like sometimes within monogamy, because that’s part of this question, “how do you handle monogamy” or whatever. Sometimes within monogamy, there are a lot of jealousy issues. But I don’t know, that’s not been a problem for us.

Kristen: You saying that is part of why I very much enjoy our relationship. Of course I appreciate the fact that people think you’re hot! You’re really hot. Yes, of course people are trying to hit on you or want to talk to you or have compliments for you, because why wouldn’t they? And it doesn’t make me feel bad or any kind or weird at all. I’m like, “They’re right.”

Obviously I want people to be respectful of you and your space, but it is not anything that makes me upset ever. And if anything, I’m like, “Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. This is a person who is extremely attractive and worth your time.”

What’s your living situation like (together, separate, long distance with long visits, something else), how often do you see each other and why?

Kayla: We live together and…

Kristen: We see each other all day long.

Kayla: We see each other all day long. It was about, I think seven months into our relationship that we moved in together. And we kind of had a weird moving in situation though, because I was living in New York. You were living in Florida. We did the seven months of long distance.

We had the best long distance experience that I can imagine. It is a romcom almost. You were on book tour. I worked from home and had a lot of flexibility with my work life and was able to just meet you in different cities. And we literally met up in different cities all across the country and just had an incredible time. It was the best way to do long distance.

Kristen: It was basically having sex in a lot of different hotel rooms and going to restaurants.

Kayla: It was amazing.

Kristen: Going to book events.

Kayla: It was stupid. It was so fun. It was so good. And I feel like there’s something about that energy that has carried through in our relationship. We like to travel, we like to go out. Obviously, Covid has made that more difficult, which was hard because that was such a big part of our relationship.

As far as long distance goes, we had a great time. We did want to move in together though. We didn’t love the time apart.

Kristen: My editor at the time, his wife, who is Karen Russell, the author of-

Kayla: Name drop.

Kristen: She is incredible and literally one of my favorite authors of all time. He was like, “Half the time, Karen has to live in Texas,” so they were trying to rent out their house. I was like, “They’re only renting it out for six months. What if we tried it out living in Portland for six months?”

Kayla: Because then we were even thinking, “If we like it, we could stay.”

Kristen: I had messaged you, we talked about it. I was like, “What do you think, since you’re able to be freelance and move around, if we went to Portland and lived in this house for six months?” You had said yes.

Kayla: I had said yes. I had already put in my notice at my part-time job at Eater New York, where I was a restaurant reporter. They knew that I was leaving, and then I told them I was moving to Portland. I was actually on the way to my going away dinner with those coworkers. I love those coworkers, they were taking me out to dinner, I was on the way there, and I got a phone call from you, which was weird because at that time we only ever FaceTimed.

Kristen: That was our first call on the telephone.

I was on the book tour still. I was in Madison, Wisconsin, in a hotel room, and I received an acceptance to a residency I had applied for. I received the Shearing Fellowship in Las Vegas at Black Mountain Institute. It was something I did not think I was going to get, and it was for the exact same timeline that we were talking about being in Portland. I was like, “I have to take this fellowship.”

I was like, “I want to take this fellowship, but I can’t just sign this person on to be like, ‘Guess what? Psych. You’re going to…'”

Kayla: Portland and Vegas are very different.

Kristen: I wanted to talk to you about what it was, and I needed to make a decision, so I needed to call you right away.

Kayla: Yeah, and I said yes. I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do an adventure in Vegas. Why not?” Definitely a weird situation, because basically we moved in together for your fellowship, but that was also January 2020.

Kristen: We had a great time.

Kayla: We had an amazing time.

Kristen: It was so wonderful.

Kayla: We were already talking about extending our time in Vegas, and I always joke like, “We caused COVID.” I was like, “Let’s stay in Vegas longer.” And then we were trapped in Vegas.

Luckily, the fellowship was nice enough to let us stay, because we had both left our living situations. I had moved out of New York, had left my apartment there.

Kristen: And I left my house in Orlando.

Kayla: We had nowhere to go, technically. We were thinking that we were going to maybe apartment hunt in places while you were doing your fellowship.

Luckily, they let us stay longer. It did mean being stuck in Vegas during the majority of a summer, which neither of us were really prepared for that. That was a very intense move-in-together thing, but it was also funny, because before COVID, before all that, we were going out to Vegas as a temporary situation. The fellowship gives you this gorgeous apartment, but it’s furnished. Normally, people would just have what they have there. We ended up buying all this stuff for it, because we were nesting. We’d never lived together, so we were like, “We want to have nice shit.” We were just buying stuff, which was so silly, but in retrospect, nice, because once we were stuck, it felt more like home and not just this weird place that we were staying just because it was free.

It worked out, but it was funny, because we were obviously very eager to live together, so we were immediately like, “Let’s go to Target, let’s go to Bed Bath and Beyond.” We had never lived together. It felt like a novelty.

From there, we moved to Miami, because Miami weirdly felt like a compromise between New York and Orlando. You wanted to still be in Florida, or at least close to it. I wanted to be able to order takeout at 2 a.m.

Kristen: Also, South Florida is not a place that I had lived previously.

Kayla: Yeah, so it would be new to you. New to us both. It felt fair, because again, me moving to Florida was a big decision, and it felt fair to pick a place that was new to both of us. We’re both going to have to learn new things, find new communities.

We did choose it before COVID hit, which was not a great choice. It was so hard for us to make friends moving there, and we would’ve maybe made a different decision given all the circumstances. Even though we didn’t do the move until after COVID, it almost felt like, “We already decided this, so we’re going to follow through on it.”

Kristen: I definitely don’t regret it. It taught me a lot about myself and about how I feel about Florida. Also, we made such good friends. The few friends we did make-

Kayla: Are lifelong friends, for sure.

Kristen: Yeah, absolutely.

Kayla: You needed something new. We also needed a little space from your old life. You had had a marriage here, and I think you needed a little bit of space from that.

Kristen: My family was here, and I’m estranged from them. There were a lot of things going on, so it seemed it was a good idea. And now we’re back in Orlando.

Kayla: We were always going to end up back here, but I think it happened faster than either of us expected. I think it would surprise a lot of people to know that I’m actually the one who accelerated the timeline. I can remember sitting outside on the balcony in Miami and saying, “When our lease is up, let’s move to Orlando. Let’s not sign again.”

Kristen: You were the one and I was like, “Are you sure?”

Kayla: Yeah, because I think you were going to want to sign again, because you haven’t moved as many times as me either. Another move so soon seemed daunting to you.

Kristen: Every time we would come back here when we were in Miami, we’d be getting an Airbnb once a month and coming to Orlando.

Kayla: Yes, we basically were treating Orlando like our weekend getaway. We spent too much money.

Kristen: I was deeply homesick. Every time we’d come back here, I would have a couple beers, get teary-eyed.

Kayla: Also, there’d be an uptick in your writing and your productivity in your creative life. Even when we’d just get back from Orlando, you’d be working so well. I could see all that, but the reason why I pushed it, it wasn’t just because of that even, I was like, “We fit in better in Orlando. This is where we belong.” I don’t regret Miami, and I think it was necessary to do, because Orlando would’ve been a harder transition for me if we hadn’t baby-stepped into it.

