Sunday Surf - A New Obsession

In efforts to keep myself completely distracted from matters at work...and to counteract insomnia...I have developed a bit of an obsession. Otalia. What is this, you may ask if you're not a regular reader over at AfterEllen.com (link to the right). It's the pairing name of two characters from a soap opera. Yes, it's true I watch soaps. It started accidentally in high school...and no it wasn't General Hospital (although all my friends were obsessed with Luke and Laura). I was home really sick, but tired of being in bed all day, so I started watching As The World Turns (ATWT). I was obsessed then with Betsy Andropolis played by a young (but older than me) Meg Ryan. I had a crush on her, ok. Anyway, over the years I've tuned in when I was home during the day. In college I got hooked on All My Children (AMC) for many months when they had a lesbian psychologist. I mean, how perfect was that!?! AND that was back in the early 80's! Gay was just getting a toe hold and then AIDS happened (Real People featured an episode on the gay rodeo curcuit...who knew).

Anyway, a few years ago when I started having a very light daytime work schedule, I started watching AMC for a new lesbian storyline, as well as ATWT which had a gay storyline. I also watched Guiding Light (GL) because it came on after ATWT and was good background noise to whatever I was otherwise doing (generally prepping proposals for clients). Yet, somehow I missed it when two long time female characters had their previous love triangle storyline shift into a major love story just between them. Granted the subtext was so buried at first, that anyone would have missed it, but usually I see subtext where is there is none, so go figure how I missed it when it was purposely there.

The characters are Olivia Spencer and Natalia Rivera Aituro. Hence, Otalia. After youtubing for the past two weekends, I've managed to catch up on the episodes leading up to the shift in the storyline. Seems like multitasking got in the way of good productive TV watching...heh. Anyway, if you're interested in Otalia, go here to watch most of the episodes available on youtube. Some are full episodes in multiple parts, but many of the ones since the beginning of this year are cut down to just Otalia. If you want the whole storyline from the shift on, start on the April 1, 2008 episodes. Yeah, 2008. This story has actually been in the works for several years, with the set up to the storyline shift occuring in early 2008. For current episodes with everything but Otalia cut out go here.