Ropin’, ridin’, redecoratin’: While You Were Out visits two sweethearts of the rodeo – arts & entertainment
Chuck Kim
Even cowgirls get the blues–but on the Learning Channel they also get new window treatments. On the November 23 edition of While You Were Out, home owners and partners Erin Leavey and Noelani Livingston, both 31, bring a little sapphic style to the reality interior-decorating show. Leavey, who met Livingston at a Xena convention, stumbled upon the show’s application while surfing online. “I was clicking through [the Web site], figuring they’ll never pick us,” notes Leavey, 2001’s Ms. International Gay Rodeo Association. “I was very surprised. Who knew we were going to be the poster children for queer women everywhere?”
In typical show format, Leavey, designer John Bruce, and a small crew had $1,500 and two days to transform a room in the couple’s house in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. All the work had to be completed before an unsuspecting Livingston returned home from competing in a gay rodeo.
“I was thrilled [TLC] was doing a lesbian couple,” says Bruce. “I was also intrigued because it was a very suburban neighborhood. I was interested in seeing how a suburban lesbian couple live.”
“When [the crew] first got here, they were a little nervous, a little stiff,” Leavey explains. After Bruce revealed that he was also gay, however, the others quickly followed suit. “It turned out, over half the crew was gay!” Leavey recalls, laughing.
The biggest problem happened not with the room but with the rodeo. Livingston not only fell off during her steer riding event but fractured a rib when the animal stepped on her. “I called when I landed at the airport, and apparently they weren’t done. Erin asked me to stop and get ice,” she says, smiling. “I had no idea, so I thought, I’m hurt, and you want me to get ice?” Livingston recovered from her injury–but if you want to know how she liked the new room, you’ll have to tune in.
Kim is a journalist and comic book writer based in Los Angeles.
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