Kristen: Mentally, I felt immediately terrific once we moved. I just feel good being outside here. A big part of me, connecting with work, art, and creativity is being outside, especially in a personal space. We have a yard here, and I just get to be outside.

As we’ve been sitting here, there’s a raccoon that comes in our yard every night to drink out of our bird bath, a possum that crawls across the fence, there are rats that are crawling up in the tree, and our dog is smashing her face against the sliding glass door. You can hear this chirping sound of night insects. It feels so vibrant to me, and I need it. I feel like I need it, and when I don’t have it, I don’t feel great.

How do you all share expenses or work out finances? How do you share or split up labor in the relationship? Can you talk about why that is?

Kristen: I think this is a great question. I feel like we have very solid, strong responses to this.

I’m a person who would never share a bank account with another person. But that doesn’t mean that finances can’t be split. When you and I started dating, my writing career was in an upswing. I’m significantly older than you, but for a majority of my life, I had been working strictly library work. Also, I had a kid when I was a teenager, I went to school non-traditionally, at night. I didn’t have any money, I was poor and grew up that way. When you and I met, it was right on the cusp of me coming into this writing career. Writing is not a tremendous amount of money, but in this specific instance of my writing career, I was like, “I’m in a comfortable space, and you’re more freelance.”

Kayla: You were fluhhhh-husssssh with caaaaa-haaaash. [ed. note: i rly did the voice]

Kristen: Yes, exactly. No, I was not, but I was in a place where I’m like, “I have stability right now for this moment.” I had just gotten a book deal with a Big Five publisher. I was like, “You and I dating, we’re both creatives, we’re both writers. Our circumstances are going to change over time consistently.” I was like, “There are times where my writing career is going to be flourishing and times when yours is going to be. That means, if we’re in a relationship together, we can take those ebbs and flows and be like, ‘For right now, I’ll be paying more, and then when you’re in that situation, then maybe you are.'”

Kayla: I have always been very honest and open about the fact that I did grow up with money, and I have a safety net in the way that you never have. At the beginning of our relationship, you were like, “I’m making more money now,” and I was like, “I’m not making that much money, but I could borrow money from my parents if we get into a situation where we need it.” You were like, “No, I understand that if things change and you’re the one making more money, then things will shift.”

At the beginning of our relationship, you paid for everything. You paid our full rent in Miami until I got this full-time job at Autostraddle, literally.

Kristen: It’s possibly because I grew up very poor and also for a majority of my adult life have been poor, but I love transparency around money, and I wish that people were more transparent about it.

Being in a relationship together, I was very upfront with you. I was like, “We need to be super honest about finances, and we need to be talking about how money functions inside of this relationship, because it’s always obscured in these ways.” That’s our capitalist society where people who have money don’t want to talk about money in this way.

For me, especially because I am a writer and people try and hide what things cost or how much you get, I was like, “I want to be very upfront about it,” but I also want to be like, “It’s okay for us. For right now, I’m doing it, and then you do it.” For right now, as I’m writing and trying to work on new stuff, we have switched.

Kayla: I think that’s something that people don’t always understand, too, especially maybe people who are non-writers who would be reading this. Just because you had your moment where you did get this really big deal, you were a bestseller, so you’re able to get this amazing deal. That only lasts for so long, and then you don’t know what your next fucking deal looks like. You have no idea. And you’re in that limbo stage right now.

Kristen: Anybody who asks me at any time, I try and be transparent about book money, because I think people aren’t honest enough about how finances work. We’re getting really outside of the realm of our relationship, but I guess it’s still contained within it. Yeah, 25% of your book money it has to go to taxes. Also, just because you have a deal doesn’t mean those things happen in real time.

Kayla: It’s parceled out in a weird way.

Kristen: But to address the other part of the question about how things happen in our household, Kayla cooks a lot. She’s an amazing chef. She makes an amazing amount of food.

Truly, when we began dating, I was happily living off of late night Taco Bell and 7-Eleven fare. Kayla makes us a lot of meals, and because she does all of that, I’ve very happily fallen into, I would say, a lion’s share of cleaning in the house.

Kayla: I would say you do all of it. I really enjoy doing certain domestic work, but it’s very limited to the kitchen. Not even, because I don’t like doing dishes. I don’t like doing that shit. I love to cook, and I love to perform this housewife duty, but I don’t love to clean. I don’t love to do all that stuff. I’m not necessarily a slob, but I have been a slob at periods of my life. I do feel like we have this very queer relationship where, in so many ways, I’m the housewife. I am cooking the food and doing that stuff, but then you’re doing all of the cleaning, you’re doing all of the housework, and then you do some of the more quote, unquote “butch work,” too. You work in the yard and all that stuff. You take both of those things on.

Kristen: I feel like I have dominion over the garage, the tools that we have, the yard work, and trying to get things set up. I take out the garbage.

Kayla: Then also the vacuum and the dusting.

Kristen: I vacuum and I dust. I clean the bathrooms.

Kayla: You do the laundry now too. [ed. note: omg maybe it’s boring for us to talk about laundry so much but if you slog through our laundry tangent i promise there’s horny content coming soooooon]

Kristen: I do the laundry and I do the dishes for the most part.

Kayla: When we lived in Miami, I did all of the laundry for a very specific reason. You had always had in-unit laundry where you lived.

Kristen: I said, “I don’t want to do that,” because having a dog means that sometimes they piss on things. I was like, “I don’t want to have to be like it’s 2 a.m., we have to go somewhere, and try and wash this.”

Kayla: We both made lists of deal breakers when we were moving into our first real place together, because the fellowship didn’t count. Our first real place together, we had certain deal breakers as far as the apartments we were looking at. Couples should do that when apartment hunting together.

Your deal breakers were… The main one was, “It has to have in-unit laundry.”

Kristen: That was my only one.

Kayla: The place in Miami had laundry in the building’s basement. You were like, “I don’t want to live here, because of this reason alone.” I was like, “This place is so nice. It is the nicest place we will ever live. There is a view of the ocean. I am going to swear to you right now that I will do the laundry every single time. You will never ever have to do the laundry,” and that remained true. You never even learned how to use the machines down there.

Kristen: As soon as we moved into this new place-

Kayla: Now you do all the laundry.

Kristen: I almost 100% of the time do the laundry and I’m fine with that.

Kayla: I feel like one of the first times I did it was yesterday. I didn’t even switch it, you switched it.

Kristen: Part of it too is, for me, when I’m trying to deal with anxiety, stress, having things be cluttered, or not set in the house makes my brain feel messy.

