Annuals of Spring
Spring is the time to celebrate some significant LGBT anniversaries, both at home and at Metro Weekly
Anyone familiar with my writings round these parts already knows that I am solipsism central, so I’ll just jump right to the point and say what a special and important time of year spring is for me. Seriously, most of the good things in my life aside from my winter birth have happened as the tulips bloom and the trees turn green.
Naturally, the first up is my sixth anniversary this weekend. We had our ceremony on May 5 because, obviously, the best way to celebrate a Vietnamese-Buddhist, white-Southern-Christian gay wedding is to have it on Cinco de Mayo. No matter when we get our real, legal, honest-to-God marriage license later this year, as planned, the 5th of May will always be the day Cavin officially became my husband.
And while I’m creeping up on 10 years together with him — we waited three years before forcing friends and family to buy us wedding presents — I’m also celebrating another anniversary, my time at Metro Weekly. While I’ve written for the magazine since its launch, it wasn’t until 2000 that I joined full-time as editor-in-chief. Here I am 13 years later, now the co-publisher and writing a column that sits underneath a picture of myself in a tie looking all respectable. Time changes everything.
Coming up next week we have the Metro Weekly Next Generation Awards, which will mark their own fifth anniversary. You’ll learn more about that in the next issue, but I have to say that I’m incredibly proud and honored to be a part of something that’s brought so many talented, energetic and dedicated LGBT people into my life as friends and colleagues.
Which brings me to the big one: This is the issue when Metro Weekly turns 19, when we enter our 20th year of publication. Since our Sweet 16 celebration we haven’t done any special issues on our anniversary — there’s no need to throw a super-special party for ourselves every year. We want to save up our fun ideas for a big blowout next year on our 20th anniversary.
Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll all be invited.
Still, turning 19 as an LGBT newsmagazine that’s gone through so many evolutions and revolutions, whether internal with our content and design or external with expanding our scope online, is something to celebrate. It’s awe-inspiring to live in Washington and experience LGBT history in the making — marches and protests, heroes and villains, defeats and victories. It’s an honor to play some role in recording that history to share with our readers here and, more than ever, across the world.
”If you click here you’ll see the masthead of all the people who make Metro Weekly happen — every day, not just every Thursday — and they are some of the most talented individuals I’ve ever worked with. I’ve said similar things over the past 13 years because I’ve been incredibly fortunate to keep hiring some of the most talented people I’ve ever met. The work we do today is made possible by the work so many of them did in the past, some of them still with us in the world, too many now gone.”
I’m not going to do a list of everyone I owe a debt of gratitude to for making Metro Weekly so special because I’ll be doing that next year. Right now I just want to say thank you to anyone and everyone who’s ever read the magazine, whether to find out the news of the community or to find their friends in our Scene photos or look for an LGBT-friendly business. A magazine and website without readers is like an empty bus: It doesn’t matter where it goes because it’s not taking anyone anywhere.
We’ve gone to amazing places at Metro Weekly and I’m glad we’ve had you along.
Sean Bugg is the co-publisher of Metro Weekly. He can be reached at . Follow him on Twitter @seanbugg.
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