Eighteen years ago, The West Wing premiered. I cringe now at how badly it has aged in some aspects, but there is one thing that it gave me that is fucking unassailable: My friendship with @hugealienpie.
For the first time in our legal-to-buy-porn relationship, we met last week, and the absolute thrill of the experience cannot be properly explained. I also got to meet piespouse, who I only knew through stories and texts, and holy shit, it was a fucking gift on all fronts.
In 1999, I was an angry feminist junior in high school, and West Wing showed up to give me hope. There are places where I don’t think the show has aged well, but it was always based on hope, so I will never not want to hug it.
Somewhere in the first year of the show, HAP and I found each other. We tried to remember how, but we can’t. One of us got the other to beta. Most likely, HAP betaed for me. Anyway, it led to a friendship that maintained through a LOT of changes as we both had experiences and life and all that shit.
We shared a two-minute hug when we met in person. It was wonderful. It was like coming home to a place I’d only seen in pictures. Then, meeting piespouse, it was doubled, because we had been talking so much.
I am so fucking grateful for the internet, y’all.