Kayla: You’re a resetter. At the end of the night, you want to reset everything the way that it looks before, so that we wake up in the morning…

Kristen: I literally set the pillows on the couch, I make sure the kitchen is cleaned up, I bring all of our stuff upstairs, I throw out any garbage, everything’s done. That way, when I come down in the morning, stuff feels set. Because I don’t like coming down into a space and having it feel cluttered. I don’t know how much of that is just… There are areas of control that I think feed into. Even how I like to perform sex. I like to have my hands on things, and I want to be the one dictating how things happen. If I’m able to do it myself, control it, and to see, it is very satisfying to me. Yeah, I reset. We have a bunch of candles in our house, I reset the candles in the morning. I have a fucking leaf blower, I come outside and I leaf blow the deck, so it’s clean the way I like it to be.

I feel like a sense of satisfaction. I get a deep sense of satisfaction from doing those things. Part of it too is I’m in a career, my writing career, where I don’t get to have a say in how those things function. Also, you’re very nice to let me do a lot of the things I need to do. Some of my behaviors I didn’t realize were so deeply… I have my nails dug into it. The detergent I can buy, the type of toothpaste I want to buy, or paper towels.

Kayla: You never want to change it up.

Kristen: I didn’t realize that I was like that until you and I started dating. It’s very fascinating to me.

Kayla: I’m always like, “What do I have the coupon for?” And you’re like, “No, I want to get the thing that I want.”

I’m trying to think if there’s any other financial things that we haven’t turned over, just because I do think that it’s important to talk about that stuff. We share a car that is your car and you pay for pretty much all the expenses related to that car. Also, when we go out, whether it’s on a date together or out with people, we don’t really nickel and dime each other. We don’t split bills.

Kristen: Absolutely not.

Kayla: We just take turns, and it feels very natural. I do think that we are very aware of how much money each other has at any given time. Once I got the Autostraddle job, you were so willing to let me pay at restaurants and bars in a way that, before, you would’ve just immediately grabbed the check and done it. All of a sudden you would just be like, “Yeah, I’m going to let you take this.” Even though we don’t share any bank accounts or anything like that, we have a lot of transparency. You tell me every time you get weird checks from shit. That’s part of writer life too. You’re like, “I sold the German rights to this and I get this check.” You always tell me, “I got this check,” and then I know that you have that money. You know what I mean?

Kristen: When we do have money, I consider it to be our money in the household, because it’s going towards household expenses. Even though we don’t share a bank account. I was like, “When money comes in, it’s still shared money, because we are sharing our lives together.” When I’m doing stuff for the house, getting things for the yard, I have an understanding that it’s a shared expense, because it’s something we’re both using and it’s for us.

Kayla: We’re very rarely like, “You owe me this, you owe me that.”

Kristen: I literally have never done that. It’s also just not something that I want to do. I don’t know how much of that is… I am a person who likes to pick up the check at places and is like…

Kayla: Yes, I do know that.

Kristen: I love to do it. I love being out with friends, picking up the check, and doing things like that. For our relationship, my mindset is, “It’s a shared expense household.” What we have together is what we share, so our finances are linked, even if our bank accounts aren’t.

Kayla: And for us, that doesn’t mean a 50, 50 split. It totally moves with how much each other is making.

Kristen: That’s just going to continually shift through our careers.

Kayla: I’m pretty sure we’ve never, actually, split rent 50, 50.

Kristen: No, we have not.

Kayla: It’s always been some sort of adjustment for our income.

Kristen: I think that makes sense.

Kayla: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Wait, can we move inside for the rest of this?

Kristen: Yes. It’s going to pick up a lot of Lola snoring in the background. Jesus.

Do you have kids, pets, plants, all three? Do you not currently have, but want any of these things? Why? Are you in agreement?

Kristen: I have a 22-year-old son. I had him when I was a teenager.

Kayla: He was 18 when we started talking.

Kristen: He was already off at college when we started talking.

Kayla: He was a full-grown person.

Kristen: Yes. This is something I very much kept out of any… Obviously, I was just trying to sleep with people and I never had anyone come to my home.

Kayla: Yeah. I knew it, though. We didn’t talk about it in the beginning, but I knew it, because I Googled you before we met up, and it was in one bio of yours. It was in your bio on The Toast.

Kristen: That’s one of my first pieces that I had come out.

Kayla: I think that was maybe before you had made the decision to be a little more private about that. You hadn’t gone viral on Twitter yet.

Kristen: Yes. This is something that happens when people have a lot of online access to you, they think they have access to everything, and I wanted my son’s life to be freely and completely his own and not for my own life to have any bearing on what he was doing or trying to be. I didn’t want him to have to deal with anything just because I was terminally online.

He’s 22 now. When we started dating, he was 18 and then turned 19, but was already off for his freshman year of college. And then I have a dog named Lola.

Kayla: You had a lot of pets when we started dating. To the point where I remember my best friend Becca at the time was like, “How many pets does this person have?!” My friends obviously creeped you at the beginning and a big part of your Instagram presence was all of your animals.

Kristen: Part of this, too, is shared pet custody with my ex partner. When I moved to Vegas, I took my most portable piglet baby, which is Lola, who’s a French bulldog. Yeah, we shared a lot of pets together. That was something I shared a lot with my ex, we both very much loved animals.

Kayla: I did joke to someone, I remember early on, that I was dating Snow White. Butch Snow White.

Kristen: I feel like at the time when we started talking, there were three dogs in the house, a cat, a hamster, and a fish. There were a lot of animals and I love animals. That is a thing about me and a part of why I really love being in Florida, it’s such a space for creatures. Yeah, they were shared custody animals.

Kayla: You brought Lola to Vegas, and I had never lived with a dog before.

Kristen: That was very funny. The first time you met Lola was when we were moving across the country.

Kayla: I met her on the cross-country trip.

Kristen: I picked you up from the airport. Lola was in the backseat along with our suitcases and things. We got you, you leaned in the back and pet her on the head and were like, “Hello, nice to meet you.” And then we stopped in New Orleans. Our friend Jami Attenberg put us up for the weekend as we were driving across the country, and we got to visit with her. And we were sleeping in the bed, and it was the first time we had slept with the dog and you were like, “Oh my God, this dog snores so-

Kayla: So much.

Kristen: So much. It’s so loud.

Kayla: Yeah, because it was Lola and it was Jami’s late dog, Sid, as well, who recently passed away. Which is very, very sad because literally the first time that I ever slept in a bed with dogs, it was Lola and Sid at the same time. So I got a crash course.

Kristen: You did, yes.

Kayla: They both snored. They were both stinky. I was like, “Well, this is my life now.”

But I do remember having that thought of, I was like, “Wow, I really am into this person.” I always in theory, liked dogs, but I didn’t grow up with them. And my dad actively dislikes dogs.

Kristen: But he seems to like Lola, which is funny.

Kayla: He does, yes. He’s very Indian dad about it all. It’s kind of like dogs don’t belong inside the house. But he has warmed up to Lola a lot. But yeah, I was always like, one day I’m going to have a giant Husky. I remember thinking that when I was younger and telling my parents that. But I’d never slept with a dog. I’d never had a dog in my personal space. And so Lola was the first one. And the joke formed early on that I was step-mommy. And I was like, “I am so fiercely protective of her.”

Kristen: And she is of you, which is extremely funny.

