The Whole 9 Yards: Year in Review

We associate the number nine with extremes: highs (cloud nine), lows (the ninth Psalm, predicting the coming of the Antichrist), good luck and bad. Considering the spectrum of events we lived through in 2010-2011—from the greatest victories to the worst tragedies—the number nine seems a particularly apt symbol for the past twelve months’ happenings. On the plus side, DADT was repealed; on the minus side, a near-apocalyptic disaster devastated Japan. Last year, we opened our Annual Year in Review with the crisis in Haiti, which proves again that life is fragile.

7. LOVE, AMERICAN LESBIAN STYLE

How could we call ourselves a lesbian magazine if we didn’t dish on the past year’s couplings and uncouplings? Rosie O’Donnell and Tracy Kachtick-Anders, for example, called it quits after dating for a year, but they still plan to co-parent their ten (!) kids. Two years after Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres were legally married at their Beverly Hills home, Portia filed a petition in court to take her wife’s surname (formally changing her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres). On September 23, a court ruling made it official, and Ellen jokingly announced the news on Twitter: “She’s now officially Portia Winfrey.” And, Melissa Etheridge and ex-wife Tammy Lynn Michaels hung up nine year’s worth of dirty laundry. Melissa quickly moved on, reportedly dating Nurse Jackie co-creator Linda Wallem. But Tammy eagerly blogged the gruesome details of their breakup. In a poem that will go down in herstory, we discovered that Etheridge’s personal assistant had mistakenly sent a gift to the wrong girlfriend, as Tammy informed Melissa: “I have your new dicks on my kitchen counter?” Melissa’s response is not recorded.


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