Kayla: Yes.

Kristen: In a way that she has never been of me.

Kayla: Yes. She can’t handle me being in a pool swimming.

Kristen: French bulldogs notoriously cannot swim. And Lola definitely can’t. She’s very top heavy. And she has never done this with me, but as soon as Kayla gets in a pool around her, she paces around a pool. She’ll scream. She hurled herself in once, and we like to say she fell to the bottom of the pool with the heaviness of a toaster.

Kayla: Yes, yes. It was throwing a toaster into a pool.

Kristen: We had to rescue her from that because that’s how much she didn’t like that you were in there. So you guys have a very specific kind of bond together that’s different than what I have with her.

Kayla: Yes, it’s true. It is true. And in the beginning, I let her really truly sleep right up against me and up by my face, which I’ve since learned that she can just stay at the bottom of the bed. She can stay at our feet. But at the beginning I was just like, “Oh no, this is the baby, she’s got to be close.”

Kristen: We have a million plants in our house.

Kayla: We do. But they’re under your supervision.

Kristen: That’s part of my purview also. I think I grew up thinking I wasn’t good at taking care of plants. And part of that was having pets so often, and pets need a lot of care. And I was almost too attentive to plants.

Kayla: You cared them to death.

Kristen: Yes. I was like obviously, I need to feed them every day. That’s not how plants function. And so I have since then become a plant dad … Like we have so many plants. We have an entire wall of pothos that grows down the wall. I like things that are alive. I love being in spaces where things feel alive.

Kayla: You have a lemon tree that I feel like your mental health hinges on.

Kristen: Well, God, please don’t let it die.

Kayla: You’re like, “If the lemon tree is doing well, then I’m doing well.”

Kristen: But it is a thing where it’s like, I genuinely enjoy having creatures and things feel like alive around me.

Kayla: You do. You like alive things. It’s a big part of your love of Florida. It’s like there’s always creatures. There’s always plants. It’s not only, there’s only plants, but they’re almost trying to take over. It’s like you love the overgrown look, you love-

Kristen: I don’t want anything to feel super manicured.

But I mean, I guess a good question of this, too, is how we feel about having kids together.

Kayla: I feel very passionate about the fact that all couples but especially queer couples should talk about this and early on.

Kristen: And that’s something we did, right away.

Kayla: Yes. And it’s not weird to talk about early on. It’s something that you should be on the same page about as early as possible. And I still remember the first time we talked about it. It was during that lockdown time in Vegas, and we were sitting outside and you know, you wanted to gauge things because you were like, “We have this age difference.” You were like, “I have a kid ….”

Kristen: And he’s already an adult. I have raised him.

Kayla: You were like, “I want to know where you’re at.” And I was very honest. I was just kind of like, “I don’t want to rule it out. I don’t want to have a hard no.” But for right now, that’s not my focus. And I think, yeah, my answer was basically not yes or no. It was like, I’m not ready to decide, but there’s a good chance I will want to one day.

Kristen: And I think that that is where I was, as well. But also, it’s an interesting thing to consider because I have a lot of things attached to parenthood that were very much attached to … I was a teenager and had to have this very gendered kind of specific role as mother, as a single mother for this child and what that looked like. And my financial circumstances, my age, and the role I felt like I had to play inside of that.

Kayla: Or you had to have a relationship with your parents who … You had to rely on them for certain things, and it extended your relationship with them in a way where you weren’t able to put up the boundaries that you could later in life because you had to rely on them for things.

Kristen: And my relationship with my son is terrific, and we have a very close, great relationship. But I do sometimes say this is, we had a relationship that was almost like … I mean I was 18-

Kayla: So you grew up together.

Kristen: We grew up together. I was still growing and learning. And so the idea of becoming a parent now, which is, obviously, I would not be carrying a child, that’s not something I would be doing. But I was like, “What does my role look like if you and I had a child?” And it’s a very different kind of relationship, and it’s also a very different financial circumstance and age circumstance and in a committed relationship circumstance. And those things all are very different than what it was previously. And so I was like, “I’m not ruling that stuff out either, but it’s also a decision we would make together.”

Kayla: That conversation went really well, though, because I feel like we both were being very honest and I think I was a little nervous that my answer felt wishy-washy of like, no, yes, no.

Kristen: But that’s how mine felt.

Kayla: I think when we had that conversation I was 28, so I was just like, yeah, I still feel very young. But also the thing we immediately agreed about, and I think I was the one who said it, I was like, “My main focus is my writing.” I was writing, and my career is my child. And I knew that you would be able to relate to that because I was like, “I know that you’ve never been able to really treat it like that because you had this kid.”

Your kid had to be your focus for so long that even when you were writing and first coming into yourself as a writer, the kid is always going to supersede that. And so you’d never been able to be selfish in this way of, I’m making choices based solely on my own writing. Not that that’s selfish. You know what I mean?

Kristen: There’s this great piece that maybe we can link to about Becoming The Art Monster. And it’s this great idea about what it means to be, quote, unquote, “Selfish about work outside of the traditional trajectories of love, life and romantic life and kids and family and what that looks like to be the art monster and make the art your lover and these things.” Which is maybe what I was trying to get at earlier when I was talking about a big part of relationships in our lives outside of each other is we have very intense, very specific relationships with our specific art. And that takes precedent.

So I think that you and I talking about that, I felt secure in talking to you about the idea about having children because I feel like we will always be on the same page when it comes to … But where is the space for making work? And where is space for art?

Kayla: I think the point at which either of us would decide to have kids is it would be a point where we’re like, “This is not going to take away from these other parts of our lives.”

Kristen: But I think that that’s such a specific conversation, and maybe people aren’t always on the same page about it, but very happily we were.

Kayla: For me, I think what’s important to me is that it remains an option. I think it would’ve been a very different conversation if … Because I remember, you put the ball in my court a little bit. You were like, “What are you feeling?” And I was very honest of, “I don’t want to rule it out, but I’m not sure.” And I think it would’ve been a very different conversation and a different trajectory if you had said, “Well, no, never for me.

Kristen: I’m just never going to be a never person. I think it is not in my nature to be like, “This thing will never happen” because that’s not how I think life works. Saying never to anything isn’t how my entire life has functioned. So that’s just not how I would ever frame anything, especially any kind of life trajectory or choice.

Kayla: I think for me it’s just like I always want it to be an option to the point where it’s like, if I do get to be a certain age, maybe I would consider freezing my eggs or doing something like that, which is obviously very costly and stuff. But for me, if I can have it as an option, I want it as an option.

How would you describe the sex we have together? Do you believe in lesbian bed death and, if so, has it or do you think it could visit our relationship? What haven’t we done together but would like to?

Kristen: Both of us are very sex driven.

Kayla: Yes, we have very high sex drives. And I had never been with someone who could match my sex drive. If anything, I have a higher sex drive than you do.

Kristen: I think it’s shocking to me. It’s very shocking. I’ve never been with another person who I felt wanted to fuck more than I do. But I really enjoy that part of our relationship.

I mean, it’s about to be four years together, and that’s not something that’s factored into our relationship at all. I do know, especially from being in previous relationships, obviously I’m not going to use the terminology “lesbian bed death,” but I would say relationships go through ebbs and flows of things. How are people communicating with each other? Are there issues that a person is having mental health wise? Is there something that’s going on that’s very high stress? Is there grief or trauma or different things like that? And that obviously affects the idea of having sex in a relationship. But we haven’t had those issues in any major way. And you and I have both agreed on this: I don’t want to be in a long-term relationship where sex isn’t a big important part of that relationship.

Kayla: Yeah. Again, because we both do have such high sex drives and, to go back a bit, are monogamous, too. So it’s like we want to have sex with each other. So that’s always going to be a component. I think what’s interesting to me is that, if there are ever periods of time where we aren’t having sex, whether that’s a few nights in a row, a full week or whatever, we both clock it and then talk about it. We’re both like, well, we haven’t had sex in a week. It’s like, we notice it.

Kristen: It’s because it’s very unusual. It’s unusual behavior. Usually it’s just like we have a lot going on. We don’t have an issue with talking about sex or engaging with sex.

Kayla: No. Because I do think that sex is a really big part of our relationship in the way that it’s not necessarily for everyone. Because obviously, it’s the way we got together. But it’s also, we happened to come into each other’s lives in a time where, I think, both of us had learned a lot about ourselves sexually.

Kristen: I know exactly the kind of sex I want to have.

Kayla: And same. For me, I know it’s different than for you. I think when you came into the situation with me, you were like “I know exactly what I want.” For me, I will say I did learn some of that in the beginning of our relationship. Because also, I’d never used a sex toy before we were together. Not even solo, which feels so crazy. Nothing!

And even talking about it here, I worry about it getting misconstrued in this weird way of this weird narrative of, you are older than me and more experienced than me and you kind of come into my life and being like, “Here’s how to have sex.” And that’s not what it was. It was not like that. That is a mischaracterization, but there is a degree to which I felt pretty inexperienced before we got together. I’d had a lot of sex, but I had a lot of sex that I didn’t really like.

Kristen: I did feel like you felt comfortable. And then feeling comfortable means you can try out new things. Because that’s what that level of comfort means. Something that felt very unusual to me or maybe a little scary to me before or I didn’t know how to access it, it feels a little more accessible because we feel comfortable with each other. And maybe that is the language that is.

Kayla: As soon as we started using toys and using different things, I was all in. I was like, “Let’s go.” It was never this weird kind of hesitation on my part. I knew that’s what I wanted. And I just had never, I think, had the space to explore that. And I think, yeah, you’re right. You created that safe space for me. You were surprised I hadn’t done a lot of things, but you didn’t make me feel weird about it.

Kristen: I mean, we’re both queer people. We know that stuff doesn’t come on a timeline, right?

Kayla: Right.

Kristen: It’s like you figure stuff out or try stuff out when you do. And that doesn’t mean you’re this age or you’re at this period of your life. It means, here’s who I am, this is when it happened.

Kayla: I think for me, I had been such a high sex drive, sexual person for so long and being queer and all this other stuff on top of it, I felt a lot of shame about that. And I think there was something about when we first got together that, finally, I could let go of that and then it was just, yeah, free for all. It’s like, I’m not going to experience this shame anymore. So I want to do all the things that I want to do. And you were also at a point of time where you had been fucking around for years at that point-

Kristen: Literally years.

Kayla: And you were like, “So I literally know exactly what I like.”

Kristen: I know what I like, and I know what I want. I mean, some of it, too, is like right, it’s this kind of bottom top dynamic we’ve talked about. Some of it is bottom and top, but some of it is just kind of control for me. And I know what I like control-wise during sex. And that doesn’t mean the other person is going to be interested in that. But you and I immediately had a dynamic where I’m like, this feels like it is compatible.

Kayla: Super compatible, yeah. Because you’re not full on stone, but you have some stone tendencies of…you like to get another person off.

Kristen: I very much do. But also I have a very specific idea about how I would want someone to touch me.

I always feel constantly, it could be any time of day, and you and I will be like, “Hey, I thought about this.” Or, “I wanted to try this out.” Or joking around about stuff, but also we both watch porn separately and together. We both masturbate separately and together, and we incorporate that into our conversations and our sex life.

Kayla: We early on watched a lot of porn together.

Kristen: But also separately. I mean, we still both do that. I love the idea that we both have very specific sex drives and engage in that, even outside of each other in that kind of way.

Kayla: Yeah. I mean, like we were saying before, we’re together all day, every day and yet we still find time to masturbate or watch porn separately.

Kristen: Having a body means having a relationship with that body by yourself. But also, I always feel excited. I’m never bored talking to you about anything having to do with sex. You and I are both up for pretty much whatever.

Kayla: We’re both very down to try things. So the last part of this question of what haven’t you done together that you want to. I don’t think we know that now.

Kristen: I’m sure there is going to be something but I don’t know what that is yet.

Kayla: And I also think the things that you don’t like necessarily for yourself, which you maybe have more of those than I do. But it’s also stuff that I’m not really interested in. You aren’t interested in experiencing pain at all during sex.

Kristen: No.

Kayla: And I do, but I I don’t want to make you feel pain. That’s what I mean, though, where it’s so compatible. Where it’s those things that you technically have hard lines about. They’re not hard lines that inhibit my pleasure. They’re not things that I’m just like, “Oh, I feel like I’m missing out on this experience or anything like that.” It’s the lines that you have, I’m like, “No, I get it.” It’s cliché to say we’re a good fit, but we’re a really fucking good fit. And I don’t think I would have learned as much about myself sexually in this relationship if that hadn’t been the case.

Kristen: Well, I mean, some of the dynamics between our relationship are-

Kayla: Right. You’re very strongly top and I’m very strongly bottom.

Kristen: It’s very much I want to fuck, and you want to be fucked. And I don’t have a problem with pain when it comes to providing that for you. Trying to think of a classy way to say that.

Kayla: Providing the pain. Providing the pain. No, I think that-

Kristen: And I like that. I like that.

Kayla: It’d be a very different story if you were … technically I have hooked up with people who are like, “Oh, I think it’s disgusting to choke out a woman.” Or, “I could never do that.” Which again, fine, that’s totally their prerogative. And if that’s the way they feel, that’s fine. But I could never be with a person like that because I’m just like, “Well, I want that and you’re telling me that that’s disgusting?” That’s what I feel like, the things that we both want or don’t want are so compatible. It helped free me of that shame.

Kristen: Well, because also I think, too, that it just feels comfortable. It feels interesting to use the word comfortable in these kinds of ways when talking about sex, because maybe comfort implies a kind of warm blanket, cup of tea, kind of situation. But comfort, I think, the idea of comfort is being able to be expressly free to say things and not feel any kind of tension or anxiety. I don’t think either of us has a feeling of stress or anxiety or fear when talking about something we would want. And I think if anything, I feel excited to talk to you about stuff I want, right?

Kayla: Oh yeah, we’re so honest with each other. I’m someone who strongly identifies as a lesbian and have for a long time, and I’ve told you that I watch straight porn. It’s things like that where I’ve never really been in a relationship where it felt like I could say that. I’ve never used sex toys, but I used to put weird things inside of myself when I was first exploring my own sexuality and stuff. And I felt comfortable to share things like that with you early on. And I think that can only mean a good sex life if you’re able to just talk about whatever.

Kristen: And in a way, too, where it doesn’t feel like we’re like, “Well, we have to have this conversation.”

Kayla: No.

Kristen: It’s like, “I want to have this conversation.”

I feel excited to tell you about things like that or to say what I want or to be like, this is what I’d like for us to try. It’s always a feeling of excitement and a feeling of anticipation. It’s never a feeling of … And maybe that’s what I mean when I say comfort because it’s a comforting feeling to be like, “I never have to feel worry over something like that.”

Kayla: I think I could say almost anything about sex or what I want sexually and it just would not faze you. Also we both write sex into our work. I feel like we’re both known for that in our writing, in different ways. But it’s why we’re able to even be open about it in something like this interview, for others to read.

Do you think your relationship will more or less continue to exist as it currently is? Why?

Kayla: Well, we’ve talked on this a bit already, but both of us are the type of people where we’re always open to change.

Kristen: Well, I wouldn’t want anything in my life to exist in exactly the same way, that sounds awful. Even my writing practice doesn’t work that way. I don’t want to be bored. And the idea of something staying the same way forever is extremely boring. Do I think it will stay as some kind of representation of what we have? Yeah.

Kayla: Yeah. I think we’ll always love to eat meals together, travel together. I think we’ll always love talking about writing, all the kind of fundamental things to our relationship. I don’t think those will shift. I think on a very surface level, we’re engaged, we’re going to get married. So that to me is a relationship change. We are going to be wives.

Kristen: I mean, that was already a big shift for me. I truthfully didn’t think I would ever get married again. I didn’t think that was something that was going to happen for me or that I would ever want. So that’s something that’s already shifted within the course of our relationship.

What would you say are your most fundamental differences?

Kristen: I think this is a given because of our age gap, because we are 12 years apart. I am not a person who … I’m not on my phone all the time. I’m a person who can’t even remember to reply to a text. And you are a person who, you met your core group of friends that you have that are your very good, close, incredible friends, literally online. And so how you connect with friendship and people is very much based on being like, I need to talk to people 24/7 in this kind of way. And that’s just not how I am. But I understand it. It’s not something I dislike.I understand it’s a fundamental difference in how we both are.

Kayla: Yeah, this is building on that, but I just have a lot more intimate relationships than you do.

Kristen: I feel like I’m more careful. I have a couple very, very close friends, and my thing with those friends, too, is I have two best friends and both of these best friends, I never text them. Not to use this language or whatever, but I guess my love language is … I need to spend time with people. It’s actual spent time. So when I’m with those people, I’m a hundred percent present. I’m like, “Here I am, I’m with you and I’m only thinking about you.”

Kayla: Whereas, I spend all day texting so many different friends, but even the ways that I text them or the ways that we talk is very different in the way that you are with your friends. Some of this goes back to, I would say our most fundamental difference is you’re a top, I’m a bottom, and that kind of manifests in these different ways. I will talk to my friends during the day about being horny for this celebrity or whatever. When we talk in this kind of way where it’s technically sexual, but not for each other, but we talk about these things like this hot mom on this show or whatever and you would never talk to your friends that way, ever. If you’re talking about a horny thing, it’s with me.

Kristen: I just don’t communicate that way, but I don’t dislike that you do it, I think it’s just different. I think it’s one of these things where some of it is an age gap thing, but some of it is just who we are as people. Who I am as a person is that I enjoy spending time with people face to face for the most part, and I struggle with doing that stuff in a text-based situation, but again, there’s not anything wrong or weird about that, it’s just different.

Do you all have any shared dreams/goals for the future or each other? What are these?

Kristen: I’m excited for when your writing career/book career is more established because I think that’s what you’re working towards. I think that will be an exciting time. I’ve already loved that you’ve spent that time with me. I’m looking forward to doing that time with you when you do book tours and when you’re in different spaces that I’ve already been in for writing. I think that will be really exciting, and I’m looking forward to that because it’s something we both love so much.

Kayla: I constantly feel excited about your future. I feel like every single thing that you do in your writing career, it makes me excited. We’ve talked about this recently, but something that I figured out for myself is I think we might end up having very different book careers and different writing careers, and I like that. Who knows? Again, this is something I feel like could change at any point, but I kind of like the space that I’m in right now of this very indie, kind of small, nontraditional publishing world. There are ways to have success and breakthroughs in that world, but I feel like I am maybe going to explore that a little more before pressuring myself to pursue more mainstream avenues. Our careers are always going to look different, but I think we’re both always excited about whatever the kind of milestone is for each other.

Kristen: I’m not trying to speak for you, but I think we are both always excited for when the other person is actively engaged in doing the creative work that’s very meaningful.

Kayla: Because that’s another thing that ebbs and flows, to go back to finances, our creative lives are in constant flux. We’re almost never aligned. This was something that we talked about in our Catapult piece that we did together: If you’re writing a lot, I’m usually not. If I’m writing a lot, you’re usually not. I don’t know why that happens, but it does. But we’re always excited for the other person.

Kristen: We’re both working on creative work, but what we’re making, they’re not the same thing. They’re both very deeply important to us, but our things are separate.

Kayla: As for shared goals, I’m not focused on having a kid together right now, but I would love to write a pilot together, that’s the thing I feel very excited about. We’re still at the very early stages of that, but that feels fun. I don’t think we ever really expected to write something together, but this is a different medium. That feels exciting to me, because it does feel connected to our relationship in this way where we are always riffing off each other. We watch a lot of TV and movies together.

Kristen: We also have a similar sensibility about humor and drama and tenderness, and I think those things factor into making something like that. Also, I just feel like what we’ve even talked about for the pilot so far is really good. It doesn’t feel like work.

Kayla: It doesn’t. It feels fun. We call it writer’s room kind of jokingly like, “Yeah, we’re in the writer’s room.” It’s the two of us on the couch. That’s something that I’m excited about for the future, because who knows what comes of that, but we’re working toward it together.

Kristen: But part of that is it doesn’t even matter, it’s just making something. To me, that’s especially where I’m at in my career, is the idea of making something and just enjoying the process of making something is reasonable enough and it feels right.

What piece of pop culture do you share or what piece of pop culture reminds you of your relationship? What’s your movie or your show or your book or your song?

Kayla: This is a funny thing though, because this is the part of our relationship where our age difference comes through the most. A lot of our pop culture references or even the things that we’re attached to or the things we know…this is where we kind of diverge a lot, but also we give each other a lot of grief about certain things.

Kristen: But in a funny way, I think, it’s in a funny way.

Kayla: Yes. Other than stuff that’s coming out now, anything that we brought into the relationship, none of it is going to perfectly overlap, because even the things that we both liked, we experienced in very different ways. A good example of that is you watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was coming out. Not only that, it tracked your life.

Kristen: Buffy was in the same grade as me. Buffy was literally my age, and that was a show that was really deeply meaningful to me. It was at a time in my life where I felt like I didn’t really have a lot to grasp onto, and I felt very isolated. I was 18 and I had a baby, and I was very alone, and I didn’t really have a lot of art, and I very much embraced the idea of this show and fandom in general as something that I could have that felt like creative and a community space, that was deeply special to me. I know you had this with different shows in different ways. You were on Tumblr, you were in a completely different timeline.

Kayla: Not even that, even just my relationship to Buffy also had these kind of special contours to it and stuff, but was very different. It was not airing anymore, I kind of came to it later in life. It was foundational to some of my friendships. But it’s so different. I feel like we have these kind of things where, they mean a lot to us, but in very different ways and at very different times of our lives, or even just that we consume them in different ways. Because I watched all of Buffy on Netflix, or even The L Word.

Kristen: When I watched The L Word, I had no money at the time, and I got Showtime, and it was like my, “I’m not going to eat out.”

Kayla: And you shared the account with friends, right? [ed. note: Kristen kindly did not correct me here when i assumed there was a LOGIN for Showtime back in 2004 rather than a literal subscription for your cable account. So no, she did not share the account, she had people come over to her home to physically watch it together anyway I was born in 1992]

Kristen: Yes. I was like, “I’m never going to eat out at restaurants because I need to pay for Showtime,” so I just didn’t go to a restaurant for a year so I could watch The L Word.

Kayla: And I had checked it out from my college’s media library because it was on Netflix by the time I was watching it, but I had a shared Netflix account with my mom, so I was like, “I can’t watch it on there.” So I had to check out physical DVDs from my college. That’s what I’m saying. We have all this weird kind of overlap, but our experiences of it were so different because of our age difference.

Kristen: The way that we watch things together now is so exciting to me. Even how we watched Yellowjackets.

Kayla: That’s what I was about to say. I think that’s the most striking example of shared media because I was sent those screeners. You were saying, “Oh, the show Yellowjackets that’s coming out-”

Kristen: I really wanted to watch it.

Kayla: “It has all these people that I really like,” which it’s obviously catering toward nineties kids.

You were already hyped about it, and I was like, “I got screeners. Let’s check it out.” We were in Miami, and we pressed play on that first episode. We had screeners for the first six or seven, and we stayed up until four in the morning watching all of those screeners. That was the first time that we’d ever had a pop culture experience like that. We’d watched lots of stuff together. We’d had lots of fun watching things together. But I think you and I both have kind of somewhat obsessive tendencies.

Kristen: Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Kayla: Especially when it comes to pop culture. That had never happened at the same time for us, where we literally cannot stop. We are so obsessed and-

Kristen: Being able to talk about it together, not just enjoy it in the moment of watching it, but then rehashing it, thinking about it and considering it during the day, and then just popping it in because we’re together all the time. Just being like, “Oh, what did you think about this?” Or, “Oh, I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

Kayla: Not to be too meta about it, but it was teenage sleepover energy.

Kristen: It was really fun. It was legitimately fun. To me, I was like, “Oh, this is just indicative of how in the future we get to enjoy art in these kinds of ways.”

Kayla: I think we went through A League of Their Own the same way, too. That was another one where it was just like, “Oh, we are going to keep hitting play on these screeners.”

Kristen: And then we just get to talk about it and enjoy it and have conversations about it. It’s not something I’m sharing with you or you’re sharing with me. We’re experiencing it in real-time together, and then we get to obsessively talk about it.

Kayla: Or, even the way that we consumed White Lotus, because we both waited to watch White Lotus. We are very online and stuff, but we just hadn’t really watched that show. For me, sometimes work makes it hard to start new shows because if I’m not writing about it, if I’m not actively engaging with it for work, then it’s maybe not top priority. That was a show that we just both put off by accident almost, and then when we finally watched it, we watched both seasons straight through and had a lot of fun with it.

Kristen: I think that’s maybe the bottom line, is it’s legitimately fun to watch and consume art together.

Kayla: We kind of covered the TV show aspect of that, but other pop culture … What is our song?

Kristen: Oh, this is a great question. It was something that we were asked recently, since we’re engaged and we’re going to get married, which is what is our song? What would play at our wedding?

Kayla: My sister’s girlfriend, who is a musician, asked this.

Kristen: A very talented, great queer musician. The God’s honest truth is that our song is the punk version of “Mambo Italiano” because that second time that I came to New York, we couldn’t get into the hotel room, so we ended up wandering around. We went to a restaurant and then we went to a bar.

Kayla: Went to one of my favorite restaurants in New York, Kiki’s, the Greek restaurant.

Kristen: And we were making out at that restaurant.

Kayla: We were.

Kristen: And then, we left the restaurant and we were like, “Let’s go into this bar.”

Kayla: Clockwork in East Village.

Kristen: We went into the bar and we got shitty beers and we were sitting in the back room and just making out, and they started playing this song, this horrible song.

Kayla: It’s a punk cover of-

Kristen: And not a good cover.

Kayla: The band is called, Franks & Deans, like Frank and Beans, and they do Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin covers.

Kristen: They kept playing it because they were obviously trying to get us to leave the establishment because we were making out so much in the back of this bar. They must have played that song 10 times at least. I feel like they played it forever.

Kayla: It played a second time, and we thought it was just kind of a glitch, and then it played a third time and we’re like, “Oh no.”

Kristen: They played it a million times. And so, to me, I was like, “How could this not be our song?”

Kayla: Yeah. We said it in that moment. We were like, “Well, this is our song now.” Again, this is the second time we’d ever hung out together, and we were like, “Well, this is our song.”

Kristen: So, now literally at our wedding, we have to dance to the punk version of “Mambo Italiano,” slow dance romantic style, and we’re going to make out just as much, and everybody has to watch us.

Kayla: Yep. It feels fitting because later on in our relationship, we did listen to a lot of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra together.

As far as movies go, we don’t have a movie that’s our movie, but something that we really enjoy is watching horror movies together.

Kristen: Oh, we both love that. On the Friday the 13th, we always watch Friday the 13th. We did a drinking game for it, so fun, which is something that we like to do.

Kayla: We like to do drinking games to movies. We won’t talk about the time that Kristen made the rules for the Twilight movies.

Kristen: Never again am I allowed to do it. I’ve never been so hungover.

Kayla: I mean, we can’t talk about it because we don’t remember. She’s basically like, “Every time there’s a vampire.”

Kristen: I didn’t say, “Every time there was a vampire.” I just said, “Every time they say vampire,” which was maybe worse.

Kayla: I think something that stuck out to me at the beginning of a relationship is that because of the pandemic hitting when it did in our relationship, I was used to going out to the movies all the time. That was something I did a lot that Kristen didn’t necessarily do. She loved movies but she didn’t go to the theater. I practically lived there, and that has really shifted now.

Kristen: Oh, another thing I really think we should talk about was that I was not involved in any kind of reality TV.

Kayla: Oh, yeah. That does feel important.

Kristen: Until Kayla and I started dating.

Kayla: Yeah, Kristen had never watched any-

Kristen: Any Bravo.

Kayla: Any Bravo.

Kristen: And Kayla was trying to watch an episode of Vanderpump Rules in the kitchen on her computer. You asked it in a funny way too, because you were like, “Hey, I’m going to make some food. Do you care if I put this on?” I’m like, “Why would I care?”

Kayla: This is in Vegas. Yeah.

Kristen: It was also just for you. You were like, “Do you care if I put this on my own computer?”

Kayla: For context, my ex hated reality television so much that I literally wasn’t allowed to watch it in her presence. Except for maybe once, on my birthday weekend.

Kristen: For me, I was like, “You never have to ask me that. Why would I care?” I was like, “I don’t watch it, but why would I care?” And she put on this episode, and immediately I was-

Kayla: Leaning over the island. We had this island in Vegas. I had the laptop faced toward me in the kitchen, and Kristen was sitting on the other side, on the bar side, and she was leaning over trying to hear what these people were talking about.

Kristen: I started asking, “What did they just say? What was that?” And I was like, “Throw me into the deep end of this pool.” And we started watching everything. And it’s something that I deeply enjoy now.

Kayla: Oh yeah. And she’s more caught up on Bravo shit because she reads all the Vulture stuff on it. That’s a big part of our relationship, watching all the shows together.

Kristen: But it’s so fun. I’m deeply invested in it.

Kayla: And we talk about it extensively. Like you were talking about earlier, what’s fun is to be like, “Let’s process this. Let’s talk about what just happened.” We do that with Bravo all the time. Sometimes I’d catch us sitting on the balcony at night, the gorgeous water view in front of us, city skylights, a bottle of wine, good food, very romantic…and we’ll have been just talking about the Real Housewives for hours, almost like they’re people we know or literature to be dissected.

Kristen: Trying to make Bravo Dykes happen.

Kayla: To make Bravo Dykes happen. It’s also just good for writing fiction. You can’t make that shit up.

Kristen: You can’t make that shit up.

Kayla: If you want to write good-ass, weird-ass fiction, watch reality television, you’re going to see that people do the weirdest fucking shit.

Kristen: To me, it takes me back a little bit to my long time working inside of libraries.

Kayla: And seeing people act weird.

Kristen: Because working in a library, because you’re a service worker in this very specific capacity in a library, people don’t see you, you’re invisible to them. They act out, they wild out. To me, I was like, “Oh, watching these Bravo shows, I haven’t seen somebody act so wild since I was in a public library.” So, it’s gorgeous. Watching Housewives is akin to working in a public library. I will come on and talk about this to Andy Cohen.

Okay. To wrap up, tell us a funny story about your partner.

Kristen: Here’s my funny story about Kayla. Kayla does this thing where occasionally in the middle of the night, she will wake me up and she’s very serious and will almost shake me awake to tell me something with utmost importance and seriousness. It’ll be the middle of the night, pitch black, and she’ll be saying something to me, and I will be freaking out. I can’t tell what’s going on, and it’s because I finally realized Kayla is still asleep and she’s saying something nonsensical.

Kayla: Give an example.

Kristen: What is that word that you said that time?

Kayla: Camsquatch.

Kristen: For instance, we were in an Airbnb in Orlando before we moved back here for pride. It was Pride weekend. I was awoken in a strange space in the middle of the night by Kayla very vigorously insisting I listen to this word that turned out to be Camsquatch. I’m dead asleep, can’t understand what she’s saying, and I think someone’s breaking in. A thing you should know about me is I’m always on alert in a space in case I have to protect us from an intruder. I need to be able to be awake and alert so I can protect you from whoever’s trying to kill us, and possibly that’s because I watched so many murder shows. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been deeply disturbed by Kayla waking me up by yelling something that’s not a word.

I mean, it’s funny. It’s funny to laugh at the next day, it’s funny. But yeah, Camsquatch is not a real thing, but to you in the moment, it was urgent. But when I’m awoken from a deep sleep, it is a shocking moment. But it’s always very funny too, I’m laughing right now, it’s a funny thing to think about. You say some nonsense in the middle of the night, and people need to know that.

Kayla: It’s hard for me to think of a funny story because you make me laugh a lot. I feel like we have a lot of funny moments in our relationship and a lot of those funny moments are those weird couples funny things where it’s not going to be funny to anyone else. We got very weird during lockdown, did a lot of bits. There’s one about a townsperson needing to take her baby to the town witch. I can’t even explain it.

Most recently, I cracked up on New Year’s when I came into the party and saw you were telling our engagement story, and you’d already turned it into a very funny story, with all these specific beats. And it’s mostly you roasting yourself, because you were so nervous when proposing that you were at a strange loss for words that never happens to you. And I saw you doing this whole standup act about the proposal for our friends just seven days after the proposal, and I was like “Oh, I will be hearing her tell this story over and over for the rest of my life.”

That’s all I can think of right now because when I think of anything else, I’m like, “Here’s this funny story about Kristen falling.”

Kristen: Well, I think that’s fair.

Kayla: You do fall a lot.

Kristen: And I’m upfront about that.

Kayla: You fall a lot, you spill a lot of drinks, but as you point out, it’s never anybody else’s drink and it’s never on anybody else.

Kristen: The party foul is only on myself.

Kayla: Yes. You spill your own drink on yourself.

Kristen: I will spill my own drink, I will spill my own food, and I will only spill it on me.

Kayla: But you do bust ass a lot, which unfortunately, I come from a family where we laugh at that.

Kristen: Oh, I think that’s amazing. I think we’d have a problem if you didn’t think that was funny because it is funny. It’s deeply funny. If there’s a crack in the sidewalk, I’m tripping over it.

Kayla: Yep. Your legs are-

Kristen: And I’m tall. It’s like Gumby falling.

Kayla: That’s a memory from the beginning of our relationship. We hadn’t met in person yet, and I was in this shoe store in Vermont. I was texting you, and I was like, “Are you tall?” And you were like, “No, not really.” And then I was like, “Oh.” And you were like, “Yeah, just 5’8.” I was like, “5’8 is tall. What are you talking about?” I was like, “You’re a flamingo.”

Kristen: Well, that’s because you’re very short.

Kayla: Well, and you think that I’m lying about my height to this day.

Kristen: Well, it’s not that I think you’re lying, it’s that I think you are mistaken because how could I be the height that I am and you be the height that you are?

Kayla: Why would I be mistaken? People have told me my height. I am 5’4″, which is above average for a North American woman.

Kristen: You also said you could see, maybe that’s a funny story you should have told us about, you thinking you could see 20/20 vision and that very much not being true.

Kayla: Well, I wasn’t going to drag myself.

Kristen: We’re just being goofy now.

Kayla: What?

Kristen: I said we’re just doing our … *razzle dazzle hand motions* little weird show, no one is going to think this is as funny or interesting as we do.